Xu You froze for a few seconds, then her face flushed red as she cursed: “Psycho.”

She didn’t realize that her angry expression was actually quite cute, with puffed cheeks as she muttered and mumbled to herself.

“Are you embarrassed?” He leaned in, tilting his head to study her expression.

Being stared at made her uncomfortable, and she said sulkily: “Get lost.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re so annoying.”

Xu You pressed her lips tightly together, struggling to maintain her composure.

Xie Ci propped his head up with one hand, his lowered voice full of teasing amusement, “If you’re going to curse, speak louder. I can’t hear you clearly.”

Xu You threw down the pen in her hand, took a deep breath, and calmed herself for two or three seconds.

Forget it, just endure it.

Before long, the chemistry teacher walked into the classroom, holding exam papers in his hand.

He arrived at the podium, surveyed the classroom in a full circle, and his first words were: “Who is Xu You? Stand up so I can see.”

Being called out by name, Xu You braced her hands on the desk and stood up.

“You’re Xu You?” Teacher He asked with a beaming smile.

Xu You nodded.

“Young lady, you’re quite impressive.”

This kind of straightforward praise in public made Xu You blush slightly, lowering her head hesitantly, unable to speak.

Teacher He had also heard various subject teachers discussing this in the office. The first place in the grade this time was a transfer student from Class 9, who scored very high in every subject, especially physics and mathematics, achieving perfect scores in both.

He said a few symbolic words before letting Xu You sit down.

As soon as Xu You sat down, the person beside her who had been playing on his PSP with his head lowered laughed, “Oh my, Scholar Xu.”

“Alright, now everyone take out your test papers, and I’ll briefly go over the wrong questions from this exam.”

The classroom filled with the rustling sound of papers being flipped.

Teacher He stood at the podium, hands clasped behind his back, pacing back and forth, “This time, there are several key difficult points…”

The problem explanations took about twenty minutes, and the class was halfway through. The teacher then told the students to organize the problems on the blackboard into their correction notebooks themselves, and if they didn’t understand, they could discuss with each other or consult him.

Having just changed seats, there was more or less a sense of novelty. As soon as the teacher allowed free discussion, the classroom began to buzz with noisy chatter.

Xu You opened her correction notebook and had just written down two problems when Fu Xueli leaned over to chat with her:

“Little cutie, there’s a sports meet next week, shall I take you out to have fun?”

Seeing the brilliant smile on her face, Xu You hesitated for a moment and said: “Where would we go? The teacher will probably say something…”

“It’s fine.” Fu Xueli was enthusiastic and about to say more.

A cool male voice came from in front, with a hint of impatience:

“Fu Xueli, turn around.”

“Mm…” Fu Xueli’s expression froze there, feeling a bit awkward, especially in public like this.

She got a little angry, whipped around sharply, and said irritably: “What!”

Xu Xingchun’s eyelashes lowered as he did his homework, the expression on his face as indifferent as always, as if he hadn’t heard anything.

His school uniform collar was clean, and his profile looked very quiet.

But the more Fu Xueli looked at him, the angrier she became.

Who knew better than her that although Xu Xingchun looked pure and unworldly on the surface, he was actually a refined scoundrel.

She snatched the pen from his hand and deliberately scribbled two strokes on his test paper, childishly saying: “Big gorilla.”

Xu Xingchun looked down at the two centipede-like black lines drawn on the test paper. He was silent for two seconds.

“Bleh bleh bleh.”

Seeing him not speak, Fu Xueli laughed triumphantly, as if she had succeeded.

She had taken pleasure in bullying him since childhood, and every time she bullied him until he silently endured it, she felt very happy.

“During class, you’re not allowed to talk to others.” Xu Xingchun paused slightly before saying this, then looked away.

His manner was proper and serious.

Fu Xueli hummed lightly, laid her head on the desk and turned to ignore him. Her flowing black hair, with its ends, brushed across the back of his hand.

She was getting tired of hearing this phrase.

Not allowed to talk to this person, not allowed to talk to that person, not allowed to talk to anyone at all…

With his gloomy personality and Fu Xueli being such a little chatterbox.

If she wasn’t allowed to talk to others, then who was she supposed to talk to…

She really didn’t know how she had endured these past few years.

Fu Xueli pouted. If it weren’t for the fact that aside from his rather strong possessiveness, his personality was otherwise impeccable, and his appearance was delicate and handsome—

She wouldn’t be happy to date him at all.

—

“Hey, explain a problem to me.”

Xu You was concentrating intently on solving problems when a casual voice sounded beside her, cynical and quite annoying.

She pretended not to hear, her pen continuing without pause.

Xie Ci slowly put away his PSP and moved his stool a bit closer.

With his long legs, he deliberately squeezed under Xu You’s desk, shaking it repeatedly.

“Are you going to explain or not? Give me an answer.”

Xu You originally didn’t want to pay attention to Xie Ci, but her desk kept shaking along with his rhythm.

And he seemed to enjoy it immensely.

