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Chapter 10: Public Sentencing
His senior sister patted Yue Zhishi on the shoulder at the moment he softly sang that last phrase. He didn’t realise something was wrong until she pushed away the microphone.
He kept apologising afterwards, but she didn’t think it was a big deal.
“Not many people would’ve noticed it.”
Yue Zhishi’s stomach growled just as they were taking a break after finishing half the session with another song playing in the background. The senior only then remembered that he hadn’t yet eaten and said, “Ah, I forgot to remind you to bring some food.” She took out her own dinner from her bag. “Do you want to have some of mine?”
She pulled open the lid. Translucent dumplings stuffed with lamb and carrot, stir-fried prawns and sour and spicy cold noodles laid inside the box — but he couldn’t eat any of them. Yue Zhishi declined, “It’s okay, senior. I’ve already asked my desk mate to get me some food.”
She thought he was just being polite, so she pushed a fork into his hand. Yue Zhishi had no choice but to admit that he was allergic to most of the food.
He didn’t tell her clearly what he was allergic to — Song Yu kept telling him again and again while they were at home not to tell other people the exact details of his possibly life-threatening allergy.
“I see.” The senior sister backed down. “I did see you that time during the school opening ceremony. It was so scary, good thing nothing serious happened.”
Yes. Good thing gege was there, Yue Zhishi thought.
When the segment finally finished, she stuffed an apple into his hand, Yue Zhishi gratefully taking it.
There were only ten minutes left until the night self-study class started. Pretty much everyone was already in their seats, with only the rostered student for cleaning duties still sweeping the floor. Yue Zhishi rushed into his seat and breathlessly said to Jiang Yufan, “…I’m exhausted.”
The person in front of him, Hu Xuan, turned around. “Le Le, we heard your live broadcast earlier!” She gave him a thumbs up and said in English, “Nice!”
Yue Zhishi was initially very happy, but then he slumped onto his desk. “But I committed a big mistake today.”
“Hah, we couldn’t tell at all.”
A boy sitting in the third aisle interrupted and openly taunted, “Who said we couldn’t tell? I heard him. Yue Zhishi, did you purposefully keep the microphone on because you think you have a great singing voice?”
Yue Zhishi was a bit confused by this direct attack. He usually had great relationships with people and would never have any grudges against anyone. He didn’t understand where this came from.
“Ignore Zhang Chen,” Jiang Yufan said. He rolled his eyes at that side of the room. He explained, “He’s crazy. He’s treating you like that because he likes a girl who likes you.”
Yue Zhishi asked, “The girl in class 3-11?”
Jiang Yufan’s face was filled with disdain. “Yeah. Don’t know how Zhang Chen found out about it. That guy kept running over to class 3-11 earlier and treated the girl like a goddess. Next thing he knows, she’s confessing to you instead. It’d be strange if he wasn’t angry.”
Yue Zhishi actually then turned to Zhang Chen and asked, very sincerely, “Why are you angry?”
Zhang Chen widened his eyes. “Why am I…”
“Are you really hurt about it?” Yue Zhishi asked.
He was honestly very curious. Zhang Chen completely lost his tongue, and Jiang Yufan collapsed in laughter next to him.
Hu Xuan helped Yue Zhishi annoy Zhang Chen. “I can smell the lemon on you from here. So sour.”
Zhang Chen was burning with rage. “Bullshit!”
The class monitor slapped his desk and used his eyes to warn Zhang Chen. Seeing how angry Zhang Chen was, Yue Zhishi thought he must really like that girl and wanted to find an opportunity to explain that he didn’t get together with her. Zhang Chen could still continuing to try.
Besides, if this girl didn’t work out, he could always find someone else to like.
Jiang Yufan initially wanted to verbally spar some more but soon thought better of it. He turned around and whispered to Yue Zhishi, “Le Le, I didn’t end up buying that dinner bun you wanted even though I rushed over as soon as class ended. The store owner said they didn’t have it today. But I bought this for you, dong dong dong dong!” He pulled out a self-heating instant rice meal from his desk.
Yue Zhishi was very surprised, but he kept his voice down. “What is this…” He suspiciously lifted it up for a look. “Won’t Teacher Wang catch and kick me out of class with this?”
Jiang Yufan raised his index finger and knowingly wagged it back and forth. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard from trustworthy sources that Old Wang won’t be coming tonight. His car’s not even at school anymore, and his thermos in the office is gone too.”
“But he said yesterday he’ll be reviewing our papers.” Yue Zhishi remembered very clearly.
Once the bell rang, Hu Xuan turned around again and whispered, “It’s true. I think Old Wang has something important on today. I went to teachers’ office earlier to turn in some homework and he wasn’t there. Besides, look…”
She pointed at the podium. “The class monitor’s already sitting there. Old Wang’s definitely not coming in.”
“I’ve also bribed the class monitor for you and asked him to pretend he doesn’t see anything later.” Jiang Yufan raised an eyebrow. “What do you think? Isn’t your Fan Bro dependable?”
“So amazing.” Yue Zhishi gave him two thumbs up before turning to look at the self-heating rice meal and its packaging. “I’ve never tried this stuff before.”
“Neither have I, but it should be the same as those self-heating hot pot meals.” Jiang Yufan shrugged. “Pour some cold water in it, and it’ll start heating up by itself.”
“Cool…” Yue Zhishi intently read the instructions. “I’ll find an excuse later to go the bathroom and eat while I’m out.”
