Chapter 13

Page 1/3

Though hesitant at first and after bracing herself mentally, the teacher still made an effort to revive the initial enthusiasm upon meeting:
“Oh, you must be Teacher Wei, so young and talented—what a pleasure to meet you.”
Teacher Wei, with a poised smile, shook hands without clarifying that his surname was not simply “Wei” but “Verlaine.”

After some polite small talk, the welcoming teacher found something odd.
This Teacher Wei spoke with flawless standard Mandarin, almost excessively perfect. Yet somehow, his tone came off as a bit pretentious.

For instance, when asked whether he had majored in physical education at university just to fill the silence, Teacher Wei smiled slightly and replied, “Absolutely, madam.”

The teacher was left speechless.
There was just something off about the vibe.

Still, Teacher Wei was undeniably a striking young scholar with a good attitude, engaging in conversation with a balanced exchange of questions and answers, never letting the topic falter. Ignoring the slight awkwardness in his phrasing, their chat was quite pleasant.

Unconsciously, the teacher revealed a little secret.
“Actually, when I was in elementary school, I knocked the high jump bar down during a sports meet and it hit the head of the head teacher,” she said with a tinge of regret. “Since then, I haven’t participated in sports meets. I had planned to keep this buried forever, sir.”

Teacher Wei paused a few seconds, then smoothly tipped his hat and nodded slightly: “My deepest sympathy for your misfortune, madam.”

“Thank you, you are truly kind.”

The teacher was inexplicably touched. After completing some necessary formalities with the new colleague and while the students were still in class, she gave him a rough introduction to the school.

The more time they spent together, the more she realized that judging a person’s worth by their Mandarin proficiency was shallow. Whether top-tier or average, genuine friendship could flourish without language barriers—that was true harmony.

Moreover, conversing with Teacher Wei often gave her a surreal feeling of being somewhere far from home, to the point of forgetting that the new colleague was holding a rather dubious product—a blatant intelligence tax.

That must be the influence of personal charisma.

Beyond personality, the newcomer’s fashion sense was sharp.
A black fedora paired with a beige suit, his slightly long blond hair braided, gave him a tall and elegant appearance—literally refined down to every strand.

Feeling quite fond of him, the teacher glanced at her new colleague, hesitated briefly, then decided to remind him of something important.

Before she could speak, someone waved from nearby and called out affectionately:
“Zhao’er, showing someone around the school?”

The arriving teacher was from the same hometown as her, and they had always gotten along well.

Zhao teacher smiled warmly: “Good morning, Miss Wang. It’s a pleasure to see you on such a sunny day.”

Wang teacher, who had just casually greeted her, was momentarily stunned.

Her surprised gaze flicked between Zhao teacher and the blond man—wait, what was that in his hand?

Upon recognizing the bright fluorescent paint, Wang teacher felt reality blur into the surreal.

She quickly apologized to the unidentified suspicious man, then pulled Zhao teacher aside and whispered:
“Zhao’er, what’s going on here?”

Zhao teacher hadn’t intended to say much, just wanted to warn the new Teacher Wei not to dress too well.

Dressing too well might attract students’ attention and make it harder to gain parents’ trust.

She expressed her thoughts, only to see Wang teacher’s eyes widen even more as she shook Zhao teacher’s shoulders wildly:
“...What are you talking about? Why that tone? Zhao’er?”

Shaken back to reality, Zhao teacher found it baffling how her words had been misunderstood.

After some careful discussion, Wang teacher decided it was best not to get too close with the new Teacher Wei and to just finish the campus tour and move on.

“Wouldn’t that be a bit rude...”

Zhao teacher felt uneasy but glanced back to see Teacher Wei meeting her gaze, smiling politely as always.

Wang teacher reassured: “Don’t worry, once he gets confessed to by a student, he’ll settle down.”

Zhao teacher thought that made sense.

She gave up on warning him, and the matter was dropped.

Since Zhao teacher hadn’t been fully tuned in at first, their later conversations were encrypted in dialect, which outsiders typically couldn’t understand.

Page 2/3

Except for certain intelligence operatives who habitually covertly gather information.

“Dressing too well”...?

Verlaine scrutinized himself—from the Windsor knot to the V-neck vest, from his suit trousers to Oxford shoes—everything was plain and unremarkable.

But since the locals said so, he resolved to make more effort to blend in. Before formal meetings, he would observe the local teachers’ dress style again.

...

He did not know that when he next met the man claiming to be his elder brother, he would be greatly surprised.

Now, he was troubled by a change of seating arrangement.

He had been unsure of his attitude toward Du Zhengxuan, but after the seating change, he no longer needed to worry—because he had been displaced.

The seat selection process was as Du Zhengxuan had described: on the last afternoon before the holiday, during the final self-study period, each student was called by name by the homeroom teacher to fill their name in an empty seat chart.

Du Zhengxuan was called first.

She exited through the back door, circled around to the front, walked up to the podium, signed her name in a corner of the seating chart, capped the pen, and left.

The entire process was smooth and rapid, taking less than ten seconds.

The early callers all went quickly; by about the twentieth person, speed slowed noticeably as people took longer to decide, probably because some seats had already been chosen, forcing last-minute alternatives.

Zhenye felt some anxiety.

He still hadn’t decided how to act toward Du Zhengxuan. The approach recommended by Dazai was something he had never tried and did not know how to do; learning on the fly would take time, and getting caught would be problematic.

But if he took a long-term view... how much longer would he be here?

Getting up at six and arriving home at ten, then handling Yokohama matters until one or two in the morning—this routine was bearable short-term, but who could endure it daily?

