I Probably Won't Like Girls (GL) - Chapter 3

Self-satisfaction and self-abasement—these two contradictory qualities do not conflict when found in teenagers.

Excessive attention to their own shortcomings easily leads to self-abasement. At the same time, their unfamiliarity with the world makes them automatically believe that they are the unique protagonists of their own lives.

In other words, teenagers are simply a contradiction of various emotions, like a summer shower—one moment, a torrential downpour; the next, bright sunshine.

So, when the next day rolled around, An Yue had something happier to focus on, and in the blink of an eye, she forgot her concern about her appearance and the sarcasm from the student in the front row.

During Political Science class, while the teacher had his back to write on the blackboard, An Yue mysteriously pulled a magazine out of her backpack. She nudged Shi Mingyuan’s elbow and asked conspiratorially, “Good stuff! The convenience store owner just stocked new arrivals. Want to see?”

Shi Mingyuan spared a glance at the magazine. From the brightly colored cover alone, it was easy to tell it was one of the hottest romance novel publications right now, filled with deeply entangled love stories between men and women.

When Shi Mingyuan was An Yue’s age, she had also been obsessed with this type of novel for a while. However, as she experienced more and broadened her horizons, she realized that romance was not the totality of life, and life couldn’t focus solely on romance as written in novels. These stories quickly lost their appeal in Shi Mingyuan’s eyes, and she even found the actions of the male and female protagonists inside to be childish and ridiculous.

She shook her head, politely declining An Yue’s offer.

An Yue had already known she wouldn’t look. She didn’t understand why Shi Mingyuan could hold a book and study all day. Could textbooks really be more interesting than a magazine?

Although Shi Mingyuan didn’t join An Yue, she moved her Political Science textbook closer to An Yue, helping to cover up the exposed part of the magazine. Also, whenever the Political Science teacher’s eyes passed over them, she quietly reminded the engrossed An Yue to hide the magazine.

With her help, An Yue had a happy Political Science lesson. It wasn’t until the dismissal bell rang that An Yue reluctantly put down the magazine, wiped the tears that had spontaneously welled up in her eyes from being so moved, and accompanied Luo Xiaoxiao to the restroom.

When she returned from the restroom, she immediately picked up the magazine again, wanting to find out how the male protagonist ultimately died.

Luo Xiaoxiao’s eyes immediately lit up when she saw the magazine, saying, “Wasn’t this magazine only just published yesterday? An Yue, how did you get it so quickly?”

An Yue said proudly, “Of course! I specially asked the convenience store owner to buy it for me.” According to the school rules at High School No. 3, boarding students couldn’t leave campus during non-holiday periods. If they wanted to buy anything, they had to buy it at the convenience store or ask a non-boarding student for help. An Yue’s good relationship with the owner gave her this convenience.

“Then, after you finish reading it, be sure to save it for me first,” Luo Xiaoxiao pleaded.

A brand-new magazine could be described as red-hot among the novel enthusiasts in the class. If you didn’t reserve it in advance, you might not get to read it even after it became outdated.

“We’re best friends, aren’t we? I’ll definitely give it to you first after I finish,” An Yue readily agreed.

With An Yue’s assurance, Luo Xiaoxiao felt relieved and turned back around.

As it was nearing class time again, Shi Mingyuan saw An Yue clutching the magazine, still unwilling to put it down. She couldn’t help but tap An Yue’s desk and advised, “The next class is Chemistry. You really should pay attention.”

She hadn’t tried to stop An Yue during the Political Science class because she felt that liberal arts subjects weren’t that important; she could just memorize them before the exam. However, for science subjects, if you didn’t listen in class, cramming before the final exam would be as difficult as Nüwa mending the sky.

An Yue’s expression first brightened, then saddened, when she heard it was Chemistry class. She was happy because she didn’t want to listen to Chemistry and could read the magazine for another class, but sad because of Shi Mingyuan’s words.

“Ugh, Chemistry class is the most boring. How am I supposed to survive without something to entertain me?” An Yue pouted.

“Aren’t you worried about the exams?” Shi Mingyuan frowned.

An Yue thought this question was very simple and answered without thinking, “What’s scary about exams? I’ll just grind through them, and they’ll be over.”

“Don’t you want to go to university?” Shi Mingyuan asked, puzzled.

“Life isn’t just about going to university. Anyway, even after university, you still end up working for someone else, so why not go out to work a few years earlier…” An Yue spouted some crooked logic she’d picked up somewhere, sounding very convincing.

“That’s right! Our An Yue’s dream is to be the coolest migrant worker in the electronics factory,” Luo Xiaoxiao heard their conversation and turned around to support An Yue. She was An Yue’s roommate and bunkmate, so she knew exactly what An Yue was thinking.

“If she wasn’t still underage and her family wouldn’t let her, we probably wouldn’t even see her here right now.”

As Luo Xiaoxiao spoke, An Yue nodded in agreement, as if she didn’t find the situation ridiculous at all.

If Shi Mingyuan knew about An Yue’s family situation, she might actually believe this nonsense. Shi Mingyuan was about to say something more.

