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Liang Kui hurried toward him, the cold wind tossing his slightly long hair into a wild, flamboyant mess. In Su Yan's memories, there had been no such winter, nor had he run into Liang Kui here.

"Su Yan, the homeroom teacher just said that the day after tomorrow, you need to come back to school to help grade the papers. Me, the class monitor, and a few others too. Don't forget—meet at school at nine in the morning the day after tomorrow."

Liang Kui waved his hand. He had come in a hurry and left in a hurry.

"Yan Yan, why does your heartbeat always feel so different whenever you face that boy?"

Because he was my first love.

On the second day of vacation, Su Yan returned to campus. The quiet school held only busy teachers and outstanding students from every class.

Each class had called in several students to help grade papers, but the papers were cross-graded. Su Yan was in Class Two of Year One, and the papers he graded belonged to Class Three of Year One.

The classmates called in with Su Yan were Lin Qiang, Chen Wanwan, Liang Kui, the study committee member Yu Cong, and the arts committee member Lei Jingjing.

Several students sat in the Class Two classroom with teachers from each subject, carefully checking the answer keys as they graded. The students only needed to mark fixed-answer questions, such as true-or-false and multiple-choice questions. The longer, open-ended questions were left to the teachers. The work was completely divided up.

The morning passed, and at noon, a teacher treated them to lunch in the cafeteria. After eating, they continued working.

It was dull, cold, and stiffening. The only thing anyone cared about was their own exam scores, but since the papers had been exchanged, no one knew how many points they had gotten.

Liang Kui regretted it immensely. He had thought it would be fun, but it turned out to be so boring. If he had known, he might as well have taken Chen Wanwan on a trip.

Liang Kui gave an exaggerated yawn and leaned against his chair with a sigh. Chen Wanwan glared at him with an amused, annoyed smile. Liang Kui pouted innocently and whispered, "I'm bored to death. Lunch was awful. I didn't get full, and now I'm starving."

"Just bear with it," Chen Wanwan said helplessly.

The two carefully whispered to each other. Lin Qiang secretly glared at them, then leaned toward Su Yan and said, "We have to come back to school in five days to get our report cards. What are you planning to do during these days off? Why don't we find a few classmates and go out somewhere?"

"It's too cold. I don't feel like going out. Besides, I have a little work to do. I'm going to get a part-time job." Su Yan smiled as he lied. Aunt Xu had already settled the fruit shop, and he could hardly wait to open it. Selling fruit at the end of the year was peak season, and he could not miss it.

"A part-time job? You're only in your first year of high school. What kind of job can you find?" Lin Qiang was both surprised and curious. If there really was part-time work available, he wanted to try it too and earn some pocket money. He still had not repaid the three hundred yuan he owed Su Yan.

Su Yan saw through his thoughts at once. "Probably helping someone watch a fruit shop. What? Want to join? It's only for winter break."

"Can I go? If I can, I will. Hehe." Lin Qiang was thrilled.

"I'll ask when I get back. It should be fine."

"That's great."

The two murmured as they chatted, while Liang Kui's stomach grumbled with hunger. Liang Kui painfully collapsed onto the desk and sighed loudly. "Teacher, can you give me something to eat? Even a fifty-cent pack of crispy noodles would do. I'm about to faint from hunger. God, it's only two thirty in the afternoon." Liang Kui wailed miserably, staring at the teacher with pitiful eyes.

The teacher snorted with a smile. "Quit whining. Who told you not to eat your fill at lunch?"

"The cafeteria food was just too bizarre..." Liang Kui muttered.

"Enough. I know a young master like you looks down on it. If you're hungry, go buy something from the store. They have hot water there for instant noodles."

"Oh yeah!" Liang Kui sprang up and darted out the door. More and more people followed behind him, most of them boys who could not stand being hungry.

Lin Qiang pulled Su Yan out with him as well. After preparing their noodles, the two went to sit in the lobby of the teachers' office building to eat. Behind the wall there was a flower bed.

They were eating with relish when they suddenly heard the clear, tinkling laughter of girls coming from the flower bed. One of them was Chen Wanwan, another was Yu Cong, and the third was a girl from another class.

"Liang Kui is handsome, rich, and treats you well," Yu Cong said enviously.

The unfamiliar girl seemed unhappy and said dampeningly, "A student from our class saw your score, Wanwan. Your math score dropped a lot. Quite a few people got full marks this time, but it seems you lost more than ten points."

Chen Wanwan's face turned pale. "Could they have seen it wrong? I checked my answers. I didn't lose any points in the front section."

"That's right, but you lost a lot of points on the big questions at the end."

Chen Wanwan gritted her teeth and said nothing. The girl added fuel to the fire. "Your homeroom teacher was chatting with ours and mentioned you. She said she suspected you were dating too early, and that it had affected your grades. The class officers will be reelected next semester."

The girl giggled again. "But your boyfriend looks like he loves to play around. I didn't expect his grades to be so good. He got full marks in math—so impressive. Your class also has several people like Lin Qiang and Su Yan who got full marks. Oh, right! There's something even more surprising. That dinosaur in your class, Chen Yan, improved tremendously in math this time. She ranked in the top ten for math in your class. Your math teacher was so happy she practically had her nose in the air."

"...That can't be possible. Chen Yan's grades have always been around the lower middle. She's never scored over one hundred in math." Cold sweat broke out on Chen Wanwan's forehead as she spoke in disbelief. If even Chen Yan had made it into the top ten, that meant the math exam had been easy. But on such an easy paper, she had lost more than ten points... It was like a bolt from the blue! Chen Wanwan gritted her teeth, refusing to believe it was because of dating too early. Even if she was dating, she had clearly worked very hard at her studies.