Chapter 109 (2): Night Running Partner

Zhuang Fuyao went back and passed a note to Cheng Beibei, complaining bitterly, "He said he didn't let us in on purpose, he just didn't see us. He also said that if he had seen us, he would definitely have told Director Wang."

Cheng Beibei: "..."

Cheng Beibei: "Should we return the snacks we bought to him?"

Zhuang Fuyao: "I wouldn't give it to him even if I threw it away! I'm so angry."

……

After returning to the classroom, Liang Huaixu was called out by Director Wang.

Looking at the promising student in front of him, Director Wang smiled kindly and asked, "Huaixu, how are things going with your studies and life in the new class?"

"It went very smoothly, thank you, Teacher Wang."

Director Wang nodded and smiled, then asked, "When you were on duty today, did you see anyone sneaking in unnoticed?"

He still hasn't caught the two people who slipped away right under his nose. He's checked every class in turn, but hasn't found anything unusual.

Not a single student skipped class.

He became increasingly frustrated, and asked several classmates on duty, but Liang Huaixu was the last one he asked.

Liang Huaixu thought for a moment and shook his head, "No, I've been there the whole time. No student should have sneaked in. Is there anything else, teacher?"

Director Wang touched his bald forehead. Could these two little rascals have climbed over the wall to get in?

"That's all, you can go back to your studies."

-

After that day, Zhuang Fuyao categorized the new class monitor as someone who was not in the same category as her. She would avoid him whenever she saw him, and the only interaction they had was with each other, such as collecting and distributing homework.

But sometimes, fate is just so unpredictable.

After the midterm exams, the seating arrangement was changed, and she was surprisingly assigned to sit next to Liang Huaixu!

Feeling utterly hopeless, she went to argue with the teacher.

Teacher Song flipped through the report card. "You ranked fifth from the bottom in the monthly exam, and then you plummeted to last place in the midterm exam. I haven't even talked to you yet, but you've come to me instead. The first-place student and the last-place student sitting together is called a top student helping a struggling student. It's an opportunity that others would kill for."

"If others can't get it, then you can give it to someone else," Zhuang Fuyao said softly.

"What?" Teacher Song adjusted her glasses and glanced at her.

"nothing."

Ms. Song glared at her, then sighed, "I'm friends with your father, and he even asked me to look after you. I don't know how to explain these grades to him..."

After listening to Teacher Song's rambling for fifteen minutes, Zhuang Fuyao felt her heart was bleeding; her precious long break between classes was about to be completely wasted.

But her change of seat is still unresolved.

While Teacher Song was drinking water, she brought up the topic of changing seats, saying, "But teacher, it's not good for boys and girls to sit together, we should avoid suspicion."

Teacher Song smiled with satisfaction, "It's good that you have this awareness, but our class is a science class with more boys than girls, so no matter how we divide the class, we have to have a mix of boys and girls."

She wouldn't be entirely at ease with anyone else, but with Liang Huaixu, she was completely at ease.

"Teacher, my seat..."

Zhuang Fuyao tried to struggle, but Teacher Song interrupted her, "Come talk to me again when you get into the bottom ten."

"..."

After everyone left, Ms. Song flipped through the grade sheet again.

It was Liang Huaixu who brought these two to be deskmates. At the time, she wanted Liang Huaixu to help other classmates, but the target wasn't that bad, ranking in the middle of the class. Unexpectedly, Liang Huaixu refused.

She respected the student's opinion and did not force him further.

Liang Huaixu: "But teacher, I can mentor Zhuang Fuyao. Her father was my former teacher."

At this point, Teacher Song understood. Zhuang Shaoping valued his daughter's education highly and asked one of his former top students to tutor her, which was typical of his style.

Since both teachers were teaching struggling students, it didn't really matter who they taught. Besides, someone was willing to teach Zhuang Fuyao, a troublemaker. Teacher Song was overjoyed and immediately agreed.

