Chapter 48. The characters Jing and Yu both originate from a poem...
After the National Day holiday, a small cabinet for storing girls' belongings was added at the back of the classroom of Class 2, Grade 12.
After lunch break, the class monitor stood in front of the podium and told the whole class about it.
The class monitor was a handsome boy. Yu Xiaocheng was afraid that he would be too shy to speak, and also afraid that some people would cause trouble, so she stood aside to support him.
"These items are placed at the back of the classroom. Please take them if you need them."
He paused and continued, "If a girl goes to get something and encounters a boy making sarcastic remarks, winking, or joking around with her, she should tell our sports committee member, and he will take responsibility for cleaning up the mess."
Jiang Deyu, who was called out by the class's student life committee member, stood up briskly from his seat, patted his chest vigorously, raised his thick eyebrows, and said, "Caring for girls starts with me."
Then he made a throat-slitting gesture with a menacing air, saying, "Some people should know better than me."
At this moment, Jiang Deyu was upright and dignified, completely unlike his carefree and irresponsible demeanor in front of Jiang Sui and Ji Jingyu.
He had a loud voice and was sitting close to Jiang Sui, so Jiang Sui was woken up.
She slowly sat up from her seat, clutching a blanket, with faint sleep marks still visible on her face.
Seeing this, Ji Jingyu turned off her phone and said, "She's awake."
"Um."
Perhaps because she had slept for too long, Jiang Sui's voice was a little hoarse.
"Have some water."
The hot water has just cooled down, so it's just right to drink.
Jiang Sui took two sips through the straw and felt her throat feel a little better.
Seeing the person standing on the podium, she turned to look at Ji Jingyu, her long, curled eyelashes fluttering. "Hey, what's Guan Fan doing up there?"
—
The class monitor, Guan Fan, was one of the few classmates that Jiang Sui could remember when school started.
I went to the cafeteria for lunch that day.
Jiang Sui asked Yu Xiaocheng, "I think I just heard the teacher call that boy 'provide meals,' did I hear that right?"
Yu Xiaocheng gave an affirmative answer, "Yes, you heard me right."
"You really mean meals are provided?" Jiang Sui's voice trailed off, sounding somewhat incredulous. "I thought I misheard."
"You can't laugh at him." Xia Fan explained to her in a serious tone, "His father's surname is Guan and his mother's surname is Fan, so his name is Guan Fan. What a romantic way to name someone! And don't you think his name sounds very auspicious?"
Especially in places like cafeterias, it gives people a strong feeling of fullness.
Xia Fan silently added in her mind.
Jiang Sui: "I definitely won't laugh at him. My name is the same as his, and it's also part of my parents' names."
After a moment's thought, Jiang Dacong deduced Jiang Sui's mother's surname. "Your mother's surname is Sui?"
He looked completely naive, saying, "I looked it up, and there really is a surname Sui, and it's a rare one at that."
Jiang Sui took a deep breath and personally refuted the rumor, "My mother's surname is not Sui."
"Then why do you say your name is the same as Guan Fan's?"
You get a year older with each passing year.
Her name "Sui" is taken from her mother's name.
Unfortunately, Jiang Sui couldn't explain any of this to Jiang Deyu.
She listlessly shoveled rice into her mouth with her spoon, but when she looked up, she was caught off guard by a pair of deep, dark eyes, and a strange emotion was churning in their depths.
Jiang Sui couldn't understand the emotions in Ji Jingyu's eyes.
But she was certain that Ji Jingyu, who knew all her secrets, did not pity her.
Jiang Deyu's thirst for knowledge always seemed to be particularly strong at such unimportant times, as if he were determined to get to the bottom of things.
Ji Jingyu glanced at him coldly and said in a low voice, "Perhaps it's because her mother's name contains the character '岁' (sui, meaning age)."
Jiang Deyu scratched his head. "Oh right, I was being narrow-minded."
Yu Xiaocheng first covered her mouth and chuckled for a while, then commented, "Stupid."
Jiang Deyu: "..."
