Chapter 22 Brother Who Controls Scores, Am I Really That Bad?
Before asking the question, Ye Yuying had considered many possibilities of being rejected and ignored, but this time she knew she really had to find someone to sign for her, since her teacher had already exposed her for forgery, even though she didn't know how her forgery was discovered.
She had tried to find the aunties who worked for the Cheng family, but perhaps because they had all received relevant training, they were all very cautious about signing documents and politely refused her without exception.
As for Jiang Xinxue... she didn't dare to even consider it.
Jiang Xinxue and Cheng Jianian are currently in the honeymoon phase of living together, so it's even more inconvenient to disturb them. Jiang Xinxue plays the role of a gentle, talented, and loving mother in front of Cheng Jianian, so he should hate her for being so terrible...
"signature?"
Cheng Mingdu stopped, his hand holding the water glass remaining motionless, his gaze falling on her outstretched hand.
She neatly folded away all the shameful red crosses and marks on the test paper, leaving only a neatly folded test paper in her hand, just big enough to reveal the signature area.
The corners of the paper were frayed from her gripping, as if it had traveled a long and arduous journey to get here.
"What is this?" He had already guessed as his gaze swept over everything, but he still asked in a deep voice.
"My...biology exam paper." Originally, I only intended to explain to this point, but thinking that a top student like Cheng Mingdu might not understand the need for a parent's signature, I added somewhat tactfully, "...I failed, so I need my parent's signature."
Ye Yuying tilted her head back, but avoided his gaze as she spoke, breathing slightly heavily, as if she had gone through a series of fruitless efforts before finally approaching him.
Cheng Mingdu's gaze remained silent, piercing the slightly chilly midnight air as it landed on the exam paper in her hand. It was as if he could read all her cautious struggles and pleas from her uneasy, trembling hands and the hesitant swallowing as she spoke.
His throat bobbed slightly, his voice blending seamlessly with the rustling of the treetops in the courtyard, carrying a hint of winter chill: "Where's Jiang Xinxue? Why aren't you looking for her?"
Ye Yuying's only direct relative in this house, even if she doesn't look for Jiang Xinxue, should be her nominal stepfather Cheng Jianian, so it seems impossible for her to approach him.
Ye Yuying nodded, swallowed hard, as if she had expected him to say this: "I wouldn't dare."
Cheng Mingdu asked, "What will she do? Will she hit you?"
His eyes seemed to hold a newfound understanding, and without hesitation, he blurted out Jiang Xinxue's true colors, since he believed Jiang Xinxue was capable of such a thing.
Otherwise, it's impossible for her thirteen-year-old daughter to feel such dread upon hearing her name.
However, Ye Yuying did not admit it. Instead, she said in a gloomy tone, "It may not be a beating, but it will be even more painful than a beating."
Her voice was hoarse, and she unconsciously bit the inside of her lip. Her awkward movements seemed to indicate that the anxiety brought by Jiang Xinxue had crept in like tiny insects up her smooth calves.
Her hands, holding the exam paper, shook with a hint of despair, as if she were about to give up on trying to get through to Cheng Mingdu.
She was prepared to risk forging the signature again if her request failed.
"Why did you come to me?" Cheng Mingdu asked indifferently, his tone as detached as ever. He tilted his head back and took a sip, the water sliding down his mouth and his Adam's apple bobbing slightly as it flowed down his throat.
Ye Yuying, who had been looking down, looked up when she heard this and happened to witness this simple moment of drinking water. Her eyelashes trembled, and she even wondered if the water in Cheng Mingdu's hand was clearer and sweeter than usual.
The night was deep and dark. The sky behind him was like a thick, dark blue velvet cloth, studded with sparse and cold stars. A bright, clear crescent moon hung over the eaves, its cold light falling down.
The laurel tree stood quietly under the night sky, its branches upright, its leaves slightly curled at the edges, tinged with a bright, deep green by the moonlight, their luster faint, casting dappled shadows on the ground.
Many years later, Ye Yuying often liked midnight and laurel trees. When she was learning to paint, she would occasionally pick up her brush and paint this ancient scene from her memory. Every scene was from the same perspective, but the person in front of her was not there.
Later she realized that Cheng Mingdu, whom she had deliberately ignored in the painting, represented her most primal and passionate love for this scene, but she dared not, so there were no figures in her painting.
Because once she draws, once she writes... she fears it will all be the same person, reflecting her fragile inner world.
Standing amidst the subtle fragrance of the lush greenery in the courtyard, Ye Yuying lowered her hand and clutched the exam paper tightly in her palm.
Faced with Cheng Mingdu's question, she remained silent for a moment, her voice light and airy, carrying a sense of calm deduction.
"Because... you don't care, and you don't say a word..."
After she spoke out, she even reflected on whether she had been too blunt and impolite.
Just as they were about to accept the rejection from the other side, they found that the atmosphere around them had relaxed a bit, as if the spell of immobilization had been broken, and everyone gradually relaxed.
Cheng Mingdu looked down at her, his eyes churning with emotion. He didn't ask any questions, but simply placed his water glass on the red lacquered armrest and took the test paper from her.
Ye Yuying looked up in a daze, hope igniting in her eyes. She quickly handed him a pen and watched as he slowly unfolded his neatly folded test paper in the bright moonlight...
