Today's inspection: nothing to report

Morning reading ended.

Chen Shi'an had memorized five hundred and thirty-eight words.

Leaving aside the three hundred and forty-odd words he had memorized yesterday, he had learned nearly two hundred in the forty minutes or so of morning reading alone.

As his vocabulary grew rapidly, he encountered fewer and fewer unfamiliar words while learning them directly from English texts. In the second-semester seventh-grade English textbook alone, he no longer needed his reading pen to translate or read aloud more than half the vocabulary.

He was also memorizing words faster and faster. Instead of learning them letter by letter as he had at first, he could now use more convenient methods, such as sounding them out, breaking them into parts, and recognizing their structure.

Still, Chen Shi'an did not go straight to the vocabulary list at the back. He continued working through the texts. To him, this was not just a process of memorizing words, but of memorizing passages too. Combined with the grammar materials Wen Zhixia had given him, learning the texts by heart would reinforce his vocabulary, grammar, and understanding of sentence structure.

Probably very few people learned English with such brute force, laying down a blanket barrage the way he did.

Whatever you've got, I'll just memorize the whole lot...

Recalling what Lin Meng Qiu had said earlier, Chen Shi'an pondered what else he could ask her about English. This question seemed much harder to him than memorizing words or texts.

The main problem was that Wen Zhixia and Teacher Ye had already filled in the biggest gaps in his English studies. He wasn't so idle that he would deliberately ask her about something he already understood...

After thinking for quite a while, Chen Shi'an finally found something he could ask her about-

"Class monitor."

"..."

At his voice, Lin Meng Qiu stopped writing, turned her head slightly, and raised her eyes to glance at him.

"?"

"I have a question about English I'd like to ask you."

"~~~"

The girl's icy expression began to thaw at those words. Without making a show of it, she brushed the strands beside her cheek behind her ear, revealing her delicate little ear, and settled in to listen.

"What is it?"

"I saw your English test paper yesterday. Your English handwriting is really nice. Could you teach me how you write English letters?"

"..."

Lin Meng Qiu froze for a moment, started to speak, stopped, then wanted to speak again.

Wait...

I said you could ask me if there was anything you didn't understand in English. Bring me a question or your textbook! What's this about asking me how to write English letters?

Or is that study buddy of yours so amazing that one set of materials was enough to teach you everything? Did that buddy of yours score higher than me...?

"That's all?"

"Yeah. My English handwriting is awful. I'd like to learn from you."

"..."

Lin Meng Qiu stared at him for a good while. Seeing that he looked completely serious rather than as though he were joking, she lost any desire to get annoyed.

Since English was a foreign language, few people specifically practiced English handwriting the way they practiced writing Chinese characters.

Chen Shi'an was right: Lin Meng Qiu's English handwriting really was beautiful. It was almost a physical expression of her personality, never needlessly showy, yet possessing an airy elegance all its own. The clear spacing between the letters resembled the distance she kept from others-gentle, but with boundaries. The pointed peak of her A was crisp as an icicle, while the curves of her f and s were delicate as gossamer. Her essay pages were particularly pleasing to look at, each full page of English letters slender and upright.

It was now the break after morning reading, and everyone was starting to assemble on the field outside for morning exercises.

Lin Meng Qiu always "dragged her feet" about going to exercises. Chen Shi'an had happened to come to her with a question, giving her an even better excuse to do so.

She took out her scratch notebook, turned to a blank page, and placed it between their desks.

"Write a few words for me."

Chen Shi'an pulled the notebook over, picked up his pen, and casually wrote a sentence from the textbook: [what rules do we follow?]

Honestly, even without Lin Meng Qiu saying anything, Chen Shi'an knew his handwriting was terrible.

His brain knew how to pronounce, spell, and write the words, but his hand became strangely stiff as soon as he put pen to paper. Those awkward letter shapes made him feel less as though he were writing than copying an image from his mind. Not only was he slow, but the letters were crooked and lopsided, just like the handwriting of an elementary schooler who had only just started learning English.

"That's about how it looks." Chen Shi'an slid the notebook back in front of her.

"..."

Lin Meng Qiu studied his English handwriting, lost in thought.

She could tell that Chen Shi'an was trying to copy the textbook's printed letters. His version was just rather painful to look at...

