My Online Friend Can't Be This Cute Chapter 6

The moment he said it, Mo Xiangwen suddenly remembered his homeroom teacher telling him to get some proper rest that evening.

"Forget it. I'd advise you guys not to go out."

Liao Feiyang frowned. "Why?"

Mo Xiangwen sighed inwardly. He was only guessing that the checks might be especially strict tonight, but he had no proof.

And saying outright that it was a hint from their homeroom teacher would be way too ridiculous.

They had already gotten everything ready and were just about to leave. In that state, there was no way they would believe him.

That was what wishful thinking was like.

"Haven't the homeroom teachers and grade-level staff been cracking down hard on wall-climbing lately? I'd advise you not to take the risk. Just hold out for another twenty-something days, and then you can play however you want."

"I thought you were going to say something important. So that's all it is." Liao Feiyang curled his lip. "They've already come by twice tonight. They won't come again."

"Then I still advise you not to go. Even if you do, you won't be able to rank up."

"Ugh, you're so annoying. Go if you want, don't if you don't."

"I'm not going. Remember to bring me a bowl of wonton noodles."

"Fine."

Mo Xiangwen watched them quietly open the dorm door, poke their heads out, and observe the hallway for quite a while before tiptoeing out.

Well, for the sake of my breakfast, good luck to you too.

Mo Xiangwen shook his head, took off his slippers, climbed into bed, and drifted off peacefully.

The next morning

Mo Xiangwen was awakened by his phone vibrating. He turned on the screen and checked the time. Five thirty, exactly when he had set his alarm.

Sleeping before midnight and getting up at five thirty—the life of a senior-year student really was fulfilling.

He had only set his phone alarm half an hour early. Normally, the wake-up bell would ring at six.

There were two main reasons he got up half an hour early.

First, he planned to memorize vocabulary while running, following his study schedule.

Second, he could get to the cafeteria earlier and avoid the rush of students buying breakfast, saving quite a bit of time.

After all, one bowl of wonton noodles probably would not be enough for him. But asking them to bring two bowls when climbing the wall was already such a difficult job felt too embarrassing.

After brushing his teeth, he splashed a handful of cold water on his face, scattering the remnants of sleepiness.

When he stepped out of the dormitory, the sky was only just beginning to brighten, but students were already moving around below the dorm building.

He took a deep breath of the rare, slightly cool summer air. Feeling a little more alert, he headed downstairs toward the track.

Before he even reached the teaching building, he could already hear students reciting their texts.

He quickened his pace slightly and saw several students standing beneath the streetlamps, holding books as they recited.

Right, the iron gates to the teaching building were still locked at this hour, so they had no way of returning to their classrooms.

And since the sky had not fully brightened yet, they could only use the streetlamps to read and recite.

He did not know whether the people had woken the birds or whether the birds had already been awake, but countless sparrows darted through the leaves of the banyan trees, their crisp chirping rising and falling without end.

Scenes like this were hard to see at any time other than high school.

Middle school was relatively less stressful, though there were a few demanding majors in college.

But college facilities were excellent. You would not be reduced to studying beneath streetlamps.

And even if you took another step back, you could still secretly grind away in the dorm.

Just like he had told Cai Yibin yesterday, secretly grinding behind your roommates' backs really did make it easier to feel yourself improving.

It might draw some resentment, but if you were already doing it, wasn't the thrill of getting results or being found out exactly what you enjoyed?

By the time he reached the track, several students were already running while reciting books.

He put in his earbuds and jogged over to join them. Even if you recited vocabulary aloud, no one would look at you strangely—after all, everyone was doing the same thing.

After running several laps around the track, he went to the cafeteria and bought some bread and fried dough sticks before returning to the dormitory.

When he opened the dorm door, a bowl of wonton noodles in a plastic container was sitting securely on the table.

Meanwhile, the people who had climbed the wall last night were each sitting on their beds, looking pale as they played on their phones.

That was normal enough. After pulling an all-nighter, it would be strange if they looked well.

"This one's mine?" He pointed at the bowl of wonton noodles on the table.

"Yeah." Liao Feiyang nodded, shifting his gaze from his phone screen to him. "Did Old Ban come by again last night?"

Mo Xiangwen froze just as he picked up the bowl. Thinking carefully, he felt like he had not heard a single sound after they left last night.

Mo Xiangwen said strangely, "No, I don't think so? I don't remember hearing anything."

"Cai Yibin told me this morning that Old Ban and the grade-level staff came by again last night and told me to prepare myself mentally." Liao Feiyang sighed. "If I'd known, I would've listened to you. Another twenty days or so wouldn't have killed me."

Cai Yibin would not joke with him about something like that for no reason, and it would be far too easy to verify.

No wonder Liao Feiyang looked so bad. So that was part of the reason.

After hesitating for a moment, he decided to ask, "So did you rank up?"

"No. Fuck."

Learning English with Cheats Was Like Forcing a Melon off the Vine

The moment he opened the delivery box, he saw more than ten textbooks lying quietly inside, protected by layer upon layer of bubble wrap.

If they had only been books for the senior-year core subjects, there naturally would not have been this many.

He wanted to remove the bubble wrap with the patience and smoothness of undressing a beauty, as a sign of respect for this help.

