As Lu Xingyan leaned in, Shen Xing felt a shadow cast over her, followed by the familiar scent of grass. His voice seemed to resonate from his chest, with a husky undertone.
Shen Xing’s mind went blank for a few seconds.
“—Bleeding like a river, and you don’t feel anything?”
After her mind cleared, she checked. Indeed, she felt nothing. She raised her head, meeting Lu Xingyan’s gaze. It was difficult to discern whether Lu Xingyan was pretending to be calm because he was angry about the mountain of books and exercises or if… he was genuinely… calm.
Shen Xing calmly pushed away his hands. “Are you lying to me?”
Lu Xingyan, still standing close to her, tilted his head slightly, looking at her feigned composure, and chuckled lightly. “If I were lying to you, I’d be on my period, okay? You’ve got bloodstains all over the chair; I just wiped them off with tissue.”
Shen Xing stood still for a few seconds, then suddenly tensed up, pressing her hands against the edge of the comforter wrapped around her waist, and turned to go back to her room.
“Hey, you—”
Before Lu Xingyan could finish, Shen Xing, in a swift motion, turned around, intending to walk back, but her movement was impeded by the comforter, which had already trailed behind her. Luckily, Lu Xingyan, quick on his feet, grabbed her just in time. However, as he pulled her, both of them lost their balance, stumbled backward a few steps, and with a “bang,” fell to the ground.
With Lu Xingyan acting as a makeshift cushion, Shen Xing only felt a bit of pain when his knee bumped against her. Everything else seemed fine.
Stunned for a few seconds, Shen Xing blinked calmly, only to realize her face was buried in Lu Xingyan’s stomach. His T-shirt was lifted, revealing his stomach—well, his stomach should be called abs. They were quite firm. It seemed his basketball wasn’t just for show.
Compared to Shen Xing, Lu Xingyan’s reaction seemed slower, perhaps because he was acting as a cushion and had to absorb the impact from multiple directions, causing a slight delay in his response. The back of his head was a bit sore, and his lower body felt a bit uncomfortable from the pressure. His left leg tingled with a slight cramp.
Of course! None of these were important!
What was important was that he could feel Shen Xing’s entire face buried in his stomach!
Her blinking eyelashes brushed against him lightly, and her warm, humid breath tickled his skin.
It felt surreal.
For the first time, Lu Xingyan wished his stomach was a soft bun, so when Shen Xing buried her face in it, it would mold around her, fitting snugly and comfortably, just like sinking into clay to make a mold.
Before Lu Xingyan could fully savor the intertwining of pain and sweetness, Shen Xing pulled herself out of her appreciation of his abs. She pressed down on Lu Xingyan’s leg, using it for leverage to sit up.
Lu Xingyan, caught off guard by the sudden pressure, almost ascended to Nirvana and returned to the world in one fell swoop. With eyes closed, he nearly met an untimely end.
Struggling to stand, Shen Xing took a moment to tidy up the comforter around her lower body, mindful of her appearance. Seeing Lu Xingyan lying on the ground with a pained expression, she nudged him with her slipper. “Lu Xingyan.”
Lu Xingyan remained silent.
“Lu Xingyan, get up. Do you think you’re the Princess and the Pea or Snow White? Do you need a kiss from the prince to feel better?”
“…,” Lu Xingyan didn’t respond.
“We’ll skip the prince, but a kiss from you wouldn’t be bad.”
Enduring the tingling cramp, Lu Xingyan muttered this remark. He even imagined a kiss, a hug, and being lifted high—a complete set would be even better. If she couldn’t lift him, he’d do it himself!
Seeing Lu Xingyan still joking, Shen Xing figured he must be fine. She grabbed some political materials from the table and, being considerate, placed them on his face. Task assigned, she said, “No matter what position you’re in, just go through the notes I circled for you earlier. Also, make sure you memorize those key philosophical principles and methodologies tonight. I’m going to take a shower. Come over for a spot check later.”
