"Yo, you're finally willing to play five-in-a-row with your bro today?"
During morning self-study, Xu Zhuoyue gave a cold chuckle at the notebook Song Yunshen held out to him. "Who was it pretending to revise yesterday morning? Now that we've got an English test today, you've given up, huh?"
"I wasn't feeling well yesterday." Song Yunshen looked perfectly calm as he laid the groundwork for his lousy science grades. "I just didn't want my good bro to worry."
"Really?" Xu Zhuoyue looked skeptical and didn't believe him for a second. "You weren't feeling well, but you still kept fucking calling me a dumbass?"
"Huh?"
"What do you mean, huh? Can feeling sick give you amnesia too?" Xu Zhuoyue clicked his tongue. "All I did was ask how far things had gotten between you and Xia Yunuo, and you fucking called me a dumbass several times in a row."
"Oh, weren't you just asking for it?" Song Yunshen looked completely unruffled on the surface, but inside he was already struggling to keep it together.
So when Xia Kening said she'd communicated with her deskmate exactly the way he'd taught her, she meant she'd kept calling him a dumbass?
He hadn't taught her to do that, had he?
Song Yunshen still vaguely remembered what he'd said... something about calling someone a dumbass if they said something hard to respond to.
Had Xu Zhuoyue's question been that hard to answer?
"How was I asking for it? I was just showing some concern for my bro's love life!" Xu Zhuoyue looked indignant. "You've abandoned your bro twice now to go eat with another woman, and I'm not even allowed to ask a couple of questions?"
"You can go eat with another woman too. I'm not stopping you," Song Yunshen said. "Don't tell me you can't find a girl to eat with? Surely not, surely not?"
See? Wasn't that easy enough to answer? Why did she have to call him a dumbass?
"Fuck you!" Xu Zhuoyue glared, his eyes wide. He was on the verge of going full king-descending-from-the-heavens, furious and ferocious.
This bastard's mouth was as nasty as ever. If that was how he was going to be, he might as well have called him a dumbass. That would have been less cutting.
Come to think of it, could Song Yunshen really have been feeling unwell yesterday?
Calling him a dumbass had saved him some brainpower.
As Xu Zhuoyue thought this, he failed to notice that Song Yunshen had silently taken his notebook back and begun earnestly memorizing vocabulary.
"Xu Zhuoyue." Teacher Jiang's voice drifted over from beside him. "The exam is about to start, and you're still chatting. Looks like you're very well prepared, huh?"
At the sound of Peipei's voice, Xu Zhuoyue's body stiffened instantly. He forced himself to turn and glance at Jiang Wenpei's stern face, then immediately lowered his head and admitted his mistake. "Teacher Jiang, I was wrong."
That trick might not have worked on other teachers, but Jiang Wenpei was still young. Her heart softened, and she said helplessly, "As long as you know you were wrong. Hurry up and revise, even if you only memorize a few more words. Don't go failing again."
"Will my failing affect your bonus, Teacher Jiang?" Xu Zhuoyue was a sly one. Especially when faced with a beautiful teacher like Teacher Jiang, he couldn't help running his mouth.
"What bonus do I have?" Jiang Wenpei said crossly. "But if you fail again, I won't give you snacks when you come to my office anymore."
"Nooo~! Teacher Jiang's lollipops are the sweetest!" Xu Zhuoyue let out a theatrical wail.
The corners of Jiang Wenpei's mouth lifted slightly at his words. Thinking her tactic had actually worked, she let Xu Zhuoyue off. "Then you'd better do well on the test."
After Jiang Wenpei left the classroom to check on the class next door, Song Yunshen chuckled beside him. "Why don't you ask Peipei out to eat?"
"Do I have a death wish?" Xu Zhuoyue said irritably. "I heard Peipei's boyfriend is a muscle man. With that build, he could be a fitness instructor. I don't want to get beaten up."
"So you would if he weren't a muscle man?"
