Chapter 475: Qiaomu Private High School |
“The mobilization meeting starts at two o’clock this afternoon. We will start class half an hour early to go over the test papers for twenty minutes, then everyone can rest for ten minutes before going down for the meeting.” Xu Wei raised her head. As if she didn’t see Bai Liu standing there, she spoke kindly to the other students, “It’s almost May, and the weather is hot. You’ll be standing for two or three hours. Make sure to drink some water before going down, and be careful not to get heatstroke.”
“Alright, everyone open your test papers.”
In the scorching summer, the chirping of cicadas was piercing. Bai Liu sat in the back row, in the second to last seat by the window. To his left was the window; by turning his head, he could see the scenery outside.
The window was cracked open slightly. The wind blew in, fluttering the white gauze curtain. Bai Liu wore a student-style white shirt and black trousers. He lowered his eyelashes, his body leaning lazily against the curtain, one hand casually flipping through an English test paper. The white gauze behind him blurred into a mist-like background.
The collar of Bai Liu’s shirt was also blown by the hot wind, half-covering his pale lower lip. The broken hair on his forehead, dampened slightly by sweat, stirred in the breeze. Outside, the green shade of large plant leaves cast fragmented light and shadow across Bai Liu’s eyelashes through the window.
As if sensing someone looking at him, Bai Liu lifted his eyelids slightly. He locked eyes with Hou Tong, who had turned around to steal a glance at him while pretending to hide behind her test paper. Bai Liu seemed to find it interesting; his eyes crinkled into a smile as his lips curled up. He mouthed the words: “Thanks for earlier, Class Rep.”
Hou Tong’s face flushed red instantly. She jerked her head back and clutched her heart, taking two deep breaths and pounding her fist on the desk.
Damn, so handsome! I definitely have to land him!
“That’s all for today’s lesson.” Xu Wei noticed the small interaction between the two, and her expression darkened further. She slammed her lesson plan onto the podium with a muffled thud. “Bai Liu, come to my office for a moment.”
Several boys walked past Bai Liu’s side, grinning. “Going to get lectured again, orphan?”
“If you worked harder yourself, you wouldn’t get chewed out by the teacher~ Don’t let down the country’s help for you~”
“Get lost!” Hou Tong suddenly slammed the table and stood up, glaring at those jerks. “You’ve got too much to say! Talk one more time and I’ll break you pieces of crap with one hit of my racket next time!”
Hou Tong was a spiker on the volleyball team, tall and pretty. Because she was also from a good family and had a spicy personality, many boys coveted her.
But Hou Tong was truly too “spicy.” Not only was her tongue poisonous, but normal high school boys of this age simply couldn’t beat Hou Tong, who underwent constant physical training. Her hand strength was incredibly high; one spike really could break these guys. Last time, she had sent a boy who was hitting on her near the volleyball court straight to the hospital with one ball.
Later, that boy was diagnosed with a grade-two concussion.
From then on, no one dared to openly hit on Hou Tong or make off-color jokes around her.
Seeing that Hou Tong was genuinely angry, the group of boys slunk away resentfully.
Hou Tong liking Bai Liu was an open secret, which was also why Bai Liu was particularly resented by the boys in this class.
Bai Liu thanked her politely: “Thank you.”
“No, no need.” Hou Tong, who had decided five minutes ago to pursue Bai Liu, became awkwardly restless now that he was seriously thanking her. Her face flushed as she averted her gaze and stepped back. “Go find Teacher Xu.”
“I… I’ll go get you some water and ice cream!”
With that, Hou Tong bolted away. Under the whispers of everyone else, Bai Liu expressionlessly pushed open the door and walked out of the classroom.
Bao Kangle followed him out, walking behind Bai Liu. He glared at Bai Liu with hatred, brushing past him and bumping Bai Liu’s shoulder. He turned his head with a mocking expression: “Going to leech free water and popsicles from Student Hou again.”
