[Stinky Orange]: Look, we’re both screwed.
[Not a Cicada]: Trust me, it was an accident.
[Stinky Orange]: Do you know that the way you tossed me aside and ran off to clear your own name at the critical moment made you look like someone who had bought an overnight standing-room ticket at the last minute.
[Not a Cicada]: Don’t worry, bro, listen to me. Your reputation at my house was already terrible, just like my reputation at your house.
[Not a Cicada]: You have nothing to fear, got it??
[Stinky Orange]: Fairy Frowning.jpg
On Sunday afternoon, when Jing Ximing returned to the dormitory, Luo Zhiyu was writing his weekly journal.
“Want to play a game?” Jing Ximing pushed his suitcase under the bed and put it away. “We can play a few rounds, then write.”
“It’s not like I can’t.” Luo Zhiyu put down his pen. “We’ll write our homework as soon as we win one round.”
He found his phone under the pillow beside his bed.
A few hours later, the two of them had teamed up for more than ten rounds. After suffering losing streaks, exchanging insults, and cursing each other out, they finally won as they had wished.
“I think what that guy said was kind of reasonable.” Jing Ximing was talking about their teammate from earlier. “Maybe we’re really bad at this.”
“Nonsense. Don’t let him lead you around by the nose.” Luo Zhiyu exited the game. “He’s bad too. Otherwise, how did he end up getting matched with the two of us?”
“Then you’re right.” Jing Ximing immediately abandoned the dark side and switched his position.
“Wash up and go to sleep.” Luo Zhiyu finished his weekly journal and was barely able to keep his eyes open. “We have class tomorrow. It’s Monday.”
Some homework could only be remembered at the very instant it was about to be handed in, when you saw your deskmate pull theirs out of their schoolbag and suddenly realized that you hadn’t written it at all.
For example, Luo Zhiyu during Monday morning’s self-study period.
When he saw Jing Ximing pull out a Chinese homework assignment from his schoolbag, he panicked.
He suddenly realized that there seemed to be two Chinese homework assignments he was supposed to have done over the weekend: one was the Follow-the-Lesson Practice, and the other was the Individual Practice.
He had completely ignored his homework when he went out with Xiao Yan on Saturday, and he hadn’t remembered the assignments at all during the entire day at the dormitory on Sunday.
Luo Zhiyu: “……”
If it had been some other homework, he could have just copied it. But Chinese homework had a lot of writing, and making it up would be pretty exhausting.
No. 1 High School kept a tight rein on academics. Whether your grades were good or bad, homework absolutely had to be turned in.
“You write it now.” Jing Ximing was the group leader responsible for collecting homework, and he tried his best to buy Luo Zhiyu some time. “It’s self-study right now. Hurry up and write. Focus on it. I’ll hand it to the class representative later.”
“Okay.” Luo Zhiyu rolled up his sleeves and picked up his pen. “Whoever bothers me is going to have to answer to me.”
Luo Zhiyu was about to have to answer to Xiao Yan.
He had just picked up his pen and written less than two lines when Xiao Yan, carrying two large brooms borrowed from the cleaning staff, knocked open the door of Class 3, Grade 10.
Under the gazes of the entire class, he walked over to Luo Zhiyu’s desk, shoved one of the brooms into Luo Zhiyu’s hand, and helped him grip it properly.
“Go outside and sweep the grounds.” Xiao Yan pointed at the row of ginkgo trees outside that were shedding leaves. “You haven’t forgotten the mess you made yourself, have you?”
Luo Zhiyu: “……”
Of course. Just what he was afraid of had happened.
Luo Zhiyu carried his two Chinese homework books and dragged the broom along as he followed Xiao Yan out toward their assigned cleaning area.
Along the way, he “accidentally” stepped on Xiao Yan’s shoes three times.
It wasn’t until the increasingly exasperated Xiao Yan smacked him on the butt with the broom that he finally managed to stay quiet for two whole minutes.
During morning self-study, there was no one else in this area in front of the teaching building besides the two of them.
The ginkgo leaves were layered thickly across the ground.
Luo Zhiyu symbolically waved his broom a few times, symbolically carried out the process of “sweeping,” and did so with absolutely no method whatsoever.
More than ten minutes later, Xiao Yan turned around.
He was so angry that he laughed.
“Luo Zhiyu.”
“Present.” Luo Zhiyu stood straight, holding the broom in one hand.
“You came here to make trouble, didn’t you?” Xiao Yan pointed at a patch of ground he had just finished sweeping. “I worked so hard to sweep all those leaves into a pile there, and you just swept them flat again.”