-

The seating chart is out; everyone move to their assigned seats according to the chart.

Cheng Beibei saw Zhuang Fuyao and Liang Huaixu sitting together, laughing. Zhuang Fuyao saw this, glared at her, and mouthed, "Unlucky."

After class, she immediately ran to the seat next to Cheng Beibei to play.

Cheng Beibei asked in a low voice, "What's it like sitting next to the class monitor?"

Zhuang Fuyao simply described it as, "I have no will to live."

She was a chatterbox, but Liang Huaixu was extremely focused in class and didn't talk at all, which was incredibly boring.

"Looking at it optimistically, it's not entirely without its advantages."

Zhuang Fuyao asked, "What are the benefits?"

"From now on, you can copy the top students' homework, at least you won't get criticized by the teacher for copying homework."

Zhuang Fuyao's close friends in the class didn't do very well academically. Zhuang Fuyao often copied homework and managed to get a score of 59 on the test paper, which led to her being criticized by Teacher Song as a typical example. Zhuang Fuyao felt a little better. "That makes sense."

After figuring this out, her attitude towards Liang Huaixu improved.

During breaks between classes, she would share snacks with him and bring up topics like, "Why were you cornered in the alley by those thugs the other day?"

She had always been quite curious, as Liang Huaixu seemed to have absolutely no connection with this group of thugs.

He put down his pen, took the snacks, and said, "One of the girls he liked was my classmate. He misunderstood because he saw me getting close to her."

The truth is that the thug found out that the girl had given him a love letter, and he didn't want to tell Zhuang Fuyao about it, so he simplified the story.

"Oh~" Zhuang Fuyao had already imagined many scenes, her eyes darting around, wanting to gossip but holding back.

Liang Huaixu noticed something strange about her tone, but didn't say anything at the time. After completing half a page of the test paper, he suddenly said, "Being close is just from that hoodlum's perspective. Actually, we're just having normal conversations between classmates."

Zhuang Fuyao was just thinking about what to eat for lunch when she suddenly heard him say this, and she almost didn't react.

She nodded. "Oh, right—"

Liang Huaixu tensed up for a moment, "What?"

Zhuang Fuyao: "What are you having for lunch?"

"..."

Liang Huaixu paused for a moment: "Is there even a choice?"

Isn't it only allowed to watch what's being served in the cafeteria?

Zhuang Fuyao raised an eyebrow, revealing a knowing smile.

There are so many options! The food in the school cafeteria is terrible, and you can even secretly order takeout.

Liang Huaixu felt a little uncomfortable at her smile and was about to ask what it meant when someone next to him called out to him.

"Someone gave it to Zhuang Fuyao," the classmate whispered.

The item was passed from the window. Looking to the right, Yu Heng was standing by the window, smiling brightly.

Liang Huaixu frowned slightly, took the bag of snacks, placed it on Zhuang Fuyao's desk, and silently continued working on his homework.

After a while, she nudged him and asked, "Want some?"

His voice turned cold as he refused, "I don't like snacks."

Zhuang Fuyao didn't think much of it and shared the snacks with the classmates around her.

The first class in the afternoon is physics, where we'll go over last night's homework. While teaching, the teacher will walk around and check if any students haven't finished.

During the morning music class, Zhuang Fuyao decided to catch up on yesterday's homework. Since the teacher didn't check very carefully, basically just glancing at whether the paper was full, she originally planned to just write something casually.

After looking at them, she realized the questions were almost astronomical. She tried for ten minutes and then gave up, giving her deskmate a fawning smile, "Um...did you finish your physics assignment from yesterday?"

"I did it."

"hey-hey."

Liang Huaixu: "What are you doing?"

Zhuang Fuyao blinked, "Let me copy it."

"No."

"?"

As Liang Huaixu refused, he bent down to find the folder in his desk. Just as he was about to hand it to her, he realized she had already borrowed someone else's. He silently put it back.

