Fang Zhuo didn’t dwell on Yan Lie’s strange behavior — he always found odd things funny anyway. She went ahead and opened the lunchbox to see what was inside.
She’d already had lunch and had drunk a big glass of water besides, so she wasn’t hungry. Fortunately, Ye Yuncheng hadn’t included any rice.
The first tier of the lunchbox held a few crispy fried fish, several pieces of braised pork ribs, a portion of shredded potato, and two small spring rolls. She figured she could finish it.
Zhao Jiayou wandered over holding a sheet of paper, tapping it on Yan Lie’s desk. “The relay lineup’s not set yet. Which leg are you running, Lielie?”
Yan Lie pulled his attention away from the lunchbox. “Whatever’s fine.”
Zhao Jiayou bent his head to write it down. “Then I’ll run first leg, and you take the fourth.”
Fang Zhuo took out her chopsticks and, hearing this, cut in, “Can I sign up for something too?”
“Oh?” Zhao Jiayou was rather pleasantly surprised — this was the first time Fang Zhuo had so actively wanted to join a group activity, and it deserved encouragement. “Sure! What do you want to sign up for? Our fun-events slots aren’t full yet.”
Fang Zhuo said something startling, “Sign me up for the three thousand meters.”
The whole classroom fell silent. Shen Musi spun around looking as if he’d seen a ghost, eyeing her with worry, afraid she might have suffered some sort of shock.
Zhao Jiayou stood there frozen, pen in hand. “…There’s no three thousand for girls at our school, just fifteen hundred.”
Fang Zhuo said, somewhat regretfully, “Fifteen hundred, then.”
Zhao Jiayou said nothing, just shifted his gaze to Yan Lie, sending him a silent question.
Fang Zhuo asked, baffled, “Why are you looking at him? I’m the one signing up.”
Even Yan Lie looked startled enough to ask, “Are you… sure? Fifteen hundred meters is almost four laps around our big track.”
With that small frame of hers, wouldn’t she just collapse halfway through?
Fang Zhuo felt their doubts were entirely unreasonable and repeated herself, “I can do it. Just sign me up.”
Since hardly any girls were willing to sign up for the fifteen hundred meters to begin with, Zhao Jiayou, seeing how she insisted, wrote her name in. Besides, their class never cared about placing well at sports day anyway — she could always back out later if she wanted.
Once Zhao Jiayou finished tallying everything, he scurried off to hand the form to the homeroom teacher. Fang Zhuo opened the second lunchbox and found a cake inside.
A thick layer of cream was piped on top; from the heft of it, there was probably plenty of fruit layered inside — it had clearly been made with care.
In this heat, if the cake sat until evening, it might well spoil. Just as Fang Zhuo was puzzling over this, her desk-mate nudged her elbow.
Since when had he ever used such a roundabout way to start a conversation?
Fang Zhuo turned to look at him in surprise.
Yan Lie propped his chin on one hand and asked, tactfully, “Are you in a good mood today?”
Fang Zhuo: “Didn’t you just say I was blooming?”
Yan Lie laughed. “So, can I ask you something?”
Fang Zhuo felt a little uneasy. “…Go ahead.”
“Do you like cake?”
Fang Zhuo wasn’t particularly fond of sweets and shook her head.
Yan Lie asked with a perfectly innocent expression, “Then how do you think the God of Fortune knew I liked cake?”
Fang Zhuo: “…”
Right.
Understood.
Arranged, then.
She obligingly set the cake in front of Yan Lie, inviting him to enjoy it. All his languor vanished at once as he beamed, “Thanks, God of Fortune!”
Shen Musi whipped around at once, but before he could even open his mouth, Yan Lie’s large hand shoved him right back, “None of your business, go do your homework!”
Shen Musi let out a helpless sigh.
A number was written on top in cream, along with a few crookedly drawn candles, making it easy to see it was a birthday cake.
Yan Lie scooped a bit off the edge with a spoon, tugging at Fang Zhuo’s sleeve to share the verdict. “Tastes great.”
Fang Zhuo replied, “Good.”
“So I’ll cut into the number now?”
“Go ahead and eat it.”
“…”
Whatever decision Yan Lie made, he seemed to want Fang Zhuo to weigh in on it. With her head full of question marks, Fang Zhuo couldn’t really say much and just gave a few perfunctory responses.
And of course Yan Lie chose this moment to get talkative; by the time he finished eating, even Fang Zhuo had a clear idea of exactly what the cake tasted like.
Yan Lie put the lid back on the lunchbox, and just as Fang Zhuo reached to take it, he produced a lighter out of nowhere, holding it up mid-air, and said through the dancing flame, smiling, “Happy birthday.”
