Hu Xiujie only used twenty-one words to give Xie Lan a nightmare all night.
After reading too many weird jokes, he dreamed that Hu Xiujie was chasing him with a 40-meter-long machete, allowing him to run a 39-meter early race. Every time he was killed, he was dragged back to the starting line, and the cycle continued all night long.
Standing silently in the office for the next day, looking at the cold-faced female demon in front of him, Xie Lan couldn't help but suspect that there was a knife behind her.
"What are you looking at?" Hu Xiujie frowned, "Why are you always looking behind me?"
Xie Lan withdrew his gaze listlessly, "Teacher, I feel guilty."
Hu Xiujie glared at him, "I haven't scolded you yet!"
Xie Lan opened his mouth: "...Oh."
It was already very hot in the afternoon in mid-May. The office didn't have air conditioning on and it was so stuffy that people were sweating.
There was no wind outside the window, but there was a heat that was coming into the room. Dou Sheng leaned against the window and sat quietly, his eyes fixed on the petals of the sycamore tree outside the window, as if in a trance.
"Be serious!"
Hu Xiujie's voice suddenly rose eight degrees, "Whether you have a million or tens of millions of fans, you should be moderate in your words and actions! If I hadn't been watching you on a whim, I wouldn't have thought you were so unbecoming!"
Dou Sheng turned his gaze back upon hearing this, changed his form in a second, and lowered his head skillfully, "The teacher criticized me too much, there won't be a next time."
He paused and whispered, "Please don't watch my live broadcast anymore. It's easy to cause conflicts between teachers and students."
Hu Xiujie glared at him hatefully and turned his gaze to Xie Lan.
Xie Lan froze, and automatically started repeating: "The teacher criticized me too much, I won't do it again next time."
"You two..." Hu Xiujie looked back and forth at their faces, seeming to be hesitant to speak.
For some reason, Xie Lan felt guilty.
He tried hard to keep his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart. Dou Sheng asked calmly, "What's wrong with us?"
Hu Xiujie was a little hesitant, and looked at them with his eyes slightly narrowed. After looking at them for a long time, he finally said nothing.
She waved her hands in annoyance, "You always ask me to forgive you, but what's the result? I won't criticize Xie Lan, she has been making progress, and will soon have her third monthly exam. She has also been studying very well recently. What about you? Can you show me an attitude?"
Xie Lan didn't quite understand the last sentence. In his opinion, attitude was an abstract term. How could he "get" it out
He subconsciously glanced at Dou Sheng.
Dou Sheng smiled when he heard this, picked up the schoolbag at his feet and said, "I just want you to say so, so I brought my attitude with me."
Hu Xiujie looked surprised: "You brought it? What did you bring?"
Xie Lan also glanced at the bag.
It was probably a notebook and a pen. When Dou Sheng came here with the bag, he guessed that Dou Sheng was ready to write a 50,000-word self-criticism.
Soon, it was proved that his understanding of Dou Sheng was not deep enough.
Under Hu Xiujie's watchful eyes, Dou Sheng leisurely unzipped his schoolbag and took out a set of high-quality JK uniforms.
The sun shines through the window onto the uniform. The white and milk coffee color combination is very gentle, sparkling with a girlish air. It has been ironed overnight, without a single wrinkle. Just a light touch will give you a silky smooth feel.
Dou Sheng held the uniform in his hands with great care, "Teacher, I decided to give this uniform to you."
Hu Xiujie's pupils trembled: "What??"
"For you!" Dou Sheng bowed. "This is a testimony to my success as a fan, and the result of your hard work in nurturing me. Please accept it!"
Hu Xiujie: “???”
When leaving the office, Xie Lan couldn't help but look back several times to make sure Hu Xiujie was not angry enough.
Dou Sheng stood at the door, put his left hand into his pocket skillfully, and raised his right hand to wave at Hu Xiujie.
He looked absent-minded, but spoke in a friendly tone, "Teacher, I look forward to seeing you put it on. I will die without regrets."
