I thought I had encountered a little kitten, but I ended up bumping into a little wildcat instead.
The kind of wildcat that could swallow people.
Jiang Su stroked his buttons a couple of times, thinking to himself: Exciting.
…
Although Lin Wei and Jiang Su lived on the same floor, she didn't bump into him in the next two days despite going out several times.
Lin Wei thought perhaps because on Friday she had crossed paths with Jiang Su too many times. The gods had finally noticed the bug and fixed it overnight.
Evening study sessions were mandatory on Sunday night, even for commute students. Everyone had to be at school by six in the afternoon.
The teachers in the fourth grade had a habit of using the evening self-study sessions to discuss tests or conduct pop quizzes.
Before the beginning of the evening study session bell rang, the math teacher walked into the classroom with the papers from last week's pop quiz.
Math teacher Zeng Jian, who had a fondness for Lin Wei, put the papers on her desk as soon as he entered: "Lin Wei, distribute these papers."
Zeng Jian had a habit of scoring every test, whether big or small, and would always rank them from high to low.
Knowing this, Lin Wei put the top test paper on her desk and began distributing the others around the classroom, walking up and down the aisles.
The rankings in the math class did not vary a lot. A little carelessness from anyone could drop their rank by several places. Lin Wei, having a good memory, realized that apart from her, the top ten rankers of this pop quiz had completely changed from the previous one.
Out of the thirty-six students in the class, Lin Wei usually stopped at Chen Yang, who consistently ranked last in Math. This time, however, she noticed an extra paper.
She paused for a couple of seconds, seeing "Jiang Su" on the paper and recalled there were thirty-seven students in class now.
As she returned to her seat, she glanced at the paper now sitting at the very bottom - even below Chen Yang's.
Even Chen Yang, the perennial first from the last, could manage to score passing marks in the class.
But the owner of this last-ranked paper, the score was really something to behold.
Everyone else's papers had the wrong answers marked by the teacher, but Jiang Su's paper only had the correct answers marked.
At first glance, there were only two check marks, one for a multiple-choice question and the other for a fill-in-the-blank question.
This newcomer was something else, answering the questions by pure guessing. All multiple-choice answers were set to D, fill-in-the-blanks were all filled with 1, and nothing was answered in the problem-solving sections.
Jiang Su hadn't arrived. Lin Wei put his 2-point paper on his desk.
The bell for the evening study session rang exactly at that moment. Zeng Jian stood at the podium and started criticizing: "Song Qianqian, you were fifth last time. Now you've slid to the seventeenth place. Your score is like a roller coaster, very thrilling. Wang Wei, you skipped three multiple-choice questions, what do you mean by this? Waiting for me to answer for you? Lin Ye, are you doodling? You've made your test paper wet with ink."
His words did not surprise the class. Students listened calmly to Zeng Jian's criticism, all in a very stable mental state.
Ten minutes later, everyone silently took out their exercise books. They brushed through the questions they wanted to solve, while listening to Zeng Jian discussing the tests.
By the time he finished discussing the test, the first evening self-study session was over. Jiang Su, who got only 2 points, still hadn't arrived.
Lin Wei sighed. As she reviewed the English questions on the test paper, she took the discipline book out from her drawer.
She first marked the English answers, then lifted the discipline book and wrote the date, filled in Jiang Su's name, wrote down 5 points in the column beside it, for reason, she wrote: skipping school.
After Zeng Jian finished discussing the test, he distributed another set of test papers for self-study during the second session.
The teachers may not all be around on Sunday nights. Many times, the second session was all about self-study. But the head of the academic affairs office would be around. He would roam around the classrooms, equipped with a ruler when free.
Lin Wei rushed to complete the page of English questions, which resulted in her running to the bathroom slightly before the class started. When she returned to the classroom, the bell for class had already rung.
She glanced at the test papers distributed by Zeng Jian and found the questions to be relatively easy. She, who was too lazy to take the papers home, decided to finish them off during this session.
No one ever sat behind her and Bai Jian, so for efficiency's sake, Lin Wei often turned her chair around, laid on the back table, and worked on the questions.
Without thinking much, she grabbed a draft paper, turned her chair in the other direction, laid on the back table, and started working on the test paper.
About ten minutes into the second evening self-study session, Jiang Su strolled into the classroom from the back door.
Seeing the little girl busily working on her questions at his desk, he unconsciously stopped in his tracks.
The entire classroom was busy with their own work, and no one noticed that someone had entered the room from the back door.
Jiang Su didn't make a sound, casually leaned against the wall, lowering his eyes to watch his young neighbor.
The little neighbor was wearing her school uniform again, washed clean, with the zipper pulled all the way up. She held a pen, kept her eyes on the test paper, occasionally scribbled something on the draft paper beside it, but not more than twice, before she would quickly write answer on the test paper.
She looked well-behaved, like a little student, even the words she wrote on the test paper were neat.
However, the well-behaved little neighbor didn't keep up her act for long. She stretched her hand behind her, pulled her backpack into her lap while still focused on the test paper, and rummaged through it to find an opened bag of Oreo.
She took a piece of Oreo, put it into her mouth, then grabbed another piece. While munching on the first one, she filled in an answer on the paper and turned over the test paper.
Right when she's about to put the second Oreo into her mouth, the head of the academic affairs office passed by the corridor and glanced into the first-grade classroom through the window.
Noticing him, Bai Jian coughed lightly.
Catching a glimpse of the head of the academic affairs office from the corner of her eye, Lin Wei, who was looking at her Oreo, remained silent for three seconds. Then, she calmly placed the Oreo that was supposed to go into her mouth on the paper, seemingly using it as an eraser.
Seeing the disciplined first-grade students all focusing on their studies, the head of the academic affairs office, who was pleased with them already, assumed Lin Wei was holding an eraser. He didn't linger and left contentedly.
The first-grade class, which had fallen into a sudden silence when the head of the academic affairs office showed up, began to get a bit noisy again.
Lin Wei placed the Oreo that she had used to rub the paper on the draft paper. Then, looking at the chocolate marks left on the paper, she felt a bit anxious.
It was exciting to go with the flow just now, but now the fun was over.
... She ruined the paper.
Lin Wei scratched the chocolate smears and didn't succeed in removing them. When she attempted to rub them off, it just got worse.
While pondering what to do, a cool voice came from the side: "You could lick it off."