The classroom gradually filled up.
Chatter surrounded him on all sides.
In the monotonous life of school, even changing seats could become one of the few novel events worth talking about.
Though they'd all been classmates for four years already, some didn't just greet each other—they actually shook hands, acting like they were establishing diplomatic relations.
By comparison, the area around Zhang Shutong and Gu Qiumian could only be described as awkwardly silent.
Both of them were busy organizing their bags with their heads down.
Setting aside Gu Qiumian's situation for now, Zhang Shutong was genuinely occupied—sorting through materials from eight years ago was truly a time-consuming task.
The next class was English, and a casual glance around made it clear that some people had their English test papers out on their desks, suggesting the teacher would be going over problems.
After finally getting everything organized and fishing out his English test paper, he thought he'd been quite slow about it, but when his gaze fell on his deskmate, she was somehow still organizing.
Zhang Shutong smiled helplessly. She probably just didn't want to talk to him, but sitting there doing nothing would look foolish, so she was finding things to do, putting on the appearance of being busy.
Though he could understand this logic—
Wasn't her arm getting tired?
Taking advantage of the break, he pulled out his test paper and looked it over.
He'd been worried about keeping up with the class, having returned all his knowledge from back then to his teachers.
But looking it over carefully, it seemed pretty simple. Of course, English was a special case. Geography, the most troublesome subject, had already had its final exam. He wasn't too worried about Chinese—it was all about accumulated knowledge.
As for math... he still remembered the knowledge related to geometry and algebra, but he'd forgotten the problem-solving approaches. Maybe doing practice problems would help.
Politics and history were subjects that relied entirely on memorization. He'd taken careful notes back then, and the teacher had always earnestly said, "If you commit this to memory, you'll definitely be able to use it in the future." In reality, it had been completely useless in the future, but now that he'd returned to the past, it would come in handy first.
Besides, his brain had always been pretty good. Rote memorization was a piece of cake—at most he'd sacrifice some free time. The focus should still be on math.
Having formed a rough plan for his future studies, Zhang Shutong sat quietly in his seat, observing the various scenes of student life.
While listening to the conversations of his surrounding classmates, he belatedly realized that through some stroke of fate, the seat he'd chosen was truly marvelous.
Lu Qinglian sat in front of him, Gu Qiumian beside him, and then there was himself—all three victims assembled in one place.
This spot had truly terrible feng shui.
If there was a class reunion eight years from now, the class president could say, "Classmates, it's been so long! Three people didn't show up today—guess who they are. Though there's no prize for guessing right..." Well, he didn't have much of a sense of humor anyway.
Zhang Shutong had been accustomed to solitude these past years, and if he had nothing at hand to keep him occupied, his thoughts easily wandered. He imagined that if the class had study groups, they could give their little cluster the "Quietest Group" award.
They could even win first place in a "No Talking Challenge":
Lu Qinglian had always been the type who didn't like talking. Right now, she had no interaction with her new deskmate. He was much the same. Gu Qiumian was actually better, but who told her to be sitting next to an enemy?
He personally never minded awkward silences. He thought it was wonderful for everyone to prop up their chins together and gaze at the snow beneath the teaching building. So what if it looked silly? It made him happy. One of the main reasons he liked fishing was because he could space out and think about things.
It was just that he didn't mind, but Gu Qiumian minded very much.
Glancing over, she was actually still busy, her brow furrowed.
You're going to study that bag to death.
Just as he was thinking this, a cracker of some unidentifiable brand was thrust in front of him:
"Here, this is for you. Lend me your English test paper in a bit."
Gu Qiumian said with a straight face.
So she really had been looking for something, and after searching for so long, she embarrassingly hadn't found it.
Normally, at a time like this, a person would say, "Could I borrow your English test paper? I accidentally forgot to bring mine." The polite ones would even add a thank you. But not her.
Zhang Shutong found this sentence very much in the style of a wealthy young lady—one hand gives money, the other receives goods. He nodded and accepted the cracker, pushing his English paper to the middle of the desk.
"Isn't the answer to this question B?" After looking at it for a while, Gu Qiumian asked another question, but she didn't look at Zhang Shutong—she only stared at the paper. Very stream-of-consciousness.
