Chapter 17
"Together?"
"right."
Liang Yue joked, "Aren't you afraid of being seen by others, the top student in the grade and me, who is good for nothing, together? Besides, your homeroom teacher is a notorious 'stick'."
"What stick?"
"The stick that breaks up couples."
Liang Yue immediately realized something was wrong after she finished speaking. "What I mean is, we can't let him see a boy and a girl walking together alone, especially with the rainy atmosphere. I'm afraid he'll imagine a Korean drama."
"It's okay, he left after class today."
"That's good."
Liang Yue quickly stuffed the things into his schoolbag and then left the classroom.
"By the way, how did you know I was in the classroom?"
"The lights were on, so I came up to check."
Ji Shuyi's umbrella was very large; it was a free gift with the purchase of soy sauce, and the shop's name was printed on it.
"Have you caught a cold?"
"How could that be?" Liang Yue chuckled dryly, deliberately adopting his usual tone. "Maybe I've talked too much today, and my voice is a little hoarse."
Ignoring her stubbornness, Ji Shuyi used his other hand, which wasn't holding the umbrella, to touch Liang Yue's forehead.
This action acted like a talisman, freezing her in place.
"You don't have a fever. Remember to drink plenty of hot water when you get home. Do you have any cold medicine?"
Liang Yue nodded blankly.
"Drink another packet before bed."
She nodded again.
Seeing that Ji Shuyi's expression was normal, as if this was a very natural and expected action, Liang Yue decided not to act strangely.
However, if she looked at Ji Shuyi's hand holding the umbrella handle at this moment, she would find that his fingernails were almost digging into his flesh.
-
Ji Shuyi escorted her to her doorstep, where they happened to run into her grandmother. Seeing that Liang Yue hadn't returned home for a while, she went to look for him. Seeing Ji Shuyi standing in the rain with an umbrella, she smiled and thanked him, feeling bad about it, and wanted him to stay for dinner.
"Your mother is probably at the mahjong parlor again. It's raining and she can't go out to buy groceries and cook. Let's just eat at home. It's just a matter of adding another pair of chopsticks."
Liang Yue followed suit, pulling on the sleeves of Ji Shuyi's hands that were holding the umbrella, "Let's go together."
The swaying motion resembled slanted raindrops, falling coolly onto exposed skin.
Ji Shuyi looked down at Liang Yue's fair fingers, which were long and slender like scallions, and nodded.
We usually cook simple home-style dishes: scrambled eggs with tomatoes, stir-fried romaine lettuce, radish soup, and braised beef brisket with carrots.
Liang Yue doesn't like carrots. She has told her grandma many times, but her grandma stubbornly believes that eating carrots will make her smarter, and she tries all sorts of ways to cook carrots for her.
But Liang Yue never liked it.
She felt that the carrots tasted strange, like watermelon dipped in soy sauce.
Grandma put a carrot on Liang Yue's plate, and she pretended to suck on it for a while. Then, when Grandma wasn't looking, she spat it into the trash can at her feet.
"Give me."
Liang Yue turned her head to look at Ji Shuyi, who was smiling at his grandmother and answering her questions, as if those two words were Liang Yue's hallucination.
She paused for a moment, then noticed him glancing at the carrots in her bowl out of the corner of his eye.
Then, Liang Yue did something that she still finds unbelievable.
She actually secretly gave the carrot that was already in the bowl to Ji Shuyi.
High school is a stage where one's initial aspirations begin to blossom, making this action extremely ambiguous.
In the evening, Liang Yue tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. She repeatedly reviewed her actions, as if zooming in on a chart, thinking and pondering why she had been so abrupt as to put that 'dirty' carrot into Ji Shuyi's bed that night, and why Ji Shuyi had offered such help.
Most importantly!
Ji Shuyi really ate that piece of carrot!
How could he actually eat it?!
High school students are at an age where even a glance between a boy and a girl can spark countless fantasies. Liang Yue was indeed troubled by the actions of both parties and couldn't sleep all night.
-
Summer vacation after my second year of high school is here in the blink of an eye.
Ji Shuyi got his first smartphone.
The part-time job money his grandmother gave him was enough to buy a very good smartphone, but he kept saving it, either to help his mother pay off old debts or to buy school supplies and materials.
Liang Yue offered to accompany Ji Shuyi to the store to buy his phone.
The two visited several electronics stores, trying to find the best value smartphone. Ji Shuyi was very efficient; he had already chosen one from several suitable phones when he entered the first store. However, Liang Yue felt that the phone wasn't good enough, its appearance wasn't attractive enough, and its storage space wasn't large enough. He insisted that he go to other stores to look around.
Ji Shuyi didn't refute, and silently followed her to visit one store after another.
Although Liang Yue was shorter than Ji Shuyi in academics, she was exceptionally knowledgeable in this area. She repeatedly compared various parameters and performance of the phones, and finally chose a white, thin and light phone with ample memory from among domestic brands.
The store happened to be having a summer promotion, offering a free phone case and screen protector with every phone purchase, plus a one-year warranty.
"How about this one?"
More than two thousand.
Ji Shuyi felt the price was a bit high, but as Liang Yue said, it was indeed the most cost-effective option among all the options he looked at.
“Hmm,” he nodded, “this one will do.”
The shop assistant took out a brand new white phone box from the warehouse, opened the plastic seal in front of the two of them, took out the phone and let Ji Shuyi confirm that it was correct, then applied a screen protector and put on a phone case on the spot.
The first thing Ji Shuyi did after getting the phone was to download WeChat and hand it to Liang Yue, saying, "Here's your contact information."
