Under Old Yu's random arrangement, Lin Tiao and Jiang Yan officially became deskmates. However, the two hardly communicated.
Especially after the incident in the afternoon, Jiang Yan didn’t say much during the evening self-study session; he simply rested his head on the desk and watched videos.
Lin Tiao buried her head in sleep, dozing off for two entire classes.
When she finally woke up, Jiang Yan was no longer at his seat, but his phone, left on the desk, continued playing videos without pause.
She casually glanced over and caught a fleeting title on the screen.
— "Today's Law"
"......"
Is the big shot's taste in television really that unique???
Still staring at the phone screen, the window beside her was suddenly pushed open with a loud crash.
She turned to look.
Jiang Yan stood by the window, leaning on the sill with one arm. Before she could process what was happening, he bent his arm and effortlessly flipped himself inside from outside.
"......"
That agile movement clearly indicated he was no stranger to climbing over walls.
Once Jiang Yan sat down, he noticed Lin Tiao’s shocked and speechless expression. He initially wanted to explain but thought better of it, opting instead to put his headphones back on and continue watching videos.
Lin Tiao didn’t pay much attention. She reached up to grab her hair, feeling a bit thirsty. She rummaged through her bag and pulled out a half-empty bottle of mineral water.
Unfortunately, she struggled for a long time, unable to twist open the cap because she hadn’t mastered the skill of opening a bottle with one hand.
Sitting beside her, Jiang Yan noticed Lin Tiao’s small struggle and glanced at the mineral water bottle in her hand.
He raised an eyebrow but said nothing, turning his gaze back to the phone screen.
A few minutes later, Lin Tiao gave up and placed the water bottle back on the desk. She took out her phone and messaged Meng Xin, "Tragedy! A new sophomore died of thirst in the classroom on the second day of school because they couldn't get water!"
Just after she sent the message, a hand suddenly reached over from the side, grabbed the water bottle from her desk, and before she could react, it was placed back.
Only this time, the cap was already twisted open.
Lin Tiao turned to glance at Jiang Yan, who was still in the same position as before, eyes fixed on his phone, not sparing her a single glance.
It was as if the person who had just opened the cap wasn’t him.
Perhaps she was staring too obviously; Jiang Yan took off one earbud and turned to meet her gaze. "Aren't you going to drink?"
"Uh..." Lin Tiao nodded, and as she looked away, she mumbled a thank you, but he seemed not to hear.
Neither of them paid much attention to this small detail.
They smoothly passed through the last period of self-study.
After school, Jiang Yan left early with three friends, taking nothing with him, just wearing a short-sleeved shirt.
It was only when Lin Tiao saw his short sleeves that she remembered his jacket was still in her bag.
When they switched seats in the afternoon, she had casually stuffed his jacket into her bag. After that, she hadn’t thought about it again due to adjusting to the new seating arrangement.
At that moment, Lin Tiao pulled Jiang Yan's school jacket from her bag. She initially thought about placing it directly on his desk but worried he might be particular about cleanliness. So she decided to take it home, wash it, and dry it.
The next morning, when Lin Tiao arrived at school and handed Jiang Yan the cleaned jacket, he caught a whiff of it and asked, "You took it home to wash?"
"Uh-huh." Lin Tiao nodded, "I washed it."
Jiang Yan didn’t say anything else. He casually stuffed the jacket into his desk and pulled out a bag of small buns, placing it on her desk. "As a thank you."
Lin Tiao accepted it.
This at least counted as a somewhat normal conversation between the two of them, rounding up to the point where they were about to step into a more harmonious desk partnership.
In the following days, Lin Tiao and Jiang Yan experienced quite a harmonious routine, exchanging a few sentences each day.
"What class is this?"
"Can you move? I'm going out."
"Can you move? I'm coming in."
"Is class over?"
"When does class end?"
“……”
Jiang Yan expressed such trivialities in a rather daily manner, and Lin Tiao noticed that during class, he spent most of his time either playing games or watching TV, occasionally dozing off on the desk.
The dramas he followed, aside from legal programs like "Today's Law," were mostly domestic large-scale family ethics dramas.
Once, Lin Tiao even saw him binge-watching "The Temptation of Going Home."
“……”
One really couldn’t compliment the big shot’s taste.
---
On Friday, the last class was Physical Education. The science classes in the second year were relatively numerous, so it was common for two science classes to mix with one liberal arts class for PE.
Lin Tiao's class, along with Meng Xin's class (Class 14 Science), and another liberal arts class (Class 6), had PE together.
With over a hundred students combined, there were slightly more boys.
As the PE bell rang, students from the three classes gathered in groups on the playground.
The PE teacher, a new hire at the school this year, was surnamed Zhou and named Li. He had just graduated from a sports university less than a year ago. He looked quite handsome, and many girls in the school were fans of his looks.
As he walked over with the attendance sheet, Lin Tiao noticed many girls from the adjacent liberal arts class taking out their phones.
In comparison, the girls from the science class…
Lin Tiao glanced over and saw they were doing the same.
