After all the drama last night, Li Zhi naturally didn't wait for Shen Yuan to go to school together the next day.
Shen Yuan had no problem with that; he just treated it as an opportunity to work on his mission.
He was now only 2 kilometers away from finishing it.
'I'll try to finish the whole run today!'
When he got to the classroom, Shen Yuan subconsciously looked toward Li Zhi's old seat.
Seeing no one there, he remembered.
'We changed seats yesterday.'
Strolling over to Li Zhi's new seat, Shen Yuan pulled a carton of soy milk from his pocket. "Here, brought this for you."
Li Zhi glanced at the soy milk. "A sudden pang of conscience?"
"It's what I had left."
'I knew it…'
"You just have to get the last word in." Li Zhi took the soy milk, then noticed the cap was already open.
Li Zhi knew full well that Shen Yuan's brain was wired differently from a normal person's.
What he'd just said was very likely just his way of getting a rise out of her.
But, if the soy milk carton's cap wasn't open, it would have been a complete joke.
And now, the soy milk cap was open.
Before Li Zhi took a drink, this carton of soy milk existed simultaneously in a quantum superposition of "having been drunk by Shen Yuan" and "not having been drunk by Shen Yuan." Only after she took the first sip would she get the answer from Shen Yuan's lips.
'What is this, Schrödinger's drink?'
Seeing Li Zhi's hesitation, Shen Yuan smiled slightly. "Opening the bottle cap before handing a drink to a lady is the mark of a new-age gentleman."
"You're looking down on me."
Li Zhi pinched the soy milk carton with three fingers and said sternly, "You are flaunting your superior male strength and implicitly mocking the stereotype of the 'fragile woman in need of protection'."
"Whoa, playing the feminism card, are we?"
"Look who's getting triggered."
Shen Yuan took a deep breath, snatched the soy milk from Li Zhi's hand, twisted the cap shut with force, then held up the soy milk with both hands and presented it to her again.
True gentlemanly spirit lies not in twisting a bottle cap, but in your ability to, when she says, "I can do it myself," perform the act of handing the bottle back with the same solemnity as a Nobel Peace Prize handover.
In short, Shen Yuan had retracted an act of kindness.
'Young Master Li, you gotta fight magic with magic.'
Looking at the soy milk in Shen Yuan's hands, Li Zhi fell silent.
Shen Yuan had clearly tightened it with a lot of force, so there was no way she'd be able to open it.
But if she couldn't open it, wouldn't she lose face?
For Li Zhi, losing face in front of Shen Yuan was a terrifying prospect.
They both kept a little notebook in their minds, recording each other's embarrassing moments. As soon as an argument reached a stalemate, they would flip open their little books of dirt and launch a devastating attack.
For now, the dirt Li Zhi had on him gave her the upper hand.
But could this bottle cap be the final weight that tipped the scales?
Li Zhi didn't dare to risk it.
With her pop-feminist spell proving ineffective against Shen Yuan, Li Zhi needed to find another way.
Li Zhi pondered for a moment. "Did you know? I heard a study showed that a person's fingers temporarily lose their torque when they're near someone they have a crush on."
"You can't open it."
Shen Yuan clearly wasn't buying it.
"You motherf—"
Before Li Zhi could have a complete meltdown, Shen Yuan twisted the cap open.
"Go on, drink. By the way, want me to fill up your water bottle for you?"
Looking at the soy milk's straw now being offered to her, Li Zhi hesitated.
At the rim of the cup floated the weight of friendship's trust; at the bottom settled the philosophical question of hygiene.
The way you raise the cup is just like civilized society's brief hesitation before microbial colonization.
Is this cup filled with a beverage? No, it's an experimental apparatus for the uncertainty principle of modern interpersonal relationships.
To drink is to declare war on E. coli. Not to drink is to open fire on the ship of friendship.
'What fresh hell of human social ethics is this?'
'This should be retitled *Indirect Kiss: Limited Edition Bacterial Colony Blind Box*.'
Under Shen Yuan's expectant gaze, Li Zhi pulled an alcohol wipe from her schoolbag and carefully wiped the soy milk's straw.
The two of them looked at each other and smiled.
Just as Li Zhi was about to take a drink, Shen Yuan suddenly blurted out.
"Aren't you afraid I drank some and then spat it back in?"
"Are you so thirsty you're frenching the carton now?!"
"Not that bad. Go ahead, drink up."
In the end, Li Zhi drank it.
She knew Shen Yuan well enough. He was a bit of a jackass, but he had some standards.
Some, but not many.
After drinking the soy milk, Li Zhi took out a piece of paper from her desk.
"Today's big math problem. I copied it from an old test. Do it properly, and if you don't know how, go ask Old Zhou."
Shen Yuan took the math problem, then reached over and took the water cup from Li Zhi's desk.
"OK, thanks."
After filling up water for himself and Li Zhi, Shen Yuan happily returned to his seat.
'A seat by the wall. Sweet!'
When Shen Yuan looked up again, his new deskmate had spawned.
Seeing Shen Yuan look at her, the new deskmate immediately flashed a brilliant smile.
"Heeello~ new classmate."
'From the looks of it, she's a "Sweet Sister," no doubt about it.'
After exchanging a few words, Shen Yuan learned his new deskmate's name.
His new deskmate was named Zhuo Peipei, and Shen Yuan's first impression of her was "Sweet Sister."
A Sweet Sister whose eyes shone brightly when she looked at people.
If Shen Yuan's heart wasn't already occupied by Sister Lan, the big sister next door, and Li Zhi, he might have actually made some room for the Sweet Sister.
'Why can't my heart be a little bigger?'
'"Pure love"? High schoolers this age are pure lust.'
'It begins with looks, is trapped by looks, and stays loyal to looks.'
'So single-minded.'
'A guy like Ah Jie, who's always so full of it, must be some kind of humanoid.'
Zhuo Peipei was quite curious about her new classmate.
She became even more curious, especially after seeing how close Shen Yuan was with Li Zhi.
Zhuo Peipei had been classmates with Li Zhi for two years, so she was well aware of her personality.
Especially Li Zhi's infamous tirade about grades.
How could one describe that as merely "memorable"?
After all, for high school students, it was something anyone could relate to.
However, Zhuo Peipei's impression of Li Zhi wasn't that bad.
After all, under the tyranny of that tirade about grades, Zhuo Peipei had struggled hard.
Although she couldn't break 650, she had at least crossed the 620-point demarcation line between ape and man.
She had become a complete human in the grand scheme of evolution.
So you see, there are two sides to every coin.
Later, she found out they were childhood friends, which explained why they got along so well. That put her mind at ease.
But that special status just made a person all the more curious!
...
"The moment my butt makes contact with the chair, the bell shall ring!!"
Zhou Shaojie plopped his butt down in his seat, and the class bell rang.
"What are you, living out some kind of creepypasta?" Shen Yuan was already used to Ah Jie's bizarre thought processes.
"No! This is the school welcoming the arrival of its king!"
"Morning reading is English."
Zhou Shaojie was aghast. "An assassin!!"
Morning reading was English, and since Eldest Female Cousin wouldn't care anyway, Shen Yuan brazenly did his math problems.
Eldest Female Cousin saw him but didn't say anything. Shen Yuan's English grade was already beyond the point where morning reading could improve it.
Besides, even if it could be improved, the most he could gain would be less than 10 points.
But his math was a different story. There was so much room for improvement.
In comparison, however, Ah Jie's English had even more room for improvement!
It just refused to improve.