The Brand-New Experience of Being a Transfer Student

The moment she stepped through the school gates, the elderly security guard fulfilled his sacred duty.

He stopped every unfamiliar person outside.

"Student, this is the high school division. The middle school division is over there."

The guard pointed to the path on the left, his tone kind and his manner professional.

He was practically one step away from drawing an arrow on the ground for her.

Chen De came to a stop.

She looked down at herself.

One fifty-three.

Ash-gray hair.

A dark blue pleated skirt.

She really did look rather like a middle schooler.

No—she really was a one-fifty-three high school student.

This wasn't her fault.

This was Qubi's fault.

Qubi's tiny voice came from her backpack.

"Should you perhaps consider going to the middle school division he mentioned?"

"Shut up."

Chen De casually tucked back her hair, pulled out her student ID from her pocket, and handed it over.

"Hello, I'm a new transfer student."

Her voice was neither servile nor overbearing, and her expression was perfectly neutral.

She carried herself as steadily as an office worker who had weathered every storm.

But combined with that face and that height, the effect became—

A cute but fierce little girl desperately trying to look mature.

The elderly guard took the student ID.

He opened it.

Looked at the photo.

Then looked at Chen De.

His expression went through a spectacular transformation.

From "routine check" to "confusion" to "terror."

"Are you sure... this is you?"

Chen De's heart skipped a beat.

She leaned closer and rose onto her toes to take a look.

The photo on the student ID.

One seventy-five. Short hair. Male. Chen De.

She instantly turned to stone.

She had stuffed two student IDs into her pocket before leaving.

One was Su Xi's. The other was Chen De's old student ID.

The one she had casually pulled out—was the wrong one.

Chen De snatched back the ID at the speed of light, turned around, and faced away from the security guard.

She pretended to search through her pockets.

In reality, she was using her body to hide her increasingly twisted expression.

"Sorry, I took the wrong one..."

She pulled Su Xi's student ID from another pocket and handed it over.

Her hand was steady. Her heart was trembling.

The elderly guard stared at her suspiciously.

That look roughly translated to—

"Little girl, why are you carrying a boy's student ID? What's your relationship?"

The guard took the new ID, opened it, looked at the photo, then looked at her again.

It matched.

"All right, go on in."

Chen De immediately started walking.

After three steps, the guard called out behind her.

"Student."

Chen De's neck stiffened.

"That student ID—"

"My brother's."

Chen De didn't turn around.

"I was carrying it for him."

"Oh."

The guard did not press further.

Chen De quickened her pace toward the classroom building.

Qubi gave a snort from inside her backpack.

"Your brother?"

"Shut up."

"You can't even be bothered to make your lie believable."

"If you'd told me before I signed the contract that this would happen, I wouldn't have to make up lies now."

"Then you wouldn't have six hundred and forty thousand right now."

Chen De fell silent.

Whenever money was involved, she lost.

She entered the classroom building.

There were only a few scattered students in the hallway.

Chen De kept her head down and walked quickly, like an agent carrying out an infiltration mission.

Objective: classroom.

Strategy: keep a low profile.

Result: failure.

Because the moment she reached the corner on the second floor, she ran into someone.

In the literal sense.

The momentum of walking with her head down, combined with the one-fifty-three height difference—her point of impact landed squarely against the other person's chest.

"Ow—"

The other person took a step back.

Chen De covered her forehead and looked up.

Jiang Ping.

Chen De's brain crashed for 0.3 seconds.

Jiang Ping looked down at her.

From his perspective—a little girl with ash-gray hair and blue eyes, covering her forehead as she looked up at him.

Pleated skirt. Butterfly hairpin.

She looked very easy to bully.

"Are you okay?"

Chen De's lips moved.

She almost blurted out, "Don't you watch where you're going?"

But the words took a sharp turn at the last second.

"I'm fine. Sorry."

Her voice was as quiet as a mosquito's buzz.

Jiang Ping paused.

He probably had never seen anyone apologize so unwillingly.

"New student? I haven't seen you before."

"Yeah, I transferred here today."

"Oh, which class?"

Chen De swallowed.

"Class Three."

Jiang Ping's eyes lit up.

"What a coincidence, I'm in Class Three too."

He held out his hand.

"Jiang Ping. What's your name?"

Chen De stared at that hand.

Over the past two years, that hand had bumped fists with her countless times. Shared chips with her. Fought her for the remote. Shoved her back and forth while gaming.

Now it was extended toward her as if from a stranger.

Polite, friendly, courteous.

"Su Xi."

She shook it once and quickly let go.

"Su Xi?" Jiang Ping repeated. "That's a pretty nice name."

Chen De's face remained expressionless.

You never said Chen De was a nice name before.

"Come on, I'll take you to the classroom."

Jiang Ping naturally shifted aside, giving up half the hallway.

Chen De followed beside him.

She realized that her line of sight only reached Jiang Ping's shoulder.

They used to be about the same height when standing together.

Now she had to look up at him.

This experience was awful.

"Where did you transfer from?"

"Out of town."

