When Lin Tao returned to the classroom, Old Yu was still there. He took one look at the bandage on her forehead and was visibly astonished. “Jiang Yan actually injured you?”

The students in the class were all aware of what had really happened. They laughed at that.

Lin Tao stood in the doorway, tone a little resigned. “Teacher Yu, this injury isn’t from Jiang Yan. I fell during P.E. It’s got nothing to do with him.”

Old Yu looked doubtful, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. He hesitated. “Really not Jiang Yan? Student Lin Tao, don’t be afraid — my students won’t be cowed by threats. If it really was Jiang Yan, I won’t show him any favoritism.”

Right at that moment, Jiang Yan came back from the restroom and found himself standing at the doorway next to Lin Tao, catching that last part. He asked, bewildered: “What’s this about me hitting someone?”

Lin Tao glanced at him. “Me.”

“What?”

“Me.” Lin Tao broke into an odd laugh. “Old Yu thinks the wound on my head was from you.”

“…”

The two of them stood there in the doorway chatting back and forth. Old Yu tapped the lectern with a knuckle, smile spreading across his face. “Should I pull up two chairs to the doorway so you two can finish your conversation out there?”

“…”

“HAHAHAHAHA!”

“Old Yu, what kind of otherworldly homeroom teacher are you?”

The classroom descended into cheerful chaos. Lin Tao was thin-skinned, and being laughed at like that was more than she could handle. She ducked her head and hurried back to her seat. Jiang Yan followed and settled back into his.

In all fairness, Old Yu was a genuinely exceptional homeroom teacher — he treated all students without distinction, making no judgments about better or worse. His methods were unorthodox and he never played by the expected rules, but his disposition was fundamentally easy-going, and the whole rambunctious bunch in Class Eighteen both respected and adored him.

“Do you think Old Yu’s way of thinking is just… different from most people?” Lin Tao asked Jiang Yan, settling back into her seat. They’d gotten onto the topic of Yu Bingshan. “Do you think he has some kind of misconception about you too?”

Jiang Yan rubbed his eyes, their corners faintly red. “How so?”

“Otherwise why would he make you class representative? And why would he appoint Du Wenbo as academic officer?”

Lin Tao hadn’t sat next to Du Wenbo for long, but in that time, she had not once seen his eyes leave his phone.

And then there was her current deskmate, a certain Jiang individual — who, in a twenty-four-hour day, probably spent twenty-five of those hours living inside TV dramas and video games.

Jiang Yan turned sideways, leaning against the wall, propping his elbow on the desk and resting his head in his hand. He looked at her with a lowered gaze. “I don’t think Old Yu has any misconceptions about me. If anything, I think you have a slightly skewed perception of me.”

“How?” Lin Tao said, entirely straight-faced. “Based on the rumor that you single-handedly fought off an entire class worth of guys, Old Yu’s understanding of you seems pretty surface-level at best.”

Back in middle school, Lin Tao’s class had a self-proclaimed undefeated king of campus — a real troublemaker type who ruled the school like it was his personal domain, always rolling in with a whole entourage.

And naturally, grades like volcanic ash — completely buried. Teachers, too, wanted nothing to do with that sort.

Not that Lin Tao had cared much about any of that. But by normal teacher logic, no one would make a class representative out of someone who could single-handedly take on a whole class of guys, who never listened in class, and who was perpetually absorbed in video games.

Unless, of course, there were exceptions — like the kind where a family’s donation of an entire building and a track field to the school meant you could walk sideways down the halls and the principal himself would step aside.

The thought triggered something. Lin Tao looked at him with sudden wide-eyed suspicion. “Wait — don’t tell me your dad donated a building to this school?”

Jiang Yan hadn’t expected her mind to wander so spectacularly far afield. But when he heard the question, something shifted in him. He went quiet all at once.

Lin Tao wasn’t sure what to make of his sudden silence.

Had she stumbled onto some secret he didn’t want known? Had she wounded the pride of a young man on the verge of adulthood?

She replayed what she’d just said. Your dad… your dad—

Lin Tao suddenly remembered something from before — something Xu Yichuan and the others had let slip accidentally during that fight incident.

His dad hits him.

His second uncle gives him a hard time.

