"Excuse me, please make way."
Ansheng turned around, wanting to see if it really was that beautiful class monitor. Though he wasn't very tall, by raising his chin slightly and standing on his tiptoes, he could still see what was happening behind him.
As the crowd gradually dispersed, a figure in white appeared squatting in the middle of the crosswalk.
Ansheng squinted, then froze—it really was her.
Miaomiao's brows were tightly knitted, her face etched with pain. She gritted her teeth and trembled as she tried to stand, but her right foot could only barely touch the ground on tiptoe, her weight entirely resting on her left leg.
Because of the dense crowd earlier, she had tripped and accidentally sprained her right ankle.
"Sss—so painful."
Tears hung at the corners of Miaomiao's eyes. She pressed her lips together, forcing herself to try and step forward, but she could only crawl along like a snail.
*Beep, beep—*
The driver whose path she was blocking on the right was already impatiently leaning on the horn.
Gritting her teeth, Miaomiao lifted her right foot completely off the ground, trying to hop across the crosswalk. But the weight of the plastic bag full of groceries in her hand threw off her balance once more, and she crashed back to the ground.
"Oh no..."
The impatient honking of the drivers behind her echoed one after another.
Miaomiao looked at the vegetables scattered all over the ground, her heart pounding with anxiety, her face flushed red.
"Can you crawl any faster?!" the driver yelled viciously.
Miaomiao's nose stung, and a wave of grievance washed over her.
Right at that moment, a detached yet immensely firm voice reached Miaomiao's ears.
"Crawl your grandpa's!"
Miaomiao blankly raised her head and saw that at some point, Ansheng in his school uniform was standing right in front of her, blocking the driver's view.
"Are your eyes stuck in your ass, or what? Didn't you see someone got hurt?!"
"Instead of coming over to help, you're still cursing? You think you're tough enough to run me over today?"
Furious, the driver shouted back, "Don't push me!"
Ansheng's anger flared up instantly. He was already in a foul mood from failing to grab his collectible figure earlier, and this had just provided a convenient outlet.
He pointed at the driver and unleashed a torrent of classic insults. Since the intersection had been blocked for a while, a traffic police officer arrived at the scene and looked at them in confusion.
"What's going on here?"
"Oh, officer sir, this b... this guy just said he wanted to run us over," Ansheng said with a surprisingly amiable expression upon seeing the police officer.
The traffic officer looked at Ansheng, who somehow looked every bit like an antisocial menace, and hesitated. "Go wait by the sidewalk for a moment."
With that, the traffic officer directed the vehicles to detour around the side, pulled over the car Ansheng had pointed out, and began questioning the driver.
"You got it," Ansheng said. Though puzzled, he nodded anyway.
He looked down at Miaomiao, who was still sitting on the ground staring at him in a daze, and raised an eyebrow.
"What are you staring at? Give me your hand."
Watching Ansheng stretch out his palm, Miaomiao felt an inexplicable warmth bloom in her chest. She sniffled and took Ansheng's hand.
Ansheng pulled her up and asked, "Can you walk?"
Miaomiao shook her head and whispered, "Too painful..."
Ansheng clicked his tongue. A few seconds later, he squatted down with his back to Miaomiao.
"Get on."
Miaomiao started. "What?"
"I said get on. I'll carry you across to wait over there."
Miaomiao's cheeks flushed rapidly. "Carry... carry me?"
Ansheng stared at her as if she were an idiot. "Otherwise? Do you want to hop across yourself?"
Left speechless by his rebuke, and under Ansheng's urging, Miaomiao finally hesitated and gently leaned onto Ansheng's broad back.
"Hold on tight."
Ansheng wrapped his hands around Miaomiao's soft, fair thighs, making her body stiffen.
Feeling the two mounds on her chest pressed against Ansheng's back, Miaomiao's face burned, and she quickly tried to lift her upper body back.
Though they seemed a bit too large... lifting back didn't help much.
Now Miaomiao was sitting somewhat sideways on Ansheng's back, gripping his shoulders with both hands to keep her balance.
This was the first time Miaomiao had ever felt dissatisfied with her figure.
"Hey, hey, class monitor, stop squirming around. If you fall off and make your injury worse, you're done for."
Ansheng called out, gesturing to the passing cars as he crossed the wide street and finally reached the edge of the intersection.
Miaomiao was gently set down by Ansheng. The two of them sat on the curb, watching the traffic officer deal with the driver—the officer had told Ansheng to wait right here.
Miaomiao cast a sidelong glance at Ansheng, who had his hands in his pockets and still looked somewhat angry, and hesitated for a moment before asking.
"You... how did you get here?"
The tall, straight figure that had stood in front of her earlier lingered in her mind, stirring up a feeling she had never experienced before.
"I was up ahead, heard you cry out, and turned back to find you fallen on the ground," Ansheng replied listlessly, still dwelling on that piece of merchandise.
