Haagen-Dazs ice cream, eighty grams per small cup, retail price thirty-nine yuan—the highest privilege of Experimental No.1 High School.
The small shop was noisy and crowded. Zhao Mingqi, distressed as he stared at his poor, empty wallet, pressed Li Shuangjiang’s head against the glass counter, while Ji Fan, holding a bottle of sports drink in his left hand, stood before the freezer, hesitating over which flavor to choose.
After struggling for a long time and failing to decide, Ji Fan frowned and looked at Zhao Mingqi. “Can I take one box of each flavor?”
Zhao Mingqi instantly clutched his little leather wallet tight, fur bristling on the spot, completely ignoring whether the other was the school bully or not. “Are your eyeballs growing out of your head or what! How greedy can you get! You can only pick one box!!”
Tao Zhi leaned against the window, holding a box of strawberry ice cream in her hand. Watching the commotion on the other side, she casually scooped a small spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.
The sweet strawberry flavor mixed with the rich taste of milk, soft and delicate, melting coldly on her tongue.
Tao Zhi happily narrowed her eyes.
Jiang Qihuai stood at the counter preparing to pay. As he opened the payment app to scan the code, he paused and turned to ask her, “What do you want to drink?”
According to their agreement, the losing team owed one bottle of water and one box of Haagen-Dazs. Li Shuangjiang and Ji Fan had both picked juice and sports drinks, planning to take full advantage of them, but Tao Zhi still hadn’t chosen.
Tao Zhi lifted her head and glanced over the shelves. After thinking for a moment, she said, “Nongfu Spring, then.”
Zhao Mingqi pointed at her and said angrily to Li Shuangjiang and the others, “See that! One yuan and fifty cents mineral water! That’s the composure a victor should have, the bearing of a king!”
Jiang Qihuai lowered his head, pulled a bottle of mineral water from the carton beside him, paid, and handed it to her.
Tao Zhi took it and said thank you.
She actually didn’t like drinking plain water, preferring sweet, sour, or flavored drinks. She often bought yogurt or juice. Jiang Qihuai raised his eyes slightly and casually asked, “Why are you drinking water today?”
Tao Zhi held the unopened bottle of Nongfu Spring, pinching the neck of the bottle between her thumb and forefinger. Raising her arm, she waved it before his eyes. “Do you know what Nongfu Spring’s slogan is?”
“The taste is a bit sweet,” Tao Zhi said leisurely. “This is the sweet water of victory. Understand?”
Her mood at this moment was a bit better than it had been in the morning. Swinging the red-and-white bottle like a pendulum, she continued to humiliate him. “Don’t ask so many questions. A loser has no right to speak.”
Jiang Qihuai: “…”
Jiang Qihuai didn’t know why this ancestor was so full of energy today.
The small shop’s air-conditioning was warm and cozy. After the few of them finished their ice cream inside, class time was almost up. The boys, holding their basketballs, went back to the classroom with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Tao Zhi ate slowly, unhurriedly following behind, ready to pack her bag and go home after school.
When they entered the classroom, Wang Zhezi was standing at the podium with several tall stacks of test papers in his arms, waiting for them.
The desk was already covered with several layers of freshly distributed papers from other subjects, white sheets piled across the entire surface. Zhao Mingqi wailed, “This is way more than during the National Day break last semester, right?”
“Can Grade One and Grade Two even be compared? Last year was just child’s play, you think it can always be like that?” Wang Zhezi glared at him, snorting mischievously as he patted the stack of test papers before him. “You think this is a lot now—wait until you’re in Grade Three, you’ll find you have to finish this many papers in a single day. Where’s the physics class representative? Hand out the physics homework, too.”
The physics class rep, Wu Nan, came over carrying the papers and handed them to the first desk in each row to be passed back.
Tao Zhi stuffed the unopened bottle of mineral water into her desk, propped her chin on her hand, and waited for the papers to be passed along.
When Wang Zhezi finished arranging things, he left the classroom. Before stepping out, he stopped at the door and called out to her, “Class monitor—the deputy one, come with me to the office for a bit.”
Tao Zhi stood up and followed Wang Zhezi out.
There were no teachers in the office; it was quiet. Tao Zhi followed Wang Zhezi to the desk, watching him sit down. He folded a stack of test papers from the desk and handed them to her.