“…”

Lin Tao had the sinking feeling she’d actually tripped into genuinely painful territory, and she stood there uncertain whether to attempt some sort of roundabout comforting.

Before she could decide, Jiang Yan spoke again. “Have you heard of the Physics Lindell Cup?”

The Physics Lindell Cup — a national physics competition, held annually in April at Hu City University. It ran over three months, with a preliminary round, a final round, and a final group stage. In terms of prestige, it ranked just below the National High School Physics Olympiad.

Lin Tao hadn’t expected such an abrupt change in subject. She blinked a few times before nodding. “I know it. Why?”

She’d watched the livestream a few years back, actually. After physics had done its damage to her, she’d stopped following it.

“Go to the official website. If you look up the results from two years ago, you should still be able to find them.”

Lin Tao raised an eyebrow slightly, took out her phone, opened a search, and navigated to the official Lindell Cup website. She looked up the historical results.

The connection was slow. It buffered for about ten seconds before the page loaded.

Lin Tao scrolled back two years and froze the moment she saw the result. She looked up at Jiang Yan with complete astonishment. “The second-place Du Wenbo here — that’s not our Du Wenbo from this class, is it?”

“What do you think.”

It took Lin Tao a few minutes to process this. Then another thing occurred to her. “Wait, how do you even know Du Wenbo placed in that competition?”

“Try going back one more year.”

“Don’t tell me you’re about to say you were second place that year.”

Jiang Yan came back from wherever his thoughts had gone. He looked down and laughed quietly. “No.”

“Right, I figured.”

He continued: “I was first.”

“?”

Lin Tao went speechless. She scrolled back one year in silence, and when the results loaded, she had a very strong desire to scratch out her own eyes.

What on earth.

First place — Xi City Middle School, Year Two, Class One: Jiang Yan.

Her throat felt suddenly dry. She swallowed. “For some reason, the possibility that this is just someone who happens to share your name feels considerably higher to me than the possibility that you’re actually this first-place winner.”

Jiang Yan paused for a full second — and then he genuinely laughed. The laugh lifted at the end. “Are you dense?”

He’d kept his voice low, and it came out with a kind of graveled texture, tumbling into Lin Tao’s ears like a crackle of static — buzzing and warm, sending a tingle through her.

Lin Tao’s heart gave a sharp lurch. She rubbed her ear involuntarily. “Even a genius isn’t allowed to call people names. And for the record, I am also a top student.”

Jiang Yan clearly didn’t believe this. He gave a perfunctory hum. “Sure. Top student.”

“…”

The three evening study hall periods passed in a blur of Lin Tao’s completely stunned internal monologue. The classroom emptied out fast — within a few minutes, only a handful of students remained.

Lin Tao slowly packed up her things, then stood up with her bag. At the same time, Jiang Yan pulled his own bag out from under the desk and made his way out.

As he passed her, he stopped.

Lin Tao looked up. Her breath caught.

He was young, with very fair skin, and his features were striking in their precision — each line, each angle, seemed to have been carved with intention. The bright overhead fluorescent light poured down from above.

He stood in it. Stood in that light.

Then he raised his hand and ruffled her hair once, said quietly: “See you Monday, little top student.”

Lin Tao’s breathing completely lost its rhythm. No one knew how fast her heartbeat had just spiked.

He really is terribly good-looking.

That was the thought she had.

The weekend arrived. Lin Tao was woken up early by her mother and taken to the hospital for a checkup.

When Lin Tao had gotten home the previous evening, her mother had seen the bandage on her forehead and been frightened half out of her mind — she’d immediately been ready to take her daughter to the hospital right then and there. Only after Lin Tao repeatedly insisted there was nothing wrong had she been persuaded to wait until morning.

Weekend hospital crowds were no joke, but Lin Tao’s mother had her connections, so the tests didn’t require much waiting. The results came back quickly — everything normal, no real issue.

Her mother read the report several times over before finally exhaling in relief. “Thank goodness. Nothing wrong with her head, and her arm wasn’t affected either.”

Lin Tao had been up since early morning and had been yawning nonstop. “Mom, I told you — it’s nothing. Just a small scrape. I didn’t even need stitches.”

