Between the lines

Yuan Su came in just as the bell rang.

He wore his slightly oversized blue-and-white school uniform, his jacket only half zipped, and carried himself with a lazy, aloof air.

As he approached his seat, he suddenly stopped.

The test papers handed out over the past few days had always been piled in a messy heap, sometimes even falling onto the floor and getting footprints stamped on them.

But now.

The papers were neatly stacked at the corner of his desk, sorted by subject.

Yuan Su turned his head and glanced at his new deskmate, who was staring at him blankly.

Their eyes met again, and neither said a word.

For some reason, Pu Yu felt a little nervous. She explained quietly, "The papers they handed out... I was afraid they'd get mixed up, so I tidied them for you."

Yuan Su said nothing. He pulled out his chair and sat down.

The physics teacher had already entered and slammed his lesson notes onto the lectern.

Smack.

The last faint buzz of conversation in the classroom died away.

"Where did we leave off with the test paper last time? Lenz's Law of electromagnetic induction. Do you all still remember it?" The physics teacher swept his piercing gaze over the class, then picked up a piece of chalk, turned around, and wrote a string of formulas on the board.

What followed was Pu Yu's time to listen to utter gibberish.

The physics teacher spoke extremely fast, mixing in a Whitebank Town dialect so thick it was almost impossible to decipher, its tones twisting every which way.

Pu Yu widened her eyes, desperately trying to pick out keywords like "current" and "magnetic field" from those "*%￥#@" syllables.

But after all that effort, she was still completely lost.

She couldn't follow the teacher's reasoning at all and could only copy down what he wrote on the board without taking any of it in. Yet copying the formulas and diagrams alone did nothing to help her understand the derivations.

A rustling sound came from beside her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Pu Yu saw Yuan Su pull a pen from the side pocket of his schoolbag.

He found his physics paper, twirled the pen, glanced over the questions, and started writing.

Scratch, scratch, scratch-

The smooth sound of his writing was especially clear in Pu Yu's ears.

She couldn't resist stealing a glance and was stunned to discover something.

The last two long-answer questions had stumped her for two days, leaving her with no idea where to begin.

Yet Yuan Su hadn't even used any scratch paper!

He simply set down a few lines of formulas and wrote out the answers!

In less than twenty minutes, the entire paper was filled in.

Then he tossed his pen carelessly back into the drawer, slumped over his desk, turned his head to one side, and closed his eyes to sleep.

"Yuan Su!"

A furious shout came from the lectern.

An instant later, half a stick of chalk traced a precise arc through the air and smacked the boy on the head, leaving a white mark.

Yuan Su slowly sat up and rubbed his hair. He didn't seem angry, just utterly done with the world and not quite awake.

Teacher Wang's temper flared. "Are you here to sleep or to attend class?! It's only been a few minutes, and you're already lying down? Have you finished your paper?!"

Every pair of eyes in the class turned toward him at once.

Some held sympathy, some delighted in his misfortune, but most were eager to watch the show.

Xu Suiran also sneaked a glance back and signaled to Pu Yu with her eyes, silently mouthing:

"Love-hate relationship."

"Today, it's hate."

Pu Yu was still caught up in her shock from a moment ago.

Good heavens.

That was a physics paper covering material beyond the syllabus.

Yuan Su reached for the paper, his voice husky and languid:

"I'm done."

"Done?"

Teacher Wang knew he was smart, but this set of questions was quite difficult. The boy hadn't attended class for several days, and even if he could solve them, it should have taken him some time.

Half skeptical, he stepped down from the lectern and snatched up the paper.

The reprimand he had prepared lodged in his throat when he saw the concise, effective solutions, without a single error or omission.

Full marks again.

Teacher Wang sighed, frustrated at his wasted potential. "If you'd spare a little of that brain for your other subjects, you wouldn't... forget it! Getting everything right doesn't mean you can sleep! This is a classroom!"

Yuan Su raised a hand and casually wiped the chalk dust from his forehead with his fingertips before saying calmly, "Your dialect puts me to sleep. It's like listening to someone chant scriptures."

A deathly silence fell over the classroom.

A few seconds later, someone finally failed to hold back and snorted with laughter.

Then stifled laughter broke out across the room.

Even Xu Suiran in the row ahead was laughing so hard her shoulders shook.

This was practically... pulling a tiger's whiskers.

"You're the only one in the whole class with so many complaints! Everyone else can understand me. You're the only one who can't, is that it?"

No sooner had he said that.

Teacher Wang's gaze happened to sweep over Pu Yu beside Yuan Su.

She held a pen in her hand, but there were only a few scattered formulas on her scratch paper. The long-answer questions on the final page of her test paper were completely blank.

A succession of expressions crossed Teacher Wang's face.

In the end, he gave a loud snort and scolded, "You always have some ridiculous excuse! Come to my office after class!"

But once he returned to the lectern, he cleared his throat.

When he spoke again, he actually switched to Mandarin, albeit with a distinct local twang.

"We... we were just discussing this..."

Pu Yu's pen hand trembled slightly.

She turned to look at Yuan Su, who was still slumped over his desk, asleep.

All the students from town understood the dialect. The only one who didn't... was her.

The lesson came to an end.

Pu Yu looked at the solution steps on the board, with their enormous leaps in reasoning, and still felt lost.

The last two long-answer questions combined several different concepts. The teacher had explained the formulas quite clearly, but she simply couldn't wrap her head around them.

The bell rang, and the students around her gradually filed out.

Biting her lower lip, Pu Yu looked at the full-mark paper beside her, its handwriting messy but its logic rigorous, then glanced at Yuan Su, who was still sleeping.

After spending a long time psyching herself up, she finally gathered her courage.

She reached out a finger and gently poked the boy's firm arm.

Once.

No response.

She poked him again.

Yuan Su finally stirred.

He shifted with extreme impatience, his brows tightly furrowed, and slowly lifted his eyelids, radiating the foul mood of someone whose sleep had been disturbed.

His dark eyes were bloodshot as they swept coldly toward her:

"What?"

Startled by his gaze, Pu Yu looked like a frightened fawn.

But she still pushed her paper toward him and pointed at the blank section, her voice very small. "These... these two long-answer questions. I didn't fully understand the explanation... could you teach me? Sorry for the trouble."

Yuan Su stared at her for two seconds, seemingly gauging his new deskmate's nerve.

Hearing the movement, Xu Suiran turned around from the row ahead just in time to see this.

Her eyes widened in horror, and she frantically signaled to Pu Yu-

Don't mess with him!

He's unbelievably cranky when he wakes up!