SYLM Chapter 54
by Volare“Are you catching a cold?”
The next day.
When leaving the house in the morning, Chen Lu and Gu Wan Jun went to school together as usual.
When they stopped at the breakfast cart near the school gate to buy breakfast, they even ran into Yang Jin Feng.
Yang Jin Feng greeted them with a smile, her warm attitude just like before, which slightly relieved Chen Lu, who had been worried all night and couldn’t sleep well.
Maybe she was overthinking it.
—
After entering the teaching building, Gu Wan Jun and Yang Jin Feng went up to the fourth floor together to return to the Chinese language office, while Chen Lu went back to the classroom.
After entering the classroom, Chen Lu first glanced at the back of the class, and found that Liu Zi Xuan, nicknamed “Little Smart Aleck,” hadn’t arrived yet, so Chen Lu could only return to her seat first.
Considering that when Class 12 had just changed homeroom teachers, a lot of news about Gu Wan Jun had come from Liu Zi Xuan, Chen Lu tossed and turned for half the night last night and decided to find some time today to ask Liu Zi Xuan if she knew anything about what had been happening in the Chinese language office recently.
Chen Lu waited and waited, but in the end, what she waited for was the bell for morning self-study ringing, and Gu Wan Jun entering the class to say that there was a recent outbreak of the flu, and several students had asked for leave from morning self-study to get injections at home.
Liu Zi Xuan was one of them.
It seemed that she would have to wait until Liu Zi Xuan came for the first period.
—
The first class for Class 12 was Politics.
As soon as morning self-study ended, the representatives for each subject went to their respective offices to hand in homework, and the other students who had been struggling to keep their eyes open all morning immediately collapsed on their desks to catch up on sleep.
Two minutes later, Gu Wan Jun received a phone call from a parent, presumably about a student asking for leave, and as soon as she stepped out the front door of the classroom to answer the phone, Tang Ying came in through the back door.
Tang Ying came directly from the school parking lot. When she entered the class, Fu Yi Wen happened to be returning from the liberal arts office with something.
As soon as she saw Tang Ying, Fu Yi Wen went straight to the podium and cheerfully started a conversation:
“I brought down everything you use for class. See if anything is missing?”
“Mm.”
Tang Ying just grunted in response, but Fu Yi Wen sensed something. Her big white teeth instantly disappeared as she asked, “Are you catching a cold?”
“…”
The hand smoothing her hair paused for a moment. Tang Ying looked at Fu Yi Wen, then lowered her head to put down her bag and take out the test paper, her tone indifferent:
“A little.”
“…”
The usually clear and crisp voice sounded much thicker now. This wasn’t just a little!
Fu Yi Wen wrinkled her nose, a little anxious: “Your nasal voice sounds pretty bad. I’ll get you the microphone. Have you taken any cold medicine? I’ll get you some hot water too. Do you have a thermos?”
“…”
The mouth that usually stumbled over English questions suddenly launched into a rap. Tang Ying propped her hands on the podium, tilted her head slightly, and stared at Fu Yi Wen with her pair of phoenix eyes with upturned corners, her tone still indifferent:
“No need. What medicine do you need for such a small problem? Go to my office and get the microphone from my drawer. I can’t shout today. The back row might not be able to hear me.”
“Okay, you wait for me, I’ll be right back!”
Fu Yi Wen agreed, then returned to her seat, grabbed something she was holding in her arms, and quickly left the classroom.
As soon as she left through the back door, Fu Yi Wen ran into Chen Lu, who was just returning from the Chinese language office. Before Chen Lu could ask, “Where are you going?” she was dragged away by the person in front of her!
Of course, Tang Ying on the podium was unaware of everything that was happening outside the door. She broke off a piece of chalk and wrote the answers to the test paper she was about to go over on the blackboard.
…
Two minutes later, Gu Wan Jun, having finished her phone call, entered the classroom.
Seeing Tang Ying, Gu Wan Jun greeted the person on the podium with a smile:
“You’re here.”
“Mm.”
“Catching a cold?”
“Can you tell?”
“With such a heavy nasal voice, how could I not tell?”
