Ji XingLing, you are here to comfort me, are you not?
The whole class was anxiously waiting for their exam results. Still, Wang HongYu had a lot of words to say, as he said slowly as well as methodically, “This time examination is still simple when compared to the university entrance examination, so you who get good results, don’t need to be too proud about it. You must strive to continue to work hard.” and so on and so forth, for quite a long time. A broken thermal cup that ended up being held up then put down, after he put it down, it was being held up again. Until he saw that the whelps below the podium had a meltdown in which provided him a tremendous sense of contentment, then he asked the class representative to distribute the test papers, “Since everyone is doing well in the exam, I won’t announce the score individually. I will focus on a few results only. First-place in the grade is Wei Xue with a score of 130, 128 for Li MoYuan and Lin Jing, and Ji XingLing is the one who has made the most progress by getting the score of 109. This time, his composition is very crafty, so everyone can circulate it to read it when in the major self-studies.”
Ji XingLing, “…”
What bizarre aspect is this?
“Come on, let me have the honor of perusing your masterpieces, you great writers.” Yu YiZhou, who was always looking for a chance to stir up trouble, took the lead by extending out his hand first to demand it, while he got a smoothly returned with retaliation of harsh words “piss off”. Ji XingLing struck aside the dog’s paw behind him, then turned his head, and glanced at Lin Jing. Seeing that Lin Jing was talking to Li MoYuan in a low voice, and didn’t seem to be depressed because of “Short of two points and blunder away the first place”, then Ji XingLing sat back in peace.
The bright red of 109 was jotted down in the score’s column of the test paper. So what was the notion of 109 scores? It was only 21 points away from the first-ranking, and while looking at a broader range, last year, the champion of JinCheng’s college entrance examination, had only scored 115 in the Chinese exam.
Although there was definitely a differentiation in the complexity of the questions, Brother Xing was indeed still qualified to float appropriately at the present moment.
Wang HongYu was in a good mood, and it was rare for him not to delay the class; he had generously dismissed the class as soon as the after-class bell rang.
Yu YiZhou was stretching out, “Go to lunch? By the way, pass on your advanced learning experience.”
“The experience is to steer clear as far as possible from a less advanced person like you.” Ji XingLing threw the book into the book box, too lazy to banter tediously, “Go with Ge Hao ba, I have something to do.”
Yu YiZhou forcibly hooked his arm around Ji XingLing’s neck, “Hey, what’s the matter with you lately? You are busy with whatever important matters every day. If you don’t say it clearly, I will just follow you around ah.”
“Let me go!”
“Never!”
“Yu YiZhou!”
“Frankly confess, where do you want to go after leaving Daddy at mid-noon?”
“Wocao!”
The two were gripping and struggling on their seats, and Ge Hao stood beside them, looking very miserable, “The first session of the afternoon is mathematics. Teacher Li always comes fifteen minutes earlier.” So when exactly could we all go to the cafeteria?
Ji XingLing had finally managed to wriggle himself free from Yu YiZhou, and when he looked up, the classroom had long been deserted. He actually wanted to invite Lin Jing to have a meal. After all, this time, his composition could be passed off as a high score, all relying upon Little Teacher Lin in finding a suitable model essay before the exam. Yet, he was disturbed by the bastard Yu YiZhou, so the shared lunch meal could only be postponed temporarily, then he gave a kick to the other party disgruntledly, “Let’s go to Furong Yuan, this lunch will be your treat.”
Yu YiZhou wondered, “You just say you have something to do, aren’t you?”
“I’ve changed my mind.” Ji XingLing pulled his back collar and dragged Yu YiZhou outside the classroom, “I’ve decided to give you a chance to treat Daddy to lunch.”
“Kao, get lost!”
…
The two subjects’ results that were out in the morning were Chinese in which everyone joined in the celebration, and English as it was considered flunked. Nevertheless, because of Miss Ning’s thoughtfulness and gentleness, she didn’t scold them at all. Instead, she had comforted the poor unlucky ones who had failed. Therefore, the mentality of the masses was basically stable.
However, there was a different situation in mathematics.
Li JianSheng initially already had a face of a strict teacher who was under the guise of enjoying state subsidies, not to mention his silent, sullen face and the corners of his mouth drooped down, while standing behind the podium with a pile of test papers in front of him, He looked terrifying.
It was a true horror story of ShanHai.
Today, Yu YiZhou was rather unlucky. He was still joking around with Ji XingLing when he entered the classroom. As a result, just as he turned his head, his gaze had bumped right into Mr. Li’s smiling face, and he came to a screeching halt, “Teacher Li!”
Ji XingLing, who had no time to retract his legs, had his nose directly hit the back of Yu YiZhou’s head, “Hiss…”
Ge Hao, who stood at the end, was holding onto the two people’s school uniforms in front of him, “Re-report.”
Even though there were still seven-eight minutes left for the pre-class bell to ring, the classroom was already so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
“The three of you have a good relationship ah.” Li JianSheng asked, “Do each of you know how many points that you scored this time ma?”
