After Becoming the Love-Brained Female Lead’s Best Friend - Chapter 3

Monday morning’s early self-study was for Chinese. For the first half of the session, the teacher was nowhere to be seen, and the students were chatting away like wild horses let off their leashes. Ye Wanyin watched as a boy from the front row and a boy from the back row sat on their desks, shouting across the room to hold a conversation.

Fang Shu didn’t join them. Instead, she kept her head down, fiddling with her phone. From Ye Wanyin’s perspective, she could see Fang Shu’s fingers flying across the screen one moment and tapping slowly the next.

It looked like she was playing a game while chatting with someone.

Ye Wanyin had already organized basic problems for every subject in her notebook; all she needed now was for Fang Shu to actually try them.

She had just nudged the notebook toward Fang Shu when her hand was swatted away. Fang Shu pushed both the arm and the notebook back, her eyes drawing an invisible line across the middle of the desk. She might as well have said out loud: This is the 38th Parallel. Study materials and test questions are forbidden from crossing the border.

Ye Wanyin: “…”

“You sure are loud! If you added up all the other classes combined, they wouldn’t be as loud as you during morning study! If your voices are any quieter than this when it’s time to recite texts, don’t blame me for slapping you one by one!” A young female teacher wearing a T-shirt and trousers suddenly walked in through the back door.

The classroom hit the “pause” button. Everyone turned into quiet little quails. Those on desks scrambled down; those chatting grabbed their books and stared at them as if they were admiring fine scenery, never blinking. Only a few defiant ones dared to lock eyes with the teacher.

The teacher used a book to smack each of them on the head. Her already loud voice boomed through the microphone, nearly deafening everyone: “Still looking? Do you not have any idea what your scores were on the last monthly exam?!”

“I do! I know I got a 33.”

“Oh, you know, do you? Other people lose that many points on a perfect paper at most, yet you have the nerve to only score that much?!”

If the teacher hadn’t been worried that hitting them more would make these already dim-witted students even dumber, she really would have shown them a game of Whack-a-Mole.

The teacher walked to the podium and slammed the blackboard eraser down to signal for silence. “Your Chinese teacher is sick today. She wants you to review ‘The Epang Palace’ during self-study. She’ll be picking people to recite it later.”

Ye Wanyin realized: Oh, so this is the homeroom teacher.

A few faint voices began reciting in the quiet room. The homeroom teacher’s eyebrows shot up. “Was this how loud you were when you were chatting?!”

The volume of the recitation suddenly surged. The homeroom teacher patrolled the room with a critical, barely-satisfied gaze. She reached a certain row and stopped. “Fang Shu, why don’t you go out and suck blood with the mosquitoes at night? I bet you two would have a lot to talk about.”

Fang Shu: “…”

Fang Shu silently raised her volume. The homeroom teacher listened for a moment before moving on to bother someone else with her “barely passing” gaze.

Sitting nearby, Ye Wanyin couldn’t help but curl her lips. She leaned closer and, under the cover of the noisy recitation, asked Fang Shu: “Can you memorize it?”

Fang Shu didn’t really want to acknowledge her. “I can read it.”

Ye Wanyin deeply suspected this system might be second-hand. This “best friend” relationship was as flimsy as paper.

Actually, no—paper might have more structural integrity than this.

But this was only the beginning. Ye Wanyin wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Try to understand the meaning of the archaic words first and get the gist of each sentence. It’ll be easier to memorize.”

Fang Shu kept her eyes on the homeroom teacher’s position while muttering under her breath, “No need. I’m not memorizing it.”

“What if the Chinese teacher picks you?”

“I can just stand through the class as punishment.”

“…”

After morning study, those who hadn’t eaten went to get breakfast. Once everyone returned, the loudest and rowdiest students resumed their cross-room shouting matches. The classroom devolved back into the chaotic mess it had been earlier; the bell rang for a full minute without anyone settling down.

“Class has started and you’re still noisy! Walking down the hall, I couldn’t even hear the other teachers talking because of your chatting!”

Accompanied by the clicking of high heels, the homeroom teacher—who was also the math teacher—walked in with her lesson plans under her arm and a large set square in her hand. After subduing the room with a glare, she fished a fountain pen out of the podium drawer. “Where’s Ye Wanyin? Did she skip today too?”

Under the collective gaze of the entire class, Ye Wanyin sheepishly raised her hand.

The math teacher gave her a suspicious look and adjusted her glasses. “You’re Ye Wanyin?”

Ye Wanyin replied awkwardly, “Yes.”

Fortunately, after studying her for a moment, the teacher seemed to accept her identity. She gave her a brief warning about not skipping class or following the example of “certain students” in the class.

When mentioning “certain students,” Ye Wanyin clearly saw the teacher’s eyes flick to Fang Shu, and then to a student sitting by the window.

