"What are you drinking, Yan-ge? Still lemonade?" Xu Jingyu turned to ask Shen Jingyan, who was standing behind him.
"Mhm."
"Then Yanyan, wait for us here a moment," Lin Mengke said. "We'll be right back."
Shen Jingyan stood there lazily, his gaze falling on Jiang Shengyan. The warm, golden sunlight washed over her, softening her normally cold and aloof demeanor.
The September sun was still fierce, and Shen Jingyan told Jiang Shengyan to stand in the shade. Jiang Shengyan looked over and saw that the patch of shade was quite small.
Thinking that standing out in the sun would make her sweat in no time, she decided to walk over anyway, lingering at the very edge to keep her distance from Shen Jingyan.
Seeing what she was doing, Shen Jingyan let out a dry, amused chuckle. Was he some kind of terrifying monster? She hadn't seemed all that timid earlier when she left him speechless, though he didn't say anything more.
What he didn't know was that Jiang Shengyan wasn't actually afraid of him; she just felt she had no face left to face him and wanted nothing more than to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
The sound of cicadas rose and fell in waves, and the air was thick with heat. Jiang Shengyan lowered her gaze to her own shadow, casting a sidelong glance at the person beside her.
Shen Jingyan had one hand in his pocket while his other hand spun his phone around in a bored manner. A black sports wristband stood out sharply against his slender wrist. His fingers were fair and slender with neatly trimmed nails, and his knuckles were clearly defined.
How could someone even have such nice-looking hands? Jiang Shengyan muttered inwardly, lowering her head to secretly stretch out her own hand. It wasn't nearly as slender and lacked any real aesthetic appeal.
She remembered that he had worn this exact same casual, indifferent expression during lunch earlier. Even when Xu Jingyu was telling a joke, he had only lazily curved the corners of his mouth and chimed in with a word or two every now and then. Lin Mengke, on the other hand, had laughed so hard she was rocking back and forth and almost knocked over her drink.
In the distance, Lin Mengke's crisp laughter rang out as she and Xu Jingyu ran back, each carrying two cups of fruit tea.
Shen Jingyan's gaze lingered on her for a fraction of a second before he nonchalantly looked away.
"We bought lemon tea for you guys!" Lin Mengke handed over the cups. "Yanyan, this one's yours, less sugar."
Jiang Shengyan thanked her and took the fruit tea, the icy chill helping to calm her down a little.
She cast a stealthy glance at Shen Jingyan and saw that he was biting on his straw, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.
On the way back to school, Lin Mengke linked arms with Jiang Shengyan, chattering endlessly with Xu Jingyu. Jiang Shengyan quietly listened to them debate which of the school's teachers was the most bizarre.
Suddenly, she felt a light touch on her arm.
"Watch out, classmate. It's not a good idea to zone out while walking," Shen Jingyan's lazy voice came from overhead as he reached out to steady her shoulder with a light grip. Only then did Jiang Shengyan notice a step ahead and realize she had almost missed it.
"My thanks to this classmate for the reminder. May good people be rewarded with lifelong peace," she praised him sincerely.
"Oh? Handing out a good-guy card? I'll gladly accept," he drawled, his lazy tone low and unhurried.
"......"
Shen Jingyan didn't say anything more, simply slowing his pace to walk beside her. Jiang Shengyan caught the faint scent of mint lingering on him, mingled with the fresh fragrance of lemon tea.
Entering the school gates, Xu Jingyu and Shen Jingyan parted ways with them, heading toward the Zhuoyue Building where the honors classes were located, while Jiang Shengyan and Lin Mengke returned to the Mingde Building for the regular classes.
The honors classes occupied three floors with only six classes in total across the entire grade. Both the arts and science honors classes consisted of top-tier academic achievers, though the roster was fluid—every midterm exam, the top fifty students in the grade entered the honors class. Jiang Shengyan's goal for the midterms was to make it into the honors class.
Back in the classroom, Jiang Shengyan opened her brand-new textbooks. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows onto the pages, and she took up her pen, writing in neat, even strokes in her notebook.
