The Opening Ceremony

The whole school was packed onto the School Playground, rows and rows of students crammed in tight.

Hearing the commotion, a few nearby students had already started sneaking glances their way.

Yu Fan honestly didn't care where he stood. If Zhuang Fangqin wanted him to stand at the front of the class, he wouldn't have minded.

With anyone else, he'd have stepped forward without even looking up.

Yu Fan stared at him. 'Which eye of yours sees me as shorter than you?'

Chen Jingshen lowered his eyelids at that, then raised them again. 'Both.'

Taking another once-over, Yu Fan nodded. 'Pick a time and I'll get them checked for you—'

'Check what? Check where?' A firm slap landed on Yu Fan's back, and a stern female voice came from behind. 'What's so interesting that it's better than the principal? Look at the Presidium Platform!'

Recognizing the familiar voice, Yu Fan curled his lip and gave the Presidium Platform a perfunctory glance.

Zhuang Fangqin was dressed all in black today, only her scarf carrying a hint of purple. Her hair was pinned up tightly at the back of her head, a roll call book in hand, frowning at the person in front of her.

From years of wearing glasses, her eyes looked a bit small, and she had a slight overbite, giving her a very severe expression.

The moment Zhuang Fangqin appeared, Chen Jingshen could feel the person in front of him suddenly relax. The aggression that had just been rising dissipated completely, shifting back into a lazy demeanor.

'Those injuries on your face—come to my office later and explain them slowly.' Zhuang Fangqin looked down and saw the black hoodie he was wearing, her expression darkening further. 'Where's your school uniform?'

'Forgot.'

'Why didn't you forget the start of school too?' Zhuang Fangqin said. 'Look at yourself—the whole school is in uniform, and you're the only odd one out! When the Student Council comes by later, they'll dock points from our class for grooming and appearance again!'

The homeroom teacher from the neighboring class teased, 'There's an inspection from the leadership today. Thanks to you, your homeroom teacher's going to get called out at the meeting on the first day back.'

Yu Fan hadn't really been paying attention, but at that he curled his fingers. 'Then should I make myself scarce?'

'Shut up,' Zhuang Fangqin said, her head aching. She lifted a finger. 'Borrow a school uniform jacket from a classmate.'

Yu Fan craned his neck to look for someone. 'Wang Luan'an.'

'Don't bother calling him. He's only wearing one jacket himself,' Zhuang Fangqin said, puzzled. 'Can't you just borrow from the classmate next to you?'

The classmate next to him?

Without even glancing at the person beside him, Yu Fan said, 'Borrowing a jacket from someone in another class—that's not great, is it?'

'What other class?' Zhuang Fangqin said. 'He's your classmate.'

'?'

'He just transferred in—a class transfer student. He'll be studying in our class from now on.' Zhuang Fangqin finished and looked at Chen Jingshen inquiringly. 'Chen, can he borrow your uniform for a bit? Of course, if you don't want to, that's fine—no pressure.'

Yu Fan frowned. The person borrowing the thing looked more disdainful than the one being borrowed from.

Yu Fan said, 'I'm not borrowing—'

'It's fine.' Chen Jingshen glanced at him. 'As long as he doesn't mind the jacket being too long.'

Yu Fan said, 'Take it off now.'

Half a minute later, Yu Fan took the jacket, threw it on haphazardly, and looked down to check.

It wasn't long. It fit perfectly—probably the same size as his own uniform jacket.

'A bit short,' he said, looking up. 'I'll give it back when we're dismissed.'

Yu Fan's hoodie had a skull with chipped paint in the middle, black pants, and a few crooked band-aids stuck on his face. The clean uniform jacket on him looked completely out of place.

Chen Jingshen stared at the bruises peeking out from the edges of the band-aids and suddenly raised his hand.

Yu Fan reflexively slapped it away. 'What are you doing?'

Without the jacket, Chen Jingshen was wearing the school's shirt uniform, buttons done up to the top. His back was straight, proper and neat.

Chen Jingshen's hand paused mid-air, then dropped naturally to his side. 'Your collar.'

Yu Fan was about to say 'none of your damn business,' but then thought about how he was wearing the guy's jacket, so he fixed it perfunctorily a couple of times.

Zhuang Fangqin watched, satisfied. 'Alright, keep it on properly, don't get it dirty, and remember to give it back when it's over.'

After a moment, she felt something was off.

A beat later, it clicked. She poked the two of them with the corner of her book. 'Wait, the line's arranged by height. You two switch places.'

Yu Fan: '...'

Two seconds later, he gave up the struggle with a wooden face and vacated the throne at the very end of the line.

The 'Sports Day March' finally stopped. After the whole school raised the flag, the principal cleared his throat and launched into his passionate speech.

Normally at times like this, Yu Fan would be standing up and asleep, but now he forced his eyelids open, staring blankly at the principal's hairline.

Today the school's microphone was way louder than usual, too noisy for him to sleep.

The principal had come prepared this time, rambling on for half an hour. Yu Fan was getting impatient standing there, so out of habit he shoved his hand into the jacket pocket—and touched something.

Very thin, a smooth texture, with some edges.

He was so tired his head hurt, so he pulled it out without thinking.

When he saw what was in his hand, Yu Fan paused slightly.

It was a pink envelope, with no writing on it, but from the feel of it, there was a letter stuffed inside.

