Who Are You Calling a Dog?

Teacher Ke naturally hadn't missed the little exchanges between Wen Leyu and Li Ye.

She hadn't deliberately stopped them from passing notes. After all, they had known each other before, and in her memory, Li Ye was a somewhat simple-minded but exceptionally kind child.

That was important—very important to her daughter.

She was merely puzzled. They had not met for only a few months, yet Li Ye gave her the feeling that his entire temperament had changed.

Just now, when Li Ye had exposed class monitor Xia Yue, his reasoning had been clear, his tone sharp, and he had struck straight at the flaw with a single blow. He simply did not overlap with the shy boy she remembered.

If Li Ye's face had not been so distinctive, Teacher Ke would have thought she had mistaken him for someone else.

Perhaps Lu Jingyao's departure had not been a bad thing for this child.

Teacher Ke graded the test papers very quickly. The students of Retake Class One handed in their answers one after another, and by the time everyone had turned theirs in, she was nearly done grading them.

Through the text reading and the in-class quiz, she had already gained a preliminary grasp of Retake Class One's English level.

Then Teacher Ke wiped the blackboard clean, filled it with a new set of English questions, and began explaining them in detail.

This time, most of the students in Class One could understand. Whenever Teacher Ke occasionally called on someone, she even received fairly good responses.

An expert!

Li Ye had no choice but to admire Teacher Ke's precise control. He believed that because of her arrival, County Second High School's English scores would see a major improvement this year.

Just before class ended, Teacher Ke assigned some homework, then asked who the English Class Representative of Class One was.

Xia Yue stood up proudly. "Teacher, I'm the English Class Representative."

Teacher Ke gestured for her to sit down, then said, "Remember to hand me the homework before tomorrow morning. Class dismissed!"

"Stand!"

"Goodbye, Teacher!"

The moment Teacher Ke left the classroom, Xia Yue hurried up to the podium.

The answer sheets the students had just handed in were on the teacher's desk. Teacher Ke had left no instructions, so Xia Yue, as the English Class Representative, naturally assumed it was her job to announce the results.

"Wu Chi, 31 points."

"Liu Mang, 34 points."

"Hu Man, 49 points."

"Jin Shengli, 50 points."

"Xia Yue, 55 points."

When Xia Yue read out her own score, the corners of her mouth curled upward.

Hu Man had been the class monitor of Retake Class Two, yet now she had lost to Xia Yue. Who else was qualified to compete with her for Class One's class monitor position?

"Li Dayong, 33 points."

"Hong Zhiyuan, 26 points."

Fewer and fewer answer sheets remained on the desk, and Xia Yue grew more and more pleased with herself. County Second High School's most elite students were all gathered here; in English, no one could rival Xia Yue.

Until Xia Yue revealed the final two answer sheets at the bottom of the pile.

"Wen Leyu."

Xia Yue stared in astonishment at the page filled with red checkmarks. Several seconds later, she struggled to force out two words. "100."

What shocked her even more came next.

The final answer sheet belonged to Li Ye. It too was filled with checkmarks, without a single cross.

Xia Yue instinctively turned to Li Ye and demanded, "Li Ye, did you cheat?"

Li Ye was writing his English homework. Hearing Xia Yue's accusation, he raised his head and said coldly, "Can you speak like a human being? Stop barking like a dog all day."

"."

It took Xia Yue a full two seconds to grasp what Li Ye meant, and then she exploded.

"Who are you calling a dog? Who are you calling a dog? Who are you calling a dog?"

Li Ye slowly capped his fountain pen and said calmly, "Anything that bites people on sight is a dog. A dog bit me just now. So who do you think the dog is?"

"Li Ye, fuck your mother! You were raised by a stepmother—"

Overcome with rage, Xia Yue began cursing wildly. (Don't assume girls don't curse.)

Then she saw a book fly through the air and smash viciously into her broad forehead.

Xia Yue was stunned by the blow. Since becoming class monitor, she had never been defied by anyone, much less physically attacked.

"Just you wait! Just you wait!"