Ye Wanyin remained calm, but a boy over there turned bright red for some reason. The teacher’s gaze hadn’t even landed on a specific spot, but his blushing face completely exposed him.

A piece of chalk zipped through the air, accurately hitting the boy on the head. The teacher said crossly, “Oh, so you do know how to feel embarrassed?”

Ye Wanyin sat up straight, surprised that this was Fang Shu’s type.

After the pre-class bickering ended, the teacher began the formal lesson. Knowing the kind of students she was dealing with, she explained every point in extreme detail—the kind of detail where she’d break down 1+1 if she could.

Fang Shu was zoning out.

Ye Wanyin nudged her several times under the table. Fang Shu’s eyes rolled over to look at her, then at the teacher, and then at the row of books standing tall on her desk—tall enough to hide a person. Suddenly, she held up two fingers.

Ye Wanyin: “…?”

She watched as those two fingers slowly but firmly fished a phone out of the desk, sliding it under the open math textbook. With one finger hooked on the corner of the book for concealment, she started playing.

Ye Wanyin: “???”

That is NOT what I was nudging you for!!!

“Fang Shu, come answer this question.”

Fang Shu stood up without even looking at the problem. “Choose C.”

“Great. Come stand up here. Use your brain to remember this, and remember to bring your eyes with you when you leave the house next time.”

“…”

Fang Shu was hauled to the front and forced to leave her phone behind. Ye Wanyin watched as the teacher literally adjusted Fang Shu’s head to face the blackboard. It was a bit mean, but Ye Wanyin felt strangely refreshed.

After class, Fang Shu looked visibly wilted. Ye Wanyin had already scanned the homework assignment. Knowing the problem types, she asked Fang Shu, “Do you think you can solve these?”

Fang Shu pulled her phone from under her book. “No. I have to go out.”

Ye Wanyin was stunned. “The break is only ten minutes.”

Fang Shu: “Just pretend I’m constipated.”

Ye Wanyin: “…”

The next period was also math. When the bell rang, the teacher walked in holding a cup of wolfberry and red date tea, looking quite pleased. Her eyes habitually scanned the room and immediately landed on the empty seat.

The teacher’s smile froze. She called on Ye Wanyin. “Where is Fang Shu?”

Ye Wanyin looked at the empty seat beside her. “…She went to the bathroom.”

The teacher hummed and told her to sit down. She returned to the podium and continued the lesson as if she didn’t care—until Fang Shu finally showed up halfway through the class.

The teacher crossed her arms and looked down at the person standing at the door. “Tell me, how many times did you fall into the toilet?”

Fang Shu: “…”

This sort of thing happened several times a week. The students were used to it and took the opportunity to whisper while the teacher interrogated Fang Shu.

The teacher slammed the eraser on the podium to quiet the room. Seeing Fang Shu’s “I’m a mute” expression, she turned around. “Don’t bother going back to your seat this period. Come up and solve a problem; let’s see how much you learned last period.”

On the right side of the blackboard was a problem the teacher had just written. Fang Shu stood before it with a piece of chalk for a full minute, looking serious and deep in thought. Finally, she had a “Eureka” moment and wrote steadily: Solution:

Ye Wanyin thought she was actually going to solve it. She felt a spark of hope, putting down the problem she was halfway through to watch her intently.

Two minutes later, Ye Wanyin realized something was wrong.

Did Fang Shu fall asleep standing up?

Half a minute later, Ye Wanyin confirmed she was awake because she raised her hand to add a number next to the word “Solution.” After writing it, she casually shook her arm to relax before writing again.

Once she was sure she had copied every single number from the original problem, Fang Shu glanced at the formulas on the left. Through a mix of guessing and blind luck, she plugged in a few.

Finally, after some adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, she arrived at an answer.

Then, she turned confidently and walked back down from the podium.

Ye Wanyin: “…”

Is this the audacity of a poor student?

The teacher was still checking other students’ work. When she finished and looked up, the podium was empty.

She walked over, looked at Fang Shu’s process, and called her back up. “This answer is quite the creative assembly. If I swapped your head for your feet and switched your arms and legs, the result would be about as human as this solution.”

The students laughed. Fang Shu maintained her “fed-up” face, which practically screamed “Don’t touch me.”

The teacher tapped the blackboard with her set square. “Alright, quiet. Fang Shu, listen carefully. You’re coming back up to do this again in a bit.”

Ring, ring, ring—

Ye Wanyin crossed out a few unsuitable problems in her notebook to rewrite them. Just as she was about to ask Fang Shu if she understood the problem, a voice came from the podium: “Homeroom teacher says everyone go down for calisthenics. School officials are inspecting these few days; no one stay in the classroom.”

Ye Wanyin had to suppress her questions for now and followed the crowd downstairs with Fang Shu.