Chapter 22
On the day the students returned from the holiday, the homeroom teacher changed the seating arrangement. The new seating chart caused dissatisfaction among many students, so the seating arrangement was changed to be based on the ranking of the monthly exam scores.
Song Qiuxuan is someone who easily gets used to things and sticks with them. For example, when she goes to the library on weekends, she always orders her favorite taro mochi milk tea, and she hasn't changed it over the years. She's used to sitting at a single table, and with a bit of selfishness, she chooses her old seat.
During lunchtime, the corridor outside Class 20 was filled with chatter, making it the noisiest place in the entire building. Students who had chosen their seats were tidying up their desks inside, while the class monitor stood at the front door, holding a report card and reading out names one by one according to their ranking.
"Class monitor, the homeroom teacher isn't here, so please let me sneak in and choose a seat." Lu Chengzhou said with a grin, his boneless arm draped over the class monitor's shoulder.
The class monitor read out a student's name before finally asking him, "Where do you want to transfer to?"
Lu Chengzhou tossed his hair back, tilting his chin toward the back row. "I'm used to my old seat."
The class monitor adjusted his glasses, then glanced at Lu Chengzhou and sarcastically remarked without any mercy, "It's right for them to chat and disrupt class discipline in their original seats. I can't encourage this to happen."
Lu Chengzhou scoffed, straightened up, and shoved the class monitor, saying, "That's so unfair."
Cheng Xun's original seat was a single desk in the last row near the door. When classmates were playing around and going in and out of the classroom, they would accidentally bump into each other's chairs. High school students often took naps, so being bumped into without warning was very annoying. In addition, the weather turned cold in October, and the cold wind blew in, so the seats near the door suffered the most. Therefore, everyone avoided this corner seat.
Cheng Xun was ranked in the middle. When it was his turn, he returned to the seat that no one wanted to choose the most, with a satisfied expression.
*
It was probably during the few days of vacation when she went to the night market with Cheng Xun and ate too much hot food that caused Song Qiuxuan to develop a pimple on her cheek.
Her skin was fair and smooth, but the pimples on her face were red and swollen, very noticeable at a glance. She looked in the mirror in the morning and touched them in distress.
At home, Song Qiuxuan only uses facial cleanser and doesn't use any other skincare products. She rarely gets acne and doesn't use acne creams or similar treatments.
She had to rush to school in the morning, so she washed her face and decided to let the pimple go away on its own. She had a good attitude and thought it would fade away quickly.
Song Qiuxuan parked her bicycle in the school's bike shed and mingled with the flow of students wearing winter school uniform coats heading towards the teaching building.
As she reached the stairwell of the teaching building, she bumped into Lu Chengzhou, which was quite unusual. Song Qiuxuan looked him up and down with surprise. He was so sleepy that his eyes were barely open, and he looked like a lifeless high school student.
After yawning, Lu Chengzhou stepped onto the stairs and walked alongside Song Qiuxuan. "Good morning, Song Qiuxuan."
"Good morning." Song Qiuxuan greeted him, then asked curiously, "Aren't you coming into the classroom right when the bell rings today?"
Speaking of this, Lu Chengzhou felt sad. He let out a long sigh and said in a low voice, "My monthly exam results were too bad, so my family punished me. They had to wake me up today. Sigh, I probably won't be late anymore."
"Isn't this a good thing?" Song Qiuxuan looked at Lu Chengzhou's half-dead appearance and wanted to laugh, but she held it in and said very seriously, "It can help you develop a good habit."
"Forget it, I'll make up for the ten or so minutes I missed in class this morning."
Lu Chengzhou finally lifted his droopy eyelids and looked at Song Qiuxuan's face. He noticed the red pimples on her face and suddenly became energetic, making exaggerated jokes, "You have pimples, they're really obvious. Now that we've changed seats, I'm not sitting in front of you anymore. Have you been secretly eating snacks behind my back? Eat less, pimples really affect your appearance. I don't even like looking at you anymore."
Song Qiuxuan had already reassured herself and didn't want to focus too much on the pimple, but his unfiltered words made her start to worry again. She raised her hand and gently touched it with her fingertips.
Back in her seat, Song Qiuxuan borrowed a mirror from the girl at the next table. She had seen classmates being reminded by the homeroom teacher for looking in the mirror in the classroom, so she carefully covered the mirror with her hand.
As soon as Cheng Xun entered the classroom, he saw Song Qiuxuan's furtive figure. She had her head down and her shoulders hunched, and he didn't know what she was up to.
There were still eight minutes before morning self-study. Class teacher Liu Zhanyan strolled into the classroom through the front door to check on the students' morning self-study progress.
When everyone arrived at the classroom in the morning, they were still sleepy and listless, so the classroom was relatively quiet.
Liu Zhanyan scanned the classroom with his hands behind his back, walking from the front row to the back, observing each seat as he passed.
"Song Qiuxuan, the classroom is for studying, not for looking in the mirror," Liu Zhanyan said sternly.
