Listen to my explanation, please
The two sentences shouted by Cong Ye reverberated loudly in the spacious living room, leaving Lin Qing and Qiao Yu stunned.
The first one to react was Cong Ye himself.
Qiao Yu’s dumbfounded expression snapped Cong Ye out of his fervent state of mind, where he had been boiling with frustration. He immediately realized that he had done something he couldn’t control.
Cong Ye took a deep breath, lightly released Qiao Yu’s shoulder, and nonchalantly sat back on his chair, flipping through a book as if nothing had happened.
…Why does he act as if nothing happened just now?
Qiao Yu’s mind was filled with question marks as she looked at Cong Ye, who seemed to have traveled back in time five minutes ago. Perplexed, she asked,
“What did you just say about—”
“Uh, yeah, I was saying that you should have chosen option A for that question.”
“…But that was a fill-in-the-blank question?”
“Oh, I see.”
Cong Ye evaded Qiao Yu’s questions and changed the subject skillfully, giving the impression that nothing had happened earlier. It was as if he was practicing Tai Chi with Qiao Yu.
Qiao Yu genuinely thought that he might need to see a doctor.
She looked at Lin Qing, whose actions had been interrupted by Cong Ye’s outburst, and saw that she too had a bewildered expression. With this interruption, the peculiar atmosphere from earlier dissipated, and the two of them proceeded to discuss the questions in an orderly manner before continuing with their respective studies.
Cong Ye clenched his fists in frustration.
The strange atmosphere of the past week finally came to an end. Qiao Yu, who had been diligently studying for half a month, was about to take her first exam in high school.
In the second year of high school, there were a total of ten classes, and the students were assigned to exam rooms based on their grade rankings from the previous exam, not within their own class.
Cong Ye went to one exam room, and as a transfer student, Lin Qing should have been placed at the back. However, due to her excellent entrance exam results, the teachers were afraid that putting her at the back would give others the idea of cheating, so they made an exception and placed her in the same exam room.
Qiao Yu felt that this arrangement was probably just to have the male and female leads in the same exam room, experiencing the restraints of a romantic novel world.
Mi Yi was in the second exam room, while Qiao Yu and Lu Yao walked together without any surprises towards the tenth exam room.
“It’s great to have you, Qiao Yu,” Lu Yao followed Qiao Yu attentively, “Otherwise, I wouldn’t know anyone in the tenth exam room. It would be so lonely.”
…So, she’s the only one left behind in their social circle apart from Lu Yao. How embarrassing.
Qiao Yu made a firm resolution and coldly tossed her head.
“Well, you better start building good relationships with the other people in the tenth exam room now, considering I won’t be here next time.”
With that, she took the lead and walked into the exam room, feeling like her silhouette must be aloof and resolute.
Just kidding, the two big shots in the same exam room were there to guide her closely—although they hadn’t been very dedicated in the last few days, since they had brought out the big guns, it would be a piece of cake to handle a small task like acing the exam!
With the lofty ambition of advancing at least three exam rooms this time, Qiao Yu searched for her name on the seat chart posted by the door. With over 420 students in the entire grade, the original owner of her body had managed to secure the 409th spot in the previous final exam. It was quite a fast search when going from the back to the front.
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She walked to her seat with her backpack and sat down. Just as she was thinking that there wasn’t much to review for the first subject, which seemed to be Chinese language, someone lightly patted her shoulder.
Strange, Lu Yao was sitting quietly in the neighboring row, and they said they didn’t know anyone in this exam room, right?
Qiao Yu turned around in confusion and saw a plump face with protruding eyes, the distinctive upward slant of the eyes even more pronounced.
Like a chubby chipmunk, Song Wanwan patted her twice on the cheek, neither too light nor too heavy, with a tinge of sorrow in her words.
“Why didn’t you see me just now?”
…That’s a good question. Not only did Qiao Yu fail to notice Song Wanwan, who was seated right behind her according to the seating chart, but she also didn’t pay attention to her when she approached. Is this young lady naturally inconspicuous?
