Zhou Cheng, who was sleeping in the living room, heard movement in the middle of the night. He opened his eyes in a daze and only then realised his daughter had come home.
At that moment, he felt both shocked and regretful.
Zhou Cheng had woken up before five that morning to start preparing. By the time they closed the stall, it was already past eight at night. The moment his head touched the pillow, he had fallen into a dead sleep. He did not even know whether his daughter had come home or not.
Thinking of Auntie Lin’s words, he could not help feeling guilty.
Auntie Lin had not been wrong. They really were unqualified parents.
Zhou Xiu had never made anyone worry about her since she was little. When she was a child, she had been delicate and adorable, like a carved jade doll. She often hugged Zhou Cheng’s leg, following him wherever he went. She had been very clingy.
But he did not know when that closeness had gradually disappeared. Now, it was even more distant. Thinking of what had happened half a year ago, Zhou Cheng regretted it so much that his hair almost turned white.
He mumbled, “Xiuxiu, why did you come back so late today?”
Zhou Xiu said, “I was doing homework at school. I missed the subway, so I got delayed.”
Zhou Cheng quietly heated up some food for his daughter.
Zhou Xiu hurriedly ate some noodles, washed up, and lay down on her bed.
…
The next day.
Half a month had already passed since school started, and the monthly exam was gradually approaching.
The students of Class 24 began a new round of revision. The students from the neighbouring classes still remembered how wildly Class 24 had celebrated during the last monthly exam.
This time, as the monthly exam drew near, they all came over after hearing the news, one after another, to ask Class 24 about their revision materials.
They were all sent away by Class 24’s underachievers with various excuses. When Du Feiyang returned to his seat, he complained, “We already said it was a secret weapon.”
Could something that was easily given to others still be called a secret weapon?
Did they think it was easy for Xiuxiu to organise those materials?
Since the start of term, Du Feiyang had listened carefully in every maths, physics, and chemistry class and taken notes, trying to learn from Zhou Xiu and take proper notes. But he could not get the hang of it at all. Who knew what questions the teacher would set?
It was only at a time like this that he realised how difficult it must have been for Zhou Xiu to organise those notes last semester.
After school at noon, Du Feiyang saw that Tan Ming had actually not gone to play basketball. He let out a “Whoa.”
“Even Mingming has started working hard. What reason do we have not to?”
Du Feiyang’s teasing made Tan Ming lose a little face. He could not help saying, “It’s not like my grades are that bad, right?”
Tan Ming had always ranked in the top ten of the class, but last semester, his classmates had all shot up like rockets, improving by over a hundred marks each. Tan Ming suddenly dropped to somewhere in the thirties.
Being mocked by Du Feiyang, who had once been at the bottom of the class, gave him an extremely subtle feeling.
That afternoon, Yu Qingyan grew tired from revision and aimlessly scrolled through her WeChat Moments. She discovered that Tan Ming had started recording his revision progress.
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3… all the way up to today’s Day 10.
When she clicked in, she found that Tan Ming had even changed his WeChat cover photo. In the past, his cover photo had been a picture of Lu Lingshan. Now, it was a pen writing on paper.
Every day, Du Feiyang mocked him under his posts: “Trash Mingming, you got this question wrong.”
Du Feiyang, who looked at Tan Ming’s posts every day, was so thick-nerved that he had not noticed anything wrong. Yu Qingyan looked at his WeChat cover photo. The more she looked, the more familiar that fountain pen seemed.
This… looked like a girl’s hand. Sister Xu had the same fountain pen too, didn’t she?
Although Hua Xu did not use that fountain pen often.
Yu Qingyan’s gaze became rather complicated as she looked at Tan Ming and Du Feiyang. In an instant, she imagined an entire dramatic scene of two brothers fighting over the same girl.
They had been classmates since primary school and were as close as brothers and sisters who had grown up wearing the same pair of trousers. There was no reason for Tan Ming, after giving up on Lu Lingshan, to secretly fall for Sister Xu instead, right?
