“What’s wrong with you?”

Liang Qianqian beside her noticed that her steps seemed to pause slightly, and asked curiously.

Xiang Di shook her head and smiled brightly. “Nothing, the exam left me kind of dazed, I still haven’t quite reacted.”

Looking ahead again, in the bustling corridor at this moment, there was already no sign of the figure she had been expecting.

Liking someone—wasn’t it just going back and forth between countless hopes and disappointments. It was fine; she was already very good at comforting herself anyway.

“Let’s walk faster, I can’t hold it in anymore.”

Pulling Liang Qianqian along, Xiang Di jogged toward the restroom.

─── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ───

Bai Jiangxin was temporarily unable to face it.

What exactly he was avoiding, even he himself didn’t know.

Actually, he could have just pretended to know nothing, just like before when he had heard other people’s inner thoughts. Anyway, Xiang Di was a coward; there was no way she could say it out loud.

Yet the moment he saw her in the corridor just now, even though there was clearly still quite a bit of distance between them, his heart suddenly tightened, stopped for an instant, as if bound by an invisible fishing line and then lifted up.

Inevitably, he thought of those few deadly coquettish remarks of hers, thought of her legs propped on his shoulders, thought of the expression she imagined he would have when making love—then what kind of expression would she have when making love?

He didn’t know. But it was hard to imagine that such a well-behaved face could also reveal such a lewd expression.

Everything felt like a flash of lightning, a purely physiological instinct. Bai Jiangxin’s brain didn’t even have time to react before his body had already subconsciously avoided her.

His current state was really far too off. It would be better to avoid her, so Bai Jiangxin walked back to the office.

Chen Jinghua was a little surprised to see him come back again. “Why are you back again?”

Bai Jiangxin directly said that he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home to rest.

Perhaps it really was because these past few days he had been so disturbed by Xiang Di’s inner thoughts that his nerves were frayed, which was why that kind of reaction had occurred. Saying he wasn’t feeling well wasn’t exactly a lie.

Teachers always had a natural bias toward good students. Chen Jinghua readily agreed, and even said that if he was still not feeling well by tomorrow, he could have his parents call again and take a few days off to rest properly at home.

Not knowing when the entanglement with Xiang Di would finally end, Bai Jiangxin asked directly, “Can I take a long leave?”

Chen Jinghua: “How long do you want to take?”

“Until before the college entrance exam.”

Chen Jinghua’s expression changed slightly.

“You mean you won’t come to school for classes at all before the college entrance exam?”

“Mm.”

“Then what about your college entrance exam?”

“I’ll just go take the exam then,” Bai Jiangxin said.

Chen Jinghua frowned at once.

This kid—no matter how good his grades were, he couldn’t act this recklessly. Even if he really was so self-disciplined that, even at home, he could strictly supervise his own review every day, he still couldn’t agree.

Most students didn’t have that kind of self-control in their studies; that was why they needed the school’s supervision. Even for Bai Jiangxin, Chen Jinghua found it hard to be at ease.

Bai Jiangxin was not an isolated case. Just this semester, there had already been several students who wanted to apply for a leave of absence because the pressure was too great and their grades had fluctuated.

It wasn’t that leave wasn’t allowed, but a person lived only a few decades—there were countless challenges to face on the road of life. Still so young, yet unable to handle even a single college entrance exam, with such poor stress tolerance, choosing to escape just because studying had become unbearable—what would they do in the future?

Moreover, for their cohort of examinees, whether the school could produce a top scorer depended entirely on Bai Jiangxin.

Not to mention him as the homeroom teacher, even the principal wouldn’t agree. Chen Jinghua couldn’t afford to take that risk.

So Chen Jinghua could only reason with Bai Jiangxin. Taking a few days off to rest was fine, but taking a long leave—he wouldn’t approve it.

“The learning atmosphere at school is better, after all. It’s hard to really study when you’re alone at home. If it ends up affecting the college entrance exam, the teacher wouldn’t be able to explain it to your parents either.”