There was no response from the room.
There was a moment of dementia in Hu Xiujie's sharp and steady eyes.
After walking a long way, Dou Sheng finally put his hand on Xie Lan's shoulder, his arm trembling.
Xie Lan glanced at him expressionlessly and saw that he was bent over with laughter.
“Hahahaha, Old Hu has never been so embarrassed in his life.” Dou Sheng wiped his eyes and smiled brightly, “Can you imagine? If Old Hu dressed up as a JK, everyone in school would come over to take pictures with him.”
Hu Xiujie actually maintains a very good figure, so wearing a JK uniform is no problem for her.
That painting… is truly terrifying.
Xie Lan shuddered in the hot weather, frowned and slapped Dou Sheng's hand away, "Are you annoying?"
Dou Sheng asked confidently, "If I hadn't given the teacher a gift, would we have been able to escape so quickly?"
Xie Lan: “…”
Redefine the meaning of giving gifts to teachers.
They were going to go out and buy lunch during the lunch break. Under the hot sun, Dou Sheng yawned lazily, "This is called a savior. As long as I'm with Douzi, I can turn danger into safety. Hey, there's a Chinese character with Dou on the left and An on the right. This character is designed for me."
Xie Lan thought about it and shook his head honestly, "I don't know him."
"Of course you don't know him." Dou Sheng tapped his collarbone lightly with his fingers. "Just pronounce it Dou."
Xie Lan repeated it silently, "What do you mean?"
"Just think of it as a collective noun." Dou Sheng hummed in a dragging voice, "A collection of beautiful happy events in the world, including rain after a long drought, meeting an old friend in a foreign land, the wedding night, and passing the imperial examination."
Xie Lan said "oh" and nodded, "Chinese is still concise, which is good."
Dou Sheng lay on his shoulder and laughed quietly, but he didn't know what he was laughing at.
Just as Xie Lan was about to ask, he heard his voice muffled under her neck and whispered, "Boyfriend, you are so cute."
The sun was so bright that it made Xie Lan's ears feel burning.
They walked around the side of the laboratory building and stood at the base of the windowless wall. The campus was empty at noon on Saturday. The wind blew the soft petals of the sycamore tree. Dou Sheng first pinched Xie Lan's chin, then leaned over to kiss him.
The sunlight dazzled Xie Lan so much that he closed his eyes. When he opened them again and took a deep breath, he felt his hands and feet go weak.
The wind is blowing, it should be cooler.
His neck and cheeks turned even redder.
At the end of May, the second and third monthly examinations of the English-Chinese School were completed.
During the exam week, Xie Lan tried his best, but Dou Sheng was still as relaxed as usual. He even edited and posted a video of Class 4's basketball game the night before the exam.
Xie Lan didn't care about Bilibili until she finished her exams on Friday and on her way home from school, when she remembered there was such a new video.
"The Secret of Owl is Eternal Spirit | Yinghua Class 24 Summer Basketball Game Record"
The opening credits are a black screen with white text, with no background music. If you turn up the volume on your headphones, you can hear the faint sound of wind blowing through leaves; that is the sound of the sycamore trees at Yingzhong.
When the plane first landed, I didn't expect to meet them.
This group of people is so vivid, like the bubbles rising in the soda water in the afternoon, and also like the sunny day I had never seen in London on the day I returned home. - by Xie Lan
The above is written by Douzi for me. My Chinese is not that good yet. - by the real Xie Lan
The subtitles faded away, and the violin sound gradually grew louder and louder, turning into a passionate allegro.
The camera smoothly interweaves the countless moments of the fourth class players dodging, leaping and swinging. The basketball hits the ground, simulating a heartbeat. The ground in the camera zooms in and out, the rhythm is staggered, the snow-white sneakers rub against the concrete floor, and a light blue skirt flashes by amid the constant shouting.
