In the twilight sky in early July, a cloud of purple haze half-hidden the falling sunset. In the old classroom, the creaking iron fan barely blew away the pervasive summer heat.

At this time, three days have passed since the county-wide final examination. The students in the Rocket Class1 of Qingshui County No. 1 High School had already flown into the summer vacation, but the teacher on the podium was sitting and staring, so they had to absent-mindedly look up at the live screen on the podium.

On the screen was another classroom more than a thousand kilometers away. The Mathematics teacher of first year class of Wenhua No. 1 High School was talking about Mathematics problems passionately, and the blackboard was already filled with dense formulas. The teacher spoke very quickly, and no students raised any questions during the whole process, as if these topics could not be simpler.

But for the students of Qingshui No. 1 High School, these questions were S-level dungeon problems. They were used by the perverted geniuses of Wenhua No. 1 High School to improve themselves. They were not within the scope of students from poor counties, so they didn’t listen very seriously.

Because they didn’t understand at all.

Only one male student listened attentively from the start to the end, neatly noting the problem-solving process on the blackboard in his notebook. The white T-shirt on the back of his thin shoulders already soaked with sweat, and he casually used the back of his hand to wipe away the sweat on his forehead so as not to drip down onto his notebook.

“I heard that the ranking for the final exam will be out tomorrow.” Liu Rui glanced at the teacher on the stage who lowered his head to grade the homework, and quietly reported the gossip to his deskmate Tao Xi who was writing furiously on the side.

After Tao Xi finished copying the last line, it happened that the teacher on the screen had also finished class. He put down the gel pen and closed the notebook. He did not look at Liu Rui but gave him a flat ‘oh’.

Liu Rui saw Tao Xi lowered his head and picked up the pen again and again to unscrew the cap and close it, so he knew that this person here was pretending to be calm. He might be nervous enough that he dug his toes on the ground, so he said, “Xi ge, because you are so clever and you have studied so much, I bet you are the first in the county.”

The whole class knew how much Tao Xi wanted to get the first place in the county for the final exam. This year, Tao Xi had been studying day and night like crazy, and his grades had soared to the top three.

Perhaps it was because this time the county’s first place would be sent to Wenhua No. 1 High School to “study abroad” for one year.

Since last year, Qingshui County, a national-level impoverished county located in the mountainous area of southwest China, had cooperated with the famous national school Wenhua No. 1 High School in a “remote live classroom”. With the financial support from the government and enterprises, all the classrooms of Qingshui No.1 High School were installed with live streaming equipment, and students attended classes with students of Wenhua No.1 Middle School synchronously. The county magistrate dreamt of washing away the shame of the county’s “zero first choice”2 college entrance examination through this cooperation.

However, the gap between the students in the two schools was too great. The students in the parallel classes were not able to keep up with the progress of the students in Wenhua High School. Many students are deeply hit by the strong contrast, and their grades had dropped seriously instead.

After half a year of running-in, Qingshui No. 1 High School decided to let the students with the top half of their grades continue to live with the parallel classes of Wenhua No. 1 High School. The teachers of the school taught other students in the school, while the students in the top fifty followed the best class of Wenhua No. 1 High School. In the entire county, it was the Rocket Class that was the most promising to be admitted to a good university .

Tao Xi was a student in this Rocket Class. He closed the gel pen cap for the last time, took a deep breath, and said nothing.

Only he knew that he was choking with nervousness these days.

The next class was an English class. As the class bell rang, the lazy students suddenly raised their spirits.

Tao Xi also straightened his back and looked at the screen with wide eyes.

A young and beautiful female teacher came in on the screen. As soon as the students appeared in the audience, they began to whisper. The girls talking enviously about the female teacher’s nice new dress, and the boys laughing and passing glances to each other.

The English teacher in their school coughed vigorously and said, “Listen to the class!” Only then did the students quiet down.

In this year’s distance learning, their Rocket Class was like an invisible classmate of Wenhua Class 1. They knew the names of the teachers and many students in the first class. For example, the beautiful teacher who was teaching on the screen was named Bi Aoxue, and they even knew her nickname, it was Grand-aunt Bi.3

But they also knew that the teachers and students of Wenhua No. 1 High School didn’t know them at all.

They looked at the screen as if they were looking at another world.

Tao Xi also stared at the screen. He was not looking at the English teacher, but seemed to be waiting for someone to appear.

“Lin Qinhe, are you4 addicted to being late, ba?” Bi Aoxue on the screen suddenly turned her head to look at the door and said, in a tone that was not harshly reproachful, but rather some helpless ridicule.

Tao Xi’s eyelashes trembled, pinched the pen in his hand, and looked at the screen motionlessly.

“The usual rules, read this prose aloud before going on.” Bi Aoxue took out a book, turned a page at random, and handed it to the tall teenager who walked onto the podium.

Here, the classroom of the Rocket Class at Qingshui No. 1 High School suddenly turn into commotion. The girls couldn’t help but discuss the name Lin Qinhe in a small voice in surprise.

The handsome boy in the white shirt uniform of Wenhua No. 1 High School took the book from the English teacher with an indifferent expression, and read the English passage above without emotion.

The girls in Qingshui County didn’t understand what he was saying, and they didn’t know how authentic this person’s spoken English was, they just looked at the boy’s face.

Because it was so good-looking.

Tao Xi stared at the screen without moving his eyes. The pen in his hand quickly jotted down the English that the boy said on the screen on paper. When he encountered a strange word he didn’t know, he simply wrote a rough phonetic transcription.

He had a very good memory, even if the speed of the reading was very fast, he could still write down the general idea with his memory.

Soon the teenager on the screen finished reading, and after Bi Aoxue nodded, he walked off the stage and disappeared out of the screen.

