Chapter 37
Similarly...
Chen Zhou pondered for several nights but couldn't figure out what was going on. Frustrated, he threw down his pen and put the test paper on the table into his schoolbag.
A knock came from outside. After receiving a response, Li Jing opened the door a crack: "Come out and have breakfast."
He picked up his schoolbag, left the room, grabbed a bottle of milk, and was about to walk out.
"I advise you to calm down. Using studying to numb yourself is not the key to solving the problem," Li Jing said indifferently.
Chen Zhou glanced at him in surprise, slung his backpack over his shoulder, opened the door, and went out.
Li Jing sat in a chair with his arms crossed, tongue pressed against his cheek, eyes cold. After a minute, he picked up the clothes on the back of the chair and the sandwich on the table and followed.
Not long after Chen Zhoujing went downstairs, Li Jing drove up in his car, following him leisurely: "Want to get in or not?"
He lifted his eyelids slightly: "You go first."
Li Jing didn't respond, but followed him for a while until he saw him turn and walk towards the back building: "Thinking too much will only lead to an overabundance of emotions."
After saying that, he tossed the sandwich to him, turned the steering wheel to the right, and drove towards the entrance of the residential area.
Chen Zhou paused slightly, nearly dropping the sandwich on the ground. After the car had driven away for a while, he turned and walked towards the left-hand path.
After the autumn outing, the temperature dropped completely. Jian Sheng, carrying her bag, pushed open the glass door downstairs, looked up, and her gaze met Chen Zhoujing, who was leaning against the building sign to the side.
Her eyelashes fluttered a few times; she had deliberately come around to her building's entrance: "Did you need something from me?"
Chen Zhou, who was about to greet him, choked and shook his head after a long while: "Can't we go to school together if there's nothing wrong?"
He looked at her, her expression still showing the dazed look of someone who had just woken up, and the awkwardness in his heart vanished, replaced by a strange sense of joy.
"We sit in front of and behind each other, are in the same study group, are good friends, and most importantly, live in the same neighborhood. Wouldn't it be even better to go to and from school together..." (This is a euphemism for trying to build a closer relationship.)
"Is it better?" he asked, his words taking a different turn.
Jian Sheng gave a faint "oh," turned his back, and took a few steps: "Then let's go, my friend."
Chen Zhou raised his right eyebrow slightly and unconsciously curved his lips into a smile as he followed behind her. She moved slowly, and so did he.
At the end of November, a cool breeze swept in, and both of them put on thicker clothes under their school uniforms.
From a meter away, he looked at the white hooded sweatshirt she wore under her oversized school uniform, and below that was her ever-present white bag, which, like a little pendant, was always steadily perched on her back. From his perspective, it looked indescribably cute.
He hissed softly behind him and squeezed the back of his neck hard with his right hand.
Jian Sheng glanced to the right at the sound, noticing the person in her peripheral vision seemed lost in thought. She slowed her pace and turned back to look at him: "Why are you walking so slowly?"
"Huh?" Chen Zhou was startled and took a step forward to stand beside her. "No... I, have you had breakfast?"
The unchanging tactic for escaping an awkward situation: a simple nod and a curt reply, "I've already eaten."
"Hmm...that's good." Chen Zhou looked away, rubbed his sweaty hands in his pocket, and suddenly laughed, "Actually, what I meant was, since we live in the same neighborhood, it's so convenient, why don't we just go to school together?"
Jian Sheng looked at him, puzzled, "Why?"
"Our schedules are different." Apart from a few chance encounters, it seems like we haven't spent any time together at other times.
He would arrive just five minutes after she had sat down.
Chen Zhou exclaimed in surprise, "Who said it's different..."
He paused, then spoke again: "Why? Because... I wanted to say that if you have any questions about your studies, we can discuss them on the way. That way, I'll know exactly where your problems lie beforehand, and we can start right away when we get to school, which will save a lot of time."
Jian Sheng thought it made sense, as if it touched on her own feelings, but she shook her head: "This will waste your time."
Chen Zhou raised his hand and scratched his right eyebrow: "How could that be? It's a good opportunity to improve together."
“You’re already number one in your grade,” she said.
"The top student in the grade needs to study even harder to maintain their position. Besides, I'm not that far behind the second-place student. If I don't work hard, he'll overtake me." He slung his backpack over one shoulder and casually walked towards her.
Jian Sheng was surprised that he would say, "I thought you were smart, so you easily got first place."
"No, being number one in the grade is never easy. Being smart is just a bonus; without hard work, it's all for nothing. No achievement comes easily; I just haven't let you know that yet," he said.
Jian Sheng's eyes flashed with a strange light: "So, do you also go back and do practice problems every night?"
The two walked to the door, and Chen Zhoujing pulled open the iron gate in front of him, stood to the side, and gestured for her to come over with a slight chin: "Swish, I get scared if I don't swish for a day. Tsk, that idiot behind me... that guy is too good at chasing. Last time I was only two points behind him. I was so scared that I did four sets of test papers in a row for several nights, and I surpassed him by thirty points in the midterm."
As he spoke, he kept an eye on the electric scooters on the path by the door, occasionally tugging at her little schoolbag and leading her to a side without scooters.
Upon hearing this, Jian Sheng's face showed a look of shock: "You're so hardworking."
I often saw him come in the morning and sleep on the table. He would also sleep during the long break between classes even if he wasn't playing ball. He would ask for leave from time to time, and he would occasionally joke with the teacher during class.
