Chapter 8

When the two of them finally left the office, it was already two minutes after the lesson period had ended. Qian Xing Gui had actually scolded them for an entire lesson.

Looking like someone had offended her, Song Yu Meng walked back to the classroom with a dark face. Everybody who passed by her knew that she was in a terribly bad mood.

Yi Ran followed her silently, keeping a distance of a few metres. Gazing at Song Yu Meng’s clearly dissatisfied silhouette, she couldn’t help but laugh secretly.

The moment she entered the classroom, Song Yu Meng saw Liu Luo Yang sitting on her chair and her gloominess lifted immediately.

Yi Ran caught sight of it too as she walked in, freezing for a second before walking back to her own seat. She figured, it must be time for Liu Luo Yang to hand out candy after slapping[1] Song Yu Meng earlier that day.

Heh, what a scheming man.

“Xiao-Yu, you’re back.” Liu Luo Yang stood up from the chair. “Teacher Qian didn’t punish you too badly when he made you follow him to the office, did he? I noticed you weren’t in class for a whole period, so I was pretty worried. But since you’re back now, I can rest assured.”

His tone was warm and gentle and his lips twisted up slightly into a small smile, seemingly a completely different person from earlier. Song Yu Meng was utterly mesmerised, how could she even be arrogant or detached, she was reduced to a blushing mess in front of him.

“I’m okay, Baldy Qian didn’t do anything to me.” She smiled dopily, “you, on the other hand, why are you here, Liu Luo Yang gege? Are you here to speak to me?”

Anticipation shone in those beautiful, moist eyes and Liu Luo Yang said: “Mm, I specially came to apologise to you. I was wrong earlier, I shouldn’t have treated you that way. I’m sorry, can you forgive me?”

Song Yu Meng nodded her head like a chicken pecking at corn[2], “of course, of course!” She lowered her head and played with her fingers before shyly saying, “actually, I’m not angry at you~”

Liu Luo Yang had expected that this would be her reaction, so he wasn’t surprised at all. He smirked and gently stroked the top of her head with his hand.

Yi Ran, who was watching from afar, rolled her eyes to the heavens!

Appearing as if she was trying hard to solve a chemistry question, she was actually secretly listening to the two of them while peeking over from time to time using her peripheral vision.

If Yi Ran hadn’t read this novel before and knew Song Yu Meng’s contrasting personality, she would have thought that a ghost had possessed her!

Seriously? Was something wrong with Scaredy-cat’s brain? Yi Ran complained in her heart while thinking at the same time, why the hell would Song Yu Meng fall for someone like Liu Luo Yang? Was something really wrong with her?

It was the evening self-study period for mathematics after that, and Song Yu Meng’s elated expression never went away. She was smiling while working on her homework for geography even during the last period for the day.

When she had finished half of her homework, she suddenly remembered Baldy Qian scolding Yi Ran for only scoring eight marks on the exam and her smile widened, resulting in her eyes curving into two crescents.

Yi Ran turned her head slightly to look at Song Yu Meng after finishing a question and saw her smiling even more happily. Unhappily, she thought: Seriously? One sentence from Liu Luo Yang is all it takes to make her so happy?

In the last few minutes of the class, Tang Xiang Ping came in to make some announcements.

“So first, homework assignment. Finish the first two pages of this book. There’s another announcement that might make you guys want to cry. The school has decided to hold tests this Thursday and Friday to test how much you’ve studied at home over the summer break.”

Everybody wailed in despair after hearing the news.

“Ahhhhh—”

“What’s there to complain? You’re already sophomores, shouldn’t you be used to tests and exams by now?” Tang Xiang Ping pushed her glasses further up her nose. “That’s all, you guys better revise during this time. The topics to be tested will be everything that was taught in Year 1.”

Song Yu Meng clearly didn’t pay any attention to Tang Xiang Ping, smiling stupidly at Liu Luo Yang again.

She didn’t care about having to take any tests, she failed every time anyway since she couldn’t be bothered to do her homework or revise.

After classes ended, Song Yu Meng informed Su Xiao Xiao that she had left some snacks in her dorm room and said bye to Liu Luo Yang before heading home happily.

The driver, Uncle Wang, stopped the car in front of the villa’s entrance and Song Yu Meng jumped off joyfully before entering.

Mrs Song hardly ever saw her daughter so happy and felt it was strange.

Walking over quickly to take the bag from her, she said: “Ya, my good daughter, why are you so happy today? Did something good happen at school?”

“Yes mommy, Liu Luo Yang gege patted my head today, and he was extra gentle to me.” Song Yu Meng paused, as if remembering something, and chuckled. “And Crazy Yi, she got scolded by the discipline master for only scoring eight marks in the exam!”

