"Brother Hao, I heard you went to suck up to Xiang Qing again today?"
Humming a tune, Xu Xiujie slapped Kang Hao on the back. "How did it go? Any progress?"
Kang Hao lay slumped over his desk, his voice listless. "Don't even mention it."
"You swore up and down you'd win her over within a month." Xu Xiujie sounded a little gleeful at his misfortune. "It's only day two. You're not giving up already, are you?"
"She won't even talk to me." Kang Hao sounded aggrieved. "I don't think I'm that bad. Why won't she even look me in the eye?"
"That's normal," Xu Xiujie consoled him. "She seems to give everyone the same treatment: not a proper glance. Look at Zhang Zhaomu. He used his position as class monitor to get chummy with all the girls in our class in a single day, but even he can't get a conversation out of her."
"I thought I was special." Kang Hao let out a long sigh. "It hurts. It hurts so much. Before I could even have her, I've already tasted the pain of losing her."
"My love lost forever, devastation everywhere I look, huh?" Xu Xiujie couldn't help laughing. "Brother Hao, you've got to take a dialectical view of gains and losses. Losing something isn't necessarily the most painful thing. Take shitting-isn't that a kind of loss too? But not being able to shit is what really hurts. So being unable to let go is the most painful thing. Once you let go, you'll naturally feel relieved."
Kang Hao: "?"
"I disagree." Another sports student beside them immediately took an interest in the topic. "Try stopping halfway through a shit. Holding on is actually the most painful thing."
"Heh." Kang Hao couldn't resist arguing. "So that's how we're doing this? Try drinking some laxatives, then. Losing something beyond your control is the most painful thing."
"Personally, I think..." Xu Xiujie wore the look of a philosopher. "None of those is the most painful thing."
"Why don't you try eating it back up? So gaining something is what's painful."
The boys' strange competitive streak had been activated. By now, nobody cared why the conversation had gone so far off the rails. Kang Hao countered, "Then try taking a shit and having the toilet clog so it won't flush. So losing something and being unable to forget it is the most painful thing."
"What if you have hemorrhoids?" The other sports student refused to be outdone. "Losing something with a third party involved is actually the most painful thing!"
"What if you can't hold your shit in but can't find a toilet?" Xu Xiujie gave a little snort. "So forcibly holding on is the most painful thing."
"Wait until you're old and shitting all over your bed. That's what hurts," the sports student retorted. "The kind of loss that disregards your feelings is the most painful thing."
A girl sitting in the row ahead finally couldn't take it anymore and whipped her head around. "Don't you have anything else you can use to describe pain?"
They immediately laughed sheepishly. "We just happened to get onto the subject. Mostly, we're trying to comfort Brother Hao."
"I'm the one suffering the most, having to listen to you people talk about this disgusting stuff!" The girl looked indignant. "If you want to talk about shit, piss, and farts, go to the bathroom! This is a classroom!"
"Ahem. Okay, okay."
Ultimately, they all still cared about saving face. Talking about dumbass subjects among themselves was fine, but having someone else overhear was another matter.
They exchanged looks and fell silent for a moment. Then Xu Xiujie couldn't resist lowering his voice and abruptly adding, "Being stuck between shitting and not shitting is the most painful thing. You clearly want to give up, but you just can't let go."
Kang Hao's defenses cracked, and he couldn't help raising a fist. "You're never going to stop, are you? I think beating the shit out of you would be real pain. Want to give it a try?"
"Hey, why are you getting mad?" Xu Xiujie ducked his head. "I think this discussion of ours is really profound and philosophical."
"Since it's so philosophical, how about I write it down for you and give it to Duan Chan'er to appreciate?" Kang Hao sneered. "She'll definitely see you in a different light."
"We're just talking. Leave Duan Chan'er out of this." Xu Xiujie glared. "I'm not like you. I'm not trying to win Duan Chan'er over. Just getting to see her every day makes me happy."
"Are you happy watching her laughing and chatting with someone else too?" one sports student said quietly. "She was having a pretty good time talking to Zhang Zhaomu yesterday at noon. They even added each other on WeChat..."
"Shut up!" Xu Xiujie's face turned green. "That's just because Duan Chan'er is nice. She chatted with him a little because he's the class monitor. And all that talk about a makeover-he made it sound real. Who'd believe that?"
"What I heard sounded pretty convincing..."
"It's just talk. Anyone can do that." Xu Xiujie's tone was dismissive:
"That stuff is all over Xiaohongshu. Read a few outfit guides and copy what they do, and I could go on and on about it too."
"I just wouldn't stoop to that. A grown man studying outfits all day? What kind of behavior is that? So girly."
He lifted his chin slightly, waiting for the others to agree, but no response came. Even the entire classroom seemed to have grown a little quieter.
He immediately lost interest and turned to look at them, only to find their eyes fixed on the classroom's front door.
"What are you staring at? Is our homeroom teacher here?"
He muttered and followed their gazes.
It wasn't Chen Yongchao's salted-fish face, but a girl wearing her hair in two buns.
Xu Xiujie felt as though he'd been struck in an instant.
Countless words surged through his mind, trying to piece together his first impression of the girl, but his limited command of language meant they ultimately converged into that most instinctive, most straightforward four-character idiom.
Too embarrassed to say it aloud, he only blushed slightly. "Does this girl go to our school too?"
"I need all her stats immediately!"
Kang Hao's slightly hoarse voice came from beside him. "I suddenly feel like my emotional intelligence has healed. As they say, the best way to forget one relationship is to start another. I'm full of fighting spirit now!"
"Get lost!" Xu Xiujie snapped. "Weren't you just dying over Xiang Qing a minute ago? A scumbag like you doesn't deserve her! Only a devoted man like me is qualified to pursue her!"
"Don't you like Duan Chan'er?"
"I've only now seen the light. This is the type I truly like!"
"You call that liking her? You're clearly just after her figure. Shameless!"
"Aren't you the same?"
Hearing their argument, the sports student beside them quietly interjected again. "Don't you think this girl looks a little familiar?"
"You've seen her?" Both of them stared at him. "What class is she in?"
"I don't know what class she's in, but... although she's changed quite a bit, I keep feeling like she came to our classroom yesterday at noon too."
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible!" Kang Hao declared with ironclad certainty:
"She's definitely never been here. With a girl that overpowering, there's no way I wouldn't remember her if I'd seen her even once!"
"It's true!" The sports student gesticulated as he explained. "She came with Zhang Zhaomu yesterday too. It's just that she had a different hairstyle then, and she wasn't dressed so... so nicely. She was dressed like a boy."
"Huh?" Kang Hao froze for a moment. Only then did he finally notice Zhang Zhaomu standing beside the girl.
Why does this guy haunt the place like a restless ghost? Whenever a pretty girl appears, you're always right there beside her!
"Hiss-I remember now. Yesterday, Zhang Zhaomu really did seem to say he was planning to give that girl a makeover," the sports student added.
Xu Xiujie's expression instantly went a little blank.
Wait, wasn't he supposed to be bullshitting? You actually know how to do it!
How the fuck is this a makeover? It's like she's been swapped out for a whole different person!