CH 11

Chapter 11: Self Destruction 

The noise from the self-heating instant rice meal grew louder and louder. Yue Zhishi whipped his head over to Jiang Yufan and mouthed, “Why is it making noise??”

Jiang Yufan wildly shook his head. He gestured and said silently, “I don’t know either…”

Hu Xuan turned around and made the sign of the cross on her chest, giving silent tribute to Yue Zhishi.

But it was almost as if Song Yu was completely isolated from the world. He didn’t react and even finished drawing half a mind map on the chalkboard. The rest of the class behind him held back their laughter, mutely sitting in their seats with the sole accompaniment being the sounds from the rice bowl. They were like an audience in the Weiner Musikverein concert hall, their emotions rousing from the symphony. 

Not only that, this experience was 4D. Steaming hot mist and the smell of Sichuan shredded pork wafted from Yue Zhishi’s desk.

He’d only wanted to secretly eat some dinner. But now, everyone – including Song Yu who was in charge of the class – knew he was preparing some food.

Yue Zhishi completely gave up. He was already imagining the scene — he was going to be scolded and thrown out of class before being forced to kneel in the corridor to eat his cold meal. 

He felt like he was now someone who’d seen the world. He could now go onto the Zhihu question boards and vividly answer the question of ‘how did it feel to commit social suicide’.

Ten long minutes finally passed, and Song Yu turned around without any expression on his face. He placed the remaining half of the chalk stick onto the podium and said, “These are the things I’ll talk about.”

The sounds from the instant rice started changing, turning squeaky and breathless like a balloon letting out air. The noise started to slowly droop and fade away, just like Yue Zhishi’s head that was low enough it was almost touching his desk. 

“The first part is to find your weakest area. You all know the bucket theory.” Song Yu said, walking away from the podium.

The students right in front of the podium hurriedly put away their cellphones row by row, but they continued looking at Yue Zhishi and waited for the show to start.

The rumoured younger brother bully actually came to lead class and just so happened to catch his younger brother sneaking food. It wouldn’t make sense if he didn’t teach him a good lesson.

“Systematically sorting out your wrong questions is an effective way to study. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Only be afraid of constantly making the same mistakes. This could result in losing your class ranking points, so what you guys should do is try to reduce the frequency of making the same mistake.”

He’d already walked to Yue Zhishi’s side by the time he finished speaking halfway and casually rested a slender hand onto his desk.

He kept speaking smoothly and steadily, his topic going from how to correct wrong answers to tips on how to best gain points in mathematics, various ways like the substitution method etc. and etc. But Yue Zhishi, as an ostrich, couldn’t absorb anything he listened to and could only hear his frantically beating heart.

It looked like Song Yu was torturing him on purpose, choosing to speak right next to him and not moving away.

“…and that is how you should choose your answers. Now, use the examination questions you have on hand to try out the method of answering multiple choice questions I just talked about. You have ten minutes.” Song Yu finally looked down after he finished speaking. He gazed at Yue Zhishi who’d been pretending to be dead and lightly rapped his knuckles against the desk.

Yue Zhishi only then pitifully raised his head, his whole expression saying he knew he was wrong. He truthfully pulled out the instant rice meal hidden inside his desk.

Song Yu raised an eyebrow and softly asked, “Does it smell good?”

Hearing this, nearby classmates couldn’t hide their laughter anymore.

“It’s okay,” Yue Zhishi very sincerely replied. He then quietly added, “Only a little bit.”

Jiang Yufan was an extremely loyal friend, and thinking Song Yu wanted to make things hard for Yue Zhishi, immediately explained, “Senior, I bought it. I bought the wrong thing, blame me blame me. I’m happy to write a self-criticism essay.”

Seeing that Jiang Yufan wanted to pull all the responsibility onto himself, Yue Zhishi opened his mouth and said, “No, I was the one who wanted to eat.”

Zhang Chen wanted to rile things further. “Senior, I saw the whole thing, it was Yue Zhishi who wanted it. They were acting suspiciously for a while, trying to look for ways to eat during class.”