“Xi ge, you also wrote this down. It’s not necessary. This is what Grand-aunt Bi uses to punish students for being late.” Liu Rui liked to call Bi Aoxue’s nickname, so it seemed like he was also sitting in the classroom on the screen.

Tao Xi retracted his gaze from the screen, looked at the brief notes on the paper, and said a lie “I practice my listening.”

“You are awesome.” Liu Rui gave a thumbs up.

The last class was finished quickly. The students rushed to the cafeteria at the moment the bell rang to save time in queuing for dinner. Tao Xi was about to take off with Liu Rui when he was intercepted halfway by the class teacher Feng Yuan who suddenly appeared at the door.

Liu Rui ran away unscrupulously, Tao Xi cared about his precious time, and asked with a smile on his face, “Mr. Feng, what can I do for you?”

Feng Yuan was the head teacher of the Rocket Class and the most experienced Mathematics teacher at Qingshui No. 1 High School. He had a staid and stern personality. Students would rather offend the principal than the head teacher. He wore an old blue shirt that was mostly wet with sweat, his face was stern, but his there were a little bit of joy in his eyebrows. He coughed lightly and said, “Come with me.”

The red sunset was overshadowed by the haze of the mountains, and in the dark purple sky, the mud-rolled playground was dusty with flying footsteps and basketball.

Tao Xi walked aimlessly around the playground. The heart that was violently beating didn’t seem to calm down. He didn’t even notice the sound of hunger until a basketball hit him suddenly.

“Oh, classmate, are you okay, ba?” A second year playing basketball shouted and ran to pick up the basketball. At first glance, he knew that the guy in front of him was Tao Xi from first year Rocket Class. He was thin and fragile, and at first glance, he looked pretentious5, but he was a plague god6 whose grades were abnormal and he was also abnormal when he fought and played basketball.

The younger brother of the sports committee member in his class and Tao Xi’s sister, Tao Le were in the same junior high school. Because he bullied Tao Le last month, after being cleaned up by Tao Xi for a few days, he did not dare to go to school. The junior high school teachers of that student still protect Tao Xi who had already graduated.

The second year student did not dare to provoke the plague god who had the whole school teachers as a backer. After saying a few words of sorry, Tao Xi’s face was still calm. There was no trace of emotion in his dark eyes, but there was a strange smile on the corners of his mouth.

“Is he fucking stupid?” The second year whispered in a low voice, and quickly ran away with the basketball.

Tao Xi glanced at the electronic watch on his wrist. It was almost time for evening self-study, so he turned and walked quickly to the classroom, too late to buy a bread to cushion his stomach.

As soon as he entered the classroom, the classmates cheered and rushed up, shouting loudly to coax the rich not to forget each other.

“I’m not wrong, Xi ge ranks first!” Liu Rui grabbed Tao Xi happily as if he was the first in the exam.

“Tao Xi, don’t forget us when you go to Wenhua No. 1 High School!”

“Just go for a year, senior year is still coming back”

“So jealous, I haven’t been out of the county yet.”

“There will be a lot of pressure if you don’t pass. The geniuses in Wenhua No. 1 High School are not people at all!”

“Hey, the only handsome guy in our school has also contributed to Wenhua No. 1 High School.”

The commotion did not end until the evening study bell rang, and Tao Xi had no way to quietly study. He opened a brown-covered notebook, and on the first page, he wrote in English with his only pen:

“I won’t try to pick the moon. I want the moon to come to me.” 7

“I won’t try to pick the moon, I want the moon to come to me.”

He would always remember the day he first saw Lin Qinhe on the screen, at the end of last summer, when the twilight was approaching.

At that time, he was living in a mess because of family affairs, and he had no interest in the so-called remote live broadcast classes. He always hid behind the classroom to sleep during the early of first year of high school.

Feng Yuan, the head teacher, originally trained Tao Xi as a key student because this student had an outstanding junior high school grades, but he didn’t expect him to look like a ghost after school started.

A few days after the start of school, the Principal rushed back from Wenhua City, and talked in the scorching sun to the whole students that remote live classroom teaching would change their destiny.

“You will have the same educational resources as the best high school in the country, and the best teachers and classmates in the country! As long as you work hard to learn from the teachers in Wenhua No. 1 High School, you can also be admitted to the first choice, Tsinghua and Peking University!”

The principal’s generous speech touched and inspired many students, and some students even shed tears on the spot.

At that time, Tao Xi was standing on the dusty playground, looking up at the mountain opposite the school boringly. His home was behind that mountain, in a village called Taoxi8 Bay.

The county on this mountain was so poor that even birds didn’t want to fly in, and education was so backward that no student had passed the exam for so many years.

Everyone was full of hope for the remote live broadcast class, as if a rope had finally fallen into a deep well that had been closed for many years, and they could reach the sky as long as they grabbed the rope and climbed up.

But Tao Xi had just felt the fate of being toyed with. He looked at the mountain and felt that he would never be able to get out.

When the class bell rang, Tao Xi was still sleeping on the wooden table. The English teacher was unfamiliar with screen device and carefully adjusted it. He looked up and shouted ‘Tao Xi’ suddenly.

Reluctantly, he sat up straight, leaned back on the desk, and half-closed his eyes to boringly look at the brand-new screen on the podium that was incompatible with the dilapidated classroom.

What entered the screen was a beautiful young woman who immediately attracted the attention of all the students. She was wearing a tailored dress, speaking fluent and authentic English that they had never heard before, sitting on the podium like a person on an audiotape. The English teachers in their school who were in charge of discipline all looked at the screen with all their attention.

That was a teaching method that teachers and students had never encountered before. Bi Aoxue did not follow the textbook to explain the content of the textbook, but had a full English conversation with the students. Wenhua students answered questions enthusiastically. The atmosphere was relaxed and active, like a gathering at a foreign university.

