On Sunday afternoon during her break, Sheng Xia received a call from Brother Li. He mentioned that with Teacher's Day approaching, Sheng Mingfeng had prepared gifts for her teachers and asked when would be a convenient time to deliver them.
Sheng Xia had little fondness or patience for such social obligations. She refused outright: "No need. The class is giving collective gifts to the teachers."
She rarely rejected Sheng Mingfeng's arrangements, so her response left Li Xu at a loss.
Shortly after hanging up, Sheng Mingfeng called directly.
"How do you feel about your teachers' dedication? Should I arrange a dinner and invite all your subject teachers?"
Sheng Xia sighed silently. "The teachers are all very good, but our schedule is really tight. They probably won't have time for dinner."
"Oh..." Sheng Mingfeng pondered. "Alright then, focus on your studies. Dad will handle everything else."
"Actually..." You don't need to do these things.
"What is it?" Sheng Mingfeng interrupted. "If there's any problem, speak up. There are many things you kids don't understand."
"Nothing."
"Really nothing?"
"Mhm."
"Alright then. I heard you'll have monthly exams soon. Since you're new, it's normal if you don't adapt immediately. Grades aren't everything—don't always listen to your mother and push yourself too hard, understand?"
"Mhm."
After hanging up, Sheng Xia turned off her phone, put it in the drawer, packed her schoolbag, changed into her uniform, and returned to school early to study.
She couldn't remember when it started, but she could no longer concentrate fully while sitting at her desk in her own room.
At school, in the bookstore, in public spaces that didn't belong to her—those were the places where she could truly focus.
After riding her bike aimlessly for a while, the heat became unbearable, so Sheng Xia stopped wandering and entered the campus through the south gate.
Passing by the auditorium, she noticed the usually quiet "big sphere" was unusually lively. The exterior walls were fully mirrored, and groups of people were rehearsing in front of them.
The high school held an annual Teacher's Day gala, which also doubled as a welcome party for new students. The main performers were freshmen, with a few acts from sophomores and seniors.
Surprisingly, Sheng Xia spotted a familiar figure among the crowd—even though his plain black T-shirt should have made him inconspicuous.
Zhang Shu sat cross-legged on the ground, hands braced behind him. Probably because of the heat, he'd rolled up the legs of his jeans slightly, his sneakers swaying lazily. His face remained still, intently watching a girl performing in the center.
The girl was dancing in front of the mirror—her high-waisted T-shirt revealing a slender midriff, her long legs gleaming white beneath denim shorts, chestnut curls flying as she moved. She kept flipping her hair back while dancing...
Sheng Xia couldn't see her face clearly but knew she was beautiful.
Stunningly beautiful.
Probably the campus belle from Xin Xiaohe's "big messy love triangle" story.
Sheng Xia twisted the handlebars and sped past the auditorium.
...
Chen Mengyao finished dancing, panting and drenched in sweat. "Take ten, then we'll rehearse from the second section," she instructed before walking over to rest—standing right in front of Zhang Shu, looking at him with a mix of annoyance and resignation.
He came to watch her rehearsal empty-handed. She hadn't expected milk tea or juice, but not even bringing water?
A junior nearby handed her a bottle of Pulse. "Mengyao, want some water?"
Chen Mengyao took it and passed it to Zhang Shu.
He remained in the same seated position while she stood over him. From this angle, her legs appeared perfectly long and straight—she'd done camera training and knew exactly how they looked.But Zhang Shu's gaze wasn't on her legs.
He was looking at the trees by the roadside—glancing once, turning back, then glancing again.
Chen Mengyao followed his line of sight but only saw a lush row of camphor trees lining the street, the pavement baked white by the sun, stretching empty and devoid of people.
"What are you looking at? Something more interesting than me?"
Zhang Shu straightened up, dusting off his hands, and eyed the bottle of Gatorade she handed him with suspicion. "I don't drink this."
Chen Mengyao nearly rolled her eyes. Someone please take this destined-to-be-single monk away—even if he were as handsome as Pan An, she wouldn’t want him. "Just! Open! It! For! Me!"
Zhang Shu chuckled as he took the bottle, effortlessly twisting off the cap while quipping, "You seemed pretty energetic just now while dancing?"
Chen Mengyao wanted to pour the Gatorade over his head.
"Could you just not talk?"
Ignoring her, Zhang Shu handed the bottle back and checked his phone. "I'm heading out."
