“Spicy Strip, do you think I smell authentic?” Luo Zhiyu pointed at himself. “Fresh and fruity. I quite like it. I like Xiao Yan’s orange scent too.”
“Very authentic,” Yan Zihan praised him. “There were several alphas on the forum before who wanted to pursue you.”
“How come I haven’t seen a single one?”
Luo Zhiyu propped his chin in his hand.
“I don’t know, then.” Yan Zihan shrugged. “Looks like they only dare to yap on the forum and don’t dare take any actual action. A bunch of cowardly As.”
Luo Zhiyu thought about it. Ever since he entered No. 1 High School, he had mostly hung out with Xiao Yan—and gotten into fights with him—or with Xiao Yan’s roommates. As for the other alphas, there were very few he was actually close to.
The classes participating in the closing ceremony of the sports meet were entering the field. Luo Zhiyu sorted the scripts according to the order in which each class would pass the rostrum. After the previous earthquake preparedness drill, he had always been extremely careful with broadcasting duties and absolutely never turned on the microphone when it wasn’t necessary.
While they were talking, Xiao Yan came over once. He had just come from the classroom and put a stack of his homework on the table for Luo Zhiyu to look after. He also stuffed a bag of pistachios into the hands of Luo Zhiyu and Yan Zihan.
“Leave my homework here,” Xiao Yan said. “Is that okay?”
“Leave it. I’ll watch it for you. Not one book will go missing. If one does, I’ll compensate you with myself.”
Luo Zhiyu said, “Anything else you want, say it all at once.”
“You ate my nuts, so when our class passes by later, say a few extra nice things about us, got it?”
Standing behind Luo Zhiyu, Xiao Yan placed both hands on his shoulders and lightly pressed down, making a half-serious threat.
“Otherwise, I’ll beat you up later.”
The chairs on the rostrum had been brought over temporarily by the student council. They were uncomfortable to sit on. Knowing Xiao Yan was behind him, Luo Zhiyu leaned back without worry, comfortably using Xiao Yan as a backrest.
Xiao Yan’s hands tightened slightly as he supported him firmly.
“Don’t worry.”
Luo Zhiyu placed Xiao Yan’s homework on top of his own stack. With his right hand, he patted the back of Xiao Yan’s hand.
“For these two bags of snacks, you can go without worry. I’ll give you a whole five minutes of rainbow farts later.”
Xiao Yan left the rostrum feeling reassured, waved at Luo Zhiyu, and walked toward his class’s formation.
There was no one else around. The school leaders who were supposed to give speeches at the closing ceremony had not arrived yet, so the two omegas chatted about some personal matters—
“I’m giving up on the spicy chips.”
Yan Zihan spoke while doing her homework.
“There’s an alpha in senior year who’s pretty handsome. I’m going to make a move.”
“They’re already in senior year. Do you have no conscience?”
Luo Zhiyu still had his physiology homework left. He took the white-covered workbook from the stack of books beside him.
“The most important task during high school is studying. Why are you talking about dating?”
“Besides studying, do you really have no other dreams?”
“I do.”
Luo Zhiyu opened the book and began reading the short-answer questions.
“Besides studying, I also want to draw, and I want to beat up Brother Yan on a daily basis. That’s it.”
“I really don’t understand you straight Os. I don’t think it’s that nobody is pursuing you. I think you just ignore all of them.”
Yan Zihan glanced at the physiology workbook in Luo Zhiyu’s hands.
“Wow, your book is so new.”
The workbook had been bound by the school itself. There was nothing written on the white cover, and the inside pages only had the simple words “Workbook.” It was mainly used to give students additional exercises for physiology class, which showed that No. 1 High School took the relevant courses quite seriously.
“I only got it less than two weeks ago and haven’t really opened it. I didn’t use this before either, so of course it’s new.”
Luo Zhiyu also thought his workbook looked especially new today. Following the instructions in his memo, he directly flipped to page seventy, as Teacher Xu had requested, and began answering the questions.
[Multiple Choice]
Remember your identity as you always have. No further explanation is needed here—
“This question seems a little different today,” Luo Zhiyu thought. “They changed the wording.”