"What part of out of town?"

"A very faraway part of out of town."

"...You don't really want to chat, do you?"

"A little."

Jiang Ping smiled.

"Okay, then I won't ask."

Then he added another sentence.

"Oh, right. You probably don't know yet."

"Hm?"

"There was a student in our class before. Yesterday, he suddenly said he was going abroad. It was pretty sudden."

Chen De's steps paused slightly.

"You happened to fill his spot."

"Oh."

"His name was Chen De. He was a pretty good guy."

Jiang Ping spoke casually, as though he were talking about something that had already passed.

"It was just too sudden when he left. We didn't even get to see him."

Chen De stared down the hallway ahead.

"Is that so."

"Yeah."

Jiang Ping scratched his head.

"Forget it, let's not talk about that. It's a little sad."

"Come on, I'll show you the classroom."

Chen De followed him forward.

Qubi's voice in her backpack dropped to its lowest volume.

"Are you okay?"

Chen De did not answer.

She only tugged her backpack strap higher.

At the end of the hallway, the sign for Class Three came into view.

The familiar door. The familiar spot.

An unfamiliar identity.

Jiang Ping pushed open the door, then looked back and smiled at her.

"Welcome to Class Three, Su Xi."

Chen De looked at that smile.

It was exactly the same as the one Jiang Ping used to give Chen De.

Yet completely different.

He took a deep breath.

Then stepped inside.

The classroom was buzzing with noise.

Jiang Ping pushed the door open.

"A new classmate's here."

Everyone turned their heads in unison.

There was one second of silence.

Then the room exploded.

"Holy shit! Is that hair real or dyed?"

"Blue eyes? Is she mixed-race?"

"So short—no, wait, so cute!"

"Where'd she transfer from?"

Chen De stood at the door.

Feeling dozens of pairs of eyes sweep over him.

The last time he had been watched by this many people was when he was still Chen De.

But at least everyone had known him then.

This time, it was the full-on zoo experience.

"Classmate, what's your name?"

A girl in the front row leaned over.

"Su Xi."

"Su Xi? That sounds so nice! Where are you from?"

"Out of town."

"Your hair color is so special! Is it natural?"

"Yeah."

"How tall are you?"

Chen De's temple twitched.

"Not short."

Another girl beside her gestured with her hand.

"You're definitely under one-sixty, right?"

"One-sixty-five."

"Even standing up?"

"I'm wearing height-increasing insoles."

Chen De lied through his teeth without changing expression.

Jiang Ping couldn't hold back a laugh beside him.

"Stop crowding around her with questions. She just got here, let her breathe."

The crowd dispersed somewhat.

Jiang Ping led him to the last seat in the middle of the classroom.

"This should be your seat."

The last row.

This seat was beside his old one, an extra desk that had been added before to make the rows look neat.

Jiang Ping's seat was on his right.

All he had to do was turn his head to see him.

"If you need help, just tell me."

"Mm, thanks."

Jiang Ping returned to his seat, pulled out his phone and swiped a few times, then lay down on his desk.

Just like every day before.

Except he would never turn around and ask, "Dezi, what are we eating today?"

Chen De sat down.

He put away his backpack.

Qubi poked half an eye out through a gap in the backpack and glanced at him.

It didn't say anything.

Chen De opened his textbook.

The first page.

His eyes stared at the words.

But none of them registered.

Qubi's voice came softly from inside the backpack.

"You okay?"

Chen De turned a page.

"I'm fine."

"You're holding your textbook upside down."

Chen De looked down.

Silently, he rotated the textbook one hundred and eighty degrees.

The class bell rang.

The homeroom teacher pushed open the door and entered.

He swept his gaze across the classroom.

Then his eyes stopped on Chen De.

"The new student's here?"

"Yeah."

"Come on, introduce yourself at the front."

Chen De stood.

He walked to the podium.

Facing the whole class.

More than forty faces looked at him, each with a different expression.

Curiosity. Excitement. Boredom. And one person who was dozing off.

He took a deep breath.

"Hello, everyone."

"My name is Su Xi."

"I transferred here from out of town."

"Please take care of me."

The room fell silent for two seconds.

The homeroom teacher waited a moment.

"...That's it?"

"That's it."

"Aren't you going to introduce your hobbies or something?"

Chen De thought about it.

Hobbies.

Fighting Calamities. Wearing skirts. Rubbing up light spheres. Arguing with a cat.

"I don't have any particular hobbies."

"Thank you, everyone."

He turned and returned to his seat.

The entire thing had taken less than fifteen seconds.

Possibly the shortest self-introduction in the school's history.

The homeroom teacher looked like he had eaten a lemon.

But he didn't make things difficult for him again.

The moment Chen De sat down, Jiang Ping turned around.

"Your introduction was way too short."

"The more I say, the easier it is to slip up."

"You weren't giving a report. What could possibly go wrong?"

Chen De shot him a glance.

There was plenty you didn't know.

"I have social anxiety."

"...That presence you had just now didn't look like social anxiety."

"Advanced social anxiety. You can't tell from the outside."