The students of Qingshui No. 1 High School gradually became silent. They found that they couldn’t understand what they were saying. Those unfamiliar words and sentences were tacitly understood by the teachers and students of Wenhua No. 1 High School, but they seemed to be impossible to them.

Silence spread in the classroom of Qingshui No. 1 High School until Bi Aoxue who was halfway through the class, suddenly smiled and said, “Then now, I invite Lin Qinhe, who missed my English class yesterday, to come on the stage and give an impromptu English speech to our classmates in Qingshui No. 1 High School.”

Qingshui’s students suddenly became restless. For the first time, they were pleasantly surprised to feel that the teachers and classmates on the screen knew of their existence, and the restlessness was even stronger when they saw the teenager walking on stage.

Tao Xi, who never liked English, was nodding his head and about to die of boredom when he was abruptly awakened by the noise in the classroom, he yawned lazily, reached up and wiped his eyes, and looked at the screen again.

He saw a tall boy in a white shirt standing on the podium, a lot taller than Bi Aoxue, who was already tall on the side. He had no expression, was not impatient to be named suddenly, nor was he nervous before giving a speech. His facial features were clear and handsome, like snow peaks in the sun under bright lights.

“The students at the far end are all waiting, Classmate Lin, let’s start, ba. You can talk about anything.” Bi Aoxue said with a smile from the side.

The boy named Lin Qinhe raised his eyes and looked at the camera at the end of the classroom. On the clear screen, he could even see the changing shadows under his long eyelashes when he raised his eyes.

The girls in the classroom took a deep breath in tacit understanding. Tao Xi looked at the pair of eyes that suddenly looked right at him across the screen, and inexplicably had a moment of heart palpitations.

Lin Qinhe started to give an English speech. Even the students from Qingshui could understand the beginning of the speech. They listened very carefully, but the more they listened, the more they were frightened, because they found that they still didn’t understand. Moreover, this boy named Lin Qinhe’s spoken language was not inferior to Bi Aoxue, as if he was born a native English speaker.

This was the student of Wenhua No. 1 High School, and they thoroughly felt how big the gap was

They didn’t know at the time that Lin Qinhe was not an ordinary Wenhua No. 1 High School student.

It was rare for Tao Xi to watch the live broadcast screen seriously. In fact, he couldn’t understand many sentences in it, and he could barely understand Lin Qinhe’s dream and future.

There was one of the simplest sentences that he somehow remembered for a long time.

“I won’t try to pick the moon. I want the moon to come to me.” 9

Since then, Feng Yuan, who had been worrying about how to deal with Tao Xi, suddenly found that this student seemed to have changed overnight. He was no longer taking a nap in class and started handing in homework. He was so serious that he wanted to stare out two holes on the live broadcast screen.

......................

After attending class for 10 days after the final exam, the school had finally ended. Because Taoxi Bay was far away from the county’s No. 1 High School, Tao Xi usually lived at school’s dorm and returned home once a month.

He put the study materials and clothes into a big plastic luggage bag1 and took the county bus twice to go back to Taoxi Bay.

Taoxi Bay was the furthest village in Qingshui County. The scenery was beautiful but the land was poor. The green tea trees in the terraced fields reflected on each other. When the spring rain came, hundreds of peach blossoms on the banks of the Qingshui River in the mountains were full of mists, and the flowers bloom on the stream.

However, most local villagers didn’t have much leisure to admire the scenery and flowers. In recent years, the Internet had attracted some idlers who came to sketch and took pictures. Several wealthy farmers had opened farmhouses. With the completion of roads in the county, more and more guests came here.

Tao Xi’s family was on the mountain side by the Qingshui River. There was a small brick house with white walls and grey roof. His mother, Guo Ping and father, Tao Jian were both native villagers in Taoxi Bay. Tao Jian worked in other places all year round, and Guo Ping occasionally went to the village’s farmhouse and tea factory to do odd jobs during her free time. His younger sister Tao Le was thirteen years old and had just had the first day of summer vacation in middle school.

With sharp ears, Tao Le quickly ran out to meet Tao Xi when she heard the movement in the hallway, almost tripping over the fertilizer bag on the ground because of excitement.

When Tao Xi saw Tao Le coming out, he grabbed her by the arm and hurried to the room.

“Don’t come out, the sun is too hot today.” He put down his bag, closed the wooden door, turned and looked down at Tao Le’s face.

The little girl was a little fat and she wore a tight trousers. She had a shiny natural curly hair, and a pair of almond eyes that were smart and lively, but there was a large erythema like a butterfly on her face, spreading from the bridge of the nose to the left face.

Tao Le suffered from Systemic Lupus Erythematosus2 and had been taking medicine to maintain it.

“Ge, I heard from my classmates that you are the number one in the county this time! You are going to Wenhua City to study when school starts!” Tao Le was on vacation early, helping Guo Ping with some farm work at home and looking forward to Tao Xi’s return every day.

The news spread quickly, and it was estimated that Guo Ping knew about it too. It saved the effort to talk to her.

Tao Xi nodded, but there was no excitement on his face like when he first knew it. If it weren’t for Tao Le, he wouldn’t want to return to this house.

After sunset, the siblings took the dried tea leaves on the dojo. Later, when Guo Ping returned from the tea factory, Tao Xi was cooking in the kitchen.

She picked up the enamel cup on the chopping board, drank a few sips of herbal tea and walked to the kitchen. When she was young, Guo Ping was famous for her aggressive personality in Taoxi Bay. After ten or twenty years of wasteful time and years of hard work, her skin was dark and yellow and wrinkled, her once-beautiful apricot eyes were yellow and drooping, and her personality became reticent and silent.

Guo Ping looked at the son in front of her. He was born with fair skin. He grew up in the countryside for so many years and did a lot of farm work, but he was still white and clean, like those art students who came to Taoxi Bay from the city to paint and sketch.