After doing textbook exercises and pre-class tests for so long, he suddenly found himself missing Little Blue and Little Red a little when he could no longer see them.
1. You have recently developed strong feelings for an omega in Class X. What is the correct way to interact with this omega? (?B?)
A. Abandon distracting thoughts and study together to improve yourselves.
B. Let yourself go and immediately go hit on them.
C. Seriously reflect on yourself and immediately cut off the relationship.
Luo Zhiyu: “???”
“This workbook’s questions are so weird.”
Luo Zhiyu chose his answer somewhat awkwardly.
“I just feel like something’s off. It’s being so sarcastic.”
“Let me see. Are they really that difficult?”
Yan Zihan reached out.
Luo Zhiyu was just about to hand her the workbook when the music signaling the start of the sports meet closing ceremony suddenly sounded.
“Get ready.”
Luo Zhiyu put the homework away. The two of them cleaned up the pistachio shells on the table and pulled out the scripts they needed to read during the closing ceremony.
“Are the school leaders waiting until we finish the whole procession before coming up to speak?”
“Yes.”
Yan Zihan got ready.
“We go first. The school leaders are on their way.”
“I’ve turned on my mic, right? I also turned on the school leaders’ microphones ahead of time, so they won’t have trouble using them.”
Yan Zihan stood up and turned back to confirm with Luo Zhiyu.
“From now on, I’m in charge of this, so don’t say anything random.”
“Guaranteed not to say anything random.”
Luo Zhiyu had experience.
The order of the closing ceremony procession was based on each class’s points from the sports meet. Senior three did not participate. The senior-one classes went first, followed by senior two. The higher a class’s points, the later it appeared in the procession.
There were seven senior-one classes at No. 1 High School and six senior-two classes. Xiao Yan’s class was the last senior-two class to enter.
“So tired.”
After broadcasting the sports meet results for all the senior-one classes, Yan Zihan unscrewed a bottle of mineral water and took a huge gulp.
“I’ll leave senior two to you.”
“Totally okay.”
Luo Zhiyu had just frowned his way through several questions and had completely lost the motivation to keep doing them. Following the organized scripts, he began announcing the results achieved by each senior-two class in the sports meet.
“Hello to all the students in senior two. I’m Luo Zhiyu from Senior One, Class Three. I’ll be announcing the sports meet results for each class.”
Yan Zihan was finished with her work and began cracking sunflower seeds.
“Coming toward us now is the formation from Senior Two, Class Three. They achieved excellent results in this sports meet, ranking first in their grade in total points and taking first place in multiple events…”
The boy’s voice was crisp and pleasant. Through the school’s broadcasting system, it carried across every corner of the field.
“Tang Yuan from Class Three broke the city middle-school sports meet record in the 1,500-meter race. We sincerely thank Tang Yuan and an orange cat volunteer…”
“Student Zhang Shu achieved an excellent third-place finish in the long jump…”
“At the very front of the formation is our school’s pride, Student Xiao Yan. In this autumn sports meet, he achieved outstanding results in several sprint events. Our school’s heartthrob is excellent not only in academics, but in other areas as well…”
Luo Zhiyu did exactly as he had promised. Improvising on the spot, he went completely off-script and spent five full minutes showering Xiao Yan with rainbow-colored praise, watching as the Senior Two, Class Three formation passed in front of the rostrum and stood neatly on the track.
“Finally, it’s over.”
Luo Zhiyu reached up and switched off the microphone in front of him, letting out a long breath. He began gathering the homework on the table.
“Let’s get out of here. We got one point, right? Pretty easy money.”
“Not as much as they made.”
Yan Zihan pointed at Xiao Yan and the others below.
“The school encourages students to participate in sports. As long as you win an award in an event, you get points.”
“Speaking of which, you and Xiao Yan have been pretty close lately.”
Yan Zihan asked, “Do you know him well?”
Luo Zhiyu was still thinking about those sarcastic workbook questions. He hummed absentmindedly in response.
“Then let me ask you quietly. How did you and Xiao Yan end up going to a place like that last time?”