As they chatted, the topic turned to the origins of everyone's names.
Xia Fan: "I remember I was born at night. My dad said the starry sky that night was so beautiful, it was practically a sky full of stars."
Jiang Deyu: "Then you should be called Xia Fanxing, or at the very least Xia Xing."
“Don’t interrupt me, I haven’t finished yet. My dad thinks two characters are easier to pronounce than three, but Xia Xing sounds like ‘waking up in fright,’ which he thinks is unlucky, so I was named Xia Fan.”
"It's a pity that the thoughtful Uncle Xia didn't anticipate that someone would cry all day at kindergarten because they couldn't write their own name."
They grew up together and knew all about each other's embarrassing moments.
Yu Xiaocheng smiled teasingly, "You really cried all day?"
"How could it be fake?" Jiang Deyu still laughs so hard when he recalls it, which earns him angry glares from a group of people.
Jiang Sui put herself in the shoes of four- or five-year-old Xia Fan and immediately felt the same way. These two words are indeed quite difficult to write.
I'm grateful to my parents for giving me a name that's relatively easy to write.
"I think someone is selectively amnesiac; I wasn't the only one crying at the time."
Xia Fan sneered and retorted without backing down, "Let me tell you, Jiang Deyu cried so miserably back then. He cried at kindergarten during the day, and when he got home, Uncle Jiang would spank him. I could hear his screams from the building next door."
Why did you hit him?
Xia Fan suppressed a laugh and explained, "Because Uncle Jiang wanted him to win at the starting line, he personally taught him to write his name after he got home. But Jiang Deyu is just too stupid, no matter how he was taught, he couldn't learn it..."
"His name is indeed quite difficult to write, so it's understandable that he can't learn it."
Yu Xiaocheng spoke a fair word.
“That’s not the point,” Xia Fan couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Uncle Jiang beat him up because he said he didn’t want the surname ‘Jiang’ anymore and wanted to change it to ‘Wang’, which made Uncle Jiang furious.”
"Hahaha……"
"Aren't you just asking for a beating? You might as well say you want to take Aunt Sun's surname; Uncle Jiang would definitely agree."
"As a confused adult, I simply thought my deskmate Wang Yiyi's name was easy to write."
Jiang Deyu, whose secret had been exposed, snorted defiantly, "If it weren't for Brother Gu Ci holding your hand and teaching you for a whole day, I would definitely have learned to write my own name before you."
They grew up together, but Gu Ci always favored Xia Fan.
Jiang Sui laughed, "Fanfan has her own cheat codes, it's normal that you can't compare to her."
"She only beat me because of Gu Ci, I don't respect her. The person I truly admire is Ji Ge, his name is really hard to write, but he could write his own name before he even started kindergarten."
Ji Jingyu is different from them.
Before he started school, Grandma Ji had already taught him to recognize and write many characters, including his own name.
He's also very smart; he learns quickly.
“Hey, Brother Ji’s name also contains two surnames,” Jiang Deyu’s words piqued Yu Xiaocheng’s curiosity. She asked, “Brother Ji, are your parents’ surnames Ji and Yu respectively?”
"no."
Ji Jingyu sat next to Jiang Deyu, eating his meal expressionlessly. When he heard Yu Xiaocheng ask this question, a hint of ruthlessness flashed in his dark pupils, but it was quickly concealed.
Jiang Sui blinked a few times quickly.
Ji Jingyu still had the same expression, only she looked even colder than before.
He said, "The characters 'Jing' and 'Yu' both come from the same poem."
He stopped there and didn't say anything more.
"Did Grandma Ji choose it?"
It wasn't prejudice, but Jiang Sui just felt that Ji He couldn't come up with such a nice-sounding name.
"Um."
Jiang Sui rested her chin on her hand and said, "Grandma Ji is really amazing."
Jiang Deyu was proud, "Of course! Our Grandma Ji is a cultured woman!"
After saying that, he glanced at Ji Jingyu discreetly, and said seriously, "Everyone, stop chatting. No talking while eating or sleeping. If you don't eat soon, the food will get cold."