It was the same question of “Guess what score you got on the test”. If the Chinese literature in the morning belonged to an inspirational youth movie, then the math in the afternoon was an American psychological horror-thriller TV series of who will die next, with the blizzards hovering over the entire mountain village as the background setting, and whoever spoke first would die first.
Of course, no one was idiotic enough to take the initiative to rejoin.
So Li JianSheng continued, “One is 47, one is 57, one is 67, leaving aside, it’s quite well allocated.”
Afterward, someone murmured and muffled a laugh, but then quickly hushed.
Li JianSheng probably also didn’t want to look at the awful score anymore, lest his blood pressure would continue to rise, so he released the three people back to their seats after a few words of criticism. Ji XingLing originally didn’t think there was anything. After all, he had taken a test of 27, and 57 was already rose doubled. Still, when he returned to his seat, he found Lin Jing was looking at him, unknowingly to which nerve was being pricked, and while Ji XingLing was inexplicably being stared at, unexpectedly, for some reason, he had some kind of feeling… It was similar to the feeling of a guilty conscience. This was really an absurdity and inconceivable. You must know that Mr. Li, who was burning candles weep, till no more tears they can shed1, had taught the young master for a year, but had not been able to let him produce even the slightest thought of “Couldn’t test too lousy to let the teacher disappointed”, and he went with him. However, his peer, Little Teacher Lin, could complete this impossible task within three or five days, which was a miracle in the history of education.
When the test papers were distributed, Ji XingLing had scored 57, plus Chinese and English scores; he got a total score of 248 points. The total score of 400 was starting to look hopeful and promising. On the podium, Li JianSheng glanced at the paper in his hand, “Lin Jing 127, you have just transferred, and your results are very good. You can make further progress if you catch up with the progress.”
This score was similar to the previous assessment, and Lin Jing was not too disappointed. Ji XingLing took a glance at Mr. Li’s hand. At least ten people still hadn’t been announced yet, so 127 points were not even the top ten in the class.
That made people very unhappy.
The highest grade score was Li MoYuan’s with a full score of 150 points, and this belonged to the regular operation of President Li. Ji XingLing wasn’t in the mood to listen to Li JianSheng’s topic of lectures, as he didn’t understand it anyway, so he simply sent a WeChat message to Little Teacher Lin to show his comfort.
Brother Xing: Are you okay?
Lin Jing’s smartphone that he forgot to turn off to put on the mute before the class and had been tossed into the book box, vibrated, with the vibration effect that was quite startling. Li JianSheng coughed twice, discontentedly, and darting over a warning gaze, Lin Jing earnestly bowed his head as he admitted his mistake, then quickly shut it down and stuffed it into his schoolbag.
“…”
A few minutes later, Yu YiZhou couldn’t help it, “Brother Xing, did you get a stiff neck last night? Why did you keep twisting your head around? I almost get nausea from you doing that.”
Ji XingLing, who was at a loss for words, sat up stiffly straight.
Are you dictionary savvy? So much nonsense.
After finally waiting for the end of the two periods of mathematics classes, class 2-1 once again spontaneously carried out a large-scale group activity to touch the test papers, but this time, it was only Li MoYuan’s desk was being surrounded by everyone. Ji XingLing knocked on Lin Jing’s desk with a hand in his pocket, “Go buy water?”
“Help me bring a bottle of water ba. I’ll WeChat transfer the money.” Lin Jing was busy copying the formulas.
“Hey, you.. that.. I think 127 points is already very high, really.” Ji XingLing had straddled the chair, sat across him, and with well-reasonable analysis, “Besides, you haven’t learned the two major questions, after deducting and rounding it up, it’s almost a full mark, right ba.”
Lin Jing’s hands paused and looked up at him, “Ji XingLing, you are here to comfort me, right?”
“……” What’s wrong! I couldn’t ma! A test score of 57 couldn’t comfort a test score of 127!
“I don’t feel that I have poor grades.” Lin Jing put down the pen, “Also, after I just finished copying these, I will help you by looking through your test papers. You didn’t do well on the math test this time. It is because you have wasted 20 minutes of test time, so I will take responsibility for it.”
Ji XingLing was alert, “How are you going to be responsible?” Absolutely don’t say that you have to go to Niu WeiDong, to use reason to make him understand, also to make him emotionally moved, so he would apply for a separate exam for me to test.
“I will find three nights a week of time to help you by tutoring you in math, and I will definitely have you reach 80 points in the midterm exam.” Little Teacher Lin had initially intended to say that he would be guaranteed to pass the exam. Still, after considering the students’ current… incredibly tragic level, he decided that it was better to deduct 10 points.
Ji XingLing: ?
No way ba, mathematics was the same as Mr. Li’s Hong Kong Star pompadour haircut, which was all very spicy to the eyes2. I think 57 was already fine.
