When Lin Chaoxi was in junior high school, the country did not have the strict policy prohibiting tutoring that it later had. Therefore, in order to catch up with the progress, the school would always arrange group tutoring for students on Saturdays.
In the morning, there are three classes: Chinese, math, and English. In the afternoon, there are math, physics, and chemistry. There is no difference from the usual classes, except that there are fewer people on Saturdays...
Lin Chaoxi walked into the classroom while biting a pancake. He took one step forward but couldn't help but take a half step back to make sure that he had walked into the right class before entering.
There were still ten minutes before class was about to start, but the whole classroom was empty, filled with the lonely fragrance of autumn flowers.
But fortunately, Pei Zhi had already arrived. After just a few days of attending classes together, Pei Zhi came earlier than her every day. Lin Chaoxi even suspected that he was the first one to arrive at school every day.
But does Pei’s family live nearby?
She has absolutely no idea.
"Have you had breakfast?" Lin Chaoxi put down his schoolbag and asked Pei Zhi casually.
"no."
"Huh?"
She turned her head suddenly, widened her eyes, and looked at Pei Zhi carefully.
The boy was still wearing the same sweatshirt, but in a different color. The clothes didn’t look very old, and she couldn’t recognize the brand of his shoes and pants, but he didn’t look like someone who had fallen on hard times…
Maybe she looked at him for too long with a worried look on her face, Pei Zhi's clear eyes had a hint of smile, as if he could see through her thoughts.
"What's wrong?" Pei Zhi asked.
"Ah! Nothing!" She said hurriedly, "How can you not eat breakfast? Aren't you hungry? Do you want me to share half of it?"
"good."
Hearing this, Lin Chaoxi lowered her head and looked at the pancake crumbs in the plastic bag that she had gnawed into a pulp...
Good...good...good...
Pei Zhi's light voice lingered in her ears.
How do we divide it? Why did she just say "divide it in half"?
Finally, Pei Zhi put away his smile and explained to her: "No one made breakfast at home today."
"Oh, let's buy some on the way."
"I don't have any change."
Upon hearing this, Lin Chaoxi immediately took out her coin purse, pretended to have forgotten about the "giving you half", and waved it at Pei Zhi in a show-off manner, saying, "Come on, it's your turn!"
——
They walked out of the school gate side by side.
The breakfast stalls at the school gate follow the students' schedule completely. A thin layer of steam lingers in front of each stall. Under the bright golden sunlight, it seems that even the steam has a crispy and sweet fragrance when bitten.
Pancakes, soy milk, wonton noodles... Even if he was full, Lin Chaoxi still felt hungry after walking past the stall.
"What do you want to eat?" In order to restrain the desire to buy a few more things, Lin Chaoxi swallowed his saliva and asked Pei Zhi.
"It will be all right."
Lin Chaoxi began to rummage through her wallet. She didn't seem to have much money with her, so she definitely couldn't afford to buy all of them.
"I don't have any money." Pei Zhi said again.
"Don't worry, Old Lin has money, you can eat whatever you want!" Afraid that Pei Zhi would think she was stealing by counting money, Lin Chaoxi said very loyally.
"I mean, since you're the one treating, you don't need to ask for my opinion, just choose."
As they were talking, they stopped in front of a stall selling rice balls.
Sweet: 1.5 yuan.
Salty: 1.5 yuan.
Fried dough sticks cost 50 cents.
The snow-white glutinous rice was rolled into a ball, wrapped in plastic paper by the stall owner, and handed to the little boy in front of the stall.
The little boy lifted the plastic wrap, took a big bite, and tasted delicious and sweet.
The rice balls were big and filling. Lin Chaoxi pulled Pei Zhi and asked, "Is rice ball okay? Do you like the salty taste of fried dough sticks and egg yolks or the sweet taste of sugar and sesame?"
After Lin Chaoxi asked, he thought Pei Zhi's answer would definitely be "either", so he turned around and said to the boss: "One salty and one sweet, please. For the salty one, add fried dough sticks, boss!"
After she finished speaking, she threw three yuan and fifty cents into the small jar on the stall.
