Chapter 17 Both Are Crazy!
"..What time is it?" Yingxue looked around the dim classroom.
Not having a watch on him- all of them were too expensive for his image, Xiaolang took out his phone and showed her the time displayed on the screen. 7:45 am. Class didn't start for another thirty minutes yet they had both already arrived. In fact, he was more surprised that she had arrived earlier than he did.
He was facing towards the window, thus making his expressions extremely clear from the natural lighting coming through. Any minute changes were visible to her. Thinking about how early she had appeared in class, he tilted his head slightly while giving her a confused expression.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, it didn't even take her a second to understand his inquiry, hence she proceeded to answer sheepishly, "I was a bit busy yesterday and didn't spend enough time studying.. So I thought maybe I could get some studying done if I arrived here early today..."
Hearing her logical excuse yet catching her fast asleep just minutes before caused his face to contort uncontrollably in amusement.
"Pfft... Hahaha.." he let out a small chuckle. Any other time, he would have been able to mask his laughter pretty well, but the sun shining in his face wasn't doing him any favors.
"He-hey!" she pouted. "I really was trying to study!"
Hearing the words coming out of her mouth with that expression did it for him. Originally rather soft, he gradually couldn't hold himself back anymore from letting out a burst of laughter. So much built-up stress had in its entirety been released with this one simple yet comical sentence from her.
Seeing him laugh made Yingfei dumbfounded. She didn't even digest how deep and mellow it sounded with how startled she was from his reaction. Besides, she had already heard his explosive laughter before with her brother.
"Heh..hehe.." eventually he tried to control himself- it wasn't good to let loose too long given the image he was trying to uphold. Unfortunately, he happened to glance at her completely empty table and set off the trigger he had just somehow managed to suppress. Trying to study huh? "Pfft... Bhahahahaha!" he continued to laugh again unabashedly, falling into his seat.
The girl looked in the direction he had glanced at and her eyes widened in realization. Especially after hearing his brazen laughter, she couldn't help but stutter in embarrassment. "That's... I..."
But there was no point in trying to convince him any further. The evidence was clear to see. She chose to give up and slumped in her seat dejectedly. That was when she began to ponder on the sultry tone of Xiaolang's laughter. "Hehe. You know.. you should laugh carefreely more often. Your laugh is really nice to listen to. I'm pretty sure your voice sounds great too if you elected to speak more" She smiled at him innocently.
Xiaolang calmed down his emotions and smiled at her lightly. She didn't know it but a huge amount of stress had just been lifted off of his shoulders. At that moment, he really wanted to talk to her like he normally would a person. But he knew that he shouldn't.
It was actually fine if he were to be found out; at most he would just transfer to a different school. However, after staying at the current school this long, that wasn't what he wanted to happen at all. He would never admit it out loud but he was actually beginning to enjoy himself in this insipid excuse commoners called a learning institute. It was where he had met Yingfei. Leaving here would be saying goodbye to this pleasant friendship he felt with her.
Therefore, it wasn't that he didn't trust her at all. Him keeping things under wraps here was a big assignment from his mother. She was incredibly stern when sending him out on his own. He was too used to using his identity before, thus even one person knowing the truth was him just using his identity to get what he wanted, as declared by his mother.
Madam Li didn't want her son to keep on attracting dishonest people. She wanted him to prove that he didn't need his identity to make friends and that he could make it out on his own without his family's influence. Xiaolang trusted that Yingfei wasn't the sort of person to be friends with him due to money and fame, but he didn't want the way she looked at him to change either.
So it was best if he just remained the quiet boy. At most he would laugh out loud with her but never really speak properly for her to get a read on him.
He took a deep breath and looked at her apologetically. He couldn't.
Seeing his face, she chuckled in understanding. There was definitely a reason why he acted the way he did. "It's fine then. I like you the way you are anyway. Even if you decide to change, you'll still be my friend."
𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦, his eye twitched. But it quickly quelled when she mentioned 'friend' afterward. Her words were sweet, reflecting her kind nature to him. He definitely kept getting a warm feeling every time she said something nice to him.
"Ah! But I still have to study!" Yingfei jolted in realization and quickly took out her math books from her bag.
Xiaolang got up from his seat and went to help switch on the lights for her. As he sat back down, he could distinguish her face clearly under the light, staring straight at him with an inconceivable pleading expression...
She obviously wanted him to help her.
𝘏𝘦𝘩.
.....
"Feifei!!" Aiyan skipped to the back of the class merrily. There were only a few minutes left until the bell rang and the class was already half full by now. She arrived at own seat to see her best friend's face buried deep within a book at the table behind hers. Her right hand was busily jotting down numbers and strange symbols on her notepad like a crazed lunatic on crack. "Good morning!"
"Mmm...," Yingfei replied casually without lifting up her face.
Aiyan looked confusedly at Xiaolang, wondering what had gotten into her suddenly studious friend.
Xiaolang cracked a small smile at the girl's confusion and tapped the math book in front of him.
"Oh.." there was a quiz today, she realized. It was still rare for Yingfei to act so diligently in learning. Out of curiosity, she walked behind the earnestly studying girl to take a quick peek at the textbook she was reading. Her eyes widened dumbfoundedly. "What the.."
Inside the book were various sticky notes of every color pasted at select places, while written on them were things like, 'important', 'ignore', 'add this', 'take this part, ignore the rest', 'change this to this', 'apply this part on the other section', etc.
It sounded simple but the book was full of them. Even more absurd was, to her astonishment, sections that were deemed unimportant were actually 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 out with a black marker! How was anyone supposed to use the textbook anymore?? It was completely unusable at this state!
Aiyan looked at Xiaolang incredulously but he just shrugged in return as if it was a normal thing to him!
She then happened to catch a glimpse at the book in Xiaolang's hand and realized, the majority of the pages... were completely black!
"Oh my god... You both are crazy!"
.....