Luo Zhiyu: “……”
“Brother.” Luo Zhiyu guiltily took a step back. “Let’s just pretend the autumn wind blew them there itself, okay? It has nothing to do with me.”
Luo Zhiyu was eventually driven over to sit beside the flower bed.
His broom lay by his feet, his Chinese homework rested on his legs, and the rustling of leaves as Xiao Yan swept filled his ears.
The steel pen in his hand seemed determined to keep up with the rhythm too, and he wrote his homework at lightning speed.
A small fan-shaped leaf swayed as it drifted down and landed between the collar of Luo Zhiyu’s uniform.
He reached out to pick it up, and the pen in his hand lightly scratched across his neck, as though leaving behind a trace of ink.
“Yan-ge, come here for a second.” Luo Zhiyu waved Xiao Yan over.
Xiao Yan stepped across the carpet of ginkgo leaves toward the flower bed.
“If you’re not going to work, fine, but now you’re ordering me around too…”
He stopped talking.
Right in front of him, Luo Zhiyu unzipped his school uniform jacket and was about to take it off.
The weather in late autumn was already quite cold.
Xiao Yan stopped him. “What are you doing?”
“I accidentally scratched my neck with the pen. I can’t see it. Help me take a look.”
Luo Zhiyu undid the buttons of his inner shirt and pulled open his collar slightly.
He grabbed Xiao Yan’s hand and gently pressed it against the back of his neck.
“Is there an ink mark?”
Xiao Yan: “……”
This was too much.
It was downright hooliganism.
The skin around Luo Zhiyu’s neck was fair and clean. There was no ink mark where he had expected one to be.
The place where Xiao Yan’s fingertip rested was less than two centimeters from the omega gland.
Too close.
Xiao Yan had taken No. 1 High School’s physiology class in full. He knew that this distance was already beyond the proper safety distance between an alpha and an omega.
A faint peach scent clung to his fingertip.
It had nothing to do with pheromones.
The instinct an alpha was born with had almost shattered the delicate balance inside him.
“There’s nothing there.”
Xiao Yan lightly pinched that small patch of skin on Luo Zhiyu’s neck, avoiding the gland at the back of his neck.
It was as though he were warning Luo Zhiyu, and also warning himself.
He picked the other ginkgo leaf off Luo Zhiyu’s collar, gently pushed Luo Zhiyu away, then fastened the buttons of his inner shirt again and zipped up his school uniform.
When the leaf was removed, Luo Zhiyu probably felt a little itchy around his neck.
He tilted his head slightly, and his hair brushed across the back of Xiao Yan’s hand.
“I’m willing to let it slide with me, but don’t do this to other alphas, understand?”
Xiao Yan lightly brushed the ginkgo leaf in his hand against Luo Zhiyu’s cheek.
“Don’t worry. I know my limits.” Luo Zhiyu said, “I’ll definitely get full marks on those Little Red and Little Blue questions next time.”
“Good morning, Teacher Xu.”
Luo Zhiyu greeted the physiology teacher who happened to be walking past.
“Morning. What are you two doing?” Teacher Xu nodded. “Punished to sweep the grounds again?”
That word “again” was very telling.
Xiao Yan silently laughed.
“Yes, Teacher.” Luo Zhiyu said, “As you can see, my karma has come back to bite me again. And I dragged someone down with me while I was at it.”
“Perfect timing. Help me take these printed materials up to your class.” Teacher Xu handed a stack of documents to Luo Zhiyu. “I’m going straight back to the office.”
The phrase “dragged someone down with me” obviously gave Luo Zhiyu a new idea.
On a sudden impulse, he decided to try dragging Xiao Yan onto his little pirate ship too.
“Stop sweeping.” Luo Zhiyu poured a bucket of cold water over him.
He pointed at the ginkgo tree above their heads.
“You sweep over here, and the leaves keep falling from above. It’ll never be clean. We just need to run out the required ‘sweeping time.’ No one is checking the result anyway.”
“It’s not like that’s impossible.”
For some reason, Xiao Yan felt that Luo Zhiyu’s twisted logic was becoming more and more convincing.
“It’s all about logging the required time anyway. We can’t go back until morning self-study is over.”
Luo Zhiyu handed one of the homework books to Xiao Yan, propped his chin on his hand, and tilted his head as he looked at Xiao Yan sitting to his left.
“Yan-ge, do me a favor.”
