The second soul swap
When Lu Er arrived home, it hadn't started raining yet. Cui Feng and Lu Guoyang's doors were tightly closed; at this hour, the two should have been taking a nap.
She cleaned up the leftover food on the table, washed the clothes, and went back to her room.
The weather was hot and dry, and it was easy to wake up with oily hair. Lu Er decided to go to the toilet and wash her hair.
As she washed, she heard raindrops tapping on the window. Distracted for some reason, she noticed some foam getting on her eyelids and couldn't help but close her eyes.
In just two seconds, she opened her eyes, and the scenery around her changed abruptly. She stared intently at the head of the person in front of her, which was drooping so low it was almost touching the table, and took a deep breath.
And then, he became him again.
The afternoon was math class. The tutor was a stern-looking old man, around fifty years old, whose speech was always unclear, as if he had phlegm stuck in his throat. As Ruan Xiyan listened, her voice seemed to fade further and further away.
Rainy days are perfect for taking a nap. He glanced at the gloomy sky and thought to himself.
Without further ado, Ruan Xiyan propped herself up on the table with her right arm and supported her face with her left hand, trying to doze off in a way that seemed like she could get away with it.
But nothing is as comfortable as being in bed. Ruan Xiyan frowned slightly, and the moment he opened his eyes, he saw patches of white and green patterned tiles.
Does the classroom floor look like this?
Ruan Xiyan scratched her face in surprise, but when she reached out, she found her palm full of white bubbles.
Ruan Xiyan: "..."
He finally realized, belatedly, that this wasn't a tutoring room, and he wasn't himself. Quickly rinsing his hands, Ruan Xiyan, her hair still damp with fresh foam, looked around.
Okay, he's become Lu Er again.
With no other option, Ruan Xiyan helped the person wash their half-done hair, then dried it with a towel as she left the restroom. Lu Er had no classes in the afternoon and went straight home.
Once you've had enough, you get used to it. Ruan Xiyan went into her room, sat on the bed, turned on her phone, and sent a WeChat message to inquire about the situation.
On the other side, Lu Er, after realizing what was happening, sat up straight, unlike the people around her. She looked down at the math notes spread out in front of her and rubbed her temples in annoyance.
"After all that, do you know the common types of trigonometric function questions? Look at this question, I not only want you to explain the solution process, but also to tell me what type of question it is."
The old man scanned the classroom a few times, and the students below the stage desperately avoided his gaze. He identified his target and said, "You, the boy sitting in the last row, come here."
Tao Yangnian, whose name was called upon, was momentarily unsure whether to wear a question mark or a blank expression. He forced himself to stand up and, without thinking, read the question aloud: "...wide, wide dead brackets, alpha plus six-part division..."
A chorus of laughter erupted from the surrounding area.
"That guy's reading cos, oh crap, you want to study cosplay?"
Hahaha. The laughter in the classroom increased.
Tao Yangnian shrank back, looking aggrieved: "...Teacher, I don't know how."
“Then come here, you two boys in front of me. You two should be pretty close, right? I saw you two talking non-stop before class started. Is your name… Ruan Xiyan?” The old man slammed the roster shut. “Brothers, come on, give him a hand.”
Tao Yangnian recalled Ruan Xiyan's middle school entrance exam scores, and then his heart sank. "Why do you think we can get along so well?"
Lu Er stood up, her eyes fixed on the question, and calmly stated the answer: "Use the reduction formula to replace sin with cos, and then transform it into the double-angle formula of cos. The answer should be one-third."
"This question mainly tests the double-angle formula."
The old man's eyes showed a hint of approval: "Yes, this problem can't be solved without using double angles. You sit down first, and the students behind you, please sit down too."
"This question isn't difficult. You just need to know how to use the reduction formula and double angles."
The old man turned around. Class ended forty-five minutes later, and it was break time.
Tao Yangnian tapped Lu Er's shoulder with a hint of excitement: "Wow, when did you change so much behind my back? What is the induction formula?" He whispered in Lu Er's ear, "I thought we were going to be the target of everyone's criticism just now. That's what we did most in junior high."
"..." Lu Er had no time to deal with it. She immediately took out her phone, as there was another urgent matter waiting for her to solve.
Sure enough, Lu Er received a message from Ruan Xiyan first. Lu Er tried to sort out her tangled thoughts and explained to him what she needed to do later.
[11]: Aren't you supposed to have tutoring? It starts at 2:30, right?
【Slow Momo】: Okay, see you on the bus later, thanks for your help.
【11】: It's okay.
He sent a meme of a kitten patting its head. Lu Er didn't reply to the rest.
—
The doorbell rang, and little Jiang Yanyan, who was watching cartoons, jumped off the sofa and stood on tiptoe to look through the peephole. Seeing the familiar figure, he immediately opened the door: "Sister Lu." The person behind him swayed out, and Jiang Yanyan paused, then said, "Brother Xiyan."
"Haha, we meet again." Ruan Xiyan's smile was anything but natural. "...Is your mother still not home?"
"Yes, Mom went to get Grandma's medicine today."
Jiang Yanyan closed the door, watching the two figures standing close together, one after the other, and thought to herself, "They still say they're not a couple, why are they so clingy? They came over together since Mom wasn't home, they must be afraid they'll give themselves away."
Moreover, Jiang Yanyan recalled what the children in the neighborhood had told him: "Who has two tutors?" This idea was already deeply ingrained in little Jiang Yanyan's mind.
This round of tutoring was still conducted by Ruan Xiyan, who put on an act, while Lu Er secretly manipulated the entire process.