Mrs Song was confused: “Daughter, who’s Crazy Yi?”

“Oh, it’s the person I hate most.” Song Yu Meng rolled her eyes and continued, “Wait, no! It’s my second most hated person!”

“Uh…… Alright.”

Mrs Song couldn’t understand it. Didn’t she say it was her second most hated person? Why did it feel completely different to the times when she would talk about Xu Yuan? She had such an aggrieved expression when talking about Xu Yuan, as if there was a huge rivalry there, but when talking about Crazy Yi, why did she feel like her daughter was actually kind of happy?

“Oh right, that Liu Luo Yang didn’t do anything to you lately, did he?” Mrs Song asked cautiously.

Song Yu Meng immediately got flustered, “Mom! How can you ask this sort of question? Liu Luo Yang gege is super nice to me, you and daddy better not be prejudiced against him!”

Mrs Song nodded to defuse the situation, “okay, mom won’t say anything else. Go rest up then, you still have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Got it, mommy.”

Mrs Song really worried over this daughter of hers.

Back when Mr Song and her knew that their daughter liked Liu Luo Yang, they were already incredibly worried. Their daughter was a hopeless romantic[3], they knew it, but they couldn’t do anything about it.

Once, there was even an occasion when Song Yu Meng said that if she couldn’t marry Liu Luo Yang, she would never get married in this life. Mr Song was so angry, he had almost had a heart attack then. But over the past few years, they started to come around to the fact. As long as Liu Luo Yang treated their daughter well, they would have accepted it.

The problem was that he didn’t treat her well at all! They had seen their daughter come home crying so many times, thus earning their disapproval.

At night in bed, Mrs Song told Mr Song: “Dear, our daughter came home smiling today, she was in a pretty good mood.”

Mr Song asked: “Because of that punk again?”

Mrs Song nodded and Mr Song harrumphed unhappily, “Hmph! If that punk dares to hurt our daughter again, I’m going to find someone to deal with him!”

……

Before the sun even rose the next day, Song Yu Meng was up and busy getting breakfast ready. She specially toasted some bread to bring for Liu Luo Yang, as she always did in the past.

When Song Yu Meng reached school, it was only 6.40am and the sky wasn’t even fully bright yet, with only a few students around.

Liu Luo Yang hadn’t arrived in school yet, so Song Yu Meng secretly stuffed the bread inside his desk, smiling.

After putting the bread in, she turned around, wanting to head back to her seat. Who knew, Yi Ran was standing right behind her and gave her a shock.

“Crazy Yi, are you mad? What are you planning to do, standing suspiciously behind me like that?” Song Yu Meng held a hand to her chest to steady herself, “Are you trying to scare this lady to death?!”

Yi Ran smirked and folded her arms: “Then what were you doing so suspiciously at Liu Luo Yang’s seat? Stalking him[4]?”

She had just walked into the classroom from the front door and coincidentally saw Song Yu Meng bent over Liu Luo Yang’s table with her hand inside.

“Who’s stalking! Is this lady that kind of person?!” Song Yu Meng stood up straight in an upright manner.

Yi Ran furrowed her brows, “what were you doing then?” She suddenly recalled that in the book, Song Yu Meng would prepare breakfast for Liu Luo Yang almost every morning and teased: “What? You can’t possibly be putting breakfast in there right? You came so early just for that?”

“Can’t I?!” Song Yu Meng stared daggers into Yi Ran.

Yi Ran forced a smile, “Sure you can, why can’t you? It’s just dumb, that’s all.”

“Crazy Yi, what the hell do you care? This lady wants to do it, who are you to care?” Song Yu Meng said angrily with her chin lifted in the air.

“Sure, I’m nobody to care.” Yi Ran inexplicably felt her chest tighten, and walked back to her seat with a blank look.

Song Yu Meng stood there dumbfounded, watching Yi Ran turn around and leave. Why did it feel like Crazy Yi was sulking?

Wait, no! Why does it matter if Crazy Yi is angry or not?!

……

After the morning self-study period, the various class reps were collecting homework.

Yi Ran sat with her hands folded behind her head, glancing at Song Yu Meng. Seeing that she was staring intently at Liu Luo Yang who was collecting homework, she immediately thought of something.

That scaredy-cat definitely didn’t do maths homework right? Yi Ran smiled slyly and walked over to her.

Seeing that Song Yu Meng was still gazing stupidly at Liu Luo Yang, Yi Ran rapped the table with her knuckle and said: “Where’s your maths homework, hand it in.”

