My Deskmate Chapter 17 (Part 1)
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 17
The sharp glint of competitiveness and arrogance in Wen Xiao’s eyes pricked Chi Ye’s pride. Catching his breath, Chi Ye joked, “If you win, do I have to call you Dad?”
He originally thought Wen Xiao wouldn't react, but Wen Xiao caught the basketball, dribbled it a few times, and then replied with a casual joke, “If you want to, I can reluctantly give you the chance.”
“Get lost, you grandpa next door!” Chi Ye burst out laughing, grabbed Wen Xiao by the collar and leaned in closer. “You don’t even have a beard yet, so stop pretending to be a middle-aged man. Climbing the seniority ranking isn’t that easy, you know.”
The collar of Wen Xiao’s shirt, already loose from the heat, was pulled further open by Chi Ye’s tugging, exposing the blinding whiteness of his collarbones and shoulders.
Realizing his action might’ve been a little too intimate, Chi Ye let go with a laugh. “Winner buys dinner?”
Wen Xiao quoted something he had said before, “Two meats, two veggies, fried rice or stir-fry from the cafeteria — your choice. If you want something pricier, that’s fine too. I’ll sell myself to buy it for you.”
The others couldn’t hear their banter, but when Wen Xiao scored the last point and Chi Ye grabbed his collar afterward, they assumed Chi Ye was ticked off and was about to retaliate on the spot to save face. Recalling the rumor about Chi Ye beating someone up so badly they had to be hospitalized, they rushed forward to intervene.
“Chi-ge! Chi-ge, don’t do anything rash! Isn’t this supposed to be a friendly match? Friendship comes first!”
Chi Ye rolled his eyes. “Which one of your eyes saw me getting violent?”
The group, in unison: “Both eyes!”
Wen Xiao’s sense of smell had always been sharp, and if there was one thing he hated, it was the stifling, sweaty smell that filled the classroom after PE class. It was even worse if someone in the room had smelly feet.
Chi Ye slumped into his seat, still feeling overheated. Stripping down to just a white T-shirt, he used a brand-new notebook to fan himself. Seeing Wen Xiao sitting far away, as if he had a time bomb attached to him, Chi Ye stretched out his hand, fanning his deskmate a couple of times as well. “Why are you sitting so far away? Do I have a meter-long spike sticking out of me or something?”
Wen Xiao felt the cool breeze and instinctively narrowed his eyes in contentment.
Once he was fairly certain Chi Ye didn’t smell bad, he shifted closer, albeit a little cautiously.
Chi Ye, oblivious to his deskmate’s thoughts, started chatting casually. “You’re pretty good at basketball.”
Wen Xiao returned the compliment with polite reciprocity. “You’re good too.”
“I’m serious. Why does this sound like we’re just exchanging corporate pleasantries? The school courts are always packed, and we’ve got to compete with the freshmen for space. How about we go play a game on the court downstairs from your building?”
Wen Xiao recalled the small court near the residential complex. It was just a rectangle of concrete, the faded white lines barely visible anymore. The battered hoops stood as the sole remnants of its purpose, though the space was more often used by elderly people exercising or kids sitting around snacking. Only occasionally did anyone actually play basketball there.
Still, the thought of playing with Chi Ye intrigued him. There was something satisfying about going all out against an equally skilled opponent. “Sure. Let’s plan for it when we’re both free.”
The bell for the next class was about to ring, but Chi Ye hadn’t left. Wen Xiao gave a reminder, “It’s four o’clock.”
Chi Ye leaned back lazily. “Yaya’s school has an event today, so I’ll stick around for another class.”
Even though the music for class had just started, Chi Ye had already laid his head down. Dressed in nothing but a plain white T-shirt, part of his arm was left exposed. His short black hair spiked messily and a hint of his sharp jawline peeked out. His shoulders, wrapped in his shirt, began to rise and fall with his breath after a while.