“Do you have no shame, Bai Liu? Always eating and taking her things for free, I’ve never seen you treat her back?”
“But…” Bai Liu slowly lowered his eyelashes and said softly, “Hou Tong insists on treating me every time. If I refused directly and hurt her feelings, that wouldn’t be good either, would it?”
Bao Kangle was choked by Bai Liu’s “green tea” maneuver, his face turning red with anger. He cursed, turned around, and charged toward the faculty office at the corner.
Bai Liu walked neither fast nor slow. He turned his head to look outside the corridor, observing the high school he once attended.
Qiaomu High School was a private boarding school that occupied an entire mountain. There were two large teaching buildings, two large dormitory buildings, and one Special Excellence teaching building and dormitory.
The two large teaching buildings were both at the foot of the mountain, called the General Teaching Building and the Experimental Teaching Building. Class 17, where Bai Liu was located, was at the very end of the second floor of the General Teaching Building.
The specifications and floors of the two teaching buildings were similar, facing each other. From Bai Liu’s seat by the window, he could see the Experimental Teaching Building.
However, the Experimental Teaching Building was clearly better constructed, supposedly had better teaching resources, and the number of teachers and students was only half that of the General Teaching Building. Consequently, the classrooms were much emptier, appearing spacious, clean, and bright. The students inside spoke softly and seemed very civilized—completely different from the “demons dancing wildly” situation over at the General Teaching Building.
The students in the Experimental Teaching Building were basically those with power, background, or relatively excellent grades. The students there could basically secure a spot in a top-tier university, though the path varied—it could be through the Gaokao, art/sports tracks, or going abroad directly.
Lu Yizhan and Fang Dian were in this Experimental Teaching Building during their first and second years of high school.
And as for their third year… Bai Liu’s gaze shifted, looking toward the two buildings at the top of the mountain in the distance.
Those two buildings weren’t as large as the teaching buildings below, but they were exquisitely built. They no longer looked like school buildings but more like luxury apartments; one could even vaguely see some meticulously decorated small gardens and artificial lakes.
Those two were the specialties of Qiaomu High School—the Special Excellence Teaching Building and the Special Excellence Dormitory.
These two buildings were exclusively for the third year. Only the top one hundred students in grades and some particularly powerful and wealthy third-year students could go up there. The total number did not exceed two hundred. It was said that each classroom there was twice the size of the ordinary classes, with fully digital teaching equipment and a tablet for every student. Each classroom had only ten students but was assisted by three to four senior teachers.
The dormitory building consisted of single rooms with independent bathrooms. Each room was about twenty to thirty square meters, two to three times the size of ordinary students’ rooms. There were no more than ten students on each floor, yet they were assigned two dormitory supervisors and a chef. Rumor had it they could press a bell to order food in the middle of the night.
Bai Liu could testify that this wasn’t a rumor; you really could order food at midnight.
On the first day Lu Yizhan went up, he and Fang Dian ordered a whole table of food, secretly stuffed it into their clothes, and brought it down the mountain for Bai Liu to eat. After carefully calculating how much that meal cost, Fang Dian almost had a breakdown while eating.
“Damn it, over a thousand yuan.” Fang Dian cursed wildly while eating with teary eyes, “Can I take it out and sell it?”
“You can’t.” Lu Yizhan, heart pained, patted the back of Fang Dian who was choking on her food. “We only managed to bring this down the mountain by using our special privileges.”
Qiaomu High School was a place that strictly managed ordinary students without backgrounds. Ordinary class students like Bai Liu were not even allowed to approach or enter areas like the Experimental or Special Excellence buildings.
Bai Liu had once tried to go to the Experimental building to find Lu Yizhan and Fang Dian, but he was coldly blocked at the door by teachers and security. The reason given was:
[Don’t you know ordinary class students can’t come over? Poor students like you coming here will only disturb their studies.]
