Chapter 20 : Grades Announced
In the end, since the explanation would’ve been too long, Luo Xiaobei merely mentioned it in passing and didn’t go into detail with her Shifu (Master).
After all, the dungeon event starting at noon had already begun.
【Longing for You to Frolic by My Bedside】 and 【Pretty Lady Teacher】—the two of them—didn’t have much free time nowadays. They rarely logged on, so finding time to play events like this was a luxury.
So they focused on the dungeon first, and by the time they finished, it was already past 1 p.m.
【Pretty Lady Teacher: Alright, I still have class tomorrow. If I’m late, they’ll deduct my salary.】
【Longing for You to Frolic by My Bedside: Salary?】
【Pretty Lady Teacher: Oops, I meant course credits.】
【Longing for You to Frolic by My Bedside: Oh oh, right, credits are important. Same here. We university students have it so hard, boohoo~ Bye, Shifu~】
There was no rush to continue the romance talk—they could always pick that up next time. After saying goodnight, they both logged off.
As for Luo Xiaobei’s identity as a “university student”…
That was purely to be on equal footing with her Shifu, and also to protect herself a bit online.
Luo Xiaobei felt it was quite necessary.
After all, she wasn’t into offline meetups or anything. She wasn’t planning to meet the other party in real life, so she wasn’t worried about being exposed.
Besides, even though her Shifu was a real college student, he barely ever talked about university stuff online, which made Luo Xiaobei’s disguise even easier to maintain.
“I’ve got class tomorrow... What if I can’t sleep…”
Lying on her side in bed, Luo Xiaobei hugged a big pillow, tossing and turning.
Her head was a mess. She thought again about the note from the other day.
“That signature… Screw it!”
If only she’d paid more attention to the details back then, she shouldn’t have split it into two lines...
Even a comma would’ve done the trick…
Guan Ren, oh Guan Ren, you big pig! You should just keel over from stupidity!
She punched her pillow in frustration, then suddenly panicked and clasped her hands together in front of the ceiling.
“No wait, ptooey, ptooey... May he not die, may he not die. Heaven bear witness—I was just talking nonsense…”
Luo Xiaobei, oh Luo Xiaobei, you should just keel over from stupidity!
She threw a few more punches at the pillow, silently cursing herself, and then felt her eyes start to sting again.
Damn it…
Why did her eyes always betray her like this when he wasn’t around…
Now that she thought about it, should she write another note?
Logically speaking, if she’d messed it up, writing a new one would make sense.
But...
The whole reason she wrote it in the first place was on a whim.
If she hadn’t seen the boy who had been with her since childhood sitting next to the former class belle from Class 8 on the first day of school, she might’ve waited another three to five years without doing anything.
Besides, her childhood friend had only recently started maturing and actually paying attention to his studies.
If she acted like this again, would it really not mess with him…
“Forget it… Better safe than sorry. Gotta draw the line somewhere…”
At the very least, Luo Xiaobei couldn’t imagine what it would be like if one day her confession failed and that boy started avoiding her, growing distant…
“Ahhhh! No, no, I can’t even think about that!”
Even just imagining it made Luo Xiaobei feel miserable.
Better to just focus on sleeping.
Dreams could have everything—and nothing at all.
---
The next day.
“Ha—ahh…”
“Luo Xiaobei, what time did you sleep last night?”
“None of your business.”
“If I didn’t care about you, would you have grown up this well?”
“Wanna get smacked?!”
At their seats, Luo Xiaobei and Du Zihan started goofing around.
They were poking each other’s arms and tickling bellies, nearly reaching the “pinch face” stage when Guan Ren appeared and pinched the tip of Luo Xiaobei’s nose.
“What are you doing…”
Luo Xiaobei gave him a wounded look, her voice muffled.
“Nothing.”
Guan Ren wiggled her little nose gently, making her let out a series of “mmm mmm mmm” sounds.
“Luo Xiaobei, you used up quite a bit of tissue last night, didn’t you?”
“I did not!”
Her face reddened slightly, fingers twisting together.
“You’re the one who used it…”
“……”
Guan Ren’s eyelids drooped.
What on earth was this girl thinking all the time…
“I meant your nose. It’s a bit red. You stayed up all night and caught a chill, right? Probably had a runny nose? Luo Xiaobei, looks like you’re determined to come down with a proper cold.”
“It was just a late night yesterday. I won’t do it again.”
“You’d better not. Also, remember to drink more hot water.”
He reached out and poked the tear mole under Luo Xiaobei’s eye, then took her pink thermos from her desk.
Luo Xiaobei sat quietly in her seat, hands cradling her cheeks, feet swinging under the desk as she waited.
Before long, her childhood friend returned with the thermos full of hot water.