He had even come prepared — earplugs discreetly tucked in his ears, barely noticeable unless one looked closely.
The English teacher walked in and immediately frowned. “What is this? Did someone smuggle durians into the classroom? It smells like sweat in here! Those sitting by the windows, open them up to let some air in.”
After making her way to the podium, she sniffed again, her expression turning stern. “Fried chicken wings, grilled sausages, fried potatoes — whoever brought them, take them outside and toss them in the trash right now.”
Someone muttered quietly, “We just finished PE class. We’re hungry.”
The teacher shot back, “I know how hungry you get after exercise. That’s why I’ve prepared something to fill you up — knowledge. Now, about the homework I assigned yesterday—”
As she scanned the room, her gaze paused on Chi Ye. Her eyebrows arched. “What a rare sight. Chi Ye is actually in class? I must be hallucinating.”
Chi Ye remained slumped over his desk, completely motionless. It wasn’t clear whether he was asleep or just ignoring her entirely.
Once the teacher’s attention shifted elsewhere, Zhao Yiyang turned around and whispered, “Chi-ge, hey, Chi-ge! Wake up!”
He called out a few more times, but Chi Ye didn’t so much as twitch. Zhao Yiyang leaned closer and spotted the earplugs. “No way. This guy actually came prepared with earplugs? Genius.”
Noticing Wen Xiao looking his way, Zhao Yiyang shrugged and explained, “The English teacher isn’t a bad person, honestly. She’s pretty nice sometimes, and she’s even kind of pretty. But for some reason, she’s always picking on Chi Ye. Once, she even said he was a typical example of someone who was smart when they were young but didn't amount to much. What's the use of doing well on the high school entrance exam if you're just hanging out in the last exam room now?”
Zhao Yiyang, ever loyal to Chi Ye, felt indignant on his behalf. “At the start of the semester, the teacher had high hopes for Chi Ye. She thought he’d ace everything and kept calling on him to answer questions. Then Chi Ye went into full self-exile mode, even got into a fight that the whole school knows about. After that, she started taking every chance to jab at him. Chi Ye doesn’t bother with her, but if it were me, I’d have flipped the desk already.”
Wen Xiao glanced at his deskmate. The rumors painted Chi Ye as someone fierce, unrelenting when he fought. Plenty of people were still wary of him, like during PE class earlier when everyone thought Chi Ye was about to throw punches.
But from what Wen Xiao had observed, Chi Ye was surprisingly easygoing. He was indifferent to most things and was lazy, like a leopard basking in the sun. He rarely unsheathed his claws.
The English teacher asked the class representative to pass out the previous day's homework. It was a single worksheet, but the entire thing was filled with fill-in-the-blanks reading tests from top to bottom, the kind that made heads ache at first glance.
“I know you all struggle with fill-in-the-blanks tests, but it's precisely because it's difficult that you need more practice. Look at Wen Xiao, five fill-in-the-blanks tests, a hundred questions in total, and he got every single one correct! If you all had his accuracy, I wouldn’t even mind if you ate stinky tofu in class.”
Zhao Yiyang and Shangguan Yu both spun around in unison. “Damn, you got them all right?”
Wen Xiao, holding the returned worksheet, replied calmly, “I just found out myself.”
More than half the class turned their attention to him, staring as though he were some kind of alien.
Shangguan Yu adjusted his glasses and sighed. “We’re all wearing glasses, so why do some people get everything right, and others get fifteen wrong?”
Zhao Yiyang tugged at his paper. “I got two more wrong than you.” He exclaimed, “The eighth question in the third reading passage, that question was so difficult, and you actually got it right!”
At that moment, Chi Ye’s worksheet was handed out as well. Zhao Yiyang reached over to grab it, already guessing the outcome. “As expected, Chi Ye went with all B’s this time. Next round should be all C’s. ABCD in rotation, giving equal attention to every option.”
