Xie Lan's bedroom is on the second floor, facing south, and is a suite with a private bathroom.
Zhao Wenying pointed to the next door and said, "You live next to Douzi. If you have something that is inconvenient to tell Auntie, just knock on his door."
Dou Sheng walked directly into the next room with his schoolbag hanging on one shoulder, bent his legs and pushed the door back.
"You little brat." Zhao Wenying stopped the door. "I'm talking to you two. Did you hear me?"
Dou Sheng then raised his eyelids and said, "I didn't realize you were talking to two people."
"Don't give me that." Zhao Wenying raised her hand and slapped him on the arm. "If you dare to cause trouble for me, I'll show you how I'll deal with you."
Dou Sheng glanced at Xie Lan after hearing this and reminded her very perfunctorily, "You have an exam tomorrow, go to bed early, good night, hmm hmm."
"The exam is tomorrow?" Xie Lan turned his head suddenly.
"Yes." Dou Sheng suddenly laughed, a smile so bright that it made people want to slap him to death.
He shook his beautiful paw, first making a six, then a one, and said, "Six major subjects, finished in one day."
Zhao Wenying slapped his claws down with a pia, "You were going to die, why didn't you tell me earlier!"
"I said I wanted to take the exam." Dou Sheng looked innocent.
"Did you say tomorrow?!"
Dou Sheng snorted and laughed, looking at Xie Lan, "In the morning, we have Chinese and math exams, with a ten-minute toilet break. In the afternoon, we have comprehensive science, and in the evening, we have English self-study."
Xie Lan felt suffocated.
Zhao Wenying gnashed her teeth and said, "Be a decent person. You still have fans."
Xie Lan was stunned, "What fans?"
I don’t know if it was an illusion, but Dou Sheng’s face froze for a moment.
"No. I'm sleepy." He said as he quickly slipped into the house and slammed the door from the inside.
The door shook and a hanging sign fell down, which read "Closed for Today".
Xie Lan: “…”
Zhao Wenying rolled her eyes and turned the sign over. "Don't pay attention to him. If you have anything to say, just knock on the door."
On the reverse side of the sign is: "Open for business: insert coin before knocking".
Completely confused.
Zhao Wenying didn't stay long. She told Xie Lan where her spare clothes were, left a domestic mobile phone card and a bottle of "melatonin", and then left.
Xie Lan studied it for a while before realizing that "melatonin" is melatonin, which helps with jet lag. But he didn't plan to take it. Instead of forcing himself to sleep all night, he might as well make a intensive study of the Chinese terms in mathematics and physics, so that they would match the knowledge system in his mind, otherwise he would be finished tomorrow.
But the problem is that there is no material to watch.
This time, I had a conflict with Xie Jingming, so I returned to China two months earlier than planned, and I brought very few things with me. I had to bring a violin and a camera, as well as a cell phone, a card holder, and a few notebooks of my mother.
Now my phone is bricked and I can't do anything.
Just as I was feeling depressed, someone cleared his throat outside the door.
Dou Sheng's low voice sounded through the door, "Are you asleep?"
"without."
Xie Lan stood up and opened the door.
Dou Sheng changed into pajamas and in just a few minutes, he had taken a shower, his hair soaked with steam.
He was already very fair, and after taking a shower he looked even fairer. In his left hand he held a transparent plastic box with two black loaves of bread in it, and in his right hand he held an iPhone.
He said slowly, "This is my last phone. I've wiped the old data off it. I'll lend it to you first. It's connected to wifi."
Just when I was worrying about my cell phone, it came.
Xie Lan was a little conflicted. Answering the phone was like receiving a favor from someone who wished him "youth, beauty, invincibility and loveliness".
But if I don’t have a cell phone, my exam tomorrow will be completely ruined.
"Do you want it?" Dou Sheng said lazily, "I'm speaking slowly enough, isn't it? Is your brain a little out of touch?"
Xie Lan took the phone and said calmly, "Thanks. I'll transfer the money for the camera to you."
"Um."
The conversation should have ended at this point, but Dou Sheng didn't leave, still leaning against his door frame, "Are you jet-lagged? There are textbooks in the drawer, you can save them if you don't sleep."