Song Yu Meng stood up immediately and rebutted: “Crazy Yi, are you trying to bully me? You clearly should have started collecting from the start of the room!”

If the homework was collected from the start, she would still have time to copy the answers.

Yi Ran refused to give her this out and smiled, “but I’m the class rep, I want to collect it from you first, can’t I?”

Song Yu Meng was speechless, glaring at Yi Ran with her lips pressed together. Crazy Yi was definitely trying to pick on her!

“Be honest, just say you didn’t do it.” Yi Ran’s smile got even brighter.

Song Yu Meng said hatefully: “This lady didn’t do it, so what?”

Yi Ran chuckled and silently wrote down her name on a post-it note before replying: “So nothing, I’ll just note your name down.”

“You…!!!” Song Yu Meng couldn’t spit anything else out, eventually accusing her weakly, “you’re doing this on purpose!”

Yi Ran grinned, “that’s right, I’m doing it on purpose.”

Seeing Song Yu Meng glaring at her, Yi Ran continued: “How about this? I won’t write down your name, but you’ll have to treat me to milk tea[5] on Friday after the test. Just at that shop opposite school, this request isn’t too much, right?”

Considering the situation she was in, Song Yu Meng either had to treat Crazy Yi to a drink, or listen to Tang Seng’s nagging. She clearly would prefer the former.

“Hmph, I’ll treat you. Erase this lady’s name now. Erase it here, don’t try to pull any tricks.” Song Yu Meng stared at Yi Ran intently.

Laughing, Yi Ran crumpled the note into a ball before throwing it into the rubbish bin.

“Satisfied now, Ms Song?”

Song Yu Meng side-eyed Yi Ran, “hmph, that’s more like it.”

“Oh right, I almost forgot.” Yi Ran picked up the maths exercise book on Song Yu Meng’s desk and said, “even though I’m not recording your name, you have to do this homework by today and give it to me to check, or I’m still going to tell Tang Seng.”

“What?!!!” Song Yu Meng almost fell over in shock.

With such a loud shout, everybody looked over and saw the two of them arguing again. It was such a common occurrence that everybody just went back to doing whatever they were doing.

“You’re going back on the deal[6], Crazy Yi! You, you shameless person!” Song Yu Meng was utterly speechless.

Yi Ran rolled up the book in her hand and gently tapped Song Yu Meng’s head with it, “you’re the one being shameless. I’m helping you hug the Buddha’s leg[7], got it? We have the maths test the day after, you’re not even thanking me for helping you revise, you’re scolding me???”

With an angry, red face, Song Yu Meng snatched the rolled-up book from Yi Ran and hit her head in return. “This lady doesn’t need your concern! You’re so bothersome!”

Yi Ran looked at Song Yu Meng puffing her cheeks up like an inflated pufferfish and suddenly thought that she was kind of cute. In a shameless voice, she said: “I don’t care what you say, you have to let me check your homework before school ends today. Otherwise, I’m going to exaggerate it to Tang Seng and let her scold you!”

If not for the fact that Song Yu Meng couldn’t win in a fight, she would have immediately gone up to punch Yi Ran!!!

The bell rang and the students quickly returned to their seats, with the class reps all carrying the exercise books towards the teachers’ offices.

“Ya, scaredy-cat, I haven’t collected the homework! We’ll leave this for later, I still need to collect the rest of the books, you better remember to let me check your homework later!” Yi Ran said quickly before running to the first row to collect the exercise books.

“Revenge” has never felt so sweet!

[1] 打一巴掌给个糖 – Explained this before, but basically being nice to someone after being mean, to lead them on.

[2] 小鸡啄米 – This was pretty funny, literally means chicken pecking at corn, or someone bobbing their heads up and down rapidly.

[3] 恋爱脑 – Literally romance-minded. Means that when they fall for someone, that’s all they think about and care about.

[4] 偷窥 – I changed this sentence three times, from “sneaking around?” to “invading his privacy?” to finally, “stalking him?”. Put them all together and you get the general gist of this term.

[5] 奶茶 – Literally milk tea. There are a few names for this drink, bubble tea, boba tea etc.

[6] 耍赖皮 – Means to go back on a deal/promise or act shamelessly.

[7] 临时抱佛脚 – Literally means to hug the Buddha’s leg at the last minute. I heard this so many times when I was still in school (I was a terrible student, pretty much like Song Yu Meng. Horrible grades for maths and science, aced the humanities). We use this term to refer to the actions of someone who didn’t bother to study all through the year but started revising like crazy right before the exam. It’s like, begging god to give you a passing grade before you take an exam.