[Friends? What friends? Students in the experimental class won’t be friends with poor students. If you want to come to this place, don’t make excuses; study hard yourself. If you get into the top four hundred in the next monthly exam, you can come in.]
But at the same time, Qiaomu High School was very lenient toward students with special status. Since Lu Yizhan and Fang Dian were ranked first and second in the grade, the school turned a blind eye even if they blatantly fleeced the school’s “sheep wool” (resources) to feed Bai Liu.
Besides, there were only ten students; no matter how much they ate, how much could it cost?
As long as Fang Dian and Lu Yizhan took the first and second spots in the city in this year’s Gaokao, Qiaomu High School would be the “Top Scholar School” for the following year. With that reputation, would they ever have to worry about parents who “hoped their sons would become dragons and daughters would become phoenixes” throwing money to send their kids to Qiaomu High School?
Bai Liu withdrew his gaze from the mountain and walked straight into the corner faculty office.
The office on the General Teaching Building side was a collective large office. All the teachers for all classes on the floor worked in one large office. Unlike the Experimental building where each teacher had a private office, this was a place with no secrets where gossip spread quickly.
Bai Liu stood at the door and looked into the office: “Reporting.”
“Mm, come in.” Xu Wei acted as if she didn’t see Bai Liu, looking down and blowing on the rose tea in her cup. “Stand in front of me.”
Bai Liu walked forward and familiarly stood about a meter in front of Xu Wei: “Teacher, did you want to see me for something?”
Xu Wei finally deigned to look at him with her puffy eyes. She took a sip of tea, sneered, and threw several test papers at Bai Liu’s feet: “These are your second mock exam papers for the other subjects. Pick them up and see for yourself what scores you got.”
Bai Liu unhurriedly bent down to pick them up.
Math, 72. Chinese, 78. Science Comp, 158. Plus English, 83. Total—
“—391 points.” Xu Wei slammed her hand on the desk, making a loud bang-bang sound. “With this score, if you go out, do you have the face to say you’re a student of Qiaomu High School?”
Bao Kangle, who was in the office to get water, couldn’t help but let out a snicker, muttering: “He got in because his parents died; he didn’t have the face to say he was a Qiaomu student to begin with.”
Xu Wei gave Bao Kangle a performative glance: “How are you speaking to a classmate? Get your water and leave.”
Bao Kangle clicked his tongue as he glanced at the papers in Bai Liu’s hand. As he walked out, he snickered and hummed. Before he even left the door, Bai Liu heard the sounds of Bao Kangle’s laughing conversation from behind: “Hey, do you know what Bai Liu scored this time?”
“Didn’t you bet with me last time that he could break 400? I told you not to bet on that. He didn’t make it, missed by nine points, hahaha.”
“I don’t want to nag you either.” Xu Wei looked at Bai Liu coldly. “But you’ve lowered our class average again. Even if you’ve given up on yourself and don’t want to learn, at least think about the other students in the class.”
“Do you know how many quality points our class loses for every point the average drops?”
“I don’t expect you to be a good student, but you at least got into Qiaomu High School using a ‘good quota.’ You should at least cherish it. Do you know how much other students have to pay to come study here?”
Xu Wei slammed her teacup onto the table and took a deep breath: “I won’t compare you to students from normal families; that wouldn’t be fair to a child with no father or mother. But look at Lu Yizhan, who came from the same place as you. What did he score on the second mock?”
“687 points!”
“Your score is only a little over half of his!”
“He’s even your friend! He often comes from the Experimental building to find you!” Xu Wei let out a sigh as if lamenting his failure to live up to expectations, “Why don’t you learn from him!”
“There’s such a huge gap between you two. I don’t even know why he’s willing to come find you every day and be your friend. When you walk next to Student Lu Yizhan, don’t you feel ashamed?”
Bai Liu lowered his head. He looked at the test papers in his hand and blinked slowly.
