"Our homeroom teacher teaches Chinese. His surname's Zhang, but everyone calls him Lao Bao in private. His face may be dark, but he's a pretty decent guy."
"Teacher Song teaches math. He's my uncle, but don't call him uncle at school. Just call him teacher. He doesn't like exposing family ties at school."
"Teacher Jiang teaches English. She's a real beauty, pretty, kindhearted, and cute. You can call her Peipei in private, and if you're craving a snack, you can go raid her office for some."
"Teacher Gu teaches physics. He's a young, handsome guy. His classes are relaxed and funny, and he's easy to talk to. His only flaw is that he's pretty short, so don't mention height in front of Xiao Gu."
"Teacher Luo teaches chemistry. He only cares about grades, not the person. If your grades are good, anything goes, but if they're bad, he'll give you shit."
"Hmm... that's probably enough for now. It's exam day, after all, and today's mainly math, physics, and chemistry..."
"Holy shit!"
At that point, Song Yunshen suddenly shouted, giving Xia Kening, who was wolfing down her breakfast, a huge fright.
"Why did you suddenly yell like that?" Xia Kening swallowed the meat bun in her mouth and sighed in satisfaction before asking in confusion.
"We have exams today!" Song Yunshen's face was full of worry. "If it were tomorrow, that'd be one thing, but all the damn exams today are science subjects!"
"Huh?" Only then did Xia Kening realize what was going on. She finally stopped eating her bun and asked, a little panicked, "You have exams today too?"
"Yeah... you too?"
"Mm..." Xia Kening blinked. "We have math and science."
Middle school science was physics, chemistry, and biology combined into one major subject.
Song Yunshen had been through it himself, so he naturally understood at once.
"Things are still manageable on your end. My science grades are pretty good." Song Yunshen rubbed his forehead. "But on my end... sigh... forget it, forget it. You'd better keep pretending to be sick to the end."
Song Yunshen couldn't expect an eighth-grader to solve a tenth-grade science exam. That was asking far too much of her.
It wasn't as if Xia Kening were some academic ace who competed in science contests.
"Then what do we do? Just pretend to be sick?" Xia Kening scratched her head, unable to think of a good solution either.
"Yeah, that's all we can do." Song Yunshen let out a long sigh.
Fortunately, his spending money for this summer vacation was no longer tied to his final exam results. Otherwise, this would have been a huge blow to Song Yunshen.
Science was where he racked up points. Without those subjects bolstering his score, he didn't dare imagine how bad his final results would be.
Before, with science backing him up, he could still make the top three hundred in his grade.
If he flunked every science subject, wouldn't he end up dead last in his class?!
"Maybe I could give it a try?" Xia Kening said quietly. "At least I can still pick up some points on the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions."
"Mm... just do your best. This isn't your fault." Song Yunshen sighed. "Also, remember to look through my homework notebooks and see what my handwriting usually looks like. Try to imitate it during the exams."
"Oh, okay." Xia Kening hadn't expected Song Yunshen to think things through so carefully that he'd even considered the issue of handwriting.
Finally.
Xia Kening reached the school gate, ended her call with Song Yunshen, and put her phone away.
Stepping into Ningjiang Middle School, Xia Kening felt a little excited. She hadn't expected that, while still in eighth grade, she would get to enter a high school classroom ahead of time.
Come to think of it, which class did Song Yunshen say he was in again... tenth grade, Class Five, right?
That sounds kind of familiar.
Wait!
Isn't Second Sister in tenth grade, Class Five?!
Xia Kening froze, and her expression immediately turned strange.
At the end of the hallway in the girls' dormitory at Shulan Middle School, Song Yunshen put his phone away, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out.
After calming himself down, he returned to Xia Kening's dorm room.
Shulan Middle School was a private middle school, and its tuition was considerably higher than that of public schools.
That was probably one reason Yan Zhenxia's family was a little strapped for cash.
But expensive as it was, the school's academic results really were excellent.
In Ningjiang District of Linhang City, Shulan Middle School was unquestionably the leading middle school.
Each year, Shulan Middle School accounted for half the students admitted to Ningjiang Middle School, the district's only key high school.
So parents in Ningjiang District practically sharpened their heads to a point trying to get their children into Shulan Middle School.
For a poor family like Yan Zhenxia's to support a child through Shulan Middle School, they must have paid a hefty price. But Xia Kening was also capable in her own right, having passed the school's entrance exam.