For most students, reviewing homework and worksheets was a hectic task. Those with many mistakes scrambled to correct them, switching between black pens, red pens, and highlighters, barely keeping up. After class or during evening study sessions, they’d have to meticulously add everything to their error notebooks.
But for Wen Xiao, it was the opposite... Listening to the teacher explain the questions he already knew was a complete waste of time.
He pulled out a blank worksheet and started on his next assignment.
Although the monthly exams had just ended, the teachers had already set their sights on the midterms. They kept using it as a form of motivation, and incidentally, they would increase the amount of homework from one sheet to two.
By the time Wen Xiao finished a chemistry worksheet, the English teacher was still only halfway through going over the fill-in-the-blanks test.
At this point, Chi Ye stirred slightly, his head shifting as if struggling to wake up. Rubbing his face against the back of his hand, he removed one earplug and turned his head just enough to reveal half his face in Wen Xiao’s direction. His voice, groggy and low like sleep talk, asked, “Where are we now?”
“Question 53 on the third passage,” Wen Xiao replied. “Mainstream economists are no impressed.”
His voice was cool and clear, and the way he pronounced the English sentence carried a subtle elegance. Chi Ye suppressed the urge to ask him to repeat it, letting his gaze drift downward instead. It landed on the worksheet in front of Wen Xiao, where a string of chemical equations caught his eye. He glanced back at the podium, where the English teacher was still talking, and raised an eyebrow. “You're not paying attention to class?”
“I’ve done these questions before. Once is enough to remember them,” Wen Xiao said, casually gripping his pen, his knuckles faintly pale under the pressure. His tone was calm, but there was a hint of something pointed in his words. He turned to Chi Ye and asked, almost offhandedly, “Don’t you?”
Chi Ye chuckled but didn’t answer directly. Instead, he stretched lazily and muttered, “This desk is too low. Sleeping on it makes my neck sore.”
As he shifted, his arm accidentally brushed against Wen Xiao’s elbow. He quickly pulled it back, a fleeting moment of awkwardness passing between them.
The English teacher, noticing Chi Ye was awake, rapped her knuckles on the podium. “Since you’re up, pay attention. Stop treating my class like your personal nap room.”
Chi Ye, long used to being singled out, ignored the worksheet in front of him and leaned slightly toward Wen Xiao. “She’s not exactly mocking me. It’s more like she’s frustrated by my lack of effort. She probably can’t help herself from saying something every time she sees me, kind of like Cheng Xiaoning.”
Wen Xiao raised an eyebrow. “You heard all that?”
Chi Ye shrugged and revealed the orange earplugs in his hand. “These things block most of the noise, but with you guys sitting so close, I can still catch some of it. Oh, and I heard my deskmate aced the fill-in-the-blanks test. Impressive.”
Chi Ye looked completely relaxed, almost as if he’d been hit with some sort of sedative. “She’s actually a nice person, just a little too blunt for her own good. Doesn’t always think before she speaks. Like when she was praising you just now. The physics teacher always brags about you to the neighboring class, and now their top students can’t stand the sight of you.”
Wen Xiao caught the underlying meaning immediately.
He had transferred not long ago and hadn't fully adjusted yet. Being too outstanding would naturally attract jealousy and resentment from others.
Chi Ye, of course, knew Wen Xiao would understand but also knew he wouldn’t care.
After all, in all this time, Wen Xiao had never gone out of his way to expand his social circle. Beyond Zhao Yiyang, Shangguan Yu, and Xu Rui, he barely interacted with anyone else in the class. Wen Xiao probably couldn’t name a handful of his classmates, and if he ran into them in the hallway, he wouldn’t even recognize their faces.
As expected, Wen Xiao simply replied, “I don’t care.”
Chi Ye slung an arm casually over the back of Wen Xiao’s chair. “That’s fine. Your Chi-ge got your back.”
Seeing that Chi Ye was practically draping himself over his chair, Wen Xiao, without any trace of sympathy, lifted his arm and pushed it away.