After class in the afternoon, Yu Heng came to find Zhuang Fuyao again. He ordered takeout and asked her to eat together. The two of them took the food to a specialty restaurant.

"Fufu, my plans to study abroad have been finalized. My family's idea is that I don't need to come to school next week."

"What about the academic proficiency test? Aren't you going to take it either?"

"Oh, my family hired a tutor for me to have lessons at home. I've already applied to the school."

"It's fine." Zhuang Fuyao buried her head in her food.

Yu Heng felt a little uneasy. Halfway through the meal, he asked, "What have you thought about what I told you last time?"

Zhuang Fuyao slowly finished chewing her food, put down her chopsticks, looked up at him, and said, "Yu Heng, I can't go abroad."

"Why?" Yu Heng forced a smile. "Fufu, the artistic atmosphere is very strong abroad, and going abroad is a good path for art students."

"I feel pretty good here in China, and I don't have any plans to go abroad for the time being." She's still young, and although she has some vague feelings for Yu Heng, she wouldn't go abroad with him just because of those feelings.

When I first heard about Yu Heng going abroad, I was really upset. But after that period, I felt much better. Just like every time I went to a new school, I felt especially sad to part with my old classmates, but once I was in a new environment, everyone would have a new life and make new friends. That feeling of reluctance gradually faded away.

Yu Heng thought that since he hadn't made any promises to her, it was indeed a bit presumptuous of him to try to persuade her to go abroad with him as an ordinary friend.

His heart started racing. "Fufu, you should be able to tell that I really like you... I want to go abroad with you. If you think the cost is too high, don't worry, my family has—"

Zhuang Fuyao frowned and interrupted him, "Yu Heng, it's not about money."

After finishing the meal, she couldn't sleep all afternoon.

She had feelings for Yu Heng and originally thought she would be happy when he confessed his love. But when the day actually came, she didn't feel happy at all; instead, she felt very sad.

She had read many romance magazines, and in these kinds of plots, the female lead would accompany the male lead abroad, resulting in a happy ending.

Either it's a long-distance relationship between the two, and in the end, the male protagonist returns home after completing his studies and reunites with the female protagonist at the peak of their lives, resulting in a happy ending.

If you like each other, there's always a way.

The problem now is that she doesn't seem to be looking forward to living with Yu Heng after she becomes an adult. Only now has she realized that her feelings for Yu Heng are limited to friendship. She enjoys spending time with Yu Heng, but there is no romantic love between them.

-

After the weekend, Yu Heng indeed didn't come to school again.

With the sports meet approaching, Teacher Song asked students for their participation during a break. Zhuang Fuyao, who had stayed up late playing games all weekend, was catching up on sleep at her desk.

Teacher Song called out, "Guo Junlai, one spot for 1,500 people, and Zhuang Fuyao, for the 800-meter race and the 400-meter hurdles."

Zhuang Fuyao vaguely heard her name, turned over and continued sleeping. She only woke up groggily when the school bell rang.

The student in the front row turned around and said, "Old Song just assigned you to run the 800 meters and the 400-meter hurdles."

Other classmates praised you, saying, "We didn't expect you to be so good at sports."

Zhuang Fuyao immediately snapped to attention, "What?!"

After class, Cheng Beibei came to find her, "Looks like some people are going to be forced to lose weight again."

Zhuang Fuyao slumped dejectedly onto the table. "If I could, I wouldn't want to lose any of this weight."

Liang Huaixu chimed in from the side, "What's the point of losing weight?"

"Class monitor, you don't know this yet, do you?" Cheng Beibei couldn't help but laugh. "When Fufu was in the first year of high school, she gained a lot of weight. After school, she would run on the playground to lose weight. When the homeroom teacher saw this, he immediately decided to sign her up for two events."

Zhuang Fuyao: "..."

As it turned out, she got lucky and won awards in both events. Teacher Song probably knew she was a good runner from her former homeroom teacher, which is why she had unrealistic expectations of her and actually had her sign up for two events.