“I heard Sister Zhang’s son say that you are going to study in Wenhua City next year?” Guo Ping sat on the stool next to the stove to face the fire. The tone was strange, didn’t sound like Tao Xi’s mother.

Tao Xi held the spatula and didn’t look at Guo Ping. He didn’t like the way Guo Ping looked at him. This always reminded him of his ridiculous fate behind this look.

“Wenhua No. 1 High School will support my living expenses. Every month, 1500. I will leave 800 for Lele to see doctor and buy medicinal products.” Tao Xi said with his eyes down, his tone was not fluctuating.

Guo Ping was silent and used tongs to clamp a piece of wood into the stove.

The irritability in Tao Xi’s heart suddenly surged like a stove filled with wood. What he hated most was Guo Ping’s seemingly tolerant silence, which made him couldn’t help but say something bad.

“Don’t worry, I will not go to your son and ruin his life. Wenhua City is so big, where would I look for him even if I want to find him?”

“I didn’t mean that.” Guo Ping said.

That’s what you mean.

Tao Xi sneered silently, but after that, he didn’t speak any more.

Tao Xi did not idle during the 30-day summer vacation. Except for some farm work, he took a fixed time every day to review the content taught by the teachers at Wenhua No. 1 High School. He also helped Tao Le with her homework. The little girl was a bit excluded in school and couldn’t study.

Whenever he had the chance, he would be the mannequin for the art students, and the pay was 100 yuan. Because the mouth was sweet and he was good-looking, the art students sometimes gave him some additional tips.

He would also be models for some photographers, but the fees would be much higher because these photographers liked to inquire about his family situation, on the pretext they wanted to record different lives. Tao Xi knew their psychology and made up some tragic stories according to what they liked, either the father was dead or the mother was gone.

Occasionally, he painted with art students, and they lent him their brushes so he painted generously.

“Wow, little brother3, you really haven’t learned how to paint? How can you paint better than what we have learned.” The girls from the academy of fine arts were painting landscapes individually, but now they all leaned to Tao Xi’s side to see his paintings.

The paintbrush in Tao Xi’s hand stopped, he really didn’t want them to see it because he painted Lin Qinhe.

In the painting, the young man in the white shirt was looking sideways and down. The peach blossoms outside the window were concealed by a bright moon.

He no longer knew which Lin Qinhe he had painted. He had a sketchbook in which every picture in it was Lin Qinhe, sitting or standing, reading or writing. In fact, the real Lin Qinhe he could see was very limited. These paintings were all the moon he imagined.

“So handsome, who is this person?” the girl exclaimed and asked.

Tao Xi smiled perfunctorily, thanked them after painting, and ran away with the painting.

In fact, he had liked painting since he was a child, and he was born with talent better than others. But Guo Ping once saw his paintings, and she went crazy that she stuffed all the paintings into the stove and burned them all. He was frightened that time and only dared to paint quietly after that.

Later, he finally understood why Guo Ping was so angry.

The summer vacation soon passed. Tao Xi left most of the two thousand yuan he earned to buy medicine for Tao Le, leaving only five hundred as extra expenses to go to Wenhua No. 1 High School.

At the end of August, Tao Xi packed up his luggage and prepared to set off. Tao Le insisted on sending him out. He stroke a handful of his sister’s natural rolls and flatly refused.

Tao Xi didn’t say a word to Guo Ping. He took the luggage and got on the bus to the Qingshui No. 1 High School. Several leaders and many teachers from the school came to see him off.

The teachers surrounded Tao Xi and exhorted like an old mother, as if sending the child to the battlefield, letting him go without too much pressure, saying that it was normal for him to be unable to keep up and advising him to adjust his mentality and get along well with teachers and classmates.

The Chinese teacher was an old man and had always liked Tao Xi. The old man stuffed a pack of home-made candies into Tao Xi’s arms and encouraged him: “My child, you are excellent, not worse than the students in Wenhua No. 1 High School. You are neither humble nor overbearing, so be a little more confident!”

Tao Xi nodded and said thank you. He had always liked to eat candies, but even if they had them at home, they gave it Tao Le. He knew that what the old man said about being neither humble nor overbearing was actually telling him not feel inferior.

But in fact, he had never experienced low self-esteem growing up. Even when he saw Lin Qinhe, he crazily wanted to get close to him, stood beside him, and became a good person like him instead of being ashamed.

Feng Yuan, who had not spoken all the time, said suddenly: “If you have a conflict with your classmates, don’t fight. There won’t necessarily be someone there to protect you.”

Tao Xi suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Feng Yuan.

You must know that he had never had a fight in Qingshui No. 1 High School. He had always been a good student, at least in front of the teacher.

Feng Yuan coughed and whispered: “Don’t worry about your sister, she will be transferred to Teacher Ding’s class immediately. No one will dare to bully her in the future.” His wife, Ding Fang was a Chinese teacher in the county junior high school and also a head teacher.

Tao Xi looked at Feng Yuan in silence for a while, and suddenly, he bowed very solemnly to all the teachers present and said thank you.

“I will definitely be the first student in Qingshui County to pass the exam.”

This time he was not perfunctory.

The teachers sent Tao Xi to the school gate. Feng Yuan took Tao Xi, and the two of them carried large and small luggage bags. They took a bus to the nearest prefecture-level city. They ate two buckets of instant noodles at the train station and waited until midnight to get on the high-speed rail. After sitting all night, they finally arrived at Wenhua City at noon the next day.

Tao Xi never went out that far and Feng Yuan also rarely went out. The two were very dizzy at the high-speed rail station for a while, and did not understand the bus and subway routes. Finally, Feng Yuan gritted his teeth and took a taxi to Wenhua No. 1 High School. Tao Xi wanted to pay the taxi fee, but Feng Yuan didn’t let him.