All the students in the classroom turned to look at it.
Song Qiuxuan suddenly looked up, her hands trembling with fright. She nodded hurriedly and put the mirror back under the table.
Song Qiuxuan was completely unaware when the homeroom teacher appeared in the classroom; she considered herself to be having a bit of bad luck today.
After the first class ended, Song Qiuxuan returned the mirror to the girl at the next table, and then she felt her chair being tapped with a pen.
She instinctively turned around, but then remembered something and immediately changed direction. When she turned around, the side of her face without pimples was facing Cheng Xun.
“You used to look in the mirror before morning self-study. I saw the homeroom teacher come in, but I didn’t know that, so I didn’t remind you.”
Cheng Xun completely brought up the wrong thing. Song Qiuxuan had already forgotten the awkward feeling, but now she wanted to disappear again.
Song Qiuxuan smiled bitterly, then waved her hand dismissively, saying, "It's nothing, it's all in the past."
*
During the long break between classes, the wind was strong on the playground. Song Qiuxuan and He Zhimian went downstairs together with the flow of people.
When Song Qiuxuan talked about the pimples on her cheeks, He Zhimian leaned closer to take a look and comforted her, "They are a bit noticeable, but it's normal. Many girls get pimples during puberty."
"Yeah, that's what I thought too. It's just that Lu Chengzhou made a big fuss and said some things, which is why I paid attention."
He Zhimian turned her head to look at Song Qiuxuan and felt that Song Qiuxuan was observed and watched because she was very good-looking. Even a pimple on her head would be noticed. It was hard for an ordinary girl like herself to attract attention.
The staircase was incredibly congested during the long break. Cheng Xun, wearing a winter coat and with his hands in his pockets, was forced to move forward step by step. He saw Song Qiuxuan, who was two or three people away from him in the crowd, and squeezed forward two steps.
Then Cheng Xun overheard Song Qiuxuan and He Zhimian's conversation. He didn't know if this was perverted, but he had lost count of how many times he had secretly eavesdropped.
It turned out she was troubled by acne. As she walked out of the stairwell, Cheng Xun casually glanced at Song Qiuxuan's face.
*
Cheng Xun ate lunch outside the school as usual, accompanied by Liang Shizhe, Zhao Tonghong, and Liang Si.
The four of them were close friends in junior high school. When Zhao Tonghong and Liang Si went to high school, they tended to stick with their classmates because of the distance between their classes. But recently, it has been difficult to get Cheng Xun to go to internet cafes or play games. Liang Shizhe can only bring up his old friends.
Liang Shizhe felt that having two more buddies was great. He no longer had to endure the situation of being abandoned by Cheng Xun at any time because of his looks, leaving him with no one to accompany him. As he turned into the school alley, Liang Shizhe kept talking, complaining about Cheng Xun's behavior of not replying to his holiday messages in time and not going online to play games.
Liang Shizhe sighed and shook his head in disbelief: "Ah Hong, Liang Si, I really never thought that Cheng Xun would have a crush on a girl. His world revolves around that girl, and he has completely forgotten about his brothers."
"What girl do you like? Who is she? Is she from our junior high school?" Liang Si put his arm around Cheng Xun's shoulder and raised an eyebrow with a malicious grin.
Cheng Xun felt that he was not as exaggerated as Liang Shizhe had described. He argued, "Don't listen to Liang Shizhe's nonsense. What he just said was just embellished."
Liang Si looked incredulous and said sarcastically, "Fine, we're not in the same class anymore and our relationship is starting to drift apart. We don't even talk about things anymore."
Cheng Xun chuckled and lowered his head: "What do you want to hear?" Suddenly remembering something, Cheng Xun raised his eyebrows and proudly announced: "Then I'll tell you, my grades have risen to the middle range now."
All three of them could hear the boasting in his voice. Liang Shizhe scoffed disdainfully, while Liang Si and Zhao Tonghong looked at Cheng Xun with a half-smile. It was true that his ranking had risen, but his narcissism had also deepened.
The four of them went into a noodle shop. Cheng Xun ordered beef noodles. Liang Shizhe was talkative and ate slowly. Zhao Tongsi had too much chili oil in his noodles, and his lips turned red from the spiciness. He kept saying, "It's so spicy."
Cheng Xun couldn't bear to see Zhao Tongsi still slurping down his noodles despite the spiciness, so he said, "You can buy a bottle of water to relieve the spiciness."
"This store doesn't sell Coke, and I really don't want to walk to the supermarket across the street."
Cheng Xun said no more. He finished his noodles, put down his chopsticks, took out a tissue to wipe his mouth, and then stood up.
Zhao Tongsi looked up gratefully: "Dude, are you going to buy me a Coke?"
Cheng Xun said, "No, I have to go now. I need to go to the pharmacy, so I won't wait for the three of you."
As if he had caught Cheng Xun red-handed, Liang Shizhe immediately shouted, "Look, I told you, his behavior has been strange and unpredictable lately. He suddenly comes up with some idea, like right now when he suddenly says he wants to go to the pharmacy."
