TSIBAMS Chapter 50

Chapter 50

A date can make the few days before and after it shine, turning them into good days.

Ye Xing couldn’t remember where he had read this sentence, but for him, the following week was indeed a series of “good days”. He couldn’t quite explain the excitement, wasn’t it just a meal?

It was just that Qi Guang was personally cooking a meal for him!

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but smile.

Fortunately, self-study class was never too quiet, and there wasn’t a teacher watching over them.

But his tablemate hadn’t missed it.

“Seriously, if you keep grinning like that, I’m going to suspect your mental state,” Qi Guang raised his head from a pile of books, looking at him with a disgusted expression.

He had been caught for the eighth time.

Seeing that Ye Xing didn’t respond to him, he added, “It’s just a midterm exam, don’t be too stressed.”

“Do I look like someone who would be stressed about exams?” Ye Xing said dismissively.

“No, you don’t,” Qi Guang said, “Just a friendly reminder, starting next week you’ll have to call me ‘Brother Qi’. I’ll give you some buffer time, but I wouldn’t mind if you started practicing now.”

After speaking, he happily smiled and lowered his head to continue reading.

Only then did Ye Xing remember the bet they made before. They had wagered on their midterm exam results. If Qi Guang lost, he would treat Ye Xing to a week of barbecue. If Ye Xing lost, he would have to call Qi Guang “Brother” from then on.

What a childish and meaningless punishment.

He didn’t know what this “brother’s” background was. If his grades were really that good, how could he have been kicked out of the next class? But girls came to ask Qi Guang for help with their homework every day, and it didn’t seem like he was faking it.

He nudged Qi Guang’s arm, “Was that Class 18 you were in really the top class?”

“Yeah,” Qi Guang glanced at him, “Are you planning to aim for that direction?”

“No, I’m just curious. Why doesn’t the top class get called Class 1? Why have it buried among the masses as Class 18?” Ye Xing looked at him seriously.

Qi Guang found his rare scholarly spirit amusing, “Because it’s not allowed.”

“What’s not allowed?”

“The top class isn’t allowed to exist. If it were Class 1, it would be too obvious,” Qi Guang said while solving a formula, “Class 18 isn’t officially acknowledged either, only the teachers and students know.”

“Oh,” Ye Xing suddenly understood.

“How about it? Want to give it a try?” Qi Guang asked.

“Try what?” Ye Xing didn’t know what he was talking about.

Qi Guang continued writing without stopping, smiling, “Give it a try, and your bicycle might turn into a motorcycle.”

Although Ye Xing had doubts about Qi Guang’s top student status, this week, the “brother” hadn’t been late, hadn’t skipped class, and hadn’t even taken a smoke break between classes. His self-discipline was surprising to Ye Xing.

However, during breaks, he was most likely surrounded by girls under the guise of asking for help with problems. He didn’t even have time to take a bathroom break, let alone sneak a cigarette. Of course, what was even more inexplicable was that occasionally a few male classmates would be mixed in with the girls.

He really didn’t refuse anyone.

Ye Xing rolled his eyes in his mind, feeling displeased.

Once someone who isn’t good at socializing reveals a willingness to help others, the consequences are difficult to deal with. But rather than saying Qi Guang was willing to help, it was more like he just didn’t know how to refuse people.

The midterm exams were on Thursday and Friday. After two full days, everyone was listless, like eggplants that had been hit by frost. Of course, this didn’t include Ye Xing, who still looked radiant, as if a great joy had descended upon him.

Oh, and it didn’t include Qi Guang either. He now looked like an innocent, academically excellent student who had won at the starting line, easily finishing the race and even bringing back a box of water from the convenience store.

Ye Xing hadn’t believed it, until he received a message from Zhou Tian on Saturday.

-Dude, have you seen the results?

He opened the chat box, and they chatted back and forth.

-No, the exam just ended yesterday, and the results are already out today?

-Yeah! Our school teachers are this efficient with the senior and pre-senior grades. Your Thursday morning exam probably got graded in the afternoon, so at the earliest, the results came out last night, but they only finished compiling them today.

-Wow. (Thumbs up JPG)

-The official report card will be released by the teacher on Monday, but I have an unofficial one here. Interested?

-Yes.

-Two yuan.

-Goodbye. (Waving JPG)

Not long after clicking send, Zhou Tian sent several pictures. The first one was the results list for Class 19, with names, grades for each subject, the class ranking for each subject, the total score, and the class ranking for the total score all clearly listed in a table.

It felt like a public execution.

But Ye, a student who had been slashed a thousand times from childhood, said it was no big deal.

To save time, he looked from the bottom up, and sure enough, he found his name in the bottom ten. His humanities score was the usual terrible, his math was exceptionally terrible, but luckily his Chinese and English were still stable, slightly redeeming his face in the overall ranking.

After admiring his scores with a blank face, he then flipped upward. Even after looking very carefully, he still couldn’t immediately find Qi Guang’s name.

He suddenly had an ominous and pleasant premonition.