“Perhaps I was too focused on studying in my mind. My apologies.”
She smoothly deflected the question with an official tone, not wanting to upset the delicate heart of the young miss. However, Lu Yao, who needed someone to accompany him, heard her voice and came over.
“Qiao Yu, who are you talking to—”
He froze when he saw Song Wanwan, seemingly still haunted by the tragedy of that day.
“Isn’t this Song Wanwan!”
This time, at least he remembered her name. Lu Yao approached with great enthusiasm, wanting to make amends for the unintentional words that had hurt Song Wanwan.
“So, you’re also in this exam room! I thought it was just Qiao Yu accompanying me. Haha, oops.”
Qiao Yu silently retracted her elbow, which had accidentally bumped into his abdomen, and smiled kindly at Song Wanwan, whose lips were starting to tremble.
“What he meant was… that you look like someone with excellent academic performance.”
…It seemed like she narrowly reached the safety line. At least the rims of Miss Song’s eyes didn’t continue to turn red.
Fortunately, at that moment, the invigilator entered the exam room with the test papers, allowing Qiao Yu to escape from this bomb-like situation.
She sincerely prayed that this exam would go smoothly, preferably without any unexpected incidents from Cong Ye, Lin Qing, or Song Wanwan, allowing her to take the test with peace of mind. The answering process began quickly.
In the first semester of the second year of high school, there were still no divisions between science and humanities, and a total of nine subjects had to be tested over three days. After barely getting through the first day’s three subjects, Qiao Yu collapsed onto the desk, completely exhausted, after her geography answer sheet was collected. She felt like she had burned out completely.
Being a high school student is really not easy… Did she really experience such a battlefield in the past?
These thoughts slowly surged through her mind like a barrage. Qiao Yu remained lying on the desk for a while before struggling to sit up.
Lu Yao next to her was bored waiting for her. He flipped through his test paper and suddenly his eyes lit up, innocently exclaiming, “Oh, how incredible! There are questions on the back too.”
…It seemed like he was beyond saving this time.
The stragglers in tenth exam room clearly didn’t want to linger in school. Within the short time that Qiao Yu was lying down, most of them had already left. Qiao Yu stood up, stretched lazily, intending to call Lu Yao to leave together, but she was stopped by Song Wanwan.
Surprisingly, Song Wanwan hadn’t left yet. When she saw Qiao Yu looking over, she hesitated while tidying up her stationery.
Qiao Yu’s alarm bells rang loudly. To be honest, she wasn’t sure how to handle this young miss who had cried so much because of them last time. Seeing that she seemed to have something to say, Qiao Yu didn’t dare rush her and could only patiently wait for her to gather her thoughts.
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“…Why didn’t you all go to that self-study room again?”
Song Wanwan asked with hesitation, probably recalling the events of that day, showing an unusual hint of shyness.
Qiao Yu understood. The young miss was concerned about losing face and wanted to probe for information.
“After that, we started studying at Cong Ye’s place. It’s more convenient.”
Qiao Yu answered honestly, guessing Song Wanwan’s thoughts, and added with thoughtfulness.
“I don’t think Cong Ye took that incident to heart, so you don’t have to worry.”
In fact, it seemed like Cong Ye didn’t care about Song Wanwan at all—but saying that directly now would be too cruel. It would be best to let Song Wanwan figure it out herself when she hit a dead end.
Originally, Qiao Yu added that sentence to reassure Song Wanwan, but unexpectedly, Song Wanwan had a strong reaction. With a face flushed red, she approached with an imposing manner.
“Why… why did you suddenly mention Cong Ye!”
“… Even if you ask me why…”
… Wasn’t this the purpose of her coming to ask questions?
Qiao Yu’s expression management had always been poor, and the expression on her face clearly revealed everything.
Sensing that her inner thoughts were exposed, Song Wanwan’s anger surged. Overwhelmed by embarrassment, she impulsively stood up and pounced on Qiao Yu like a fierce tiger.