“You never give me a moment’s peace.” Her mother said the words, but her eyes were full of fond indulgence. “Come on, let’s go home. Your father had someone track down some ginseng — I’ll make you a restorative soup.”

“Oh wow.” Lin Tao put on her best expression of delighted surprise, leaning into Fang Yisong’s arm and being deliberately sweet. “How do I have such a wonderful mother.”

“You.” Her mother poked Lin Tao lightly on the forehead, eyes soft with laughter — but beneath it, a quiet layer of guilt.

She and her husband Lin Yongcheng had built everything from the ground up. Work had always demanded nearly everything, keeping them traveling for months at a stretch, rarely home for more than a few days at a time.

As a result, Lin Tao had been left largely on her own. But Lin Tao was sensible and capable, and had never given them cause to worry about her life or her studies.

Only in recent years, as the company had finally found its footing, had she been able to carve out time to stay home and be present for her daughter.

She and her husband both felt the weight of those missed years — all the ordinary childhood moments they hadn’t been there for. But having the chance to make it up now made everything else feel manageable.

On the way back from the hospital, Lin Tao was on QQ chatting idly with Meng Xin.

Meng Xin was still thinking about what Jiang Yan had said yesterday about getting revenge. “Did Jiang Yan tell you anything about what exactly he plans to do?”

“No. I don’t think he’ll actually do anything — he’s just trying to scare Tang Yushi.”

Lin Tao genuinely hadn’t taken it seriously. After all, Jiang Yan was a guy — he couldn’t exactly go hitting a girl.

“Fair enough.” Meng Xin sent several messages in quick succession. “Still, even just scaring Tang Yushi a bit would be satisfying. She didn’t even come to evening study hall last night.”

“I had the discipline officer mark her absent.”

“Her friends weren’t there either, so I marked them down too. HAHAHA.”

Lin Tao: “…You’re abusing your authority.”

“I call it justice. Who told her to purposely throw a ball at you.”

During P.E. the day before, Lin Tao had been standing by the side of the court watching Meng Xin play volleyball, when a basketball suddenly came flying in from the neighboring court and knocked Lin Tao straight off her feet — her head smacking into the edge of a bench beside her.

With anyone else, Meng Xin might have believed it was accidental. But with Tang Yushi — she’d sooner swallow the ball whole than accept that.

Everyone knew Tang Yushi was one of the best basketball players in the year.

Slipped? Accident?

Not a chance.

“Don’t worry — if Jiang Yan doesn’t get you your revenge, I will.” Meng Xin sent a voice message. “When it comes to fighting girls, I’m the expert.”

Lin Tao accidentally hit the speaker button. The voice filled the entire car with Meng Xin’s spirited declaration.

“…”

Her mother turned to look at Lin Tao. “That’s Meng Xin, right?”

“No, no, you must have misheard. That’s just a classmate from my new class — everyone’s in the group chat, just hanging out.”

“Is that right. It sounded like someone talking about picking a fight.”

Lin Tao played dumb. “I don’t know, I’ll have to ask later what’s going on.”

“Don’t go getting mixed up in it.” Her mother rolled up the window. “This is exactly how school conflicts start.”

“…”

Lin Tao managed to reassure her mother with multiple solemn promises that she would not get involved, and peace was restored.

That evening, after dinner, the unofficial chat group for Class Eighteen of Year Two came alive — and by the time Lin Tao opened it, it was already past 99 unread messages.

When she tapped in, a student named Wu Wang had just posted: “No way — did Jiang Yan actually do something to Tang Yushi??”

Before Lin Tao could even process that, messages were flooding in below.

“I think he slapped her once?”

“No, I heard he kicked her?”

“Are you serious? My friend in the humanities class said he hit her with a ball?”

“Wait, no! I heard he punched her.”

Lin Tao: “…”

Could they at least agree on the method?

Still, there wasn’t much room to find this funny. She exited the chat and sent Jiang Yan a message: “Did you do something to Tang Yushi?”

He must have been in the group chat too — he replied within seconds.

“I didn’t touch her.”

Lin Tao had barely started to exhale when his next message appeared.

“She came at me first. Self-defense — I pushed her back.”

“…”

Author’s note: —Jiang Yan: I swear I didn’t hit her—