"Did you see Yingxue last night?" a girl asked agitatedly.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world! I held in my pee the hold time!" another girl declared triumphantly.
"My family installed a new 85 inch flat screen tv just the night before just for the occasion," a guy joined in the conversation to brag.
"Hah!" a guy suddenly waltzed into the classroom after hearing the conversation. "You plebians. I watched angel Yingxue 20 feet away from my $10,000 VIP seat!" It was Shen.
"Wow! Really?" "What was it like??" "Is she as beautiful up close??" the crowd bombarded him with all sorts of questions. Shen proudly boasted about his experience, describing Yingxue in a borderline explicit way.
Not too far from the crowd sat two girls in the back.
"Ugh, why does Shen have to be one of your top fans.. He's such a horrid person," complained Aiyan.
"One bad seed doesn't mean they're all bad," Yingfei said softly, reverting back to her more reserved self in comparison to the night before. "Besides, as long as he treats Yingxue honestly."
"Sigh. How can you be so kind now, Feifei," Aiyan questioned skeptically. "You almost spat in that manager's face last night throwing shade at that damned Li Tian."
Yingfei's eyes momentarily sharpened. "That was different. He was insulting both Yingxue and Ying Corp. However, me as Yingfei can take something as trivial as high school bullying."
Aiyan glanced at Yingfei's bandaged wrist from yesterday. The girl honestly didn't put it in her mind at all. It made you not question her one bit when she said she's not in any pain. But was it actually true though? Only Yingfei knew.
Shortly after, the fully recognizable Li Xiaolang in his loose clothing, hard gelled down hair and nerdy glasses walked in. Ignoring the ruckus happening between the students, he walked straight to his seat and sat down, only glancing at the two girls beside him briefly.
"Good morning!" Yingfei said to him.
Xiaolang nodded back.
"Why are you so quiet Xiaolang?" Aiyan fussed. "Being the talkative person she was, she couldn't understand Xiaolang's mannerism at all.
He looked at them for a while before finally deciding to humor them by shrugging.
"Uuuurgh.." Aiyan moaned in frustration.
"Hehehehe. I think it's funny," Yingfei giggled.
"Of course you do," Aiyan rolled her eyes at her.
Xiaolang silently watched the two girls' exchanges without much response, revealing little emotion on his face.
The ball rang and class started moments later.
.....
"Now who can tell me the answer to this equation?" Ms. Khlรถe asked from the front of the class. It was quite the difficult question, prompting many of the students to bury their heads within their books to hide; Yingfei being one of them.
Xiaolang had his head leaned against his hand, seemingly quite bored with the lesson. He had quickly gotten the answer but wasn't enthusiastic enough to volunteer. He subconsciously glimpsed at the restless Yingfei next to him. Her nose was touching the inside of her book and her fingers were gripping the pencil tightly, pretending to be immersed in the contents. Her pen was jotting down non stop as if she had gotten an epiphany. However, he clearly saw that the thing she was so fervently writing down was the doodle of a snowman.
๐๐ฆ๐ฉ. He couldn't help but feel amused. A small smile finally appeared on his lips. He had been in quite a bad mood since last night..
"Yingfei!" Ms. Khlรถe yelled.
Yingfei cried softly in alarm and her whole body stiffened.
"Ye..Yes!" she answered.
"Seeing as you're so focused, why don't you share with the class what answer you've concluded," Ms. Khlรถe looked at her expectantly while the rest of the class joined in with either looks of pity or schadenfreude.
"M..my.. My answer?" Yingfei slowly stood up, her palms slightly trembling anxiously. "It's.. it's.." She lifted the book to her face.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She suddenly heard a low tapping next to her. Glancing at the table next to hers, she saw Xiaolang push his book to the corner for her to see. With her own book covering her face, no one noticed her eyes narrow slightly to the words written on the book.
๐๐ต'๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ด๐ธ๐ฆ๐ณ. She realized bewilderingly.
"Yingfei!" Ms. Khlรถe hollered. "The answer!"
"Yes!" Without thinking much further, she stated the answer given to her by Xiaolang. "x equals to negative one over two y."
After a moment of silence.
"Huh.. That's correct," Ms. Khlรถe acknowledged, creating a silent uproar amongst the students. "You can sit."
Yingfei immediately melted into her seat. She turned to Xiaolang when everyone was no longer looking. "Thank you!" she mouthed. She showed him a tired and playful smile.
Xiaolang nodded to her, a hardly noticeable smirk playing on his lips.
.....
Hours later during lunch time, Aiyan finally turned around and stared at Yingfei.
"Spill it. Did you cheat?" she interrogated.
"Why must have I cheated to get the answer right?" Yingfei asked innocently.
Unfortunately it didn't work on her best friend. She continued to stare Yingfei down, eyebrow raised up high.
"Alright. Alright. Hehe," Yingfei giggled and turned to the bored looking Xiaolang. "I had a little help."
"Xiaolang??" Aiyan stared at the mute figure who looked back at her. "Well.. he does look like he knows the answer, no offense."
Xiaolang raised an eyebrow while Yingfei ended up laughing.
"Pfft.. Hahahaha! Aiyan you're too blunt," she exclaimed and shrugged playfully. "Even I technically look like I have the answers but I don't."
"But we all already know you don't," Aiyan joked.
"Hey!" Yingfei pouted momentarily. She faced Xiaolang and said appreciatively. "I really mean it. Thanks Xiaolang! I just can't with math. Huhu."
"It's fine," he assured her in his soft spoken voice.
"So Xiaolang is a math whiz while Feifei is a math idiot," Aiyan concluded.
"Hey!" Yingfei pouted again. "Well.. you're not wrong. Hehe. Enough about that. Let's eat!" Yingfei took out three lunch boxes she had made earlier. However, when she noticed Xiaolang had still brought a piece of bread with him, she chided him. "Why did you bring such bland food again? Here! I made it especially for you! Now eat it. Think of it as a thank you." She opened and put the third lunch box she had brought onto his table.
Xiaolang stared at the opened lunch box. It didn't look bad at all. In fact, it looked very much well made and perfectly balanced in nutrition.
๐ ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฅ๐ฏ'๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฌ ๐ด๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ข๐ด ๐ด๐ฆ๐ณ๐ช๐ฐ๐ถ๐ด.. he thought to himself.
But it was already in front of him, not to mention the two girls were just sitting there waiting to see him eat, so he picked up his chopsticks and started putting the food in his mouth.
His eyes blinked in surprise. ๐๐ต'๐ด ๐ฒ๐ถ๐ช๐ต๐ฆ ๐จ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฅ. He continued chowing down heartily.
Seeing him enjoy his food, both girls starting digging in themselves.
"It's good isn't it?" Aiyan grinned proudly. "Feifei is ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ด๐ต chef. Had the best teachers."
Xiaolang looked at her questioningly but didn't get an answer due to Yingfei glaring back at Aiyan. So he shrugged it off.
๐ ๐จ๐ถ๐ฆ๐ด๐ด ๐ช๐ต'๐ด ๐ง๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฌ ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ..
.....