The high school year was almost over, and having a transfer student was very rare.
That was why the students were curiously talking about that transfer student.
The boy who was wearing a black-rimmed gla.s.ses nudged Ning Er's arm and whispered to him: "It's very hard to enter in our school. Ning Er, youâre a native here. Have you ever heard of our school having a transfer student?"
Having heard of it, everyone looked at Ning Er.
The slender fingers were still rotating the pen when Ning Er sat up properly, he carefully thought for a while before shaking his head: "I havenât heard of it. What's the guy's name?"
Everyone shook their heads together.
Yanzhong was the best high school in Yancheng City. Every year, dozens of students from Qing North School could take an exam there. There were few transfer students in Yanzhong, especially when the school year was about to end soon. If it was a soph.o.m.ore, no one would find it surprising. But it was a freshman this time.
The girl sitting in the front row brought a box of her family's own production of nougat1, and gave two pieces to Ning Er, which he put inside his pocket. The students' topic had been changed from the transfer student to the upcoming final exam next month.
Since Ning Er's mood became better and the things about his dream had been forgotten, he smiled and joined the conversation.
They were all just chatting for awhile when his desk mate suddenly poked his hand with a pen cap. Ning Er turned around to look at the opposite party and mouthed: What happened?
Jiang Chen winked one eye before taking out a sticky note, wrote a few lines of characters and gave it to Ning Er.
I heard that the transfer student came from Haizhong in Haicheng, with a particularly good grades.
(T/N: Haicheng is 14 hours away from Yancheng)
This cla.s.s was a geography cla.s.s, there were two subcla.s.ses and most of the students did not choose geography. Ning Er's grade in geography was good, so the teacher looked up at him. He took out his pen again and wrote on the sticky note: What is he doing in Yancheng?
Jiang Chen took the sticky note, he was buried on it for half a day so Ning Er took a look at it.
I donât know ah.
Although the accomplishments in Yanzhong was good, but compared to Haizhong, there was still a little gap. You needed to have a good grades in Haizhong. Not only that, the tuition fees were too high, a fee for one semester would cost hundreds of thousands and ordinary people could not simply afford it. The students in Haizhong were likely not partic.i.p.ate in college entrance examination, they would go to abroad to study after graduating high school, then came back gold plated2.
The only person Ning Er knew who could enter Haizhong was his childhood friend.
Such a good school and conditions, why would they ran to Yanzhong? To a small Yancheng city?
Ning Er couldnât understand why.
But he did not think too much about it since the opposite party was a stranger to him.
On the second period, Ning Er had to go to the math teacher's office to get the homework. Mathematics' homework had always been many and heavy, each cla.s.s needed to have two math representatives. But just as the period finished, he looked up to the distance where the other cla.s.s representative was, and saw that the quiet girl's face was pale. She was lying down on the desk and clutching her stomach.
Seeing that Ning Er saw her like that, her face blushed and she struggled to get up.
Ning Er understood instantly that something was wrong. He shook his head at her, the girl gave him a weak smile for a grat.i.tude. Then he pulled Jiang Chen out of the cla.s.sroom.
Pa.s.sing cla.s.s six, Jiang Chen quietly stretched his neck to look at the windows. It was noisy inside the cla.s.sroom, Ning Er casually glanced at it and found that there was nothing special going on.
Leaving the cla.s.s six range, Jiang Chen was very disappointed. "I didnât see the transfer student. Heâs not in?"
Ning Er thought for a while, then he said: "Cla.s.s six' last period is swimming lesson. The transferee might not have returned yet from the swimming pool."
Jiang Chen snorted.
Minutes later, they came out from the office of their math teacher, each of them was carrying dozens of exercise books. The thick exercise books were piled into a hill, Ning Er was 1.76 meters tall, and half of the exercise books actually covered his upper body. He was covered up to his nose and only exposing a pair of bright eyes.
Jiang Chen was also no better. The two boys moved the books, if they were replaced by two girls, those girls would have already been tired for sure.