"What are you talking about? All I feel for Teacher Jiang is pure gratitude between a student and teacher!" Xu Zhuoyue said solemnly.
"Then why were you sneaking peeks at Peipei's legs just now?"
"Bullshit!"
"I saw you."
"Then you must have been looking at Peipei's legs too, or how would you have noticed?"
"Oh, actually, I didn't see anything. I was just bluffing. Didn't expect you really had been looking."
"Fuck you!"
Song Yunshen and Xu Zhuoyue were whispering over there. Xia Yunuo was several seats away, so naturally she couldn't hear what they were saying.
But the voice in Song Yunshen's head kept making its way into hers.
[Peipei's legs are so fair. I wonder when I'll get to see Xia Yunuo's.]
[Come to think of it, Xia Kening's legs are really nice too. Her thighs are fleshy, and her skin is so tender it could drip water.]
[They're just a little short.]
[Now that I think about it, Xia Jinshu's legs seem pretty long. I remember she seems really tall.]
[At the last flag-raising ceremony, she looked half a head taller than the girl hosting beside her.]
Perhaps because she hadn't heard Song Yunshen's thoughts all day yesterday, they were especially frequent today.
Xia Yunuo's expression changed several times as she heard his inner monologue. Then she turned to look at Song Yunshen, disbelief in her eyes.
Her older sister was one thing. After all, she'd appeared at two flag-raising ceremonies, was beautiful and had a good personality. Plenty of boys at school talked about her, so it wasn't strange for Song Yunshen to know her.
But!
Why did Song Yunshen know her younger sister's name?!
And he'd even seen her younger sister's thighs?!
Ningning always wore her school uniform to school!
How could Song Yunshen have seen Ningning's legs?
Xia Yunuo racked her brains, utterly unable to figure out how Song Yunshen had become acquainted with her younger sister.
She turned and stared at Song Yunshen for several seconds before finally coming back to herself and quickly looking forward again. She tried to keep her face calm, but inside, earth-shaking waves had risen and refused to subside.
At school, she had hardly ever volunteered that she and Xia Jinshu were sisters, much less mentioned Xia Kening.
Aside from their relatives, hardly anyone knew the three of them were sisters.
Yet Song Yunshen knew all three of them.
I'll have to find a chance to ask this weekend... Xia Yunuo's expression grew solemn as she began thinking about how to interrogate her younger sister.
Thinking about her legs was one thing, but he wouldn't even spare her older and younger sisters' legs.
He wasn't just a narcissist; he was a complete pervert!
Xia Yunuo gritted her teeth slightly, thinking this to herself.
When he'd come into the classroom earlier, he'd even said he was going to treat her to lunch.
Who cares?!
If he's got the guts, he can go treat my older sister instead!
That morning, the English exam ended.
Song Yunshen came out of the exam room looking despondent, sighing all the way back to Class 5 of the first year.
If only he could hear Xia Yunuo's thoughts during the exam too.
He might even have heard quite a few answers.
Unfortunately, Song Yunshen could only occasionally hear Xia Yunuo's thoughts when they were in the same classroom.
Earlier, during morning self-study in the classroom, words and phrases had popped into his head from time to time, all slipping into Song Yunshen's mind while Xia Yunuo was revising.
Song Yunshen had never expected that one day, English knowledge would violate his brain in such a manner.
Unfortunately, after violating him, it had dusted off its ass and left. He hadn't remembered any of it.
But the exam was over, so Song Yunshen stopped dwelling on it. At worst, he'd just drop a few hundred places in the year rankings.
At most, he could win those places back in the exam at the start of next semester.
With that thought, Song Yunshen returned to the classroom and launched into another earth-shaking battle of five-in-a-row with Xu Zhuoyue.
When the lunch bell rang, Song Yunshen once again abandoned his good bro. Rather than follow Xu Zhuoyue's rapidly departing figure, he got up and went over to Xia Yunuo.
"Want to get something to eat?"
"...Mm."