Chapter 201 Class Eleven A

The air in class Eleven (A) was chilly and suffocating. It was as if no one could utter a word. Something heavy was placed on their chests that made them unable to utter a word.

Gu Shangyan elbowed the boy who was the reason why the students were not revising their first lecture. “Stop scaring them.”

“What did I do?” Lu Xuan asked as if he was offended.

“You are a student of this class. You have to be friendly to everyone, ” Gu Shangyan reminded Lu Xuan who groaned.

“I want to go back to my old class, ” Lu Xuan demanded.

“Sure but don’t forget to score fewer marks on monthly tests, ” Gu Shangyan snorted. His Spartan tutoring increased Lu Xuan’s grades by leaps and bounds. It only took the boy one year to enter Class A of Eleven grade. It was startling to everyone and more than anyone it was shocking to Lu Xuan himself.

“So, I’m stuck in this class for a month?” Lu Xuan asked with a look that said he would rather be anywhere but here.

“Shangyan, why don’t you sit with Lu Xuan?” Song Xueyun asked as she placed her bag on the first desk. “I’m sure the teacher will understand your effort at making a new student feel welcome in our class. Shen Yue’s bench is empty anyways.”

“You can clearly say that you want to sit alone at the single desk, ” Gu Shangyan coldly said. Of course, he could see how the wheels of Song Xueyun’s brain were functioning.

Song Xueyun didn’t react and took the seat on her bench. She put a heavy bundle of her notes and book on the desk where Gu Shangyan was supposed to sit. It looked as if she had made a bunker of books on her desk to hide herself.

“Xueyun, mom invited you for dinner, ” Lu Xuan tried his luck.

“Thank you, ” Song Xueyun said with a smile. “I have to decline. Look at the bundle, I have to finish one book this week at any cost. I really don’t have a minute for myself.”

Lu Xuan and Gu Shangyan sighed. For the last few months, she had been drowning herself in studies and extra classes.

“What about the weekend?” Lu Xuan asked.

Song Xueyun stopped scribbling on the paper and looked at him with an apologetic smile. “I am sorry, Lu Xuan. But I have joined French classes on weekends.”

“Are you coming to my game this Friday?” Lu Xuan asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.

“I will try to, ” Song Xueyun smiled.

“It’s alright, ” Lu Xuan smiled. “I will go back to my seat.” He took out something from his school bag and said, “Eat this. You need food on time to study for longer hours.”

Song Xueyun flashed him a smile and turned her head back to solve the sums before the teacher arrived.

“She reminds me of the time when we were new in school, ” Gu Shangyan said. Although his face was devoid of any expression, one could see a hint of worry in his eyes. “It didn’t take Nanxian to bring out the studious ice princess out of her icy shell. She is back to where she was a year ago.”

“Why did she have to react as if the world ended when he left for college?” Lu Xuan said with an irritated look. “He was always supposed to go to college. It’s not like she can’t call him in America. He only went to Havard not Mars!”

Gu Shangyan didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what had happened that changed Song Xueyun so much. There was no expression on her face– neither sad nor happy. It was as if she was incapable of carrying an expression on her face.

Song Xueyun, who was sitting on her bench, looked up when someone knocked on her desk.

“Mind if I take the seat next to you?” The boy with dark and tired eyes asked.

“Yes, ” Song Xueyun replied without any emotion whatsoever. “Your seat is behind me.”

Lu Sicheng was not offended by her tone. He recognised her as the same girl who scolded the other girls in the assembly for comparing him and Gu Shangyan. He believed that there was no comparison between him and Gu Shangyan. He felt cringe whenever he recalled how he tried to get on Genius Gu’s nerves by calling the latter eternal second.

He was seventeen now and a little wiser.

“I wonder what I have to do to convince you to share the seat with me, “Li Sicheng asked with a charming smile.

“Maybe, just stop talking to me and I will think about it and then I will reply to you after one thousand years?” Song Xueyun deadpanned.

Li Sicheng laughed at her attempt at sarcasm. Who was this cutie with an icy face? He wondered if he would freeze on touching her.

“Then, I will not annoy you, “Li Sicheng replied and took the seat at the desk behind Song Xueyun. He looked at his deskmate and smiled, “Hi, I’m Li Sicheng. The third ranker.”

“Huo Mian, “The girl said without bothering to look at him. “Fourth ranked. Got outranked by you only with 5 marks. I will defeat you in the next monthly test.”

“Sure, “Li Sicheng sighed. “Why is no one in the mood to make friends here?”

“We, at class Eleven A, make rivals. Friends are a foreign concept here, “Huo Mian replied. “Don’t make friends in this section. It will hurt when you lose them to competition.”

“You guys don’t have friends?” Li Sicheng asked, shocked.

“We do but not in this section, “Huo Mian replied. “We can only be rivals in this class. Advice for you, we don’t know anything other than working extra extra extra hard for getting into top universities of the country and world.”

‘Dear Lord, what did I get myself into?’ Li Sicheng asked himself in bewilderment.

“If you could just avoid Song Xueyun, “Hu Mian advised. In the last year, she had seen the most dangerous version of Song Xueyun. She could never forget that incident.