Just when he was about to find an excuse to refuse, the classroom was in turmoil once again 一 Hou YueTao, who just went to the head office, had brought back the political and historical test papers, saying that the teacher would deliver it down first and further elaborate on it in class tomorrow.
Ji XingLing, “…”
Lin Jing patted him on the shoulder, “Wait. I’ll get your test papers.”
The Xuezha public image couldn’t collapse, and never took the initiative to look at the results.
In this regard, the burden of the Brother Xing idol’s baggage3had reached 1,500 tons.
The surroundings of the podium were so packed and in a complete mess, with the test papers were also constantly flying out. The boys who finally got their test papers, turned their heads, and when they saw that Lin Jing and Li MoYuan were standing side by side behind them, suddenly the drama addiction attacked. They pinched their throats and shouted like eunuchs, indicating that the losers in front were all to be out of the way and let the Xueba come first.
Ji XingLing propped an arm on the desk, while absent-mindedly scrolling his smartphone. Ge Hao, who stood behind him, looked at it for a moment, and asked inexplicably, “Brother Xing, this page is already on the last page. Why do you keep refreshing it repeatedly?”
“…”
Go bloom your flowers!
After a while, Lin Jing came back with the test papers of the two of them, and without keeping him in suspense, “Your total score is over four hundred.”
Ji XingLing stroked his chin, as he refrained himself as best as he could without showing delightfulness overflowing from his face, “Oh.”
“Really, you get 172 points, and the total score was just 420.” Lin Jing passed him the test paper, “Next time you can get 500 points, when you get a better score in math.”
Although this sentence was obviously mostly a component of encouragement, next time I would say whether English would be so lucky or not, Brother Xing still felt very happy. He arbitrarily held the paper in his hand and asked, “What about your score?”
“252.”
“What about Li MoYuan’s score ne?”
“247.”
Good mood +1.
Little Teacher Lin wouldn’t lose.
When school was over, the grade list had been posted. Li MoYuan ranked first place in the whole grade with a total score of 672 points. This time, Lin Jing didn’t participate in the ranking because he was a transfer student. Wang HongYu was very sorry for this. He rambled about it for a long time in the office. If he had known earlier that the application was made in advance, it was completely unnecessary to not be put into the ranking list ma. Otherwise, our class would account for half of the top ten this time.
Hu MeiMei also received the exam results from the school. When she looked at 420, her face was beamed with joy, as she couldn’t wait for her son to go home; she called him while he was still on the way home. After five minutes of eloquent boasting, she remembered and asked, “How many points do Xiao Jing’s get in the test?”
“654, ranked among the top ten in the whole grade.” Ji XingLing added promptly after saying that, “But he hasn’t learned two major mathematics problems at all, which was beyond the scope of the current syllabus. Otherwise, he must get 150, and his total score will be slightly higher than Li MoYuan.”
As expected, Hu MeiMei praised, “That’s really amazing.”
Because of Little Teacher Lin had scrupulously in safeguarding to maintain Young Master Ji eight-grader syndrome of “Never studied, didn’t care about scores at all, but could seriously make progress despite taking the exams casually” all the way, that’s why Young Master Ji’s public persona had never collapsed. So, in turn, Ji XingLing conscientiously repeatedly emphasized that “He hasn’t learned that mathematics. Otherwise, he definitely got 150”, so Lin Jing’s image in the eyes of the parents of the community first and foremost had always been a reliable and experienced one.
It was deeply touching where they both helped each other.
Translator's Notes
- 春蚕到死丝方尽，蜡炬成灰泪始干 chūn cán dào sǐ sī fāng jìn,là jù chéng huī lèi shǐ gān. – The spring silkworms only stop making silk till they’re dead. Just after the wick turned into ashes, candle tears started to dry.It’s part of an ancient poem. I’d say it’s a beautiful love poem with a melancholic undertone. These two sentences here are something like a statement to his loved one, saying “my feeling and love for you would only disappear after I die.”
But nowadays, people would use it often in a different context, like to praise somebody who made a great sacrifice or dedicated his/her whole life to something. - Spicy Eyes(辣眼睛, Là yǎnjīng), literally spicy eyes, means something irritates your eyes, making you full of tears, and thus, you could not bear seeing it. It is a metaphor. In fact, the reason why you think it is too horrible to look at, is because it challenged some mainstream values that you share. So it is a derogatory term, mainly used for the purpose of satire. The original 辣眼睛 means the spicy gas (such as scent from onion) stings your eyes (to shed tears). Belong to emerging network buzzwords.“辣” is originally an adjective that means spicy, but in the phrase “辣眼睛” it is used as a verb. “眼睛”meaning eyes, and “辣眼睛” means the eyes get a feeling of irritation as if something spicy accidentally got into the eyes. Since “辣眼睛” is mainly used in the Internet community, the very “Something Spicy” here can be some weird, irritating, and offensive texts or pictures you saw on the Internet.
- (burden of having to maintain one’s image as a pop idol)