“I set the air conditioner too low last night. This is how I woke up this morning.”
“You should drink more hot water. I have a thermos in my office that the school gave out for the holiday. It’s new. I’ll get you some hot water to drink later.”
“No.”
Tang Ying refused directly, looking disgusted. She raised her hand to check her watch and started chasing Gu Wan Jun out:
“Isn’t your first class with Class 1? Go teach your class. Don’t dawdle around here.”
“There are still five minutes left. The warning bell hasn’t rung yet. Don’t change the subject. Have you taken any medicine?”
“What medicine do you need for such a small problem? It’ll get better on its own in a couple of days.”
“How can you not take medicine? The flu is so serious recently. I have some medicine in my office. Let Fu Yi Wen—”
As she spoke, Gu Wan Jun turned her gaze toward the fourth row by the window, but after looking around, she didn’t see anyone:
“Eh, where’s Fu Yi Wen?”
“I asked her to go to the office to get my microphone.”
“Oh, then let Chen Lu go to my office—”
Seeing that there was no one in the third row by the window either, the smile on Gu Wan Jun’s face vanished instantly.
Why wasn’t Chen Lu in the classroom either?
Hadn’t she returned from handing in homework yet?
Could it be that she was stopped by another teacher again?
Wouldn’t other people start gossiping in front of Chen Lu again?
The more she thought about it, the more uneasy Gu Wan Jun felt. She felt her temples throbbing. Just as she was about to go upstairs to check in the office, Chen Lu, holding the microphone, entered through the front door of the classroom.
“Why did it take so long to hand in homework? Whose microphone is this?”
“It’s Teacher Tang’s. Fu Yi Wen asked me to help her get it from the liberal arts office.”
Chen Lu answered Gu Wan Jun’s question while putting the microphone on the desk.
Hearing that Chen Lu had gotten the microphone and seeing that Chen Lu had returned alone, Tang Ying crossed her arms and asked with a cold face:
“Why did you get the microphone? Where’s Fu Yi Wen?”
“She went to get you hot water.”
“Hot water?”
Tang Ying was clearly taken aback. She quickly glanced at Gu Wan Jun, then repeated what she had said before with a disgusted expression:
“I don’t drink hot water.”
“But Fu Yi Wen already went.”
“She doesn’t even have a thermos. What’s she going to use to get it?”
“She has a thermos.”
“…”
Although what Chen Lu said seemed to make sense, Tang Ying still felt choked.
Fu Yi Wen had a thermos, so what, was she going to make her use Fu Yi Wen’s thermos??
Tang Ying was just about to continue asking when a sound of running footsteps came from the hallway outside, growing louder and closer. In the space of two sentences, a panting Fu Yi Wen entered the classroom with a pink Hello Kitty thermos in her left hand and a bottle of mineral water in her right, with the force of a tiger!
…
Their eyes met, and Tang Ying asked coldly, her tone not very good:
“Where did you go?”
“I went to get hot water.”
“Who told you to go?”
“No one, I went voluntarily. Aren’t you catching a cold? It’s good to drink some hot water. So, you don’t have a thermos, so I used my own thermos to get it for you. Don’t worry, I rinsed it several times with hot water, and I even wiped it with an alcohol wipe. It’s very clean, definitely safe to use! Oh, and also!”
The Hello Kitty thermos emitting pink bubbles was placed on the podium, and the chubby little hand then pulled two strips of medicine out of her school uniform pocket. Fu Yi Wen looked at Tang Ying and muttered seriously:
“These two strips of anti-inflammatory and cold medicine are what I brought from home. They’ve been in my bag. I just took them out and looked at them, and they haven’t expired. They’re safe to take. Take one anti-inflammatory pill at a time, and one cold pill at a time. Oh, right, the cold medicine is a capsule, so drink mineral water when you take it, or it’ll get stuck in your throat. I bought you mineral water. You can just take it later. Also, drink a little bit of hot water after you finish. This hot water is pretty hot, so sip it slowly when you drink it. Don’t burn your mouth.”