"Okay." The boss responded, and quickly flattened the glutinous rice, added ingredients, and rolled it up, and soon finished making two.
Taking the rice balls, Lin Chaoxi casually handed one to Pei Zhi, but Pei Zhi glanced at the one in her hand.
Lin Zhaoxi said quickly: "I don't want to eat it, I'll take it for you!"
"good."
Pei Zhi didn't have the young master's habit of eating. He ate while walking like other students. But boys' appetites should not be underestimated. It was only a short distance from the stall to the school gate. When Lin Chaoxi turned around, he saw that only half of the rice ball was left in his hand.
The boy's slender fingers held the last bit of snow-white rice ball, which was dotted with transparent sugar and pure black sesame seeds.
"Are you used to eating rice balls stuffed with sugar?" Lin Chaoxi asked.
"Can."
“But will it be sweet?”
“A little bit.”
Pei Zhi answered.
Lin Chaoxi paused.
Seeing that Pei Zhi had finished the last bite of the rice ball, she handed over the one she had kept in her pocket to keep warm.
Pei Zhi glanced at her hand and said, "Eat it."
"Huh?"
"After eating the sweet ones, I can't eat the salty ones anymore, so you can eat it."
——
From the school gate to the classroom, Lin Chaoxi finished eating a rice ball.
After sitting back down, she thought about the first Chinese class, so she might as well take out the ancient poems and recite them again. For her, the Zhongming class was her second goal after the selection exam for the Mathematics Union, and it was a matter of dignity and could not be lost.
It was not until the bell rang that people started to arrive in groups of two or three.
She was reciting silently, concentrating very hard, when suddenly someone flicked her ear. She was startled, and classmate Zheng Matt showed his handsome face by the window, smiling at her.
"Baby Chaoxi has changed recently." Zheng Matt leaned against the window and said sadly, "Are you really going to leave us?"
"I can make it back after spending all my money... huh?"
Matt Zheng grinned, poked a little finger out from inside her school uniform, and pointed behind her in a thief-like manner.
Bao Xiaomeng was playing with the boy sitting next to her. As if she sensed something, the girl paused for a moment and then continued.
After doing this little trick, Matt Zheng walked into the classroom leisurely, as if he had not said anything.
Li Shu and Zheng Tianming walked into the classroom one after the other.
The bell rang and the classroom was finally almost full.
She glanced at the situation in the class, and finally her eyes fell on the seat next to Lin Zhaoxi, but she was a little surprised.
Lin Chaoxi was thinking about Bao Xiaomeng and subconsciously glanced around him.
Brother Sleepy didn't come today, she couldn't even see the back of his head. She even had reason to suspect that Brother Sleepy stayed up all night in the Milk Cat Internet Cafe yesterday, and completely forgot about the make-up class he had to attend today.
Li Shu cleared her throat and called out, "Class is starting."
Lin Chaoxi stood up following the monitor's "Stand up" command and bowed to the teacher.
On one side is Bao Xiaomeng, and on the other side is Brother Sleepy.
She couldn't describe this kind of relationship between classmates. They had been together for a long time, but they felt extremely distant emotionally.
It seemed like no one cared about anyone else and no one affected each other. This feeling was very appropriate. Just as Matt Zheng said, since she wanted to go to Zhongming's class, she would leave them.
but……
Lin Chaoxi couldn't explain clearly what kind of emotion he felt after this "but".
——
What surprised Lin Chaoxi was that after the Chinese class, Li Shu called her name alone and asked her to leave the classroom.
"Liu Zhu..."
As soon as Teacher Li opened his mouth, he mentioned the name of his deskmate, Brother Sleepy. Lin Chaoxi felt guilty and thought that their visit to the Internet cafe yesterday had been exposed.
"What, teacher?"
"Do you think that having Liu Zhu sitting next to you will affect your studies?"
Lin Chaoxi breathed a sigh of relief, but how should she answer this question?
"Student Liu Zhu is quite quiet." After thinking for a while, she could only say this.