Zhang Shutong glanced at it and pointed with his finger at option A. His mouth was occupied with eating the cracker.
The cracker was actually pretty tasty. Cheese flavored.
Though why was it salty?
After swallowing most of it, he habitually explained, "This one tests the past continuous tense."
He'd actually tutored people in English before, online.
Gu Qiumian's good point was that she never argued stubbornly. If you told her something, she'd ponder it for a while on her own, and once she understood, she'd nod. She wasn't like some students who would raise an innocent face and say, "Teacher, why do I think it's like this..."
The teacher didn't know either.
"Is there anything else you don't understand?"
"No."
Another bag of crackers was thrust into his hands. Gu Qiumian said she didn't like owing people favors. Zhang Shutong asked if she could change it to a sweet one, since he couldn't handle salty.
"I don't have any." She refused decisively and cleanly, then added, "We'll talk about it tomorrow."
"That's really not necessary."
"Didn't you come sit here just to eat crackers?" Gu Qiumian's tone was calm, but it sounded like sarcasm.
How did they circle back to this topic again?
Zhang Shutong simply complimented her, "I saw the face you drew looks good," pointing at the glass, "very artistically talented."
Who knew she'd angrily retort:
"That's a sheep!"
A sheep?
Now it was Zhang Shutong's turn to be stunned.
"A goat? A sheep?"
It didn't even look like Pleasant Goat*.
Gu Qiumian completely ignored this remark and messily wiped the glass clean, then glared fiercely at him:
"What kind of eyesight is that? My previous deskmate could tell what it was."
"Yes, yes." Really sorry for separating you two. "Want me to switch with him?"
"Forget it, he's too annoying." She rolled her eyes. "You're annoying too, but you talk less."
They seemed to have suddenly become familiar with each other. Zhang Shutong decided to develop this advantage and decisively shut his mouth.
Speaking of which, that former deskmate... his name seemed to be Zhou Ziheng, the slightly dark-skinned boy he'd seen not long ago.
Thinking of this, Zhang Shutong looked around the classroom, but unexpectedly found the other person staring right at him. When their gazes met, the guy quickly lowered his head.
Zhang Shutong withdrew his gaze, just feeling it was strange.
Before long, Du Kang also came panting back. As soon as this guy entered the door, he first glanced at Lu Qinglian, then desperately winked at him. Zhang Shutong thought to himself, too bad our telepathic connection has long since disappeared—I can't understand what you mean.
Their class had nearly sixty people, and they hadn't finished assigning seats yet. The homeroom teacher had Du Kang take this opportunity to distribute the milk.
When passing by Zhang Shutong, he deliberately slowed his pace and lowered his voice:
"I'm dizzy."
Stop being dizzy. I want to feel dizzy too hearing these stale old jokes.
He'd thought it was about Lu Qinglian's seat. Zhang Shutong was just about to point at the empty seat with the school uniform on it, indicating he'd saved it for him, when Du Kang looked moved:
"That's enough, that's enough. Bro, I really didn't think you'd go this far for me."
What are you talking about? Really can't understand. Let's just go back to stale old jokes.
He heard Du Kang muttering:
"Though I did tell you I wanted to sit behind Lu Qinglian, it just so happened she ended up sitting in front of Gu Qiumian and there's nothing anyone can do about that, right? You really didn't need to specifically provoke Gu Qiumian for my sake. You can't drive her away anyway, so isn't this still a failure?"
"..."
This guy kept going and even started spouting idioms:
"But not to criticize you, bro, but feeding yourself to the tiger is where you went wrong, Shutong. The old saying goes that a gentleman doesn't stand beneath a dangerous wall. Look, Gu Qiumian is glaring at us right now..."
After saying this, he got scared and turned to run.
"What were you two just talking about?" Sure enough, Miss Gu's voice came from beside him. She said dissatisfiedly, "What's all this 'Gu Qiumian, Gu Qiumian'?"
"He originally wanted to sit next to you, but I took the spot, so he came to settle accounts with me." Zhang Shutong calmly answered.
This explanation was very reasonable. Du Kang's crush on Lu Qinglian was common knowledge—even he had noticed it back then.
"Tch."
As a result, Gu Qiumian made another inexplicable sound of disdain.