Bai Jiangxin frowned. “Staying at school is exactly why I can’t study.”

Chen Jinghua: “Why?”

Bai Jiangxin didn’t answer right away. The boy’s pitch-black, cool eyes were like a pool of ink that couldn’t be dissolved, suddenly rippling with restless agitation.

Out of a teacher’s instinct, Chen Jinghua quickly sensed that something was off with Bai Jiangxin and asked tactfully, “Did you run into something at school recently?”

“No.”

“Did you argue with Ye Minjia?”

“No.”

“Then are you with someone else—”

“With no one.” Bai Jiangxin said lightly.

Chen Jinghua said earnestly, “Bai Jiangxin, if you have any worries, you can tell the teacher. As long as the teacher can help, I’ll definitely think of a way to help you solve it. Don’t keep it bottled up inside.”

Looking at the concern on his homeroom teacher’s face, Bai Jiangxin knew that Chen Jinghua was a good teacher.

But so what? His troubles were something no one could solve. Other than bottling them up inside, what else could he do?

What was the point of telling a teacher—would the teacher believe him? Even if the teacher really believed him, how would it be resolved—send Xiang Di home?

There were only three months left until the college entrance exam. He had no grudge against Xiang Di, no reason to ruin her exam.

It was he who had pried into her secret. He couldn’t sacrifice her future just so he himself could have some peace.

Let it be like this for now. Bai Jiangxin sighed silently and said, “Forget it, teacher. I won’t take leave.”

He hadn’t really expected the homeroom teacher to agree anyway.

Bai Jiangxin left, but Chen Jinghua didn’t feel relieved at all.

As the day of the college entrance exam drew closer and closer, all the teachers were terrified that the students’ mental health might suffer even the slightest injury. Bai Jiangxin wanting to take a long leave at this time was something that would make any teacher sound the alarm in their heart.

Chen Jinghua worried that Bai Jiangxin might be having psychological issues. Generally, students with good grades tended to have stronger self-esteem, thinner skin, and Bai Jiangxin wasn’t the type who liked to have heart-to-heart talks with teachers. If he refused to speak, Chen Jinghua couldn’t possibly force him.

He thought about whether he should call Bai Jiangxin’s parent to mention it, but Bai Jiangxin came from a single-parent family. His father was busy with work—he even had his secretary call to ask for leave on his son’s behalf.

The last parents’ meeting for the third-year students was about to be held. There was no telling whether his father would even be able to come then.

This was tricky.

─── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ───

Not long after the bell rang for the second evening self-study period, Bai Jiangxin returned to the classroom, packed up his bag, and prepared to leave directly.

Ye Minjia called out to him, “What are you going to do again?”

“Going home.”

“Going home again?!” Ye Minjia asked. “Then are you coming tomorrow?”

“We’ll see.”

And just like that, Bai Jiangxin picked up his backpack and walked out in front of the entire class without looking back.

Frequently asking for leave and going home at a time like this—there wasn’t the slightest sign of a college entrance exam candidate going all-out for the gaokao. Even if he was first in the grade, he couldn’t be this arrogant, right?

As soon as he left, discussion erupted in the classroom, all kinds of guesses flying about the reason Bai Jiangxin had been taking leave so often these past few days.

Even Liang Qianqian was curious and went to discuss it with Xiang Di. Xiang Di shook her head, equally confused.

“Hey, did you notice? When we went to the milk tea shop on Monday, didn’t we run into him and the class monitor? It seems like it was from that day on that Bai Jiangxin started taking leave.”

Liang Qianqian rubbed her chin and guessed, “Could it be that Bai Jiangxin caught the flu at the milk tea shop?”

“Oh my god, maybe we shouldn’t go buy milk tea there these next few days. If we get infected too, that’d be awful.”

“Oh, okay.”

Xiang Di replied absentmindedly, guessing to herself as well.