Luo Xiaobei glanced at the steam rising from the cup, then looked up and blinked her big eyes.
“It’s hot.”
“I added cold water.”
“Oh.”
She took a sip.
“Why does plain boiled water taste like nothing?”
“Such a fuss.”
Guan Ren shot her a look, then pulled a coffee stick from his pocket.
He tapped it, tore it open.
Poured it into Luo Xiaobei’s cup.
Then he picked up the cup and, mimicking Bai Zhantang from My Own Swordsman shaking dice in that gambling episode, shook it wildly with his head bobbing all over.
Clack!
He finally slammed the cup down on the desk, opened the lid, and the mixed coffee was still swirling inside.
“Nice!”
A few classmates who had been watching the whole time burst into applause and started tossing eraser crumbs and tiny paper balls at Guan Ren as a reward.
“Reward him! Do it again!”
“Scram, scram, scram!”
Guan Ren moved swiftly, shielding Luo Xiaobei’s cup while waving his Great Mercy Palm to bounce all the random junk flying toward them right back.
Unfortunately, one particularly energetic eraser scrap bounced a bit too far, landing squarely on the head of Li Min, who had just walked into the classroom. It got lodged in her nest-like instant-noodle curls.
The students who witnessed the scene quickly covered their mouths, but couldn’t help snickering.
“What’s so funny?”
Oblivious to the eraser scrap, Li Min shot them a glare.
“Go on, tell me. I’d like a laugh too.”
Pfft—hahaha!
Liu Xiong was the first to crack, laughing until he couldn’t hold it in.
He happened to be sitting in the front row of Group One. The moment Li Min turned her head, she smacked him on the head with a stack of papers she was holding.
“You’re laughing the hardest. Must’ve done great on the monthly exam, huh? What was your score?”
“Teacher, I… I don’t know…”
“Don’t know?”
Li Min sneered, pulled a paper from the stack, and slammed it onto Liu Xiong’s desk.
“Math! Out of 150 points, you scored 55! I don’t even want to know how you did in other subjects!”
As she spoke, she grabbed a fistful of the back of Liu Xiong’s neck, lifting him like a baby chick and tugging repeatedly while whispering fiercely into his ear.
“Still feel like laughing? Huh? You got the nerve to laugh? Huh?”
At that moment, the entire classroom quieted down a little.
Many students turned their eyes toward the paper in Li Min’s hand. Only then did they realize, the math scores for the monthly exam were out. Even though Mr. Hu hadn’t arrived yet, Li Min, being the homeroom teacher, had brought them in early.
“And you lot—don’t think you did any better!”
After she finished with Liu Xiong, Li Min slowly walked up to the podium, shuffling through the papers in her hand. She pointed one by one at the students who’d been watching Guan Ren’s “performance,” but when her eyes fell on Guan Ren himself, her expression suddenly softened.
Slap…
She dropped the stack of papers on the podium and began announcing the math scores.
“…I’ll read one, you come get one…”
“…We’re going from lowest to highest this time. Let’s see who in Class 7 needs a reality check…”
Reading from lowest to highest honestly made some of the weaker students quite pleased.
As the saying goes: “Better a short pain than a long one.”
Get it over with early and spare yourself the suspense—worth it.
“…Chen Yaozu, 50 points…”
“…Xu Tianle, 62 points…”
…
“…Chen Chen, 108…”
“…Gao Song, 110…”
As the names piled up, the classroom occasionally burst into laughter.
But sometimes there was silence too. When someone underperformed, all eyes would quietly shift in their direction.
In the midst of it all, Zhang Chi started feeling a little thrilled.
He hadn’t been mentioned in the bottom rankings. Could it be that he’d actually pulled it off this time?
But as the scores reached into the 90s, Zhang Chi began to feel something was off.
“…Gu Youli, 133 points!…”
“…Du Zihan, 133 points!…”
“…Wang Chao, 134!…”
As the top scores were announced, the entire class erupted in surprise—but still, Zhang Chi’s name didn’t come up.
No way he scored higher than Wang Chao, right?
Sure enough, after a brief pause, Li Min pulled out a paper with special weight.
“Zhang Chi—this time, the most famous student in the entire grade: zero points!”
“Hahahaha—!”
Those who didn’t know Zhang Chi well were still in shock, but his close buddies were already slapping their desks in laughter.
“Caught cheating in class! Score invalidated! You, to my office—now!”
…
Amidst the chaos and chatter, only Gu Youli remained calm. She quietly stared at the single sheet of paper still left on the podium, brows deeply furrowed. Every so often, she glanced sideways at Guan Ren.
Because so far… her strange deskmate, Guan Ren’s math score—hadn’t been announced yet.