With that, she lifted the comforter slightly and stepped over Lu Xingyan’s thighs.
That night, Shen Xing and Lu Xingyan studied together until 2 a.m. They spent their seventeenth birthday amid the bloody and violent atmosphere of studying, meeting Dad, and reviewing.
The next day was the final exam. Shen Xing sat in the first seat of the first examination room. Five minutes before the exam started, her stomach suddenly cramped.
Only then did she remember the ginger tea with brown sugar that Aunt Zhou had packed for her in Lu Xingyan’s bag when she left home?
The pain came on swiftly and fiercely, with no indication of when it would stop or if it would return.
Soon, she was drenched in cold sweat, her lips turning pale.
Sitting in the top seat of the grade, with her good looks and demeanor, the invigilator naturally paid her extra attention.
Seeing her pale complexion, the invigilator hurried over, “Shen Xing, are you okay? Are you feeling unwell?”
Shen Xing nodded slightly.
“Can you still hold on?”
Shen Xing nodded again, but the pain grew stronger.
She hadn’t eaten anything cold recently, so she didn’t know why it hurt so much this time.
She remained silent, biting her lip and enduring.
The exam was about to start, and she said she could endure it, so the invigilator couldn’t say much more. They returned to the podium to prepare to open the exam packets.
As the invigilator lifted the exam packets to show the students, suddenly, someone burst into the classroom.
The person stopped at the door, slightly out of breath.
“Classmate? Just arriving? Hurry back to your seat.”
The entire exam room fell silent.
The invigilator didn’t recognize him, but they all did.
Lu Xingyan… If he came in now, he might not even be able to pass the first exam room.
Lu Xingyan paused for a moment, showing no shame as a disciple of Bright Peak. He explained, “My exam room is on the sixth floor. I came to deliver something.”
The invigilator hesitated for a moment.
Lu Xingyan placed the bottle of ginger tea with brown sugar on Shen Xing’s desk, then tossed a pack of hand warmers onto her desk and bid her farewell. “I’m off. Good luck with the exam.”
Nearby classmates muttered to themselves.
“Does Shen Xing still need your concern??? You should worry about yourself…”
Though the invigilator thought that someone taking an exam on the sixth floor probably wouldn’t be able to smuggle any jaw-dropping cheat sheets to help the top student, it was routine to check. “What’s this?”
“A hand warmer.”
With that, Shen Xing tore one open.
It was only when the invigilator instructed everyone to place their bags at the front of the room that Lu Xingyan remembered Shen Xing’s ginger tea in his bag.
Coincidentally, Chen Zhu was in the same exam room and also experienced menstrual cramps. Lu Xingyan asked Chen Zhu for a hand warmer and, ignoring the invigilator’s dissuasion, delivered it to him.
Perhaps because of this act of kindness, Lu Xingyan felt that the exam paper wasn’t as cryptic as before.
In the first Chinese exam, he managed to recall all the parts of the ancient poetry that he had memorized.
The political exam in the afternoon was even more remarkable. Seeing the essay questions, he recalled Shen Xing’s mocking remarks:
“Is it that hard to memorize? Pigs in a pigsty listen to the radio every day, and they’ve learned it all. These connections are all linked, and once they’re connected, they mutually depend and influence each other.”
“Lu Xingyan, are you a pig? If you don’t know, just write ‘adhere to down-to-earth and seek truth from facts.’ Is that okay?”
“Do you think you’re a best-selling author, and every word you write is precious? Are you writing these six words because you think you’re a wordsmith or leaving clues for hidden treasures? You need to answer three points to get six points, even if you have to make them up.”
While writing the exam, Shen Xing’s words echoed in his mind, compelling him to write continuously.
He didn’t just answer three points; he answered six and given more time, he could’ve concocted twelve.
Once the exam bell rang, the last student handed in their paper according to their seat number.
Coincidentally, Li Chengfan, the last in Lu Xingyan’s group, received Lu Xingyan’s paper and was puzzled.
