Chapter 10 (High School)
"Don't just slack off like you did before when you get to your new class," the middle-aged woman, elegantly dressed, couldn't help but nag as she drove. "Try hard and get into a good school. I'll arrange for you to live abroad with me in the future."
Zhang Xiaotian, who was sitting in the passenger seat, looked out the window silently. His blue school uniform was too big and looked empty on him.
Zhang Xiaotian's mother waited patiently for a moment, but still didn't hear a response from her son. Her brows, which had just relaxed, furrowed again, and she couldn't help but speak again: "You've grown up so old and can't even feel sorry for others. You don't even know how to respond when adults talk to you. It's all because of your father that you have this bad face. Your father is a heartless and inhuman being. He didn't care about his own son and raised someone else's child. You've only grown up all these years, but you haven't achieved anything. Don't go see him from now on, do you understand?"
Zhang Xiaotian opened the car window a little further. This road was always congested. Even though he was taking the bus to school today, he didn't feel any faster than walking. He silently counted the numbers on the red light countdown, forcing himself to think nothing of it.
"Did you hear that?" Mom asked again, raising her voice.
"I heard it." Zhang Xiaotian said.
"I'm glad you heard me. You must remember what your mother has done for you. I am more responsible than your father." The green light came on and the traffic began to flow slowly again.
Zhang Xiaotian's previous class was also an experimental class, but it was slightly different from Class 1. Class 1 had the best faculty, which also led to its performance standing out among the other experimental classes.
Given Class 1's impressive achievements, Zhang Xiaotian had assumed the atmosphere would be one of "turning a deaf ear to the world outside, focusing solely on the sages' books." But he was wrong. Before he even reached the door, he heard a commotion inside. Zhang Xiaotian stood at the back door, a pile of books in his hands, intending to sneak in and find a corner to sit down while no one was paying attention.
Before he took the first step, someone came in through the front door. It was Director Chi who had just been promoted.
"What's going on in your class? They're already chattering on the first morning of school. Where's the learning atmosphere?" Director Chi from the teaching department boomed, drowning out all the other noises in the class. "You're already sophomores, and all you do is play. Instead of chatting, you'd better read more and do more exercises. Do you really think your class can always be number one? Study on your own before the class teacher arrives!" Director Chi looked around and noticed Zhang Xiaotian still standing at the back door. He said, "What's going on at the back door? What are you doing there? Come in!"
Zhang Xiaotian felt very embarrassed standing at the back door. He could only walk into the classroom under the spotlight-like gaze and sit directly in the seat closest to the back door.
Director Chi stayed for a while, making sure no one in the class was whispering, before leaving. Zhang Xiaotian didn't take his things out of his bag. He didn't know if anyone else was sitting there, but since they were already seated, he decided to just sit there. If someone else came later, he could give it to them. He put his bag at his feet, pulled out a random book, and opened it in front of him, but he couldn't really read a single word.
He hadn't seen his mother in years. His memories of her were few and far between, and he couldn't quite connect the woman who had snapped at him in the car with the mother he remembered.
Zhang Xiaotian knew very well that he couldn't decide his own life at the moment. Everyone might have the right to choose, but he didn't know when he would have that power too.
My mother said she had finally found her true love after all these years, and after her divorce, she resolutely left for another country and has not been heard from since. My father seemed to be waiting for the day of his divorce as well, and soon he too started a new family. He was simply a presence they couldn't easily abandon out of a sense of responsibility. He was very clear about his place.
It was just a matter of changing classes and having a different guardian. Zhang Xiaotian had long known that he had no right to fight or choose these things that had never belonged to him. He knew that all he could do was adapt.
He closed the book in front of him and when he looked up, he met someone's gaze. The person saw him look up and quickly lowered his head to avoid his gaze. Zhang Xiao looked in that direction for a while, then changed the book and lowered his head again.
The classroom was quiet, and the intermittent sound of footsteps in the corridor became more pronounced. Zhang Xiaotian flipped through a book, but his attention was focused on his ears, trying to guess which direction the people passing by were going. Among them, there was a sound that was fast and heavy, with a sudden and energetic tone. Just as the morning self-study bell rang, the footsteps appeared behind Zhang Xiaotian.
Is he from the same class? He's really late. Zhang Xiaotian listened to the footsteps and lowered his head to guess where his seat was. He listened to the footsteps pause at the door for a moment, then get closer and closer, finally stopping on his left. A hand holding a schoolbag appeared in his sight.
"Hey, where did this little classmate come from?"
Zhang Xiaotian looked up along his arm and saw a pair of bright black eyes.
Lu Bai plopped down on the seat next to Zhang Xiaotian. "Are you a new student?"
Zhang Xiaotian didn't answer, but asked him instead: "Are you sitting here? Is the seat I sit at your table?"
"Aren't you my deskmate now?" Lu Bai said.
This... is not wrong. Zhang Xiaotian couldn't help but frown and asked him again.
"What about the people who were sitting here before?"
"Over there." Lu Bai pointed at the man sitting next to the podium. "Before he moved over, he asked if I wanted to sit with him. I thought it was too close to the front, so I stayed here."
Zhang Xiaotian nodded and lowered his head to continue reading.