Song Yunshen vaguely remembered that tuition alone at Shulan Middle School cost eight thousand yuan a semester, or sixteen thousand a year.
That was without all the miscellaneous school fees, boarding fees, and basic living expenses.
Song Yunshen had attended Shulan Middle School himself, and his aunt Ruan Zheng was Xia Kening's homeroom teacher, so he knew the school's circumstances quite well.
Over the course of a year, even with the strictest penny-pinching, the expenses probably came to more than twenty thousand yuan.
For a relatively poor family, that really was no small expense.
Thinking about all this, Song Yunshen returned to the dorm room, only to find that all three roommates were still waiting there.
"Ningning, you're back."
A girl half a head shorter than Xia Kening sat on the edge of the bed closest to the door and said to Song Yunshen, "Hurry and get changed. Let's go have breakfast together."
When he'd left the room earlier, Song Yunshen had said he needed to call home and told them to go ahead and eat.
He hadn't expected all three of them to stay and wait for him.
Song Yunshen nodded. As he passed the first girl's bed, he glanced casually at the name label on the frame and saw the words "Kong Xi."
This short girl was probably Xia Kening's deskmate.
The upper bunk on this bed frame belonged to "Xiao Mengdie." Hmm... she was the one across the aisle, wearing her hair in twin tails and looking pretty cute.
As for the girl in the bunk below Xia Kening, she was "Yang Wan," who sat in front of her in class. Her long hair hung loose, and she really did have a gentle, graceful air.
He wondered how they would react if they found out a man's soul was currently residing inside Xia Kening's body.
Too bad I didn't see anything when I changed earlier...
No, no... I'm an upstanding gentleman. How could I do something like that!
Song Yunshen reined in the lecherous thoughts that had involuntarily bubbled up from the depths of his heart, silently opened Xia Kening's wardrobe, and took out a clean bra.
At that moment, Yang Wan and Kong Xi were sitting together, whispering to each other as they looked at a phone.
Song Yunshen took a deep breath, composed himself, and finally slipped off his pajamas, slowly closing his eyes.
He didn't know whether muscle memory was at work, but nothing went wrong as he put on the bra. In fact, he managed it quite smoothly.
Only the process of adjusting the side breast tissue and tucking it into the bra left Song Yunshen's heart in a bit of a flutter.
So this is what a girl's...
Sigh... if only I could open my eyes and take a look.
Come to think of it, Xia Kening wouldn't know whether I looked or not, so surely a secret peek wouldn't hurt?
No, no. I promised her.
As the saying went, a gentleman was vigilant even when alone.
He was a genuine, upstanding gentleman. He couldn't do something like that.
A gentleman was judged by his deeds, not his thoughts. It was one thing to think about it, but some things were better left undone.
Once a boundary was broken, it would only lead to new boundaries being broken again and again.
After successfully putting on the bra, Song Yunshen breathed a sigh of relief. He opened his eyes and was just about to get the school uniform when he discovered someone standing in front of him.
"I'm so jealous." Xiao Mengdie had walked up to Song Yunshen without him noticing. She reached out and poked his bra. "Why won't mine grow?"
Song Yunshen felt utterly awkward. He hurriedly took two steps back, grabbed Xia Kening's school uniform, and pulled it on. "Stop touching me. Come on, let's go get breakfast."
All three roommates clearly took their cues from Xia Kening and immediately followed him.
And so the four of them left the dorm room together and headed toward the school cafeteria.
But as soon as they reached the cafeteria entrance, a boy stepped in front of them.
"Xu Lingcheng, what do you want?" Yang Wan asked with a frown. "The matter of your fight with Ningning was already settled with the teacher, wasn't it?"
Hearing that, Song Yunshen raised an eyebrow. So this was the guy Xia Kening had beaten until he cried.
The boy said nothing, merely staring at Song Yunshen with his fists clenched, as if ready to strike at any moment.
Song Yunshen frowned slightly. Is he going to start a fight right off the bat?
But after Song Yunshen had been on guard for a while, the boy's face suddenly flushed red. At last, he summoned his courage and said to Song Yunshen:
"Xia Kening, I... I like you!"
At those words, Kong Xi and the others' eyes widened, their faces full of disbelief.
Song Yunshen was even more horrified. Having a boy suddenly confess to him first thing in the morning made him feel as disgusted as if he'd stepped in dog shit.
Holy shit!
Bro, what the hell are you playing at!?
Are you out of your mind!
Did Xia Kening punch your brains out or something?