Chapter 32
When the bell rang, the English teacher came over to them and said:
"Bai Di, don't copy homework next time. Try to do it yourself. And Bai Lu, my class representative was crying her eyes out. Instead of feeling ashamed, you went out of your way to argue with her. The teacher was just trying to make the class go smoothly. Learn from this and don't do it again."
Bai Nan nodded obediently, but Bai Lu kept his head down and remained silent.
The teacher shook his head and left.
They returned to their seats, and Chen Shu immediately surrounded them: "Hey, what happened? Why did the English teacher suddenly get angry? Did any of you upset her?"
Bai Nan glanced at Bai Lu, then said, "I didn't hand in my homework, and he said something to the class representative, who then told the English teacher."
"Just this little thing?" Chen Shu clearly didn't believe it. "Then he..." She pointed to Bai Lu, who was slumped over the table, "why is he so depressed?"
Bai Nan turned around and looked at him, saying, "It's nothing, it's not because of that."
Chen Shu nodded and was about to return to her seat when Bai Nan stopped her: "Do you have time? I want to ask you something."
"Sure, I have time. Where can we talk?"
"In the stairwell."
The two of them arrived at the window at the corner of the corridor, one after the other. This place was quite secluded and usually deserted.
"Shushu, after I left last night, did something happen in the class?" Bai Nan asked, puzzled. As soon as she entered the class today, she felt that everyone's attitude towards her was strange, and the atmosphere in the class was also odd.
Upon hearing this, Chen Shu casually replied, "It's just because of Xu Xin's visit. A few of his die-hard fans were saying bad things about you, and Bai Lu overheard them, so they argued for a while."
"What did they say about me?" Bai Nan asked sincerely. She genuinely didn't know why they were talking badly about her when she had just been taken to the hospital with a fever.
Seeing her serious expression, Chen Shu felt a little embarrassed: "Uh, well... I'm always trying to ride on my senior's popularity..."
"It's okay, just say it. I've heard all the worst things."
She looked at her in surprise, and after a few seconds took out her phone from her pocket and handed it to her: "I... can't say it, see for yourself."
Bai Nan looked up and scanned the surveillance footage, then deliberately found a blind spot before turning on the screen.
Chen Shu opened a group chat, which was mostly filled with students from Class 1, with a few names from Class 2 and Class 3.
Bai Nan has a bit of face blindness; she didn't recognize all the people in Class 1, let alone those in Class 2 and 3. She only knew them because they all had their class names added before their group nicknames.
"Is this the class group chat?" she asked softly.
Chen Shu touched her earlobe before nodding: "Yes, but there are no teachers inside, and some classmates... aren't here either."
Bai Nan understood; he was among these classmates.
She opened the chat history search, sorted by date, and located the chat from last night.
As soon as she opened it, a large number of chat messages refreshed on the screen. She quickly scanned the messages, stopping only after finding her own name.
[Circle and Round: Doesn't anyone think Bai Di is just average-looking? Especially when he's with Xu Xin, it's almost unbearable to look at. (Attached is a cat head emoji that makes your eyes gouged out)]
[Three Thousand Concubines in the Harem: Finally, someone feels this way! Same here! (with high five emoji)]
[Countdown: Solo fans, please shut up and keep quiet. (Attached is a row of speechless emojis)]
[Circle and Round: Oh~ CP fans dare to speak so casually now?]
[Harem of Three Thousand: Exactly! Do you even know how many times more fans the senior has than your CP fans? Ridiculous!]
[Promise You a Lifetime by Xinhe: Only someone with the surname Bai likes to freeload, otherwise why would the senior pay any attention to him? And you, @Shushu, just because you're first in the grade, you think you're all that? In front of us 'Xinhe fans,' you're only fit to carry their shoes~]
......
Bai Nan was speechless. The rest of the content consisted mostly of Chen Shu and the others arguing, with occasional peacemakers offering their advice.
She discovered that the group was mostly made up of girls, the majority of whom were die-hard fans of Xu Xin, and a small portion of whom were fans of CP (couple pairing) with Chen Shu.