It was filled from top to bottom…
Outside the exam room, Li Chengfan grabbed Lu Xingyan by the neck. “Yan Ge, you’re not being fair! Where did you get the condensed cheat sheet? You filled every space!”
“Get off me. Who’s cheating?” Lu Xingyan pushed away his hand and pointed at himself. “Use your pea brain and think, when have I ever cheated?”
Li Chengfan thought about it.
No, he hadn’t.
Lu Xingyan had said before, something about, receiving a reprimand wasn’t a big deal, but being caught cheating was embarrassing.
He seemed to be quite honorable, portraying himself as a decent and honest boy despite his poor grades.
Of course, Li Chengfan didn’t believe in his honor. He thought Lu Xingyan was just lazy, too lazy to cheat.
So this just got even more thrilling.
What exactly caused a clean-cut good boy like him, who usually can’t be bothered to cheat, to fill up the political exam paper just with the brainpower that developed 001…? What kind of spell was cast?
Lu Xingyan, rarely taking exams seriously, managed to get through the first two exam sessions with the help of some brown sugar water and a warm pad.
Though she still didn’t feel quite well on the second and third days, her stomach pain didn’t return.
As the bell rang signaling the end of the English exam, the final exams officially came to a close. The moment she stepped out of the exam room, she felt the entire teaching building lighten up.
Students from other exam rooms gradually returned to their classes, putting the desks and chairs back in place. Wang Youfu quickly entered the classroom, mainly to give everyone a pep talk, emphasizing that from the moment school started, they were in their final year and they shouldn’t slack off, racing against time…
Then he handed out the letters to parents regarding summer social practice and reminders.
The gist of the letter to parents was to urge them to supervise their children to study hard at home, to pay attention to balancing work and rest, and not to play in the water during the summer.
Shen Xingruo belatedly realized that apart from the slightly earlier start of school, Mingli hadn’t organized any summer remedial classes. This surprised her a bit.
Wang Youfu’s speech was, as usual, slow and deliberate, which made the chicks below who were eager to welcome the holiday even more restless.
Lu Xingyan wasn’t particularly restless. He was mainly focused on this round of exams.
The last exam was English. When Wang Youfu was speaking on stage, he was flipping through the English questionnaire he brought out.
When he got to the reading comprehension section, he didn’t quite understand, so he asked Shen Xingruo, “I found the answers to the first two questions in the text. I shouldn’t have chosen them wrong. But what’s this reading comprehension about? All I see is something about smoke, coffee, and food.”
Shen Xingruo understood what he was talking about without looking at the paper, and she glanced at the platform, softly replying, “This reading comprehension discusses how studies have shown that people can become addicted to mildly uncomfortable things, such as smoking, drinking coffee, and then the second paragraph starts with examples and elaborates on the specific content of the research.”
“Like this.” Lu Xingyan listened to Shen Xingruo’s explanation, feeling somewhat interested. “Is this research real or made up?”
Shen Xingruo replied, “It should be real.”
Lu Xingyan thought about it carefully and found it somewhat reasonable. After all, wasn’t he initially uncomfortable around Shen Xingruo? But now—(This is great!)
Though he agreed inwardly, he couldn’t resist a teasing remark, saying offhandedly, “Then why haven’t we seen anyone addicted to feces?”
Shen Xingruo paused, turned to look at him, and gave him a thorough once-over, her expression quite incredulous. After sizing him up, she asked, “Were you mildly uncomfortable when you ate feces?”
She emphasized the words “mildly uncomfortable” as she spoke.
“…No, it’s more than just mild discomfort.”
Lu Xingyan corrected himself, “Wait, no, I’ve never eaten feces.”
His voice sounded during a quiet moment, not loud enough for the whole class to hear, but his classmates around him heard it loud and clear.
Li Chengfan wore an expression that seemed to say, “Have you lost your mind?”
The internal mini-dramas of the other students were also playing out with rapid-fire comments.
After a few quiet seconds, Shen Xingruo voiced what everyone was thinking, “You seem quite regretful like you want to try it?”