The classroom was gradually filled.
It was noisy and chattering.
In the monotonous school life, changing seats could become one of the few novelties.
They were old classmates who had been together for four years. A simple greeting would have been enough, but some people insisted on shaking hands, making it seem like a diplomatic exchange.
In contrast, Zhang Shutong and Gu Qiumian's side could be described as completely awkward.
Both of them were busy packing their backpacks with their heads down.
He wouldn't comment on Gu Qiumian's situation, but Zhang Shutong was genuinely busy. It was a time-consuming task to organize the materials from eight years ago.
The next class was English. A quick glance around was enough to tell that some people had English test papers on their desks, presumably for a lesson.
He finally managed to organize his things and found the English test paper. He considered himself to be very slow, but his eyes fell on his deskmate, who was still packing.
Zhang Shutong smiled helplessly. She probably didn't want to talk to him, but staying in her seat would have looked silly, so she found something to do, giving the impression that she was very busy.
Although he could understand this line of thought;
But aren't your arms tired?
Taking advantage of the break, he took out the test paper and looked at it twice.
He was originally worried that he wouldn't be able to keep up with the class, having given all his past knowledge back to his teachers;
But after a closer look, he found that it was quite simple. Of course, English was an exception. The most troublesome subject, geography, was already over. He wasn't too worried about Chinese, as it was all about accumulation;
As for math... he still remembered the knowledge related to geometry and algebra, but he had forgotten the problem-solving methods. He might be okay if he did some practice problems.
Political science and history were subjects that were all about memorization. He used to take notes diligently. The teacher would always earnestly say, "If you memorize this well, you'll definitely use it in the future." In reality, he didn't use it at all in the future, but it came in handy after he went back to the past.
And his brain had always been quite good. Rote memorization was just a piece of cake. It just meant sacrificing some after-school time. The focus was still on math.
With a clear idea of his future study plan, Zhang Shutong quietly stayed in his seat, observing everything from his school days.
While listening to the students around him chatting, he belatedly realized that by some strange coincidence, the seat he had chosen was truly marvelous.
In front of him was Lu Qinglian, next to him was Gu Qiumian, and adding himself, all three victims were gathered together.
The feng shui of this place was really terrible.
If there was a chance to have a class reunion eight years later, the class leader would say, "Classmates, it's been a long time. Three people couldn't make it today. Guess who they are? There's no prize if you guess correctly..." Well, he didn't have much of a sense of humor.
Zhang Shutong had been used to being alone for many years. If he had nothing to do, his thoughts would easily wander. He thought that if the class had study groups, they could totally be given a "most quiet group" banner;
Even if they participated in a "no-talking challenge," they would definitely win first place:
Lu Qinglian had always been a quiet person. At this time, she had no interaction with her new deskmate. He was the same. Gu Qiumian was okay, but a sworn enemy was sitting next to her.
He never minded awkward silences. He felt that it was a beautiful thing for everyone to just prop their chins up and look at the snow below the academic building. It might be a bit silly, but he was happy. One of the main reasons he liked fishing was that he could daydream and think about things.
But while he didn't mind, Gu Qiumian minded a lot.
He took a look and saw that she was still busy with a frown.
You're going to wear out your backpack from all that rummaging.
Thinking this, a cookie of an unknown brand was handed to him:
"Here you go. Let me borrow your English test paper later."
Gu Qiumian said with a stern face.
It turned out she was really looking for something, and after looking for a long time, she was embarrassingly unable to find it.
A normal person would have said, "Can I borrow your English test paper? I accidentally forgot mine." They would also add a "thank you" politely, but she wouldn't.
Zhang Shutong felt that this sentence was very much in the style of a young miss. He accepted the cookie and pushed the English test paper to the middle.
"Shouldn't the answer to this question be B?" Gu Qiumian looked at it for a while and asked again, but she didn't look at Zhang Shutong, only at the paper. It was very much a stream of consciousness.
Zhang Shutong glanced at it and pointed to option A with his finger. He was eating the cookie, so his mouth was busy.
