Jing Ximing had just finished packing his schoolbag and walked out of the classroom when he saw this scene.
Jing Ximing: “?”
The classmates standing punishment duty alongside them had never seen such a shameless maneuver before. Everyone immediately shut up and stayed out of it.
Admitting your mistake was a good thing, and his self-reflection was clear and comprehensive enough. But Teacher Zhang had never seen a student so eager to have his credit points deducted since coming to No. 1 High School.
“Teacher Zhang, I’ll admit to everything else.”
Xiao Yan also raised his hand and handed over the workbook in his hand.
“But Xiao Yan’s handwriting is definitely not that ugly.”
The name Xiao Yan was written on the title page of the workbook in standard semi-cursive script. The handwriting throughout the book was also neat and attractive. It was clearly not on the same level as the chicken-scratch handwriting in the student’s punishment copybook.
“Why did you step on my foot?”
Xiao Yan asked each word distinctly.
Luo Zhiye: “……”
“What happened? What happened?”
Their homeroom teacher, Qiu Yi, squeezed through the crowd.
“Why is it you two again?”
“Again?”
Teacher Zhang felt like she had missed quite a lot.
“Did you fight?”
The homeroom teacher immediately spotted the broom Luo Zhiye was hiding behind his back. After hearing a whole lesson on educational philosophy today, what he cared about most was the relationship between these two students.
Luo Zhiye: “We haven’t had the chance yet.”
Homeroom teacher: “……”
Headache.
“Forget it, forget it.”
The homeroom teacher tried to break up the two, waving everyone away.
“It’s already getting late after evening self-study. You still have to wash your clothes and do your homework when you get back. Everyone go back.”
Once the homeroom teacher had spoken, the students who had been watching the spectacle dispersed one after another.
The two involved students also unhurriedly put on their schoolbags and left through the same staircase.
The two mixed into the crowd of students heading back after school, maintaining a neither-close-nor-distant distance from each other.
They walked across the sports field and arrived near the dormitory area.
The Alpha and Omega dormitories were in opposite directions. On the soccer field beside the dormitories, several Alpha students were still playing soccer under the cover of night.
Teenagers had never understood the concept of going to bed when the sun went down.
It was already past dismissal time, so there weren’t many students around the residential area aside from the sports field.
The streetlights illuminated small patches of darkness, while layers of tree shadows overlapped across the ground and were scattered apart whenever passing students stepped on them.
Luo Zhiye was stepping on Xiao Yan’s shadow.
He was thoroughly enjoying himself, making up for the regret of not having had the chance to hit him with the broom earlier.
“Which takeout place was it from?”
The Omega dormitory area was right in front of them.
Luo Zhiye stopped and reached out to grab the strap of Xiao Yan’s schoolbag.
“I’ll send you the name on WeChat later,” Xiao Yan said. “Go back.”
“Okay.”
As if still savoring the experience, Luo Zhiye licked the corner of his lips.
“Tasted pretty good.”
The door to Xiao Yan’s dormitory wasn’t closed.
When he pushed the door open and entered, his three roommates were all bent over their desks reviewing material for the weekend entrance exam.
Seeing him come in, Fan Yue raised his head with a pencil between his teeth, looking utterly miserable.
“I think I’m screwed for the entrance exam.”
Fan Yue sounded discouraged.
“I was way too indulgent during summer vacation. I’ve already returned all the vocabulary words I memorized in my first year.”
“It’s not that bad.”
Xiao Yan put his schoolbag beside his desk.
“The entrance exam will probably be somewhat difficult. They may even deliberately lower the scores to knock down the students’ confidence. The purpose is to make us work harder in the new semester. Just accept it.”
“There’s still Student Union work tomorrow.”
Fan Yue couldn’t bring himself to accept it and let out a wail before burying his head in his book and continuing to memorize.
There was still plenty of time before bed, and Xiao Yan also planned to read for a while.
He placed his workbook on his desk, then turned around to take out his fountain pen from his schoolbag.
When he lowered his head, he caught a faint sweet scent of peach.
Only then did he realize that Luo Zhiye’s battered school uniform had been draped over the back of his chair for several days already.
The pheromone scent was very faint. Unless he was close to it, he could barely detect it.
Luo Zhiye had told him that day to just throw the uniform away.
Xiao Yan had completely forgotten about it over the past few days.
When he picked Luo Zhiye’s school uniform up from the back of the chair, perhaps because of the pheromones, the vast Milky Way above the rooftop suddenly appeared before his eyes.
He saw Luo Zhiye beneath that sky, holding a bamboo skewer, wolfing down takoyaki while sneaking glances at him.
At that moment, there had been someone in Luo Zhiye’s eyes.
The corners of his lips had curved into a beautiful smile.
It was as if Xiao Yan had used the fireworks of the mortal world to lure a star down from the heavens.
“Luo Zhiye!”
Jing Ximing shouted toward the bathroom.
“Your phone!”
“Coming, coming.”
Luo Zhiye had just finished his shower. Draping a towel over himself, he opened the door and immediately burrowed into his own bed.
“Who would call me at this hour?”
The call was from the Central City Hospital.
The vice president of the hospital attached great importance to the 0% AO pheromone compatibility between him and Xiao Yan and hoped that they could cooperate with the scientific research by going for another test this weekend.
“Didn’t you say next weekend?”
Luo Zhiye asked.