She didn’t tell Liang Qianqian that it was also that Monday when Bai Jiangxin had mistakenly drunk her milk tea.

If she really had to say when Bai Jiangxin started acting off, a more accurate point in time would be when he drank that cup of milk tea of hers by mistake.

Could it be related to her milk tea?

Could it be that she was carrying the flu virus, and that was why Bai Jiangxin caught the flu?

No wonder he had looked at her several times during evening self-study just now, and in the corridor, it was very likely that he had seen her, the source of the virus, and so turned around and left.

Xiang Di covered her face with both hands in horror—oh my god, she had really funned straight! (I’m screwed, straight up.)

What now? From now on, it would be even more impossible for them to have any interaction at all.

Filled with guilt and disappointment, Xiang Di flopped face-down onto the desk and drew circles.

Suddenly, the classroom quieted down. Her arm was shoved hard, and Liang Qianqian whispered a reminder, “The homeroom teacher’s here!”

Xiang Di hurriedly sat up straight.

It was unclear when Chen Jinghua had appeared at the classroom door, but he wasn’t here to police evening self-study discipline this time.

“Ye Minjia, come out for a moment.”

“Coming.”

The homeroom teacher calling the class monitor out for a talk wasn’t anything unusual, and no one paid much attention. As soon as Chen Jinghua left, the class instantly became lively again.

After calling Ye Minjia to the office, Chen Jinghua’s first sentence was, “Have you noticed anything unusual about Bai Jiangxin these past few days?”

Ye Minjia: “Huh? What’s unusual?”

So Chen Jinghua told Ye Minjia about Bai Jiangxin wanting to take a long leave, and asked him, “Have you had a conflict with Bai Jiangxin recently?”

Ye Minjia shook his head. “No. We’re on good terms.”

“Then did someone else have a conflict with Bai Jiangxin?”

“No.”

Who would be so fed up with life as to pick a fight with Bai Jiangxin? Once it got reported to the teachers, even an idiot could guess who the teacher would side with. Besides, that guy wore that keep-everyone-at-arm’s-length expression all day long—put nicely, he was a cold, aloof high mountain flower; put bluntly, he was a cold, hard, stinking stone. Who would bother provoking him for no reason?

Chen Jinghua frowned. “Then what’s going on with Bai Jiangxin? How did he suddenly become tired of studying when everything was fine?”

Ye Minjia widened his eyes. “What? He’s tired of studying?”

After the blow from the last joint exam, he hadn’t even gotten tired of studying. On what grounds would Bai Jiangxin, that perennial number one, be tired of studying?

“That’s impossible.” Ye Minjia didn’t believe it.

Chen Jinghua said, “Then why doesn’t he want to come to school for classes?”

Teacher and student fell into silence like this for a long time, neither able to come up with any explanation.

At that moment, the biology teacher returned to the office with the freshly collected test papers. Seeing that Chen Jinghua was there, he deliberately walked over and said, “Teacher Chen, your class’s Bai Jiangxin hasn’t been in the right state these past two days.”

As he spoke, he handed Bai Jiangxin’s just-finished biology test paper to Chen Jinghua.

“A paper he just took, and he didn’t touch the last two big questions worth twenty points each. He couldn’t possibly think the test was too easy and be too lazy to write them, right?”

Looking at the blank pages at the back of the paper, Chen Jinghua truly felt that the situation was getting a bit serious.

With a sigh, he also told the biology teacher about Bai Jiangxin wanting to take a long leave.

“He wants to take leave for that long?” The biology teacher sounded surprised. “The college entrance exam is coming up soon, how can that work?”

“Exactly,” Chen Jinghua said. “But when I ask him the reason, he won’t say. I asked Ye Minjia, and he said Bai Jiangxin hasn’t had conflicts with his classmates either.”

The biology teacher thought for a moment and guessed, “If it’s not a conflict with classmates, then could it be that he’s heartbroken, so he doesn’t want to come to school?”