“Don’t worry about it, everyone else eats in the classroom.”
Yue Zhishi shook his head. “Can’t eat in the classroom.”
They fiddled with it for a while and poured in some water like the instructions said to do. Yue Zhishi waited curiously and expectantly for his meal. It came with Sichuan shredded pork with garlic sauce, so it should hopefully taste good.
The bell rang again, and the class monitor sitting in front declared, “Teacher Wang has something to do today, so he’s not coming.”
The class burst with happiness, not quieting until the class monitor told them to tone it down. Yue Zhishi cheered up a little bit by how everything was going according to plan.
“I’ll come out for a bit later, so let me try it too.” Jiang Yufan knocked his shoulder. “I want to see what it tastes like.”
Yue Zhishi gave him an OK sign. “No problem, one bite for you and one bite for me…….”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. He choked completely into silence, because the one person he’d never imagined showing up walked into their classroom.
The girls in the class whispered in surprise.
“Song Yu?”
“Wah, it really is Song Yu.”
Jiang Yufan also jumped in surprise and hit Yue Zhishi’s arm a few times. “Shit, why is your brother here?”
Song Yu walked to the podium without any expression on his face, hands completely empty. The class monitor looked like he’d known earlier Song Yu would be coming, because he easily left his spot and went back to his seat. Song Yu silently undid the first button on his shirt and slightly rolled up his sleeves.
Yue Zhishi had no idea what was happening, his face completely unable to cover his astonishment. His nearby classmates looked at him curiously, acting like an audience waiting for the show to begin.
Standing at the stage, Song Yu lifted his head and looked at his audience. “Teacher Wang is busy tonight and isn’t able to be here. Since everyone is getting ready to face the high school entrance exam, he asked me to come and share some of my studying tips and experience.”
His words sounded quite professional. Song Yu’s facial expression and voice were also quite indifferent, but the younger school sisters sitting below listened with excitement.
Even though the school campus has never officially elected who the school idol was, Song Yu’s appearance would stand out no matter where he was. Once his naturally distant and elusive air and his halo of perfect grades were added in, it became an unimaginably good thing to have this kind of close contact during the night self-study class.
A girl in the first row raised her head and enquired, “Senior, how come Teacher Wang asked you to come?”
Song Yu had a slight obsession with cleanliness and had a touch of OCD as well. His head was lowered as he straightened the chalk holder on the podium and didn’t look up as he calmly replied, “He used to be my class adviser.”
“The same class adviser?”
“Wah… so cool.”
“Then we’re related!”
Yue Zhishi didn’t expect that they would both have the same class adviser. That means Wang Qian would’ve gone directly to advising his class after Song Yu graduated junior high.
But then again, every time their parents showed up, Aunt Rong was in charge of him and Uncle Song was in charge of Song Yu. Song Yu never mentioned it, so of course he wouldn’t know.
Song Yu directly went into the main topic. “We’ll focus on discussion for the first half of tonight. You guys can work on your homework for the second half, and if you need help, you can come and ask me.”
Jiang Yufan coughed once, hinting to Yue Zhishi to look down. He passed his phone to him underneath their desks and showed him their class group chat without Teacher Wang. Pretty much all the classmates who’d sneaked in their phones to class were chatting, new messages wildly and frantically popping up.
[Is today the day the total level of our class’s looks shoots up to the sky?!]
[Senior Song Yu really is too hot, no wonder he’s a constant guest on the confession wall]
[You girls care too much for looks. You only know to look at hot guys, sheesh]
[What look only at hot guys, we’re more excited looking at pretty girls than you guys are]
[@Joy Le Le, I still think you look better, we bros support you]
[Gonna be a good show.]
[@Joy Le Le did you already know he was coming?]
How could he!?
Jiang Yufan madly typed.
[I can guarantee Le Le really didn’t know. Both of us were thinking we’d be stared at by the class monitor all night.]
New content quickly bounced onto the screen.
[I’m so confused, he didn’t tell you he’d be substituting?]
[Song Yu wouldn’t make things difficult for Le Le right?]
[Why be nervous if you didn’t do anything wrong?]
Yue Zhishi didn’t want to look anymore. He tilted his head away and just so happened to meet Song Yu’s eyes. Song Yu often stared at people like a big cat, gaze cold and unfocused. Having met his eyes, Yue Zhishi quickly lowered his head, put away his manga and sketch books and pulled out his class notes, wanting to look like he was seriously studying.
The class atmosphere was actually very quiet despite the group chat being fired up. Song Yu took a piece of chalk and started writing on the chalkboard.
“There’s less than a year left until your high school entrance exam. The study plans for the next two semesters may end up changing your class rank, so you should first create a goal for yourself according to your own situation.”
As he spoke, there was a weird hissing noise, almost like the noise a small train would make. Pretty much everyone heard it and started looking around to see where it came from.
The noise started getting louder and louder.
Song Yu’s hand paused on the chalkboard. But he didn’t turn around, pretended he didn’t hear anything and continued writing the things he wanted to write.
Everyone else was looking over to where the noise originated from. That’s right, the noise came from Yue Zhishi. Or more accurately, from the self-heating instant rice meal hidden in Yue Zhishi’s desk.
Jiang Yufan looked over at Yue Zhishi and mouthed the word ‘shit’. He then scribbled something on some scratch paper before pushing it to Yue Zhishi.
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