She genuinely believed that, as they said, his first place was easy, but she never expected him to study even harder when he got back.
Chen Zhoujing looked at her slightly bright eyes and a smile appeared on his lips: "Not really, I just really wanted to do well on the exam."
A rare gentleness appeared in his smile. Jian Sheng wondered to himself, "Even someone as cheerful and sunny as him, with a good temper, who doesn't care about anything, and who has endless things to talk about and interests, would be troubled by things he cares about and wants to do his best to do well."
"So how do you maintain your enthusiasm for learning?" she asked.
Chen Zhou exclaimed in surprise, "I have no passion for learning; I only do it because I want to."
"Isn't this a bit beyond a realistic range?" He lowered his eyes. "Actually, once you climb to the front, it's basically very difficult to come down, because I'm a bit competitive. If I fall down, I'll lose face, but I won't admit that I'm competitive."
Jian Sheng's gaze remained fixed on his earnest face, as if this was the first time he was speaking from the bottom of his heart.
It was the first time she had ever seen this side of him.
"You've worked very hard too. You made a lot of progress in the grade last time, which is already amazing. Keep it up, and you might even make it into the top ten in the class by the end of the semester!" He suddenly relaxed his tone and returned to his previous style. "Oh, one more thing, how do you maintain your enthusiasm? Just be confident. If you're not confident, just pretend. That's how I got here."
Chen Zhou blinked at her furrowed brow as she pondered.
Jian glanced away and said "Oh".
"Again." He clicked his tongue. "Always giving me the runaround, sigh."
Jian pursed her lips and said, "Tsk again."
"He's always impatient with me, sigh."
She mimicked his tone and repeated it. Chen Zhou was stunned, incredulous, and it took him a long time to recover from her earnest imitation: "Oh my!"
"That was just an interjection, not an expression of impatience!" He chuckled softly. "No... why are you so funny?"
Jian Sheng ignored him, but Chen Zhoujing seemed to be ignited: "I'm not impatient, you can tell from my tone that I am."
"No, do you know what support means? Let me give you an example. For instance, when I'm playing a game and I'm fighting with an opponent, my role is... well, to put it simply, I'm about to die, and I need support to help me. So, let's think of support as this 'tsk,' this interjection. When I'm speaking, let this interjection help me to support the context I want to express."
Jian Sheng felt a headache coming on: "You're talking nonsense again."
Chen Zhoujing was amused by her words: "You can use them flexibly, that's impressive."
"No." Jian Sheng clicked his tongue in agreement.
"You're copying me?" He became interested.
"No," Jian denied. "I thought I was going to die even if I didn't say anything, so I asked this assistant to help me."
She finished speaking and continued walking forward, but Chen Zhoujing behind her stopped, her mind racing.
He paused for a few seconds before realizing what was happening: "I'm going."
What she meant was, would it kill you to not say it?
Chen Zhoujing caught up with her: "Fine, I guess I can't argue with you. You don't like it, so I won't say anything more."
silence.
After a long silence, they passed the traffic light and approached the school intersection. More and more students were coming and going, and the two stood in the crowd.
One was tall and the other short; the taller one's gaze was always on the person next to him.
Amidst the cacophony of car horns and conversations, Chen Zhoujing suddenly met her eyes as she turned to him. She whispered, "I like it."
It drifts gently in the wind, its final note fleeting.
Chen Zhou's eyes froze in shock until she turned and walked away, at which point he slowly followed.
"Like?" He walked to her side. "Like what? You say you like me, but I just say 'tsk'?"
Jian Sheng frowned, not knowing why she had suddenly brought this up, her mind still a jumble: "No."
"What? You just said you liked me, why are you going back on your word..." Chen Zhou's heart was pounding, and his lips trembled inexplicably as he spoke. "How can you go back on your word? It's nothing. If you like me, just say so. I'll say it more often in the future. It's no big deal, right? We're good friends. If you say you like me, I'll say it every day!"
"He's not dead...it's alright, there's no need for formalities between us..." He stammered, his mind a complete mess.
"Chen Zhoujing!" Jian Sheng called out, stopping his talkative behavior.
Chen Zhoujing's words caught in his throat: "Here!"
"You're too noisy!" she raised her voice and quickened her pace to catch up.
"Okay, okay, okay, I'll say less..." Chen Zhoujing followed with a smirk, "But I can't not say anything, okay?"
"If we don't talk, our relationship will become distant; if we don't talk, the learning atmosphere we've worked so hard to build will be gone!"
“This has nothing to do with studying,” Jian Sheng corrected.
"Why not? The more we communicate, the better our relationship naturally becomes. A better relationship means a better learning atmosphere, which in turn motivates us to study more. This leads to improvement in all aspects – a win-win situation!"
"Who's happy with you...?"
"Of course it's with you!"
......
"Damn it, is Chen Zhoujing serious?"
Just a few meters away from the school gate, several students not wearing school uniforms were stopped outside, waiting for someone to go back and retrieve their belongings.
Among the crowd, the first to speak was Qian Xiao, the troublemaker who wanted to follow Yu Chao.
Yu Chao looked away, squatted on the stone steps outside, holding a bag of soy milk in his hand, and took a sip.
Qian Xiao spoke again: "Every morning I see him following that voice like a ghost..."
His voice abruptly stopped.
Yu Chao straightened up and pulled his outstretched foot back.
"It's quite enjoyable to let him turn sympathy into a romantic relationship."
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