Then a photo suddenly appeared in the group chat, and the solo fans immediately started attacking her directly, throwing out profanities and mocking emojis.
Bai Nan clicked on the large image and was instantly stunned.
The photo shows a long strip of paper with white background and black text. From left to right, it contains Bai Di's name, grade ranking, class ranking, total score, and scores for each subject.
She stared blankly at the note, not reacting for a long time. Chen Shu peeked over and saw it was the photo. She quickly comforted her, "It's okay, Bai Di. We all know you just had a bad day. Get in the top three in the next monthly exam and make them look bad!"
Bai Nan looked up at the trust in Chen Shu's eyes and fell silent. Next time... next time she'd probably be ranked below 100th. After all, the more they studied, the more obvious the gap between struggling and high-achieving students would become...
She quietly scrolled through all the messages without replying at all, and her expression remained unchanged. Chen Shu didn't know what to say for a moment, so she also remained silent.
It wasn't until the school bell rang and everyone rushed to the classroom, leaving only the two of them in the entire corridor, that Bai Nan spoke again.
"Shushu, do you like Xu Xin? In a romantic way?"
She asked very directly. In fact, she has always been a straightforward person. Because she had suffered enough from overt favoritism and covert oppression since childhood, she hoped that all close relationships could be expressed directly.
If she experienced this bittersweet feeling of uncertainty again after so many years, it was only because of Xu Xin.
It's also her fault for being too greedy and wanting too much.
After hearing her words, Chen Shu was taken aback for a moment before answering bluntly, "Huh? You don't like it? Why would you say that?"
Bai Nan wasn't sure if she felt relieved or had a sense of "I knew it," but in any case, she no longer felt awkward around Chen Shu.
"No, I just noticed that you're very protective of him in the group chat."
"I was just protecting you two, okay?! You were the first real-life couple I shipped, and I absolutely can't let anything go wrong!" Chen Shu said with a serious face, "So, if you have any problems in your relationship, feel free to come to me! I'll tell you everything I know and help you solve them!"
Bai Nan burst out laughing when he saw that her posture was like that of a soldier in training, almost as if she was about to raise her hand in salute.
"Bai Di! Chen Shu! What are you two doing there? Get back to class right now!"
A roar came from the other end of the corridor. The two turned around and saw that it was the hot-tempered physics teacher. They immediately shrank back and ran towards Class 1.
"Phone! Phone!" Chen Shu quickly reminded Bai Nan when she noticed that Bai Nan had forgotten to return her phone.
Bai Nan realized what was happening and, taking advantage of the moment when the physics teacher entered the room, quickly reached out and stuffed her phone into her school pants pocket.
"You..." Chen Shu's ears turned slightly red, as if she wanted to say something, but Bai Nan did not notice her hesitation and rushed into the classroom.
The two students, panting, had barely sat down when the physics teacher stood on the podium: "Hello, students!"
With a 'whoosh,' the entire class, led by the physics class representative, stood up and said, 'Good morning, teacher!'
Bai Nan and Chen Shu hurriedly stood up again, their voices noticeably slower than usual.
"Sit down, everyone. Come on, Bai Di and Chen Shu, come up here." The physics teacher waved his hand and called the two of them to the podium.
Bai Nan looked bewildered: "Teacher...do you bring a book?"
A soft "plop" came from the seat diagonally behind her. Bai Nan looked down and glanced at her. Chen Shu quickly made a zipping motion with her mouth closed.
"No need, the teacher is just curious and wants you to come up and talk about it." The physics teacher had a kind and benevolent face. If Bai Nan hadn't seen the glint of shrewdness in his eyes, she would have believed him.
When the two came on stage, he spoke again: "Speak up, what were you two saying around the corner in the hallway? You were so close together, let the whole class hear."
This was awkward. The two looked at each other, realizing that the physics teacher had misunderstood that they were dating.
In this situation, no one dared to speak first; they kept their heads down in silence, which only made the physics teacher more suspicious.
