Chapter 1 (2/2)

“People from S Middle School are very impressive. Not many people in the entire class would dare to take the initiative to talk to him.”

Ji Qiyang smiled with a cock of his eyebrow, “What an exaggeration.”

The boy punched him lightly, “He’s good at studies, and proud.”

“So what.” Ji Qinyang spoke indifferently. “He’s now in the same school as us.”

Xie Meng leaned against the door, only entering the classroom when they finished their conversation. When he walked past Ji Qinyang, he was sprawled across his table, and no one knew if he was asleep or not.

Most of the girls were already awake. Wu Xiaomei crept over to Xie Meng and poked him on his shoulder. Putting her hands around her mouth, she spoke mysteriously, “This Ji Qinyang is very famous in our school.”

Xie Meng was a little curious, and just like her, he replied in a low voice. “He’s from your school?”

Wu Xiaomei nodded. Under the boy’s gaze, her face reddened a little. Mustering up her courage, she started gossiping, “He only focuses on certain subjects, and he had won prizes with his chinese essays before. He can play many instruments… I heard that after school, he would go to that kind of places to play, but I don’t know if it’s true or not…”

“That kind of places?” Xie Meng could not help repeating. “What kind of places?”

Wu Xiaomei looked a little evasive, she hesitated. “It’s not any place good…”

Xie Meng blinked.

Wu Xiaomei hurriedly continued, “I’ve also only heard it from others. It may not be true.”

“Oh.”

Wu Xiaomei might have felt that she spoke a little too much, she gave an embarrassed dry laugh. The two of them spoke a little more, only separating when the instructor came in.

The afternoon was a repeat of the morning. However, the boys now had an additional activity, crawling forward. Twenty over boys were divided into two groups, and a few instructors set up the rope nets across the grounds. After a few practices, they were going to be timed, and the slowest group had to do a round of frog jumps around the field.

Xie Meng was the leader of the first group, and Ji Qinyang was the leader of the second one. The instructor suggested for them to decide the order with an arm-wrestling match, whoever who lost would crawl first.

Xie Meng pushed up his sleeves. Despite being in the sun for so long, his skin was still very fair. However, it did not look delicate, the lines of his arms had a youthful gracefulness to them. Ji Qinyang was already seated at the table, raising his arm with a smile on his face.

The both of them clasped their hands together. Ji Qinyang’s body temperature was a little higher, his palm was dry and warm. Xie Meng was lost in his thoughts, by the time he regained his wits, his hand had already been forced halfway down.

Enthusiastic cheers erupted around them.

Ji Qinyang was very strong, having gained the advantage, he tried forcing Xie Meng’s wrist down, but it was not as easy as he thought it would be.

The back of Xie Meng’s hand always maintained a safe distance from the table. He did not tremble, and his hand remained steady. Ji Qinyang raised his brow, with steady amusement, he looked at the person across him, and realised that Xie Meng was frowning at him.

Their eyes met, then Xie Meng suddenly relaxed. In the eyes of others, it looked like Ji Qinyang had successfully forced Xie Meng’s hand down, but only Ji Qinyang knew that it was the other person who had decided to put his own hand down.

Ji Qinyang did not express any special joy or displeasure after winning. He smiled cheerfully and patted Xie Meng’s shoulder. “Thanks bro.”

Xie Meng replied politely, “You’re welcome.”

In this moment, they probably would not have thought that in the years to come, arm-wrestling would become the best way for them to resolve their differences. Winning or losing did not matter, as most of the time, winning was not dependent on strength, just like how Xie Meng purposely lost to Ji Qinyang today.

Because, in their lives, winning or losing was not the only thing that was important anymore.

That day, the collective timing of Ji Qinyang’s group was two seconds slower than Xie Meng’s group. With cheeky grins, the youths did their frog jumps around the field. The rays of the setting sun shone across the red running tracks, and the shadows crept along slowly. Due to the long distance, Ji Qinyang’s face was blurry, but Xie Meng knew that he was definitely still smiling.

There was no reason for it, that was just how he thought it would be.

After the military training, their studies became more intense. The interactions between Xie Meng and Ji Qinyang were like raindrops falling into a lake, after a few ripples, they faded to nothing. Other than being in the same classroom, listening to the same teachers, completing the same homework, and being classmates, they did not have any other things in common.

In the eyes of the teachers, Xie Meng was a model gifted student. He was calm and restrained, and even a little boring. He was not talkative, and the only person close to him was a boy called Zhang Ganggang, and the only reason for that was because their desks were next to each other.

At the beginning, Zhang Ganggang was a little intimidated by Xie Meng. Thinking that the other had graduated from S Middle School, his results were great, and he looked very aloof, he would definitely look down on him. However, after interacting with him, he realised that that was not the case at all.

Xie Meng was very gentle.

Although it was a little sissy to use gentle to describe a boy, but Zhang Ganggang felt that no one was more suitable than Xie Meng to be described as gentle.

Just like a pretty hard candy, so pretty that people were reluctant to eat it. Finally, after putting it in their mouth, they would feel that it was sweet, and then after biting into it, they would discover that even the heart of the candy was soft inside.

… Zhang Ganggang felt that his description was a little mushy, but that was truly how he felt.

Of course, Xie Meng did not know that his desk mate had described him like that. He was working on his algebraic homework, and once he was done, he placed it on Zhang Ganggang’s desk.

“I’ve calculated the problems already, take a look yourself.” Xie Meng was very patient. He had been deskmates with Zhang Ganggang for nearly two months, and nearly everyday he would have to do the mathematics class exercises and homework twice, not including the revision after each quiz.

Zhang Ganggang joyfully took the exercise book. Following Xie Meng’s calculations, he calculated them himself one more time, then erased Xie Meng’s work when he was done.

While erasing, Zhang Ganggang exclaimed, “The midterms are coming.”

Xie Meng was fairly indifferent. “Yes.”

“What am I going to do with maths?” Zhang Ganggang moaned. “Even you won’t be able to save me…”

“…” Xie Meng wanted to tell him that he had no intentions of saving him anyway.

“But it doesn’t matter.” Zhang Ganggang suddenly cheered up. Xie Meng could almost see his HP level recovering. “As long as Ji Qinyang is around, Maitreya won’t look for me. Not only is Brother Yang has high HP, he can also taunt very well!”

Xie Meng’s pen came to a stop. “Ji Qinyang?”

“Brother Yang had once got a score of 1 for Mathematics in middle school, and the only reason why he got that mark was because his name was written very properly on the exam paper and his handwriting was very neat.”

“… He handed in a blank paper?”

Zhang Ganggang shook his head, “No, he wrote a lot, why else would the teacher think that his handwriting was neat?”

“…” Xie Meng was incredulous. “He wrote so much, but they were all wrong?”

Zhang Ganggang looked as though he completely understood. “Yes, that’s right. He just didn’t know how to do it.”

… This was too unbelievable. Xie Meng thought as he twirled his pen. He turned around to look at the back row. Ji Qinyang was writing something with his head buried, sweeping his gaze across the rostrum, their eyes met. Ji Qinyang was slightly taken aback, before smiling at him.

Xie Meng looked at him, then looked away after awhile.