Chapter 13: The Beauty of First Encounters (5)
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At that age, boys cared about little more than their pride and their sense of presence, and the pampered young master Feng certainly could not bear losing face in front of so many people.
His expression darkened as he turned around and strode back to Ye Xiangwan’s desk. Curling his index finger, he rapped his knuckles against the tabletop.
“Come out.”
Ye Xiangwan withdrew her gaze from a cloud scattered by the wind and sighed inwardly.
Longchuan was unlike other schools. Here, the divisions between social classes were clearly defined, and every little group gathered in the classroom was a miniature reflection of one such class.
People like Feng Jinyan belonged to the highest tier. They were the children of billionaires whose assets ran into the hundreds of millions, or of families with dazzling political backgrounds.
Below them were the children of companies worth tens of millions, senior executives, and first- and second-tier entertainers. Members of the middle class were practically nonexistent here. As for Ye Xiangwan, she belonged purely to the category of “those receiving social assistance.”
As someone receiving “social assistance,” she truly did not want to be the object of an entire class’s attention on the very first day of school. Unfortunately, someone was determined not to let her have her way.
She and Feng Jinyan remained locked in a silent standoff, one standing and the other seated, until a woman in high heels entered the classroom with a taut expression and stopped in front of the lectern.
“Everyone, please return to your seats. From now on, I’ll be your homeroom teacher. My name is Jiang Huan, and I’m going to hold our morning meeting.”
Feng Jinyan frowned and stared at Ye Xiangwan for another two seconds before turning around and taking the seat in front of her, displeased. After all, none of the teachers qualified to discipline students at this school were exactly harmless.
“Next Monday, we’ll be holding the new-student entrance assembly. There has been a change in the student representative who will deliver the speech. Ye Xiangwan, please prepare yourself.”
The moment she finished speaking, a low murmur swept through the classroom.
“Shouldn’t it be Feng Jinyan? He’s ranked first in the school, and besides, his family has invested quite a lot in the school.”
“Who exactly is this Ye Xiangwan?”
The boy in front, who had been rocking his chair slightly with his feet perched on it, suddenly drew in his long legs. The chair’s raised legs slammed onto the floor with a thud.
“Would you like to say that a little louder? I can open the window and let you come over here to shout it, hmm?”
Feng Jinyan turned toward the boy nearest to him across the aisle.
His voice was not loud, but it was enough to silence the entire class.
Ye Xiangwan watched him raise a hand and irritably rake it through his hair. Whether he had slept poorly or was simply furious, his light-brown curls stuck out unruly between his fingers, so disheveled that they made one want to reach over and smooth them down.
After a moment, Ye Xiangwan lowered her eyes, turned sideways, and lightly patted Feng Jinyan’s desk.
“Young Master Feng, since you asked me to read it for you that day because you had something else to do, don’t forget to give me your speech tonight.”
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The moment her words fell, the room went silent. Two seconds later, the entire class erupted into discussion.
Before the next break was over, the whole school knew for certain that Young Master Feng had brought a personal lackey to school.
In a circle where socializing was the primary purpose, a single trip to the restroom was enough to spread gossip across several classes.
However, because of a school tradition, the first day of term was reserved for placement examinations. The students from other classes had yet to get the chance to see this first-ever “connected admission” in person.
Since there were so few students, every classroom was arranged in a five-by-six grid of individual desks. No one needed to change seats for the exam.
But Ye Xiangwan had never heard that there would be a placement test on the first day, so she had not prepared a marking pencil.
Aside from the rustling sound of papers being passed around, the classroom was oppressively silent.
Ye Xiangwan sat in front of Feng Jinyan. By the time the students beside her had begun answering their questions, she still had not received an exam paper.
The people in front of her should not have been playing tricks on her. That left only—
The problem had to lie with the young master sitting behind her.
She turned around and tapped Feng Jinyan’s desk with her pen. He ignored her completely, not even raising his eyes, and continued sweeping his pen wildly across the page.
He had propped up a book to block her view, so Ye Xiangwan had no idea what he was doing. Two seconds later, Feng Jinyan finally lifted his eyes and said in a lowered voice, “I won’t let you come first.”
Ye Xiangwan: “…”
Feng Jinyan pressed his lips together, then leisurely handed the paper to her.
She took it and looked down. Across the entire answer sheet, he had scrawled a single line in wild, sweeping strokes. Each individual character was nearly half a palm’s width.
I AM NUMBER ONE!
The writing had been pressed so hard that the ink had sunk deep into the paper. To the touch, the reverse side had more texture than Braille.
Ye Xiangwan: “…”
Supporting her forehead, she lowered her eyes and scanned the five exclamation marks that looked ready to burst out of the margins. Suddenly, she felt like laughing.
She had not expected Young Master Feng, who appeared so tall and imposing, to do something so childish.
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After all, she had stopped doing childish things like that back in first grade. But with a deskmate like this behind her, she had no better solution and could only raise her hand to request a fresh answer sheet.
The exchange cost her five or six minutes, but fortunately, the subject was Chinese. After reading the passage and glancing over the marks assigned to each question, Ye Xiangwan organized the possible scoring points in her mind. When the new answer sheet arrived, she filled it in calmly and methodically.
Only a few minutes had passed when something fell from above her head with a soft clatter and landed on the desk. She instinctively straightened up, only to see that it was a marking pencil with a sky-blue cap.
The late-summer heat had yet to recede. With the classroom windows open, the light-brown ends of the hair behind her stirred gently in the warm breeze, giving them a soft appearance. Feng Jinyan did not turn around; he merely tipped his chair back and began rocking it out of habit.
Ye Xiangwan looked at the pencil, her expression shifting slightly. She turned around, stretched out her leg, and lightly pressed her foot against the crossbar of the chair in front of her.
“Oh, shi—”
In the solemn silence of the examination room, Young Master Feng, who nearly toppled out of his chair, forcibly bit off half the word and swallowed it.
He glanced up at Jiang Huan, who was frowning at him, and gave her a slight bow. Then he abruptly lowered his head and glared at Ye Xiangwan. If looks could become tangible, the person seated in front of him would have been reduced to a mound of dumpling filling.
Feng Jinyan stared at her for a full five seconds, while Ye Xiangwan drank water for five seconds straight.
Feng Jinyan’s skin was very fair, and anger had turned the tips of his ears faintly red.
Ye Xiangwan tilted her head back and met his gaze with clear, limpid eyes.
Young Master Feng finally looked away. Then he extended his left hand beside Ye Xiangwan and raised his middle finger. Afraid she might not see it, he even touched the tip against her arm before waving it several times beside her.
Ye Xiangwan’s eyelids drooped slightly, her gaze lingering there.
His nails were neatly trimmed, and his fingers were long and slender yet sharply jointed. Judging by his posture, he seemed determined to keep up this taunt for the entire exam.
The motion began to make Ye Xiangwan dizzy. She raised her hand and gently pinched the tip of one of his fingers.
The water she had drunk had been bought from the supermarket during the break. Most of the ice inside the bottle had yet to melt, and fine beads of condensation covered the bottle except where she had just held it.
The late-summer heat was dry, stifling, and scorching, while her fingertips were cool, damp, and soft.
In a breathy voice, Ye Xiangwan said, “Thank you.”
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