Chapter 10 Essay Competition: Do You Still Consider Me a Friend...?
The theme of this competition is hometown.
After Yu Kui finished writing the essay, she made some simple revisions.
The next day at noon, she went to her Chinese teacher's office to transcribe the content into a document format. Her Chinese teacher hadn't arrived yet, so she worked on the computer herself first.
Not long after they finished copying, the office door suddenly opened, and more than a dozen students rushed in, standing in rows on both sides of the wall. Each of them was holding a Chinese textbook and muttering ancient poems under their breath. Obviously, they hadn't memorized the required texts and had been caught by the Chinese teacher and brought to the office.
The Chinese teacher's seat was in the corner. Behind Yu Kui stood several tall boys, looking nonchalant and their gazes were casually falling on her.
Yu Kui glanced at them sideways, but ignored them and continued typing on the keyboard.
One of the boys reached out and touched the back of the chair Yu Kui was sitting on. "Excuse me? Which class are you in?"
“From Class 3, Grade 11,” Yu Kui rarely interacted with classmates like this, but still answered his question politely, “Is there something you need?”
"Nothing much," the boy said with a slight smile, "I just haven't seen any good students before, and I wanted to talk to you."
Yu Kui: "..."
"Are you in the humanities class?" A few boys, seemingly oblivious to her resistance, asked with smiles, "What's your name?"
Yu Kui pursed her lips and didn't answer. She continued typing, wanting to finish the document as soon as possible and leave this somewhat crowded space.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" The boy rested his arm on the back of the chair, looked down at her essay, and read it aloud, "In the city where I live, there is a clear stream, as clear as a jade belt..."
"What are you doing?" Yu Kui reached out to cover her mouth, looking at him with some annoyance. "Can you stay away from me?" She hated people who had no sense of propriety.
Perhaps the disgust in her eyes was too intense, because the boy released his hand from the back of the chair and apologized insincerely, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize what I came here for."
After saying that, he pretended to look at his Chinese textbook, not paying any attention to his studies.
Yu Kui took a deep breath and continued copying her essay, unaware that several boys were exchanging glances and whispering behind her, urging the boy who had been talking to her to go up and chat her up.
The boy leaned against the wall, his Chinese textbook blank, and he couldn't even recognize all the characters in the classical Chinese text. But he wasn't worried at all about the teacher's quizzes; even if he couldn't recite them, she couldn't do anything about it.
Yu Kui saved the document. It was almost time for afternoon classes. Several teachers walked in from outside. They were not surprised to see the students crowded in the office. Instead, they said, "Teacher Li has made the students come here to recite again."
The middle-aged female teacher sitting by the window said irritably, "They can't even memorize the required content for the exam. I don't know what they've been doing all this time." Her words were full of disappointment and frustration.
But the students who come to the office to recite are hardly the ones who are truly studying. No matter how harsh her words are, they just let it go in one ear and out the other.
Some people were even amused by her tone, saying, "If you can't memorize it, you can't memorize it. We won't blame the teacher."
The one who spoke was the boy who had flirted with Yu Kui. His nonchalant attitude directly provoked Teacher Li, "Xie Xingzhi, do you want me to call your parents?!"
"Teacher, please calm down," the boy said immediately. "Why are you calling your parents over such a small matter? I'll take the blame, okay?"
Teacher Li sighed deeply, her voice filled with anxiety, "Do you think I want you to come to my office? If you weren't so disappointing, why would I, as your teacher, have to do this?"
Her eyes were filled with disappointment, but she still didn't want to give up on the students present. "You study for yourselves, not for your teachers and parents. When you actually enter society, you will know how fortunate it is to be able to study in school."
After she finished speaking, she seemed to realize that she had said too much, so she started to quiz each student one by one. The other teachers were filled with emotion when they saw this. What teacher doesn't want to see their students have a bright future?
After shutting down her computer, Yu Kui walked past a group of students, her slender figure moving swiftly like a gust of wind as she left the office.
"I wonder which class he's in," one of the boys muttered. "He's so arrogant."
"Who cares which class she's in?" Xie Xingzhi said dismissively. "She's a good student, unlike us."
"What good students?" the boy chuckled. "Even if you manage to win them over, they'll still turn into scoundrels." Their academic performance was already at its worst, making it virtually impossible for them to get into university through the college entrance examination. As a result, they often misbehaved at school, either skipping classes or having early romantic relationships, and had become a major headache for the teachers.
Perhaps they think their carefree lives are cool, they always like to seek a sense of presence at school and promote their unconventionality.
Yu Kui doesn't like people like that, but she won't have any opinions about their behavior. Everyone has the right to choose their lifestyle, and it's best not to bother each other.
After class in the afternoon, the Chinese teacher asked her why she couldn't find her document on her desktop.