"This building has 50 floors and is 15 meters high. Xiao Jiang lives on the 9th floor. How many meters is his floor from the ground?"
Jiang Yanyan pondered, "Are all floors the same height? Could the first floor be 30 or 40 centimeters higher than the second floor?"
Ruan Xiyan: "...Let's assume that situation is negligible."
Jiang Yanyan was calculating when she suddenly exclaimed, "Sister Lu, why is my calculation different from the answer?"
"Think about it, if you start counting from the floor, doesn't his house not count as one floor?"
"Oh." Jiang Yanyan gripped the pen, and after a moment, said, "Sister Lu, it's still different."
"..." Lu Er said quietly, "Why don't you decide whether it's 50 floors or 15 floors?"
"...Haha, I misread it."
Even performances can get tiring. Ruan Xiyan was feeling exhausted and sighed when Jiang Yanyan, standing next to him, gave him a sharp remark on the forehead: "Sister Lu, you look very happy today."
Jiang Yanyan explained earnestly, "Sister Lu always has a stern face and looks unhappy. But today she smiled a lot... so she seems very happy."
"Does a wry smile count?" Ruan Xiyan thought bitterly, then, receiving a warning glance from Lu Er out of the corner of her eye, she quickly composed herself.
As it was ending, Jiang Yanyan saw the two off: "Sister Lu, Brother Xiyan, see you next time." At the last moment, he called out to Ruan Xiyan, and facing his questioning face, Jiang Yanyan whispered through the crack in the door, "Don't worry. My mother won't be here tomorrow either."
Ruan Xiyan: "...?"
While waiting for the elevator, Lu Er quietly leaned against the wall and casually asked, "What did you two talk about?"
"It's nothing. Just some...jokes."
The two stared at the rising numbers, speechless. It was Ruan Xiyan who broke the silence first: "Why did we turn back?"
"I don't know. Just because it happened once doesn't mean it won't happen again." To be honest, none of them expected it to happen a second time.
Ruan Xiyan was extremely frustrated: "Could there be some kind of time interval between the exchanges? Like exchanging every two or three days, or some other pattern?"
Lu Er's head started to ache again: "I don't know either. But we can try it and see."
Both of them felt helpless in this situation. After all, this inexplicable soul swap from beginning to end had disrupted Ruan Xiyan and Lu Er's normal lives.
—
After the rain, the ground was both dry and damp, and the wet puddles reflected the shadows of two boys side by side.
Given the situation, Lu Er instructed, "I only have an English class to attend. As long as you can get up at ten o'clock tomorrow, that's fine."
“You might have a harder time,” Ruan Xiyan said. “I also have Chinese and math classes, which start at eight in the morning.” Lu Er shook his head.
"It's so late, I remember I still need to cook, right?"
Lu Er: "Okay. No one's home right now, I'll go back and help with the cooking."
Ruan Xiyan sighed, "This is too much trouble. And that tutoring... when his family comes back, won't we be exposed?"
He wanted to ask if this tutoring was absolutely necessary, but after glancing at Lu Er's expression, he decided to change his words: "...Are you short of money?"
"Yes, we're in dire need of it." Surprisingly, Lu Er answered very quickly.
"..." Ruan Xiyan was silent for a moment. He thought for a moment and then tentatively asked, "Do you want me to tutor you? I'll pay you the same price. Actually... I'm quite in need of tutoring myself."
This isn't about money, Lu Er understood. Her eyes turned to the tips of her shoes, and she slowly said, "I earn more than just living expenses from tutoring; I also... owe a lot of money to others. Aunt Jiang helped me a lot when I was looking for tutors, and she gave me priority this time too. It wouldn't be good for them if I didn't give them a reason to quit."
She finished the sentence quickly, as if not giving Ruan Xiyan a chance to answer: "I'll consider it."
Ruan Xiyan fell silent. He couldn't interfere in other people's business. If Lu Er didn't want to, there was nothing he could do. She was also a victim of this mess.
In the evening, after experiencing a series of messy and troublesome things, including but not limited to being instructed to cook without knowing anything, picking up clothes that had fallen from the balcony and washing them again, and having to mop the floor because the window was left open and the rain had soaked it, Ruan Xiyan dragged her tired body back to her room.
He now felt like his body was a sponge that had been thoroughly used, and dirty water would fall out if you squeezed it. Ruan Xiyan was starting to admire her class monitor.
Where's my phone? He felt his pockets; he thought he'd left it in the living room. Ruan Xiyan turned to get it and saw a large notebook hanging behind the door.
Holding the book pages in a small clip, Ruan Xiyan's gaze froze slightly as he pushed open the door. He could clearly see the words on it.
June 12th
My second aunt gave me two hundred yuan for living expenses, which I credited to my meal card.
June 19th
My cat got sick, and the medicine cost twenty yuan. My second uncle bought some of his favorite fruit for fifteen yuan. The cat food came in an extra thirty-four yuan.
June 28th
The total cost for the books was one thousand yuan, and my second uncle gave me three hundred yuan.
June 29th
Teaching aids cost 58 yuan
...
The pale purple handwriting wasn't as neat as it usually was in her homework or notebooks; instead, it was quick and messy. Amidst the crumpled mess, Ruan Xiyan noticed a few strokes crossed out where the cat food was, along with a self-funded note.
Ruan Xiyan looked at it and suddenly felt as if he had been stung, so he lowered his gaze.
It seems that being his class monitor is indeed a very difficult job.
Ruan Xiyan had no right to interfere, nor did he have a penchant for spying on others' privacy. After going to the living room to get his phone and returning to his room, he didn't look at it again.
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