—
"Guan Fan, you're so thoughtful! You even knew to prepare hand warmers and brown sugar ginger tea."
As soon as Guan Fan finished speaking, some girls immediately went to look at the items displayed in the cabinet.
After entering their senior year of high school, the pace of study becomes faster and faster, making it easy to lose track of time. This little cabinet has indeed saved them a lot of trouble.
Seeing that Guan Fan, a boy, could think so thoroughly, the girls looked at him with admiration.
Guan Fan coughed lightly, somewhat embarrassed, and declined to claim credit.
“This wasn’t my idea; it was a suggestion from a kind person, and that’s when I went to find Brother Hao and told him about it.”
Jiang Sui already understood what Guan Fan was saying. She looked at Ji Jingyu and asked knowingly, "Was that helpful person you?"
But Ji Jingyu denied it, saying, "No."
"Um?"
"It's the supermarket lady and Teacher Sun."
The inspiration came from a supermarket auntie.
The small cabinet and items were purchased with money paid by Teacher Sun.
Therefore, they are truly kind-hearted people.
—
After the longest (not very long) vacation of the semester ended, time seemed to have been sped up.
Monthly exams, basketball games, and sports meets.
He looked at the excited faces of the students below, who were selectively ignoring the important matter of the monthly exam and focusing only on discussing the basketball game and the sports meet, and sighed helplessly.
It seems that time is not pressing enough for them.
"With only a few days left, please prepare well for the monthly exam. Don't blame me for being discouraging, but if you don't do well on the monthly exam, I'm sure you won't be in the mood to participate in the activities."
Sun Hao glanced down at the students and, seeing that their expressions had calmed down, said earnestly, "Most of the activities for senior high school students are concentrated in this semester. Every time you participate, there will be one less. But you still need to distinguish between what's important and what's not. Don't do things that are trivial and lose sight of the big picture, leaving regrets."
After class, Jiang Deyu, as usual, went to chat with Jiang Sui and the others in that corner.
"At this time of year, we should express our sincere gratitude to the senior students from previous years."
“Yes.” Yu Xiaocheng, who usually loved to tease Jiang Deyu, agreed wholeheartedly.
Only the transfer student, Jiang Sui, was completely bewildered. "What does that mean?"
"Tell me, what grade are we in now?"
Jiang Sui was unhappy to answer such an idiotic question. "Are you kidding me?"
Xia Fan coaxed her, "Sui Sui, don't pay attention to him, I'll tell you."
Xunning is a small place, so there are only two key high schools.
Xunning No.1 Middle School had its campus renovated with donations from alumni in earlier years, so its infrastructure is better than that of Xunning No.2 Middle School.
The No. 2 Middle School has a slightly stronger teaching staff than the No. 1 Middle School.
The No. 1 Middle School thinks the No. 2 Middle School is poor, while the No. 2 Middle School laughs at the No. 1 Middle School for not achieving good results.
Therefore, over the years, the two high schools have secretly disliked each other and have been secretly competing with each other.
“Our school used to have an elite class, and we weren’t even qualified to be classmates with a genius like Brother Ji. Later, the Education Bureau cracked down on this practice of dividing students into different classes, and the elite class was abolished.”
Jiang Sui thought to herself, "That was close! I almost couldn't be Ji Jingyu's deskmate."
"Since then, in order to maintain our only advantage, our school has been even stricter with the senior year. Entering the senior year is like entering a monastery, basically cutting us off from all activities. Eventually, one graduating class couldn't take it anymore and protested. They felt that a balance between work and rest was necessary for better learning, and only then did the school allow the seniors to participate in activities again."
Jiang Deyu knows many senior students, and he added, "Several classes protested together at the time, and the scene was quite sensational."
"At times like this, we need everyone to work together, otherwise the school will definitely suppress us."
—
With monthly exams first and sports meets later, it's definitely a good balance between work and rest.
There is no moon tonight; the night sky is shrouded in a hazy blackness.
The study was so quiet that the only sound could be the pen tip touching the paper.
