NASAY CH 4

His pronunciation wasn’t exactly standard but carried a casual, nonchalant tone. Each word struck precisely and deliberately, with a hint of lowered intensity that made every syllable resonate. The proximity, combined with the low voice, sent a wave of numbness through Luo Xing’s nerves.

“If you don’t speak up, I’ll take it as a yes,” Huo Xingzhou pressed closer, his voice dropping to a husky whisper, the vibrations from his chest seeming to directly hit Luo Xing’s eardrums.

“That’s not what I meant.” Luo Xing turned his head away, clearly uncomfortable. His hand gripped the pen he was using to write, veins bulging on the back of his hand as if he was trying his hardest to restrain himself.

“Then what do you mean?” Huo Xingzhou leaned in further, his question pushing Luo Xing’s tension higher, causing his breath to turn uneven.

“Can you… not be so close to me?” Luo Xing asked with difficulty.

“Hmm?” Huo Xingzhou gave him a puzzled look. Was someone really telling him to stay away? This wasn’t just an ungrateful little wolf—it was a petty and vindictive one too.

Huo Xingzhou pulled the pen out of Luo Xing’s hand without giving him a chance to respond. He shoved the milk tea into Luo Xing’s hand and stood up straight.

“If you’re not going to drink it, just throw it away,” Huo Xingzhou said casually before returning to his seat.

Luo Xing stared blankly at his hand. The spot where Huo Xingzhou had touched it felt warm, the slight roughness of his calluses leaving a lingering heat on his skin.

It took him a while to snap back to reality. He muttered softly, “Thank you.”

Huo Xingzhou waved a hand dismissively and returned to his seat.

Luo Xing stared at the milk tea for a long moment, then finally brought it to his lips. A sweet vanilla fragrance spread across his tongue—it was far better than any milk tea he’d ever tasted.

He bought this.

“Luo Xing,” the student sitting in front turned around and tapped his desk. It was a boy with a friendly face and a small patch of freckles on either side of his nose.

“I’m Hu Jiawen. Want to grab a late-night snack together after evening study?” He spun his chair around and straddled it backward, twirling a pen skillfully between his fingers.

“Which dorm are you staying in? Need help carrying your stuff?”

Luo Xing wasn’t quite used to such warmth and kindness. He shook his head slightly. “I don’t know my dorm yet. I have something to do tonight.”

“You have something to do after evening study? Our school library is closed at night. If you want to do homework, you can only stay in the classroom.”

“No, I need to go out,” Luo Xing explained.

“Oh, just make sure you get a leave pass from Teacher Cheng. Otherwise, the gatekeeper won’t let you back in, and they’ll call your parents.”

At the mention of “calling parents,” Luo Xing’s hand trembled. A few drops of milk tea spilled onto his test paper, but he quickly recovered and wiped it clean with a tissue.

“I got it. Thanks.”

The class bell rang, and Hu Jiawen finished off his pen-spinning trick with a smooth flourish before slapping the pen onto the desk and turning back to face forward.

Luo Xing took the last sip of his milk tea, capped his pen, and placed it back into his pencil case. He glanced at his phone to check the time—it wasn’t even 6:30 yet.

He gathered up the unfinished test paper, tucked it into his textbook, and then packed it into his bag. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he headed straight for the door.

After asking for directions to the office, he approached Teacher Cheng Limin to request leave, saying he needed to visit someone at the hospital.

At first, Cheng Limin wasn’t too keen on approving his request. After all, excuses like this were frequently used by students skipping class—according to them, a family of twenty-four could fall ill eight times a day.

Luo Xing explained that he was going to visit the principal from his previous school.

Cheng Limin paused. He had just heard in the principal’s office about how Luo Xing’s mother had hit the principal. Still, he admired the boy’s thoughtfulness and approved his leave. He even offered to have someone accompany him.

“There’s no need,” Luo Xing assured him. “I’ll be back before evening study ends.”

Cheng Limin nodded, handed him a dormitory supplies application form, and said, “We don’t have any available beds in our class’s dorms. It wouldn’t be appropriate to place you with the first or second-year students, as it might affect your studies. There’s an empty bed in Huo Xingzhou’s dorm. You can stay there for now. Here’s the key.”

He’s going to share a dorm with Huo Xingzhou!

Luo Xing struggled to contain his excitement. His hands trembled slightly as he took the key, his voice unsteady. “Thank you, teacher.”

Cheng Limin didn’t notice his reaction and continued, “Huo Xingzhou… even his mother says he’s rebellious and unruly, but I think he’s a good kid at heart. He’s quite responsible.”

Still immersed in the joy of sharing a dorm with Huo Xingzhou, Luo Xing nodded enthusiastically. “I understand.”

Cheng Limin hesitated before speaking again, “Luo Xing, I know you’re a good student. You’ll have a bright future.”

Sensing his hesitation, Luo Xing thought the teacher had something difficult to say. “Teacher, if there’s something on your mind, please say it. I don’t mind.”

“You’re a good kid,” Cheng Limin sighed softly, glancing down at the test paper. “After next year, I’ll be retiring. I won’t have many more chances to worry about students like you.”

Luo Xing listened quietly as the teacher shared the joys and struggles of his long teaching career, occasionally glancing anxiously at the clock on the office wall.

“Our class… while others in the school avoid them like the plague and even gave us the nickname ‘the misfit class,’ in my eyes, they’re all good kids,” Cheng Limin said, looking down at the test paper again.