Even Dazai, the master of pretended contemplation, was secretly dozing off in class!

What was worse, the boss claimed, “It’s a rare opportunity; experiencing student life is good for you,” telling him not to worry about Yokohama.

Yet the boss seemed blind, giving no reduction in his workload.

Wasn’t this just empty promises?

And earlier, he was told that once he became a class officer, he’d get access to materials about “Ahabatu”—was that also just a carrot on a stick?

Just as Zhenye began doubting his current boss’s conscience, Long Wan, called up to choose seats, returned.

Talking wasn’t allowed during self-study; Long Wan sighed at Du Zhengxuan and sat down with a troubled expression.

At that moment, Zhenye sensed something was wrong.

When it was his turn to write his name, he quickly scanned the seating chart.

Du Zhengxuan’s name was still where she sat, but the seat next to her—his current spot—was already taken by someone else.

A three-character name he recognized but had no idea who belonged to.

No need to hesitate anymore.

He settled for a nearby seat, roughly wrote his name in the box, and stepped down from the podium.

After the seating chart was finalized, the students switched seats before the evening self-study.

They spent four evening self-study periods in the new seats, and by the time classes resumed after the holiday, the initial excitement had mostly faded—

Zhenye guessed the teacher thought the same.

Having spent some time here, he had adapted somewhat.

As the self-study period neared its end, he began packing up early to prepare for the seat change.

While organizing textbooks and some outdated files, Du Zhengxuan looked at him curiously, assuming he was preparing for the one-day holiday.

When the bell rang, Nakahara effortlessly lifted a towering stack of books, and Du Zhengxuan realized her mistake, quickly stopping him:

“Wait, you don’t need to move books for seat changes.”

Zhenye looked at her, puzzled.

Page 3/3

Du Zhengxuan continued, “...You just move the whole desk.”

Zhenye: “...?”

High school textbooks and worksheets were numerous, and since students needed to quickly and precisely find specific books or papers during class, many had cleverly organized their desks like intricate mechanisms.

Under such circumstances, moving books back and forth would be more troublesome than simply moving the entire desk and chair as a unit.

Normally, Du Zhengxuan might have explained this, but after seeing the new seating chart, she felt utterly powerless.

After saying this listlessly, she silently stuffed a few bills into her school uniform pocket and turned to the cafeteria for spicy hot pot, leaving Nakahara with a desolate back.

Anyway, she didn’t have to move the desk herself.

Her bad mood stemmed from the fact that her new deskmate was the class monitor, a notorious overachiever.

Most high school students eagerly awaited holidays, some even wishing to skip homework and rely on copying after returning.

But their class monitor was a ruthless type who studied in school even during holidays; it was said he only left on New Year’s Eve when called home to put up Spring Festival couplets.

He held keys to both front and back doors and was reportedly the first to arrive and last to leave every day.

Why “reportedly”? Because Du Zhengxuan never came near the school during holidays. She just came on time for school and was too lazy to even open her books at home.

As a result, she usually regressed on the baseline assessments after holidays—

This was an era that praised “overtaking on curves” during holidays, but someone always got overtaken, and Du Zhengxuan was in the overtaken group.

But it didn’t matter; the college entrance exam wasn’t scheduled right after summer break, so she could perform normally.

However, having the overachiever as a deskmate was a big deal—she could easily get overwhelmed and end up secretly crying over a tough problem.

In the cafeteria, while eating spicy hot pot, Du Zhengxuan mentally reviewed the situation, unable to fathom why the overachiever suddenly became her deskmate.

After much thought, there was only one possibility:

Recently, she had been distracted by Nakahara’s good looks, waking early every day and studying in the classroom at noon without going home, inadvertently improving her grades.

She became the top of the grade, and the overachiever must have seen her as a threatening competitor and decided to challenge her.

She shouldn’t have stared those extra glances—now she was being crushed by the competition.

Du Zhengxuan regretted it deeply but there was nothing she could do for now.

She shoved two extra spoonfuls of chili into her hot pot, then resignedly went to evening self-study.

Reality was a bit better than expected; during the four evening self-study periods, no teacher assigned tasks, and everyone worked independently. Although the atmosphere was a bit awkward, it was manageable.

High school students were aware of gender boundaries, and seat selection was fairly free, so girls mostly sat together and boys together, with very few mixed-gender deskmates.

Nakahara had happened to sit next to her once due to a vacant seat, but this time, judging by their rankings, she had signed her name just moments before the monitor took the seat beside her.

Luckily, both were decent students; otherwise, she couldn’t imagine the homeroom teacher’s reaction.

The evening self-study ended without incident, and the official holiday began at ten o’clock.

After washing up at home, Du Zhengxuan lay on the sofa for a while. Relaxed, she suddenly remembered she hadn’t told Nakahara about the holiday. Glancing at the time, she went to knock on his door and pointed to her phone’s calendar, carefully explaining the holiday and makeup class schedule.

“No class tomorrow, you should know that,” she said, tracing down the calendar: “Then next Saturday afternoon and evening, and the Saturday after that afternoon, we have classes. Don’t forget.”

Nakahara paused silently, then asked: “Why?”

Du Zhengxuan: “Because we’re making up tomorrow’s class.”

Nakahara: “But isn’t tomorrow a holiday?”

Facing her foreign friend’s confusion, Du Zhengxuan smiled:
“Do you know about ‘adjusted rest days’?”

Adjusted rest days refer to workdays off without related arrangements, which are compensated by working on weekends.

“Life without experiencing adjusted rest days is incomplete—congratulations, your life is now complete.”

She nodded appreciatively at Nakahara, still processing the concept.

Nakahara: “...”