Poor Qiao Yu, caught off guard, was knocked off balance and took several steps back before landing on an empty chair nearby. Her lower back hit the corner of the table, causing her to grimace in pain. Before she could react, Song Wanwan was already on top of her, grabbing her neck, her eyes filled with a mix of shame and indignation.
“Why do you know!”
Well, you should be asking yourself that! Your behavior was so obvious, it’s hard not to notice!
Qiao Yu’s neck was being squeezed back and forth by Song Wanwan, but luckily, Song Wanwan’s strength wasn’t enough to harm her. Still, it made it difficult for Qiao Yu to speak clearly, and she could only grit her teeth and try to pry Song Wanwan’s hand off.
As soon as she tried to pry it off, Song Wanwan saw it as resistance. In her confused state of mind, Song Wanwan was solely focused on not letting Qiao Yu reveal her feelings for Cong Ye, without realizing what she was doing. In order to prevent Qiao Yu from breaking free, she directly straddled Qiao Yu’s lap, using her body weight to suppress her.
This Song Wanwan is seriously messed up!
Qiao Yu let out a scream, but there was a wall behind her, and with Song Wanwan sitting like this, her room to break free suddenly became smaller. Song Wanwan menacingly shouted that she couldn’t say anything, without giving Qiao Yu a chance to respond—how could she possibly say anything! Wasn’t she just causing trouble for the main characters’ love story?
In the midst of all this chaos, Qiao Yu caught sight of the bewildered face of Lu Yao behind her and urgently blinked at him. Startled by this sudden turn of events, Lu Yao finally received her distress signal and hurriedly ran over, telling Song Wanwan to let go of Qiao Yu and try to calm her down. However, Song Wanwan flung her hand, accidentally hitting a sensitive area, causing Lu Yao to pale in agony and retreat to the side, crouching down in pain.
… It was so pitiful that Qiao Yu couldn’t bring herself to blame him for being useless.
Now she couldn’t spare a hand to attend to Lu Yao. She struggled to push Song Wanwan down, but Song Wanwan cleverly hooked her foot around the chair, making it impossible for Qiao Yu to move her at all.
How did it come to this…
Qiao Yu felt miserable. It took all her effort to gesture and make Song Wanwan realize that being shaken while being choked prevented her from speaking. The young miss regained some sense and at least let go of her poor neck, opting to grab her collar instead.
Finally able to breathe smoothly, Qiao Yu took a few deep breaths. But when she raised her eyes, her gaze met someone who shouldn’t have been standing at the entrance of the examination room.
Cong Ye’s expression was quite something, and Qiao Yu, with her good eyesight, could even see the veins twitching on his temple.
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He blocked the door firmly, and there seemed to be someone behind him. Then Qiao Yu heard a familiar voice coming from afar.
“What’s going on? Why aren’t you going in? I think I heard something inside.”
“No, you must have misheard. Qiao Yu has already left. Let’s go too—”
Cong Ye, who seemed like a statue, immediately came to life and hurriedly blocked the door, trying to usher Lin Qing out. But he couldn’t completely stop her, and Lin Qing, driven by curiosity, found a gap and stuck her head out. At first glance, she saw Qiao Yu, who was supposed to have left according to Cong Ye but was still inside the classroom, along with Song Wanwan sitting on her lap.
The air felt frozen. The spacious classroom had emptied out at some point, leaving behind a suffocating scene with only the anxious urging of Song Wanwan’s “Why don’t you say something?” and Lu Yao’s grumbling.
Qiao Yu glanced at Cong Ye, who was expressionless and rolling up his sleeves, then looked at Lin Qing, who seemed to be in a very bad mood for some reason. After racking her brain for a while, she couldn’t figure out what was happening right now.
…Why was it that even though she was clearly the victim, the invisible pressure at the door was solely directed at her?
But Qiao Yu’s animal instinct told her that there was one thing she had to say now. If she didn’t say it, strange things might happen.
She swallowed hard, her voice bitter as she spoke.
“…Listen to my explanation, please?”