The cookie was quite tasty, cheese-flavored.
But why was it savory?
When he had almost swallowed it, he habitually explained, "This is testing the past progressive tense."
He had actually tutored English before, online.
Gu Qiumian's good quality was that she never argued. When you told her something, she would think about it for a while. Once she understood, she would nod. Unlike some students who would look at you with an innocent face and say, "Teacher, why do I think it should be this way..."
The teacher didn't know either.
"Any other questions?"
"No."
Another bag of cookies was handed to him. Gu Qiumian said she didn't like to owe people favors. Zhang Shutong asked if she could switch to a sweet one. He didn't like savory.
"No." She refused in a straightforward manner and added, "Maybe tomorrow."
"You don't have to."
"Did you sit over here just to get cookies?" Gu Qiumian's tone was calm, but it sounded like sarcasm.
How did they get back to this topic?
Zhang Shutong simply complimented her, "Your ghost faces are pretty good," he said, pointing to the window, "You're very artistic."
To his surprise, she said angrily:
"That's a sheep!"
A sheep?
Now it was Zhang Shutong's turn to be stunned.
"A goat or a sheep?"
It didn't look anything like Pleasant Goat either.
Gu Qiumian didn't respond to that. She just randomly wiped the glass clean and then glared at him fiercely:
"What's wrong with your eyes? My previous deskmate could tell."
"Yeah, yeah." Sorry for separating you two. "How about I switch with him?"
"Forget it. He's too annoying," she rolled her eyes, "You're annoying too, but you talk less."
They seemed to have gotten close all of a sudden. Zhang Shutong decided to embrace this quality and immediately shut up.
Speaking of which, that old deskmate... his name was Zhou Ziheng, right? The dark-skinned boy he saw not long ago.
Thinking of this, Zhang Shutong looked around the classroom, but to his surprise, the other party was staring at him. When their eyes met, the person quickly lowered his head.
Zhang Shutong withdrew his gaze, only feeling strange.
In a short while, Du Kang also ran back, panting. As soon as he entered the door, he glanced at Lu Qinglian and then frantically winked at him. Zhang Shutong thought to himself that their telepathy was long gone, and he couldn't understand what he meant.
Their class had almost sixty people, and they hadn't finished arranging the seats yet. The class teacher told Du Kang to hand out the milk now.
When he passed by Zhang Shutong, he deliberately slowed down and whispered:
"I'm dizzy."
Stop being dizzy. I want to pass out too when I hear this old-fashioned joke.
He thought it was about Lu Qinglian's seat. Zhang Shutong was just pointing to the empty seat with his school uniform on it, indicating that he had saved it for him. To his surprise, Du Kang looked touched:
"It's enough, it's enough. Brother, I never thought you'd go this far for me."
What are you talking about? I really don't understand. Just stick to the old-fashioned jokes.
Then he heard Du Kang mumbling:
"Although I did tell you that I wanted to sit behind Lu Qinglian, there's nothing we can do since she's sitting in front of Gu Qiumian, right? You really didn't have to provoke Gu Qiumian just for me. You can't get rid of her. See, it's still a failure."
"..."
This guy was even spouting idioms now:
"But I have to say, brother, it's your fault for feeding yourself to the tiger, Shutong. The saying goes that a gentleman doesn't stand under a collapsing wall. Look, Gu Qiumian is glaring at us..."
He was so scared that he turned his head and ran.
"What were you two talking about?" Sure enough, Miss Gu's voice came from next to him. She was displeased. "What 'Gu Qiumian, Gu Qiumian'?"
"He wanted to sit next to you, but I took the seat, so he came to settle the score with me," Zhang Shutong answered calmly.
This explanation was very reasonable. It was a well-known fact that Du Kang liked Lu Qinglian, even he, back then, could notice it.
"Tsk."
As a result, Gu Qiumian let out another meaningless "tsk."
In a little while, Du Kang ran back again, waving the plastic bag in his hand. There were two cartons of milk left. He handed them to Zhang Shutong, "Strawberry."
