If Meng Ting had known it was him, she wouldn’t have come. But since she was here, she wouldn’t treat him differently just because it was him.
Jiang Ren said he didn’t know anything, so she thought for a moment and took out the first-year high school Chinese textbook.
The first lesson in the required course was “Qinyuan Spring – Changsha”. Meng Ting asked him, “Have you studied this before?”
Jiang Ren glanced at it. Her book was full of notes, with annotations written next to each line. Their Chinese teacher was a rigid, dull middle-aged woman, and he had never paid attention in a single class. Naturally, he had no impression of this poem. However, seeing Meng Ting’s expectant gaze, as if he should have studied it, he nodded regardless of whether he had or not.
Her eyes lit up with a smile: “Have you memorized it then?”
Unable to bluff his way through this, Jiang Ren said, “No.”
Meng Ting told him, “Memorizing poems from the textbook is worth ten points in the college entrance exam Chinese test. These are free points that you absolutely can’t miss.”
She was very serious, her little face pink and plump. Jiang Ren smiled, “Mm-hmm.”
Song Qinqin desperately flipped through the test papers beside them.
She was going to die.
This guy hadn’t just missed high school; he probably hadn’t even been to middle school. Her second sister in middle school could do problems that Jiang Ren got wrong. Song Qinqin adjusted her glasses and stammered as she pulled Meng Ting aside, “Senior, can you come out for a moment?”
Meng Ting went with her to the door.
Song Qinqin knew this senior was the school beauty, and up close, she was even prettier. She looked at her several times, then said with a bitter face, “He scored just over twenty points in math, and the only multiple-choice questions he got right were the last two.”
Meng Ting: “…” She immediately understood what Song Qinqin meant. Most people get the first few multiple-choice questions right because they’re easier, but Jiang Ren got the last two right, which wasn’t because he knew how to do them, but because he guessed correctly.
If he couldn’t even do the first multiple-choice question, it proved he truly had zero foundation.
Meng Ting didn’t know why, but she felt like laughing. She bit her lip, her little face turning red from holding it in: “He’s the cream of the crop among poor students, isn’t he?”
Song Qinqin completely agreed.
Song Qinqin said, “We’ve already signed the agreement, so I’ll go back and figure out how to teach him. You’re teaching Chinese today, will you be okay on your own, Senior?”
Meng Ting said it was fine, so Song Qinqin left, taking Jiang Ren’s test papers with her.
The early summer night occasionally resonated with insect sounds, though cicadas weren’t out yet in this weather. It wasn’t noisy, as the school had installed air conditioning, finally no longer relying on old fans to beat the heat.
As the air conditioner hummed, Meng Ting sat down beside him.
They sat on either side of one desk.
Jiang Ren was stunned.
He had never imagined Meng Ting would sit with him. When she interacted with him, she mostly tried to avoid him. Even though he knew her personality was gentle and smiley, because of his volatile temper, she always said he was annoying.
They sat at the first desk.
Jiang Ren had only ever shared desks with his troublemaker friends from childhood, and in summer, the boys would play ball and come back dirty and smelly. But now, the girl beside him was soft and fragrant.
She didn’t hold grudges, as Jiang Ren had long noticed. Even though last time at the airport she had nearly cried, today she was still warm and bright. He secretly touched the scabbed bite mark on his arm and moved a little closer to her.
Meng Ting opened the textbook and pushed it between them.
She had experience tutoring children and often explained problems to her classmates. This arrangement was most comfortable for an evening self-study session. No need to look at things upside down.
Meng Ting asked him, “We’ll start with Chinese today. Is it okay if I find some middle school math and physics textbooks over the weekend to help you build a foundation?”
She turned her head to ask him, a seventeen-year-old girl with pure eyes.
Jiang Ren had never interacted with her so peacefully before. Her gentleness was like water flowing through his bones, making his whole body tingle.
Jiang Ren dumbly said, “Okay.”
Meng Ting said, “Then I’ll start by teaching you the content to memorize from the first two lessons. Listen carefully, okay? If there are characters you don’t recognize, look at the phonetic notation.”
Jiang Ren’s heart was pounding.
He loved this gentleness from her, but he had never received such treatment before. He hadn’t expected that when she agreed to tutor him, she would be so serious and kind.
Meng Ting read “Qinyuan Spring” to him, explaining as she went.
Then came two modern poems.
“Rain Alley” and “Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again.”
Neither were love poems, but their soft tones surpassed love poems.
Her voice was sweet on the summer night, like the soft dialect of Wu-—
“Those golden willows by the riverbank,
Are brides in the sunset;
Their reflections in the shimmering waves
Ripple in my heart.”
Jiang Ren felt his heart rippling too.
“The green grass in the soft mud,
Sways gently at the bottom of the water;
In the gentle waves of the Cam,
I’m willing to be a blade of grass!”
For the first time, he found a poem beautiful. In her sparkling gaze, he was about to drown.
After Meng Ting finished reading, she carefully explained the meaning again. She explained in detail, afraid he wouldn’t understand, slowing her pace, but the boy beside her didn’t make a sound.
Meng Ting turned her head to look at him.
The boy, much taller than her, wasn’t looking at her textbook.
His white school uniform was thin, and his pitch-black gaze had fallen on her raised chest. Because white can be see-through, the school girls complained many times. When Meng Ting wore white, she always wore a white tube top underneath, so the outline of her underwear wouldn’t show.
He was so obviously distracted, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Meng Ting followed his gaze and looked down. Where the tube top didn’t cover, under the thin clothes, the edge of her pink underwear was faintly visible.
Meng Ting: “…!”
The air felt like it was on fire. She stood up, her face bright red: “Jiang Ren! Where are you looking!”
Jiang Ren: “…”
Damn, she finished reading so quickly?
