Chapter 13
Chen Zhoujing took a few steps forward, his gaze slowly returning only after Jian Sheng had walked past the traffic light diagonally ahead.
He habitually rubbed the back of his neck, remembering the smile on her lips when he made her laugh, and unconsciously smiled along with her.
It took him half a minute to react, and he muttered under his breath, "Sick..."
Chen Zhoujing slowly walked along the school path. As dusk approached, the cool breeze after the rain gently caressed his slightly flushed cheeks and brushed against his already red ears.
*
After Chen Zhoujing tutored Jian Sheng on the math practice problems, she went back and reviewed them again. The next day in class, when Teacher Zhong explained them, she was surprised to find that the steps that were previously difficult could instantly appear in her mind, no longer a vague state of wanting to understand but not being able to.
Once you understand that repeatedly reviewing incorrect questions is more effective than constantly doing new questions without breaking them down, try copying each question type into your error notebook or marking it on the test paper. This will help you remember the question better and at least have some recollection of it the next time you encounter it.
After Zhong Mei finished explaining the questions, she handed out the printed new questions for the students to do on their own. She then put down her work, which had been running for almost an entire class period, and strolled leisurely around the classroom with her hands behind her back.
She would occasionally remind some students of their questions, and after watching the two groups, she wandered over to Chen Zhoujing's side in the third group.
After standing there for a while, Chen Zhoujing unconsciously straightened his posture: "Does the teacher have a problem?"
Zhong Mei shook her head and clicked her tongue.
"What's wrong?" He had even already planned to water the succulents and pothos plants in her office.
Zhong Mei remained silent, then extended her hand adorned with a gold ring and tapped it on his desk with her fist: "Go do the set of papers I gave you last time, and bring them to my office when you're done."
Chen Zhou breathed a sigh of relief, took the set of test papers out of his desk drawer, laid them flat on the table, and said with a smile, "I'm done, teacher."
"So fast?" Zhong Mei raised an eyebrow, picked up the test paper, examined it carefully for a few moments, and then gave a very pleased smile. "That's good."
“Absolutely.” Chen Zhou clicked his tongue in surprise, a confident smile spreading across his face.
"Then come back for the second set later. There's a problem with the last question on this set. Think about it yourself first, and come back to me if you can't figure it out." Zhong Mei put the test paper down with satisfaction.
"Ah, there's a mistake." Chen Zhoujing flipped to the last page of the test paper and looked at the questions and steps again.
"There's a small problem. Ask Lin You if he's finished writing it. Once he's done, you two can compare the answers." Zhong Mei clapped her hands and slowly walked forward.
She stopped behind Jian Sheng, glanced at her test paper, and initially didn't pay much attention. However, when she saw the second page, her expression turned somewhat surprised, and she leaned closer to adjust her glasses.
Jian Sheng noticed that she had stopped, her body stiffened, and her train of thought was instantly interrupted. She slowly wrote formulas on the draft paper, thinking about which previous question she had a problem with.
"Not bad." Then, a voice filled with delighted praise came close to her ear, and Jian Sheng's blood instantly boiled, her face and neck turning completely red.
She swallowed hard and whispered, "Thank you, teacher."
“It seems this study group is still useful.” Zhong Mei turned to look at Chen Zhoujing, who was squinting and smiling. She thought for a moment and said to Jian Sheng, “If you find it troublesome at noon in the future, or if I have something to do, you don’t need to come to my office anymore. Look, there’s a math genius sitting behind you who’s the top student in the grade. You can ask him any questions you have.”
As Zhong Mei spoke, she pointed at him.
Jian Sheng nodded, her face a little numb, unsure of what to say. In fact, after the study group was formed, Chen Zhoujing taught her many of the problems.
Zhong Mei gave an approving smile: "Keep going, you've made great progress."
Then, she walked to the back of the group, grabbed Chen Zhoujing's shoulder, and whispered, "The strategy of the rich helping the poor is really effective, but the other students in this group..."
"Teacher, I'm not a 'central air conditioner' (meaning I'm nice to everyone)," Chen Zhou said helplessly. "I only talk to one person at a time."
"What kind of wild and inappropriate words are you spouting, Uncle Chen?" He Shang couldn't help but retort from the side.
Chen Zhoujing looked completely innocent: "Explaining the problem."
"The teacher says some nonsensical things in class that have nothing to do with learning," he said, frowning.
“You…go stand outside.” Zhong Mei glared at He Shang.
He Shang chuckled twice, rummaged in his pocket a few times, and went outside to stand at the door.
"Keep studying. You are indeed very capable. I'll try to help you as much as I can without interfering with my own studies. I'm not forcing you; it's up to you." Zhong Mei said this and then walked around to the other side.
Last week, when Chen Zhoujing went to the office to water the pothos, he overheard Zhong Mei discussing Jian Sheng's grades. He went over to her and saw the list of study groups. Jian Sheng was in a group with good overall ability but no clear leader. For some reason, he got carried away and chatted with Zhong Mei for a long time, from analyzing the group's performance to the whole class, then the whole grade, and even macroscopic topics like national politics. As a result, Zhong Mei trusted him completely, leading them to rearrange the order of all the groups later on.
Right under Zhong Mei's nose, Chen Zhoujing naturally tagged Jian Sheng in his group with Lin You...
Chen Zhou was startled and looked out the window: "Holy crap?"
"Where is he?" He nudged his deskmate, a thin, short boy with glasses who looked very refined.
The boy turned his head and said, "Oh, he ran away when the teacher turned around."
"..." Chen Zhou chuckled inwardly.