All girls are united.
When the PE teacher walked over and whistled, “Gather up!”
The students quickly split apart, with each class lining up in order of height.
Lin Tiao was among the taller girls, standing at the back of Class 18, next to Jiang Yan and his three friends.
The group was talking about something, and as Lin Tiao approached, she overheard Hu Hang Hang say, “...Damn it, don’t let me catch him by his little tail, I—” Before he could finish, Jiang Yan kicked him.
“Can you keep it down, Hu Pang Pang?” Jiang Yan had one earphone in, glanced at Lin Tiao, then turned back.
Hu Hang Hang turned to see Lin Tiao and smiled, “Lin, what a coincidence!”
“……”
Lin Tiao guessed they were discussing something they didn’t want the fifth person to hear. For her own safety, she wisely turned her head away.
After a while, Meng Xin circled from the front of their class to stand next to her. Looking at the tall figures around, she remarked, “I feel like I’ve entered the land of giants.”
Lin Tiao played along, “How’s the air down there?”
“Get lost.” Meng Xin patted her plaster cast. “When can you get this off?”
“In about a month. If recovery goes well, I can get it off sooner.”
“That’s so unfortunate.” Meng Xin shook her head, then noticed Jiang Yan beside her, giving Lin Tiao a teasing look. “How’s it going?”
“How’s what going?”
Meng Xin lowered her voice, “Being deskmates with the big shot.”
“Successfully transitioning from a confrontational relationship to a peaceful coexistence.”
“Who asked you about the mode of coexistence? I’m asking about your feelings! Do you understand feelings? Feel!” Meng Xin practically shouted into her ear.
Lin Tiao laughed and pushed her away. “No, really, there’s nothing to feel. We don’t talk much, just ask about the time at most.”
Meng Xin looked at her. “It’s definitely your lack of charm.” As she spoke, her gaze briefly flicked to Lin Tiao’s chest, and her expression became somewhat hard to describe.
Lin Tiao noticed her gaze and immediately realized. She raised her hand to threaten her, “Do you believe that the day I get this cast off is your death day?”
Meng Xin dodged to the side, laughing continuously. Her voice reached the front of the line, and the PE teacher heard it, calling out, “Who’s laughing so loudly at the back? Alright, you’ll be my PE monitor.”
“……”
Lin Tiao almost burst out laughing.
Just like that, Meng Xin inexplicably became the PE monitor for the three classes, and the PE teacher also selected two boys to assist her.
---
During PE class, Jiang Yan and his three friends left midway, showing no sense of responsibility as class leaders.
Lin Tiao and Meng Xin sat under the shade of a tree beside the playground for the entire class.
When class ended, Meng Xin was called to the teacher’s office by the PE teacher, and Lin Tiao was pulled along with her.
The PE teacher's office was in the old ideological and political education building, which rarely had any visitors.
Zhou Li’s office was on the third floor. As they entered, a strong smell of smoke hit them. He quickly walked over to open the window against the wall.
As the air circulated, Lin Tiao and Meng Xin entered the office one after the other.
Zhou Li stood by the window, picking up a watering can nearby to spray a few puffs of water into the air. His gaze swept over the rarely visited, dilapidated garden behind the old building, and his expression changed as he yelled down, “What are you all doing down there?!”
Lin Tiao and Meng Xin exchanged glances and quickly moved to another window.
They saw several boys lying haphazardly on the ground below, while three others stood with their feet on the chests of the boys lying down.
Behind them, a boy was squatting by the flowerbed, lifting his head to look up.
Both the standing and squatting boys were familiar faces.
The former included Hu Hang Hang, Song Yuan, Xu Yichuan, and the latter was Jiang Yan.
Perhaps startled by the sudden shout, the boys remained frozen in their previous positions, making the situation a bit awkward.
Zhou Li leaned out of the window and continued shouting, “Hu Hang Hang, Song Yuan, Xu Yichuan, you three, get your feet off!”
At that moment, Lin Tiao was surprisingly curious that the teacher remembered those three after just half a class.
Whether someone down below had informed them, it was unclear, but just after Zhou Li’s shout, the head teacher came rushing out with several other teachers.
Li Kun pointed at them, “Gathering to fight, huh?! You all don’t want to think about the consequences, do you?! Everyone stand straight!”
The five boys lying on the ground were helped up by the teachers and lined up, while Jiang Yan and his three friends stood on the other side. Li Kun looked furious, and they were bound to receive a scolding along with severe punishments.
Seeing the situation brought under control, Zhou Li turned his gaze back, preparing to say something when suddenly a loud shout came from below, “Jiang Yan!”
He leaned out again and saw one of the boys who had previously stood up had fallen back to the ground, with Jiang Yan standing next to him.
“What’s going on now?”
Lin Tiao, who had been standing by the window, couldn’t think of anything to say. Her mind was filled with the image of Jiang Yan pressing someone’s head down against the ground, and she could only think one thought.
How bold had she been to challenge the big shot back then?
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