Seeing that Zhang Xiaotian had no intention of talking to him anymore, Lu Bai took out a book and placed it on the table, staring at it without wanting to read a single word. He sat motionless for a while, then pretended to stretch, leaned back, and took the opportunity to secretly glance at Zhang Xiaotian's book.
Although there were marks on the new deskmate's book, it was still as smooth as new, without even a folded corner or curled edge. However, his handwriting was a little different from his own.
Lu Bai carefully examined his handwriting, then stared at the back of Zhang Xiaotian's head in a trance. He looked thin, straight, and quiet, even his hair whorls were neat and tidy, so how could his handwriting be so wild?
Zhang Xiaotian couldn't concentrate on his studies the entire morning. Even though he was in a new environment and expected to be slow to adapt, being closely watched by a new, barely familiar classmate for the entire morning self-study session would have been a nightmare for anyone. He was thinking of going to the front to copy the class schedule, but as he stood up, a classmate he didn't recognize approached him.
"Well, classmate, the class teacher wants you to go to his office."
Zhang Xiaotian nodded and walked out of the classroom.
"Hello, Teacher Zhang." Zhang Xiaotian knocked on the door. The head teacher motioned him in and pointed at the stool in front of him with his chin. After Zhang Xiaotian sat down, he said, "I just called your mother."
Zhang Xiaotian nodded.
"I think you know what kind of class we are. Regardless of other things, grades are always the most important thing to me, and I hope you can also attach importance to this. No matter who gets into this class, I can't control it, but whether you can stay in this class depends on your own ability."
The head teacher paused for a moment, looked at the thin boy in front of him, and softened his tone:
"Every class naturally wants students with good grades. I've seen your previous grades, they're not very stable, but I'm very optimistic about you. The key is this month's monthly exam." Having said that, he bent his fingers and tapped a chart on the table. Zhang Xiaotian leaned over to take a look. It was the grade ranking list from the last monthly exam. He performed poorly in that exam and ranked more than 120th in the grade.
"The school's original intention in establishing this promotion and demotion system wasn't to have students change classes every month, but your grades are too unstable. If you do too poorly on a test, even if I want to keep you, I won't be able to explain it to the school or your parents. Parents are watching our class every day."
Zhang Xiaotian was speechless. He felt a bit dazed. One second he was just muddling through life, and the next second he was being shoved with weapons into his arms and pushed onto the battlefield. Before he could even put on his armor, his head was covered in yellow sand.
"In the next monthly exam, you must rank at least in the top 80."
After leaving the office, Zhang Xiaotian returned to the classroom. As soon as he entered, he saw his deskmate sitting in his seat chatting with two girls at the table in front of him. When the two girls saw him coming back, they turned around.
As soon as Zhang Xiaotian sat down, Lu Bai came over and placed a small cookie in front of him: "Han Cheng...Han Chengcheng gave this to you. It's delicious."
"Who is Han Chengcheng?" Zhang Xiaotian was about to ask him when he saw the girl sitting in front of Lu Bai secretly tilting her head to look at him. When he noticed, she quickly sat up straight.
It looks like it's her.
"Thank her for me." Zhang Xiaotian said, then put the biscuits on the corner of the table.
"I won't do that for you. Tell her yourself." Lu Bai leaned back in his chair and asked him, "Which class were you originally from?"
"Class 4." Zhang Xiaotian took out the things he would need for the next class one by one and placed them on the table.
"Class 4." Lu Bai's tone dragged out a little. "I'm not familiar with any of them."
Zhang Xiaotian ignored him.
"Hey, you got the wrong book." Lu Bai tried to strike up a conversation. "There's no Chinese class next period."
"I saw Chinese on the previous schedule." Zhang Xiaotian didn't believe him.
"That's the old schedule. I know the new one." Lu Bai stretched out his arm to put it on Zhang Xiaotian's shoulder, but Zhang Xiaotian dodged and stepped back, so he settled for the back of his chair. "Just trust me."
Zhang Xiaotian was skeptical and was about to put away his Chinese textbook when he saw his Chinese teacher walking in from the front door.
Zhang Xiaotian looked back at him again, and seeing Lu Bai with a smirk on his face, he felt speechless and couldn't help but glance at him.
"Oh, if I remember correctly, she is also the Chinese teacher in Class 4." Lu Bai didn't feel embarrassed when he failed to tease him. Instead, he became more and more aggressive and moved closer to look at Zhang Xiaotian's book.
Lu Bai's sudden approach caught Zhang Xiaotian off guard. He couldn't pull his hand away to push him away, and only had time to duck back. Lu Bai's furry head was right in front of him. He lowered his eyes to look at the man's black, wiry hair. He smelled of laundry detergent and the warm fragrance of lavender.
Zhang Xiaotian's name was written on the lower right corner of the Chinese textbook cover. Lu Bai leaned over to take a closer look. Realizing that Zhang Xiaotian was trying to lean back to keep some distance from him, he retreated back to his seat and repeated Zhang Xiaotian's name with a smile:
"Your name is Zhang Xiaotian, what a cute name." He rocked the stool back and forth. "My name is Lu Bai. Let's get along well from now on."
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