Chen Mengyao stopped him. "We haven’t even gotten to the singing part yet. Who’s going to coach us if you leave?"
"You, of course. The all-around superstar."
"Ugh, you might as well not have come," Chen Mengyao muttered, sometimes truly baffled by Zhang Shu’s hot-and-cold act. Wasn’t he taking it a bit too far?
"Shu," she called out again, unable to suppress her impatience. "For the performance in a couple of days, you’ll give me flowers, right?"
Somehow, she couldn’t hold back anymore.
Over the past two years, she’d had many performances and received countless bouquets, but the peonies Zhang Shu had given her during the freshman welcome party in their first year remained the brightest in her memory.
Back then, they had just finished military training. Zhang Shu had only appeared briefly during the drill formation, yet he’d already drawn plenty of attention—his popularity then was no less than it was now. The girls’ dorm had buzzed with talk about him.
And she had received flowers from him in front of everyone.
Even now, Chen Mengyao could still recall that moment—his focused gaze, her pounding heartbeat, the cheers and teasing from the audience.
Her vanity had been thoroughly satisfied. For a long time afterward, she had convinced herself that it was just vanity.
Zhang Shu didn’t stop walking away, just as he hadn’t turned back on her birthday. He merely waved a hand. "No money."
With many underclassmen watching, Chen Mengyao sipped her drink, but it tasted like nothing.
The classroom was surprisingly full for a Sunday afternoon. Sheng Xia still couldn’t match all the faces to names, but she recognized a few—Yang Linyu and his roommate Qi Xiulei, the physics class representative, which was why she remembered him.
Day students rarely came to school during breaks, so Yang Linyu asked, "Sheng Xia, why are you here?"
Sheng Xia replied, "Nothing to do at home, so I came."
"Bad timing," Yang Linyu grinned, flashing his white teeth. "Xin Xiaohe just went back to the dorm."
"Oh."
"She’ll probably come back later."
Yang Linyu kept mentioning Xiaohe this and Xiaohe that—honestly…
Sheng Xia pulled out her workbook. "You guys aren’t going home either?"
Qi Xiulei said, "My place is too far. It’d take three hours round trip."
"Nothing to do at home anyway," Yang Linyu added. "We’re seniors now—what’s the point of breaks? Not everyone’s like Zhang Shu."
Sheng Xia nodded in agreement. "Yeah."
Not every senior had the leisure to watch girls dance and still rank first in exams.
She checked the schedule—tonight was math study hall. Perfect timing to finish a practice test so she could ask the teacher questions later.She was just about to start timing herself for practice questions when she overheard Yang Linyu and Qi Xiulei discussing a physics problem—one that had stumped her at home too. Changing her mind, she pulled out her physics workbook and moved closer to listen.
Qi Xiulei had barely written out a formula when Yang Linyu smacked his forehead in sudden realization. "Ah! I get it now! Damn, how did I not see it? Wujibayu, it's so simple!"
What exactly was "Wujibayu"?
Sheng Xia had heard Zhang Shu "scold" her with that word before.
Yang Linyu returned to his seat to work on the problem himself, leaving Sheng Xia utterly bewildered. How had he grasped it so quickly? It made her feel utterly useless.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, Sheng Xia turned to Qi Xiulei. "I still don’t get it. Could you explain it to me?"
"Of course. Should I start from the beginning?"
Sheng Xia sat in the seat in front of Qi Xiulei, turning around and spreading out her scratch paper. "Mm."
Qi Xiulei explained in great detail, even deriving the formula from scratch and sharing tips on how to memorize it most effectively.
As her mind raced, Sheng Xia couldn’t help but think: the top students at Fuzhong were not only willing to share but also exceptionally good at it. Maybe that was one reason they were so outstanding. Even if she could solve a problem herself, she wouldn’t know how to explain it to others. When would she ever reach that level?
"Let me try solving it myself," Sheng Xia said. Though she understood the explanation, she worried she’d forget it later and still be unable to solve it alone.
Qi Xiulei was patient. "Sure, I’ll cover the answer."
The two of them hunched over Sheng Xia’s scratch paper, and after a while, a shadow fell over them.
Sheng Xia, absorbed in solving the problem, didn’t notice. But Qi Xiulei looked up—only to collide with a chin leaning over him. "Ow!" He clutched his head. "Zhang Shu, what the hell? You scared me!"
Sheng Xia’s pen paused, and she looked up too.
