Seeing the note “Class Monitor” on QQ send an emoji, Su Nian wiped his hair and clicked in.
It was a cute jumping cat emoji, but then nothing else was sent.
Su Nian sighed. He sent his WeChat friend QR code.
“I don’t use QQ often. Add me on WeChat.”
He needed to offer something sweet first so it would be easier to shut her up later.
Su Nian really did have very few people in his class with his contact info. Even An Hexi, his deskmate, only had his QQ because she was the class monitor, but they basically never contacted each other.
An Hexi sent another excited cat emoji, then a WeChat friend request popped up.
An Hexi used a cute Q‑style anime girl avatar with the ID “My Fish Doesn’t Love Me.” It was very adorable.
‘And fish don’t love little Xi?’ Su Nian smiled and casually flipped through her Moments. Some simple daily life stuff, occasionally cute photos.
But Su Nian didn’t know that just a few seconds ago, An Hexi’s Moments had been set to three days visible. And on the other side, An Hexi was dissatisfied—Su Nian’s Moments and QQ were both empty except for a monotonous bio.
Once Promised to Be the Best in the World.
An Hexi thought of Su Nian’s QQ bio again. Unassuming, yet forever surging with passion.
‘As expected of him.’ An Hexi couldn’t help feeling proud.
“So, Su, is there something you want to say?”
Playing dumb, An Hexi added another cute emoji.
Su Nian decided to send a voice message and directly tell An Hexi everything about himself and Yun Buran, saving time and effort.
An Hexi quickly got up from the bed, saved the voice message, and turned the volume to max.
Just as Su Nian was about to end the chat and go wash up, another voice message suddenly popped up.
“Then… do you want me to keep it a secret for you too?”
The girl’s soft, sweet voice came through. Su Nian replied with a “Sure.”
“Does that mean I know your secret now?”
When Su Nian played it, it felt like she was whispering directly into his ear—he could clearly hear the shyness in her tone.
Su Nian glanced at the time and sighed. This was why he didn’t give out his contact info—his life rhythm couldn’t accommodate others.
So Su Nian thought for a moment and pressed the voice button.
“Then Miss An Hexi, please take my secret into your dreams. If you dare leak it, I’ll come arrest you in my dream.”
Sent. Su Nian went straight to a nice wash. Xiali, who had been playing a gal game nearby, muttered flatly.
“Classic scumbag.”
Meanwhile, on the other side, the girl was bright red and had already played the voice message three times. She felt like she was definitely going to have insomnia tonight.
But clever as she was, she understood Su Nian’s intention and quickly replied.
“Then you should get some rest early too.”
She knew he was ending the conversation, but he was willing to give her a sweet treat.
…
Su Nian yawned on his way to the exam hall. Because he had recently set aside his regular studies, he stayed up last night to review for the joint exam.
Compared to his own exam, he actually cared more about Yun Buran’s. So Su Nian had to keep up the basic competition work these days, supervise Yun Buran’s review, and review for his own exam at the same time.
He was so busy he had stopped his usual exercise and disrupted his rock‑solid daily routine.
“Didn’t get enough rest?”
Outside the exam hall, An Hexi was memorizing something, but she still greeted Su Nian first.
“No problem.”
“I guessed that, so I brought you a sports drink.”
An Hexi quickly pulled a drink from her bag. Actually, even if she hadn’t guessed, she planned to give it to him.
Su Nian felt like he was being slowly boiled alive like a frog, but he really had gotten used to accepting the girl’s kindness lately, which made him softer toward her.
“You still have the energy to worry about me? Feeling confident about this afternoon’s math?”
Su Nian still looked drowsy.
“Then can I borrow your body?”
An Hexi laughed. She wasn’t bad at math, but compared to Su Nian, she was indeed worse. She maintained her spot in the key class mainly because of her very high English and Chinese scores.
Su Nian never brought a bag to exams; he just put his stationery in his pocket and came. So he dug into his pocket and handed An Hexi one of his black pens.
“You’re guaranteed to do well this time.”
Su Nian said with a straight face.
“The moment I got assigned to the same exam hall as you, I was already destined not to do badly.”
An Hexi accepted it happily and grinned.
“Let’s go in first.”
Su Nian couldn’t stand the increasing number of stares around them.
“Take first place.”
Su Nian gave a slight nod and went to his seat to zone out.
Fortunately, this time he had boys all around him—front, back, left, right. The school’s invigilators had complained multiple times that they didn’t know if the girls around him wanted to cheat or were just fangirling.
An Hexi suddenly remembered something funny. Since the regular mock exams arranged seats and halls by score, the spot behind Su Nian, as well as the diagonals from the ninth place onward, were extremely popular, even among the boys.
Su Nian was completely unaware of this because he didn’t care. He was organizing the question‑setting habits of previous joint exams in his head—specifically for senior year. Then he took the intersection with Yun Buran’s weak question types, planning to list them for her when he got back.
The senior students were having normal classes since the juniors were taking their exam. Meanwhile, Yun Buran had long since ignored the review paper the teacher was going over—she had already mastered it.
But her expression was very serious, not relaxed at all. She was desperately completing the review plan Su Nian had laid out. As the exam approached, she recalled the feeling of being dominated by tests before. Although she wasn’t as desperate now, she was inevitably anxious.
Because she desperately needed to prove herself—for Su Nian and for herself.
Occasionally, when she heard exam bells from other teaching buildings, she thought of Su Nian, but not out of worry. Her trust in Su Nian was stronger than the answer key for this question.
She simply missed him a little, as a comfort for her relentless hard work.
After a final check of the biology section, Su Nian confirmed he should still be first this time. This joint exam was modeled after the Gaokao—it liked to return to the textbook but go deep. The average scores would be good, but high scores would be hard to get.
Su Nian wasn’t the type to submit early, so he spent time thinking about how the teachers would grade the papers, using that to kill time and double‑check his answer format.
After the papers were collected, Su Nian chose to wait until fewer people were outside before leaving the classroom. Otherwise, it would be a packed crowd—especially since, even though there were staircases at both ends, everyone would squeeze toward his exam hall.
“How was it?”
An Hexi walked over and tore open a chocolate bar, handing a piece to Su Nian. Xiali, who had been lounging by the window, darted over and snatched two pieces, but An Hexi didn’t notice.
Su Nian took it naturally and said, “Not bad. You should be fine too. The writing prompts for Chinese and English were similar to last year’s.”
An Hexi nodded and pulled out another piece, holding it to Su Nian’s mouth.
But Su Nian took it himself, causing An Hexi to pout slightly.
“The sciences are even more back‑to‑basics. The medium‑level questions have high point values. Although the math and physics finale problems are still tough, and the chemistry and biology experiment designs are tricky, if you focus on the textbook…”
As Su Nian spoke, he kept accepting An Hexi’s offerings. An Hexi nodded enthusiastically, her eyes sparkling.
Xiali watched the girl who had only eaten one piece in the end and muttered under her breath.
“Horny.”