After her brief daze, Xia Yue ran out of the classroom and headed straight for the teachers' office.

Tattling to the teachers was a tactic she knew like the back of her hand.

No matter how capable you were or how high your combat power was, as long as you were still a student, you still had to kneel before a teacher.

Seeing Xia Yue rush out like a madwoman, Li Dayong sidled over and said worriedly in a low voice, "Bro, that bitch Xia Yue is no good. She can call red white. You'd better get your story straight with Little Mute first."

"Get our story straight?" Li Ye paused, then said, "You think I cheated too?"

"I didn't—I..."

Li Dayong was tongue-tied, unable to say anything for a moment.

Bro, don't you have any fucking clue what you're capable of? Your college entrance exam score was even worse than mine! Copying sixty or seventy points would be one thing, but copying a hundred? Do you really think everyone else is blind?

Li Dayong grumbled inwardly without end, but he could not bring himself to truly snap back at Li Ye, leaving him terribly stifled.

But suddenly, he seemed to feel a chill crawl over him. Looking up, he discovered Wen Leyu staring at him coldly.

"Who are you calling Little Mute?"

Wen Leyu's thirty-seven-degree lips opened, yet the words that emerged carried the frost of the coldest days of winter—while still sounding as sweet and pleasant as a yellow oriole's song.

"."

Li Dayong had gone with Li Ye to Liuqiao Township Primary School and had met Wen Leyu before, but he had never seen her so sharp and fierce.

Why is it fine when other people call her Little Mute, but not when I do?

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I said the wrong thing..."

Li Dayong had no idea what was going on and could only apologize repeatedly. Yet Wen Leyu continued glaring at him viciously, only stopping when Xia Yue returned to the classroom.

Xia Yue lifted her chin high and said to Li Ye, "Li Ye, Wen Leyu, the teacher wants you in the office."

Li Ye had already been mentally prepared, but hearing that Wen Leyu had been called too, he immediately said unhappily, "What does Wen Leyu have to do with this? Stop biting whoever you can catch."

Xia Yue gritted her teeth, her chest rising and falling. "You copied Wen Leyu's answers. How is she not involved? She's a key witness."

Li Ye finally understood why Xia Yue was so certain he had cheated. Both his and Wen Leyu's answers were completely correct,

and they were desk mates. Li Ye had also been a poor student before. Linking all those suspicious points together made for a complete chain of evidence.

Thus, on the way to the office, Xia Yue—walking in front—was visibly fired up, as though she could sentence Li Ye at any moment and drag him to the dog-head guillotine for execution.

Perhaps she was thinking, Li Ye reported me for opening someone else's mail. I'll report him for cheating, and it'll cancel out. No—what Li Ye did is even worse.

But Li Ye looked at her back and could not help letting out a silent sneer.

You think you're plotting against me? Little do you know, I'm plotting against you.

In truth, once Li Ye learned that he would be entering Retake Class One, he had decided to deal with Xia Yue.

If someone like her, always thinking of manipulating him with PUA tactics, became class monitor, would she not turn that tiny bit of authority in her hands into a whole display of tricks?

A toad sprawled across your instep—it might not bite you, but it would disgust you to death.

It had to be crushed.

So Xia Yue thought she had caught Li Ye by the handle, never realizing that from the moment she opened her mouth to curse, she had already lost completely.

At worst, Li Ye would receive a few reprimands for insulting someone. But if a class monitor cursed people, what would the teachers think?

It was like that question posted online in later years by a delicate young girl.

"I'm going to ZB for barbecue. Is it safe there at night?"

"Extremely safe, because everyone there has to take the civil service exam."

Therefore, different identities came with different expectations for oneself.

What was the point of petty squabbles that neither hurt nor itched? Only by making it big and going to the office could the problem be solved!

The teachers had made Xia Yue class monitor so she could resolve problems in the class, eliminate trouble, and lighten the teachers' burden. Yet she kept running to trouble the teachers over every little thing, without beginning or end. Did teachers not need rest?

What use were you?