The moment Tao Xi got off the car and saw the gate of Wenhua No. 1 High School, Tao Xi felt that he was dreaming and his feet were a little soft.

A big and a small couple accompanied by a big luggage bag and a small luggage bag at the school gate were a little out of place and bleak. Feng Yuan was taken aback for a while before he took out his mobile phone and made a call while Tao Xi looked up at the gate of Wenhua No. 1 High School greedily.

A tall building with simple lines. The seven characters4 of “Wenhua City No. 1 High School” were engraved on white marble. Looking past the automatic metal door, there was a wide asphalt road, with green leaves on both sides undulating with the sound of cicadas, concealing the crimson building at the end.

Tao Xi sighed in his heart, this had more style than the crumbling rust iron door in Qingshui No. 1 High School.

Soon a pudgy middle-aged male teacher walked quickly on that road. Tao Xi saw this teacher on the screen for nearly a year. He was Zhou Qiang, the head teacher and Mathematics teacher of the first class. He watched the hairline on the head recede with his own eyes.

The feeling of the people on the screen suddenly becoming alive was quite strange. Tao Xi squinted his eyes and raised the corners of his mouth to show a shy smile when Zhou Qiang came to him.

“Report! The first place in Qingshui County had come to our class! There are still 500 meters away from the classroom!”

In the early morning of the first day of school, a boy rushed from the corridor into the classroom at the end of the third floor of the Wenhua No. 1 High School. The students who bowed their heads all over the classroom hurriedly raised their heads.

“Xiao Fei, male or female?”

“Male!” The boy who reported the news was Bi Chengfei. He flew back to the desk to continue copying his English homework.

The boys suddenly let out a disappointed voice. Their class was already dying and declining, and they had originally imagined a beautiful and innocent farm girl.

“Handsome?” asked Jin Jing, the English class representative who was urging him to hand in the English homework and unselfishly pulled out the English homework book from Bi Chengfei, who was working hard.

“Wait! It’s almost the last one!” Bi Chengfei chased and wrote an option, and finally said with a sigh of relief: “I didn’t see it clearly, it seems to be quite thin and white.”

Jin Jing glanced at the empty seat behind Bi Chengfei and sighed.

Bi Chengfei knew who she was thinking about, so he said in a sour tone: “Even if it he’s handsome, can it be more handsome than Lin Xueshen?5“

Jin Jing rolled her eyes and said, “Just more handsome than you.”

Tao Xi, who was imagined as a farm girl, was wearing a new school uniform that he had fortunately done in the morning after washing it last night, and now he was following Zhou Qiang to the classroom.

After Feng Yuan sent him to the dormitory to settle down, he hurried back without stopping.

Because school hadn’t started, the roommates hadn’t come yet. Tao Xi slept in the four-person room all night and was taken to the cafeteria early in the morning by Zhou Qiang to have a free hearty breakfast.

Zhou Qiang had been tirelessly introducing the situation of the school and the class along the way, with the encouragement of “don’t be nervous”, “take it easy” and “you can” from time to time.

Tao Xi had always been a person who knew what to say in different situation6. At the beginning, he responded very cooperatively, but he couldn’t do it later.

He was very unaccustomed to others being too attentive to him, but finally understood why Zhou Qiang’s nickname was Auntie Zhou.

When passing by the hall on the first floor of the teaching building, Aunt Zhou, oh no, Zhou Qiang also took Tao Xi to stand in front of the tall glass curtain wall to admire the honor list.

“You see, there are a lot of students in our fClass 1 here and they will become your classmates in the future.” Zhou Qiang triumphantly scanned the photos and names of the students in his class. Under each photo, there was also an aphorism like “Learning without thinking is worthless, thinking without learning is perishable”.

Tao Xi saw Lin Qinhe’s photos at a glance. One was because he appeared most frequently, and the other was that he was the best-looking, but there was only a name under the photo. There were no sentences.

When Zhou Qiang saw Tao Xi staring at the photo in a daze, he secretly yelled. He thought that this student from the mountain felt inferior when he saw the outstanding classmates. He took a sharp turn and led him upstairs, before he said kindly: “The students in a class are lively, enthusiastic, humble and cheerful. You will definitely fit in well!”

This was the third time Tao Xi had listened to Zhou Qiang’s lively and enthusiastic.

Tao Xi raised the corner of his mouth and smiled, and said for the third time: “I will get along well with my classmates.”

Yes, he was still a little nervous at first, but he lost his emotions when Zhou Qiang did anything like this.

There was even a sense of relief when he walked to the door of the classroom.

A class of students was practicing English listening for English self-study class. The moment Zhou Qiang and Tao Xi walked in, they clicked the cassette and it disappeared.

Tao Xi instantly felt all the gazes fell on him. He had no intention of trying to figure out the meaning of these gazes, so he quickly glanced down the stage in the dense line of sight.

Not here.

Tao Xi suppressed the doubts and disappointments in his heart, and after Zhou Qiang’s passionate opening remarks, he was asked to introduce himself to the class.

“Hello everyone, my name is Tao Xi and I come from Qingshui County No. 1 High School. I am very happy to come to Wenhua No. 1 High School to study.”

In fact, he had repeated countless self-introductions on the road, but now he suddenly lost his mood.

Zhou Qiang was stunned, was it done?

Nothing more, kids nowadays loved to pretend to be cool, or maybe he was too nervous. Zhou Qiang thoughtfully gave Tao Xi a reason, pointed his finger at the last row of the classroom, and said kindly: “The last seat in the fifth row is yours. Yes, it was all tidied up yesterday.”

The whole class turned around and looked at the last row at the same time. There were two empty seats next to each other. One of them was added yesterday, and the other…

Tao Xi nodded. Just as he was about to step off the podium, a tall figure suddenly walked into the door of the classroom.

He subconsciously turned his head to look over, and was suddenly nailed to the place.