"Oh, oh..."
Miaomiao didn't press further. She only felt her heart beating a little too fast, though she attributed it to the recent adrenaline rush.
After taking a few deep breaths to calm her nerves, she looked at the vegetables crushed and scattered across the road and let out a sigh.
"What a waste of the vegetables I just bought..."
"Pretty good. Vegetable salad," Ansheng joked, seeing the crushed vegetables mixed together on the ground, which vaguely resembled a lettuce salad.
Miaomiao let out a sudden laugh at the quip, her mood instantly lightening quite a bit.
"I picked those out for a long time, it really is a shame."
"And today's study schedule is all messed up now, too..."
Ansheng frowned, turned his head, and stared at Miaomiao in silence.
Noticing someone's gaze, Miaomiao turned around and met Ansheng's lifeless yet inexplicably serious deadpan stare.
Feeling a bit creeped out under his gaze, Miaomiao asked guiltily, "What... what are you looking at?"
After a few seconds of silence, Ansheng replied, "I'm trying to figure out what on earth you've got packed inside that head of yours."
"What do you mean?"
A hint of disdain crept into Ansheng's eyes.
"It's not that I want to complain, class monitor, but I could barely accept you worrying about crushed vegetables and fruit."
"And then you follow it up by saying your study schedule got ruined and it's a shame? Is that even something a human would say?"
Miaomiao blinked, still failing to understand where the problem lay.
Looking at the blank-faced Miaomiao, Ansheng sighed in exasperation.
"Your very first reaction should have been to worry about your foot, understand?"
"My foot?"
Ansheng nodded. "Right! You're injured! That's a matter of your own physical health. How on earth do you put that behind studying?"
"Have you lost your mind from studying? Can you care about yourself for once?"
Miaomiao froze, looking down at her slightly swollen ankle.
*[Can you care about yourself for once?]*
Words she had never heard before. All this time, wasn't studying supposed to come first?
She looked back up at Ansheng, who was still muttering to himself, her thoughts in such total disarray that she couldn't sort them out.
"Care about myself?"
"Yeah! For example, if you've studied too much today, give yourself tomorrow off to rest, and don't touch anything study-related after school."
"That's just a disguised way of giving yourself the right mindset and energy for the next day's studying!"
Miaomiao lowered her head. "I don't understand. Won't my grades drop if I do that? I'll plummet in the rankings soon enough..."
Ansheng twitched the corner of his mouth. How could this woman still not realize her absolute dominance at school? During the last mock exam, she had beaten the second-place student by over a hundred points!
Over a hundred points! Do you realize what that means?!
Even though the next school-wide exam hadn't started yet, whenever there was any exam in class—big or small—wasn't this woman always taking first place like she was using cheats?
"Just listen to me," Ansheng sighed.
"Huh?" Miaomiao looked at him in confusion.
"Take every... let's say Wednesday as your rest time, and give yourself half a day off on both weekend days, whether morning or afternoon. Anyway, only study for half a day and rest for the other half. Just do as I say."
Ansheng wasn't worried about this woman's terrifying capacity for learning; she seemed to study during every class and break, as if there was nothing in her brain besides studying.
Seeing that Miaomiao was still hesitating, Ansheng said earnestly,
"Try doing it my way for one or two weeks, and then you can decide for yourself. Deal?"
Miaomiao pressed her lips together and finally compromised. "Next time..."
Ansheng sighed and could only shake his head.
At that moment, the traffic officer hurried over, looking quite angry.
Ansheng started when he saw the officer's expression. "What's wrong, sir?"
"That b—I told him to get out of the car and cooperate with the inspection, and he flat-out refused! When he lost his temper, he even cursed at me, so I slapped him with a five-hundred-yuan fine right on the spot!"
Ansheng's jaw dropped. So there really were people dumb enough to curse out a traffic officer... If this were in America, would he have eaten a whole magazine of bullets?
Everyone really needs to be a law-abiding citizen...
The traffic officer straightened his uniform and looked at Ansheng, who still didn't really look like a good person.
"You, what do you do?"
Ansheng blinked. "I'm a student."
"A student?"
The officer frowned, feeling that Ansheng gave off a rather delinquent vibe.
"Do you have a student ID?"
Ansheng scratched his head. Wasn't he wearing his school uniform right now?
So he pointed to the school emblem engraved on his chest. "Right here, officer sir."
"Chunhe... You're from Chunhe Middle School?"
The traffic officer seemed to know a thing or two about that school.
"Yes, yes, we both are. We're in the same class."
Miaomiao, sitting on the ground, nodded cooperatively. The officer decided this young girl looked much more agreeable.
Figuring that Chunhe Middle School only admitted students of good character and academic excellence, the traffic officer hesitated for a moment before finally letting them go.
Ansheng let out a long sigh.
"Do I really look that much like a bad guy? I'm just an ordinary high school student..."