Before long, Du Kang ran over again, raising the plastic bag in his hand with two cartons of milk left inside. He handed them to Zhang Shutong, "Strawberry flavored."
"I don't want them. You handle it yourself." Zhang Shutong hinted.
"Hey, it's just a seat, nothing to feel guilty about. You love drinking strawberry the most."
...Really don't. Please stop talking, the tiger is already looking at me.
He made a gesture of taking a pen to poke Lu Qinglian, meaning if you give them to me I'll give them to her. Only then did Du Kang settle down, moving forward a step. After stammering for a good while, he finally said:
"Um, that Lu-tongxue, you see today there's leftover milk, do you want to drink..."
"No need, thank you."
A clear, cool voice drifted over.
Then the poor guy was at a loss. Zhang Shutong felt anxious for him, thinking, hurry up and find an excuse—even "the weather's really nice, let me treat you to milk" is better than saying nothing.
But Du Kang didn't dare make eye contact with Lu Qinglian at all. Just then, the homeroom teacher finished assigning seats and clapped his hands, shooing them like chickens, "Everyone hurry up and sit down, you should've talked enough by now."
Du Kang quickly returned to his seat, afraid Teacher Song would say something like, "I'm talking to you, Du Kang. If there's leftover milk, why don't you give it to me to drink?" That would be utterly mortifying.
At this moment, a female student who wanted to go get water called out in a cutesy, affected voice:
"Oh no, Teacher, you forgot the class bell hasn't rung yet."
Song Nanshan revealed a cruel smile:
"You forgot that the next class is mine."
The class immediately erupted in wails.
Every teacher had the habit of encroaching on break time—no exceptions, no mercy.
But their homeroom teacher had one good quality: he allowed them to drink water during class.
Zhang Shutong didn't know where some teachers got so many rules, not even letting students keep cups on their desks. When it came to Song Nanshan, as long as you didn't eat during class, you could even drink milk if you wanted.
Of course, many well-behaved students were accustomed to drinking during breaks—like Lu Qinglian.
Hearing the teacher say to go back and sit down, she sat with her back ramrod straight, like a swan gracefully extending its neck, seriously reviewing the test paper.
There were also "bad students."
Like Zhang Shutong. He didn't have so many formalities in front of Song Nanshan, inserting his straw into the carton as if nothing was amiss.
Of course, he couldn't eat the crackers anymore. People needed to show mutual respect. Teacher Song had just done him a favor, and since he'd already said class was starting, he wouldn't rely on his good relationship with the homeroom teacher to make himself seem special. That wasn't something even his student self from back then would have done.
Then there was Zhang Shutong's deskmate—this really showed how wealthy Miss Gu's family was. While everyone else drank student milk, she pulled a carton of Telunsu from her Doraemon-like school bag and calmly inserted the straw.
What kind of heretic actually liked drinking plain milk?
Miss Gu didn't immediately drink it. As if remembering something, she slapped her carton of student milk in front of Zhang Shutong and said matter-of-factly:
"Here, for you."
Could this also be a benefit of being deskmates?
Zhang Shutong thought with amusement—hungry, have snacks; thirsty, have milk to drink. He finally understood why Gu Qiumian's former deskmate kept staring at him.
"This one counts as sweet too. We're even." She specifically explained, and only after saying this did she bring the Telunsu to her chest, her cheeks slightly puffing out.
"Well, thanks then."
Next came the pleasant class time.
Their school couldn't afford multimedia equipment. They only had a projector by the podium. Place the test paper on the device, and it would project onto the screen. When the sunlight was strong, they inevitably had to draw the curtains.
Then Song Nanshan pulled out his grimy briefcase, saying "Quiet, quiet, look it over yourselves first," while rummaging through it for the test paper. He'd occasionally mutter to himself, "Eh, I remember putting it here..."
Watching this utterly unreliable scene, Zhang Shutong only felt a sense of familiarity.
When he was young, he'd only felt the man was completely unlike an adult. On weekends, he'd smoke in front of them without any reservations. And because he wanted to quit smoking, he'd stuffed his drawer full of lollipops, slapping one into the hand of whoever felt wronged. He never called students by their full names either, but rather things like "Shutong-ah, Ruoping-ah, Qinglian-ah." Though even now he couldn't quite define what maturity meant, Zhang Shutong sincerely felt Song Nanshan was an excellent teacher.
