Chapter 5 Joke

Ying Shixue looked at him with a puzzled expression as she held her rice tray. Shan Qi almost choked on his breath, and after a long while, he said stiffly, "The food on the second floor is the worst! Didn't the Song family pay you?"

Ying Shixue looked at her plate with some surprise: salt-baked prawns, three-delicacy chicken, stir-fried vegetables, and mushroom soup. Although it couldn't be called a five-star chef's dish, the taste was by no means a culinary disaster.

Seeing that he had gone off-topic again, Shan Qi stood up angrily and was about to leave. Before leaving, he paused and coldly swept his gaze around the room, causing all the eyes that had been secretly looking over to immediately withdraw.

When Ying Shixue returned to the classroom, there were still few people who had finished eating. His deskmate greeted him politely, and Ying Shixue nodded back before returning to his seat.

Besides those from privileged backgrounds, there are also top students in this school, and Cheng Cheng is one of them. Generally speaking, top students only sit with other top students; the regular students and top students do not choose each other.

There are five outstanding students out of the thirty-six students in the class. In addition to the fact that there will always be one student left out in an odd number of students, this person also seems to have had a grudge against those outstanding students.

But what does it have to do with him...? Ying Shixue opened the book beside her and began to immerse herself in her own world.

The same thing happened for the next few days. Although Song Mingli told him to wait for the bus to take him home after school on the first day, he was actually the only one on the bus. The high school and junior high school students had different dismissal times. Song Mingli was already a junior in high school and was supposedly working on some other project. Even when he came back at night, he was very late.

Besides that, there was nothing special. During that time, Shan Qi would awkwardly approach him a few times to tell him that he didn't mean it, and he also gave him a brand new and exquisite porcelain doll. When Ying Shixue said that the little bear had been repaired, he said "oh" and his face showed a happy and disappointed expression. After that, he would always pester him when going out to eat. Over time, Ying Shixue got used to having this person around. However, one Friday after school, Song Mingli came back early for the first time. He watched them come out of the school gate together from the car and didn't say a word the whole way.

However, Song Mingli is not usually very talkative.

A month later, Feng Linlin gathered the class together one afternoon and said that they were going to do the regular monthly cleaning and assigned tasks to each person.

Yu Dannan is their class monitor. Her family is in the entertainment industry, and she has a very cheerful personality: "The girls here are responsible for sweeping, wiping the walls and cleaning the windows, while the boys are responsible for mopping, moving tables, and sweeping away the cobwebs on top... Also, Dong Yu, you are responsible for leading a few boys to do our assigned cleaning area."

The people over there had already been distributed. The others in the other rows each took a mop and a bucket. Dong Yu wasn't very tall, but he was quite muscular. After pointing out a few boys, he turned to him leisurely and gave him a smile that was hard to decipher: "Let's go." He looked him up and down: "Young Master Ying, thank you for your trouble."

Ying Shixue frowned imperceptibly, then turned to get a broom after a moment.

It was called a designated cleaning area, but it was just a section of the corridor on the classroom floor near the stairwell. There were four boys with him in total. Dong Yu directed one of the boys to fetch a bucket of water, and the rest of them started sweeping and mopping.

“You sweep, we’ll mop it from behind, okay?” Dong Yu leaned against the corridor railing, his hands casually resting on it. The other two boys were clearly with him, and they stood by watching with their hands folded.

Ying Shixue nodded and bent down to sweep.

In fact, every part of St. Fran College has dedicated cleaners who clean regularly. This activity is just a formality. The corridors are not dirty. Ying Shixue looked at the shallow layer of dust that had been swept up while recalling it from memory.

Dong Yu's father's family started out in the wine business. Although his family background was not bad, it was not considered prominent in St. Francis College, where aristocratic families were numerous. The reason he dared to be so arrogant in ordering people to fetch water was entirely because he was the only son of the Dong family in this generation, and had a younger sister-in-law who was a daughter-in-law in the Xi family.

As for the Xi family... Ying Shixue was lost in thought when he suddenly felt a chill on his ankle. He looked down and saw that the mop that the boy who had gone to fetch water had brought was now standing next to his feet. The dripping water from that mop had come from the boy's hand.

The man swinging the mop had high cheekbones and a shrunken face, giving him a somewhat rat-like appearance at first glance. When he met Ying Shixue's gaze, he visibly shrank back, lowering his head to avoid looking at her, but his eyes still darted around with ill intent.

The mop, still covered in the dust from the ground, left several unsightly specks of dust on the trousers, standing out starkly against the light blue of the junior high students' trousers.

Ying Shixue tried to pat it off, but naturally, she couldn't.

Dong Yu, standing with one leg tucked under his elbow and resting on the boy's shoulder, clicked his tongue dramatically upon seeing this and said, "I'm really sorry, my brother accidentally slipped."

He gestured towards the bucket of water towards the person he was supporting: "Go, rinse the mop."

Upon hearing the sound, the boy naturally slipped over and brought over the bucket to rinse the mop. Ying Shixue's gaze remained fixed on him the entire time. She slowly straightened up and stared at him for a few seconds before turning back to continue sweeping.

However, less than half a minute later, my feet felt cold again.

This time, it wasn't just a simple drop of water splashing on his ankles. The other person had practically stuck the entire mop onto the instep of his foot. The sticky, dirty, and cold sensation instantly covered his entire exposed skin. The pristine white shoes he had worn that morning were now covered in comical watermarks, and his trouser legs were completely soaked with dirty water, clinging wetly to his skin.

Ying Shixue gripped the broom tightly and turned around sharply. Dong Yu slapped the boy holding the mop hard on the head: "Agen, how can you mop the floor like that!" The boy was immediately knocked to the side and stumbled, only managing to stay upright by grabbing the railing. Dong Yu didn't even glance at him, but instead put his hands together and bowed to him: "Oh dear, I'm so sorry, Ying. My brother here doesn't have long arms." There was not a trace of remorse on his face.

The one called A'gen didn't dare to refute at all and quickly stood back up, bowing his head repeatedly, but there was always an element of mockery in his voice: "I'm sorry, Ying classmate, I'm so sorry."

Ying wiped the snow, tightened her fingers, slowly exhaled, and then bent down again to continue sweeping the floor.

Finally, when the mop came close for the third time, he stomped on it. A'gen tried his best to stretch it out but couldn't budge it. Only then did he belatedly feel a little regretful.

Dong Yu seemed to realize something at this moment, and exclaimed, "Ah, are you angry? Don't answer, you're so petty, Ying."

He came over to touch him, making a fuss, but halfway there he suddenly turned around, opened his mouth wide in an exaggerated way, and then covered it with his hand: "Oh!"

"Did I misspoke, or should I call you... Song?"

"Hahahaha..." The two people behind him burst into laughter, and for a moment the entire corridor was filled with the rough and unpleasant laughter of a boy going through puberty.

Dong Yu laughed until tears almost streamed down his face, clutching his stomach as he looked at him: "Don't be angry, we were just joking with you."

"Just kidding." Ying Shixue repeated the three words in a low voice, then suddenly turned around, walked to the bucket, lifted it up, and splashed the water forward!

"Splash—!" A chorus of screams followed. The dirty water from rinsing the mop soaked the three of them through to the bone. The gray water dripped straight into their eyes from their hair. Everyone frantically wiped their faces, jumping up and down and cursing. In the shoving and pushing, someone stepped on something and fell to the ground one after another with a thud.

Ying Shixue stood beside the empty bucket, looking down at their comical disarray. The mid-autumn sunlight slanted across the windowpane, reflecting a blinding light. When she spoke again, she said casually:

"A joke is only funny when it's told like this."