Unfortunately, he had never had such an experience. Besides, textbooks did not look like shy beauties coyly hiding their faces in his eyes, so he naturally was not in that kind of mood.

He simply borrowed a pair of scissors and got straight to the point, cutting through the layers of bubble wrap and clear tape.

No matter how tightly they had been packaged, beneath the edge of the scissors, they obediently let themselves be stripped bare before him.

Every book was carefully covered in transparent plastic book covers. Books from the same subject were stacked neatly in order from first year to third year.

He had thought the president would only send him third-year textbooks, but he had not expected him to send the first- and second-year books as well.

On top of the stack were three small red books.

Don't misunderstand. They were not some social media app, but one of the study guides students liked to use.

Pocket books, or quick-memorization handbooks, were tools students used to study during fragmented bits of time.

For English, they mainly contained grammar and vocabulary.

For Chinese, they contained texts and classical poems that needed to be memorized.

Math and the sciences had comparatively less written content because they mainly involved formulas and laws, so they were usually combined into one book.

He opened one and took a look. It was still as good as new.

He had bought some himself, even from the same publisher.

Still, he was grateful that the president had thoughtfully remembered to send these along too.

He tucked the little red books into his pocket so they would not get lost, then Mo Xiangwen opened the Chinese textbook on top.

In the table of contents, several page numbers had been conspicuously circled in red pen.

He turned to those pages and found that they were all relatively famous texts or classical poems. He remembered that teachers had mentioned, to varying degrees, that these were common test points.

Some paragraphs and sentences in the texts had also been prominently marked with red pen.

Then, beside them, blue pen had been used to write passage after passage of reading comprehension notes and analysis.

As for the classical Chinese passages and poems, individual characters that were easy to mistranslate or mispronounce had been heavily circled, with clear and detailed annotations beside them.

Perhaps because there was limited blank space between the texts, the person who took the notes had written rather small, but the handwriting was clear, graceful, and dignified.

Maybe it was not quite right to say this, but men's handwriting was generally more wild and unrestrained. At a glance, this handwriting clearly belonged to a girl.

And if he carefully flipped through the pages one by one, he would find that there was hardly a single crease on the bottom-right corners of almost the entire book.

It was obvious that the books' original owner had cherished them greatly.

Looking at the math books, there were far fewer notes than in the Chinese textbook. They mainly contained solution methods for difficult final problems and page numbers for the sources of formulas.

What truly shocked him, however, was the English textbook.

Although he really wanted to praise how detailed the annotations on grammar mistakes and similar points were, there was something he could not help but complain about.

"Why do top students need to use pinyin and homophones to annotate English words too?"

Mo Xiangwen saw the dense annotations of Chinese characters and pinyin on the vocabulary pages at the end and could not hold back his laughter.

This had been extremely popular in English cram schools several years ago.

Those who could learn normally naturally did not need it. For those who simply could not learn no matter how hard they tried, cram school teachers would use this teaching method.

Leaving aside whether it was right or wrong and what effects it had, this method had indeed helped some students learn English... at least at the exam-taking level.

Of course, he was so familiar with it because he had been taught this way before too.

Uh, as far as the results went, it worked, but not by much.

A falling flower might have feelings, but the flowing water had none. He and English still seemed to be missing just a little bit of fate.

Forget treating English like a girlfriend—he could not even become friends with it.

But now... Overload Mode, activate!

abstract, abstract.

Mo Xiangwen followed the original notes beside the words, breaking each English word into individual letters and silently reading them several times in his heart.

Then, that confident feeling of having everything under control washed over him again.

After closing the book, he could pronounce every word completely, one letter at a time.

Being able to memorize more than ten words in such a short time might make top students think, That's it? But for a bottom-tier student like him, it was something he had never even dared imagine before.

And this efficiency would gradually improve as he filled in the gaps in his English foundation.

A faintly smug joy could not help rising in his heart.

A forcibly twisted melon might not be sweet, but it quenched your thirst.

Right now, English was like a little... cough, he was a decent man. He had dignity. He needed to be serious.

Seriously, just from the few simple glances he had taken through these books, he could tell they would help him tremendously.

But these books were the president's little sister's hard work, right? He wondered if the president had even gotten her permission before lending them to him.

...He should take care of them as well as possible and return them in their original condition when the time came. Hopefully, the president would still be okay before then.

He had already planned to take good care of them, but once he thought of them as someone else's hard work, he suddenly felt much more pressure.

Treating the stack like fragile items, Mo Xiangwen carefully carried the books back to the classroom.

The moment he entered, he immediately caught Cai Yibin's attention.

After all, carrying a large stack of textbooks made it hard not to attract notice.

It was only after Mo Xiangwen set the books down on the desk, panting, that Cai Yibin finally asked with a curious expression, "Whose books are those? Where are you moving them?"

"A friend lent them to me. They're for my own use."

There was nothing to hide, so he answered directly.

Cai Yibin looked at the books on his shelf, then at the stack Mo Xiangwen had just carried back.

"Don't you already have books? Why are you borrowing more?"

Mo Xiangwen glanced at him, casually picked up a Chinese textbook, and slowly flipped through several pages in front of him.

"Can you understand it?"