Hu Xiaoniu watched Qing Chen leave, sensing something familiar about him.
It was not that he had met Qing Chen before, nor that Qing Chen resembled anyone. It was the other boy's aloof attitude, as though he kept everyone at arm's length.
It was like when they themselves excluded certain classmates from their circle: outwardly courteous and polite, but proud to the bone.
That surprised Hu Xiaoniu somewhat. He glanced at the building where Qing Chen lived, then asked, "Have you noticed that there's something strange about him?"
Zhang Tianzhen, who wore black-framed glasses, said, "Wang Yun and Bai Wan'er are both quite pretty, and they're his new classmates and new neighbors. Yet he didn't even look at them. He doesn't seem interested in talking to them either."
"Yes." Wang Yun nodded. "It doesn't feel like an ordinary teenage boy's shyness. It feels more like he wants to avoid us."
"I asked Nan Gengchen, who sits beside him, today. He said this classmate has consistently ranked in the top three of his grade. It's normal for him to be a little proud. Aren't top students all like that?" Bai Wan'er smiled. "The academic geniuses at our Haicheng High are like that too."
Hu Xiaoniu smiled and shook his head. "The ceiling for top students in small cities is too low."
In truth, Hu Xiaoniu was not deliberately mocking him. They simply knew very well how far ahead the education in today's first-tier cities was compared to that of smaller cities.
The top students in small cities had no problem reading English, but their speaking and listening skills were far inferior. Even schools like Luocheng Foreign Language School, which bore the name of foreign languages, were no exception.
But in some elite middle schools in major cities, you could grab anyone