Fang Zhuo blew out the flame in one breath, and just as she was about to explain, a low, stormy growl came from behind them — the homeroom teacher’s voice: “Yan Lie!”
Yan Lie quickly pocketed the lighter, but it was too late — the teacher already had him by the collar, hauling him up and demanding, “You smoke?”
Yan Lie said earnestly, “I don’t, I swear!”
“Then why do you have a lighter on you?”
The teacher hauled him to the back of the classroom and pointed at Shen Musi to search him.
Shen Musi turned out all of Yan Lie’s pockets, finding in the end only a few bills and some coins.
“A guy like him’s got nothing on him but money!” Shen Musi said grimly. “He hides things too well!”
Yan Lie cursed at him, laughing, “Get out of here!”
With no evidence, the homeroom teacher had no choice but to let him go, confiscating the lighter while she was at it. She circled the classroom once more, low pressure still hanging over her, then turned and headed back to her office.
Not long after, she came back again, set a book down on Fang Zhuo’s desk, and hurried off once more.
It turned out to be a well-used study guide.
Puzzled, Fang Zhuo flipped through it and found it filled with important class notes, along with various classic example problems and complete step-by-step solutions.
Fang Zhuo had only transferred here in her second year of high school. Her previous school’s teaching staff hadn’t been remotely comparable to A High School’s, and there was a significant gap in her foundations and problem-solving techniques.
Classes at A High School moved fast, with a heavy workload. The teachers couldn’t slow down the pace just to accommodate her, and Fang Zhuo had no time to go back and cram on fundamentals, either.
In the sciences, she generally relied on sheer volume of calculation to make up for her lack of technique. Fortunately, her mind worked very quickly — even when she wasn’t using the most efficient method, her problem-solving speed was no slower than the average student’s.
But the notes in this study guide laid out every exam point in great detail and clarity, even covering some middle-school-level material as well.
Yan Lie made out the name on the cover and explained, “This belonged to a student from the year above us, a pretty famous dark horse — went from ranking over four hundred to top fifty in his senior year. What do you call it? Prodigal son returns?”
Then he added, “Though I’m not sure his grades were better than mine. Anything you don’t understand, you can just ask me.”
Fang Zhuo felt quite grateful — although her science grades were decent, she’d always found it hard to make further progress.
She had no idea where the teacher had gotten hold of this; it might not be of much use to other students, but for her it was like finding a lamp in a dark room.
“I’ll ask you if there’s something I don’t understand,” Fang Zhuo said. “Thank you.”
·
Fang Zhuo washed the lunchboxes clean and set them somewhere airy to dry.
Though the pink-and-white color scheme didn’t quite match her usual taste, she’d grown rather fond of these two lunchboxes, and brought them along the next day when she went to get her food.
She usually went to the cafeteria fairly late and only ever ordered a single dish; the cafeteria staff had long since gotten to know her.
Seeing her arrive, the auntie at the window automatically picked up a tray and scooped a generous heap of rice into it out of habit.
“Use this,” Fang Zhuo said, handing over the lunchbox. “I’ll take it to go today.”
The auntie teased, “New lunchbox, eh?”
Fang Zhuo gave a small smile. “Yeah.”
A small thing like this could feel surprisingly pleasant, somehow.
The auntie made a point of scooping extra into her lunchbox, then added, “We’ve got chicken soup today, want some?”
Fang Zhuo nodded. “Thank you.”
More than half the seats in the cafeteria were empty, and the staff were busy wiping down the tables.
Fang Zhuo picked out a clean spot and had just sat down when a shadow settled into the seat across from her.
Fang Zhuo’s first thought was that Bai Lufei was haunting her again, but on closer look she saw it was Yan Lie instead, and the frown she’d just furrowed eased slightly. “What are you doing here?” she asked, suspicious.
Yan Lie glanced at Fang Zhuo’s lunchbox, where the rice was topped with nothing but a thin, watery stir-fried cabbage.
He set down his big bowl and declared righteously, “Eating from your own bowl while eyeing what’s in someone else’s pot. You shared cake with me yesterday — today I’ll share lunch with you.”
Fang Zhuo started to say there was no need, but Yan Lie moved fast — he’d already scooped more than half the rice from her lunchbox onto his own side, and split half of his fried noodles back over to her.
Since both of them had come late, the food had already cooled somewhat. But Yan Lie’s noodles were freshly fried, still curling with hot white steam. He’d added extra meat and egg, and they looked very tempting.
Fang Zhuo opened her mouth to object, but Yan Lie cut her off first, “You need meat to grow properly. You’re so skinny a gust of wind could blow you away, and you still want to run fifteen hundred meters? You trying to be a kite?”
He nudged the noodles aside with his chopsticks and bent over to take a couple bites of rice. Since the rice was a little cold, he didn’t notice the flavor at first, but the moment a savory taste hit him, he paused, surprised. “Your rice is actually pretty good!”
