Pu Yu clenched her hands, suppressing the inexplicable flicker of panic in her chest, and lowered her head.
Under the entire class's gaze, she walked toward that corner, one step at a time.
She went around the boy's seat, gently pulled out her chair, and sat down.
She had just tucked her new textbooks and school uniform into the desk when a round-eyed girl with a ponytail in the row ahead turned around and greeted her with a smile:
"Hi, new girl! I'm Xu Suiran. Welcome!"
Pu Yu paused briefly, then returned a faint smile and said softly, "Hello. I'm Pu Yu."
The classroom fell silent for a moment before even more hushed murmurs broke out.
"...The new girl's actually sitting with him."
"She looks pretty quiet. She probably wouldn't dare get on his bad side."
"Tsk, talk about bad luck. Still, you can't go wrong keeping your distance. Who knows whether those people his dad crossed will come looking for him..."
Just then, the chair beside her scraped softly against the floor.
Yuan Su seemed utterly uninterested in who his deskmate was. With his head slightly lowered, he walked straight out the back door, leaving only the sight of his slender, desolate figure.
Pu Yu looked at Yuan Su's empty seat in surprise.
He just... left?
Xu Suiran had clearly heard the whispers too. She turned back and leaned toward Pu Yu, a trace of regret in her voice. "Um... Yuan Su's just like that. He keeps to himself. We change seats at the start of every month, so don't let it bother you."
Pu Yu looked up, puzzled, and asked softly, "Why would it bother me?"
Xu Suiran was about to explain when the bell rang, forcing her to turn back around.
Pu Yu gathered her thoughts too and focused on the lesson.
The teachers in town taught very differently from those at City No. 1 High School.
The teachers in the city placed more emphasis on expanding their students' thinking and applying what they learned to new problems, while the teachers here focused more on repeatedly explaining and reinforcing the fundamentals.
Pu Yu had a solid foundation, so keeping up was not too difficult.
Her only difficulty was the physics teacher's thick local accent. She could barely understand him and had to rely on copying his notes from the blackboard.
The seat beside her stayed empty all morning.
The moment the lunch bell rang, Xu Suiran spun around, brimming with energy. "Come on, Yu! I'll take you to the cafeteria and show you around our school!"
"Okay. Sorry for the trouble." Pu Yu smiled gratefully.
After putting their things away, she and Xu Suiran followed the crowd toward the cafeteria.
When they reached the card services office on the first floor, they found the window closed, with a notice posted outside: Closed today for internal reconciliation. Services will resume after 2 p.m.
"Aw, what bad timing." Xu Suiran scratched her head. "We can't top up your card."
Pu Yu touched the money for her living expenses in her pocket, wondering whether the cafeteria accepted cash.
Xu Suiran saw her concern at once and enthusiastically linked arms with her. "It's fine. Lunch is on me today! Consider it a welcome treat!"
"You don't have to, Sui Sui. I..." Pu Yu instinctively tried to refuse.
"Oh, don't be so polite." Without giving her a chance to argue, Xu Suiran pulled her toward the serving counters. "It's just one meal. It hardly costs anything. Look, that line's almost at the door! If we don't hurry, all the good dishes will be gone!"
Looking at the girl's warm, sincere profile, Pu Yu felt too embarrassed to refuse again.
"Thank you, Sui Sui. I'll pay you back as soon as I get some change!"
"Sure, sure. We'll talk about it then!" Xu Suiran waved it off, her attention already on the dishes at each counter. "They have sweet-and-sour ribs today! My favorite. Want to try some? Our school's braised pork is pretty good too..."
They lined up for their food. Xu Suiran ordered sweet-and-sour ribs and stir-fried tomatoes with eggs.
Pu Yu only asked for stir-fried bean sprouts and rice, the cheapest option.
"That's all you're eating? You're still growing." Xu Suiran looked at her tray.
"I had breakfast late. I'm not very hungry."
Pu Yu offered an excuse, lowered her head, and took a mouthful of rice.
Xu Suiran thought nothing more of it and began chattering to Pu Yu about the school as they ate.