Xie Lan replied subconsciously: "It's okay."
Dou Sheng snorted and laughed, "Whatever, you can read it or not. I'm just giving you a friendly reminder. I can see that you care a lot about the exam."
He left after he finished speaking, and just as he turned around, he looked back and said, "Lo Mein is really unpalatable, right? Only Ms. Zhao Wenying likes to eat that stuff."
Xie Lan: “?”
He really couldn't get used to it, but if I remember correctly, this guy ate three bowls.
The guy who was talking nonsense remained calm and opened the plastic box.
"Dirty buns, do you want to eat?"
Xie Lan was stunned. "What bag?"
Dou Sheng sneered, picked up one of the pieces, and placed the box on the bedside table. "I'll give you one. Happy birthday, and may you be healthy and well forever."
He went back to the next room in his slippers and kicked the door open.
The sign that Zhao Wenying had just turned over was turned back and changed back to "Closed Today".
Xie Lan looked at the sign for a while before closing the door.
The phone is the previous model, top-of-the-line, and in very new condition. It would be a bit of a waste to throw it away.
The data synchronization was estimated to take an hour and a half. He put the phone aside and looked at the plastic box next to it.
The layers of cocoa powder and chocolate sauce are so tempting under the light that the luxurious lo mein at night pales in comparison.
I've got the place to stay and the phone is connected, so what else is there to worry about?
He took out the bread using a tissue as a cushion.
The chocolate is indeed rich, bittersweet, solid and filling.
Xie Lan stared at the data progress bar and finished the bread unknowingly. He wiped the crumbs on the table and planned to take a shower first.
When I turned on the bathroom light, I saw a ghostly handsome face in the mirror.
"oh my..."
Mouthful of blackness.
"… "
Xie Lan had a dazed look on his face and pursed his lips tightly in front of the mirror.
At one o'clock in the middle of the night, the phone finally restored the data from the cloud. Xie Lan set the system language to Chinese, downloaded WeChat and registered an account.
I pondered over the nickname for a long time. At first I wrote renaissance, but later I looked up the dictionary and changed it to the Chinese characters “Renaissance”.
No avatar yet.
The phone suddenly vibrated.
A small red 1 lights up in the chat list.
—“rjjsd” from “People Nearby” greeted you and left a message “Dou Sheng”.
He didn't recognize either of these two words, but the avatar looked like a bean. Zhao Wenying seemed to have called Dou Sheng that, so he should be the one next door.
Isn't today's business closed?
"You are already friends, now start chatting!"
There was dead silence in the dialog box, no one spoke, and it remained silent for ten minutes.
Xie Lan casually clicked into his circle of friends. The content was set to be visible for only three days, and it was empty. The background picture was a sycamore tree taken from above, with a two-character signature below.
"No."
Xie Lan looked at it for a while and clicked it again, but the dialog box was still blank.
Is the business really closed?
He pondered for a while, followed the instructions to bind the card, found the transfer function, and tried to transfer a sum of 3999.
The small orange envelope only existed for two seconds before it was quickly covered with a gray filter.
It displays "Received."
"… "
It seems that the business is closed, but the finances are still online.
*
The next day, Class 24 of the Senior High School of the Yingzhong Bishop Building received a shocking piece of news.
Che Ziming rushed into the classroom with smoke coming out of his rear end, and with a shout, all the chattering people in the examination room quieted down.
"A handsome guy came into Hu Xiujie's office with Dou Sheng!"
There was a moment of silence in the class. After a while, the crowd suddenly exploded, "What handsome guy?"
"With Dou Sheng?"
"Did they bump into each other or were they arm in arm?"
Che Ming spread his hands and said, "We didn't hug each other, and we kept a little distance, but it didn't seem like we met by chance, do you understand?"
The people below nodded vigorously.
Che Ziming pushed aside the students in the aisle one by one and trotted to the study committee member Dai You. "Did Douzi reveal anything? Did he have a fight with someone?"
Study committee member Dai You is tall and thin, wearing silver-framed glasses. There is a row of bottles of coffee on the table.
"No."