Jiang Ren hadn’t meant to stare, but she smelled so good. He had originally been looking at the textbook, but then he saw that exposed bit of her arm, so tender and white as porcelain. Those were hands that played the piano, with soft, slender fingers.
His gaze moved upward, and he saw her pure profile.
The light cast shadows on her cheeks, her eyelashes like crow feathers, gently lowered, so endearing.
Then his gaze moved down a bit, he really couldn’t help it.
He had only meant to take a glance, but it was as if he had been frozen in place. He kept imagining her in a Republican-era mandarin collar blouse, her chest full, her waist slim, so delicate he could encircle it with one hand. As he imagined, he couldn’t hear anything else, only her soft voice by his ear. His throat was dry, and he wanted to swallow.
Meng Ting was about to die of anger: “If you don’t want to listen, then forget it.”
Seeing her face flushed with embarrassment, Jiang Ren smiled and coaxed, “Don’t be angry, little teacher.”
She was so cute when she was angry, her pink cheeks making him want to pinch them.
Jiang Ren glanced at the podium, where there was a pointer about a finger thick.
Jiang Ren was afraid she would cry, and even more afraid she would leave.
When he went to get the pointer from the podium, Meng Ting, red-faced with shame, quickly pulled up her tube top, covering everything. It was fine now.
Jiang Ren brought the pointer back to her.
Then he smiled and held out his hand: “I wasn’t paying attention in class. Will you hit me?”
Meng Ting held the pointer dumbly, looking up at him. He said, “Don’t cry, okay?”
When did she cry so easily? She pressed her lips together: “You’re too much. I can’t teach you well.” She thought about packing up and leaving. She had been seriously teaching him, and he was looking at her there! Just thinking about it made her angry.
Jiang Ren felt a bit agitated: “I promise to pay attention. Don’t leave, okay?”
He was really afraid she would leave. Taking advantage of his height and long legs, he took a few steps to close the door.
But when he turned back, he saw her frightened gaze.
It seemed he had a record, so she was scared. He held back a smile and said seriously, “You can punish me physically too.”
Meng Ting was terrified of this hooligan: “Don’t you dare come over here.”
In his childhood, he had watched cartoons where eagles chased chickens, and those pitiful little chicks would fluff up in fear, flapping their little wings as they fled everywhere.
She leaned against the desk, her big eyes watery, backing away.
Jiang Ren was amused and deliberately teased her: “So, should we continue with the lesson or do something else?”
She wanted to cry, with nowhere left to retreat: “L-lesson.”
Jiang Ren laughed out loud.
She was so adorable.
He said, “Good girl, don’t be afraid. If you don’t want to hit me, how about I punish myself?”
The classroom was spacious. He moved away a desk. Then, under her wet gaze, he started doing push-ups.
The young man did them effortlessly and with perfect form.
When he was young and attended an elite primary school, he was used to being punished like this.
The key was that this position helped dissipate heat. At his age of surging hormones, with the girl he longed for day and night beside him. He was afraid of scaring her, so he had even averted his gaze when standing up earlier.
He didn’t know how many he had done, head down and sweating. When he looked up at her, she finally seemed unafraid.
A pair of tea-colored eyes looked at him curiously.
He smiled, “Is that enough, little teacher?”
Meng Ting believed he wasn’t up to mischief now. She had been silently counting in her heart. He had done over seventy.
But he didn’t seem tired at all.
When she was in middle school, there was a naughty boy in her class who was punished with push-ups. After just ten, his face was pale as he lay on the ground.
Meng Ting said softly, “Why don’t you try for a sports scholarship?”
“…”
Jiang Ren was both stupid and inattentive. It would be so painful for him to force himself to study hard.
Jiang Ren laughed angrily. Damn it.
He stood up from the ground, a thin layer of sweat on his forehead, but his eyes were bright and dark.
Meng Ting realized. His family was wealthy, so he didn’t need to worry about getting into university. If he couldn’t get in, they could just send him abroad and be done with it. The key was that his attitude seemed quite serious, which made her involuntarily think about finding a path that suited him.
After all this commotion, Meng Ting looked down at her watch and saw it was almost time for school to end.
“Will you study hard?”
“Mm, don’t you believe me?”
Meng Ting indeed didn’t believe him: “Memorize the required recitation texts from Compulsory Course 1 and 2, and then I’ll come to teach you again.”
Jiang Ren didn’t even bat an eye: “How many are there?”
Meng Ting put the two books in front of him: “Ten Passages.”
She wanted to make him give up, so she included difficult classical Chinese texts like “Preface to the Orchid Pavilion” and “Ode to the Red Cliff.” It would be hard for Jiang Ren to even read them, let alone memorize them.
Meng Ting was slightly annoyed.
She didn’t mind tutoring classmates, but his gaze was so aggressive.
She wasn’t stupid. She had noticed that part of him… had risen. It was so obvious. When he came back after closing the door, it was hard to ignore.
She wasn’t very good at scolding people, and lacking in vocabulary, so she could only curse this vocational school hooligan in her heart!
The young man leaned closer, reeking of sweat. He glanced at the table of contents, clicked his tongue, and smiled a bit mischievously: “So many. You’re deliberately making it hard for me, huh?”
Meng Ting said, “If you don’t want to, forget it.”
“I want to. How could I not?” Jiang Ren looked into the girl’s bright eyes, “If I memorize them all, will you promise not to give up on me so easily again?”
She nodded: “Okay.” After all, he wouldn’t be able to memorize them all.
For someone who had never studied anything, to memorize all the required recitations from two textbooks. With his volatile temper, he might even tear up the books. If he gave up studying, Meng Ting would tell the school she didn’t want a single cent of the extra scholarship money.
Jiang Ren gathered up the two books, chuckling softly: “Wait for me. See you next week.”