Liang Huaixu listened thoughtfully.

-

After waiting for two days, the number of participants was still not full, and Teacher Song became worried. "There are so many boys in the class, but not a single one of them has volunteered to sign up for the 1,500-meter race. They have no sense of class honor at all. It makes me so angry."

The teacher next to her sighed, "Who says otherwise? Our class isn't even full yet, and I'm already planning to draw lots."

Just then, someone knocked on the door a few times.

"Enter."

Upon seeing that it was Liang Huaixu, Teacher Song assumed he had come to ask a question and began to tidy up the things on the table.

"Teacher, I would like to sign up for the 1500-meter race."

Teacher Song paused for a moment, then asked definitively, "You mean you want to sign up for the 1500 meters?"

"right."

Teacher Song looked the students up and down. She had originally planned to call on the students with potential to do their homework one by one, but she never considered Liang Huaixu.

She thought Liang Huaixu would prioritize his studies, but she didn't expect him to have such a strong sense of class honor. No wonder he was chosen as the class monitor.

She happily pulled out a registration form. "Great, I'll fill out the registration form for you."

-

Although Zhuang Fuyao said, "Don't worry, leave it to me, I'll definitely mess it up," her attitude in private was still very proper.

After evening self-study, she went to the playground to practice.

After running five laps, she was panting and slowed down. Suddenly, a tall, thin figure overtook her and ran ahead.

She looked at the back of the other person's head and felt that it looked somewhat familiar.

But she was too tired to think about that right now.

She was overtaken again after running half a lap.

Zhuang Fuyao: "?"

After another halfway around, she estimated the time, looked back, and it really was someone she knew.

"Liang Huaixu!" she called out to him.

The boy slowed his pace and walked alongside her, watching her.

Zhuang Fuyao: "Why are you running here too?"

"No one in my class signed up, and we were short one person for the 1500-meter race, so I filled in. It's been a long time since I've exercised."

Zhuang Fuyao responded, thinking that someone who excels academically must not be good at sports, so they probably had no one else available and had Liang Huaixu come to fill in.

She ran another lap and then went to stretch.

Looking to the side, she saw that Liang Huaixu was running at such a fast pace from the very beginning. She shook her head. Sure enough, he didn't have much running experience. The 1500 meters is a test of endurance. He should have saved his energy for last.

She looked away and continued stretching.

She was afraid of gaining muscle, so she stretched for quite a long time. Before she finished stretching, Liang Huaixu came to her side.

"Are you done running?"

"Hmm." The boy's breathing was somewhat heavy, and a thin layer of sweat covered his forehead.

Zhuang Fuyao had only asked casually, but upon hearing his words, she glanced at the time in disbelief.

In the following days, she discovered that he did indeed have some real skills. Once, she even timed it herself: four minutes and fifty-four seconds.

While she was stretching, Liang Huaixu bought her a bottle of water.

"Thanks." Zhuang Fuyao twisted the bottle cap.

"..."

It's really not intentional, but sometimes I just accidentally accidentally open it.

A hint of a smile flashed across Liang Huaixu's face as he helped her open it.

Seeing his smile, Zhuang Fuyao touched her nose and said, "You're pretty good at running."

"I have a regular exercise routine, and I go for a run every morning."

Zhuang Fuyao almost choked. "You mean you arrive at school at 6:40 every day, and you still go for a morning run?"

"Yes, it won't take long, about twenty minutes."

"What time did you get up?"

Five o'clock.

"..."

She was still asleep at that time; indeed, not everyone can be a top student.

The two were originally deskmates, and with the preparations for the sports meet, they unknowingly became running partners at night, and would go to the playground together after evening self-study.

After spending time with him, she realized that Liang Huaixu was not the kind of serious bookworm she had initially imagined.

He is not dull; on the contrary, he gives people the impression of being very orderly and wise.