Don't Do This, Ding Yebai

Ding Yebai took an excited breath. "Could it be I only got two wrong?"

Yang Zhi shook her head with a light laugh, remaining silent in the face of the boy's confident answer.

"You got a few more right than last time. If your accuracy was 45 percent last time, then this time it should be around 70 percent."

"It's not like I got them all right."

"It's fine. Take it slowly. Give yourself some time."

Listening to her, Ding Yebai took the dictation notebook over. Everywhere he looked, there were once again glaring red Xs.

He had still gotten many wrong. Afraid the teacher would think his earlier claim that he had memorized vocabulary was a lie, he looked at the dictation notebook calmly and said, "Sister Yang Zhi, I really did memorize them."

"I know." Yang Zhi had not even considered that possibility. "I believe you."

Ding Yebai asked, "Why do I forget the words after memorizing them?"

Yang Zhi smiled helplessly, her eyes curving. "That's why you have to memorize them every day. Learning requires steady accumulation. How can you master it all at once?"

Ding Yebai said, "Math, physics, chemistry, and biology are all fine."

As he spoke, he showed the innate confidence of a top student in the sciences.

Yang Zhi said, "Then..."

She thought for a moment, then revealed a gentle smile like a spring breeze. "Some people are naturally smart and suited to math, physics, and chemistry. As the saying goes, Heaven feeds them."

Ding Yebai raised an eyebrow slightly. "You were the top scorer back then. Heaven must have fed you too."

"Not me." Yang Zhi corrected the test paper Ding Yebai had done during the day as she spoke. "I'm not smart either. After entering college, I met truly intelligent people. Compared to them, I was worlds apart."

Ding Yebai froze.

Were top scorers all this modest now?

"It was precisely because I wasn't smart that I did tons of practice problems. I used the most ancient method of all—the sea-of-problems tactic. I did almost every workbook that appeared on the market back then. Like people say, the stupid bird flies first. Ah... all right. No more chatting. Look at how many you got wrong."

Yang Zhi had not wanted to chat during class. She only said all that to Ding Yebai because she happened to have free hands while grading his paper against the answer key.

Class time was precious. Since she had come to teach him, she had to be responsible.

Ding Yebai took the paper.

Expressionless, his eyes seemed to have looked over countless papers like this before.

To be honest, his English was always like this. Scores hovering around the passing line—what else could it be?

Yang Zhi straightened her back, maintaining an elegant posture. "Actually, I think this was much better than the last paper I gave you. Last time, I felt like you rushed through it and barely read the passages carefully. This time, you must have done it seriously."

Ding Yebai said, "Yeah. But I still got quite a lot wrong."

Yang Zhi said, "It's okay. I'll explain them to you."

Ding Yebai said, "Okay."

"Oh, right." Yang Zhi had just picked up the paper when she remembered something and said naturally, "Why don't you mark the relevant parts in the text when you do reading comprehension?"

Too lazy to mark them...

The words reached Ding Yebai's throat, but he forced them back down.

He had said long ago that he was not interested in this subject and had never put much effort into studying it.

Why would he bother looking for the answers in the text and marking them?

"Mark them next time, so you don't forget the answers while doing the questions."

"Okay."

"Let's look at this passage first..."

At around eight o'clock,

Ding Yebai needed to pee.

He glanced at Sister Yang Zhi, who was still seriously explaining the questions...

Uh... interrupting someone while they were talking was impolite.

He should wait until she finished.

Yang Zhi glanced at him while explaining. Even with that icy expression, she could catch subtle shifts in his emotions.

Hmm.

Something was up with this kid.

So she deliberately paused.

"I want to use the bathroom," Ding Yebai said expressionlessly.

The transition between the two sentences was practically flawless.

Yang Zhi paused for a moment, then nodded. "Mm."

Ding Yebai immediately ran out of the bedroom.

Yang Zhi silently watched his retreating figure without saying a word.

Only then did she realize something.

Should they take a few minutes to rest in between?

So he could take a break too.

After Ding Yebai came out, she walked over and said, "Let's take a five-minute break in the middle from now on."