You've learned English in completely the opposite order from everyone else! What student who's already memorized hundreds of words writes like someone who just learned the alphabet? You haven't written English at all!

Lin Meng Qiu picked up her pen and wrote a fresh line of English beneath his.

Side by side, the two looked like a toad sitting beside a swan.

"Class monitor, your English handwriting is so pretty. Please teach me."

"~~~"

Plenty of classmates and teachers had complimented her English handwriting, but Lin Meng Qiu still felt that none of their praise made her as happy as praise from a genuine novice like Chen Shi'an.

She took back the scratch notebook and brought out an exercise book specifically for English handwriting. Each large row was divided by four guide lines to help keep the letters properly formed.

"You just haven't written enough."

As she spoke, Lin Meng Qiu wrote in the notebook. "If you want your English handwriting to look good, you first need to master the basic strokes. Take A and a, for example..."

While she explained, Chen Shi'an listened attentively.

They leaned toward each other, both angled toward the middle of their desks.

Chen Shi'an's gaze rested on her hand, then her pen, then the letters she wrote.

Whether it was because she was so fair or so slender, the skin on the back of her hand was delicate enough for faint veins to show through. Her long, slender fingers held the pen neither too high nor too low. Despite how soft and delicate her little hand looked, her writing had remarkable strength, the letters graceful and upright, the strokes sharp and natural.

Watching someone with beautiful handwriting write really was a pleasure.

"Keep the spacing between letters even. Not too tight, not too loose. You can use the guide lines to judge the spacing. If that doesn't work, hold a ruler against the horizontal line while you practice..."

"Like this?"

"Yes, when you write a lowercase w

you need to add a slight hooking motion at the beginning and end."

"Are there different styles of English lettering too?"

"Usually you use ordinary handwriting. There's also print, italic, Gothic, and so on, but those are mostly used in art and design."

"You know so much, class monitor."

"~~~"

Lin Meng Qiu had never imagined that teaching someone to write English letters could give her such a sense of accomplishment.

She felt relaxed and happy. Only when she came back to herself did she realize that she had unconsciously moved very close to Chen Shi'an.

How close? While she wrote, the back of her hand could faintly feel the warm air of his breath. When he answered softly, she seemed to hear the vibration resonating through his throat and chest. Her elbow almost touched his arm, and his body heat reached her through the thin fabric of his school uniform. Mingled with it was his distinctive scent of greenery in a pine forest after rain, lingering around her nose...

"Does this look much better?" Chen Shi'an turned his head naturally as he asked.

Lost in thought, Lin Meng Qiu's pupils widened slightly. His face was almost right before hers. Morning light scattered through the window onto his face, and she could even make out the mountain-like iridescence in his irises.

Lin Meng Qiu quietly averted her gaze. Her fingertips curled inward, and her long lashes lowered, hiding the fluster in her eyes.

She had not even caught what Chen Shi'an had just said. She merely murmured a soft "Mm" and used taking a drink of water as an excuse to put some distance between them.

"Anyway..."

The class monitor drank her water.

"Just write more and practice. It's not hard."

The class monitor set down her water bottle and tightened the cap.

"Okay."

Chen Shi'an nodded.

A stern shout suddenly rang out from outside the classroom-

"You two over there! What are you doing? Look at the time! Why haven't you gone down for exercises?"

Only then did Lin Meng Qiu remember what time it was. She looked up and glanced around. There wasn't a single other student left in the quiet classroom.

Even the corridor outside was empty, apart from the head of their grade, who stood in the doorway looking in as he made his classroom inspection.

The girl moved fast!

Before Chen Shi'an had even stood up, she sprang to her feet. With her slender, graceful figure, she squeezed straight through the gap between the back of his chair and the desk behind it.

The class monitor, who always "dragged her feet" about exercises, displayed unprecedented speed. By the time Chen Shi'an turned around, she had already jogged to the classroom door.

"...Oh, it's Meng Qiu?"

"..."

Lin Meng Qiu ignored the grade head completely and hurried down the stairs.

"And that other student... Oh, it's Master Chen?"

"Sorry, sir. I was practicing my handwriting and lost track of the time."

"It's all right, it's all right. Hurry on down."

The grade head chuckled, his stern expression turning friendly.

Today's inspection: nothing to report.