Chapter 15
Jiang Jian thought Luo Shuxin’s decision was incredibly stupid — but since it was his fault the guy got dragged into this mess, he kept talking anyway, even though Luo Shuxin stayed quiet.
“How about I treat you to a meal to make it up to you?”
A deep voice suddenly echoed right behind him.
“A meal? You still think you deserve a meal?”
Old Fei again — appearing from behind like some ghostly spirit.
Jiang Jian jolted in fright.
The truth was, Old Fei had been there for a while. Jiang Jian had been so distracted by the heat that he hadn’t noticed how all the other punished students had stiffened their posture the moment the man appeared.
Morning reading had just ended. Waves of students were flooding toward the cafeteria, and Jiang Jian’s group stood right along the main path — they’d already endured countless stares.
Anyone with thinner skin would’ve been mortified to death by now. Jiang Jian, of course, was not one of those people.
As the sun grew harsher, Old Fei finally took pity — he hadn’t really planned to roast them alive. He came to herd them back indoors.
But the matter wasn’t over. Once back in his office, he pulled a fat stack of composition paper from his drawer — the kind with 800-word markers printed on every sheet.
The task was simple: write a self-criticism essay.
Whoever finished first could leave first.
The word count for each student wasn’t the same.
Those who had merely been caught at the school gate had to write 800 words each.
Luo Shuxin, for being late and climbing the wall, was assigned 2,000 words.
As for Jiang Jian… his situation was the worst.
Late, wall-climbing, organizing nightlife activities, and chatting during punishment — all added up to 5,000 words.
When he heard the number, Jiang Jian’s jaw nearly hit the floor.
“Five… thousand?”
Old Fei sat back on the leather sofa, blowing the tea froth off his thermos cup.
“Correct. Five thousand. And don’t even think about copying it off the internet — you’ll write it right here. You leave when it’s done.”
…Jiang Jian suddenly realized he might not be seeing a single class today.
Old Fei took another sip of tea, noticing that after giving out the assignment, the group of kids hadn’t moved an inch.
“Well? Get your own paper and pens. What — do you want me to hand-deliver them for you?”
At that, everyone scrambled into action.
Most people only grabbed a sheet or two.
But pitiful Jiang Jian, after taking five pages, still felt insecure and grabbed two more — just in case.
Because of his sprained ankle, he was given special permission to sit at a desk and write.
Everyone else had no such luxury: some leaned against walls, some used their knees for support, and a few less particular ones simply sprawled on the floor.
Old Fei paced the room twice, made sure everyone had at least started writing an introduction, and then left — though not before warning them that he could return at any moment for a surprise check.
But in truth, he’d barely been gone three minutes before everyone had gathered around the desks to write together.
Moments like this truly tested one’s “literary foundation.”
Same punishment, same reflection essay — yet some people couldn’t squeeze out two sentences after ten minutes of scratching their heads, while others filled half a page in no time.
Luo Shuxin was one of the latter.
A more easygoing student noticed his speed and exclaimed,
“Come on, seriously? Even at this kind of thing, you Class One people gotta compete? Can’t you leave us peasants a way to live?”
Jiang Jian was considered a fast writer himself — he had plenty of prior “experience” — but even he was a bit shocked at Luo Shuxin’s pace.
On some impulse he couldn’t explain, Jiang Jian reached over and pressed down on Luo Shuxin’s pen.
“Bro, let’s make a deal, yeah? Before Old Fei comes back — we swap. You write mine, I write yours.”
“?”
“??”
At that, every head in the room turned toward him.
They’d seen shameless people before, but never this shameless.
Even Jiang Jian felt slightly embarrassed under all the stares. He didn’t really know where that idea had come from either.
Just two days ago, when he’d had a fever, he’d stubbornly refused to copy Luo Shuxin’s homework.
But after last night — after that whole drunken fiasco — somehow things between them felt less distant. So now, embarrassment? What was that?
Besides, Luo Shuxin had already seen him acting like a total fool while drunk. What was there left to lose?
Five thousand words, though…
When you have to choose between saving your hand or saving your face — who would pick “face”?
He flashed a sweet, ingratiating smile, put his hands together, and bonked his head against the desk in mock pleading.
Please.
His fluffy, soft brown curls spilled forward, irresistibly touchable.
The pen in Luo Shuxin’s hand twirled idly once around his thumb before he mercilessly refused and went right back to writing.
Jiang Jian: “……”
Sure enough, Luo Shuxin was the first one to finish — despite having nearly three times as many words as most people.
Jiang Jian wrote faster than most too, but it barely made a dent in the mountain he had to climb.
Old Fei still hadn’t returned.
After proofreading for typos — a habit from doing test papers — Luo Shuxin turned to Jiang Jian and asked,
“Do you need help?”
Jiang Jian froze mid-stroke.
Luo Shuxin was standing now, taller than the seated Jiang Jian.
From this angle, Jiang Jian’s expression couldn’t be seen clearly — but somehow Luo Shuxin could feel the inner battle raging inside him.
Ever since meeting Luo Shuxin, Jiang Jian often seemed to face this same moral dilemma: accept help and lose pride, or refuse it and suffer?
He struggled for two seconds, then looked up.
“Yes!”
Without another word, Luo Shuxin took one of his sheets of paper and began to write.
Jiang Jian blinked, thinking: Aren’t we writing the same reflection? Shouldn’t we at least match handwriting styles? Or glance at mine once?
