June 25, Wednesday.
The first day of final exams at Ningjiang Middle School.
As always, Song Yunshen arrived in the classroom at precisely the last moment. He joked around with Xu Zhuoyue for a while, then settled down under the watchful gaze of their homeroom teacher, Teacher Zhang.
Teacher Zhang was a taciturn, dark-faced middle-aged man who also taught their class Chinese. Behind his back, everyone called him Lao Bao.
Xu Zhuoyue had once photoshopped a joke picture of Teacher Zhang with a crescent moon on his forehead and posted it in the QQ group. Afterward, everyone started calling him Ningjiang Justice Bao.
In time, the name became Lao Bao.
Lao Bao talked a lot in class but rarely spoke outside it. He often appeared behind students who were chatting, slacking off, sneaking a look at their phones, or secretly reading comics and novels.
If someone was sneaking a read and suddenly felt the atmosphere around them turn strangely eerie and tense, one turn of the head would reveal Lao Bao staring at them.
He wouldn't say a word. He would just stand quietly behind the student, sometimes for an entire class period.
When he caught a student breaking the rules, he didn't scold them. He simply called them to his office and stood beside them.
After standing there for ten-odd minutes, he would ask whether the student knew what he had done wrong. As long as the student honestly admitted his mistake, Lao Bao would let him go back.
Phones, novels, comics, and the like had to stay, though. They could only be collected after school at the end of the week.
So although the students in the class were all rather afraid of Lao Bao, no one truly disliked him.
Once, someone had mistakenly sent Xu Zhuoyue's photoshopped Bao Zheng meme of Teacher Zhang to the class group chat that included the teachers, and Lao Bao had seen it.
He hadn't gotten angry.
After that, every time he posted an announcement in the class group, he attached the meme.
As a result, Lao Bao was still quite well respected in the class.
The moment he entered the classroom, the students immediately behaved themselves and began seriously reviewing Chinese.
Song Yunshen wasn't worried about the Chinese exam. After all, it wasn't the sort of subject where a brief bout of cramming could improve your grades.
Besides, his Chinese grades weren't bad. He fell short of the best but had plenty of people below him.
His scores generally stayed a little above a hundred.
Compared with math and English, Chinese, which also had a maximum score of 150, had especially few high scores.
Scores above 140 in particular were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.
Anyone who scored 120 or more had done exceptionally well.
So Song Yunshen's hundred-odd points were already pretty good.
At least they weren't as outrageous as his English grades.
According to Ningjiang Middle School's schedule, the Chinese exam was on Wednesday morning, with history and politics in the afternoon.
Song Yunshen's grades in those three subjects were all passable, so he only needed to take them seriously.
Tomorrow morning was math, followed by physics and chemistry in the afternoon-a whole day devoted to the sciences.
These were the subjects Song Yunshen relied on to boost his total. If he messed them up, he was finished.
Math and physics in particular were his specialties.
Though he couldn't compare with the freaks in the competition classes, he consistently scored above 130 in math and was a frequent visitor to the ninety-plus range in physics.
Despite the debuff of occasionally failing English, Song Yunshen still ranked in the middle of the school's top three hundred, thanks to those two subjects.
English was scheduled for Friday morning, with geography and biology in the afternoon, two subjects that were neither quite humanities nor quite sciences.
On Saturday morning, there was also a technology exam.
Lan River Province's college entrance exam used a scaled-score system in which students chose three subjects out of seven.
There were three core subjects-Chinese, math, and English-plus seven additional subjects: physics, chemistry, biology, politics, history, geography, and technology.
The core subjects were fixed, but students could choose any three of the other seven for their college entrance exam.
Ningjiang Middle School sorted students into new classes in the second semester of their first year. Song Yunshen had chosen the pure science track outright, so he'd stayed in Class Five all along.
Xia Yunuo had actually been in Class Sixteen before. She had also chosen the pure science track, so she'd been assigned to Class Five this semester.
I'm so bored. How about another game of Gomoku?
Xia Yunuo was seriously reviewing at the time, memorizing texts and poetry, when Song Yunshen's slacker thoughts echoed through her mind.
Why is he always so lazy?
Xia Yunuo sighed, wondering why he couldn't just review properly.
Didn't he play Gomoku all day yesterday? The exams are today, and he's still playing?
Perhaps Song Yunshen got too worked up when he played Gomoku, but Xia Yunuo had spent all of yesterday listening to his thoughts about the game.
Every underhanded tactic he came up with was laid bare in Xia Yunuo's mind, along with his occasional musings as he sneaked glances at her profile. She hadn't even been able to review properly.
And her sister actually said she liked him?
As if.
Anyone who could hear Song Yunshen's thoughts would know just how childish he was normally.
In any case, Xia Yunuo was certain she would never fall for someone like him.
But because she could hear his thoughts and knew what he really thought of her, Xia Yunuo was less guarded around Song Yunshen.
Otherwise, she could never have agreed to let Song Yunshen treat her to a meal.
After all, some of the boys who had confessed to her before had been as handsome as Song Yunshen.
She had turned them down without the slightest stir in her heart, too.
So it was all those strange thoughts' fault!
She had no idea when this situation would end.
It can't possibly last a lifetime, can it?
Why is he always so lazy?
Didn't he play Gomoku all day yesterday?
While Xia Yunuo's thoughts wandered, Song Yunshen, who had just called Xu Zhuoyue over and opened his scratch notebook, heard her thoughts in his mind.
Huh... she's actually complaining about me.
Song Yunshen scratched his cheek and looked toward Xia Yunuo, thinking that she paid quite a bit of attention to him.
Does she even sneak glances at me during morning study to see if I'm reviewing properly?
Could she really have a secret crush on me?
Xia Yunuo, oh Xia Yunuo, you'd better take it easy.
Your sister is my future girlfriend!
You and I can never be together!
Unfortunately, Xia Yunuo hadn't picked up that train of thought. Otherwise, she would probably have flown into a rage out of embarrassment.
The day's exams ended smoothly.
During evening study, Song Yunshen fought another three hundred rounds with Xu Zhuoyue in the scratch notebook, then went home when school ended at nine thirty on the dot.
As soon as he got home, Song Yunshen opened his drawer out of habit and took out the Future Diary to see if there was anything new.
But the Future Diary hadn't updated in the past two days, and today was no exception.
Seeing that, Song Yunshen took a shower, went to bed on time, and opened Douyin on his phone to scroll for a while.
Before going to sleep, he poured a glass of milk into his newly bought matching cup and heated it in the microwave.
After happily savoring the warm milk, Song Yunshen glanced at the black matching cup by his bed. Xia Kening's figure inexplicably came to mind, and then he lay down and went to sleep.
Early Thursday morning, June 26.
Song Yunshen woke from a deep sleep and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling overhead. Feeling a heavy weight pressing on his chest, he was dazed for a moment.
I don't have a cat at home. Why does my chest feel so heavy?