Chapter 90 — Taking It Out on the Exam Paper

"Uh..." Kang Xiaobo finally pulled his head back. "I wonder if Tang Yun is back yet?"

"Do you think you stand any chance of winning her over?" Wei Zhao asked bluntly, looking at Kang Xiaobo.

"None." Kang Xiaobo knew himself well enough and shook his head flatly and without hesitation.

"None, and you still stare? What a waste of time?" Wei Zhao cuffed the back of his head. "Go back and hit the books. What will you do if you fail to get into college?"

"I know I cannot win her, but Boss, maybe you can," Kang Xiaobo said with a wry smile. "I thought your hero-rescues-the-beauty act today might make Tang Yun see you differently. Who knew... it really is different..."

Hmm? Kang Xiaobo's remark put another idea into Wei Zhao's head. Could Tang Yun have taken him for a hero saving the beauty? Or thought he had staged a scene together with Zou Ruoming? If so, she might have misunderstood and assumed he wanted to chase her just like Zou Ruoming did. In that case, all of Tang Yun's strange behavior would make sense.

What a girl with an almost overpowering instinct for self-defense, Wei Zhao thought, a faint, barely-there smile touching the corner of his mouth. Still, she was quite intriguing. If he had not come here on a mission this time, Wei Zhao would truly have liked to throw himself into this campus life and savor the hazy, delicate feelings between students of this age.

"Let's go. Class is about to start." Wei Zhao urged Kang Xiaobo and quickened his pace, for the warning bell for the evening session had already rung.

Kang Xiaobo dared not linger any longer and followed Wei Zhao into the classroom of Class Five, Senior Year Three.

Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu had returned long ago and were now sitting at their desks whispering to each other. Seeing Wei Zhao come in, Shen Yushu glanced up at him, then lowered her head again to go on talking with Gu Mengyao.

To Wei Zhao's surprise, Zhong Yongliang was not in the classroom. His two lackeys, Gao Xiaofu and Zhang Naipao, were there, but Zhong Yongliang's seat alone stood empty.

Very soon, Kang Xiaobo pried the news out of someone else. A police car had just come to the school and taken Zhong Yongliang straight away.

The news startled Wei Zhao. Could it have to do with Brother Black Panther? If Brother Black Panther had failed to hold out and had squealed on Zhong Yongliang, then the kid was pretty unlucky.

The evening tutorial was another quiz. They spent the first hour working through a set of papers, and after collecting them, the study commissar took the stack, laid them face down, and dealt them out again at random. Then while the teacher went over the questions, the students marked each other's work below and finally tallied up the scores.

This spared the teacher the trouble of grading. In senior year three, when there was almost a test every day, this method suited that tense, fast-paced life.

What surprised Wei Zhao was that the study commissar turned out to be Shen Yushu. He had never realized the little girl was a class officer. After the exam ended, Shen Yushu took a stack of papers and began handing them out. When she reached Wei Zhao, she did not even look at him, but dropped a paper before him with a straight face and moved on to the others.

Only as she turned away did Shen Yushu flash a sly grin, though she quickly reined it in.

"Gu Mengyao?" Wei Zhao stared at the name on the paper, at a loss for words. How could there be such a coincidence? By now Wei Zhao was a hundred percent certain Shen Yushu had done it on purpose.

Most boys in the class actually dreamed of one day marking Gu Mengyao's or Shen Yushu's paper. Though it was only a paper, the thought that it had passed through their hands and must still carry their scent made it a kind of intimate contact, enough for some self-satisfying fantasies.

Unfortunately, Shen Yushu's and Gu Mengyao's papers were always exchanged between the two of them. Although after so long Shen Yushu looked rather suspect for using her post for private ends, no one would invite a snub by exposing it.

This time, however, Shen Yushu had given Gu Mengyao's paper to Wei Zhao, holding Wei Zhao's and her own papers back until the last. She meant to save Wei Zhao's paper for Gu Mengyao, staging a coincidence.

After she finished handing them out, Shen Yushu went back to her seat with two papers in hand, laid them before Gu Mengyao, and said with a giggle, "Sister Yaoyao, pick one?"

"What do you mean? Don't we always mark each other's?" Gu Mengyao looked at Shen Yushu in puzzlement.

"Uh... this time... I gave yours out by mistake..." Shen Yushu explained. "So..."

"Never mind..." Gu Mengyao knew that since Shen Yushu did this every time, a slip was bound to happen sooner or later. One lapse in attention and a paper could go astray. "Whatever, either will do."

Since it was not her own paper anyway, Gu Mengyao naturally cared even less.

"Oh, then take this one." Shen Yushu tossed Wei Zhao's paper to Gu Mengyao, quietly holding her own back.

"Wei Zhao?" Gu Mengyao glanced at the name on the paper and froze briefly, then caught on to something. Turning to stare at Shen Yushu, who sat with her head buried, pretending solemnly that nothing had happened, she knew at once this was her mischief. "Xiao Shu!"

"Uh... Sister Yaoyao, what is it?" Shen Yushu looked up with a beaming smile, all innocence.

"Let me see your paper." Gu Mengyao eyed the paper Shen Yushu was clutching tightly and moved to grab it.

"Huh? What is there to see..." Shen Yushu felt guilty and held it down even tighter.

"Give it to me." Gu Mengyao forcibly snatched Shen Yushu's paper away, and fearing it would tear, Shen Yushu had to let go. Gu Mengyao glanced at the seized paper, found it was Shen Yushu's own, and glared with anger. "Xiao Shu, where did you put my paper?"

"Uh... I gave it to Shield Brother... let him mess with it..." Shen Yushu thought wickedly. Yes, mess with it...

"You are driving me crazy!" Gu Mengyao was at a loss for words at Shen Yushu's antics, but luckily she had grown used to her ways by now. Knowing she was the type who delighted in stirring up trouble, she could say no more.

Even so, Gu Mengyao kept her eyes locked on Wei Zhao's paper, seized the red marker, and without rhyme or reason began slashing 'X' marks all over it, right or wrong, from beginning to end. At last she scrawled a huge "0" on the paper, flung the marker aside, and let out a long breath. She had poured all her anger into the paper.

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