Waiting for the stars to fall
Text/Mo Yanchuan
Three minutes before the morning reading class, Zhu Xingyao and Li Xixi walked into the classroom. As soon as they stepped into the door, they found that the atmosphere in the class was not right. As soon as she looked up, she heard Li Xixi exclaimed in a low voice: "Ah, Jiang Tu is here to school."
The boy in the last group near the door suddenly looked up. His skin was cold and pale, and he wore a pair of black-framed glasses on his nose. His eyes behind the lenses were dark and icy.
Those who had secretly turned their heads to look at him turned back quickly, and even Li Xixi subconsciously lowered his head.
For a moment, Zhu Xingyao was the only one still looking straight at him.
Eyes met.
She was caught off guard, but if she shifted her gaze at this moment it would seem too deliberate, so she tried to keep her eyes on him, pursed her lips slightly, and looked a little at a loss.
Jiang Tu looked at her silently for a few seconds and lowered his head again.
Zhu Xingyao breathed a sigh of relief. She and Li Xixi returned to their desks, took out their homework from their schoolbags, and waited for the representatives of each subject to collect it. Li Xixi came over and whispered, "I didn't expect Jiang Tu to come back to school so suddenly. I was shocked."
Zhu Xingyao glanced at her and said, "It's a good thing that he comes to school. Why are you scared?"
In Jiangcheng No. 1 High School, many people know Jiang Tu. Even if they have never seen him, they know his name. On the third day of the first day of high school, a group of people came to the school gate and put up a banner asking him to pay back the loan shark. How could a high school student owe a loan shark? Soon, the school came forward to deal with it and found out that it was not him who owed the money, but his father, and they went to the school to collect the debt.
The day after the incident, Jiang Tu started to ask for leave, and it has been almost two months now. When everyone was rumored that he might drop out of school, he came back.
"Didn't you see the look in his eyes just now? They were so cold and scary..." Li Xixi shrank her neck and lowered her voice, "Isn't it said that his father is a gambler and a domestic abuser? His younger brother is also a worry. Experts say that children who grow up in a bad environment have personality and psychological defects. Jiang Tu is a difficult person to get along with. He is aloof and cold, and he doesn't talk much."
Zhu Xingyao recalled Jiang Tu’s eyes just now, feeling okay
It was not yet time for morning reading, but the classroom was already very noisy. Some were eating breakfast, some were chatting, and a few boys got really excited and spoke very loudly, gesticulating as they spoke, as if they were suffering from ADHD, as if this was the energy that sixteen or seventeen-year-olds should have.
A boy ran in hurriedly, passed by Zhu Xingyao's desk, and knocked over the book she had just taken out.
The boy quickly picked it up and scratched his head: "I'm sorry..."
Zhu Xingyao: "It's okay."
Li Xixi glanced at the boy with acne on his face. The boy walked around to the back row and sat next to Jiang Tu. She took a sneak peek, then turned back and said, "But I think Jiang Tu is better than other boys in one respect."
Zhu Xingyao knew Li Xixi, a girl obsessed with looks, too well. She didn't even raise her head and asked, "Is she pretty?"
Li Xixi: "Yeah, don't you think so?"
Zhu Xingyao remembered Jiang Tu's appearance because of the few seconds of eye contact. She thought for a while and said, "It's okay. I don't really like boys who wear glasses." She also didn't like Jiang Tu's cold and aloof look. It's better for boys to be more sunny.
After a while, someone shouted, "Lao Cao is here!"
At 7:40, the morning reading bell rang.
The head teacher Cao Shujun walked into the classroom. Everyone called him Lao Cao, but he was not old at all. He was only 26 or 27 years old, just 10 years older than these students. It was his first time as a head teacher. He stood at the door and glanced at Jiang Tu. His eyes stayed on him for a few seconds, and he shouted to the boys who were still talking: "Let's talk after class. Now take out your textbooks and recite them."
After the morning reading class, Cao Shujun walked to the back row and patted Jiang Tu on the shoulder: "Come with me to the office."
Jiang Tu raised his head, stood up and walked out.
Representatives of each subject began to collect homework. Zhu Xingyao also stood up to collect physics homework. Her father, Zhu Yunping, used to be a university physics professor. He resigned a few years ago to start a business. She probably inherited Zhu Yunping's good genes. She was very good at physics. In the entrance examination, she ranked second in the class in physics, and Jiang Tu ranked first. She remembered Jiang Tu's middle school entrance examination results. Although his total score was only in the middle, he scored full marks in physics, the only one in the school who scored full marks in physics.