Jiang Sui was doing her test paper, while Ji Jingyu was reading a book beside her. The light was like a soft filter, making their profiles look inexplicably soft.
During this period, she would go home with Ji Jingyu after school, study and do exercises at his place, and only go home after Su Yinian returned from school.
Although Su Yinian felt very embarrassed, she had no better way to deal with it. She was too busy to take care of Jiang Sui, so she could only buy some fruit every now and then and have Jiang Sui take it to the Ji family.
Grandma Ji would never accept anything more expensive.
The vast majority of those fruits were cut into beautiful and delicate fruit platters by Grandma Ji and ended up in Jiang Sui and the others' stomachs.
Not to mention the variety of late-night snacks, which are all Jiang Sui's favorites.
I remember one time, she had a sore throat and coughed a few times. When Grandma Ji heard this, she made her some rock sugar pear soup the next day.
Jiang Sui has never met her grandmother since birth.
Grandma Keji fulfilled all her fantasies about female elders.
Jiang Sui really likes her.
Ji Jingyu had already accumulated a thick stack of "gift vouchers," but he hadn't used a single one, nor had he made any requests to Jiang Sui.
They truly are a grandfather and grandson.
They are all so kind and good.
The window was half open, and the night breeze, carrying the faint fragrance of grass and trees, gently stirred the curtains, creating ripples in the quiet study.
As if fog had risen, the streetlights around the neighborhood seemed to be covered with layers of ethereal gauze, casting a dim and hazy glow on the ground.
"Finally finished writing!"
Jiang Sui took a deep breath, threw the pen aside without hesitation, and lightly shook her hands a few times.
Holding a pen for a long time can cause a feeling of discomfort, like finger spasms.
Jiang Sui knew the reason for her discomfort.
Ultimately, she was just exhausted; she never needed to write so many words before.
Ji Jingyu's arm swept past Jiang Sui's eyes and took her workbook.
Jiang Sui subconsciously rubbed her nose.
The crisp scent of mint seemed to still linger around her nose.
Next, it's Teacher Ji's turn.
Jiang Sui lay on the desk, tilting her head to watch Ji Jingyu correct her homework.
Ji Jingyu always maintained a calm and collected demeanor, making it impossible for Jiang Sui to judge from his facial expressions how many questions she had answered incorrectly.
Her gaze slowly moved down and landed on the other person's hand.
Ji Jingyu had a pair of extremely beautiful hands.
The pale, youthful veins on the back of his hand, holding the red pen, were both abstinent and sexy.
Jiang Sui was so engrossed in watching that she only looked away somewhat embarrassedly when she met Ji Jingyu's slightly puzzled gaze.
After a while, she said, "If I were studying like this before, Principal Li Gao would have been able to confidently ask my dad for sponsorship."
“So,” Jiang Sui looked at Ji Jingyu seriously, her eyes slightly raised, “Brother Ji, is there really nothing you want? I can help you achieve it.”
Ji Jingyu didn't say anything, but just slightly raised the corner of her mouth.
—
This month's exam will naturally not be arranged according to the first letter of surnames.
The seating arrangement was based entirely on the results of the initial placement test at the beginning of the semester.
However, there are exceptions.
For students like transfer student Jiang Sui, repeat student Yi Shan, and Lu Shuhe who just returned to school this semester, their scores on the first mock exam will not be used as the basis for this exam room assignment.
These people were all assigned to the last examination room.
"I never expected we'd be in the same exam room. It's such a shame that Brother Ji left us so cruelly." Jiang Deyu ran over to share the good news with Jiang Sui as soon as he saw the exam room arrangement.
“I’ll definitely leave you again for the next exam.” Jiang Sui patted Jiang Deyu’s arm. “Then you’ll have to be the only one holding the fort in the last exam room.”
Jiang Deyu: "..."
Why say something so discouraging on such a wonderful day?
Moreover, Jiang Sui played a part in his being assigned to the last exam room.
He will never judge people by their appearance again.
Author's note: Thank you, my darlings, for the nutrient solution!
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