The screens were evenly distributed to each player—Yu Fei, with a world-weary face, flew up and dunked with one hand, the muscles on his thin arms bulged, and the basketball stand swayed violently in the wind like a leaf. Dou Sheng ran under the scorching sun, sweat hanging on the tips of his hair, shining in the sun, he jumped lightly from the three-point line, sent the ball into the net with his wrist, leaving an orange arc in the air. Wang Gou gritted his teeth and propped himself up after falling, Chen Ge turned around and passed four people in a row to score in the paint...
Out of ten hours of footage, only eight minutes of film was finally produced, and every frame is the essence.
Xie Lan looked at the data that was rising wildly in the background of Bilibili.
It seemed that there was a bottleneck when he had one million followers on YouTube. Perhaps it was because the types of content on Bilibili had expanded a lot, and the number of fans seemed to be increasing rapidly.
Class 4 of Yinghua stayed in the recommended search list of Bilibili for two days. Hu Xiujie didn't say anything, but he showed off to the teacher next door for a long time during the weekend physics competition class. He even put the video on the projector for everyone to watch during the break to relax.
The class group was popping up messages like crazy, and everyone was busy moving this video. When I scrolled down the Moments, I saw the same link on every ten screens.
-Cherry: I look so handsome in the scene brought to me
- Dong Shuijing: Thank you for your hard work. There is also a close-up of Chen Ge.
-Feng Miao: The girls are so pleasing to the eyes
-vincent: Of course, the girls in our class are all very good.
-Dong Shuijing: Yo
-Wang Gou: I sent it to my grandma, and I was on TV!
-Liu Yixuan: You are the best! /Owl tilts his head
-Cherry: Spirit!!
After being bombarded with various owl emoticons, Xie Lan also posted a cute owl flapping its wings.
- Dong Shuijing: The name of Owl has been brought to B station, thanks to the two big guys
- Dong Shuijing: The terminally ill Dr. Douzi
-Dong Shuijing: Huh
-Liu Yixuan: Is there something wrong with your nicknames
-Cherry: Why aren’t you happy anymore
-Herring: We want to be brothers
-Cherry: Damn, I think we are a perfect match, let's be sworn brothers
-Dai You: Or go for a blood test
-Mao Lengxue: The guy above is really...
- Dong Shuijing: ... I just smiled and said nothing
-Liu Yixuan: ... Then I will smile too
Xie Lan felt guilty holding the phone, so he simply put it away.
After a long while, he asked, "Why don't you change your name?"
"Hmm?" Dou Sheng looked up, a hint of mischief in his eyes, "Why?"
Xie Lan glanced at him twice and turned his head away speechlessly.
Dou Sheng chuckled, "Then what should I change? How about a good cure?"
Xie Lan: “…”
Dou Sheng held his chin with his hand and thought for a while, "Will the medicine cure the disease?"
"… "
"Then, good medicine tastes bitter?" Dou Sheng smiled, leaned over and whispered in Xie Lan's ear: "It's not bitter, is it? I ate chocolate in advance last night."
"… "
Xie Lan pushed him on the chest and said, "Get lost."
Damn it, Dou Sheng is so annoying.
After three monthly exams, Xie Lan felt that he had done well.
The Chinese language test was quite difficult this time. The ancient poetry and prose reading was very obscure and basically useless. There was also a piece of modern literature that was too vague and unclear. Xie Lan felt that the composition was well written this time. It was unprecedented to write 800 words and divide it into four small paragraphs. It is estimated that the composition alone can get at least 37 or 38 points, and the total score of Chinese is expected to be 70.
There were no results for the Sunday evening study session, so on Monday morning, the school year leaderboards were posted directly in the corridor.
Xie Lan ran over to check the score. Dou Sheng was back at the top of the list with a total score of 731.
Last time, Xie Lan was ranked 215th. This time, he looked directly within 200, and after a rough scan, he found it.
The ranking is on the right. He sorted from right to left - he improved 40 places in the school year, ranking 175th, the three comprehensive science subjects scored 267, 10 points higher than last time, English 139, the same, Mathematics 150, the same, Chinese 59...
