DCTMOAS Chapter 15

This time, Yu Siting’s sharp tongue wasn’t quite as vicious as expected.

Chu Cheng, sticking to the principle of “As long as you don’t say my name, I’ll pretend you’re not talking about me,” calmly declined.

“No need. I’ll wait for it to melt a bit more before I drink. Thanks though.”
He lifted his head and smiled, his bright and carefree expression so natural, it didn’t seem fake at all.

After making that expression, Chu Cheng didn’t bother to see Yu Siting’s reaction. He simply picked up the remaining test papers on the lectern and lowered his head.

Tch — fight sarcasm with sarcasm.

Without meaning to, it seemed like he had accidentally discovered the proper way to deal with snide remarks.

Chu Cheng was secretly pleased with himself, then finally began to focus on the test.

This time, the exam was written by his mentor, Teacher Yang. It wasn’t difficult at all and mainly tested basic knowledge and skills. The essay topic was also fairly standard. Overall, the paper was meant to be a reassuring assessment at the beginning of the academic year. As long as the students answered seriously, there wouldn’t be any major discrepancies in scores.

As he continued reading, Chu Cheng suddenly felt a slight discomfort in his stomach. It felt like bloating—nothing exactly painful, but certainly unpleasant.

He reached out and gently massaged his abdomen, recalling his increasingly reckless eating habits and irregular schedule over the past few days.

Even though he knew drinking a smoothie on an empty stomach first thing in the morning would definitely cause discomfort, Chu Cheng still held a grudge from earlier and secretly decided to blame it on his “big brother.”

Very quickly, he successfully brainwashed himself. So instead of attributing the discomfort to poor diet, he shifted the blame to something like “being stared at by Demon King Yu while drinking something cold must’ve twisted my guts.”

Meanwhile, the scapegoat in question had no idea and was already seated by the window, reading his book again.

Ding—

Another hour passed, and a bell sounded from the classroom speakers.

Chu Cheng glanced at the clock—the exam was over. He stepped up to the lectern to maintain order, stopping the small stirrings of chatter below:
“Everyone, put down your pens and stay seated while the papers are collected. No looking around or whispering.”

On the other side of the room, Yu Siting also stood up, quickly made his way down the rows, and collected the test papers in order. He stacked the answer sheets neatly and handed them to Chu Cheng:
“Thirty.”

“All here.” Chu Cheng counted once more to confirm and nodded.

Only then did Yu Siting wave his hand, signaling the students they could leave.

“I’m going to drop off the papers at the exam office, then swing by the Chinese department—I might be a little late getting back. Please help keep an eye on the next class for me, Mr. Yu,” Chu Cheng said as he packed the Chinese answer sheets into a submission folder, grabbing his thermos while he was at it.

Yu Siting responded in a low voice, “Got it.”

Chu Cheng left the exam room and, along with several invigilators from nearby classes, delivered the test papers to the exam office for compilation and sealing, then took them back to the Chinese department.

Tests like this—periodic assessments—were held monthly at Tenth High School. To save grading time, they usually didn’t scan the subjective sections into the computer, so the subject teachers had to mark them manually.

“Same as before—aside from the teachers who made the test and answer key, the rest will each be responsible for grading one major question type. Two of you will handle the essays. If no one has objections, let’s draw lots.”

Mr. Yang had already prepared a bunch of paper slips in advance. Whether it was because Chu Cheng was standing closest or just plain favoritism, he handed the box to him first.

Anything but the essay. Anything but the essay…

Chu Cheng chanted the mantra silently as he reached in and pulled out a slip, then unfolded it.

And of course, written on it were those dreaded two characters:

[Essay]

Oh no. Chu Cheng felt utterly defeated.

Today… no, this entire week is officially ruined.

“Thanks, Mr. Chu, for taking one for the team.”

“Hahaha, do new teachers always have such explosive luck? I remember when I first joined, I ended up grading essays for five or six months straight.”

“Mrs. Liu, can we not bring up those embarrassing stories?”

“Spare me, Liu-jie,” Chu Cheng said with a forced smile, though his heart was a tangled mess.

This wasn’t some silly story from the past—it was clearly a curse, a prophecy.

But no matter how frustrated he felt, he had to accept the result he pulled. In the end, Chu Cheng could only carry the heavy stacks of answer sheets back to Class 7’s exam room.

The second test was math. Yu Siting had helped write the questions, and compared to the previous session, he was walking around the classroom far more frequently during monitoring.

Chu Cheng remained seated at the lectern, overseeing everything from a higher vantage point. He had graduated from high school years ago and long forgotten the math curriculum, so he couldn’t make much of the paper at a glance. But the students—being the ones taking the test—could certainly feel the difficulty firsthand.

Judging by the sheer despair on their faces the moment they received the paper, it was clear Demon King Yu had gone on another rampage with this one.

Chu Cheng also noticed a few students from their own Class 7 in the room. They were biting their pen caps and flipping pages like they were strategizing for war—if anything, looking even more overwhelmed than the others.

Even though the difficulty of this test was clearly off the charts, at least Yu Siting had done a decent job maintaining fairness and confidentiality.

Chu Cheng smiled sympathetically, then looked away.

According to school rules, teachers were not allowed to do unrelated tasks during exam supervision. But with National Day break just around the corner, Chu Cheng found it hard to ignore the huge pile of ungraded papers.

However, outside the exam room, staff from the Academic Affairs Office were making frequent rounds to inspect the classrooms. With a sigh, Chu Cheng resigned himself to spinning his red pen in boredom.