Fang Zhuo: “…”
Her chicken soup over rice.
·
Once they’d finished eating and put away their trays, the two of them headed back to the classroom together.
Yan Lie walked beside Fang Zhuo with a light step and, finally finding the opening, asked, “Why didn’t you stay at your uncle’s place last week?”
Not knowing how to answer in a way that wouldn’t sound foolish, Fang Zhuo simply pretended not to have heard and turned her head away in silence.
Yan Lie lightly rested a hand on her shoulder, laughing despite himself. “That’s a pretty unconvincing way to play dumb.”
The two of them walked into the classroom, one behind the other.
Just as Yan Lie pulled out his chair to sit down, he noticed an elegantly wrapped cake box sitting on the corner of his desk, with a sticky note peeking discreetly out from under a book.
Fang Zhuo caught only a quick glimpse, not making out what was written on it before Yan Lie tore the note off. She calmly looked away and took out some cleaning solution to go wash her lunchbox at the sink.
By the time she came back, Yan Lie’s desk was clear, and he was standing by the windowsill chatting with someone, his expression perfectly natural, as though nothing had happened.
The first class in the afternoon was math, taught by a middle-aged man whose hairline was steadily advancing toward a “Mediterranean” look.
Just as lunch break ended, he hurried in with a stack of test papers tucked under his arm, handed them off to the students in front to pass around, and clicked his mouse to pull up the class slides.
A few minutes later, he finally noticed the small gift sitting by the podium and burst out laughing at once, picking up the cake box. “Who’s this from? Why would anyone give me a cake out of nowhere? If you’ve done something wrong, just raise your hand and confess, all right? No need for these dramatics — you’re making me nervous!”
The students raised their heads, still half-asleep from the lunch break, every face listless.
The math teacher carried the box around once, peeled a heart-shaped note off the back, and read aloud with a laugh, “From all the students of Senior Three Class One, to our most respected teacher… this handwriting — that’s you, isn’t it, Lielie? There’s not even a header — is this really for me?”
Yan Lie clapped his hands. “Thanks for all your hard work, teacher!”
A bunch of the boys joined in, clapping and egging him on.
“Is this really for me?” The math teacher, deeply suspicious of a trick, said, “All this flattering attention for no reason at all.”
Yan Lie said, “Because you’re so sweet!”
Everyone burst out laughing; the math teacher couldn’t help laughing along.
After mulling it over for a bit, he asked, clearly concerned, “Is it just for me, or did the other teachers get one too?”
Yan Lie said, “Just for you. I only had the one box.”
“All right then.” The teacher set the cake down carefully off to the side, rubbing his hands together. “Since you’re all being so good to me, I should give something back too, shouldn’t I? I’ll cut down your Mid-Autumn break homework a bit.”
“Yesss—!”
Everyone perked right up, eyes wide, crying out in delighted surprise.
“Take out the test paper you just got,” the math teacher said. “You don’t need to do the last fill-in-the-blank question, and you don’t need to do part three of the last big question either.”
On closer inspection, the students realized this was a college entrance exam paper from a different province, and that the two questions he’d circled weren’t even within their review scope to begin with.
Realizing they’d been had, the classroom erupted in groans of protest once more.
“All right, class is starting, class is starting!” The man at the podium put on a stern face, giving a disdainful snort. “Senior year and you’re still trying to slack off, even trying to bribe me. Being good-looking’s one thing, but you’re dreaming if you think this’ll work!”
“Ohh—”
Everyone clutched their heads, letting out a somewhat complicated sigh — it felt both warmly comforting and embarrassingly sappy at once, and the noisy complaints from just moments ago were entirely smoothed over.
Wei Xi raised a hand and said, “Teacher, please stop, we’ll do the work! Just promise me you’ll lay off the internet memes a bit, okay?”
Fang Zhuo folded her test paper and wrote her full name on the front, aware that the gaze beside her kept landing on her, faint but persistent. As she finished her last stroke, she couldn’t help turning to face him, raising an eyebrow. “Why are you sneaking glances at me?”
She’d expected him to look at least a little embarrassed, but Yan Lie just dropped his crossed arms, and with that disarming straightforwardness of his that made it impossible to dislike him, said, plainly and sincerely, with a smile, “You look really pretty when you smile.”
Fang Zhuo thought it over for a couple of seconds and still couldn’t figure out how to respond. This person across from her always seemed to throw her whole language faculty into disarray. Unable to untangle a reply, she finally just shot him a light glance and pulled her attention back to her workbook.
That one glance, though, reined in Yan Lie’s unrestrained mood a little; something in his chest felt washed over by a light rain, and he, too, settled himself and picked up his book to listen to the lesson.