My Deskmate Chapter 31 (Part 1)
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 31.1
After Xu Rui brought up this topic, many people started to worry.
The results of the midterms were still uncertain, but the parent-teacher meeting had already been scheduled. Just the thought of what awaited them after the meeting made their hearts race as if a thousand horses were galloping by. It was utterly painful.
With a deep sigh, Xu Rui looked troubled. “At the last parent-teacher meeting, my dad went through all the mistakes I made, one by one, asking me why I got each question wrong. It's crazy. If I knew why I got them wrong, then why would I get them wrong?”
Zhao Yiyang felt the same way. “Exactly! The only one I could explain was the last multiple-choice question in math, because the teacher who made the exam was obsessed with option C. I happily chose it, but little did I know, that time he switched his preferences and set the correct answer to A!”
The two exchanged a glance and sighed in unison. Life was just so difficult.
The exam was on Thursday. During evening self-study, Xu Guangqi stood at the door of the classroom. "I’ve been waiting in the office for a long time. Don’t you all have any questions?"
Only a few people in the class responded, "No."
Xu Guangqi felt a bit lonely and called out, "Where’s my subject representative?"
The subject representative, showing no tact, responded, "Teacher, I’m doing physics."
"......" Xu Guangqi was a bit hurt. He couldn’t help but try to assert himself again. "Students, tomorrow you’re heading into the exam room. You must remember, when solving math problems, what’s the secret? The secret is: use any means necessary!"
After saying this, he raised his right hand, bent his elbow into a fist, and made an encouraging gesture. “Use any means necessary!”
Still worried about this class, he emphasized once more, “Remember, use any means necessary!”
When Wen Xiao got home for a late-night snack, his grandmother was sitting nearby, adjusting her reading glasses as she focused intently on a paper.
Slowing down his eating, Wen Xiao said, “Grandma, the midterms are coming up soon.”
Without looking up, his grandmother remained engrossed in her paper. "You’ve told me before. What’s the matter, are you nervous?"
“Not nervous. But after the midterms, there’s the parent-teacher meeting. Is it possible for you not to go?”
His grandmother raised her head and took off her glasses. Instead of being upset, she asked gently, “Is there a reason?”
Wen Xiao held his bowl, paused for a few seconds in silence, then replied, “My deskmate... he doesn’t have any family who can attend the parent-teacher meeting.”
His grandmother, who had been watching him closely, saw Wen Xiao drop his gaze to his food immediately after speaking. Her expression softened with warmth.
Before the incident, she didn’t get to spend much time with Wen Xiao. She mostly heard about him from her daughter.
“Wen Xiao ranked first again.”
“Wen Xiao doesn’t like to talk, doesn’t make friends — what should we do?”
“Other parents are worried their children are too mischievous, but I'd actually like to try feeling that way. Wen Xiao is too quiet and too sensible.”
“Our family’s two generations of genes have fused in Wen Xiao. Are we really raising a quiet, socially awkward genius?”
But after bringing Wen Xiao to Mingnan, she began to notice more and more that, though he seemed reserved and indifferent, with little care for most things, he would often consciously and rationally set boundaries and distances.
However, when it came to people or matters he cared about, there was a place within him that was particularly soft and tender.
Her grandmother put down her reading glasses and, as if casually chatting, asked, “Are you and your deskmate close?”
Close?
Wen Xiao paused as he picked up his food.
He wasn’t sure how to define his relationship with Chi Ye. He couldn’t even fully understand how things between him and Chi Ye had changed to what they were now.
It was as if, suddenly, there was the sound of another person in his world, the presence of someone else’s emotions, the existence of another person.
And, without even realizing it, he had completely gotten used to this person’s presence.
Wen Xiao gave a definitive answer. “Mm, we’re very close.”
His grandmother put her glasses back on and smilingly said, “Grandma will definitely help you carry out this little plan. Don’t worry.” Maybe it was the first time she was teaming up with a high school student to deal with a teacher, so she seemed a bit excited. “By the way, should I call your homeroom teacher to ask for leave? The reason... let me think. Should I say I’m going to a meeting? Yes, that sounds convincing enough...”