"When you were asked to sit together, even if he was quiet, you wouldn't talk to each other, and his lectures wouldn't affect you."
Lin Chaoxi said nothing, but nodded.
"You were transferred from Zhongming's class before, and the teacher still hopes that you will return. And the teacher knows that you have been working hard recently. The teacher believes that your grades will definitely improve..."
"Um."
"What about Bao Xiaomeng?" Li Shu said again.
Lin Chaoxi's heart skipped a beat, as he felt that Teacher Li and Zheng Matt came as a team.
"I arranged for you to follow Bao Xiaomeng because I actually hope you can guide her and urge her to study. You know her family situation. With her current grades, she really can't even get into a vocational high school. What will she do in the future?"
Li Shu was worried, but when she got to this point she felt she shouldn't say any more and shook her head.
"I understand, Teacher Li." Lin Zhaoxi said.
"But only if you are influenced by him." Li Shu glanced at her, her eyes lit up again, revealing relief: "Your math teacher Zhang looked at your grades and said they are good. You really have a chance of qualifying. They are still grading the papers, and the list will be out this afternoon..."
——
A similar conversation was also taking place in the third grade teacher's office.
But the time was earlier than Li Shu expected, and there was no need to wait until the afternoon. The math teachers worked together and had already corrected all the test papers. What remained was the review and transcription work.
Several teachers from the mathematics department were passing around a test paper and marveling at it.
"Really perfect?"
“That’s absolutely right.”
"Didn't you say before that the last big question was different from the standard answer?"
"Yes, but after studying it for a long time, we found that we still have to give points. The idea and steps are all correct, we just used a different solution."
"Then there's really no reason to suspect he cheated." The female teacher joked, flipping through the test paper twice, and finally her eyes fell on the name column: "I haven't heard of this student before."
"Are you a recent transfer student?"
"Oh, it's 'that' transfer student!"
——
Outside Anning Experimental Middle School.
Several boys got off the bus. One of them, with a shaved head, pointed at the gold-painted name of the middle school in the distance and shouted, "That's the school!"
"Keep your voice down." Another person quickly covered his mouth.
"Why?"
"Since we are here to do good things, shouldn't we keep a low profile?"
"Lao Wang, what you said makes sense!" The bald boy, who looked the youngest, nodded very seriously.
"Tiger, did you ask them yesterday what class they were in?" The boy named Lao Wang had very long hair tied into a small bun at the back of his head, which formed a sharp contrast with his bald head.
"No, Juanjuan just told me that they have extra lessons today."
"So, Juanjuan wants us to go to school to find them today?"
"That seems to be the case, right?"
"They are so enthusiastic. I originally wanted to meet them outside the school and leave, but they insisted on meeting at our school." Lao Wang said with emotion.
At this time, the little bald man thought for a long time, and suddenly seemed to think of something: "Lao Wang, even if we say 'we are here to do good things', they probably won't be able to hear us. Why can't we say it?"
They were crossing the road at that time.
In mid-air, Lao Wang paused for a moment. He thought deeply for a while and finally said, "Does it make sense?"
"Can we shout then?"
"sure."
"Classmates, what are we here for?"
On the crosswalk, Lao Wang pointed to the sky and asked in a domineering tone.
"Helping others brings joy!" the remaining three boys answered in unison.
"How can I help?"
"have no idea!"
——
Lin Chaoxi didn't know that the four-member group that Huajuan and Lu Zhihao were so afraid of was already very close to them.
When the bell rang for the last class in the morning, the teacher had not yet finished assigning homework, but most of the students had already run away to find food.
When she looked up after finishing her homework, she saw Bao Xiaomeng and another girl walking past her desk shoulder to shoulder.
Bao Xiaomeng walked slowly and didn't look like she was in a hurry to eat.
Because of the poke from classmate Zheng Matt in the morning, Lin Chaoxi suddenly wondered if Bao Xiaomeng was waiting for her to come over?
She looked at Bao Xiaomeng's back and hesitated.
It was a little late, Bao Xiaomeng and another girl had already disappeared outside the classroom.
Lin Chaoxi held her coin purse in her hand and sighed.
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