“Lin Qinhe, how come you are late on the first day of school!” Zhou Qiang said to the boy who walked in the door sadly, as if looking at his unfilial son who went astray.

The unfilial son was carrying a black schoolbag behind him, one hand casually hooked the schoolbag strap while the other hand was holding a bottle of iced mineral water. There was no expression on his stern face and he said indifferently: “There was a car accident on the road.”

Tao Xi sighed in his heart, but the expression on his face did not change. He looked at Lin Qinhe calmly.

No matter how clear the live screen was, it would inevitably be distorted. After seeing it, he found that his paintings still had many flaws and he didn’t make half of his pictures as good-looking at all.

Zhou Qiang looked terrified, apparently believing the nonsense, and scanned Lin Qinhe up and down, left and right. After confirming that he was okay, he showed a pleasing smile. He pulled Tao Xi and said to Lin Qinhe in the tone of a supermarket salesperson selling new products:

“It’s fine! But you just missed the new classmate’s self-introduction. Come, let me introduce you. This classmate is named Tao Xi, who is the first in Qingshui County! Do you think he can be your tablemate in the future?”

Zhou Qiang asked for an opinion, but in fact he had already put the desk next to Lin Qinhe before that. He was confident that Lin Qinhe would not refuse such trivial matters.

“Won’t do.” Lin Qinhe glanced at Tao Xi, his voice was without emotion.

The class fell silent abruptly.

The smile on the corner of Tao Xi’s mouth also froze.

Zhou Qiang didn’t expect Lin Qinhe to simply refuse it, and for a while, he was very embarrassed. Turning his head, Tao Xi, who was rejected on the spot, lowered his eyes, looking like he was shocked and in despair.

He couldn’t bear to see the good boy was wronged, his heart was swayed so he sullenly said to Lin Qinhe: “What’s wrong? The classroom is so big!”

In fact, there was a vacant seat in the classroom, it belonged to a student who asked for sick leave.

The good boy Tao Xi cursed, damn it. If this was in Qingshui No. 1 High School, he would have already shaken his head and left. Who cared about the opinion. If he couldn’t sit there, he would just fuck off.

But the other party was Lin Qinhe, so it was different.

He lowered his head slightly, but he raised his eyes and looked at Lin Qinhe. Pursing his lips, his eyelashes trembling inadvertently.

This was what he was best at. His expressions when begging for mercy and forgiveness to the teacher after a catastrophe. He occasionally used it when making stories for those photographers so he would get more rewards.

On the side, Zhou Qiang began to persuade him softly again: “Try it for a week first. Anyway, we will have to change seats later. If you can’t get along, we will change, okay?” He winked at Lin Qinhe as he said that.

Lin Qinhe twisted his eyebrows and quickly moved his gaze away from Zhou Qiang’s very spicy eyes. He glanced at Tao Xi next to him. After a while, he turned around and walked towards the last row.

Zhou Qiang breathed a sigh of relief. He felt that this was tacit approval and hurriedly pushed Tao Xi, while whispering: “Hurry up and get ready for class, ba.”

Tao Xi looked at Lin Qinhe’s back. With a faint smile at the corner of his mouth, he walked to the empty seat next to Lin Qinhe under the various looks of his classmates.

Lin Qinhe had taken out the wireless earphones and plugged them into his ears. He dug out a book from the drawer and studied. It looked like a math problem. From the start to the end, he didn’t give attention to anything else around him. The mineral water was randomly standing on the desk. At one corner, the cold water vapor condensed into beads and rolled onto the tabletop.

Tao Xi stuffed the schoolbag into the drawer and sat down.

As soon as Zhou Qiang walked out of the classroom, the classroom began to become clamorous again. The previous English reading seemed to be a scene. Many people quietly looked at the last row, either just looking or discussing about it.

A boy in front of Tao Xi slid around like a spinning top and smiled, revealing two rows of white teeth: “Classmate Tao, my name is Bi Chengfei. I am a sports committee member of the Class 1. You can call me Da Fei ge.”

The girl sitting by his side smiled and cursed shamelessly,but Bi Chengfei didn’t feel embarrass at all. He continued to look at the new classmate with a friendly smile, his eyes full of curiosity.

Tao Xi was taken aback, bending his eyes and said, “I know you.”

Now Bi Chengfei was stunned. He found that this new classmate looked better when he smiled. Scratching his hair a little embarrassedly, he said: “Am I so famous in your Qingshui No. 1 High School? Then how come no one writes to me?” He glanced at Lin Qinhe on the side and whispered, “Lin Xueshen has received a lot of letters from girls in your school.”

Because of the remote live broadcast of the classroom, a few good-looking and good grades in Wenhua No. 1 High School were also famous in Qingshui No. 1 High School. Many Qingshui girls quietly wrote to their favorite boys to confess, and the main target was Lin Qinhe.

Tao Xi’s complexion was unnatural for a moment.

Because he was one of the “girls” who wrote to Lin Qinhe, and he wrote a lot of letters.

However, he was not confessing, but reporting everything about him to his distant friends whom he unilaterally “made friend with”, as if Lin Qinhe was a distant, intimate mailbox.

In order to conceal the handwriting of a boy at first sight, he bought pink letter papers and silver gel pen, drawing strokes like flowers, and said in a little girl’s tone that he admired him when he was reading English in English class. Told him how many people have improved, how he wanted to work hard to enter a university with him and how he wanted to know whether he was going to Tsinghua University or Peking University…

At the end, the word “Peach”1 was signed, and a small peach blossom was also painted.

However, the girls in Qingshui No. 1 High School, including him, had never received a reply. Gradually everyone stopped writing. Only Tao Xi persisted. After the mid-term exam, he learned that at the end of the semester, the number one in the county’s exam could go to Wenhua No. 1 Middle School for a year so he started to prepare for the exam and no longer wrote letters.