Yu Kui was stunned for a moment, thinking that she had forgotten to change the file name. She immediately went to the office with her to look for it, but they couldn't find it no matter how hard they searched. The Chinese teacher opened the recycle bin and saw the deleted document. She wondered, "Did you accidentally delete it? Luckily, it wasn't cleaned up."
Yu Kui clearly remembered that she had not deleted any files, so why were the documents in the recycle bin?
Yu Kui wondered if it was those carefree boys who did it.
Just thinking about them laughing and joking behind her fills her with an indescribable sense of resistance; it's a prejudice she can't shake off.
"I must have pressed the wrong button," Yu Kui said softly, without mentioning those people. "I'm sorry, teacher."
"It's alright," the Chinese teacher said with a smile after checking the document and finding no problems. "Go back to class now."
Yu Kui's mood was unsettled all afternoon. She couldn't imagine how she would retrieve the document if the person who deleted it cleared the recycle bin. She would probably have to rewrite it all over again. Her feelings were extremely complicated.
After school, Qin You waited for Yu Kui at the classroom door, but her gaze remained fixed on Tao Jiang. The two exchanged glances where Yu Kui wasn't looking, their ambiguous feelings almost overflowing. When Yu Kui finished packing her schoolbag and looked up, Tao Jiang looked away and walked to her side. "Yu Kui, I'm treating you to milk tea today. What flavor do you want? Let Qin You go buy it."
She bossed Qin You around in a natural tone, with a hint of provocation in her eyes, but Yu Kui didn't notice. She was thinking about the English grammar she had learned in class and subconsciously said, "Coconut milk tea, please."
“Then I’ll have the taro boba milk tea,” Tao Jiang said, looking at the tall, handsome boy. “You go ahead and queue up. Yu Kui and I will come over later.”
"Okay." Qin You glanced at Yu Kui, but the girl seemed preoccupied and didn't notice his gaze.
On the way home, Qin You asked Yu Kui about participating in the essay competition. Seeing his concern, Yu Kui was a little happy and said with a smile, "My Chinese teacher asked me to participate. I had been thinking about the content for a long time and wrote it last night."
However, Qin You wasn't concerned about her writing the essay. He frowned and asked, "Only you can participate? Can't anyone else sign up?" Last night, Tao Jiang complained to him that the Chinese teacher was biased, only allowing Yu Kui to participate in the essay competition, while the other students weren't even asked...
After hearing what she said, Qin You felt very uncomfortable. She couldn't deprive Yu Kui of the opportunity to participate in the competition just because Yu Kui's grades were better than Tao Jiang's.
“Sure,” Yu Kui said, not understanding why he said that. “Anyone can sign up. I was specifically chosen by the teacher because I’ve won a lot of awards before. Other students who want to participate can just sign up with her. There should be some people in your class participating in the competition, didn’t you know?”
Qin You was taken aback. "Is that so?" His Chinese language skills weren't his strong suit, and he didn't pay much attention to these things.
“Hmm,” Yu Kui said, “If you want to participate in the competition, you can tell the teacher now. There should still be time.” Her expression was calm, which made Qin You feel a little embarrassed. He slowly looked away, perhaps Tao Jiang hadn’t figured out the registration process.
A silence fell between them. In the past, Yu Kui would have racked her brains to think of topics to ease the awkwardness, but after everything that had happened, she suddenly didn't have the energy to consider what he was thinking. She had to do her homework when she got back, and after that, she had to work on her math problems and practice her English listening and grammar, keeping her busy until the early hours of the morning.
Her time was completely occupied by studying, and she hadn't had a proper conversation with Qin You in a long time.
"Can someone with average grades also apply?"
“Sure,” Yu Kui turned to look at his face. “Participating in the competition depends on the individual’s wishes. If you are confident in yourself, you can talk to the teacher in person. You don’t need to ask me.”
Her tone was calm, but it sounded somewhat grating to Qin You, who blurted out, "Of course you can say that since you participated in the competition, but those students with lower grades also have their own concerns. You can't judge others by your own standards!"
His eyes were full of accusations against Yu Kui, as if she had said something extremely offensive.
Yu Kui paused, confused as to why he was suddenly taking his anger out on her. It was he and that classmate who hadn't understood the registration rules, yet he was blaming her...
"How did you become like this?" Yu Kui looked at those incredibly anxious eyes and found it hard to connect him with the reassuring image in her memory.
"How could you say that?" Yu Kui asked, feeling incredibly disappointed yet powerless. "I didn't belittle any other classmates, and I didn't mean any harm. Why did you misunderstand me?"
Qin You froze. "That's not what I meant."
"Then what do you mean?" Yu Kui didn't want to look at his face anymore. "Others may not know what kind of person I am, but you grew up with me, you know it perfectly well, yet you still deliberately said these things. Do you still consider me a friend?"
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