But because Jiang Tu asked for leave at the beginning of the school year, the position of physics class representative fell directly to her.
When she collected all the homework, Zhou Qian, the English class representative, was standing at the back door urging her deskmate Jiang Tu: "Hurry up! Don't you know how to copy the homework a little earlier!" She turned to look at Zhu Xingyao, "Why do you always collect the homework so quickly?"
Li Xixi raised her hand across four tables: "I know the answer to this question, because stars are beautiful."
The boy who copied the homework agreed while writing furiously: "Yes, she is our goddess, how can we let her wait?"
The other boys echoed: "Yeah, that's it!"
Zhou Qian: “…”
She swung a stack of homework and threw it at the boy's head: "Lilac, if you keep talking rudely, I will strangle you to death!"
The boy’s name is Ding Xiang. Sometimes he speaks in a mean way, so everyone gave him a nickname - Lilac.
Zhu Xingyao found it a little funny, coughed, and quickly walked out of the classroom with his homework.
Just over a month after the start of the school year, each class has already evaluated all the flowers and plants in the class and grade. Zhu Xingyao has never lost in this kind of evaluation since she was a child. I don’t know who posted a video of her playing the cello on the campus network. The girl in the video is wearing a white custom-made dress, sitting under the stage lights, closing her eyes and playing the cello. Her whole body is shining, which is particularly moving. She has become famous in the school because of this. After watching it, many boys directly regard Zhu Xingyao as a goddess.
There were only two teachers in the physics office. Jiang Tu was standing next to Cao Shujun's desk. He was very tall, over 1.8 meters tall at only sixteen or seventeen years old, with a straight and thin back.
Cao Shujun first gave him the monthly exam papers of each subject last month, and after thinking about it, he decided to skip the problems at home and explained some things about his studies: "You have been absent from class for more than a month, and you have fallen behind in your studies. Borrow some notes from your classmates and catch up on your studies first. Don't worry about other things."
Jiang Tu's face was calm and he nodded.
Cao Shujun sighed, "I've already talked to the school about this. You don't have to worry about being expelled. The more difficult your family situation is, the more you have to study hard. Only then will your future be smoother."
Zhu Xingyao walked out of the door with her homework. Seeing that they were still talking, she took a step back and stood by the wall with her head slightly lowered. Just as she was thinking about whether to go back first, she saw a pair of worn-out boys' sneakers and she quickly looked up.
Jiang Tu was looking down at her. Zhu Xingyao was flustered for a moment and wanted to say that she was not eavesdropping, but the boy had already turned and left. She handed in her homework with some depression, and returned to the class to find that there were more people in the corridor than usual. They were all pretending to look towards the back door casually, all to see what Jiang Tu looked like. This phenomenon lasted for most of the day.
Jiang Tu seemed completely unaffected, his expression was calm and indifferent, and he ignored those gazes.
Li Xixi turned her head back for the eighteenth time, propped up her chin and said, "To some extent, his mental quality is better than yours. He seems to have no feelings when being watched by so many people, while you occasionally blush and get angry."
When the video was first uploaded to the forum, Zhu Xingyao was also surrounded by a large crowd of people. Wherever she went, people would point to her - that was Zhu Xingyao.
She looked at Li Xixi: "You said this morning that he had mental problems."
Li Xixi: “…”
Snap—
Suddenly, there was a bottle of soy milk on the table. She looked up and saw Zhang Sheng, the sports teacher, smiling at her: "Zhu Xingyao, please have some soy milk."
Ever since she accepted a bottle of soy milk from Zhang Sheng at the school sports meet, this guy has brought her a bottle every day. Zhu Xingyao looked at the bottle of soy milk and repeated helplessly, "Thank you, but you really don't have to bring it to me next time."
Li Xixi took the soy milk away and said with a smile: "Don't you know? Drinking too much soy milk will cause developmental problems."
Zhang Sheng: “…”
Ding Xiang passed by and glanced at Li Xixi's chest, which couldn't be flatter, and raised his eyebrows in a mean way: "So, did you drink too much soy milk?"
