Chapter 8 (1/2)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Although still in tenth grade, the school had already begun their nighttime self-revision session for the students. No wonder they managed to produce so many top scholars in the provincial college entrance examinations. Evidently, the school maintained a tight grasp over every aspect of the students’ lives.

Parents also felt more at ease to have sent their children to this senior high school. Zhao Youyue’s father, Zhao Jiayi was one of these parents. He did not believe in the myth that elite private high schools are better off than regular schools, whereas he had thought the ethos in those private schools was undesirable. In comparison, this kind of provincial key high school which emphasized strongly on learning culture and exercised strict school rules seemed more preferable.

Normally, the homework is to be collected ten minutes before the end of class during night-revisions. The subject representatives will hand in the collected homework to the respective teachers of each subject during the following morning reading session.

Zhao Youyue did not attend the nighttime self-revision sessions. This was one of her privileges as a commuting student. It would have already been close to ten o’clock at night after the three night-revision lessons ended. As such, it would be unsafe for commuting students to go home at this hour. Based on this matter, the school merely encouraged voluntary participation upon commuting students. Hmm, most of them had no choice but to volunteer anyway…

In truth, however, Zhao Youyue will not have any safety concerns of such nature. Though she did not go as far as to have bodyguards around, she did enjoy the benefits of being chauffeur-driven. How could there possibly be any safety threat?

Zhao Youyue still chose not to attend the night classes. She felt that completing her homework at home was basically the same thing… Okay, truth is she merely wanted to slack off. Completing her homework at home meant she can play with her cellphone at the same time. If she heard her mother’s footstep approaching from outside the door, she will immediately hide her cellphone away and pretend to be intensely focused on her homework. Furthermore, when she encountered questions that she was unable to solve, she would not even bother to come up with the solutions. Instead, she will just give in to the temptation and look for the answers on the internet straight away.

Yes, this is Zhao Youyue in real life. Obviously she was satisfied to muddle along when it comes to learning. There were a few other commuting students in the class, yet she was the only one to use safety concern as a reason for not attending night-revision classes… Ironically this gave her a fair amount of sense of presence. Everyone had an additional recognition of her character – slick.

As a result, representatives of each subject can only collect her homework during the morning reading session. After all she was not present during the nighttime self-revision classes.

The representative who came to collect Zhao Youyue’s homework at this moment was the representative for the subject of Mathematics named Chen Haoran. It would appear that he had scored full marks in Mathematics during the entrance examination for senior high and for the latest round of pre-test as well. He also managed to get first prize for Mathematics competition when he was still in junior high. He was then rightfully selected as the subject representative by the Mathematics teacher, Gu Yaoyan. He was the teacher’s pet. If the other students were unable to answer questions in the Q&A session during Mathematics lesson, Gu Yaoyan will have Chen Haoran step up to finalize the session because he will never let the teacher down.

Zhao Youyue handed in her Mathematics lesson materials to the slightly chubby Chen Haoran who was wearing a pair of black-framed spectacles. He felt impressed when he looked through her materials with graceful handwriting and neat pages. He cannot help but commented, “You are actually pretty good. The last question here has in fact stumped the students in class for a long time. It was only solved after much discussion. I did not expect you to be able to solve it on your own.”

Surrounding classmates overheard the conversation as Chen Haoran spoke rather loudly. Somebody then whispered, “Good my ass. If I had a cellphone with me, I could’ve easily solved the question as well.”

In fact, most students already owned cellphones nowadays. However, most of them only dared to keep their phones within the dormitories. None of them dared to bring their cellphone to class, fearing that their phones might ring midway during lessons. Even if it only vibrates, there was still a risk of being caught. It would be such a shame if it was confiscated by the teacher. One would expect that the parents will be summoned to school in such cases. The sadistic thing about this school was that the wall sockets in the dormitories were only decorations and there was no electricity supplied. Thus, most boarding students could only charge their phones once a week or have the commuting students bring their phones back home to charge.

After hearing the others’ comments, Chen Haoran had a sudden realization. He scratched his head and awkwardly muttered, “Sorry.”

He genuinely did not think of cellphones as being able to help with homework. He also had his own cellphone but his parents barred him from bringing it to school. They feared that it might lead to early romance and his studies might be affected negatively. He had to use the public phones to call home each time.

Chen Haoran actually intended to ingratiate himself with Zhao Youyue just now. One might find it hard to believe, but he thought the prettiest girl in this class was Zhao Youyue. She had a very nice complexion, her skin was fair and tender and there was not a sign of acne. As she spoke, her voice was especially gentle and soothing. Her bobbed hair was also very adorable. For some seemingly unknown reasons, she was always being neglected and was not accorded any sense of presence.