But surely you didn't actually lose the test paper, right?
Fortunately, after rummaging for ages, Song Nanshan finally found it and projected it on the big screen. Some problems were marked with numbers, probably statistics on how many students got them wrong. You could also see a bit of red grease stain in the lower left corner.
This was the tragedy of a single man.
He understood because Zhang Shutong himself had often eaten while working in the past.
But as soon as Song Nanshan started explaining concepts, that unreliable air suddenly vanished, like a commander before a thousand troops, full of confidence:
"This problem looks convoluted, but as long as you pay attention to the tense..."
"And this one—though there's a very obscure word, it doesn't matter if you can't read it. I'll teach you a technique. Whenever 'but' indicates a contrast, whatever was said before it can all be... ahem, completely ignored."
He really did have a methodology for going over test papers—fast and detailed. But to Zhang Shutong, these problems were all rather elementary.
So he didn't follow along with the lecture. Instead, he took this opportunity to mentally work through the test paper again.
There was one other person not listening attentively to the lecture—Lu Qinglian. She kept her head lowered, writing something with her pen.
"Look at this one again. A classic problem type. I'm too lazy to even explain it. Didn't I emphasize it countless times before the exam? I'll say it one last time." The teacher's "last time" could never be taken seriously. "Right, this week's homework also has this problem type. Students who did it seriously should have noticed. Might as well explain them together."
After saying this, Song Nanshan started rummaging through his briefcase again. He'd originally been talking enthusiastically, but as he searched and searched, even he got impatient. So he just grabbed the top book from the pile of "Five-Three" study guides stacked on the podium:
"Forget it, let's look at someone else's. I had annotations written down originally. I'll write it on the board in a bit. Don't space out, anyone..."
Zhang Shutong had just finished the first carton of student milk and was preparing to open the second. He tore open the plastic wrapper and put the straw in his mouth, watching with amusement.
Familiar formula, familiar taste, familiar unreliability.
Song Nanshan didn't yet know his "beloved general" was mentally criticizing him. He walked back to the equipment in a few steps, turned his back, opened the cover and looked—quite satisfied:
"This happens to be Shutong's. In a bit, I'll have him come up and explain it to you all."
Zhang Shutong froze upon hearing this.
Though he couldn't remember what the English homework was at all, with his English level, he really could go up there and explain it on the spot, guaranteed to explain it in more detail than the homeroom teacher.
So explaining problems had never been the issue.
The issue was... why was that "Five-Three" study guide his?
The study guide was sent under the projector just like that, like a trussed-up prisoner sent to the guillotine, only waiting for the blade to fall and the head to roll.
Zhang Shutong suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck. He'd always trusted his intuition. He instinctively stood up:
"Wait—"
Unfortunately, it was too late.
At this moment, the room was quiet. Some students stared intently at the blank projector screen, some whispered to each other.
The teacher named Song Nanshan was hurrying to flip the "Five-Three" to the homework page; the male student named Zhang Shutong rapidly stood up; the female student diagonally in front of him had originally been looking down, but just happened to look up at this moment; his deskmate had been startled and was turning her face toward him in surprise.
The scene seemed to freeze.
Immediately after, under countless gazes, what appeared on the projector screen wasn't yesterday's homework, but a sheet of scratch paper.
On the scratch paper were three names written: Zhang Shutong, Lu Qinglian, Gu Qiumian.
These three names were even connected to form a triangle.
Every gaze in the room turned toward Zhang Shutong.
Gu Qiumian's surprised expression seemed frozen on her face, but her entire face had visibly turned red. Then she glared at him viciously:
"Give it here!"
Without any explanation, the girl reached out her hand and snatched away the yet-unopened carton of student milk.
Zhang Shutong bit down on the soft flesh in his mouth. It hurt.
He slowly sat down, the light, flimsy straw in his mouth. He unconsciously drew in a breath of cool air, his mind left with only one thought.
Excuse me, can I regress?
---
Translator's Note:
*Pleasant Goat (喜羊羊, Xǐ Yángyáng) is a popular Chinese animated character, a cheerful and clever sheep from the animated series "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf."