NOVPUBAfter waking up from their sleep, they changed into their familiar school uniforms, the girls tied up their hair in neat ponytails, and Xu Qingfan had his hair cut in a clean, handsome style by Teacher Tony the previous night.
Since they had spent the night at their respective homes, their six-person squad didn’t coincidentally meet up this morning on their way to school.
Xia Xiaoxiao and Wu Lingyu walked ahead hand in hand, their steps in sync, causing their ponytails to swing in the same direction when they swayed.
Xu Qingfan followed behind them and stepped into the campus, marking the official beginning of the second half of the eighth grade.
When they returned to Class 8 (6), their Group Eight’s space was vacant, and the desktops were covered with various textbooks for the second half of the eighth grade, obviously distributed during their study session last night.
In these two years of junior high, Xu Qingfan hadn’t become good friends with many of his male classmates, so the typical male greeting of slapping shoulders or butts didn’t happen to him.
Of course, he hadn’t managed to make close female friends either; his interaction with the female classmates in his class couldn’t even be described as nodding acquaintances.
The reason was that whenever female classmates approached him under the pretext of studying, every girl in the group turned into a helpful peer, explaining problems thoroughly.
Because of this, Xu Qingfan was puzzled for a while—after all, he remembered having a good rapport with girls in his class in his past life.
Because he had joined the track team in elementary school in his past life, his massage technique was top-notch. Once this news spread, female classmates occasionally approached him to relieve muscle stiffness, and in return, it was common for the girls to bring him water during PE class.
Back then, Xu Qingfan was just a junior high school kid, and he naturally thought it was normal for classmates to help each other. Plus, having girls bring him water during games was super flattering!
Actually, at that time, Xu Qingfan had hoped Xia Xiaoxiao would personally bring him water, so to draw Xia Xiaoxiao’s attention, whenever he received water, he would show off in front of the girls, saying, "This is Pocari Sweat, right? It must cost five yuan at the store, tastes much better than the three yuan Jianlibao!"
However, those events had happened a long time ago, and the present Xu Qingfan no longer remembered them—he was just a bit puzzled why the female classmates’ attitudes towards him were much colder than in his previous life.
As it neared seven thirty, the class gradually filled up with students, and their Group Eight was already fully present.
The class monitor stood at the podium and called out, "Group leaders, collect your group members’ winter vacation homework and hand it in to me!"
Lin Wanning blinked her eyes, only then remembering that she had promised to help Xu Qingfan with his homework yesterday. She asked, "Brother Qing Fan, have you finished your winter vacation homework?"
Xu Qingfan flashed an enigmatic smile and replied, "No big problem."
He pulled out a brand-new ’Happy Winter Vacation’ workbook and about seven or eight test papers from his books. Whether he wrote in the ’Happy Winter Vacation’ was unknown, but those seven or eight test papers hadn’t been touched at all.
Lin Wanning, sitting next to him, skimmed through the entire ’Happy Winter Vacation’ workbook, which also didn’t have a single word written.
"Brother Qing Fan, you…" The girl momentarily choked on her words, wondering how Brother Qing Fan had turned into a bad student who didn’t do his homework.
"Brother Fan, did you really not write anything?" After Lin Wanning had a look, Xiao Ruawen also snatched the ’Happy Winter Vacation’ workbook and flipped through it, finding it completely blank indeed. 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓅𝓊𝓫.𝒸ℴ𝓶
"Didn’t I write my name? How can you say I didn’t write anything at all?"
"Brother Fan, this… You might get a call home for this. Why didn’t you tell me earlier, so I could have helped you write it?" Wu Lingyu was almost crying out of anxiety for Xu Qingfan, her voice filled with nervousness.
"Why help him? It’s better for this lazy pig to get called out by his parents!" Xia Xiaoxiao, whose mother was a teacher, thus didn’t have much fear towards teachers, and after all, the incident at the start of the first grade, she viewed teachers as just ordinary people.
Zhang Yiyi, although she didn’t speak up, had already conscientiously taken a blank paper and started copying from her own work.
Seeing Zhang Yiyi helping Xu Qingfan with his homework, the others also conscientiously drew a test paper and began writing.
"What are you guys doing? I’m not even worried myself; the worst case is just standing as a punishment. If asked, I’ll just apologize, no big deal." Qingfan recalled his undergraduate thesis was a complete mess, yet he had successfully defended it, so he was not worried at all.
He snatched back the test papers from everyone’s hands, neatly stacked them, and handed them in along with his joyful winter vacation.
"Let’s see how you’re going to explain this to the teacher!" Xia Xiaoxiao glared at him sideways, actually feeling a bit worried inside.
"Had I known, I wouldn’t have done my winter vacation homework either, just to be scolded alongside Brother Qingfan." Lin Wanning stopped writing her name on the new textbook and said seriously.
"That won’t do; I didn’t do it because I had completely mastered it. You need to do your homework properly, Wanning!" Qingfan tapped the girl’s head with his hand, thinking that he would still need to do homework in the future, or else he’d set a bad example.
"Brother Qingfan, you are such a hypocrite!" Lin Wanning crossed her arms and huffed.
"Yeah, what about it!" Qingfan teased, pulling at her hair playfully and grinning at her.
Lin Wanning laughed along and said, "Brother Qingfan must be doing this for my sake, so next time I’ll do double the winter vacation homework, even do Brother Qingfan’s, and then I won’t be at the bottom of the class in the final exams!"
"Xu Qingfan, you are really a dog!" Xia Xiaoxiao couldn’t help but facepalm and comment.
"Hahaha..."
...
The first day of the new term was quite relaxed, and the day flew by in a flash.
It’s worth mentioning that the class teacher didn’t question Qingfan for not doing his winter vacation homework, either because he simply didn’t check or because Qingfan’s good grades made it a non-issue. Anyway, the matter just passed like that.
Many things you think are huge when you are studying are actually trivial; it’s only because of your limited experience and viewpoint at the time that you didn’t realize it.
After school in the afternoon, they slung their backpacks and left the campus, walking towards the market.
As if to reward them for attending classes all day, the evening sky was exceptionally beautiful.
"Red sky at morning, sailor take warning; red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Tomorrow will be another good day," Qingfan said, looking at the sprawling orange seascape ahead.
"It’s going to rain," Wu Lingyu added the latter half.
"Dove involving a wife!" Xiao Ruawen also chimed in with seamless cooperation.
"Brother Qingfan, I’m hungry."
"Then let’s quickly head to the market to buy some food!"
"Let’s go!"
The evening breeze was gentle, and passersby hurried along.
They ran through the bustling streets, under the intoxicating glow of the setting sun.
If you think back carefully, the most relaxed moments in a lifetime are probably those when you leave school and walk on the way home.
