Chapter 25
Proofreader: Akimi
When Zhen Yuanbai was about to bite Shi Bufan, the latter suddenly let him go. Zhen Yuanbai immediately climbed into bed and curled into a ball.
Shi Bufan pulled the door open, clearly not willing to end it like this. Liang Xiude walked in with a gloomy face and said, “What were you doing?”
“Zhen Yuanbai is sick, so I’m going to take him to the infirmary now. But, he isn’t willing.” Shi Bufan pinched his earlobes and seeing that it didn’t look like Shi Bufan was lying, Liang Xiude immediately went to pull the covers over, asking, “How did you get sick? And why are you afraid of doctors?”
Zhen Yuanbai didn’t dare to say anything, so Liang Xiude had no choice but to look at Shi Bufan, “How did he get sick? Call the school doctor over.”
Shi Bufan paused and then said something in Liang Xiude’s ears, making him stunned and then he smiled. “Why are you embarrassed? You have to let the doctor check.”
Zhen Yuanbai pulled the covers down, just below his eyes and his eyelashes were flickering. Shi Bufan said, “After school is over, I’ll take him to the hospital to check it out.”
Liang Xiude nodded and walked out, having the crowd disperse. Then, Shi Bufan placed the anti-theft chain back on the door and sat next to Zhen Yuanbai, curling the corner of his lips up. “You dare not hand in your homework next time?”
Zhen Yuanbai revealed a look of resentment in his eyes and Shi Bufan bent down, leaning against the bed and said, “If you don’t cooperate with me, it makes me think that you don’t like me.”
Zhen Yuanbai quickly added onto Shi Bufan’s words silently. If you don’t like me, I’ll beat you to tears.
Zhen Yuanbai immediately sat up and said, “No. I, I like you.”
“Then why don’t you hand in your homework to me?”
Why? Because we’re fake dating. Zhen Yuanbai’s mind was messy and he believed that he needed to keep a distance from Shi Bufan. Otherwise, once Shi Bufan recovered his memory, he would become a scum for playing Shi Bufan’s feelings. But how could he explain this? Say that he was too shy? It would seem half-hearted if he acted too shamelessly. Thankfully, Zhen Yuanbai was smart and said, “Because I think that if we are dating, we shouldn’t force each other to hand in the homework every day. Shouldn’t we hand in the homework…when we can’t help ourselves? Can we just let it be?”
Shi Bufan moved closer and Zhen Yuanbai subconsciously took a step back, listening to him say, “When can you fall in love with me?”
The youth who already passed puberty had a magnetic but gentle voice. His eyes were determined and his stubbornness touched people’s hearts, including Zhen Yuanbai whose face flushed from the intense gaze. He clutched the blankets tightly and looked up to bump into Shi Bufan.
Maybe because it was too sudden, Shi Bufan’s eyelashes flickered and then he moved a step back. However, this didn’t stop Zhen Yuanbai from bumping into Shi Bufan and their lips touched one another. Shi Bufan’s lips which originally scared Zhen Yuanbai to death were actually rather soft and gentle.
Zhen Yuanbai immediately took a step back and looked down to hear his heartbeat, humphing softly like a mosquito. “Now, this is what I mean when I say I can’t resist myself.”
Shi Bufan pursed his lips and took a step back, and then again. He touched his mouth and said, “Fine, I won’t force you in the future, but you need to hand in your homework at least once a week. Then, I’ll be satisfied, ok?”
He slowly nodded and said, “I want to nap.”
Shi Bufan wanted to say that he will accompany him since he was eager to stay with Zhen Yuanbai the entire time. However, Zhen Yuanbai didn’t reciprocate his feelings, so Shi Bufan needed to keep some distance.
Shi Bufan finally left and Zhen Yuanbai immediately snuggled back in the blankets, calming down. Whenever Shi Bufan forced him to hand in his homework, he felt difficulty breathing. Zhen Yuanbai suddenly thought of the kiss by the door and the teacher’s frantic voice; it was too terrifying. But after recalling this memory, he slowly felt the aftermath and excitement that accompanied the memory.
Zhen Yuanbai recalled Shi Bufan’s appearance carefully and he was really handsome. When Shi Bufan was focused on kissing him, he couldn’t pull his gaze off of Shi Bufan.
Shi Bufan was known as the heart throb of the school, but what a pity for he had an evil reputation. Despite how handsome he was, it couldn’t disguise his bad temper and there were many who called him “Unoffendable,” but rarely any called him “Handsome brother.”
Zhen Yuanbai didn’t dare to observe Shi Bufan carefully. Whenever he saw him, he labeled him as an “evil tyrant” and avoided Shi Bufan whenever possible.
Shi Bufan had kept his words and stopped forcing Zhen Yuanbai. This made the latter secretly happy and it was great. He felt that even if they weren’t fake dating, real couples wouldn’t be stuck like glue either.
He placed his pencil down when Song Mo suddenly pushed him and said, “Have you noticed the junior sisters from Shengyi High School constantly wandering outside our class lately?”
It took Zhen Yuanbai a long time to process things besides studying and hearing this, he looked out to see girls wearing Shengyi school uniforms laughing outside the door.
Shengyi High School had a lot of regulations. From the buildings, one could tell. The sophomores and juniors each had one school building. For seniors, because they have heavy studies, they have their own school buildings. No one could enter without signing in first and seniors had 3 school buildings to themselves. The studious atmosphere was different from the other buildings as well and in comparison, the sophomores caused the most disturbance. Juniors caused less disturbance and seniors rarely caused any. It was quite strange for sophomore girls to appear here, especially in elite classes.
He asked, “Are they here looking for their relatives?”