“The questions just distributed in class might be a bit difficult for you. Just choose some to do—if you can’t finish them, I won’t say anything. This one is a set of physics papers starting from Grade One. I organized some basic questions. You do these.”
Tao Zhi’s vision darkened, and her expression immediately collapsed. “Ah?”
“Ah what? You can score over a hundred in Chinese and English because you’ve got a solid foundation from middle school. Try your integrated science and math, why don’t you? Scoring just over twenty in physics—aren’t you embarrassed to stand here in front of me?”
Wang Zhezi rolled up the papers and tapped them against her head. “Make a copy later for Ji Fan too, let him do it as well. You think you can just coast through the next two years in my class? Tell him to wake up early to reality. You have my WeChat, right?”
Tao Zhi took the papers and nodded obediently. “I have it.”
Wang Zhezi nodded. “Don’t slack off during the break—it’s the best time to raise your scores. If you don’t want to attend tutoring classes, just message me on WeChat directly if there’s something you don’t understand. You can also call. These foundational points aren’t hard to pick up. If you put in a bit of effort, your current scores can improve fast. You’ve got a smart head and a decent base, don’t waste it.”
Holding the stack of papers, Tao Zhi walked out, wilted like an eggplant hit by frost. The little joy of having beaten Jiang Qihuai earlier was washed away entirely by cruel reality.
By the time she returned to the classroom, school was over. Tao Zhi gathered the papers on her desk and stuffed them into her bag. She ran her hand inside the desk again to make sure nothing was left behind, and something cold brushed her fingertip.
Tao Zhi paused, pulled out the bottle of mineral water, and stared at it for a few seconds.
When she went downstairs and out the school gate, Ji Fan was sitting in the car playing on his phone. Hearing the car door open, he looked up and moved over a little.
“Why are you still carrying that bottle of water?” Ji Fan put down his phone and pointed at it. “You’re really bringing that worthless bottle home to drink?”
“Who said I’m going to drink it? I’m going to put it on my bookshelf and worship it, with a note below saying ‘Defeated by Jiang Qihuai.’” Tao Zhi closed the car door and lifted her hand. “A war trophy, understand?”
“Got it,” Ji Fan nodded and went back to his phone. “But that Jiang Qihuai bastard really is scary. Your fake move fooled everyone into thinking you were passing the ball to Li Shuangjiang. He was the only one who ran forward. I thought for sure that bastard would intercept the ball, but he was just a bit too slow.”
Tao Zhi froze for a moment, carefully recalling the scene.
At that time, she had been very close to him—almost shoulder to shoulder. She’d actually seen it more clearly than Ji Fan had.
That ball, he probably, maybe, really could have intercepted it.
It was just that every second on the court had been tense. She’d only been focused on making the pass, believing the shot would go in, so she hadn’t had time to think that much.
It was a small detail she’d already moved past, but Ji Fan suddenly bringing it up made her feel a little irritated.
Even the bottle of water in her hand started to feel like an eyesore.
Tao Zhi frowned, paused, then tossed the bottle casually into the corner of the back seat.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Tao Zhi’s National Day holiday passed in utter boredom.
She dug out her old Grade One physics, chemistry, biology, and math textbooks from the corners and storage under her bed, starting again from the first lessons for three days straight. She even called Fu Xiling to borrow her Grade One notes.
Wang Zhezi’s papers were indeed very well organized. The first page covered basic knowledge points, followed by simple exercises that matched them. The question types were all standard, nothing hard to understand.
That afternoon, the long-silent “Beautiful Girls’ Justice League” group chat came back to life.
Because Li Shuangjiang had done well on the monthly exam, his break was particularly leisurely—he went on a two-day road trip nearby with his family, posting ten Moments updates a day, all filled with the landscapes old people liked to take photos of.
After just one day at home, he couldn’t sit still anymore—first flooding the small group chat.
【Li Shuangjiang】: Bros!!!
【Li Shuangjiang】: Hu Hansan is back! Who’s going out!
【Li Shuangjiang】: How about Happy Valley! I heard it’s super lively during National Day!
Then he went on to spam the class group chat.
【The Eternal God Li Shuangjiang】: Happy Valley team-building one-day trip tomorrow ++++++
While he was typing those plus signs enthusiastically, Wang Zhezi popped up in the chat:
“Go to Happy Valley once you’ve finished all your homework. You’ve been pretty carefree these past two days, huh, Li Shuangjiang? What’s next, a round-the-world trip?”