“Oh,” Liang Yue took it, entered the number he already knew by heart, and a WeChat account named 'A Tree with the Surname Liang' popped up.
“Here,” she handed the phone back to Ji Shuyi, “this is me, I’ve added it.”
"Okay, remember to approve it when you get back."
"knew."
Liang Yue thought Ji Shuyi was just acting on a whim and wanted to add her contact information, but! Every night at nine o'clock sharp, Ji Shuyi would send her two or three math problems or an English reading passage, as punctual as the evening news.
The message was concise: It's done. Send it to me for review in an hour.
...
Liang Yue had absolutely no desire to do this extra homework!
She even cuts corners on the homework assigned by the teacher, let alone the homework assigned by Ji Shuyi.
If a student doesn't do their schoolwork, the teacher might punish them by making them stand at the back of the classroom for a period of time. But Ji Shuyi didn't do her homework, so she wasn't punished at all.
Ji Shuyi never rushed him. Regardless of whether Liang Yue sent the answers or not, the next day would bring up a detailed explanation of the questions from the previous night, as well as two or three new questions for the next day.
What is this...?
Ji Shuyi's unexpected persistence made Liang Yue feel somewhat guilty and unable to ignore those questions with a clear conscience any longer.
So annoying.
She opened the question sent by Ji Shuyi, picked up a piece of paper that had already been drafted, turned it face down, and scribbled down the solution steps. Her handwriting was crooked and messy, clearly indicating that she was doing it unwillingly.
A short while later, Ji Shuyi sent a detailed solution and a voice message.
"Well done, only the second part of the second question needs attention..."
A tree surnamed Liang: [Oh, thank you for your guidance, Teacher Ji.] (Sarcastic tone)
Ji Shuyi: [You're welcome.]
A tree with the surname Liang: [Sunglasses.JPG]
Ji Shuyi: [To be continued tomorrow.]
Liang Yue stared at his phone screen, thinking to himself, "Who wants to continue?"
However, I still did it obediently the next day.
As the days went by, those questions became the catalyst for a connection between Liang Yue and Ji Shuyi, like a thread that quietly entwined the two of them.
Liang Yue was surprised to find that the questions Ji Shuyi sent every night were highly similar to the exam questions, and there was even a multiple-choice question that was exactly the same as the one in the exam, with the order of the options exactly the same.
After the exam, Liang Yue proactively messaged Ji Shuyi: 【Did you steal the exam questions?】
Ji Shuyi: [No.]
A tree with the surname Liang: [Really?]
Ji Shuyi: [The questions I've given you are all questions we've done before, as well as questions from recent provincial and municipal exams. Math exams are essentially just a few types of questions; once you master them, they'll feel familiar.]
I see.
A tree surnamed Liang: 【Looks like I've graduated.】
Ji Shuyi: [To be continued.]
-
The summer school for second-year high school students is scheduled to have two weeks of tutoring time, and in addition, it also proposes to hold a charity sale.
During the holidays, each class needs to send about ten students to the school to participate in a charity sale, which aims to circulate second-hand and idle items and raise funds to donate to children in mountainous areas.
Liang Yue didn't want to go to the site to take charge; she just wanted to clear out some toys she didn't like and comic books she had finished reading at home, take pictures, and send them to the class committee member in charge of statistics.
Unexpectedly, the homeroom teacher specifically asked her to take charge of this charity sale.
The reason can be traced back to a previous donation drive, where Liang Yue was the only person in the class to donate a "huge" amount of three hundred yuan.
Her homeroom teacher said she was kind-hearted and knew how to do charity work.
Liang Yue was both amused and exasperated. The three hundred yuan wasn't the money she had prepared in advance; it was her allowance. The one hundred yuan in the other pocket was the money she had intended to donate. By a twist of fate, she had taken the money from the wrong pocket, and because the two pockets were folded together, she hadn't noticed in time.
Afterwards, Liang Yue was filled with remorse.
She intended to explain to her homeroom teacher after class, but the teacher had already praised her good character and spirit of dedication in class.
Liang Yue had no choice but to accept it.
While Liang Yue was cleaning up her belongings, Ji Shuyi happened to come over to tutor her.
He looked around the cramped room and wondered, "Are all of these unnecessary?"
Boxes of comic books and old toys were piled up on the floor. Ji Shuyi bent down and picked up a comic book with curled edges and started flipping through it.
“Yes,” Liang Yue said, “These are comics I’ve read countless times and can recite from memory. I might as well donate them all this time, so I can make room for new comics. That stack over there isn’t that; Grandma asked me to clear out the books I don’t need. She’ll have the junk collector come and sell them later.”
"Let me help you," Ji Shuyi said, taking his schoolbag off and placing it by the door, rolling up his sleeves. "Which items need to be carried downstairs?"
“These,” Liang Yue pointed, “and these too.”
Ji Shuyi squatted down and neatly arranged the comics into series.
While tidying up his desk, Liang Yue found an old, used notebook. He opened it and found it filled with notes and drafts that Ji Shuyi had made there.
His handwriting was beautiful; even his drafts were pleasing to the eye. Liang Yue prepared a separate notebook for him, as she always felt that her drafts were not aesthetically pleasing when written alongside his.
Ji Shuyi carried the items upstairs and asked, "Grandma is asking if you have anything else to sell? The junk collector is here."
Liang Yue closed the notebook, opened the drawer and put the draft notebook inside, then casually placed a few completed test papers to cover it up. "That's all, those are all."
"good."
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