"What's wrong with you?" Lu Yige hurriedly handed him a tissue.
Jiang Yu took it and wiped the corner of his mouth without saying anything.
"No way." Lu Yige frowned at him. "Don't tell me you've got a terminal illness or something?"
Jiang Yu glanced at her. Only then did Lu Yige realize that what she had just said was rather inappropriate—the one with a terminal illness was clearly her, while Jiang Yu, this menace, lived just fine all the way to the end of the novel.
"Then you must've been beaten up," Lu Yige mused. "Did Chi Yexuan finally lose his temper and go all out? No, that doesn't seem right—he's basically a paper tiger. He wouldn't be that brutal."
Jiang Yu looked at her steadily. "You seem to know him very well."
"Of course. You guys—" everyone, she almost said.
Her voice dropped as she realized she'd spoken too freely again, and she quickly added, "It's just that I've known him for quite a few years."
"For quite a few years. Childhood sweethearts, then?" Jiang Yu said, inexplicably tinged with jealousy.
Lu Yige: ...
Sir, why don't you just debut already? With your looks, physique, and acting skills, if you didn't become wildly famous, there'd be no justice in the world. Once you're famous, you'd have money and connections—using this level of acting on me is such a waste of talent!
Lu Yige's expression was complicated as she glanced at Jiang Yu, who was tilting his head and looking at her.
"And you have the nerve to say that about me? You and Jiang Nian are the real childhood sweethearts, growing up together without a care. I'm not even that close with Chi Yexuan."
"You care?" he asked.
"I don't care. You're family—really, I don't care at all," Lu Yige said with a sweet smile.
"You do care," Jiang Yu said, his gaze darkening. "Then from now on, I'll keep my distance from her."
Lu Yige: ...
If I say I really don't care, would you believe me?
She no longer felt like asking whether he'd been beaten up. This man truly deserved it.
Seeing that Lu Yige had fallen silent, Jiang Yu withdrew his gaze.
During the break, the Chinese teacher asked him to fetch something from the middle school section. On his way back, he ran into some former middle school classmates.
They weren't supposed to be here.
Jiang Yu remembered that those delinquents hadn't gotten into high school and had gone to a vocational school instead.
"Hey, Jiang Yu." The leader, Li Qiang, with a mess of dyed yellow hair, lifted his chin at him. "Go call Jiang Nian over. Tell her I miss her."
That delinquent had harassed Jiang Nian constantly back in middle school. Jiang Yu hadn't expected him to still be haunting her now.
Ignoring them, Jiang Yu walked straight ahead.
"Don't go," Li Qiang said, motioning to the others to follow.
Between the high school and middle school buildings was a fairly long tree-lined path that was usually empty during breaks.
Jiang Yu didn't look back. He broke into a run, not wanting to get entangled with them and invite more trouble.
"Running, huh? Jiang Yu, your mom is Lin Yuhuan, that bitch, right?"
Jiang Yu's body stiffened.
Seeing his reaction, Li Qiang got excited and raised his voice. "Still pretending? We all know now. You hid it pretty well back in middle school. Ten years ago, your mom was famous around here."
"Wrong, Brother Li," someone corrected. "Infamous."
"Hahahahaha."
Jiang Yu clenched his fists and said coldly, "She's not my mother."
"Not?" Li Qiang sneered. "You won't even acknowledge your own mother now? Doesn't matter how high and mighty you act. School heartthrob? Male god? In the end, you're just a dog born to a whore."
"Stop." Jiang Yu turned around, glaring at them viciously.
Lu Yige had been unusually well-behaved that day, listening attentively through an entire class that wasn't mathematics. When class ended, Xu Lu once again came scurrying over.
"No way," Lu Yige said, eyeing him with disdain. "What impossible problem did you dig up this time? I told you the exam's tomorrow—I'm not playing with you."
"Is that really how you see me?" Xu Lu glared at her.
Lu Yige replied, "Aren't you exactly that kind of person?"
"Good intentions treated like donkey liver," Xu Lu muttered, yet still tossed a handful of slips of paper onto her desk.
"What's this?" Lu Yige picked one up at random. "These are... chemistry problems?"
The slips were covered in chemistry questions, apparently cut out from test papers or workbooks.
"They're for you. I think they're pretty classic. If you go through them, eighty points won't be a problem."
Lu Yige gathered the messy scraps together. "Couldn't you have just copied them into a notebook?"
Xu Lu curled his lips. "If I did, would you even understand them?"
"Then at least tape them together. At this rate, they'll all be gone in a couple of days."
She stacked the slips neatly and handed them back. "Thanks, but my chemistry isn't bad. Forget eighty—ninety points won't be a problem."
"Then why did you get such an easy question wrong in class?"
"You—" Seeing Xu Lu puffed up with indignation, Lu Yige softened. "Fine. Since you're so cute, I'll take them. Thanks."
She didn't want his effort to go to waste.
Xu Lu snorted. "I didn't help you. I've been first in the grade for two years—utterly invincible. I'm just hoping someone won't get left dozens of points behind me."
Then he added, "Believing in you doesn't mean I think you can beat me."
Lu Yige nodded. "Thanks, prodigy. You weren't my target anyway."
Xu Lu shot her another glare and left.
"Then who is your target—me?" Jiang Yu suddenly asked.
Lu Yige: Heh heh heh. Does this guy read minds?
"I don't have a target. As long as I get the score I want, that's enough."
She didn't look at him, taking out a blank notebook to tape Xu Lu's slips into.
"You seem quite close to him. You get along well and have a lot in common?"
"Yes," Lu Yige said as she cut a piece of tape and carefully fixed a slip in place. "Don't you think he's adorable? Very straightforward."
Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at Jiang Yu—unlike you, all scheming and calculating.
She happened to meet his gaze. Jiang Yu blinked and looked at her. "Those problems are all in the mistake notebook I gave you."
"Oh. I just didn't want to let his kindness go to waste." Lu Yige looked away.
"Then can my kindness be wasted?" he asked.
"What?" Lu Yige frowned.
Jiang Yu lowered his eyes and said softly, "The notes I gave you—you haven't looked at them at all, have you?"
"I have—"
"Have you? You didn't even bring them to school."
Lu Yige was momentarily speechless. "Uh... that's because I already looked at them over the weekend."
"Alright."
He didn't press further, and Lu Yige finally breathed a sigh of relief.
She felt like a rookie actor sparring with a seasoned film king—overwhelmingly stressful.
"Take another good look at those notes," Jiang Yu's voice came again. "Especially physics. Yours seems a bit weak."
"Got it," Lu Yige replied, feeling slightly guilty.
***
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