Finally, at the very top of the list, he saw Qi Guang’s name.

First in the class.

Holy crap?

Was there a formatting issue?

Ye Xing looked at each subject’s ranking. The humanities ranking wasn’t high, probably because he didn’t memorize it very much. In comparison, his math score was sky high, 140 points, something he would never reach in this lifetime… His English was also close to full marks. His Chinese score, although not as outrageous, still left him in the dust by a mile.

Looking further, he was ranked twentieth in the grade.

Uh, that’s grade twenty, not class twenty.

He immediately felt it was a bit unreal. To eliminate the possibility of his eyes deceiving him, he double-checked the name, it was indeed Qi Guang.

So, once again, from his heart and lungs, he let out a loud, “Holy crap!”

Ye Xing was more excited than if he had gotten first place in the class. He almost dropped his phone. He flipped back and forth through his contacts several times before locking onto Qi Guang’s name and calling him. Before the call could even connect, he excitedly blurted out, “You’re awesome!”

“You saw it?” A very calm voice came through the receiver.

“Tell me, what else are you hiding that I haven’t discovered?” Ye Xing’s voice was several decibels louder than his.

“I really don’t have anything left, and I wasn’t hiding anything,” Qi Guang chuckled, “I told you a long time ago that I came to this school as the top of the grade.”

“You say you weren’t hiding anything! I asked other students, were your previous grades even worth looking at? Old Lin was about to cough up blood because of it, or else why would he kick you out?” Ye Xing got more and more worked up, as if he was scolding his disappointing son.

But after saying that, he felt something was wrong. He was supposed to be praising him, so why was he getting angry?

He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“You’re right, I was in a bit of a…” Qi Guang hesitated, not knowing how to gloss over the most difficult time, then paused before continuing, “A bit negative, I didn’t study much. But later, I was just annoyed with Old Lin, so I just held back my strength.”

Ye Xing immediately felt a pang of heartache. After understanding Qi Guang, he often felt heartache for him.

He felt heartache when he gritted his teeth and said nothing.

He felt even more heartache when he had to open his mouth.

Ye Xing quickly changed the topic, “So you were secretly working hard behind the scenes all along? You’re good! Old Lin would probably regret it to his core if he saw your ranking now. Are you sure you and Lu Yueyang weren’t in cahoots? Two actors, otherwise how could she be so eager to take you in?”

Qi Guang chuckled at his wild guesses.

He laughed for a long time before explaining between breaths, “I want to prove Teacher Lu’s innocence! She really didn’t know. She took me in just out of simple affection for a handsome guy!”

“Dude, where’s your face?” Ye Xing couldn’t help but laugh as well. Then, in a theatrical manner, he acted, “Hello, I’m Qi Guang’s face. He doesn’t want me anymore.”

Then the two of them laughed again.

“You have one week to get used to calling me ‘Brother Qi’,” Qi Guang said, then added another word, “Good boy.”

“Damn, I’m hanging up!” Ye Xing jumped up on his end of the phone.

“See you tomorrow, come over at twelve noon,” Qi Guang said, “Brother Qi will personally cook a feast for you, you loser.”

“I scoff, I’m a loser and I’m happy about it!”

Although he said “I’m a loser and I’m happy about it” with righteousness, Ye Xing felt a bit unsettled all afternoon.

For eighteen years, he had always been a loser, and a happy one at that. But this time, he felt a bit lost.

This was unscientific.

Before, he was happy being a loser because Fang Rong never put any pressure on him. Her only expectation for him was “to be happy”, so Ye Xing had never worried about his grades. But he wasn’t very playful either, his only hobby was drawing. While others did homework, he drew. While others played, he drew. While others went to cram schools, he studied drawing in the art studio. It could be said that he had gained one thing while losing another. Although his academic performance was poor, drawing had become his skill.

However, Fang Rong didn’t support him making a career out of it. Her original words were, “Not many people make it in drawing, it’s fine as a hobby.”

Then she started thinking about which country he should study abroad in after the college entrance exam.

But now, it seemed that whether he could even go to college after the college entrance exam was a problem.

Ye Xing wasn’t in the mood to plan his future at this time. Thousands of thoughts finally all landed on a certain person in an orderly manner, turning into one sentence, no, one question.

Qi Guang, how exactly should I see you?

He didn’t know how many times he had felt this way. From the first time he and Qi Guang met and clashed to today, his opinion of him was like a winding mountain road, twisting and turning, and he didn’t know if it had reached the end yet.

He only knew that he himself had been turned.

Ha, it was truly something new every day.

After the novelty wore off, the realistic problem he had to think about was the gap between them. It was said that you become insecure in front of the person you like. Qi Guang was just fine. His double of intelligence and emotional intelligence directly crushed people under his feet. Ye Xing didn’t have a chance to be anxious and cautious like in novels.

This was really infuriating.

Ye Xing opened his phone, found Qi Guang’s WeChat, and typed a line, then deleted it.

After hesitating for a long time, he opened Huang Shanshan’s chat box.