Hopefully, she was thinking too much…
After Tan Ming finished revising, he casually checked in. Once he posted, hundreds of red notification circles popped up within minutes. There were so many that he could not even read them all.
The junior and senior girls at school who had added Tan Ming on WeChat discovered that the male god, who had not posted anything in ages, had actually posted an update. Receiving this subtle signal, they all grew excited.
“Understood. Signal received. Mingming is going to study hard!”
“Go for it, senior! I’ll check in and study with you.”
“Is senior going to learn from Senior Lu’s spirit of studying hard and improving every day?”
Tan Ming scrolled for a long time but did not see the comment he wanted to see, so he simply created a private group. He reposted the update so that only those people could see it, and things finally became quiet.
During the afternoon self-study period, Zhou Xiu went to the laboratory to do an experiment. She took a photo of the plant cells she had cut herself. Seeing that the students of Class 24 were all posting study check-ins, she casually liked them one by one.
When Zhou Xiu returned to the classroom, she glanced at the calendar and realised the monthly exam was not far away.
She sent Hua Xu many files through her phone. At the same time, Hua Xu’s phone began ringing with one notification after another.
Hua Xu received the pile of files, and doubt gradually appeared on her face. When she clicked them open, she was pleasantly surprised to discover that they were revision notes Zhou Xiu had organised!
With these notes, Hua Xu immediately let out a breath of relief. She felt the pressure on her shoulders lighten a lot.
“Xiuxiu, you…” She frowned. “Aren’t you busy with competitions? How did you still have time to organise all this?”
Zhou Xiu said calmly, “It’s fine. A lot of it was already organised before.”
In order to complete the system’s task of previewing all the high school courses, Zhou Xiu had summarised and made notes as she previewed. This pile of notes was the result of her previewing. After repeated previewing, reviewing, and several rounds of revision, it had already become Zhou Xiu’s own set of study materials.
Although she no longer had much use for these materials herself, they were suitable for giving to her classmates.
Excitedly, Hua Xu took the notes for each subject to be photocopied and printed enough copies for the whole class.
Carrying a pile of materials, she busied herself distributing the revision notes during self-study, saying as she handed them out, “Revise properly.”
“Treasure these materials.”
The underachievers who received the revision materials were so moved that words could not describe it. They almost wanted to dig out their hearts, as if they were underground party members receiving care from the organisation.
“Mm-hm, we’ll sharpen our heads and revise!”
“We definitely won’t let down the organisation’s encouragement!”
What was funny was that Hua Xu had even added a few bold words to the plain white cover: “Internal Use Only. Do Not Leak.”
After Tan Ming finished revising, his phone vibrated softly. He opened the app and saw that Zhou Xiu had actually liked his post.
Her profile picture was a tender green sapling.
When Hua Xu reached Tan Ming’s desk, she handed a copy to Du Feiyang. After hesitating for a moment, she also gave another copy to Tan Ming.
“This time, revise together neatly and properly. Don’t fall behind,” Hua Xu said.
The moment Tan Ming raised his head, he saw the materials Zhou Xiu had organised. At that instant, happiness bubbled up inside him.
For the first time, he opened the materials Zhou Xiu had compiled. After flipping through them for a while, he realised that they were not only monthly exam materials; they also contained the content for the entire semester. The content was detailed and thorough, with a large number of representative practice questions attached.
School had started less than a month ago, yet she had already finished studying the entire semester’s content in advance. The materials she had organised were full of practical tips and key points. Reading through them, one could clearly see her different levels of understanding at each stage.
Tan Ming’s heart trembled slightly.
The classmates were also shocked. No wonder this set of materials felt as thick as the ones from the end of last semester. It turned out the top student had already previewed all the lessons for this term in advance.
At that moment, as the underachievers flipped through the materials, they were frightened. So this was… the power of hard work that Zhou Xiu spoke of?
…
Rocket Class.
As the monthly exam approached, Lu Lingshan received maths tutoring in turns from Xu Haobo, Li Simiao, and Qi Yaguang.