"Stop talking, I've finished eating, and you still have half a bowl left." Cheng Xun, used to his complaints, calmly picked up her phone and walked out of the store.
*
After finishing their lunch and returning to the classroom, the students made a little noise for a while, but gradually stopped talking when they saw some people starting to rest their heads on their desks.
Song Qiuxuan turned her head to the side, resting her head on her arm, with her vocabulary book held about twenty centimeters in front of her eyes. She studied for about ten minutes, then, feeling sleepy, she closed the book.
She had just closed her eyes when she heard a light tap on the chair.
"What's wrong?" Song Qiuxuan straightened up and turned around with practiced ease.
Cheng Xun's dark pupils gleamed brightly. To avoid disturbing the students' lunch break, he lowered his voice and said, "Hold out your hand."
Seeing Cheng Xun's excited expression as if he were about to hand her a treasure, Song Qiuxuan reached out her hand, puzzled. Then, a tube of ointment was stuffed into her hand. She frowned slightly, picked it up, and looked closely. After seeing the words on it, she became even more confused.
Song Qiuxuan leaned back, her voice soft and low, both amused and annoyed, and said, "Give me acne cream? Who would give someone that as a gift?"
"Isn't this something that's bothering you a lot?" Cheng Xun asked, sounding perfectly reasonable. "I'll help you solve your problem."
Song Qiuxuan said somewhat flusteredly, "Who told you I was troubled by this?"
Song Qiuxuan had never mentioned it to him. She even used the clean half of her face when facing him. Besides, if he thought that, wouldn't it make her seem like she cared a lot about the pimples on her face? She didn't want to appear sensitive or bothered by small things.
Cheng Xun hadn't told her, but she couldn't say that she had overheard it. In order to end the conversation, Cheng Xun, who had disturbed her sleep first, turned around and reminded her: "It's lunch break, be quiet."
Cheng Xun knew that Song Qiuxuan would turn away immediately, even if she still had something to say, but she was the kind of person who least wanted to cause trouble for others.
Sure enough, Cheng Xun saw Song Qiuxuan nervously looking around, worried that her words might disturb the high school students' precious lunch break.
Cheng Xun bent over, resting his chin on his arm, his gaze fixed straight ahead, a faint smile playing on his lips. He watched as Song Qiuxuan quietly turned and carefully placed the ointment into the table, then rested her head on her hand and closed her eyes.
This series of movements is very much like a frightened little rabbit.
*
Before Wednesday evening self-study, Song Qiuxuan was among the first to return after dinner and was called to the office by the homeroom teacher to collect the monthly exam answer sheets that had been distributed.
As dusk settled, Song Qiuxuan collected her answer sheets and placed them on the desks of the subject representatives as instructed by the teacher. After finishing this, she went to the restroom at the end of the corridor to use the toilet.
As Song Qiuxuan passed the water-fetching room, she heard whispers coming from inside. She had no intention of eavesdropping and continued walking forward without stopping.
However, she heard her own name in the voice. She paused slowly and realized it was the voice of a girl in her class.
"To be honest, I've been disliking her for a while now. Yesterday, she was scolded by the homeroom teacher for looking in the mirror, and it made me feel really good." This was Xia Yingjia's voice.
"You mean Song Qiuxuan?! I don't really like her either. Remember that blackboard bulletin thing? Didn't she want to choose people by drawing lots? I thought she must have lost her mind to come up with such a stupid idea."
"Good students are rigid and don't understand. They only know how to bury themselves in their studies and don't know how to be flexible."
"By the way, she came in second in this month's exam."
"So what if she's second? Can an ordinary family really turn her life around? In today's society, grades aren't everything."
"That's right. Yingjia's bracelet costs tens of thousands of yuan. Even if she gets into a good university, it will take her several years to earn that much."
Xia Yingjia smiled smugly.
"Have you noticed that among the girls, only that withdrawn He is willing to play with her?"
"Oh my god, what kind of nickname is that? They just look down on us and don't want to talk in the dorm. How did you call them aloof?"
Someone let out a low, sharp laugh, a contradictory laugh, and said, "Birds of a feather flock together; only two oddballs can get along."
"Ouch, I'm really fed up, this hot water splashed onto my hand."
"Damn it, are you sick? You're making a big fuss over nothing, you scared me."
"You're feeling guilty for talking badly about others, aren't you?"
"Get out of here."
Another burst of laughter followed, a clear and pleasant sound, yet it was like a stench rising up, engulfing the mouth and nose, making one feel suffocated for a moment.
After a few words, Song Qiuxuan couldn't bear to listen anymore and left with her eyes downcast.
Song Qiuxuan wouldn't rush in to expose the subtle malice in their words, much less retaliate by tearing off the mask of civility; that's just her personality.
Everyone has people they dislike. Will a few casual words spoken to them cause them real harm?
The breeze blowing through the corridor was still crisp and refreshing; the air did not become murky as a result.
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