"I don't want it. You handle it," Zhang Shutong hinted.
"Oh, come on. What's there to feel guilty about over a seat? You love strawberry the most."
...No, I don't. Please stop talking. The tiger is already looking at me.
He made a gesture as if he was going to poke Lu Qinglian with his pen, meaning if you give it to me, I'll give it to her. Only then did Du Kang stop. He moved a step forward, stuttered for a while, and finally said:
"Uh, that, Student Lu, look, there's some leftover milk today. Do you want some..."
"No need, thank you."
A clear voice floated over.
And then this kid was at a loss. Zhang Shutong felt anxious for him. He thought, "Hurry up and make up an excuse. 'The weather's so nice, I'll buy you a milk' is better than not saying anything."
But Du Kang didn't dare to make eye contact with Lu Qinglian. At this time, the class teacher had finished arranging the seats. He clapped his hands like he was shooing away chickens, "Hurry up and sit down, all of you. You've had enough time to talk."
Du Kang quickly went back, just afraid that Teacher Song would say, "I'm talking to you, Du Kang. Why don't you give me the leftover milk?" That would have been a huge embarrassment.
At this time, a girl who wanted to get some water said in a sweet, childish voice:
"Oh, Teacher, you forgot to ring the bell for class."
Song Nanshan showed a cruel smile:
"You forgot that the next class is mine."
The class immediately let out a wail.
Taking up break time was a habit of every teacher, regardless of who they were, and they showed no mercy;
But their class teacher had one good thing. He allowed them to drink water in class.
Zhang Shutong didn't know why some teachers had so many rules, not even allowing cups on the desks. But with Song Nanshan, as long as you didn't eat in class, you could drink milk whenever you wanted.
Of course, many good students were used to drinking during the break—like Lu Qinglian;
She listened to the teacher telling them to sit down and sat there with her back ramrod straight, like a swan gracefully stretching its neck, seriously reviewing the test paper;
There were also "bad students."
Like Zhang Shutong. He didn't have so many rules in front of Song Nanshan. He casually poked a straw into his milk carton.
Of course, he couldn't eat cookies anymore. There had to be mutual respect between people. Teacher Song had just given him a favor. Since he had already said that class was starting, he wouldn't rely on his good relationship with the class teacher to show off how special he was. That was something even his younger self wouldn't have done.
Another "bad student" was his deskmate—how else would you say that Miss Gu's family was rich? While everyone else was drinking student milk, she pulled out a box of Telunsu from her Doraemon-like backpack and calmly inserted a straw.
How could there be such a heretic who liked drinking plain milk?
He saw that Miss Gu didn't drink it right away. As if she had just remembered something, she put her carton of student milk in front of Zhang Shutong and said in a low voice:
"Here, for you."
Could this also be a benefit of being her deskmate?
Zhang Shutong thought with a laugh. He would have snacks when he was hungry and milk when he was thirsty. He finally understood why Gu Qiumian's old deskmate was always staring at him.
"This one's sweet, too. Now we're even," she specially explained, and then she held the Telunsu to her chest, her cheeks slightly puffed out.
"Thanks then."
The next moment was a happy class.
Their school didn't have a multimedia setup. They only had a projector next to the podium. They would put the test paper on the device, and it would be projected onto the screen. When the sun was strong, they would have to pull the curtains.
Then Song Nanshan took out his dirty briefcase and said, "Quiet, quiet. You guys look at it first," while he looked for the test papers inside. He would also occasionally mumble to himself, "Hey, I remember putting it here..."
Seeing this very unreliable scene, Zhang Shutong felt a sense of familiarity.
When he was a child, he only thought that he was not like an adult at all. He would smoke in front of them on weekends and wouldn't try to hide it. Because he wanted to quit smoking, he filled his drawer with lollipops. If anyone felt wronged, he would give them a lollipop. He never called students by their full names, but rather by names like Shutong, Ruoping, and Qinglian. Although he still couldn't define what maturity was, Zhang Shutong genuinely felt that Song Nanshan was an excellent teacher.