Luo Shuxin’s handwriting was clearly trained — elegant, flowing. Honestly, it could’ve been used as a sample in a calligraphy workbook.
Jiang Jian’s handwriting wasn’t bad, but it was nothing like Luo Shuxin’s.
Then he realized something was off.
Luo Shuxin wasn’t writing his reflection for him — he was writing an outline.
An 800-word reflection could be improvised on the spot.
A 2,000-word one required some organization and vocabulary.
But a 5,000-word reflection? Without structure, it was pure torture.
Luo Shuxin placed the outline in front of him.
Jiang Jian’s entire soul wavered between saying thank you and flipping him off.
Was that help? Yes.
Was it really help? …Not exactly.
Before Jiang Jian could act on either impulse, the office door suddenly swung open.
Click—
Old Fei walked in, carrying a plastic bag.
Everyone who had been leaning over the desks scrambled back to their original spots — pretending they’d never slacked off.
Except for Luo Shuxin, who still stood there as straight as ever.
Jiang Jian, reacting like a kid passing notes in class, quickly slapped his hand over the outline Luo Shuxin had written and slid it discreetly under his own reflection pages.
By then, Luo Shuxin had already gone up front to hand in his paper, drawing Old Fei’s attention — and Jiang Jian’s sneaky move went unnoticed.
He scribbled a few more lines beneath his previous paragraph, then paused, suddenly realizing—
Wait… why do I feel guilty?
Old Fei read through Luo Shuxin’s reflection essay and was full of praise. He claimed that it was “a profound piece that truly touched the soul.”
Judging by his expression, if reflections weren’t inherently “negative” materials, he probably would’ve framed it and hung it up in the hallway for everyone to admire.
“Tsk tsk tsk—look at your writing. Your composition, your style—what a waste to use such talent on a self-criticism! Remember this lesson: stop hanging around bad influences.”
The bad influence, Jiang Jian: “…”
Sure, “hanging around” didn’t mean that kind of hanging around—but it did make him remember that, well… he had literally woken up in Luo Shuxin’s arms this morning.
After receiving his well-earned praise and moral lecture, Luo Shuxin was allowed to leave the office.
Old Fei’s smile disappeared the moment he walked out. He turned fierce again, sweeping his sharp eyes across the rest of the room.
“Jiang Jian!”
Still slightly flushed from embarrassment over the morning, Jiang Jian looked up in confusion when his name was called.
Old Fei dropped a plastic bag in front of him.
“Put the medicine on before you keep writing.”
Jiang Jian: “?”
He peeked into the bag.
Inside was a bottle of red flower oil.
Although Jiang Jian had been annoyed when Luo Shuxin only gave him an outline earlier, he had to admit—it was useful.
Especially when he started running out of words and had no idea how to continue padding out the essay.
In the end, he and a student from Class Nine were the last to hand in their reflections.
Jiang Jian’s delay was because of the length.
The Class Nine kid was just unlucky—he wrote slowly to begin with, and when he was nearly finished, he accidentally knocked over Old Fei’s teacup. The entire essay got soaked and blurred into an unreadable mess. He had to rewrite it from scratch.
Still, everyone managed to turn in their work before the first period officially started.
Jiang Jian limped into class just as the bell rang.
For a while, things stayed quiet. Two whole classes passed without incident.
At their school, mornings had four periods with a long break in the middle.
During that long break, both Jiang Jian and Luo Shuxin were called to the homeroom teacher’s office.
Their homeroom teacher—nicknamed “the Crown Princess” for her impeccable grooming and imperious air—sat behind her desk with an icy expression.
She scolded the two of them thoroughly for being late and climbing the wall, especially Luo Shuxin—today’s flag-raising ceremony speaker, no less!
The Crown Princess was furious, and the air in the office felt thick and heavy.
But the longer she spoke, the more familiar Jiang Jian found her words.
Most of what she said sounded like she’d just repeated Old Fei’s lecture almost word-for-word.
After a good ten minutes of scolding, Jiang Jian carefully waited for a pause and then quietly muttered,
“Did you… just get chewed out by Old Fei yourself?”
The Crown Princess froze mid-sip of her tea.
“You’re too sharp for your own good!”
Indeed—while the students were in class for the past hour, she had been over in Old Fei’s office getting her own dressing-down.
“Failure to teach is the father’s fault, failure to discipline is the teacher’s laziness”—he’d started with The Three Character Classic, rambled his way into the “core socialist values,” and then somehow ended up comparing Chinese and Western education systems. The man could talk for two full periods without running out of steam.
To be honest, the Crown Princess hadn’t considered Jiang Jian and Luo Shuxin’s offenses all that serious at first.
Being late and climbing a wall wasn’t ideal, sure—and that birthday celebration at the KTV was improper—but nothing catastrophic.
But after being roasted by Old Fei for two straight classes, she changed her mind entirely.
If she had to suffer, there was no way these two were walking away unscathed.
So here they stood, side by side in front of her desk.
She took another sip of tea to moisten her throat and said,
“If you’d known I’d have to be scolded for your nonsense, maybe you’d try to make my life a little easier—especially you, Luo Shuxin. I thought you were the dependable one! How did sitting next to Jiang Jian for two days already rub off on you?”
Jiang Jian: “?”
The Crown Princess continued,
“Come on then, tell me—how exactly does this ‘infection’ spread? How close have you two been getting lately?”