“Look for who?” Song Mo said in Zhen Yuanbai’s ears, “They seem to be looking for Shi Bufan. Look…”
While talking, Shi Bufan just strolled out of class and the sophomore girls immediately took a few steps back. Although they were being polite, one could see their flushed faces. The moment Shi Bufan left, the crowd dispersed too.
Zhen Yuanbai was confused and asked, “There are people who like Shi Bufan?”
“He received many love letters.” Song Mo sighed and continued, “Girls who yearn for excitement would probably like him.”
Zhen Yuanbai looked down and thought that it was quite exciting to be dating Shi Bufan. He recalled the kiss by the door and suddenly knitted his eyebrows, harshly wiping his lips as if he wanted to wipe his mouth off.
“Your mouth’s red. Why are you doing this?”
“I did nothing.” Zhen Yuanbai all of a sudden gave Song Mo attitude and said, “Something dirty was on my mouth.”
Shi Bufan who kept a nervous attitude towards the monthly exam grades finally calmed down. Like usual, Teacher Ji started to list the ranks of people and there was no suspense that Zhen Yuanbai was first. Ji Yanping seemed to be very satisfied. It was unbelievable how Zhen Yuanbai could maintain first place while still mingling with Shi Bufan.
Zhen Yuanbai normally didn’t care about class ranks, but he was suddenly nervous. Shi Bufan who was behind him spun the pen in his hands and acted calmly, but his slow breathing exposed his anxiety.
What rank would he be?
“Zhao Li, grade rank of 47th and class rank of 33th.”
“Wu Min, grade rank of 48th and class rank of 34th.”
…
Ji Yanping patiently allowed everyone to choose their seats according to the rankings. Of the entire Class 1 students, everyone was above the top 100 of the grade ranks.
“Shi Bufan.” She finally called him and Zhen Yuanbai immediately sat up; Even Shi Bufan subconsciously raised his head, recalling how she had called out rank 40th which meant…
“Grade rank of 599th and class rank of 41st.” Ji Yanping looked over and smiled, saying, “Not bad. You successfully improved from being the last of Class 1 to 4th to last of Class 1. Congratulations.”
Class 1 was full of elites and it was incredible that Shi Bufan had surpassed 3 people. Zhen Yuanbai was delighted and immediately turned around to look at Shi Bufan, saying, “Con…”
Seeing Shi Bufan’s cold face, Zhen Yuanbai immediately swallowed the rest of his words because his gaze landed on Ming Mai and Qiu Jing who were lying on their desks as well as Ye Lian who was laughing nonstop.
Next, Ji Yanping called out his name, “Ye Lian, grade rank of 634th. And you’re laughing? Although Shi Bufan didn’t make much improvements in the class, at least he surpassed 100 or so people in the grade. What right do you have to laugh at him?”
She slapped the test on Ye Lian’s desk and the red Xs finally made him feel ashamed. He stopped laughing and stood up, peeking at Shi Bufan and saying, “Brother, let me look at your test.”
Shi Bufan grabbed his book and hit backward, slapping Ye Lian’s face with it.
Ming Mai and Qiu Jing knew very well that no matter what, Brother Shi had surpassed them.
The top 40 students in the elite class had gotten in this class based on their abilities. But Shi Bufan and the 4 others were placed in this class.
There were only 40 students in the elite class, but after the 4 additions, there were 44 people.
The seat arrangements in the class used to be this:
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But after the new additions, it became like this:
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4 more seats were added in the back and changed the originally square-shaped seating into a polygon-like seating. Every day, it hinted at the 4 people being the extra students in class and the principal hoped that they had the self-awareness to move out of elite class.
It was rare that Shi Bufan got angry over studies. He had a gloomy face and the urge to immediately leave the elite class and then come back in with his own ability.
At this time, he suddenly saw Zhen Yuanbai’s hand which slowly touched his shoulder. His eyes were like a squirrel’s, softening Shi Bufan’s heart. Zhen Yuanbai said softly, “Cheer up.”
Shi Bufan subconsciously hooked Zhen Yuanbai’s slender fingers and felt his mood turning better as he watched Zhen Yuanbai reciprocating him.
The seats didn’t really change much. With Shi Bufan here, no one dared to sit behind Zhen Yuanbai, but because Song Mo sat next to Zhen Yuanbai due to new regulations, the class sweated.
Although Shi Bufan was comforted, he still felt very uncomfortable.
He originally didn’t care about ranking second since after the last incident, no one would dare to sit next to Zhen Yuanbai. So, it didn’t matter what score he got. After all, he would be the one next to Zhen Yuanbai anyway. But now that the first and second places were linked together, Shi Bufan had no choice but to score well on the test if he wanted to sit with Zhen Yuanbai.
Zhen Yuanbai squeezed the finger Shi Bufan touched and although the latter only defeated his useless brothers, he did improve in the grade rankings. Zhen Yuanbai felt very proud, so when class was over, he turned around to say to Shi Bufan, “Let me look at the questions you got wrong.”
Shi Bufan gave Zhen Yuanbai the test and the latter stared at it before becoming confused.
Shi Bufan’s test was considerably neat and he knew this because Shi Bufan usually handed in an empty test. Sometimes, he didn’t even write his name on it. But he didn’t think that when Shi Bufan started to answer questions on the test, it still maintained its neatness.
Zhen Yuanbai turned the test back and forth, noticing that it was the same as the previous tests that he made Shi Bufan too. The latter only picked the questions he knew and left the others empty.
But, here’s the main point.
There was not a single red X on his exam.
All the filled in questions were correct.
This made Zhen Yuanbai confused. “Why didn’t you attempt the questions?”
“If I don’t know how to do it, I don’t know how.” Shi Bufan supported his chin with his hand and said, “I don’t like wasting time on useless things.”
Sigh. He didn’t score great on the test, but not many can defeat him in acting cool.