Zhang Shu straightened, rubbing his chin with one hand while using the other to tousle—or more accurately, aggressively ruffle—Qi Xiulei’s hair. "There, there, don’t cry. Daddy’ll blow on it for you…"
Qi Xiulei bristled. "…You little shit, get lost!"
The habit of one-upping each other with familial titles was universal, regardless of whether a school was elite or not. Back at No. 2 High, Sheng Xia had often heard boys calling each other "Dad" or "Grandpa." She’d never understood the appeal.
Shaking her head, she returned to her problem.
Yang Linyu turned around. "Zhang Shu, what brings you here too?"
Qi Xiulei smirked. "That ‘too’ is very telling."
Zhang Shu: "Just passing by."
"Oh, so you went to watch the rehearsal?" Yang Linyu nodded knowingly. "How’s this year’s performance? Any cute underclassmen?"
Zhang Shu: "Didn’t notice."
Yang Linyu: "So you went for nothing?"
Zhang Shu didn’t deny it. "Had nothing better to do."
Yang Linyu: "Might as well help us with some problems."
"Sure." Zhang Shu dragged a chair over and plopped down in the aisle, blocking the way. "Anything you need help with?"
His tone was almost condescending.
Sheng Xia kept her head down, pressing her lips together faintly.
"Ha, unfortunately, no," Qi Xiulei said, pointing at Sheng Xia. "But Sheng Xia does. Though, you’re desk mates—can’t she just ask you anytime?"
Zhang Shu’s lips twitched. Ha. Unfortunately, she never had. Instead, she preferred going out of her way to ask others.
"Which problem?" Zhang Shu leaned in to look at her scratch paper.
But Sheng Xia quickly snapped her notebook shut and stood up. "I’ve solved it. I’ll go check the answer key."
With that, she got up—only to find Zhang Shu blocking the aisle. So she detoured around the neighboring seats to return to her own.Zhang Shu: "......?"
Did he have some contagious disease that made her so wary of him?
Qi Xiulei and Yang Linyu's eyes darted between the two of them.
Qi Xiulei asked, "Did you bully her?"
Yang Linyu added, "Xin Xiaohe won't let you off easy."
Zhang Shu also stood up, returning his chair to its original position. "Boring. I'm leaving."
Sheng Xia spent the entire day buried in math problems until her head spun.
Unexpectedly, during evening self-study, the math teacher handed out another self-made test paper, giving them one hour to complete it before checking answers. The solutions would be explained Monday morning.
The problems were all challenging multiple-choice questions. Out of 15, Sheng Xia got 7 wrong—barely over half correct. She glanced at Xin Xiaohe on her left, who missed 4, Lu Youze diagonally behind her with 4 wrong, and Hou Junqi in front who didn't finish but got 6 incorrect.
Was she about the same level as Hou Junqi?
As for Zhang Shu on her right...
There was no need to look—he probably aced it all, because after picking up his red pen, he hadn't made a single mark on his paper. Sheng Xia knew he only marked wrong answers when grading, unlike her habit of ticking every correct one.
"Wasting ink," he'd said before.
Since teaching wasn't allowed, the teacher wrote answers on the whiteboard for students to check themselves first.
Sheng Xia unconsciously bit her lip while thinking, now nearly white from the pressure.
Suddenly, a crumpled ball of paper appeared on her test sheet, passed from the right.
She looked at Zhang Shu, who motioned for her to open it.
With the teacher's back turned as he wrote on the board, Sheng Xia sighed softly and unfolded the casually torn scrap of draft paper.
A line read: 【Any questions?】
Beneath it, Sheng Xia wrote: 【?】
She passed it back unfolded.
Soon he tossed it over again, this time deliberately folded. Opening it, she saw: 【You can ask me.】
Sheng Xia wrote: 【No need.】
Zhang Shu replied: 【You got them all right?】
What did he mean? Couldn't she possibly have understood them?
She wrote back: 【Is that not allowed?】
Seeing these words, Zhang Shu let out a brief, quiet chuckle. Read in her tone, it might sound gentle, but it really came across as argumentative—quite uncharacteristic of her.
Sheng Xia frowned at him.
With this "argumentative" impression, her expression seemed to Zhang Shu like she was glaring, yet instead of irritating him, it amused him. Under her stare, he lowered his head to write.
Noticing his mocking smile, she read: 【Sure, absolutely. You're the best.】
Zhang Shu added: 【If you don't understand, ask me. Don't embarrass yourself outside.】
Sheng Xia offered no comment on this "generosity": 【Oh.】
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