Xu You was jostled so much she couldn’t write, and feeling annoyed, she lowered her head preparing to step on his foot.

Unexpectedly, Xie Ci’s reaction was even faster. With quick eyes and quick hands, he reached out and grabbed her ankle in one motion.

She was wearing loose, dark blue school uniform pants, revealing just a little bit of her fair, delicate ankle bone, dazzlingly clean.

His fingertips unconsciously caressed it.

“Hey, you—you let go of me, I’ll explain it to you!!” Xu You panicked, not quite maintaining her body balance either, bending slightly to pull at his hand.

He was strong—how could a weakling like her compare?

Xie Ci lowered his head slightly, his tongue tip licking his teeth, then looked up to ask her: “Are you still going to mess with me or not?”

The classroom was chaotic and noisy, and no one noticed the commotion here.

She furrowed her brows, taking deep breaths forcefully, and after a long while managed to choke out: “It was clearly you—”

“Hmm?” He raised an eyebrow, circling her ankle with just one hand, fixing it in place, his five fingers tightening slightly.

This silent threat left Xu You completely speechless.

She was nearly driven to tears by this unreasonable rogue, and with her foot still held in Xie Ci’s hand, she felt humiliated to the extreme.

“I won’t mess around anymore.”

“Will you explain the problem to me or not?” He pressed his advantage.

Xu You forcibly suppressed the urge to slap the book onto his face, saying word by word: “You. Let. Go. First.”

“I’ll let go if you explain it to me.”

Actually, he just wanted to keep playing around with her right now, and didn’t want to let go at all.

After dawdling for a long time, Xu You really couldn’t stand it anymore and reached out her arm to grab his test paper and bring it over.

“I’ll explain it to you! Which problem? After I finish explaining, you’d better stop bothering me.”

Hearing this, Xie Ci laughed.

—

Song Yifan and Meng Xingze were sitting in the second row, diagonally behind Xu You.

Others couldn’t see, but these two brothers could see perfectly clearly.

After watching for a while, Meng Xingze made a sound of amusement and laughed: “Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk, tell me, why is Brother Ci getting frisky in broad daylight?”

Song Yifan was unconcerned, “I’ve gotten used to it long ago.”

“Used to what?”

“The lovey-dovey stuff.” Song Yifan was concise and to the point.

Meng Xingze laughed with ill intent, saying lewdly: “When it comes to playing with flirtation, it’s still our Brother Ci who knows how.”

“Tch.”

Song Yifan hadn’t really listened at all.

Having been brothers with Xie Ci for so many years, he had never seen him have any patience to play flirtatious games with any girl.

—

“Which problem do you want me to explain?” Xu You clicked her ballpoint pen and found a blank sheet of paper.

“Whatever you want.”

Xu You: ……..

She flipped through Xie Ci’s answer sheet and discovered speechlessly that except for the blank problems, every single problem he had written had some issue.

Xu You sighed inwardly.

Propping up her head with one hand, she planned to explain some of the most basic oxidation-reduction equations to him.

On the scratch paper, relying on memory, she listed several classic chemical equations. Just as she finished writing and looked up, she saw his face was right up close.

Xie Ci’s breath carried the clean scent characteristic of boys, mixed with a hint of cool minty tobacco smell.

His handsome, prominent nose had a faint mole, and his lips were thin and well-defined.

A very good-looking face, except his gaze was too aggressive, making people not dare to look directly at him.

Xu You imperceptibly pulled back some distance.

The bell for the last class period rang quickly.

People in the class packed up their things and left the classroom. Xu You lowered her head organizing her homework, not in a hurry to leave. She was a boarding student and still had to come back to the classroom for self-study until eight o’clock after eating dinner.

“Mmm, don’t know, let’s go after eating.”

Xie Ci leaned back against the wall, his legs brazenly stretched out to Xu You’s side, leisurely making a phone call.

Every now and then he would deliberately bump her leg, taking pleasure in bullying her.

Xu You silently endured it. Just as she had finished organizing all her stationery, the glass window beside her was pulled open, and a sweet, cloying female voice came through:

“A’Ci, aren’t you leaving yet? We’re waiting for you.”

Chen Jing supported herself with both hands on the windowsill, looking delicate and adorable, except her neckline was rather low, revealing a bit of snowy white skin at her chest.

She waited for Xie Ci to hang up the phone, then glanced at Xu You inconspicuously, with a somewhat coquettish tone, deliberately saying: “Let’s not bring Qiu Qingqing when we go out to play today.”

Dorm girls liked to gossip, and Xu You was familiar with the name Qiu Qingqing. She also knew about those complicated entanglements between her and Xie Ci.

However, Xu You had no interest in participating in such matters and only wanted to quickly pack up her things and leave the scene.

Xie Ci yawned, stood up stretching lazily, his jacket loose and baggy, the zipper not even pulled up.

He lowered his eyes, his voice light and cool, not even clear who he was talking to:

“We broke up ages ago.”