On the morning of the midterm exams, Wen Xiao reached the school gate and noticed that the Director of Discipline, Cheng Xiaoning, had arrived earlier than anyone else. With his hands behind his back and his brows furrowed, he looked like an infrared targeting system, able to see through all disguises and lock onto his target.
“You! Yes, I’m talking about you! You thought that because the exam is today, the teachers would be too busy to care, huh? Hanging your uniform on your arm instead of wearing it? Why don’t you just cover your forehead and move to Dubai already? Put it on!”
“Your hair’s so long and you haven’t cut it. Are you tired of the buzz cut and eager to try a cute fringe instead?”
“How many times have I told you? Zip it up, zip it up! You can walk with the wind and look cool, but you can’t just leap up and turn into Superman to blow up the school and save your classmates!”
“Your bangs are so long — are you trying to cover your forehead, or are you planning on blocking your entire face? What’s in front of your eyes isn’t darkness, it’s your hair!”
Wen Xiao, wearing his school uniform with his backpack slung over one shoulder, safely made it past the school gate.
After walking a few steps, he heard footsteps behind him. "Wen Xiao, give me two minutes!"
Zhao Yiyang ran up from behind, skipping any small talk and going straight to the point. “Do you remember the question from last night’s One Question, One Practice that Old Xu gave us? 'The center of circle C is (3, a), and it lies on the line x = a.' Do you remember it?”
He had forgotten his own copy of the exercise, so now he could only hope Wen Xiao remembered it.
Wen Xiao: “I remember.”
Zhao Yiyang let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank goodness! There’s one part I didn’t understand. Can you explain it to me?”
No one could predict what kind of questions the examiners would come up with. Before the exam, every question and every knowledge point seemed to carry the possibility of being on the test. Zhao Yiyang wished he could imprint every word from the textbook and exercise book into his brain.
After Wen Xiao finished explaining, Zhao Yiyang quickly reviewed the process. "Perfect, I got it. If this question shows up, those five points are going to be incredibly precious!" Then he remembered, "Oh, right! Last time, you were in the last exam room. This time, we should be in the same one, right?"
"Yeah."
"Great, then let’s go together!"
In the previous monthly exam, Zhao Yiyang had been full of worries, thinking about how to pass answers to Wen Xiao. But this time, he was hoping for the brilliance of a genius to shine upon him.
The exam room was quiet. Those who had already arrived were mostly buried in their books, the only sounds being the turning of pages and the soft murmurs of self-study.
The first exam room was in the front row of the year level, but the competition was fierce. A single slip-up could get one pushed out of the spot. At times like these, the air in the classroom felt solid.
Once Zhao Yiyang sat down at his desk, he stopped talking and pulled out his error correction book to review.
Wen Xiao found his seat and spent a moment adjusting to the different heights of the chair and desk.
Outside the classroom, in the hallway, some people were chatting loudly, while others ran by, yelling lines from the poem: "For four thousand eight hundred years, there has been no communication between Qin and Shu..."
Suddenly, the noise from the hallway faded, as if it had been switched to silent mode.
Wen Xiao hadn’t paid much attention until a cup of soy milk was placed on his desk.
"Chi Ye?"
"What, surprised to see me? I promised you breakfast for a week, and I’m not breaking it by a single day." Chi Ye was still wearing that flashy beautiful boy sweatshirt, completely indifferent to the eyes that were drawn toward him. He set the steamed bun down on the desk. "The bun's still hot, so don’t eat it yet. The shop owner’s got some new fillings. Try it, and if it’s good, let me know. I’ll bring different ones next time."
Wen Xiao glanced up at him and asked, "Did you have breakfast?"
Chi Ye stuffed his hands into his pockets, his black backpack hanging over his shoulder. Raising an eyebrow, his eyes glinted with amusement. "What if I didn’t?"
Wen Xiao: "I’ll share half with you."
"I can feel the strong bond of being deskmates." Chi Ye’s smile deepened. "You go ahead and eat. I’ve already had something on the way." Then he leaned down closer to Wen Xiao. "When you get first place this time, we’ll be perfectly symmetrical, one at the top, one at the bottom."