“Especially Huo Xingzhou. He’s the most talented student I’ve ever taught. He can play games while listening to someone recite an English passage for just a few minutes, and he’ll remember it perfectly. The problem is, he just refuses to study.”

Whenever Cheng Limin brought up Huo Xingzhou, he couldn’t help but sigh. He saw him as a promising sapling growing in the wrong direction, stubbornly bent despite the gardener’s efforts to straighten it.

“Are you asking me to persuade him to study with me?” Luo Xing asked.

“No need to be that obvious about it,” Cheng Limin said. “With his temper, it might backfire. Your seat is close to his, so just try to influence him subtly.”

Luo Xing pictured Huo Xingzhou’s playful, careless face and nodded lightly. “Alright.”

****

After leaving the school gates, Luo Xing walked to the bus stop across the street. Soon, his phone rang. He pulled out his earbuds and put them on. The voice on the other end was loud and sharp, stabbing painfully into his eardrums. He frowned and turned the volume down.

“So now you don’t even tell me about transferring schools? If I hadn’t noticed your name missing from the list, I wouldn’t have known you secretly transferred to No. 2 High School. What, are you trying to—”

Luo Xing listened with a blank expression as the woman ranted on and on. He waited patiently for her to vent, though his ears were growing tired.

The reason Luo Xing transferred to No. 2 High School was largely because his mother taught senior Chinese at No. 1 High School. When he took the high school entrance exam, he deliberately gave up on No. 1 High and only applied to No. 4 High School, the farthest one from his home.

For this new support program, he privately approached the principal, expressing his wish to transfer to No. 2 High. At first, the principal hesitated, saying he needed to consult with his mother. Luo Xing didn’t want to cause trouble and told him to forget it.

However, for some unknown reason, when the official announcement was made, the principal had approved his transfer to No. 2 High after all.

Luo Xing pressed his ear gently, and by the time he snapped back to reality, the call had already ended. He removed his earbuds.

A bus pulled up in front of him. The driver glanced at him before looking away.

Luo Xing took out his student card and swiped it, but the machine’s voice reminded him: “Please insert coins.” That’s when he remembered he had forgotten to top up his card.

 He rummaged through his backpack and found two coins to pay the fare.

The bus was empty except for the driver. Luo Xing walked toward the back and sat in a single seat by the window, watching the city’s glowing night lights.

The bus was quiet, but the air conditioning was on full blast. Feeling cold, he reached up and closed the vent above him.

No. 2 High was in the city center, only a few stops from the municipal hospital. However, it was rush hour, so it took nearly half an hour to get there.

When he arrived, he stopped by a fruit stand near the hospital and asked the vendor to put together a fruit basket. Luo Xing took out the cash in his wallet, leaving only two hundred yuan for himself, and asked the vendor to fill the rest of the basket with fruit.

It was after 7 p.m., and the sky had fully darkened. Luo Xing bypassed the emergency building and headed toward the inpatient department at the back. He asked a nurse at the station for the principal’s room number.

Standing at the door of the room, Luo Xing paused and glanced inside through the small window.

The principal was sitting on the hospital bed with thick bandages wrapped around his head, his face pale. Beside him stood his wife, who was also the school’s dean of academic affairs—her surname was Zhou, and Luo Xing knew her.

Taking a deep breath, Luo Xing raised his hand and knocked on the door.

Teacher Zhou froze for a second when she saw Luo Xing standing at the door. Her hand, which had been slicing fruit, stopped mid-motion. She glanced at the principal.

She leaned slightly to the side, and Luo Xing could only see her lips move, but he couldn’t hear what she said.

He lowered his eyes.

Soon, Teacher Zhou opened the door, her face cold as she blocked the entrance. “Why are you here? Checking to see if your mother failed to beat the principal to death?”

“Teacher Zhou…” The principal interrupted her with a sigh. “Why are you saying this to a child? It’s not his fault. Let him in. What kind of behavior is it to scold him at the door?”

The principal sighed again, looking at the slender boy standing at the door with a surge of mixed emotions.

Luo Xing had grown up without a father, raised by his mother, Zhao Jiulan, all on her own.

Back when he was still an elementary school principal, Zhao Jiulan was also a teacher at the same school and was notoriously strict with Luo Xing.

As a child, he wasn’t allowed to play with other kids. While the others roughhoused during gym class, playing with sand and mud, Luo Xing always sat quietly by himself.

While the other kids were covered in dirt from head to toe, Luo Xing remained neat and clean like a little puppet doll, his face filled with a suppressed longing.

He was different from other kids his age—far more disciplined and obedient. He never played with others and excelled at everything from homework to calligraphy and painting.

Even at such a young age, he already carried an air of extraordinary refinement.

Kids are naturally mischievous, yet Luo Xing was so well-behaved that it was almost unsettling. He was flawless in every way and outstanding to an unreasonable degree.

Over time, people began to notice that something was off. Luo Xing wasn’t like other kids at all. He was like a perfectly calibrated robot—without joy, anger, sorrow, or envy.

The principal had tried to help him embrace his childhood playfulness, fearing that this kind of suppression wouldn’t be good for him in the long run. So, one day, he personally led a gym class.

At first, Luo Xing was timid, but once he relaxed, he played even harder than the other kids. For the first time, the principal saw a genuine, radiant smile on his face.

The principal had been pleased, but the next day, Luo Xing didn’t come to class. After asking around, he found out that Luo Xing had been hospitalized. After recovering, he transferred schools.

He never expected that, seven years later, he would once again be Luo Xing’s principal. When he saw his name on the new student list, he was completely stunned.