Shi Niannian arrived home just when the evening study session would normally end.
No one was in the living room. She went to her room to change clothes, gave the medical report to her mother, and repeated the doctor’s instructions.
“I thought you’d come straight home after getting the report. Do you have a lot of schoolwork?” Xu Shu asked.
Shi Niannian paused, then nodded: “Yes, the monthly… exam is coming soon.”
Xu Shu: “Mm, study hard.”
The next day.
“Niannian, have you asked Jiang Wang about Xu Zhilin yet?” Jiang Ling asked as soon as she put down her schoolbag.
“Not yet.” Yesterday’s incident with Cheng Qi made her forget. “I’ll… ask him, later.”
Usually Jiang Wang would come to class after several periods, or simply not show up all day, but today he arrived right as the morning self-study bell rang.
Even the English teacher was surprised and teased: “What a rare guest you are.”
Having just finished two units of textbook content, the English morning reading class was for dictating vocabulary.
Shi Niannian already knew most of the words, and she had reviewed them again after returning home yesterday, so the dictation went very smoothly for her.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed Jiang Wang’s pen never stopped either.
The first class was mathematics.
Three minutes after the bell rang, there was still no teacher. The class gradually became noisy. The class representative called for quiet several times without success, and finally walked out to find the teacher.
Just as she stepped out, she encountered Xu Zhilin, the freshman math teacher, carrying teaching materials.
“You’re from Class 3, right?” Xu Zhilin stopped her.
The math representative nodded: “Yes.”
“Your math teacher is in the hospital. I’ll be teaching your class for a while.”
The math teacher had been pregnant last semester, teaching with her big belly. Xu Zhilin didn’t explain further, but it was understood that she had taken maternity leave and couldn’t come to teach.
When Xu Zhilin walked into the classroom, Jiang Ling, who had been lazily resting on her desk, suddenly sat up, looking at him in shock.
Xu Zhilin gave a brief explanation and self-introduction before starting the class.
With his gentle appearance, Xu Zhilin had attracted everyone’s attention since arriving at the school.
The girls were especially happy that he would be teaching their class for more than a month, whispering and discussing among themselves.
Jiang Ling listened to the lesson with stars in her eyes. It was the first time Shi Niannian had seen her so attentively taking a math class.
However, having Xu Zhilin in front of her was a constant reminder that she needed to ask that question for Jiang Ling.
Xu Zhilin wrote a problem on the blackboard. Shi Niannian solved it early, hesitated with her pen, and then tore off a piece of scratch paper.
*Do you know if Teacher Xu has a girlfriend?*
She quietly pushed the note to the edge of Jiang Wang’s desk.
He had been watching a basketball game, but after reading the note, he turned his head.
Shi Niannian glanced at the podium before meeting his gaze.
The young man frowned slightly with narrowed eyes, his thin chin raised, a blood mark under his eyebrow from yesterday’s injury.
After a moment of silence, he pressed his tongue hard against his back teeth: “Shi Niannian, you’re something else.”
His voice was neither loud nor soft, and most people couldn’t hear him. Jiang Ling turned her head to look at them.
Shi Niannian completely didn’t understand why he was suddenly angry.
She asked in bewilderment: “You don’t… know either?”
After hearing this, Jiang Wang suddenly laughed, abruptly standing up as his chair made a sharp scraping sound on the floor.
Xu Zhilin looked up.
Jiang Wang looked at no one, kicked his desk, slammed the classroom door, and left.
Shi Niannian watched him leave without understanding what had happened.
Why was he angry…
Anyone could see that Jiang Wang was venting his frustration on the basketball court.
One shot after another, no three-pointers, all dunks, his arm muscles prominent as he gripped the rim.
Before long, the other team was calling out that they couldn’t play anymore.
Jiang Wang tossed the ball to someone else, left the court, and tilted his head back to gulp down water. It flowed along his chin, over his Adam’s apple, and dripped onto his clothes.
“You called us to play basketball this early just to crush some weaklings?” Xu Ningqing sat under the basketball hoop, deliberately provoking him. “You’re just a high school student, while we’re all college students who don’t have to get up early.”
Among their group, probably only Xu Ningqing dared to speak like this when Jiang Wang was irritated. Jiang Wang glanced at him and sat down nearby.
Xu Ningqing: “Who made you angry? Are there still kids who dare to make you angry?”
Jiang Wang sat with a gloomy face without speaking.
Others wouldn’t dare, but one person did, and she was blinking at him without knowing why he was angry.