Hmm? Or 59
Xie Lan was stunned for a moment, and Dou Sheng asked in a low voice: "Didn't you say that your Chinese score would be above 70 this time?"
"Yeah..." Xie Lan frowned, "The essay is off topic again? Below 30 points?"
It shouldn't be.
Che Ziming was standing nearby and said, "Chen Ge flies really fast."
Hearing this, Xie Lan continued to look back. The last time Chen Ge was at 350 in the school year, this time it was at 240, which was very close to him.
"It's been less than a month, and he's only played for a week." Dai You sighed, flexed his wrist, and smiled: "The two heroes of Class Four are still so terrifying."
The morning self-study bell rang, and the group walked back while discussing their scores. When they got to their seats, Dou Sheng whispered, "Don't be sad. Wait until the test papers are handed out to find the problem."
"I'm not unhappy." Xie Lan sighed, "It's just a little strange. It shouldn't be this score. Did I write all the wrong characters in the ancient poetry and prose?"
No, this time the test was on a passage that he was very familiar with. He had clear requirements for himself, and he would let the reading in class go as it came, and he would definitely get the full points that he could get by rote memorization.
The class representatives came to collect the homework. Che Ming also collected a competition training paper. When he received it from Dong Shuijing, he said, "What's wrong with you?"
Xie Lan subconsciously glanced over there. Dong Shuijing stood up from the table, whispered something, and took out the test paper and gave it to him.
Her eyes were red. Che Ming was stunned for a moment before driving away without asking any more questions.
Dou Sheng whispered: "Chen Ge will probably leave soon."
"Ah?" Xie Lan turned his head in confusion.
He paused for a moment before he remembered that when they went out to play, Chen Ge said he wanted to leave H City.
Xie Lan asked, "Where is he going?"
Dou Sheng shook his head. "I didn't ask. He probably didn't want to tell me. With his family's financial situation, it's impossible for him to move up. He just wanted to find a small place to hide and study quietly."
Xie Lan frowned, "What does it mean to get up like a cat?"
Dou Sheng smiled when he heard this, "Just hide, like a phoenix tree, lying motionless in a corner, not attracting other people's attention."
Xie Lan's eyes lit up. "This expression is very good, very concise, just like the word you taught me last time."
"Hmm?" Dou Sheng asked casually while flipping through the homework: "What word did I teach you last time?"
"It's the word dou that represents the four great happy events." Xie Lan grabbed a pen and wrote "douan" on the calculation paper between the two of them.
Dou Sheng said, "Oh," and smiled, "I was just teasing you last time."
After he finished speaking, he turned around and handed in an assignment. When he looked back, he saw Xie Lan with a frozen expression on his face.
Dou Sheng asked: "What's wrong?"
Xie Lan: “…?”
Words cannot describe Xie Lan's shock at this moment.
Shock mixed with confusion.
There is a desire for destruction that is about to burst out in the confusion.
And there is fear.
Want to escape back to London.
The bell for class just rang, and Lao Qin walked into the classroom holding a thick stack of Chinese papers, "Class representative, help me close the door."
He put the papers on the table and picked up the top one. "Xie Lan."
The owls were quick to sense something and turned their heads one after another, giving Xie Lan sympathetic and expectant looks.
Xie Lan had a blank expression, and after a long while he whispered, "Xie Lan doesn't seem to be here."
Lao Qin smiled, "Really?"
He quickly flipped to the composition paper. "The topic of this composition is four words: happiness in the world. Xie Lan's composition structure has improved a lot. The four angles of "after a long drought, a place on the imperial examination, wedding night, meeting an old friend in a foreign land" are old-fashioned but safe. Logically, this composition should have scored 38 points, or even 40 points, but in the end it only scored 25 points."
Xie Lan looked blankly at the dust in the air, trying hard to make himself invisible.
Dou Sheng was shocked beside him: "You... didn't write that word?"
Xie Lan smiled softly into the void and whispered, "I don't really want to kill you."