"Our class is actually pretty nice overall. There are just a few boys who like to act up. We have Teacher Cheng's Chinese class this afternoon. She's really lovely, and she's the youngest homeroom teacher in our school. She came to Town Middle School right after graduating. You can go to her if you have any problems."
"As for the math teacher, he's really patient when he explains problems, but he's always running over time..."
"The physics teacher has the shortest temper. Sometimes he gets all worked up halfway through a lesson. But he really likes your deskmate. It's kind of a love-hate thing..."
Pu Yu ate her bean sprouts in small bites, listening attentively to Xu Suiran's introduction.
When she heard that the physics teacher had a love-hate relationship with her deskmate,
her hand paused slightly around her chopsticks.
That slender, desolate figure flashed before her eyes.
"Yuan Su?"
"Yep!"
Pu Yu could not help asking softly, "Does he get really good grades?"
Xu Suiran nodded emphatically and unconsciously leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Really good doesn't even begin to cover it! If you'd come two years earlier, you would've seen him in his prime. He was practically unbeatable!"
"His dad used to own the biggest appliance shop in town. Their family was doing so well. Yuan Su was handsome, and his grades were incredible. He came first in our year every single time, especially in math and physics. He actually got perfect scores-can you believe it? His name was on the honors board for the county-wide joint exams loads of times too."
"The teachers all said he had what it took to get into a top university. So many girls liked him back then. During exercise break, they'd deliberately take the long way around to sneak peeks at him through the window. Gifts and love letters filled his desk drawer. Some of the bolder ones even waited outside his house."
Pu Yu raised her eyes. It was hard to connect the dazzling boy Xu Suiran described with the gloomy, weary figure she had seen that morning.
"What happened after that?"
"After that?" Xu Suiran sighed. "Someone got his dad into gambling. I don't know who. He gambled away that whole huge business just like that, then racked up a mountain of debt. In the end, he ran off and disappeared."
"After that, Yuan Su seemed like a completely different person."
"He missed classes all the time, and even when he came, he just put his head down and slept. Naturally, his grades plummeted. All his teachers tried talking to him several times, but it didn't help."
"The friends and girls who used to flock around him started keeping their distance too, because their parents told them to. They said he was a gambler's son, and anyone who got close to him would end up in trouble."
Finally, she gently poked the rice on her plate with her chopsticks, her voice tinged with regret:
"Anyway, everyone says he's finished. Such a shame..."
Pu Yu listened quietly. The inexplicable unease in her chest seemed to have found its source, yet it also seemed to have grown more complicated.
Seeing her lost in thought, Xu Suiran assumed she had frightened her and quickly adopted a lighter tone. "Oh, let's stop talking about that. Eat up! When we're done, I'll take you to the school shop. Their orange soda is so good!"
Pu Yu looked up and nodded with a smile. "Okay."
The school shop was packed with students who had just finished lunch.
Whether they bought anything hardly mattered. Everyone liked coming over with their friends to browse for something tasty, fun, or useful.
"This is the orange soda. We can never get any in summer." Xu Suiran pointed at the shelf, recommending it enthusiastically.
Looking at Xu Suiran's sparkling eyes, Pu Yu thought of the lunch she had just bought her and felt bad about it. She picked up two bottles of soda, then added a small packet of rainbow hard candies that Xu Suiran had lingered over earlier.
"Sui Sui, these are for you. Thank you for buying me lunch."
Xu Suiran froze for a moment, then smiled and readily accepted them. "Wow, thanks, Yu! Then I won't stand on ceremony!"
At the counter, Pu Yu carefully pulled a crisp hundred-yuan note from her pocket.
It was one of the notes from the two thousand yuan in living expenses she had insisted on getting before leaving home.
She had not dared use it on the coach, afraid of attracting the attention of someone with bad intentions. By the time she arrived here, she had spent all her smaller bills.
The shopkeeper was a stern-looking middle-aged man.
He took the note and glanced at it against the light. His brows immediately furrowed.
When he spoke again, his voice rose, full of undisguised disgust. "So young, and already up to no good. Trying to cheat people with money like this?"
Before you continue