Jiang Yufan said angrily, “As if you can talk! As if you’ve never eaten food delivery before during class. Besides, he wasn’t planning on eating in the classroom.”

The two of them started arguing. Song Yu’s gaze swept across the laughing students, every one of them eagerly waiting for him to give out a punishment. He finally calmly opened his mouth.

“Let’s take this chance to explain to everyone how the self-heating rice mechanism works.”

Zhang Chen couldn’t believe his ears. This was entirely different from all the punishments he was expecting. 

Song Yu held up the instant rice meal and, ignoring the students’ whispered discussion, said, “Look at this.”

“There is a self-heating package in the lowest layer of the self-heating instant rice meal. The package contains quicklime, sodium carbonate, a mix of magnesium alloys and other chemical reactants. Quicklime is also known as calcium oxide and reacts when it comes into contact with water. It then turns into calcium hydroxide and releases a lot of heat. Sodium carbonate helps with that, and the magnesium alloy powder can also release heat through oxidation. After we pour in water, the self-heating pouch will start reacting and automatically heat up the food.”

He looked down, met Yue Zhishi’s surprised eyes and continued, “But there is a possibility for this kind of self-heating fast food to explode. The included food are also often not fresh, so it’s best to not eat it too often.”

Song Yu placed the package down once he finished. He turned around and pointed at the chalkboard. “I’ve already written down the related chemical equations in the lower right hand corner. You can look at it if you’re interested.”

Yue Zhishi gazed at the board. So Song Yu had already known what was happening earlier and directly, quietly added the chemical equations.

At first everyone just thought the whole situation was funny and wanted to watch the liveliness. Everyone was a bit stunned at how the the ‘social suicide’ suddenly turned into a chemistry lesson. Amazingly, they had actually already learned the chemical equations before — they’d just never connected the science to their lives. 

“After this example,” Song Yu said, leaning on the side of Yue Zhishi’s desk, “no one should forget that calcium oxide releases an exothermic reaction when it comes into contact with water.”

Everyone unexpectedly collapsed into laughter. Zhang Chen was a bit unsatisfied, so he raised a hand, the expression on his face distasteful. “Senior, then why was there sound? It was too funny.”

This clearly was to bring everyone’s attention back to the moment the instant rice started hissing by itself. 

Song Yu rested on the desk and chose to not answer directly. He looked at the other students. “You guys should’ve done some chemical experiments. Is there anyone who can tell me what kind of chemical reaction results in noise?”

A girl quietly said, “Sodium and water…”

Song Yu nodded affirmatively at her. “That’s a very classic example. Many other chemical reactions also release sound.” He pointedly glanced at Zhang Chen. “Nothing surprising about it.” 

Zhang Chen’s face quickly fell. He could tell that Song Yu’s words carried a faint touch of disdain. 

“Other than the reaction itself, the very act of releasing heat will also produce a large amount of steam. The reactions colliding with each other will then also produce sound. This whole process includes many other reactions such as galvanic cells, which you guys will have yet to learn.”

Song Yu lowered his head and gave him a look. “I believe… if fellow student Yue Zhishi was clear about this from the beginning, he wouldn’t have chosen to heat up his instant rice meal in a quiet environment.” 

Fellow student Yue Zhishi.

Yue Zhishi felt this way of calling him was a bit strange, but somehow, it also gave him a bit of pleasure. 

Even though Song Yu was still icy and calm, he clearly wasn’t trying to blame him. Every word was related to chemistry, and yet everyone could hear his secret intention to clear Yue Zhishi from any wrongdoing.

Yue Zhishi suddenly thought, his anonymous reply to the social suicide question can finally be edited with a single sentence: “I’m alive!” Actually, he could probably also reveal his identity. 

Just as he was dazing off, a wide hand suddenly descended on his head and quickly, lightly rubbed his fluffy hair. He didn’t react in time when the hand disappeared from the top of his head, with one sentence drifting downwards. 

“It’ll get cold if you don’t eat it soon.”

The head touch came too abruptly, stunning the rest of the students. 

The rumour of a terrible brotherly relationship self-destructed under Song Yu’s rare intimate contact. 

Yue Zhishi didn’t even lift his head. “I’ll eat outside.”