"Then I'll have to have a good talk with Teacher Zeng, that's why—" Bai Nan immediately began to explain when the physics teacher said this, but unexpectedly three voices rang out at once.
One of the voices was Chen Shu's, and she turned her head to look.
Chen Shu noticed another person who spoke up, her deskmate, Huang Wang.
"Teacher, they were discussing a physics problem. During break, I couldn't solve one of the problems, and they almost got into an argument because they disagreed. They decided to solve it in the hallway so as not to disturb the sleeping students..."
Bai Nan and Chen Shu looked at each other with expressions that said, "What the hell are you talking about?" It would be a miracle if such a lame excuse could fool the teacher.
"Oh? Is that so? Okay, you two go back to your seats. Huang Wang, if you have any questions you don't understand, just come and ask the teacher. Don't be afraid."
The physics teacher said with a gentle expression.
The two were completely stunned, and then returned to their seats with bewildered expressions.
"Alright, students, pay attention! Let's turn to..."
By the end of the day, almost half of the teachers had chosen to extend the class time, and everyone was suffering.
As evening self-study was approaching, most students hadn't returned yet, and only a small number were studying in the classroom. A few girls huddled together, whispering among themselves, and several boys nearby joined in.
Bai Nan, naturally oblivious to everything else, focused solely on studying math. In this semester's entrance exam, math was the subject that dragged down his score the most, followed by physics. As a science student who chose the combined physics, chemistry, and physiology major, it was a disgrace.
She had to redeem herself before the monthly exam.
This continued for a while until the group suddenly burst into unusually loud laughter, attracting the attention of the others, including Huang Wang, who was sitting behind Bai Nan.
The others all frowned and looked over, but no one spoke up to stop them.
Huang Wang suddenly stood up, as if he had mustered up his courage, and walked step by step to them. But when he opened his mouth, his voice trembled:
"Can you all be quiet for a second?"
Those people paused for a moment, then burst into laughter again.
"Ha ha ha ha--"
"You, you guys... are you stuttering? How come you can't speak properly?" One of the boys imitated Huang Wang's speech, his face full of sarcasm.
Huang Wang blushed instantly, but he glanced back at Bai Nan, who was engrossed in solving the problem, clenched his fist, and spoke again: "I'm not a stutterer, please, please be quiet! The other students still need to study."
His voice was a bit loud, and Bai Nan looked up in confusion after hearing it.
The boy who had been mimicking him immediately changed his expression: "Huang Wang, you've gotten bold, huh? Looks like the lesson I gave you last time wasn't enough, huh?"
Bai Nan frowned. This boy wasn't in Class 1. After scanning the boys and girls around him, she found that only two girls were in Class 1. They seemed to be 'Quan Quan Yuan Yuan' and 'Hou Gong San Qian' from the class group chat.
The boy leaned close to Huang Wang's ear and whispered something. In the blink of an eye, Huang Wang's face turned deathly pale.
Everyone watched as Huang Wang stiffly returned to his seat, while the others continued to laugh heartily, only Bai Nan's brows furrowed more and more tightly.
The boy was unusually arrogant, and his voice grew louder and louder: "His nickname is really 'Wangzai'? Hahaha! That's hilarious! If you ask me, he should be called 'Stuttering King'!"
"Hahahaha—" the group of people echoed loudly, all looking at Huang Wang with mocking expressions.
Bai Nan stared at the boy, then slowly stood up. At this moment, there were only two boys in the class, her and Huang Wang, while the remaining girls dared not speak out against their anger.
Actually, Bai Lu's comment about Bai Di was incorrect. He said, "When Bai Di was a child, he would hide behind Aunt Ying and the others when something happened. After he started school, he would hide behind Bai Nan when something happened. He is a complete giant baby."
However, more often than not, it was Bai Nan who took the initiative to help Bai Di, because she needed to vent her grievances and anger that she had been holding in for too long.
Reasonable physical contact is the best way to release pent-up emotions.
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