“…”
In front of the podium, Fu Yi Wen nagged and instructed Tang Ying, this series of careful actions was unusually attentive.
The Hello Kitty thermos on the desk was emitting pink bubbles, which Tang Ying found even more unacceptable than the ugly sticker on the charger last time.
And when she saw the round, chubby face in front of the podium, flushed red, whether from running or being anxious, Tang Ying, although always with a cold face, rarely acquiesced to Fu Yi Wen’s mumbling and nonsense in her ear.
…
The students below were sleeping soundly. This scene was probably only seen by a few people near the podium.
From the initial mutual bickering to the hard-earned peaceful coexistence, for some reason, seeing Fu Yi Wen treating Tang Ying like this, Gu Wan Jun didn’t know what Tang Ying herself thought, but she had the feeling that Tang Ying was finally reaping the rewards of sincerity.
In fact, not only did Gu Wan Jun think so, but Chen Lu also felt the same way.
After the plagiarism incident last time, Chen Lu had predicted that this day would come eventually.
Because she knew best that Fu Yi Wen was the kind of person who would wholeheartedly treat anyone she recognized as one of her own.
Sincerity for sincerity, she was glad that Fu Yi Wen had met a good teacher like Tang Ying this time.
—
The warning bell rang on time.
After the two who had been observing for a long time looked at each other, Chen Lu returned to her seat, and Gu Wan Jun faced the sleeping students below, clapped her hands, and told everyone to wake up:
“Everyone wake up, class is starting, it’s Politics class. Wake up the people in front, behind, left, and right. Everyone get out the Politics test paper we’re going over. The Politics teacher’s voice isn’t feeling well this period, so don’t make her shout. Class monitor, go down and check, everyone get moving.”
Gu Wan Jun personally went down to urge the students to find the test paper as she spoke:
“Where’s the test paper? Where’s your test paper? Is it this one? How come only half of it is left? Ask the representative later if there are any extras and get another one. Where’s yours?”
“…”
Before the warning bell finished ringing, there was a rustling sound of people looking for test papers below.
In front of the podium, with class about to start, Fu Yi Wen was urging Tang Ying to take the medicine.
“I told you it’s just a small problem and it’ll get better on its own in a couple of days. I’m not taking it. You can take it back and keep it for yourself.”
Tang Ying shoved the two strips of medicine back into Fu Yi Wen’s hands, but the next moment they were slapped back onto the desk by Fu Yi Wen’s little chubby hands:
“Hey, what’s wrong with you? Who doesn’t take medicine when they have a cold?”
“I said I’m not taking it. If I take this stuff, my head won’t be clear. I have six periods today. How am I supposed to teach if my head isn’t clear?”
“Which is more important, teaching or your life? If you don’t take medicine now, what if it gets serious and you get a high fever and can’t teach at all?”
“Can you say something nice? Can’t you wish me well?”
Tang Ying glared at Fu Yi Wen in annoyance, but Fu Yi Wen, who considered persuading Tang Ying to take the medicine as the top priority, didn’t care about being glared at. She twisted open the mineral water while taking out the medicine from the blister pack, not forgetting to mutter back:
“It’s because I want you to be well that I’m getting you medicine to take. How can you teach if you’re not well? What if you spread the cold to the students? I’ve already opened it for you! Here! Take it and eat it!”
“…”
Upon hearing Fu Yi Wen say that she might spread the cold to other students, the originally firm refusal wavered.
After a few seconds of silence, although she was extremely unwilling, Tang Ying still reached out and took the medicine that Fu Yi Wen had squeezed out and swallowed it with the mineral water.
Before returning to her seat, Fu Yi Wen didn’t forget to urge her like a worried mother:
“When you’re in class later, open the lid of the thermos and let it cool off, and drink some hot water.”
“I don’t drink hot water.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like to drink it.”
“Drinking some hot water will help you sweat and get better!”
“Do you think this hot water is some kind of elixir?”
Tang Ying snorted coldly, then glanced at the pink Hello Kitty thermos next to her and complained mercilessly:
“This water bottle is too ugly. It’s even uglier than the ugly sticker on your charger before.”
“???”