But you didn't actually lose the test paper, did you?
Fortunately, after rummaging for a long time, Song Nanshan finally found it and projected it onto the big screen. Some questions were marked with numbers, probably for statistics on how many students got them wrong. He could also see a bit of a red oil stain in the bottom left corner.
This was the tragedy of a single man.
The reason he understood was because he himself had also worked while eating many times.
But as soon as Song Nanshan started talking about a key point, that unreliability suddenly disappeared. He was like a commander in front of a thousand troops, full of confidence:
"This question looks confusing, but as long as you pay attention to the tense..."
"And this one, although there's a very obscure word, it doesn't matter if you don't understand it. I'll teach you a trick. Once 'but' indicates a transition, you can just ignore what was said before... ahem, you can just ignore it completely."
He did have a method for going over test papers. It was both fast and detailed. But for Zhang Shutong, these questions were a bit too simple.
So he didn't follow the lesson. Instead, he took this opportunity to silently do the test paper in his mind.
There was also another person who wasn't listening attentively, Lu Qinglian. She was looking down, writing something with her pen.
"Look at this one again. It's a classic question. I'm too lazy to go over it. Didn't I emphasize it countless times before the exam? I'll say this one last time." What the teacher said was "last time" was not to be taken seriously. "Oh, by the way, this question is also in this week's homework. The students who did it seriously should have noticed it. Let's go over it together."
After he said that, Song Nanshan started rummaging through his briefcase again. He was originally in high spirits, but as he looked, he became impatient himself. He just grabbed the top one from the stack of "Five Years of High School Entrance Exams, Three Years of Simulated Exams" on the podium:
"Forget it, let's look at someone else's first. I had already written down my notes, so I'll write on the board later. Don't let your minds wander..."
Zhang Shutong had just finished his first carton of student milk and was about to open the second one. He tore open the plastic wrapper, put the straw in his mouth, and found it very amusing.
The familiar formula, the familiar taste, the familiar unreliability.
Song Nanshan didn't know that his "favorite student" was speaking ill of him in his heart. He walked back to the machine, turned his back, and opened the cover. He was quite satisfied:
"It's Shutong's. So later, I'll have him come up and explain it to you all."
Zhang Shutong's movements froze when he heard this.
Although he completely didn't remember what the English homework was, with his English level, he could really go up and explain it on the spot, and he could guarantee that he would explain it even more thoroughly than the class teacher.
So explaining the problems was never an issue.
The problem was... why was that workbook his?
The workbook was sent to the projector, like a prisoner bound with ropes being sent to the guillotine, just waiting for the blade to fall and the head to drop.
Zhang Shutong suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck. He had always trusted his instincts. He instinctively stood up:
"Wait—"
Unfortunately, it was too late.
At this moment, the room was quiet. Some students were staring at the blank screen of the projector. Some were whispering to each other;
The teacher named Song Nanshan was in a hurry to turn to the homework page in the workbook; the boy named Zhang Shutong quickly stood up; the girl to his side, who was originally looking down, happened to look up at this moment; his deskmate was startled and was turning her face in surprise.
The scene seemed to freeze.
Then, under the gaze of countless eyes, the image that appeared on the projector was not yesterday's homework, but a piece of scrap paper.
On the scrap paper, three names were written: Zhang Shutong, Lu Qinglian, and Gu Qiumian.
These three names were also connected to form a triangle.
All eyes in the class turned to Zhang Shutong.
Gu Qiumian's surprised expression seemed to be frozen on her face, but her entire face was visibly turning red. Then she glared at him fiercely:
"Give it to me!"
The girl, without a word, reached out her hand and snatched the unopened carton of student milk.
Zhang Shutong bit the soft flesh in his mouth, and it hurt.
He slowly sat down, a light straw in his mouth, and unconsciously took a deep breath of cold air. Only one thought remained in his mind.
Excuse me, can I Rewind?