Yu Siting, watching from a distance, noticed the man at the lectern had furrowed his handsome brows into a knot, clearly struggling over the stack of densely written grid papers beside him.

He drew the essay lot?

No wonder he had looked so deflated since coming back from the office. Still wears his heart on his sleeve like a kid—easy to read.

Just as Chu Cheng was sighing and wondering when he could finally start grading, he noticed the light around him dim. He turned his head slightly to see Yu Siting placing a stack of Class 7’s workbooks on the lectern.

Chu Cheng was momentarily stunned.

What’s this? First pretend not to care, then secretly report me to the supervisor? That’s so childish! Surely Yu Siting wouldn’t stoop that low… right?

But then—what did blocking the lectern mean? Was he being considerate, offering cover so he could sneak in some grading time? …Better not act rashly. If he misinterpreted Yu’s intention, it could backfire badly.

So Chu Cheng sat there, deep in hesitation and doubt, not moving a muscle. In fact, he sat up even straighter, looking more proper than ever—though the way he spun his red pen still revealed his frustration.

“Mark it already.” Yu Siting couldn’t stand it anymore and leaned in to whisper in his ear, “If your luck is that bad, you’d better hurry up. Planning to come back to school during the National Day holiday for overtime? There’s no extra pay for that, you know.”

Chu Cheng: “…”

Although his words were still laced with sarcasm, Chu Cheng suddenly realized that when Yu Siting was being sharp-tongued, not every line was completely unbearable.

“Eyes front. I can see your every move clearly. Don’t do anything unnecessary, and don’t make me say anything unnecessary either,” Yu Siting said, calm as ever while invigilating.

His tall, well-proportioned figure stood beside the podium, his right hand naturally resting on a stack of exercise books, perfectly blocking the line of sight from both the door’s glass panel and the surveillance camera—right in front of the seated Chu Cheng.

They were really close.

Chu Cheng only needed to turn his head slightly to see the lean muscles of his arm, and the faint blue veins that surfaced at his wrist when he applied a bit of pressure.

“This pose gets a bit tiring. If I stand like this for half an hour, I’ll need a break. Don’t waste time.”

Yu Siting’s voice remained the same, the subtle Beijing accent never changing. But it was only in moments like this that Chu Cheng would clearly realize—this guy’s voice was really nice.

With Yu Siting anchoring the front of the classroom, the exam room was extremely quiet. Feeling at ease, Chu Cheng lowered his head and quickly finished grading his stack of essays in the blind spot Yu Siting had created.

Using the two days of invigilation time, Chu Cheng successfully graded all the essays without sacrificing any of his holiday freedom.

On the first day of the National Day holiday, Chu Cheng slept in. As his brain slowly rebooted in a haze, he heard someone reciting chemical formulas outside his room.

He changed clothes and opened the door, only to see his senior hanging a whiteboard in the living room, with several students sitting around the dining table listening to him explain problems.

“Everyone got it this time? Make sure to write it down.”

Zhou Jin glanced at Chu Cheng, circled the final answer on the whiteboard with a marker, then put down the book and walked over to drink some water, casually chatting, “Did I wake you up?”

“It’s almost eleven already, I should be up anyway.” Chu Cheng nodded toward the students scribbling away. “What’s going on here?”

Zhou Jin shrugged. “It’s the holidays—everyone wants to fill in the gaps or try to overtake others. You know how it is. If we’re bothering you, I’ll take them somewhere else tomorrow.”

“It’s fine,” Chu Cheng said quickly. “I was actually going to ask if you wanted to hang out during the break, but clearly you’re booked.”

“Yeah, no way I can squeeze that in. My schedule’s packed, and so is Nan Nan’s.” Zhou Jin sounded regretful.

Hearing that, Chu Cheng leaned in and lowered his voice. “I heard they’ve been cracking down harder these past couple of years. You guys should be careful.”

Zhou Jin suddenly understood and replied, “I don’t take big classes. Just two or three students—it’s fine. Besides, everyone’s doing it. Except for you and that big boss from your class, who would say no to money?”

“Wait a second…” Chu Cheng looked displeased. “Since when am I anything like Yu Siting?”

Just then, the students sitting around the table had finished their questions and called out, “Teacher, can you check this for me?”

“Coming,” Zhou Jin responded, turning around. Then he glanced back at Chu Cheng and chuckled, “I never said you were exactly the same. What I meant was—he just genuinely doesn’t care about money, while you? You’ve fully committed to the broke life, voluntarily living in poverty and somehow finding joy in it.”

This time, Chu Cheng was truly amused by the audacity of the comment and laughed in disbelief, grabbing an apple and tossing it at him. “That’s worse than what you said earlier. Go on, teach your class. I’m going swimming.”

“Make sure you eat first,” Zhou Jin reminded him while bending over to help a student. “Don’t mess up your diet. I saw some indigestion tablets on the table yesterday. You bought those, right? Professor Jin told me to keep an eye on you.”

“Yeah, yeah, stop reporting everything to her,” Chu Cheng waved him off and turned into the bathroom to freshen up.

Afterward, he took a waterproof bag from the shelf and started packing his swim gear—but the more he thought about it, the more irritated he got.

I mean seriously, how did I end up “living in poverty and finding joy in it”? I work from morning till night, stuck between students and homeroom teachers, and for what? The salary is peanuts. How is that my fault?

Author’s Note:

Cheng: But seriously, why does Yu Siting get to be rich? I don’t get it.

Director: Got it.

Calling Big Boss immediately: Your gorgeous swimming buddy is on the way, and he has some deep existential questions to discuss with you.