The next second, his left pocket started vibrating wildly. He guessed that He Shang had run out with his phone and was sending him messages criticizing him.
As luck would have it, the phone rang.
"The extended break between classes is back this week." Zhong Mei looked at some students who were already preparing to lie down, and a few who had run to the door with their balls. "Go line up at the door and go do your morning exercises!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the class erupted in a commotion.
The few guys in the back row holding basketballs were saying things they were going to do, but they had actually already sneaked away.
"There's still morning exercises?" Jian murmured.
"The sky has fallen." Qi Jing froze in her seat. "The school was supposed to be repairing the road during the holidays, but it was postponed and it wasn't finished by the time school started, so we didn't have to do morning exercises for a while. But I don't know why it's finished so quickly."
"Let's go, let's go downstairs." Qi Jing stood up.
Many students had already gone out to line up in the classroom.
Jian Sheng patted her face; she hated group activities, especially when there were many people.
"Shall we go?" Seeing Jian Sheng stunned, and most of the students leaving the classroom, Qi Jing reminded him again.
"Okay." Jian Sheng stood up and followed her out the door.
The typhoon is almost over, and the weather has been mostly sunny for the past two days. The morning sun is very bright, sweeping in from outside the corridor railing and falling on the shoulders of the row of people outside. Everyone is standing there chatting and laughing with the people in front and behind them.
The running exercise lines seemed to have been arranged in advance. Jian Sheng didn't know where to stand, so she quietly moved to the last spot for the girls. Luckily, the girls behind her were about the same height as her, so the teacher didn't single her out.
The school's running exercise rules are that the senior students run around half of the school playground, while the first and second-year students run around half of the school, one lap around half of the school, for a total of two laps.
Jian Sheng followed the long line neatly and jogged for two laps before stopping. When he got back to where he started, he looked up and found that there were hardly any students left in the class.
Sweat streamed down her head, soaking her back and arms, which clung to her long-sleeved school uniform. Jian Sheng stood under the shade of a tree, her hands supporting her waist as she bent slightly.
"It's alright." Qi Jing walked over slowly, her face pale. "When we first came in, we complained that the school was too small. But when we found out that the morning exercises were done around the school, everyone was complaining about how big the school was."
She took a small pack of tissues from her pocket, tore open the outer packaging, took out a tissue, and handed it to Jian Sheng: "Wipe it off."
"Okay, thank you." Jian Sheng straightened up, wiped her head with a tissue, and looked around at the school. "It's too big."
"Huh?" Qi Jing was taken aback by her sudden question.
"The school...this school is too big." Her legs were about to give out from running, and Jian Sheng's face was a little pale. Her lower abdomen was aching slightly. She asked, "Why is no one here?"
Qi Jing found it amusing to look at her bewildered face: "Many of the boys sneaked off to play ball. A few girls couldn't keep up and stopped halfway through, and they're still lagging behind. We were just too serious."
Along the way, there were many students wearing red armbands supervising. As soon as Jian Sheng arrived at the intersections where people were standing, he straightened his back and straightened his steps, afraid of being caught. In fact, the further back in the line the class was, the less people cared about them.
"Qi Jing!" A voice rang out from behind.
The two turned around.
Xu Xiaxia was pulling Lin You towards them: "Damn, this is exhausting! You two are really good runners. I almost died halfway there."
She had one hand on Lin You's shoulder and the other on her hip, hunched over and panting.
"We almost got caught by those guys, luckily we blended in with another class." Lin You was also panting slightly. She glanced at the classroom, "Where are the people from our class?"
"Our teacher wasn't with us today; most of them ran away," Qi Jing said.
"Okay, I'm going to get yelled at." Lin You sighed.
"It's okay, it's only the first day," Qi Jing comforted her. "It's too hot, shall we go to the convenience store?"
"Let's go, let's go, I can't take it anymore, I wanted to finish after running only halfway." Xu Xiaxia stood up straight and fanned herself with her hand.
"Are you going?" Lin You's gaze fell on Jian Sheng, and the others automatically looked over.
Jian Sheng tugged at the hem of her clothes: "I'm not going."
"Okay, let's go then." The three of them walked along the path towards the convenience store.
Jian Sheng watched the group's backs disappear into the distance before turning her gaze away. She lowered her head, stood there for a moment, then raised her hand to roll up her sleeves to her wrists before walking towards the shade.
Bang, bang, bang! Several basketball-like thuds echoed from the stairwell.
Jian Sheng walked over from outside and bumped into a boy coming from the other side of the corridor. She moved back a little, wanting them to go first.
“I’m telling you, you’re just sick in the head. ‘Teacher, I’m not a central air conditioner, teacher, I’m one-on-one!’” Two more boys came up from behind, and a cheeky voice echoed in the empty stairwell.
The owner of the voice fell silent the moment he saw the person approaching from the other side.
"Holy crap." He Shang's mind went blank for a moment, and his face instantly turned red.
"Keep learning!" Xu Xiao laughed loudly. "Hahahaha, I'm right in front of you, why aren't you learning?"
"Monk, you were quite the talker just now, weren't you?" came the teasing remark.
"Cough cough cough, hahaha." He Shang coughed suddenly, then chuckled, glaring at Chen Zhoujing who had been silent the whole time, "You son of a bitch."
"You guys go back first?" Chen Zhoujing tossed the basketball in his hand to Zhao Chengyang, who was standing to the side.
Zhao Chengyang's face darkened: "What are you doing, dating?"
He held the ball in his arms, his gaze shifting between the two men.
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