At 1 p. m., Song Yunshen and Xia Yunuo arrived at Ningjiang Middle School together and headed towards the school library.
For Song Yunshen, the school library was a completely unfamiliar place.
In his memory, apart from when the teacher took them to visit the campus history museum on the top floor of the library at the beginning of the first year of high school, he had never been here again.
In his view, the existence of the library was more of a vanity project than a practical one, and few students actually used it.
After all, it takes several minutes just to walk from the teaching building to the library, and the break between classes is only ten minutes, so a round trip takes up all that time.
Unless you're willing to waste your precious lunch break, or only have time to stroll around after dinner.
But if you have that kind of free time, you might as well go to the playground to play ball, or go back to the classroom to chat and joke around with your classmates.
As Song Yunshen followed Xia Yunuo through the library doors, he couldn't help but sigh, "The library is so luxurious; they should have used that money to replace the dilapidated basketball nets."
Xia Yunuo didn't know how to respond, so she pretended not to hear and walked straight to her usual corner seat.
[The library is great. It's open on Saturdays and Sundays, the air conditioning is very comfortable, and it's much more spacious than classroom seats or desks at home.]
Song Yunshen was stunned when he heard the voice in his mind.
Hmm... I've been living a good life for too long. Perhaps this library is indeed a very meaningful place for Xia Yunuo.
"Do you usually come here on weekends?" Song Yunshen pulled out a seat next to Xia Yunuo and sat down, asking curiously.
"Mm." Xia Yunuo gently. "I'm here on Saturday afternoons, and on Sundays, it depends; sometimes I come too."
"This is too much." Song Yunshen sighed. "Maybe I should come along with you from now on, learn from you, and work harder."
"Huh?" Xia Yunuo panicked upon hearing this.
After all, she usually comes to the library with her older sister, Xia Jinshu.
If Song Yunshen followed suit, wouldn't that expose his relationship with his sister?
In particular, the older sister even went out of her way to have a meal with Song Yunshen.
It's unclear what she said to Song Yunshen.
Judging from Song Yunshen's appearance, he didn't seem to have been interrogated.
"But thinking about it, I'd better not." Song Yunshen shook his head again. "We rarely get a break on weekends, so I'd rather go home and play on the computer."
"Hmm..." Xia Yunuo's heart was pounding so hard because of him, but she breathed a slight sigh of relief.
But what followed was a faint sense of loss.
What's going on...? I don't have to worry about my relationship with my sister being discovered anymore, but I still feel a little disappointed.
[It would be nice to be able to study with Song Yunshen every weekend.]
[But if I were to tell my sister this directly, she probably wouldn't agree, and might even tell Mom.]
[No, no, what am I thinking... He already said he's not coming.]
Xia Yunuo's head felt hot; for the first time, she felt that the library's air conditioning wasn't so comfortable after all.
Hearing her thoughts, Song Yunshen Shen couldn't help but chuckle.
So you were worried about your sisterly relationship with Xia Jinshu being exposed?
Does this have anything to do with anything?
Xia Yunuo seems to mind that people know she has an older sister.
That's a strange mentality.
As Song Yunshen pondered this, he decided to keep his knowledge of the two sisters' relationship a secret for the time being, and took out his English test paper from his schoolbag.
Xia Yunuo also took out her test paper, spread it out to the side, then composed herself and began to give instructions. "I won't go into the listening comprehension section; let's start with the multiple-choice questions."
"Hmm." Song Yunshen nodded, his gaze falling on the English test paper. Looking at the English words that seemed to float before his eyes, he quickly felt his mind wander.
The afternoon passed both quickly and slowly.
Being with a beautiful girl, occasionally turning my head to admire her delicate profile and the beauty mark at the corner of her eye, makes me feel refreshed and relaxed.
But listening to the English words and sentences coming out of Xia Yunuo's mouth, Song Yunshen felt a headache coming on.
As a language, English isn't actually that complicated.
The most basic thing is vocabulary, and then there are some tenses and fixed collocations that you need to pay attention to.
If you can master these three things, your English grades will generally not be too bad.
But Song Yunshen belongs to the type who is good at nothing.
So much so that when Xia Yunuo was teaching him, she couldn't help but express the same confusion that Song Yunshen had when teaching Xia Kening.
"Why don't you recognize these? They're all words we're required to memorize."
"It's a standard phrase, didn't you memorize it?"
"Don't you understand this tense yet? Let me explain it to you again; it's actually very simple."
Xia Yunuo was very patient in this regard. Even if Song Yunshen couldn't understand, she would repeat herself little by little until he understood.
Originally, Song Yunshen thought that going over the test paper would only take one or two hours at most.
Xu Zhuoyue happened to be playing basketball at school that afternoon, and he was thinking of taking Xia Yunuo for a stroll on the basketball court after she finished speaking.
And wow!
Jiang Wenpei could only cover the content of this test paper in two class periods at most, but Xia Yunuo spent an entire afternoon explaining it to him in great detail.
Around 5:30 in the evening, Song Yunshen came to his senses in a daze, feeling his head throbbing, filled with knowledge that didn't belong to him.
What made him most nervous was that Xia Yunuo would rehearse what she was going to say in her mind before explaining the problem.
As a result, Song Yunshen would often hear the same thing twice, which made him somewhat dazed and felt like his soul was about to split apart.
It sounded like an echo.
"Are you alright?" Xia Yunuo finally finished explaining the key points of the essay and even gave him a demonstration. Seeing Song Yunshen's tired appearance, she couldn't help but ask.
"N-nothing..." Song Yunshen sigh, waved his hand, stretched, and made a strange groan, "Finally over."
"If there's anything you still don't understand, feel free to ask me anytime," Xia Yunuo said earnestly.
"Mmm." Song Yunshen nodded quickly, but he had already made up his mind that he should not ask Xia Yunuo for English questions in the future.
If Xia Jinshu were as responsible as her, would he even be able to get through his summer vacation?
Fortunately, the contract I signed with Xia Jinshu only required one hour per day.
If Song Yunshen had to study English for an entire afternoon every day, he really wouldn't be able to handle it.
"Let's go have dinner."
"Okay." Xia Yunuo packed her schoolbag, then got up and followed Song Yunshen.
The two went to the classroom first, put their bags down, and then walked together toward the cafeteria.
This time, Song Yunshen didn't insist on treating everyone; he just ordered one more meat dish than usual.
After sitting down, Song Yunshen gently pushed his plate towards Xia Yunuo across from him.
"Eat more meat, and share some of your vegetables with me." With that, Song Yunshen unceremoniously picked up two bites of Xia Yunuo's vegetables.
Xia Yunuo was slightly taken aback upon seeing this, but then she understood what Song Yunshen meant.
She was a little embarrassed, but at Song Yunshen's prompting, she still tried her best to pick up her chopsticks and carefully reached into Song Yunshen's plate to pick up a piece of meat.
"Put more food on your plate, are you trying to stuff me to death?" Song Yunshen Shen put a few more pieces on Xia Yunuo's plate until she hurriedly waved her hand to refuse, at which point he stopped, seemingly satisfied.
Just then, a familiar, sarcastic voice came from the side.
"Hey, where's that guy who usually serves his good buddy food?" Xu Zhuoyue's sour voice rang out behind Song Yunshen.
The next second, Song Yunshen felt his neck being tightened.