On the seal of the envelope was a tiny red heart sticker, just like the ambiguous color of the envelope itself, announcing its identity to the world.

Was this... a love letter?

When did it get slipped in?

Yu Fan furrowed his brow, trying to think, but couldn't remember where the letter came from.

He was about to look more closely when his peripheral vision caught the sleeve of his uniform, which stood out from everyone else's like it had been bleached.

Shit.

Yu Fan snapped back to reality—he was wearing Chen Jingshen's jacket right now.

This love letter was Chen Jingshen's.

Yu Fan reacted quickly, stuffing the letter back into the pocket just as it was, then instinctively glanced behind him.

Chen Jingshen was looking at the Presidium Platform. Whether he was listening or not was hard to tell, but he looked pretty serious.

The School Photography Club loved filming students like this—proper attitude, like a bookworm.

A bookworm like that was actually into early romance?

Sensing his gaze, Chen Jingshen's eyes dropped coldly. 'What?'

It seemed the other guy hadn't noticed what he just did.

Yu Fan quickly turned his head back. 'Nothing.'

The moment the opening ceremony ended, Yu Fan stripped off the jacket and shoved it into the person behind him. 'Here.'

Chen Jingshen took the uniform and waited two seconds. 'You're welcome.'

'...'

Wang Luan'an turned around in the line and saw his buddy's retreating figure.

He hurried after him. 'Holy shit, why are you walking so fast? Didn't you say you weren't coming to the flag-raising?'

Wang Luan'an always got the class docked points for whispering during the flag-raising ceremony. This morning, Zhuang Fangqin had warned him the moment she saw him: one word meant one extra assignment. He'd been forced to hold it in the whole ceremony.

Yu Fan said, 'Got caught by Fatty Hu.'

'That unlucky?' Wang Luan'an glanced at the stairs of the Academic Building, packed with a dense crowd of people. 'Damn, this is crowded... How about we hit the cafeteria first? I didn't get enough breakfast.'

'No.' Yu Fan didn't even turn around. 'Tired. I'm going back to sleep.'

-

As soon as Zhuang Fangqin entered the Classroom, she saw the head slumped at the last row.

She tossed the roll call book onto the iron podium and, at a volume that had drawn complaints from several neighboring class teachers before, said, 'Tired students, go wash your faces in the bathroom. Hurry up—we still have a class meeting.'

Yu Fan sat up slowly, his temples throbbing from the noise.

He rubbed his face, furrowed his brow, and stood up.

'Yu Fan, you're not allowed to go.'

Yu Fan stopped in his tracks and raised an eyebrow—why?

'Would you even come back?' Zhuang Fangqin pointed at the blackboard. 'If you're tired, stand at the back. You'll wake up in a bit.'

Yu Fan thought for a few seconds, then sat back down.

He sat lazily, his head half-lowered, looking completely out of it.

Zhuang Fangqin held back, bent down, and plugged her USB drive into the computer. 'Before the class meeting, I have two things to say.'

'First, we have two new classmates in the class—Chen Jingshen and Wu Cai, both transferred from Class One. I won't go into detail here; you can get to know each other after class. Both new students have outstanding grades and good study attitudes. Learn from them.'

'Second,' Zhuang Fangqin clicked open an Excel sheet titled 'Senior 2 Class 7 End-of-Term Rankings,' 'this is your end-of-term ranking from last semester.'

The class immediately erupted in groans.

Yu Fan wasn't interested in rankings. He gave it a quick glance and immediately spotted the name at the very top.

'Chen Jingshen, math 150, Chinese 110, English 148, science... holy shit? Full marks?' Wang Luan'an said in shock. 'Yu Fan, you couldn't even get that score copying off the answer key!'

Yu Fan said, 'Compare yourself to me, you bastard.'

'Standard move.' The person in front turned around. 'This guy's terrifying. No weaknesses except Chinese.'

Wang Luan'an nodded in understanding. 'Guess the top student doesn't like memorizing texts either.'

'Not exactly,' the other person thought about it. 'I heard from a friend in Class One that his essays always go off-topic.'

'...'

'This time, the top of the grade is in our class—that is, Chen Jingshen.'

Even Zhuang Fangqin felt a sense of unreality saying that. 'I took a rough look at the papers. Aside from the Chinese essay going off-topic and losing a lot of points, the other subjects are fine. Before the subject teachers go over the questions, you can borrow his test papers to look at.'

At that, the whole class couldn't help glancing toward the fourth seat in the third row.

Chen Jingshen didn't even lift his head, a pen in his hand as he flipped through some Question Bank, showing zero interest in what was on the projection screen.

He sure knew how to act cool.

Yu Fan looked away.

'The rest of you performed pretty average. The class average isn't even higher than last exam. I hope you all think hard about what school you could get into with these scores in the college entrance exam.'

Someone muttered under the podium, 'If the college entrance exam is this hard, I'll just go lay bricks.'

'Others get full marks, and I can't even understand the questions.'

'And there's a small group of students...' Zhuang Fangqin scrolled the table to the very bottom, her mouse hovering over the last name.

She stared at the number 9 under math, held it in for a long time, but still couldn't help it. 'Yu Fan, are you planning to become a garbage picker after graduation?'

'Haven't decided yet.' Yu Fan thought about it. 'But I could consider it.'

Zhuang Fangqin expertly grabbed a piece of chalk and threw it at his head.