High school life
September marked the official start of the school year. The weather in H City remained hot, and Chen Xiaojing and Zhou Chenjin began their high school life.
High school is completely different from junior high school. The difficulty of each subject increases, and nine subjects are taken at the same time. Most people are already so busy with homework that they can't get out of it. During the first break in the morning, they all lie on their desks to catch up on sleep.
Of course, Zhou Chenjin and Chen Xiaojing were no exception.
The two girls, pampered by their parents since childhood, had never had any sleep problems. However, in high school, their sleep quality deteriorated, and even coffee and drinks couldn't keep them awake. After being woken up for the third time by their deskmate nudging their arms, they secretly glanced at Ah Qiu, who was engrossed in lecturing at the podium, and exchanged a knowing look.
Are you still sleeping?
"No, I can't fall asleep anymore."
The two of them opened their English books with remarkable tacit understanding, took out pens from their pencil cases, and began to diligently take notes. The slightly yellowish pages were made even less visible under the warm yellow light. Zhou Chenjin's English foundation was much better than that of the others in the class; she had achieved a near-perfect score on the high school entrance exam. She had already mastered the vocabulary by heart. Although she was no longer sleeping, she still couldn't concentrate on A-Qiu's lessons.
She could have memorized these words by the second year of junior high; was it really necessary to explain them for so long?
The previous period was math class, and her desk was still covered in scratch paper, with several half-finished drafts scattered in various corners. Zhou Chenjin pulled one out from under her English book and, while everyone else was taking notes, started drawing something on it.
Wu Yuxing, who sat next to him, glanced at the drawing. It was of A Qiu, who was lecturing on the podium. The drawing was not very good, but the features were quite distinctive, and anyone who knew him even slightly could guess it.
"Wow, hehehe." Wu Yuxing also pulled out a sticky note and wrote a little note, "You drew it so realistically."
"Thanks, just some random drawing."
"Do you have someone you like? I suddenly felt a couple of days ago that I wasn't sure if I had fallen for someone. Could you help me decide?"
"I have someone I like, his name is Fu Huanian. I'll tell you a secret, when you like someone, you want to see him, you want to hug him, and you want to work super hard to be with him."
Ah Qiu on the podium was probably touched by a certain word and started to speak from the heart. He was talking about a lot of his experiences in his youth and inspirational quotes that he had read from somewhere. He was completely unaware of the little things happening around him. Zhou Chenjin and her deskmate, whom she had just met, started chatting on sticky notes.
"His name sounds nice, and it matches your name well."
"That's right. My mom usually calls me by my nickname, Se Se. It's said that when she was choosing my name, she was thinking of the word 'Jin Se', but she couldn't come up with a good combination, so she named me Zhou Chen Jin."
"Oh, does he like you too?"
"That's right, he's so good to me. Ever since he found out I'm cold-sensitive and afraid of the dark, he makes me hot tea every winter and even waits for me at the school gate to give me a cup. He's so thoughtful."
A small sticky note was filled with Zhou Chenjin's arguments about how good Fu Huanian was to her. In the end, Wu Yuxing could only pitifully squeeze into a small corner and utter a single "Mmm."
A 40-minute class in high school always flies by. As soon as A-Qiu packed his bag and left the classroom, Class 3 immediately cheered. Chen Xiaojing squeezed between Zhou Chenjin and Wu Yuxing with a novel she had just written four or five chapters of: "Sisters, wanna read a novel? It's a fantasy novel with a strong female protagonist. Absolutely great, want to check it out?" She even raised her eyebrows in a cool manner.
Zhou Chenjin put down the competition problem she was working on and complained, "You sound like a pyramid scheme swindler, you can spout all sorts of nonsense." Despite her disdain, she still honestly took the novel from Chen Xiaojing's hand, "I'll keep it for myself to read slowly, hehehe, I should really appreciate the writing of a great author."
"There are no great writers here, I just write whatever comes to mind."
"Oh, don't forget your best friend when you become famous!"
The classroom was noisy. Zhou Chenjin stuffed her novel into her drawer, pulled Chen Xiaojing out of the teaching building, and whispered to her while covering her mouth, "I found a lot of oranges near the school gate recently. I wonder if they're sweet. Come with me to pick some to eat." There were still seven or eight minutes before the next class started, enough time for them to make the trip.
Zhou Chenjin and Chen Xiaojing ran through the corridor, bathed in the beams of light generated by the Tyndall effect. Just across the corridor in the center of the small square, several bright yellow oranges were hidden among the green leaves, quite conspicuous. "Ah Jin, is this reliable? It's only early September, these oranges won't still be sour, will they?" Chen Xiaojing bent over, avoiding the security guard's scrutinizing gaze, and squatted down with Zhou Chenjin among the green leaves to peel the oranges.
"It should be alright, let's try it and see, maybe it's sweet." Zhou Chenjin grabbed the branch with one hand and pinched the orange with the other, easily breaking it off. "Do it like I do, it's super convenient."
Chen Xiaojing frowned, but still obediently did as she was told, and also broke off an orange and rushed back to the classroom.
"Ah Jin, this orange is so hard, are you sure this is an edible orange?" Chen Xiaojing felt something was wrong as she picked at the peel. "No, I'd better not eat it, or I'll get diarrhea."
Zhou Chenjin, who was standing next to him, finally managed to pry open the package and stuff half of it into her mouth, her expression unchanged: "It's delicious, you should try it."
Chen Xiaojing was half-believing and half-doubting, but she snatched a segment of orange from her hand and popped it into her mouth: "Ptooey, it's bitter and astringent, Ajin, you lied to me!"
"I didn't say it was sweet, hehe. And you shouldn't waste that orange. Don't you love drawing faces on orange peels? This one is perfect for you." As the bell rang for Chinese class, Zhou Chenjin threw the remaining orange into the trash bag Chen Xiaojing had placed on the table and returned to her seat.
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