Seatmates checked each other's pulses for lies in biology class.
"Huh?" Su Xiaoya froze.
Lu Yuanqiu, however, got up and headed toward his little sister's room.
The fourteen-year-old girl's room was decidedly girly: a pink bed, pink desk and chair, pink plush toys, pink wallpaper and posters. Stepping inside felt like plunging into an ocean of pink.
Delicate and romantic.
What could he do? She was their parents' biological child, while Lu Yuanqiu had been picked out of a trash can.
Still, if Lu Yuanqiu remembered correctly, Bai Qingxia seemed to like pink too.
"What are you doing in here?"
Lu Yidong sat on the edge of her bed, hugging a stuffed bear. She looked up at her brother with a pout, clearly displeased.
Lu Yuanqiu leaned against the doorway, arms folded, and said with a smile, "Let me tell you a secret. I was pretty close to Overalls Uncle when I was in middle school too."
Lu Yidong's little face went blank. "Really?"
Lu Yuanqiu nodded. "Yeah. He's sweet and kind, and he never picks on anyone. But a lot of middle school kids bullied him, so I protected him a few times."
Lu Yidong gave her brother a surprised look.
Her brother, who had been labeled a "bad student" ever since middle school, actually had such a kind side?
Lu Yidong nodded. "Exactly! He's really nice. At lunchtime today, I even saw a really, really pretty girl sitting on the steps across the road, kindly feeding him rice."
Lu Yuanqiu neither agreed nor disagreed.
Apart from those middle schoolers who liked bullying him, Overalls Uncle was actually quite popular around No. 65 Middle School. After all, he was clean, handsome, and kind.
But he really was pitiful too.
Lu Yuanqiu had no idea why he was so determined to linger outside No. 65 Middle School's gates. It was almost an obsession. Even though the middle schoolers often bullied him, he refused to leave.
At that thought, Lu Yuanqiu cautioned his sister, "I fully support you protecting him. But if you run into something you can't handle, you have to tell me. I'll come right away. Got it?"
"Okay!"
Lu Yidong immediately smiled and nodded, swinging her pale little feet adorably. Suddenly, she felt that her brother wasn't as annoying as he used to be.
He really did seem a little different, from yesterday to today.
But Lu Yidong couldn't quite put her finger on what had changed.
After leaving his sister's room, Lu Yuanqiu immediately returned to his own.
He pulled a dusty cardboard box out from under the bed. It held all his textbooks from his first and second years of high school.
Thank goodness I didn't sell them to the old scrap collector... Lu Yuanqiu shuddered at the thought. That was genuinely something his old self would have done.
After cleaning up the textbooks, Lu Yuanqiu moved them all onto his desk.
He had practically no foundation in the first- and second-year material, because he had never listened in class.
He vaguely remembered the assessment so many teachers had given him: "This kid is actually very smart. He just doesn't put his mind to studying."
This time, I, Lu Yuanqiu, am going to put my mind to studying!
Let's see whether you teachers actually meant it when you called me smart!
But reading really does make it easy to get sleepy...
Half an hour later.
Wearing shorts that exposed her fair calves, Lu Yidong carried a plate of fruit into her brother's room and called sweetly:
"Big brooo~ Mom cut some fruit and told me to bring it to you-Mom!!! Lu Yuanqiu hanged himself!!!"
Lu Yidong's sweet voice instantly turned into a terrified roar.
Inside the room.
Lu Yuanqiu sat at his desk with a textbook in front of him. A rope dangled from the ceiling, tightening around his neck.
"Urgh-I love studying-urgh-can't get sleepy-"
Like a lunatic, Lu Yuanqiu dry-heaved and rolled his eyes, whimpering as though he were fighting against fate itself.
Tying his head to a beam to stay awake-the hanging version.
Lucheng No. 7 Middle School was considered a second-tier key high school in Lucheng City.
The best high school was Lucheng No. 1 High School.
Apparently, its teaching approach was hands-off, relying entirely on students' self-discipline. Yet even under that system, an astonishing ninety percent of its students qualified for first-tier universities.
Lucheng No. 7 Middle School, on the other hand, took a tightly controlled approach with extremely strict rules. Its first-tier university admission rate hovered around fifty percent.
The next day, Lu Yuanqiu rode his bicycle to the school gates.
Anyone who knew him would have been astonished to see Lu Yuanqiu at the school gate at that moment.
It was only seven in the morning. In the past, Lu Yuanqiu had never arrived until morning reading was over.
"I'm going to study. I love studying. If I don't become Lu City's top scorer, I'm not a man..." Muttering to himself, Lu Yuanqiu pushed his bicycle toward the gates, sporting dark circles under both eyes and a red rope mark around his neck.
Just then, he noticed that a teacher had stopped Hu Caiwei.
"Not wearing your uniform this morning is bad enough, but your skirt is this short too? What year and class are you in?"
The bespectacled teacher reprimanded her sternly.
Hu Caiwei lowered her head like a guilty child. Today, she wore a white T-shirt with a blue pleated skirt, and her pale, beautiful legs were impossible to miss.
Lu Yuanqiu ignored the scene and pushed his bicycle through the gates.
Hu Caiwei happened to look up. When she caught sight of Lu Yuanqiu's back, she rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
Did the sun rise in the west today? Lu Yuanqiu came this early?!
"Ding~ ding~ ding~ ding~"
The bell rang for the first period, biology.
Zheng Yifeng planted his handsome face on his desk and started snoring.
Meanwhile, Lu Yuanqiu quietly stuffed the steamed buns he had bought into Bai Qingxia's desk compartment. "No arguing. Eat them after class."
"You..." Bai Qingxia stared at Lu Yuanqiu's neck, hesitating.
"Don't worry. I studied too late last night, so I deliberately tightened something around my neck to keep myself awake."
Lu Yuanqiu explained.
Bai Qingxia gave him an incredulous look. Then, as though realizing something, she put on a cool expression and said, "I wasn't worried."
The corners of Lu Yuanqiu's mouth lifted. He closed his eyes and rested his head on his desk.
Listening to the lesson now was pointless. Without a solid foundation in the earlier material, he might as well have been listening to gibberish.
Lu Yuanqiu rested on his desk partly to recharge and partly to review what he had learned yesterday in his mind.
Bai Qingxia touched the warm buns and gently pressed her lips together. While Lu Yuanqiu was asleep, she secretly
put two of them into the plastic lunch box she had brought.
Lu Yuanqiu actually noticed, but he didn't call her out.
Ten or so minutes later, he lifted his head from the desk. Seeing that he was awake, Bai Qingxia hurriedly turned toward him, as though she had rehearsed this countless times in her head, and solemnly "confessed":
"I... I sneaked two buns just now."
Lu Yuanqiu turned to her and smiled. "So you sneaked two buns. Why report it to me?"
Bai Qingxia lowered her head, looking deeply embarrassed, then quickly turned back around. Both her earlobes were bright red.
Clearly, she was terrible at lying.
But for the first time, Lu Yuanqiu discovered that someone could look this adorable even while telling a lie.
Lu Yuanqiu's feelings toward Bai Qingxia were truly complicated. He wanted to give birth to her.
Just then, the biology teacher spoke from the front of the classroom:
"A normal heart rate is between sixty and ninety beats per minute. By the way, does anyone know how a lie detector works? Pulse rate is one of the indicators it uses."
"Now you can try checking your seatmate's pulse."
Detecting lies through someone's pulse?
Hearing this, Lu Yuanqiu turned toward her out of boredom.
Bai Qingxia, however, hastily tucked both her little hands behind her back and eyed him warily.
"...What are you doing?"
Lu Yuanqiu asked in surprise.