Tao Xi glanced at Lin Qinhe. He was still reading, maybe because he was wearing headphones, but he didn’t hear their conversation at all.

He breathed a sigh of relief and said to Bi Chengfei with a smile: “I know who you are because you often answer questions on the blackboard.”

The students who had been secretly opening their ears to listen to the last row suddenly laughed.

Everyone knew that Bi Chengfei was often punished on the podium to answer questions for speaking in the class. Sometimes the teacher would yell Bi Chengfei halfway through the class, so the entire Qingshui’s Rocket Class was familiar with this name.

Bi Chengfei laughed, not a little bit embarrassed.

Maybe it was the warm atmosphere, or maybe it was that the new classmate had a good personality, but a few “lively and enthusiastic” students couldn’t help but get close to Tao Xi and rushed to ask him if he knew them.

Unexpectedly, Tao Xi could recognize most of them.

Class leader Li Xiaoyuan, Chinese class representative Zhang Mengtong, English class representative Jin Jing, and Literature and Art committee Jiang Xinyun…

“Only now I have the real sense of Qingshui No. 1 High School with us in class. I would have paid attention to my image if I knew it.” After sighing, Bi Chengfei took out a mobile phone from his pocket, quickly unlocked the screen, and changed his name affectionately:

“Classmate Xiao Xi, let’s add WeChat and QQ. As the leader of our class and boys’ group, I sincerely invite you to join us as a distinguished member of the group.”

Other students on the side also took out their mobile phones.

Tao Xi got goose bumps from the “Xiao Xi” and shook his head and said, “Sorry, I don’t have a mobile phone.”

The people nearby were silent for a few seconds, and Bi Chengfei was silent too. He never thought that there would be people without mobile phones in this era, but he immediately thought that Tao Xi was from the countryside, so he felt that he had said something wrong. He carefully glanced at Tao Xi’s expression, only to find that he was very calm, not a little bit embarrassed, and he was still turning his pen skillfully in his hand, as if he was just saying that he hadn’t had breakfast.

Bi Chengfei breathed a sigh of relief and quickly said, “It’s okay, I will tell you if there’s any news!”

Tao Xi took the pen, smiled and said thank you.

Bi Chengfei wanted to say something. However, looking at Lin Qinhe, who was obviously displeased with frowned eyebrows, he closed his mouth again.

But then Lin Qinhe’s phone on the table suddenly began to vibrate. He glanced at the screen of the phone, frowned slightly before he picked up the phone and got up and walked out from the back door, as if he didn’t want to stay here for a moment.

Bi Chengfei was pardoned. Lying on the Tao Xi’s table, he covered his mouth and whispered: “Xiao Xi, don’t mind the matter of Lin Xueshen not letting you sit next to him. It’s because his best friend finally got into the top 50 at the end of last semester and finally he’s able to transfer to our class. He has been talking about studying and sitting next to Xueshen for a year.”

Zhou Qiang told Tao Xi that Wenhua No. 1 High School had tests every two months. Classes were rearranged according to the mid-term and final rankings, but most of the students in Class 1 were relatively stable, and only a few students were changed this time.

Li Xiaoyuan, the class leader who patroled back and forth in charge of discipline but also talked in a small voice, pushed the black round-frame glasses and whispered: “Yeah, Yakult has the best relationship with Classmate Lin. It took him a long time to get in from Class 2, but he doesn’t come to class today because he’s sick.”

This Yakult sounded like a person’s nickname, and he knew him well.

Hey, it turned out to be that the broken up the brothers were finally reunited.

No wonder Lin Qinhe resisted so much.

Tao Xi said with a guilty expression, “Knowing this is the case, I should tell Teacher Zhou I’m not sitting here.”

But he felt bad in his heart. He tried his best to come here from Qingshui No.1 High School and it was in exchange for more than three hundred mornings and nights. How could he easily let go of the opportunity to sit with Lin Qinhe?

Seeing this, Bi Chengfei hurriedly comforted him: “It’s okay, everyone is in the same class. Lin Xueshen has always been sitting alone, anyway. Even if it us who are transferred next to him, he won’t be happy.”

It means that Lin Qinhe was not targeting Tao Xi.

Tao Xi nodded and said nothing, because Lin Qinhe came back from the back door with his mobile phone.

Immediately after the class bell rang, the students scurrying in the classroom suddenly rushed back to their seats like beasts. One after another, they took out Chinese textbooks from the drawer.

The first class was Chinese. Tao Xi looked to the side and saw that Lin Qinhe had also taken out the Chinese textbook, but he didn’t open it. Just putting it aside for the sake of it, and studied a math competition book instead.

So arrogant.

Tao Xi naturally did not have the capital to be arrogant so quickly took out the Chinese textbook. His learning progress had been consistent with Class 1. Of course, the learning results had not been consistent.

The Chinese teacher was He Wenjiao, a young female teacher in her early thirties, with a petite figure and a kind round face, she looked like she was only in her twenties. The students called her Sister Jiao in private.

He Wenjiao walked to the podium with a soft voice: “Did you miss Teacher after a summer vacation?”

The student below hurriedly dragged their voice and said, “Miss..”

“Yes. In three days, everyone’s ability to tell lies has become more and more sophisticated.” The dimples at the corner of He Wenjiao’s mouth had become deeper. She casted her eyes on the last row.

“First of all, I want to welcome the new classmate who come to our class, Tao Xi, welcome.” He Wenjiao said, looking at the only strange face in the classroom with a real smile in her eyes.

Tao Xi quickly got up from his seat and happily greeted ‘hello, teacher’ to He Wenjiao.

He Wenjiao nodded and asked him to sit down before suddenly dropped a thunderstorm on the ground: “Everyone should remember that after the final exam in the first year of high school, I sent you a full score essay from Qingshui No. 1 High School. At that time, weren’t many people crying? The title was ‘The Man Who Chased the Moon’. It was written by classmate Tao Xi.”

