On the day of the start of school, there were a lot of people in front of Senior 1's final exam results announcement board.
"Jiang Li", two big words were listed in the first place, followed by "Xu Haowen", "Nan Yin", and "Jiang Xingyu".
The person who was not even in the top 500 of the grade ranking before suddenly overpowered the whole grade and took the first position of the whole year, amazing the onlookers.
"Who's Jiang Li? How come I've never heard of him?"
"I know right, is there such a person in class 5?"
"He's in our class!"
"That's the one who was rumored to like Xu Haowen!"
"Damn! Jiang Li's first!"
"Speaking of liking Xu Haowen … I remember that they are in the same class this time!"
"No way? He can take advantage of being close to him!"
Classroom of Senior Two (1).
As Jiang Li walked into the classroom, the originally chaotic classroom suddenly quieted down and everyone's eyes gathered on him in unison.
In the second year of high school, they were divided into arts and science classes. Jiang Li chose science and on the class placement, he found himself in the same class as Chi Fang, Feng Yu, and Xu Haowen.
"That's him, first in the grade."
"He's very good-looking!"
"I heard that he was in class 5 before, and he likes Xu Haowen in our class."
"No way, so trendy?"
Regarding the others' discussion of him, Jiang Li turned a deaf ear and walked towards the seat by the window at the back without looking away. As he passed Xu Haowen, the other party nodded at him and said, "Good morning."
"Good morning." Jiang Li nodded, passed by him, and sat down at the window seat.
Xu Haowen's initiative to greet Jiang Li startled the others, they didn't understand when the two became so familiar. Jiang Li had clearly avoided Xu Haowen whenever he saw him last semester.
Xu Haowen's seatmate, who was also in the sixth class in senior one, was also surprised by the two greeting each other and looked back at Jiang Li, who was wiping the table with a tissue. He then asked Xu Haowen in a lowered voice, "Haowen, when did you become so close to him?"
Are we close?
Xu Haowen thought in his heart, they were just acquaintances. Judging from the previous exchanges with Jiang Li, the other party didn't seem to have any intention of making a deep friendship with him.
The previous English representative of class 5, Jiang Xingyu, was also in class 5 of Senior Two. She was sitting one aisle away from Jiang Li. When she saw Jiang Li sitting down, she called out to him in a low voice.
Jiang Li heard her and looked over. She gave a thumbs up and said, full of smiles, "You're amazing, number one in our grade."
Jiang Li smiled at her, "You're impressive too."
As the time for the class meeting got closer and closer, the classroom became more and more crowded, more and more tables were occupied, Chi Fang and Feng Yu were almost late when they stepped into the classroom.
"Ah Fang."
Nan Yin, who was sitting in the middle of the room, saw Chi Fang and raised her hand to call out to him, indicating that there was a seat at her side.
Feng Yu used his elbow to bump Chi Fang and smiled at him ambiguously with gossiping intentions.
Chi Fang ignored his smile, raised his hand, and simply waved towards Nan Yin. He then walked to the seat beside Jiang Li, lowered his head, and looked at the empty seat beside him. "Is this reserved for me?"
He didn't wait for Jiang Li to answer and pulled out the stool to sit down by himself.
The crowd: "??"
When did Jiang Li and Chi Fang also become so close with each other?
Nan Yin saw this and her eyes swept over Jiang Li's face. Her beautiful eyebrows frowned slightly, she turned around and sat properly.
There were no vacancies in the front or the back of Jiang Li and Chi Fang's seats. Feng Yu could only sit down at the back two rows apart from them. As soon as he sat down, he started chatting with the new seatmate. He was a natural socializer and only quieted down once the homeroom teacher came in.
The homeroom teacher of Senior Two Class 1 was originally the homeroom teacher of Senior One Class 6, surnamed Zhang, first name Ling, teaching in the second middle school for nearly twenty years. Although she was stereotypical and indifferent, she was very serious and excellent in teaching.
After Zhang Ling took the roll call on the podium and let everyone take turns to come up and introduce themselves, she simply said some words of encouragement and started to select class committees.
Although Zhang Ling hadn't taught Jiang Li, it was an indisputable fact that Jiang Li ranked first in the grade. She originally intended to make Jiang Li a study committee member, but Jiang Li made it clear that he was not suitable for class committees, so she had to give up.
As for Chi Fang and Feng Yu, they were not only late to class but also had poor academic performance, so Zhang Ling had no intention of letting them be in class committees. The two of them had the exact same intention, their butt stuck to their seats and didn't move and only acted as voters.
In the end, Xu Haowen remained as class president and Nan Yin was the vice president, no different from the previous Senior One Class 6.
After the class meeting, Xu and Nan organized everyone to clean the class. The girls were responsible for wiping the tables and sweeping the floor, and the boys were responsible for cleaning the windows and mopping the floor.
The classroom had not been cleaned for an entire summer, the ceiling corners had somewhat accumulated some cobwebs. If they were to sweep it with a boom directly, the cobwebs would inevitably fall on their heads. So Jiang Li found a newspaper, folded a paper hat and gave it to Chi Fang.
"What a broken hat, how girlish." Chi Fang put on the hat and used the window glass to look at his own appearance with displeasure.
"Chi ge, give it to me if you don't want it!" Feng Yu thought the hat was very cute. Jiang Li was handy, he had even folded two ears at the brim of the hat.