"Ah, this—"
The boy sitting behind Dai You glanced at Che Ming with an embarrassed look in his eyes, "You still have the heart to gossip. The papers will be distributed in ten minutes, and you haven't moved your table yet."
"Here he comes." Che Ming pulled the small table next to him half a meter away, then he couldn't help but turn his head and look out the back door, raising his eyebrows, "Dou Sheng is here—wait, that handsome guy is here too!"
Everyone in the class turned their heads around at once, and more than forty pairs of eyes stared out.
Xie Lan, who was standing at the back door of the classroom, suddenly felt a chill on his back. When he turned around, he saw forty owls staring at him with death stares.
His legs almost gave way.
The head teacher of the second grade was called Hu Xiujie. He had a serious expression and a cold tone. His clothes and hair were meticulously groomed. He exuded a difficult aura that could be sensed by people in both China and the West.
She cleared her throat at the back door, and more than forty pairs of eyes turned back instantly, everyone straightened their backs and looked forward.
Xie Lan seemed to hear Dou Sheng beside him chuckle softly.
When he turned around, he saw Dou Sheng with an indifferent expression, looking at him as if nothing had happened.
Hu Xiujie said, "I have explained the basic situation to you. There will be a class test today. Didn't Dou Sheng tell you about it?"
Xie Lan nodded.
"The school doesn't know your level yet. There should be a big difference between the UK and China. This exam is for class division and the purpose is to separate the teams, so the intensity is quite high. Just do your best." Hu Xiujie said, "The results will be available in about three days after the exam. Even if you go to another class, three days is enough to get familiar with the environment."
Xie Lan understood part of it and nodded again.
Hu Xiujie pointed to the last row by the window, where there were the only two desks next to each other in the entire classroom, and they had not been separated as required by the examination room.
"Just sit there with Dou Sheng first, pull out the table and prepare for the exam."
Xie Lan walked into the classroom from the front door, and more than forty pairs of eyes were staring at him.
Some people were muttering, things like "this unlucky kid has to take the exam right after arriving" and "why did he come directly to Class 4?"
He pretended not to hear and walked behind the desk. Dou Sheng walked lazily in front of him.
Passing by the second to last row, the boy on the left stopped Dou Sheng and asked, "What's going on?"
Dou Sheng ignored him, pulled the table in the last row by the aisle half a meter away, and sat inside it, "Stop the exam."
The boy didn't give up and turned his head towards Xie Lan again, "Handsome boy, what's your name?"
"Xie Lan."
"Ah, nice to meet you. My name is Che Ziming. Where are you from?"
A boy who looked unhappy turned his head and glared at the man, "If you want to be scolded by Hu Xiujie, don't drag the new student into it."
"Oh. I'm just curious." The man touched his nose and shrank back.
Hu Xiujie wrote on the blackboard the time for the first exam, 7:30-10:00, and then divided a stack of papers into six parts and passed them down from the front group.
The test paper was the last one when it was handed to Xie Lan. The first page was almost two whole pages of words, with a total of three articles, each followed by three multiple-choice or text questions.
Xie Lan took a quick look and realized that he knew more words than he expected, probably more than half. But the questions were very complicated, and it couldn't be said that he had a hard time understanding them, but he couldn't understand them at all.
The key is to remain calm. He turned another page.
The reading material on the second page is much shorter, just a few lines, but unfortunately it is in classical Chinese.
Later on, fill in the blanks with poems and pass.
A man of insight is a wise man. He quickly recognized the situation and turned to the last page in the paper, intending to get some points by writing the essay.
In China, it is not called essay, it is called “composition”.
Title—
Mozi said: "Regard other people's countries as your own; regard other people's families as your own; regard other people's bodies as your own."
English poet John Doth said: "No man is an island, entire of itself, but every man is a part of the continent."
Requirements: Complete an argumentative essay based on the materials, with your own ideas, and no less than 800 words.
Xie Lan remained silent for a full minute as he looked at the few lines of text.
Then, he slowly uncapped the pen and circled the only short sentence in the material that he could recognize and understand - "No one is complete in himself."
Um.
But why?
How come people aren't independent entities?
Someone beside me suddenly whispered slowly, "You can copy the reading on the composition paper."