With the assistance of top-student fans, plus a strong desire to learn, there was simply no obstacle she couldn’t overcome.

Starting from this day, a silent war was intensifying at Beifan High School. Party A was the food chain apex of top students represented by the elite class and the aloof teachers behind them. Party B was Long Qi plus Dong Xi’s face-slapping squad.

Yes, Long Qi was preparing to slap that class in the face, slap after slap. For this, she arranged almost all her time. Dong Xi was responsible for tutoring her during school hours, while the top-student squad was responsible for giving her extra lessons after school. During that period, she occupied every coffee shop and library around the school. Every second she listened attentively, every minute she used her life to ask questions, refining course by course. Even during dinner time, she’d place her notebook on her crossed legs, eating while memorizing chemical equations.

The climate grew colder day by day. The thin cardigan on her body gradually transformed into various oversized fleece sweaters, baseball jackets, or chunky knit sweaters. But being a model by origin, even when she tied her hair messily, she was still a casual trendsetter. The more casually she dressed, the more stylish she became. The three top students especially loved being with her, each time like they’d picked up their own daughter with built-in luminous and power-generating functions.

Dong Xi occasionally came to see her, bringing hot drinks and snacks. Long Qi sometimes ate these as dinner. Each time she worked on exam papers, Dong Xi would sit quietly beside her watching her do problems. The hot drink Dong Xi had drunk from, Long Qi would take and drink when not paying attention. After setting it aside, it would immediately be conspiratorially divided up by the three top students. Without even lifting her eyes, she’d tap the table once with her index finger, and only then would the top students restrain their “killing intent” and reluctantly return the hot drink to its original position.

Half a month later, Sunday afternoon.

It was the second weekend after fighting hard all day. The top-student squad went out to buy drinks. Long Qi lay on the wooden table in the library catching up on sleep. Dong Xi was grading her exam papers.

After finishing grading all the papers and adding up the scores, she discovered this time it was over one hundred twenty. A faint smile floated at the edge of Dong Xi’s lips. She turned to look at Long Qi, seeing her sleeping posture that could easily injure cervical vertebrae (others always used their arms to pillow their heads, but she only used books, her hands curled up in her sleeves, resting between her crossed legs) and the hair covering half her face. She then reached out and swept the hair on her face behind her ear.

It was dusk. The autumn sunset happened to cast a beam right on Long Qi’s eye area, extending down to the collarbone position inside her sweater. Dong Xi’s fingers became somewhat transparent in that beam of light, her fingertips carrying a thin halo. Fine floating dust drifted around the halo. Her fingers passed through this floating dust, sweeping into Long Qi’s hair, gently smoothing it behind her ear. Upon leaving, she carried away a strand of fragrance from Long Qi’s hair.

After straightening her hair, Dong Xi idly looked at her, looking at her skin, nose, looking at the lines of her mouth and chin. Because she hadn’t looked at her like this before, she looked a bit longer this time—one second, two seconds, three seconds, tick, tick, tick…

Until Long Qi opened her eyes.

It was an extremely quiet visual contact. Dong Xi’s eyes carried some exploratory feeling, some serious attitude of being in the middle of careful observation, while Long Qi’s eye-opening was also so calm, without squinting, without laziness, as if she’d had a plain and simple dream and had wakened at an appropriate time. There wasn’t a ripple in her eyes, only filled with the little bits of bright light illuminated by that beam of sunlight.

The two gazed at each other in the first second. In the second second, Dong Xi withdrew her gaze. In the third second, Long Qi sat up covering her nape.

“What’s wrong with me?” Only now did she show some laziness, asking casually.

“Nothing wrong. Your exam paper scored over one hundred twenty.”

Long Qi used her hand to prop up her chin, took the paper to look, the corner of her mouth curved just so, with a kind of expected confidence. Then she put down the paper and still asked: “What were you looking at me for just now?”

Dong Xi was putting away her pen and replied: “Wasn’t looking at anything.”

But Long Qi still looked at her.

So after finishing putting away her pen, Dong Xi replied: “Because everyone says you’re beautiful.”

“So?”

“So I looked at you.”

Long Qi was like a parent, slowly guiding Dong Xi’s topic. Her expression didn’t change at all, the arc of her smile didn’t change either. She just propped up her cheek, lightly, lazily asking: “So, do you think I’m beautiful?”

At that moment, she wore a loose, light gray men’s sweater. Her hair was pressed into curls. No makeup. Her neckline revealed her collarbones. Sitting cross-legged. She smelled nice.

“You’re like a boy.” Dong Xi replied to her.

She slowly smiled.

“Then, what type?”

Dong Xi thought for a brief moment and said: “A type I’ve never seen before.”

Long Qi still smiled, and then the top-student squad returned.

After finishing their drinks and tidying up, they were ready to leave. Long Qi had originally wanted to handle the borrowing procedures at the library’s front desk registration, but didn’t expect to run into acquaintances there.

She halted her steps about five meters from the front desk. Dong Xi beside her looked that way. The squad behind them also followed their line of sight to ponder that direction.

Currently placing several stacks of books on the front desk were several girls from the same school’s elite class, also quite familiar to Long Qi—those “close friends” of Bai Aiting. Sure enough, through the gaps between their figures, she saw Bai Aiting.

Jin Yiken wasn’t there.

But that was normal. He’d always been too lazy to participate in his girlfriend’s “reading club.” Every time Bai Aiting spent a whole day studying classics was when he’d call Long Qi’s phone. He could always pick up Long Qi after sending Bai Aiting off, spend time with Long Qi, then go pick up Bai Aiting. His timing was especially precise—he’d never once made an error.

Now he spent his time elsewhere, still not on Bai Aiting.

This was the first time these two had appeared in the same public venue. After a slight pause, Long Qi continued forward, routinely placing the books she wanted to borrow on the front desk. The girl handling the book return procedure turned to glance at her, immediately recognized her, pushed the person beside her with her arm, that person then prompted the person nearby, and soon that small circle all became aware of her arrival.

Bai Aiting had originally been looking at her phone. Hearing the sound, she looked up and glanced this way, sweeping over Long Qi and also Dong Xi, also sweeping over the three male students behind them. Then with profound meaning, she withdrew her gaze and continued typing on the keyboard as if nothing had happened.

“No wonder the library felt particularly noisy today—turns out irrelevant things have mixed in.”

Long Qi was about to pick up a pen to fill in information when this sentence drilled into her eardrums.

The girl who spoke was usually quite bold in speaking, also the one who rushed to protect Bai Aiting most diligently every time Long Qi provoked Bai Aiting. Grade rank seventh, well-off family, often served as host in campus activities, extroverted personality.

As she spoke, she waved her hand in a shooing motion. A friend beside her deliberately asked what she was shooing. She said: “Flies.”

“What flies would there be this season?”

“This kind of insect, the more out of season it is, the easier it has a last burst of fading vitality. Not staying where it should stay, seeing the heating is good here, it came in, thinks it’s a bookworm.”

“Shiran.”

Just as Bai Aiting used an indifferent tone to stop that girl, Dong Xi pressed down on Long Qi’s right hand that was about to move—her right hand was about to pour a cup of beverage over the other person’s forehead.

Impulse and restraint both happened in an instant. Long Qi looked straight ahead without turning her eyes. The beverage in her hand slowly loosened under Dong Xi’s suppression. Bai Aiting spoke at this moment, saying something especially revealing.

“She’s not talking about you, Long Qi.”