After each big exam at Wenhua No.1 High School, the Chinese language committee would pick out some excellent essays and gave them to all the students. The final exam of Qingshui No. 1 High School used the exam papers from Wenhua No. 1 High School. He Wenjiao also participated in the revision of Qingshui No. 1 High School. She was touched by Tao Xi’s composition, so she copied and distributed it.

Tao Xi felt a fierce and dense looks again, shocked, sympathetic, incredible, compassionate… Except for Lin Qinhe, there was no reaction at all from him.

In front of him, Bi Chengfei turned around to reach out and pat his shoulder, his eyes was full of pain.

Fuck!

Tao Xi was instantly extremely embarrassed, and his toes were about to dig out a piece of the basketball court!

Because that first-person narrative was completely fabricated by him, the protagonist “I” lost his mother at the age of five and his father at the age of ten, and he was poor but still strong, trying to chase his dream…

Tao Xi wanted to shout: “Then it’s fucking fake!”

As if hearing his inner call, He Wenjiao continued: “But I specifically went to the teacher at Qingshui No. 1 High School to find out, and I knew that this composition was fictitious.”

Tao Xi breathed a sigh of relief. The students also breathed a sigh of relief, withdrawing their confused gazes.

If this was true, they really didn’t know how to face this little cabbage2 with such a miserable fate in the future.

“A lot of people in your class can only write argumentative essays. Once they write narratives, they have no emotions. They can’t move people at all. The stories are sparse and even contradictory.” He Wenjiao slowly said.

Some students below might be thinking of their own essays, or scratching their heads or turning their pens, and feeling uncomfortable.

“Some people write very wonderful argumentative essays, quotes others, and have rigorous logic, but let him write a lyrical narrative and it becomes a piece of wood with no emotions and desires, such as Lin Qinhe who reads the math competition book in the last row. “

Many students quietly casted their eyes on the “wood” in the last row, but no one dared to laugh.

Tao Xi also looked to his side. He saw Lin Qinhe’s hand about to turn the page, frowned insignificantly, and then stuffed the competition book into the drawer.

Tao Xi couldn’t help but laughed, but he promised that the voice was smaller than a mosquito.

But Lin Qinhe obviously heard it. He turned his face slightly and glanced at him blankly. Because he was taller, he had long eyelashes drooping when he looked at him, half covering the indifference and cold light in his dark eyes, as cool as the bottle of ice water on the table.

If someone else stared at him so indifferently, Tao Xi would have to stare back, and even curse a few words when he was upset.

But Tao Xi just looked back innocently, his eyes filled with I didn’t laugh at you.

Lin Qinhe retracted his gaze and turned over a page of the language text book casually.

He Wenjiao obviously didn’t intend to let it go easily, and continued with a smile: “Classmate Tao Xi’s composition is better than his sincere feelings and simple and delicate language. Lin Qinhe, it happens that Tao Xi was sitting next to you. You can learn more from him how to write lyrical narratives in the future.”

When these words came out, many students were shocked and couldn’t help covering their mouths.

This was Lin Qinhe. His performance had always been the first place in the whole year, getting one to twenty points more than the second place. Mathematics, English and science comprehensive were all close to full marks, and Chinese was also an absolute high score.

After all, most of the essay questions were not limited to a genre and the argumentative essays that were well written would still get good points.

Tao Xi was just an “international student” from a poor county. Even if he was ranking first in Qingshui County, they knew the gap between Tao Xi and them at present.

Tao Xi didn’t expect He Wenjiao to give him such a big and tall hat3 as soon as he came, and she still gave it to him in front of Lin Qinhe.

They were all young and frivolous. Of course, he felt a little bit proud. Writing and painting were his innate talents. He never missed his composition every time during Chinese exam.

But when he thought that Lin Qinhe’s total score was not human, the tail that was about to be wagged dropped again.

He Wenjiao was simply pulling hatred on him.

Tao Xi cursed inwardly.

Lin Qinhe on the side didn’t say anything, probably didn’t care about He Wenjiao’s words at all.

Tao Xi found that he couldn’t laugh anymore, because He Wenjiao started to talk about this elective ancient poetry. It turned out that a group of people were asked to learn most of the poem on their own during the summer vacation.

And he didn’t study at all during the summer vacation.

Tao Xi suddenly had a very strong ominous premonition, as if sitting on pins and needles. Sure enough, Bi Chengfei intimately told him the great news:

“We finished self-study of several courses of Mathematics and Science through online classes in the summer. English was originally based on Grand-aunt’s4 interest, and the language lesson is almost finished.”

“???”

Tao Xi was suffocated for a while, how would he go online lessons without connecting to the Internet?!

Bi Chengfei paused, and cruelly dropped another message: “We are about to start school exams after this weekend and we will take the content of self-study during the summer vacation.”

“…”

Bi Chengfei looked at the pale Tao Xi with pity: “It’s okay, even if you fail the exam, the teachers and the classmates will understand you!”

Tao Xi said numbly: “Is it too late for me to change my head now?”

He glanced at Lin Qinhe, who was looking at the phone with his head down, thinking that he had a good head.

Bi Chengfei thought that Tao Xi looked at Lin Qinhe because he wanted to ask Lin Qinhe to help him with lessons. He thought that Tao Xi looked weak, but he was very courageous, so he quickly recommended himself: “I can help you! As long as you don’t dislike my performance in our class.”

He didn’t want Tao Xi to be rejected by Lin Qinhe again, it would be embarrassing ×2.

Tao Xi was really courageous, but he hadn’t dared to go against Lin Qinhe yet. He gritted his teeth and squeezed out a smile and said, “It’s okay, I’ll help you.”