Their study discussion group worked on exam papers together. When Li Simiao saw the difficult question Lu Lingshan handed over, he shook his head. “I don’t know how to do this one. Ask God Xie later.”
The word “later” from Li Simiao carried a bit of meaning. When Xie Cheng was working on questions, he rarely paid attention to anyone else.
But Lu Lingshan did not mind. The top students in the class had always been happy to help this beautiful school belle.
She took the paper and went directly to ask Xie Cheng.
Xie Cheng was writing the long-answer questions for those fifteen papers. Without even looking up, he said calmly, “Sorry, I don’t have time right now.”
Lu Lingshan was rebuffed and returned to her seat with the paper. Qi Yaguang comforted her, saying, “I was just about to tell you. You can’t disturb God Xie when he’s solving questions.”
The expression on Lu Lingshan’s face stiffened slightly. She took out her phone and played on it for a while. By chance, she discovered a set of photos. Shockingly, they were of Xie Cheng and Zhou Xiu, and they were quite popular.
The blogger had posted several photos with the caption: “Late-night couple content. Their visuals are amazing!”
At night, a luxury car slowly followed a girl in school uniform.
The other photos showed Xie Cheng facing Zhou Xiu, and Zhou Xiu getting into the car.
Lu Lingshan’s displeasure reached its peak. He had no time to teach her a question, yet he had time to waste in the middle of the night, driving a luxury car and playing at romance with Zhou Xiu?
Lu Lingshan could not help thinking of last time, when Xie Cheng had also taken time out of his weekend to study with Zhou Xiu.
With a dark expression, she typed a paragraph and sent it to the blogger.
Another weekend came.
As usual, Du Feiyang invited Tan Ming to play basketball. Tan Ming only wanted to study and had no interest in basketball, so he refused.
Depressed, Du Feiyang held his basketball and prepared to invite the class monitor instead. Unexpectedly, Xu Qing was not on the court either. He had not gone to play basketball today.
After biology class ended, Xu Qing prepared some materials in the laboratory. He briefly went over the experimental lesson content Zhou Xiu had missed on Wednesday.
Zhou Xiu quickly made up the experiment and then went to the cafeteria to eat.
At the nicer seating area on the second floor of the school cafeteria, there were already far fewer students at this time. Zhou Xiu bought a braised pork set meal.
As Zhou Xiu ate, she browsed on her phone and did not notice that a little sauce had stuck to the corner of her mouth. After finishing her meal, she was about to stand up and leave when Xu Qing glanced at her and called her back.
He could not help laughing. It was rare to see Zhou Xiu looking so muddled. He took out a tissue and handed it to her.
Zhou Xiu was holding her tray and did not understand at first. After a moment, she put the tray down and prepared to take out her own tissue.
Xu Qing raised his brows slightly. “No need.”
He directly picked up the tissue, lowered his head, and wiped her mouth for her, then casually tossed the tissue into the bin.
Zhou Xiu froze for a moment, her body stiffening. She raised her head and met Xu Qing’s gaze directly.
After looking at him for a while, Zhou Xiu said thank you and quickly left the cafeteria.
This scene was noticed by the scattered students in the cafeteria, and they could not help covering their mouths.
The students from the biology class were stunned when they saw it. Class Monitor Xu Qing usually looked cold and indifferent, but they had not expected him to have such a considerate side.
Wiping her mouth and all that—he looked so good when he smiled.
No wonder the two of them were always seen eating together every weekend. So it turned out—cough, cough.
Aside from biology competition tutoring, Yude also had maths competition tutoring on weekends.
Xi Shaoyuan had taken several days off. That weekend, he finally appeared at school. He ate with his friends from the Winner Class, including Xie Cheng. When Zhou Xiu came to the cafeteria, he could not help paying attention to her.
Xie Cheng glanced over, then moved his gaze away without saying anything.
But Xi Shaoyuan gripped the cutlery in his hand, feeling both sour and angry. Very quickly, he pressed his lips flat and cleared away the emotions surging in his heart.
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