He went outside as soon as he finished speaking, hands and feet a bit clumsy.

The toilets were to the right of the stairs. Seeing that there was no one around, Yue Zhishi went inside. The quality of the fast food was fairly average — the rice was hard, and the accompanying meat was a bit too salty.

He sat there in a daze while chewing his food. After he gulped down a bite, he raised a hand and touched the top of his head in bewilderment before putting another big spoonful into his mouth.

He’d been hungry long enough that his hunger disappeared long ago. After what just happened, Yue Zhishi couldn’t really eat. He didn’t leave after he finished eating though, remembering that Jiang Yufan said he wanted a taste. But Jiang Yufan has always had a short memory, and he still didn’t appear after five minutes had passed.

Yue Zhishi didn’t want to dawdle for long, considering that Song Yu was still in class. He quickly cleaned up and returned, and when he arrived at the classroom door, Song Yu was standing at the podium discussing the best way to review their English lessons. Yue Zhishi stood at the entrance and reported his presence, not going directly inside. 

Once he heard his voice, Song Yu nodded at him and  continued speaking as if nothing had happened.

Yue Zhishi peacefully returned back to his seat and joined the rest of his classmates in listening. For the first half of the class, the Song Yu who didn’t bring any learning materials spent only ten minutes drawing out his mind map before skilfully describing his train of logic to the class. His competent ability to explain his way of thinking overshadowed some teachers. 

“We only have a limited amount of time. We’ll stop here.” Song Yu leaned on one foot and looked at his watch. The first half of the night self-study session was almost over.

“Yue Zhishi.”

Yue Zhishi was a bit startled when he heard his name called. He immediately lifted his head and looked at his gege. 

Song Yu dipped his chin slightly towards the chalkboard. “Wipe it down.”

Yue Zhishi obediently nodded. “Okay,” he said, standing up.

Ever since he was small, Yue Zhishi was most afraid of Song Yu ignoring him, especially after he did something wrong. If Song Yu scolded him, or gave him something to do that could be considered as punishment, it meant that Song Yu wasn’t actually angry.

Song Yu didn’t speak at all when he was truly angry.

Both of them understood each other very well.

“No, don’t wipe it yet.” A girl taking notes lifted her head. She wasn’t really paying attention earlier when Song Yu was lecturing, so now she rushed to copy everything down. “I haven’t finished yet.” Other classmates chimed in, causing Yue Zhishi to hesitate. 

Song Yu coolly glanced at them. “If you can use your phones to chat, then you can also use them to take photos.”

Everyone was suddenly choked by this sentence, especially those who had just been chatting and gossiping in the group chat.

The class bell rang, and Song Yu left the classroom. Yue Zhishi listened to him and went to clean the chalkboard, Jiang Yufan grabbing the other duster to help. “Was that thing any good?”

“It was okay.” Yue Zhishi looked at him. “I waited for you for five minutes, but you didn’t come.”

“You spent so much time waiting for me? I was wondering why you took so long. I totally forgot.” Jiang Yufan rolled up his sleeves. “That stupid idiot Zhang Chen even snipped at you again, saying you didn’t dare come back because you were too embarrassed. I was so annoyed. That guy couldn’t get a girl so he decided to take it out on other people.”

Yue Zhishi focused on wiping the board clean. He didn’t really care about what people said about him when he wasn’t there. “He’s only going to be a bit mouthy for the next few days. If the person I liked ended up liking someone else, I definitely wouldn’t be happy either.” The arm busily scrubbing down away the chalk marks suddenly froze. His eyes stopped on the few lines of chemical equations in the corner.

They were the last remaining bits of the cleaning duty Song Yu gave to him. 

“Do you have your phone on you?” He twisted his head to look at Jiang Yufan. He was clapping the dusters together. 

“Yeah. Why?” Jiang Yufan directly offered it to him. “Isn’t it a bit late to think about taking a photo?”

Yue Zhishi didn’t reply, quietly snapping a picture of the equations in the lower right corner.

“Thanks. Just send that to me.”

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The classmates waiting to watch a show: Why did you bring in a dog??