Lin Mengke had originally planned to slack off and play on her phone, but seeing her deskmate working with such dedication, she felt too embarrassed to continue and obediently pulled out her textbook to preview the material.
The classroom wasn't particularly quiet; there was the rustle of turning pages and the murmur of whispered conversations. Calming her mind, Jiang Shengyan could still sense a faint, lingering trace of mint dancing at the tip of her nose.
Putting aside all distractions, she pulled out a set of last year's freshman monthly exam papers downloaded from the school's administrative system. She wanted to see how well she could score; after all, Huaicheng No. 1 High School held monthly exams to help teachers assess how well the students were grasping the material.
Jiang Shengyan tackled the math paper first, setting a two-hour timer before she began to write.
......
Before she knew it, two hours had passed. Jiang Shengyan stopped writing, fished the answer key out of her backpack, and began checking her work.
After checking the answers, she found she could score around 115 out of 150 points. Jiang Shengyan felt a twinge of frustration—she had lost points on three basic questions simply due to carelessness. She was already struggling to handle the difficult problems, so making mistakes on the easy ones meant her score dropped even further.
She analyzed the test: she could basically solve all the fundamental questions, but individual difficult problems were still beyond her. It seemed that once the teachers started lecturing, she would not only need to plug her knowledge gaps but also practice more challenging problems to master different approaches and methods of problem-solving.
Using the answer key, she organized her error log. Since it was the first monthly exam of the previous year, the questions weren't overly difficult. She re-solved all the mistakes and the questions she hadn't managed to finish the first time, and only put everything away once she got them all right.
Right on cue, the head teacher walked into the classroom and asked the class monitor to take a few students down to the logistics office to pick up the uniforms and distribute them.
The uniform sizes had been submitted through the administrative system during the summer vacation—two sets each for spring/summer per person. After making the announcement, the teacher informed everyone that starting next Monday, wearing the school uniform would be mandatory, inspections would be conducted, and points would be deducted for non-compliance.
A chorus of groans rose across the classroom, though it did nothing to stop Teacher Tang from leaving.
"Ugh! So annoying! I hate wearing school uniforms the most—they're so baggy and huge. I'm so depressed," Lin Mengke wailed, collapsing onto her desk.
"It's fine, Keke. You have a small frame, and you aren't fat to begin with," Jiang Shengyan comforted her.
Lin Mengke still held little hope for the school uniform.
Seeing this, Jiang Shengyan helplessly said, "Well, go ahead and be sad then. I'm going to go pick up the uniforms."
"Yanyan, you've turned bad. I've decided not to go with you to get the uniforms," Lin Mengke pouted. In truth, she just wanted to delay laying eyes on the uniform's "true appearance."
"Alright, it's fine. I'll just call the boys from the class. I'm heading out now."
Jiang Shengyan rounded up the boys in the class; with four uniforms per person, she worried they wouldn't have enough hands and might have to make a second trip.
Arriving at the logistics office and seeing that the uniforms were a red-and-white color scheme, she felt they looked decent enough. After verifying the sizes and the roster, she had the boys start moving them. Only a few people were left empty-handed, and Jiang Shengyan was glad she had brought so many helpers.
Back in the classroom, Jiang Shengyan first instructed everyone to try on their uniforms against themselves once they were handed out, and assured them they could go to the logistics office to exchange anything that didn't fit properly.
Matching sizes to the name roster, she distributed the uniforms. In an instant, the classroom erupted into a buzz of excitement as everyone started trying them on and chatting animatedly.
Jiang Shengyan walked back to her seat and saw that Lin Mengke had already put on the uniform jacket. It actually looked pretty good.
"Look, Yanyan, how does it feel? Does it make me look fat?" Lin Mengke asked eagerly the moment she saw her deskmate return.
"Not at all. It looks quite nice."
"Really? Well, looks don't really matter as long as it isn't peerlessly hideous."
"It really is okay. If you don't believe me, go look in the mirror—I'm definitely not just saying that to comfort you," Jiang Shengyan chuckled.
"That's a relief." Lin Mengke let out a breath.
......