Xiao Yan: “……”
Luo Zhiyu took a pen from Xiao Yan’s pocket and slapped it into his palm.
“You brought a pen, didn’t you?”
“…There is a risk involved. I probably can’t imitate your handwriting.”
Writing the homework wasn’t a problem.
As long as the difficulty was in the handwriting, Xiao Yan had already warned him about the risk.
“Just write however you want. Go all out.”
Luo Zhiyu was extremely generous.
“The Chinese teacher is taking leave these two days, so the homework is being graded by someone else. They just spread everything out and hand it over. Who would know what my handwriting looked like before?”
“Fine.”
And Xiao Yan boarded Luo Zhiyu’s little pirate ship.
With someone willing to help, the speed at which he made up his homework could only be described as lightning fast.
With five minutes left before morning self-study ended, Luo Zhiyu’s homework was finished.
As thanks, at Xiao Yan’s request, Luo Zhiyu wrote an IOU—
[On x year, x month, x day, Xiao Yan of Class 3, Grade 11, helped Luo Zhiyu of Class 3, Grade 10 make up his homework once. Luo Zhiyu owes Xiao Yan one favor. When necessary, Xiao Yan has the right to collect the debt in a reasonable manner.]
[Promisor: Luo Zhiyu]
When Luo Zhiyu returned to class, morning self-study had just ended, and the class representative was urging everyone to hand in their homework.
“We’re safe.” Luo Zhiyu flipped his homework to the pages he had just written and handed it to Jing Ximing. “Just made it in time.”
“Great.”
Jing Ximing took his homework, placed it right on top, and handed it to the class representative.
They were the last group to submit, so naturally their homework went right on top of the pile.
“Homework is something you can always finish before it’s due.”
Luo Zhiyu was extremely proud of himself.
Jing Ximing didn’t have his courage to frantically make up homework at the last minute.
He stared at the extra stack of printed materials in Luo Zhiyu’s hands.
“What are these?”
They were supplementary materials Teacher Xu had prepared for the first-year students.
It was a set of self-assessment questions used to identify students’ knowledge gaps so that he could prepare his teaching materials accordingly.
“These are due after the long break between classes.” Luo Zhiyu pulled out one sheet and had the class monitor distribute the rest. “Hurry up and write.”
“Why are Little Red and Little Blue here again?”
Luo Zhiyu opened the pre-class test and saw familiar faces again.
“Oh, this time they’re all judgment-and-analysis questions.”
“For judgment-and-analysis questions, just decide whether it’s right or wrong, then briefly explain your reasoning.” Jing Ximing also began answering. “Just write something. You don’t need to write too much. Just read the question carefully.”
“Just mark everything ‘wrong’ and it’ll be fine.”
After answering a few questions, Luo Zhiyu felt that there wasn’t much difficulty.
There certainly wouldn’t be another situation like last time, where he got everything wrong.
“Teacher Xu said the reason is optional. I’ll write one or not depending on my mood.”
During the long break between classes, Xiao Yan went to Director Xu’s office to get some Student Union materials.
There was no one in the office.
On Teacher Xu’s desk next door, Xiao Yan saw a familiar stack of papers.
The top sheet had Luo Zhiyu’s name written on it—
【No. 1 High School Physiology & Health Class — Pre-Class Test — Omega Version】
School: xx No. 1 High School
Class: Class 3, Grade 10
Student: Luo Zhiyu
1. Little Red is an unmarked omega. Little Blue is an alpha. Little Red and Little Blue speak very affectionately to each other, and they even hold hands and go shopping alone together.
Answer: Shouldn’t. They should finish their homework before going shopping.
2. In order to get Little Blue to help him with his homework, Little Red had Little Blue come close to him and touch the gland at the back of his neck.
Answer: Shouldn’t. Little Red is being too much of a hooligan.
3. When Little Red and Little Blue chat, their conversations sometimes involve some rather explicit topics.
Answer: Shouldn’t. Recommend beating up Little Blue.
4. Little Red thinks about Little Blue all the time. Whether during class or after class, he gets excited whenever he sees Little Blue.
Answer: Shouldn’t. It takes two to tango. Little Blue must have a problem too.
Shouldn’t ×5. Reason: getting shorter and shorter.
Shouldn’t ×6. Reason: too lazy to write one.
Shouldn’t ×7. Reason: Luo Zhiyu ate the reason.
……
Shouldn’t ×49.
50. Based on the above, shouldn’t Little Red and Little Blue study hard and reject puppy love?
Answer: Shouldn’t.