They walked down the stairs, Jiang Chen complained all the way about their math teacher giving too much homeworks. Fortunately, that teacher was only teaching them in first year, if they were taught in third year, then they had to burn the midnight oil3.
Somehow, Ning Er was a little restless today. He always felt that there was something wrong, so he was answering Jiang Chen a little bit inattentive.
The two people would have to carry the exercise books and pa.s.s through cla.s.s seven, all the way to their cla.s.s four.
Just when they were walking near the door of cla.s.s six, they suddenly heard a voice with a sound of laughter in it.
"Shao Bai Han, you swim well ah! The teacher praised you that you swim fast. How did you hold your breath for so long? You swam 50 meters without lifting your head! You must have been swimming in the past. Youâre really awesome!"
Ning Er's footsteps stopped upon hearing the mentioned name. A heavy-like mountain pressure pressed into his heart to beat faster.
No, it was wrong. He must have heard it wrong. The name was very similar and there were so many people with that kind of name in this world, how couldâŠ
"That's called diving."
The clear and pleasant male voice sounded from the cla.s.s room of cla.s.s six. In the next moment, a tall and straight handsome boy went out from the cla.s.sroom alongside with another boy. The handsome boy had a short black hair, perhaps because he had just finished swimming, water droplets were sticking on his wet hair. His hair was in a bundle and crystal beads of water were dripping down along the smooth hair to his clavicle. He wiped it with a white towel.
The boy was wearing a black and white sportswear that he did not know what brand was. His body was upright, giving a youth heroic spirit.
As he was walking, he told his companion: "It can only be done in private. In the last century, our country had an athlete who was very good at this. He took the first place every time he did the 50-meter swimming and kept breaking the records. Later on, the International Swimming a.s.sociation forbade this action, they did not allow swimming to start from the bottom until the end."
"So irritating! Why only for us ah?!"
Shao Bai Han raised one of his beautiful eyebrows, his black eyes narrowed and flas.h.i.+ng with disdain: "Because some people cheats, those who have skills are still better."
Ning Er stood still while holding the heavy homework. His eyes widened a little bit as he saw the boy getting nearer and nearer, and then moved sideways from his side, the boy's eyes casually glanced at him before continuing walking forward.
His heart jumped as fast as it could, it was as if it would jump out of his throat.
But Shao Bai Han walked over without even saying a word to him.
He did not recognize him at all.
Suddenly feeling very wronged and disappointed, Ning Er strode forward. Jiang Chen who was left behind shouted: "You slow down a little bit! Ning Er, wait for me! Why are you walking so fast?!"
Ning Er who could not hear him at all, quickly entered the cla.s.s four cla.s.sroom.
When he heard the word "Ning Er", Shao Bai Han's footsteps jerked to a stop. He quickly turned around, just as when he saw Ning Er's figure disappeared in cla.s.s four.
The boy beside him asked: "Shao Bai Han?"
Shao Bai Han stared at the direction for half a day before suddenly asking: "Who is that person?"
"Who is what? Which one do you mean?"
"That guy with beautiful eyes."
The boy laughed: "You're asking about Ning Er of cla.s.s four? He is the mathematics representative of cla.s.s four, looks white and pure, our school gra.s.s4. Lots of girls actually likes him and before you came, at least half of the girls in our cla.s.s were secretly in love with him. The girls in our cla.s.s were engaging with the cla.s.s four in the past, but it's good now, we can't let oneâs own fertile water flow into othersâ field5. And I think youâre more handsome than him. Hey, Shao Bai Han, how did your face get red?"
"Nonsense! Your face is red!" After saying that, Shao Bai Han quickly turned away.
The boy scratched his head, he hurriedly chased after Shao Bai Han and muttered a whisper: "It's obviously red ahâŠ"
Back to the cla.s.sroom, Ning Er's face was expressionless while he was distributing the exercise books. After completing the task, the cla.s.s started.
He sat by the window and quickly swirled his pen, but because he was absentminded, he would drop the pen on the desk from time to time. The teacher looked at him a few times, so Ning Er put the pen back to his bag. He lied down the desk angrily, his heart was both sad and angry.