Ding Yebai said, "Fine."

After saying that, he went out to the open-air balcony.

Yang Zhi did not follow him. She simply returned to the bedroom, sat quietly, and checked the messages on her phone.

Ding Yebai liked feeling the evening breeze.

Making a cold block of ice like him stay in a room with a young, beautiful older sister without studying, just talking, made him feel the slightest bit awkward.

After placing both hands on the railing, he habitually leaned forward, his feet gradually leaving the ground. He knew his limits. There was no way he would fall.

Hmm...

A bright full moon drifted through the clouds, sometimes disappearing behind uneven layers of cloud, sometimes faintly visible among them. Its cool radiance spilled down, casting mottled shadows across the ground that swayed with the wind, dreamlike and unreal.

Ding Yebai took a deep breath and sighed. "The moon is really beautiful tonight."

After a while,

Urgent footsteps sounded in the distance.

Closer and closer.

"Ding Yebai, get down!"

Ding Yebai's entire body stiffened when he heard the voice, and he blanked out for a moment.

"Get down."

"Sister Yang Zhi?" Ding Yebai turned back to look at Yang Zhi in confusion.

Just then, moonlight spilled down upon her pure, bright face.

She was as gentle and beautiful as ever, but something seemed to be missing.

Had he seen wrong?

Why was there such deep worry between those clear brows and eyes?

Yang Zhi said, "That's dangerous. Get down quickly."

Ding Yebai immediately dropped to the ground. Once both feet were firmly planted, he turned sideways and pointed at the railing, gesturing toward his stomach with his hand. "Look, it only comes up to here. Unless I jump down myself, there's no need to worry about me falling."

Yang Zhi looked at the railing, then at him, seemingly measuring the distance seriously.

After confirming that it was safe, her tightly furrowed brows relaxed slightly.

She truly was not overthinking it. Anyone who saw Ding Yebai's earlier posture from behind would have thought he was about to fall.

Surely no kind-hearted person would just stand by and do nothing!

Not to mention someone like Yang Zhi, who had experienced the boundary between life and death and valued life all the more because of it.

Perhaps Ding Yebai could not understand how Yang Zhi had felt when she thought he was about to fall from the second floor.

As for the boy, he was simply a little touched.

After all, he was not that familiar with Sister Yang Zhi, yet she had specifically come to warn him.

She's quite a kind person, he thought.

"I was afraid you were going to fall," Yang Zhi said softly, lowering her eyes.

Ding Yebai said, "I won't. I'm grown up. I wouldn't joke around with my life."

Yang Zhi froze. Her mouth opened and closed, as if she wanted to say something, but because of certain things, the words could only remain stuck in her throat.

After a while, she slowly raised her eyes and smiled. "Come on. Class is starting again."

Ding Yebai said, "Mm."

After class ended at eight thirty, Yang Zhi left Ding Yebai's home. As she walked down the main road, she found herself thinking about what had just happened.

At first, she had intended to grab Ding Yebai by the clothes and pull him down...

She lowered her head and looked at that hand.

She turned her slender hand over to look at the palm, then flipped it back to inspect the back of it.

It really was an occupational habit...

When she had been teaching in rural schools, she could never stop herself from intervening whenever she saw younger children doing dangerous things. Especially during the long breaks, her heart would remain tense the entire time, afraid they might fall or get hurt.

In her agitation, she had actually forgotten that Ding Yebai was no longer a little child.

"That's right. He's already an adult. He knows to value his own life."

Yang Zhi smiled at herself helplessly and walked home with her bag over her shoulder. After a few steps, she raised her head to look at the bright moon in the sky, an unfamiliar emotion slowly stirring in her heart.

"But that posture really was dangerous. Luckily, his home is relatively safe. I hope he doesn't do it anywhere else."

The next morning, during self-study,

Inside the office,

The English teacher collected Class 1, Grade 12's papers to grade them.

When she saw that Ding Yebai had found the corresponding sentences in every reading passage and had even thoughtfully marked the question numbers!!

She was so touched!!!

After telling him so many times, he had finally listened to her.