“You moved it up? That’s fine too. I just started school, so I’m free on the weekend anyway.”
“Our relationship? You might not know this, but our relationship has been bad since we were kids. Our families don’t get along either. Basically, whenever we see each other, we get angry.”
“We’ve fought before. More than once.”
“Okay. Since I’ve agreed, I’ll definitely go. I won’t run away. As for Xiao Yan…”
“He seems to have an entrance exam this weekend. He won’t forget, though. How about this? I’ll reluctantly go ask him in his class tomorrow.”
“I’ll go during the morning break. I’ll give you an answer at noon.”
“Mm, no trouble at all. Happy to support scientific research.”
“Another test?”
Jing Ximing had listened to the entire conversation.
“You still have to get tested?”
“They seem really curious.”
Luo Zhiye sat on his bed doing his homework.
“I don’t mind. I’ll cooperate with the scientific research. It’ll probably still be zero after the test. This kind of test doesn’t make mistakes, unless the pheromones themselves are particularly unusual.”
“You can’t leave campus this weekend.”
Jing Ximing flipped through the calendar on the desk and reminded him.
“You two have to go ask the director for leave together.”
“I’ll go ask him tomorrow,” Luo Zhiye said.
“Speaking of which, I don’t really want to trouble my family’s driver uncle, so I’ll probably have to hitch a ride in Xiao Yan’s family’s car.”
“You’re going to hitch a ride with his family? Then you’re the one asking him for a favor. Be polite.”
Jing Ximing offered his advice.
“Besides, whenever you two have a problem, you just start fighting on the spot. Once you’ve finished fighting, you forget about it. You can still talk properly if you try.”
“I know my limits.”
Luo Zhiye nodded.
“Don’t worry. I’m a smart person. I’ll be more tactful when the time comes. I’ll lower my posture and keep a low profile.”
The students at No. 1 High School all loved rainy days.
When it rained, they didn’t have to go outside to do morning exercises during the morning break, which meant they had much more time to chat in the classroom.
Inside Class 3 of the second year, despite the entrance exam approaching and everyone being busy reviewing, the classroom was still buzzing with conversation during the break.
The class monitor turned on the multimedia equipment, logged into the homeroom teacher’s music account, and selected a playlist called “Recently Played.”
The music wasn’t loud, just enough to serve as background music for everyone’s conversations.
The students by the windows drew the curtains, while the students near the door closed it.
Clearly, they wanted to discuss some student business without letting the teachers hear.
“Has the school heartthrob received any love letters lately?”
A girl in the back of the class started the topic.
“He always gets them.”
Xiao Yan’s roommate Zhang Shu said,
“First-years just started school, so he’s getting even more love letters now. But Yan-ge rejected all of them.”
“I’m jealous.”
An Alpha in the class sighed enviously.
“Winner of life. Good grades, and people like him too.”
“Our dorm’s public face has always been very disciplined.”
Fan Yue habitually praised his roommate.
“He never messes around. If he doesn’t like someone, he absolutely won’t string them along. He rejects them on the spot.”
“That’s pretty good.”
An Omega girl said,
“Have you guys seen the M University forum?”
“I did. Is it about that scumbag recently? Everyone’s been cursing him out on Weibo.”
“The one who deceived someone emotionally?”
Fan Yue browsed forums quite often.
“I remember. He was a scummy Alpha who deceived an innocent little Omega’s feelings, even got him pregnant, and then refused to take responsibility. He wouldn’t even take him to the hospital. That’s way too irresponsible.”
“Scummy Alpha. Biss.”
“Serves him right for getting cursed out across the entire internet. I went and cursed him out too. He slept with someone and ran away, then made the Omega go to the hospital alone. What a piece of trash.”
“There’s one at the neighboring No. 2 High School too. Someone deceived another person’s feelings. I think everyone needs to be careful when dating.”
“Let me tell you guys.”
Tang Yuan knew a lot about this sort of thing.
“As a fierce Alpha, I’m telling you: scummy Alphas may already show signs of being that way back in middle or high school. They’re actually easy to identify.”
“These kinds of people often look upright and respectable on the surface. They’re handsome, sometimes even have excellent grades, have good relationships with everyone, and the teachers like them too.”
“But beneath their dazzling exterior lies something ordinary people find difficult to notice…”
“A scumbag.”
The classroom door was pushed open from outside.
The students who had been talking assumed that a teacher had arrived and immediately fell silent.
Only the multimedia system continued playing the song—
[Be careful, one kiss can turn all living beings upside down, one kiss can save someone, giving you the warmth of salvation, which will eventually be given to someone else~~~] [1]
“Sorry to interrupt.”
A first-year Omega boy poked his head in through the doorway.
“Excuse me, is Xiao Yan here?”
More than twenty pairs of eyes in the classroom immediately turned toward Xiao Yan.
Xiao Yan: “?”
“Well…”
Luo Zhiye was acting somewhat differently from usual.
As though he were a little embarrassed, he glanced at Xiao Yan, then lowered his head and looked at his toes.
He seemed hesitant.
Finally, he looked up at Xiao Yan again and carefully put on a somewhat flattering smile.
“Xiao Yan, can you take me to the hospital this weekend?”
Xiao Yan: “????”
Author’s Note:
[1] The lyrics are from Yang Qianhua’s song “Kiss Everywhere” (《處處吻》).