He still remembered that it was on a cool autumn, there was two days for the school's autumn sports festival. The teachers let them take a delicious lunch box to the school, because there was no cla.s.s that day, so they could sit or stand in the playground, then eat their foods while watching the sports compet.i.tion.
Shao Bai Han's mother never appeared and Grandma Shao's body was not very good during that time. The first day of the sports festival, Shao Bai Han only brought a high-cla.s.s hotel made lunch box. The dish inside was particularly rich, it looked like a five-star master chef cooked it and was obvious that ordinary people could not simply afford it. All the students were envious and said that Shao Bai Han was really rich, but Shao Bai Han didnât eat it and said to those students: "You want it? Then you eat it. Iâm not hungry."
The primary students would have doubt if it came from other people, but it was from Shao Bai Han, so they all ate the food in the lunch box.
Ning Er who was sitting next to him, heard his stomach growling.
He thought for awhile before pus.h.i.+ng the worn out small lunch box to Shao Bai Han, "Shao⊠Shao Bai Han, do you want to eat? My mom did it last night."
Waiting for a long time, Ning Er did not wait for Shao Bai Han's answer, he was somewhat sad and was ready to take back the lunch box when Shao Bai Han suddenly took it. He turned his head, and said with his eyes coldly looking at him: "You didnât give me chopsticks."
The food Aunt Ning had prepared was actually very ordinary, but Shao Bai Han ate happily that day. The food he could not eat, Shao Bai Han ate it all until nothing remained in the lunch box. Then he said, "Well⊠It was okay⊠Yeah, thatâs it."
So when Ning Er got home that evening, he begged his mother to make two lunch boxes for him.
The next day, he happily knocked on Shao Bai Han's apartment door while holding two boxes of lunch in his arm. He knocked for a long time before Grandma Shao could open the door. He obediently shouted that he and Shao Bai Han to go to school together, but Grandma Shao looked at him with astonishment: "Xiao Han went back to Haicheng."
Go away! Why are you coming back?!
Ning Er buried his head on his arms and slowly fell asleep.
Suddenly, someone nudged his arm and whispered in his ears: "Ning Er, Ning Er. Someone is looking for you outside."
Ning Er groggily lifted his head, Jiang Chen pointed to the door. He just woke up, so his vision was a bit blurry and he could not see who was it. He subconsciously got up and went out of the cla.s.sroom.
The cool breeze was gently blowing outside the cla.s.sroom, Ning Er was suddenly wide awake upon seeing the person.
Shao Bai Han was at least 1.85 meters tall. He was still wearing that black and white sportswear, the limbs were slender, and his long arms were casually inserted inside the pockets of the sportswear. One side of his hair was clipped near his ear. He turned around his head and glanced past Ning Er.
The next moment of conscious awareness, Ning Er's face blushed.
Shao Bai Han looked from one side to the other side. After a while, he threw a quick glance at Ning Er again, and he felt like he got an electric shock, his line of sight and attention quickly focused on Ning Er.
"I⊠I'm Shao Bai Han."
Ning Er could hear a buzzing in his ears and he couldnât completely hear Shao Bai Han's words, so he just let out a "hmm" sound on a reflex.
Shao Bai Han's eyes were everywhere and the hands in his pockets were clenched together. He waited for quite awhile, but Ning Er did not answer and just looked down.
Dude, this kid's face was calm ah! A pair of very indifferent eyes were looking on the ground and even his peripheral vision was too lazy to give him one look.
Shao Bai Han's eyes twitched, he bit his lips before saying in a light voice: "I said that I'm Shao Bai Han."
"Hmm."
Shao Bai Han: "âŠâŠ"
This was too calm!
After a moment of silence, Shao Bai Han hooked up the corner of his mouth and said: "Ning Er, letâs go home together after school?"
The author has something to say:
Ning Er: Hmm⊠(Already silly)
Shao Bao Han: âŠâŠ (Hey! Why did you not welcome me ah?! You didnât even give me a hug nor a kiss! Why are you so calm?!)