As Chi Ye bent down, his collar loosened. With the distance between them now so close, the smile in his eyes and at the corners of his lips became even clearer. Wen Xiao realized he usually disliked when people got too close to him. But in this moment, with Chi Ye so near, he didn’t feel repulsed. In fact, he didn’t even feel the slightest bit of defensiveness.
It just felt so natural.
So natural that he didn’t even notice anything unusual.
Noticing that Wen Xiao seemed lost in thought, Chi Ye finally took his hands out of his pockets and waved them in front of Wen Xiao’s eyes. "What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing." Wen Xiao picked up the soy milk and bun, getting up. "I’ll eat outside."
The two of them stepped out of the classroom.
With a height difference of less than two centimeters, their shoulders were nearly level. After staring at the flowerbed downstairs for a moment, Chi Ye abruptly brought up, "Let’s go confront that scumbag Qian—"
Wen Xiao cut him off, "That trash with a combat power of 0.2 is not worth both of us getting involved."
The words sounded a bit childish and arrogant, not something Wen Xiao would usually say. Chi Ye laughed at that. "True."
"So, don’t feel guilty." Wen Xiao directly addressed the thoughts Chi Ye had in his mind. His tone was as cold and indifferent as usual. He lowered his eyes to bite into the bun, swallowing before continuing, "It's too hard to handle it alone. Having someone else doesn’t hurt."
He took a sip of soy milk, the familiar taste that had become part of his routine. Wen Xiao glanced at Chi Ye and thought that, in some ways, this person was actually quite similar to him. Chi Ye, too, habitually drew clear boundaries. But Chi Ye, unlike him, hid that coldness behind a laid-back smile and a personality that invited others in, making it impossible for anyone to see through him.
In fact, Chi Ye’s guard was even higher than his own.
Chi Ye’s smile lingered at the corners of his lips, but his mouth was tightly set. He stared at Wen Xiao for a moment before suddenly relaxing. "What’s the price I have to pay?"
His eyes lit up with amusement, a playful tone in his voice.
Wen Xiao held the paper cup containing the soy milk and looked at the boy standing in front of him. "Pledge yourself to me?"
Chi Ye’s smile widened as he leaned closer to Wen Xiao’s ear. "Tsk, you’ve set your sights on me?" His voice was in the tail end of changing, with a slightly husky undertone that was quite pleasant.
Wen Xiao’s skin was very fair, his ears equally pale, with thin earlobes that resembled jade. Chi Ye, standing close, couldn’t help but glance at them again, laughing as he spoke. "Seems like you've fallen into the depths of moral decay, deskmate. You’re not the same person you used to be."
Ignoring the slight tickling sensation from the breath against his ear, Wen Xiao didn’t take a step back. Instead, he turned his head slightly, casting a faint glance at Chi Ye. "As the saying goes, one becomes red when close to vermilion, and black when close to ink. After all, I’m sitting next to you."
"So that’s how it is?" Chi Ye straightened up. "Then, should I make you red, or make you black?"
Wen Xiao: "You’ve affected my studies."
Chi Ye chuckled at the familiar words, recalling how Old Xu always warned him not to affect Wen Xiao’s studying when they first started sitting together. He couldn’t help but laugh and curse under his breath. "Damn, I’ll take the blame for this one."
Thursday and Friday were spent grading papers, and Monday was for tallying up the scores. The parent-teacher meeting was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
After the last exam, Zhao Yiyang, Shangguan Yu, and Xu Rui gathered at the door, surrounding Wen Xiao. "On the day before execution, you’ve got to have one last meal!"
Xu Rui spat several times, "Ugh, why say such an unlucky thing? We should be talking about a victory banquet!"
Shangguan Yu looked at him sympathetically. "Academic officer, why deceive yourself?"
"......" Xu Rui grabbed his hair. "Alright, fine. I couldn’t even figure out the last part of the final math question, and for the last two physics multiple-choice questions, I just tossed an eraser and guessed. So yeah, whatever, we’ll call it a last meal — can’t starve to death, right?"
The three of them turned to look at Wen Xiao at the same time.
Wen Xiao picked up the key point from their conversation. "Are we eating together?"
Zhao Yiyang: "Yes, yes! But it’s not just any meal. We’re having a feast!"