An Yue flipped the magazine to the title page and let out a long exclamation, as if she had discovered something rare.

The title page of the magazine contained an advertisement for submissions. [A garbled string of characters that seems to be a group invitation code was here, which I will omit.] Besides the submission requirements for text and genre, there was also information about the payment for a successful submission. An Yue pointed to those few lines and read with emphasis, “50 kuai for one thousand characters.”

“Fifty kuai for a thousand characters, two thousand characters is 100 kuai, so ten thousand characters can get me 500 kuai! That’s more than my monthly allowance for living expenses at school,” An Yue’s eyes gleamed as she quickly calculated on her fingers and asked Shi Mingyuan, “Mingyuan, do you think this is real or fake?”

“Who knows?” Shi Mingyuan wasn’t familiar with the rules of publishing houses.

“Well, in that case, even if I don’t go to the electronics factory, becoming an author is not a bad idea,” An Yue pondered, stroking her chin and murmuring softly. Her gaze inadvertently swept past Shi Mingyuan’s profile, making her look even more thoughtful.

The wind blew through the treetops outside the window, and white clouds squeezed into the shape of wild horses drifted across the blue sky, like the boundless fantasies of a young girl.

Soon after, An Yue paid the price for her statement of despising exams.

In the first monthly exam of the first semester of Grade 1, she and Shi Mingyuan were both ranked at the top, but the two received completely different evaluations from the class teacher.

This was because Shi Mingyuan was ranked first from the top, while An Yue was ranked second from the bottom.

As deskmates who spent most of their time together, the class teacher was very surprised by the stark difference in their performances.

Not only him, but An Yue herself found it hard to believe as she held the test paper full of red crosses. She counted her score over and over, but the result was that she was wrong, and the teacher was not.

“How is that possible? I can’t be this bad, can I?”

Shi Mingyuan took her test paper and looked through her mistakes one by one, finding that most of her errors were due to only a partial understanding of the concepts. Even though the teacher had explained these concepts, An Yue seemed not to have grasped them at all.

She pointed to one question with her pen, “This symbol represents the subset relationship. A containing B means that all elements within set B can be found within set A. The math teacher just went over this last week.”

An Yue scratched her cheek and said guiltily, “Did he? How come I don’t remember? Haha…”

Shi Mingyuan didn’t expose her cover-up. Her pen moved down to another question, saying, “A question like this is a little harder. You need to memorize the trigonometric functions before you can solve it.” In Shi Mingyuan’s eyes, these questions were all very simple, but she was afraid that if she called them simple, it might hurt An Yue’s self-esteem, especially since An Yue got them wrong.

An Yue didn’t take her hint. She took the test paper back, casually folded it, and tucked it into a book, saying dismissively, “I’ll let this one go. I’ll work harder next time.”

She said she would work harder, but she immediately turned around and started chatting about class gossip with Luo Xiaoxiao. Shi Mingyuan sighed helplessly, took out her notebook, and the sound of her pen scratching paper filled the air.

Just as Shi Mingyuan was fully focused on her notes, an unfamiliar face walked into Grade 1, Class 3, where An Yue and Shi Mingyuan were.

The moment he entered, the previously noisy classroom immediately fell silent, and countless eyes stared intently at the unexpected visitor.

He was wearing a bright yellow jersey, carrying a basketball in one hand and a milk tea in the other. He looked like he had just come off the court, thoroughly soaked in sweat. As soon as he entered the classroom, his eyes searched among the desks.

It wasn’t until he saw Shi Mingyuan, who was bent over writing furiously, that he immediately smiled and walked towards her, oblivious to everyone else.

Shi Mingyuan, whose mind was solely on her studies, was completely unaware of the changes in the outside world, occasionally frowning and racking her brain to solve a complex math problem.

If the student next to her hadn’t nudged her, she might not have noticed that someone was standing in front of her for a long time.

As Shi Mingyuan looked up, a strange smell hit her nostrils.

It was summer, and the salty scent of sweat from someone who had just finished playing basketball wasn’t pleasant. Shi Mingyuan’s nose slowly registered the smell, and she almost had to physically restrain herself from backing away from him immediately.

“You…”

Before Shi Mingyuan could ask anything, the boy placed the milk tea on her desk and introduced himself: “Hello, my name is Su Songwen. I’m a senior from Grade 3, Class 4. This milk tea is for you.” The onlookers gasped softly.

Shi Mingyuan looked at the unfamiliar boy in front of her and replied coldly, “I don’t know you.”

“We don’t know each other now, but we will soon,” the boy said, sounding as if he knew everything about Shi Mingyuan: “I know your name is Shi Mingyuan. You’re a new Grade 1 student who just transferred here. I’ve been watching you for a while, and I hope we can be friends.”

As he spoke, he extended a hand towards Shi Mingyuan.

Only one question was running through Shi Mingyuan’s mind: Does he really think he’s handsome?

Indeed, his tall build, handsome looks, and bright smile were the image of the basketball prince in every teenage girl’s dream.

But Shi Mingyuan was not swayed by any of it…