Lao Qin continued to wonder: "Your composition has a character that the three language group doesn't know running through it from beginning to end. It has a "dou" on the left and a "an" on the right. How do you pronounce this character?"
The class suddenly exploded and everyone started discussing it.
"A bean on the left and an an on the right?" Che Ming frowned, wondering, "Is this a character?"
Under Lao Qin's pleading gaze, Xie Lan's Adam's apple moved, and he said stiffly: "Niandou."
"Beans?" Lao Qin paused, "What do you mean?"
Dou Sheng held his forehead with one hand to prevent anyone from seeing his expression, and began pinching his thigh.
He quickly wrote a line of words and pushed it over: Kill me, I plead guilty.
Xie Lan lowered his eyes and glanced at the line of words, sneering out loud with a contempt that was without fear.
"It is said to be a collection of happy events in the world."
"Oh—" Lao Qin suddenly realized, "No wonder the title of your composition is called: Human Bean An"
Amid the whole class's confused laughter, Xie Lan crushed Dou Sheng's feet under the table.
"Do you know what day it is today?" he asked in a low voice.
Dou Sheng hummed, his tone calm, "My death date."
Xie Lan smiled, "Yeah. The table in the dormitory is quite cool. It's hot, so you can sleep on the table tonight."
"Okay, no problem. I can still stand up straight." Dou Sheng agreed immediately, "Any other arrangements?"
Xie Lan continued to smile, "I can't understand the Xinhua Dictionary."
"Understood." Dou Sheng nodded, "I'll hand-copy a copy for you."
Finally, the Chinese class was over. The classroom was filled with laughter as usual. Some people took out their unfinished breakfast to eat, and more people stood in front of the classroom and continued to look at the newly posted report card.
The back door was also noisy. Xie Lan was watching Dou Sheng copying a dictionary with a cold eye. He saw Wang Gou and Che Ziming standing at the back door practicing crosstalk. After a while, the two suddenly became quiet. Then the silence radiated from the back door to the classroom. In a moment, the whole class was silent.
It was also different from Hu Xiujie's sudden appearance, as there was no smell of death.
The people in the front row turned around and looked towards the back door.
Chen Ge stood at the back door of Mathematics and Physics A, his schoolbag bulged out and two sets of school uniforms draped over his arms.
I haven't seen him since the basketball game. He shaved his head and it was full of short stubble. He no longer looked unkempt, and his features were clear.
The room was filled with silence, except for his relaxed smile.
"Long time no see, everyone."
After two seconds of silence, everyone started to greet each other.
Chen Ge: "I left today, transferred to another school, and came here to shoot something."
Dai You subconsciously asked, "What are you shooting?"
"Just come in, don't just stand there like an idiot."
"Yes, we are all family."
"Where are you going, boatman?"
"That's it. Tell us so that we can go and play with you."
"Are you coming back from the exam?"
Chen Ge smiled and said, "I can't come back after the exam. Maybe we can only see each other after the exam."
He strode down the corridor to the front door with his things, walked across the podium, and carefully took a picture of the report card next to the blackboard with a cracked screen cell phone.
I started with the first placement test and took photos one by one until this semester's class placement test.
There are also four words on the top of the transcript: A hundred boats compete in the current.
"Ah, so what do we do about you?"
"Oh, don't you miss us?"
Chen Ge put his phone back into his trouser pocket. "If I miss you, just watch the video of Douzi and Xie Lan. If you miss me... just miss me."
The classroom suddenly burst into laughter. Chen Ge also smiled faintly. He took the photo and was about to leave. He passed by Dong Shuijing's desk and casually placed an owl doll holding a Pride round sign on her desk. He whispered, "Please keep it for me. Thank you."
Dong Shuijing said nothing and put the things into her schoolbag.
"Let's go. We'll take the exam next year. Good luck to Class 4."
Chen Ge stood at the door of the classroom, paused, turned around and waved to everyone.
"Everyone, see you at the top."