Seeing this, her chest heaved violently, and without thinking much, she raised her hand to press down on the object.
"What, you want me to sign something? I need to know what kind of document I'm signing, right?" Cheng Mingdu raised his eyes, his gaze falling on her eyebrows and eyes, and asked calmly.
Ye Yuying's cheeks flushed slightly under his sudden gaze, unsure whether it was because of the poor score or... the stare.
She felt that Cheng Mingdu was likely maintaining the cautiousness typical of the Cheng family, since a signature bearing the full name could easily lead to many disputes.
She then let go, and seeing her unbearable score and the messy paper in front of Cheng Mingdu, her breath trembled.
The exam paper was spread out in the moonlight, the red ink particularly glaring.
The bottom-ranked score, the densely packed critical comments, and the scattered, scribbled answers were all laid bare before the night and Cheng Mingdu's eyes.
Ye Yuying instinctively wanted to take back the test paper, but her fingers twitched and she ultimately restrained herself.
She forced herself to stand up straight, like a little prisoner awaiting sentencing, her lips pursed stiffly and stubbornly, even her breathing becoming cautious.
Cheng Mingdu lowered his head, glanced at the exam paper, and made no sound.
His eyes held no mockery, no disappointment, no blame, and none of the superiority complex often found in adults; they simply swept calmly over each red cross.
Then, his gaze stopped in front of the signature column.
Ye Yuying's heart was pounding like a drum, and her palms were sweaty.
She almost thought that Cheng Mingdu would hesitate, would refuse, and would look up at that moment and tell her in that cold and distant tone: How come you don't even know such simple knowledge?
But there was nothing there.
He simply picked up his pen naturally and wrote his name in the signature column.
Each stroke of his pen is elegant and refined, just like him.
After finishing his writing, he tilted his head slightly, looked at the bright red "30" score on the test paper, and hummed in response. He didn't seem surprised, nor did he show any obvious emotional fluctuation.
After she signed, I folded the paper back to its original shape and handed it back to her.
A cool night breeze swept through the corridor. Ye Yuying took the exam paper and pen, immediately clutched them in her hand, and hid them behind her back.
She didn't know how she opened her mouth, only that she asked softly, "Brother, am I really that bad?"
Cheng Mingdu picked up his water glass again, and casually turned off the wall lamp in the corridor, letting the moonlight flow in completely, making his eyebrows and eyes appear clear and his features distinct. He looked like a straight bamboo stalk enveloped in the night.
His eyes showed indifference to these things, and he seemed to have no intention of talking to her much. However, in the instant he brushed past Ye Yuying, he left behind a meaningful remark.
"You're controlling your score... Even if you choose the true/false questions blindly, your chances of getting them right are only 50%, and you got them all wrong."
There's only one possibility: she knows the correct answer.
Ye Yuying stood frozen in place. She subconsciously turned her head and looked at the boy who had already walked past her. The moonlight stretched his shadow long and clear, falling on the blue bricks of the corridor, as straight and proud as he was, and his flick of his sleeve was like a breeze that drifted through the world.
If she wants to maintain her undisputed last place, she must come up with some strategies, because that's the only place Ge Jie doesn't dare to disturb during class.
She did control her score; she might be second to last or third to last? But she didn't want to change positions; she just wanted to stay in that "special position" peacefully until she left Chengdu.
Ye Yuying's fingers gripped the exam paper tightly, and her heart clenched sharply.
The pain was mixed with a sense of pleasure, like a trick she had been playing for a long time finally being seen through at a glance. She couldn't tell whether she was disappointed or excited.
She always wanted to test people's humanity, observing their true colors with a playful attitude.
This was the only strange pleasure in her gloomy, gray life, the only malicious game beneath her obedient and submissive image, with her as the only player.
That night, Ye Yuying couldn't sleep a wink.
She lay on the bed, clutching the signed exam paper, her eyes wide open, staring at the cracks in the ceiling under the dim lamplight. Her heart felt as if a taut string was tightening around her, causing both pain and numbness.
Late at night, she finally couldn't resist and pulled out the two old math books she had taken from the attic from her bedside drawer.
Turn to page 20, and you'll find Cheng Mingdu's old notes.
His handwriting was neat and clean, his annotations were concise and clear, and occasionally there was a few small, hasty notes, all of which were traces of his thinking when he was solving problems.
Ye Yuying stared at the words, her fingertips gently tracing the pages, her heart seemingly being quietly touched by each stroke.
She didn't know where she got the courage, but she actually started to slowly deduce the problem from the example.
In middle school math problems, she would sometimes skip steps to get a result, but each key step was worth points, so studying the standard solution process was more difficult for her.
The process was a complete mess. The pen tip glided across the paper, writing and scribbling, and the draft paper was crumpled into one ball after another.
She bit the pen cap, her brows furrowed, even somewhat annoyed, not understanding why these problems had to seek a standardized solution, but her pen didn't stop.
Finally, after trying again and again, when the clock struck three in the morning, she perfectly reconstructed the derivation process on the draft paper.
At that moment, she was stunned.
It was as if the whole world had quieted down, leaving only my own pounding heart.
With trembling hands, she placed the draft paper on Cheng Mingdu's signature, but then a thought struck her, and she felt a pang of disappointment, because there was no one to share this moment of joy and sense of accomplishment with...
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Author's Note: 50 red envelopes [Cat emoji]
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