Yan Zihan took his hum as confirmation and lowered her voice even further.
“A specialty pharmacy for macho As. I even heard you say you wanted to buy something. What, does he have a need?”
Luo Zhiyu gave another distracted hum.
“He wouldn’t let me buy it.”
Yan Zihan: “…”
The orderly field suddenly descended into chaos. The formations that had been standing perfectly straight somehow twisted into a mess, like water snakes.
“What?!”
“What are they talking about?”
“Xiao Yan’s reputation is getting destroyed!”
The chaotic voices startled Luo Zhiyu out of his thoughts.
“What? What did you just ask me?”
The two of them had turned off their own microphones, but the school leader’s handheld microphone was still on, and Luo Zhiyu happened to be holding it. He had just been about to take it over to Director Wu.
Luo Zhiyu: “…Fuck.”
Yan Zihan: “…Fuck!”
Xiao Yan: “…”
After the closing ceremony ended, the rostrum was completely deserted.
Xiao Yan found only his stack of homework on the table, along with a sticky note attached to it.
[Kneeling and crying hysterically while apologizing].jpg
[Smoke Everywhere]: Grinning evilly.jpg. Come back.
[Cicada]: Bro, you can’t blame me for this. Spicy Strip started it.
[Smoke Everywhere]: You have to take responsibility for me. Upside-down smile.jpg
[Cicada]: Embarrassed.jpg. It’s not like I’m unwilling.
[Cicada]: Want me to clear your name? I can go to the forum right now and clean things up. Professional reputation management. My family has inherited expertise in controlling public opinion.
[Smoke Everywhere]: No. I’m scared. The moment you open your mouth, I’ll be finished.
[Cicada]: Okayyy, big bro, don’t be mad.
[Cicada]: Big bro definitely won’t be unwanted.
[Smoke Everywhere]: Make your mouth a little sweeter and I’ll consider letting you off.
[Cicada]: How could big bro possibly not be able to do it?! Big bro is super capable! (^▽^)
[Smoke Everywhere]: Little hooligan.
At two in the morning, Jing Ximing stumbled sleepily out of bed to go to the bathroom and discovered that the light on Luo Zhiyu’s desk was still on.
“Why are you still studying?”
Jing Ximing had never seen Luo Zhiyu work this hard before.
“Doing homework.”
Luo Zhiyu rubbed his eyes, his voice carrying a trace of fatigue.
“What homework could possibly be that much?”
Jing Ximing was shocked.
“Don’t we have the same homework?”
“I probably didn’t really understand it.”
Luo Zhiyu had completely given up.
“The questions in the physiology workbook are so sarcastic. Forget Little Red and Little Blue being gone, it keeps asking me how to properly interact with an omega. It’s weird.”
“Is there a question like that?”
Jing Ximing found it strange.
“Then I guess I wasn’t using my brain when I did mine. I have absolutely no memory of it.”
“It asks me whether I can live with an omega. What else am I supposed to do, live with Little Blue the alpha?”
“There’s also this one. I still can’t figure it out.”
Luo Zhiyu pointed at a short-answer question.
“Please describe in detail the process of final marking and knotting.”
“How the hell would I know?!”
Luo Zhiyu was furious with the stupid question.
“Are they crazy? I don’t even have that function!”
The alpha dormitory was brightly lit. Xiao Yan and the others had spent the weekend busy competing, and after basking in the glory, they were left with an all-nighter of homework.
“Brother Yan, I absolutely believe in you. You don’t need that thing.”
Zhang Shu patted his chest.
“How much homework do you have left?”
Xiao Yan put the completed English exercises into his schoolbag, then picked up the additional physiology workbook from the desk.
“Just this.”
“Who told you guys to all choose A last time? Teacher Xu gave everyone in our class an extra workbook. It’s even brand new. I haven’t even had time to write my name on it.”
Xiao Yan opened the workbook.
His brows slowly furrowed.
Xiao Yan: “…”
Little Blue and Little Red?
The alpha version of the physiology workbook—where would there be any Little Blue and Little Red?
This wasn’t his homework.
Where was his actual homework?