"Get lost." Chi Fang used one hand to protect the paper hat on his head and used the other to knock Feng Yu's leg twice with a bamboo used to tie the broom, "None of your business."
"Chi ge, you won't get a girlfriend if you act differently from what you say like a tsundere!" Feng Yu complained.
"Shut your mouth."
"Sincere advice grates on the ears!"
Jiang Li didn't bother paying attention to these two boring people. He carried half a bucket of water to the wall and stood on the windowsill to wipe the uppermost window. After wiping for a short while, Jiang Xingyu called him from below, "Jiang Li, your bucket is leaking."
"Huh?" Jiang Li looked down and found that a small puddle of water was indeed leaking at the place he put the bucket, so he came down from the window and squatted down by the bucket to look for the leaky crack.
The bucket was cracked near the bottom and the crack was only two centimeters long.
Jiang Li touched the crack and looked back at the corner where the trash can was placed and saw a scrapped ball inside.
After thinking for a while, he poured the bucket of water to another student who was wiping the window, used a tissue to wipe off the water on the crack on the bucket, and went to find Chi Fang.
Chi Fang and Feng Yu were simply sweeping the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling, and the two of them had been sweeping one corner for almost ten minutes. Not to mention the cobwebs, even the putty on the wall was almost swept off by them.
Jiang Li walked over and asked Chi Fang, "Did you bring a lighter?"
His words made Chi Fang and Feng Yu stop moving at the same time. Chi Fang casually took out the lighter from his pocket and handed it to him and when Jiang Li reached out to take it, their fingertips accidentally touched one another.
Jiang Li's fingers were a little cold, probably because he had just touched the water.
"I'll give it back to you later." Jiang Li took the lighter and turned around to leave.
While Chi Fang felt that his fingertip's touch was still left on his own fingers, he touched his nose unnaturally, turned his head, and saw Feng Yu looking at him with an intriguing expression.
Chi Fang: "What do you mean by that look?"
"Chi ge." Feng Yu looked at him and said slyly, "The conversation you just had with Jiang Li reminded me of an allusion."
"What allusion?"
"Wanna date?"
"…"
"…"
— If a gay asks another person to borrow a light, it means he wants to date him. 1
This phrase suddenly ran into Chi Fang's brain, making him almost unable to hold the broom well in his hand.
The days spent with Jiang Li appeared in his mind bit by bit. Chi Fang remembered his slender and fair fingers pressing on the draft paper, remembered his side profile with elegant lines when he lowered his head to explain the questions himself, remembered his curved eyes while smiling when he passed his English test.
These clear and distinct memories made Chi Fang zone out uncontrollably, something unknown was emerging in his heart.
At this time, Jiang Li who was on the other side suddenly heard System's notification, "Congratulations to the host, the male lead's favorability has increased by 5%, the current favorability is 44%."
"?" Jiang Li was baffled, "What's going on?"
"Don't guess the mind of an adolescent boy."
"…"
"…"
The adolescent boy Chi Fang was being bewildered by the things he couldn't understand inside himself. He heard Feng Yu say with an exclamation, "You are just lending him a lighter, why are you guys giving out such a gay feeling to me!"
Chi Fang: "… Get lost!"
Chi Fang held the bamboo pole in his hand and swept it towards Feng Yu. Feng Yu laughed and said two sentences repeatedly to have his life spared and moved to Jiang Li's side swiftly, while Chi Fang kept his foot back just as he was stepping forward because of the sentence "Wanna date?"
… I'm not gay, I don't want to date.
Chi Fang silently read it out in his mind three times.
Jiang Li was using the small knife to cut the ball and Fang Yu squatted down beside him. "What are you doing?"
"The bucket is broken, I'm mending it." Jiang Li said while using the knife to scrape back and forth a few times on the inside of the ball that was being cut out, and then hanging over the flame of the lighter to heat it up.
Feng Yu: "What the heck, is this even possible?"
"It's no problem for temporary use." Jiang Li handed the lighter to Feng Yu in passing and put the ball's skin on the cracked place of the bucket.
Feng Yu played with Chi Fang's lighter, remembering that Jiang Li returned the lighter to Chi Fang last time, and laughed, "This lighter is a birthday gift from the old man to Chi ge, fortunately, you picked it up and returned it to Chi ge. If someone else had picked it up, it would not have been recovered."
Because of the slow progress of the capture, the information about Chi Fang in
the System was only a little. Jiang Li also didn't deliberately inquire about it. When he heard him say so, he then asked, "Birthday? When? Has it passed?"
"It has passed." Feng Yu said, "May 21. It has passed a few months ago."
Jiang Li was looking at the leather glue to see if it had solidified or not but when he heard his words, his hand's movement paused. He looked up at him. "What date did you say?"
Feng Yu: "May 21 ah."
"May … 21? …" Jiang Li's voice sounded like he was in a daze. He turned his head suddenly to look at Chi Fang who was leaning against the wall with his head lowered while playing with his phone.
— Jiang Zhan, when is your birthday?
–It's stated on Baidu, check it yourself.
–I want to hear you say it.
–May 21.
May 21, Jiang Zhan's birthday was also this date.
–Jiang Zhan, let's give a name to the little guy, what do you think?
–Nuomi then.
…
–What did you say?
–I say call it Jiang Nuomi.
The similar conversation in his memory resounded again, something that was overlooked suddenly seemed to be strung together by an invisible thread and Jiang Li looked at the person leaning against the wall.
… Is that you?