Li Xixi: “…”
Zhu Xingyao couldn't help laughing. Her lips were red, her teeth were white, and her eyes were bright. Everyone was stunned for a second, and then suddenly burst into laughter. One boy slammed his head on the table and laughed: "Is this true? I suggest that girls don't drink soy milk anymore."
“That’s right!”
The girls stopped laughing.
Zhou Qian, who was sitting at the back table, glared at the boys and said, "Shut up!"
Li Xixi shot herself in the foot. She stamped her feet in frustration and threw the soy milk bottle in her hand towards Ding Xiang: "Lilac, go to hell!"
Ding Xiang hissed, hurriedly caught the soy milk, and sighed: "Zhou Qian also told me to die this morning. I've died twice today."
Li Xixi rolled her eyes in anger: "You deserve it. Even if you die a thousand times, it won't be enough to apologize."
"Okay, I'll fake my death anyway."
Ding Xiang shook his head. Just then the bell for class rang. He ran back to his seat and took the bottle of soy milk with him, making Zhang Sheng so angry that his face turned green.
This class was about history. The history teacher was an old man who was about to retire. Not many people listened in class. Jiang Tu was still reviewing the test paper Cao Shujun had given him.
Ding Xiang secretly counted the papers while he went to the toilet during the break. It was amazing. He was watched by the whole grade for a whole day, but he actually wrote seven math papers, eight physics papers, and six chemistry papers. He had finished all the science test papers during this period.
He put the bottle of soy milk over and coughed softly, "Well, doing the test paper is very hard, please have some soy milk."
Jiang Tu paused with his pen, glanced at the bottle of soy milk that had passed through five people's hands, and said coldly: "No, thank you."
Ding Xiang took it back awkwardly and muttered quietly, "I just can't stand Zhang Sheng. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the goddess doesn't like him sending her food, and he still drinks a bottle of soy milk every day. Can you win the goddess over with just a few bottles of soy milk? Idiot."
His voice was very low, but Jiang Tu heard it clearly. He turned around and took a serious look at his deskmate for the first time. Ding Xiang had a lot of pimples on his face, but his facial features were still regular, at least much more pleasing to the eye than Zhang Sheng. He mentioned Zhu Xingyao no less than ten times today.
Ding Xiang felt uneasy when he was staring at her. He said uncomfortably, "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"fine."
Jiang Tu spoke in a dull voice, pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose, and turned back to continue working on the test paper.
As soon as the bell rang, Jiang Tu pulled out a black schoolbag from his desk and was the first to leave the classroom.
No one saw it except Ding Xiang.
When everyone looked back, Jiang Tu's seat was empty, as if he had never been there. Some people even worried: "Why did Jiang Tu leave so quickly? Will he not come tomorrow?"
Ding Xiang immediately said, "No, he wrote more than a dozen test papers today."
"Wow, so amazing? Is this true?"
"Really? Didn't Lao Cao give him all the quiz and monthly exam papers? It's such a thick stack! He's finished all the science papers."
"Awesome! Then why is he running? I remember he always seemed to walk really fast after school."
Zhang Sheng snorted and laughed: "I guess they are afraid that the debt collectors will chase them to the school gate, so they hide quickly. Otherwise, are they going to be forced to drop out of school by the loan sharks?"
His expression was full of contempt and disdain, and his words were a bit gloating. Some people laughed a few times. Ding Xiang frowned and said, "Why are you talking like that? After all, we are classmates. Can't you hope for something good?"
"Am I not telling the truth?"
Zhu Xingyao carried her schoolbag and looked back expressionlessly. Zhang Sheng's smile froze slightly, but he particularly liked her cold and lonely look, so he waved shamelessly: "Goodbye, goddess."
Zhu Xingyao ignored him and said, "Xixi, let's go."
Li Xixi said "oh" and hurried to catch up. After leaving the classroom, she said, "Zhang Sheng is really annoying sometimes."
Zhang Sheng's family is well-off, and his grades are also OK. He doesn't take other people's words seriously. To put it nicely, he is too confident. To put it bluntly, he takes himself too seriously and is difficult to deal with. Zhu Xingyao frowned: "He is quite annoying."
Li Xixi asked: "Is Jiang Tu not going to school?"
Today is Friday, and there is no class tomorrow. Zhu Xingyao recalled what he heard outside the office and shook his head and said, "No."