Chapter 30: Reverse Talk Therapy

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That was rather harsh for a teenager.

Lin Shu thought, No wonder Li Gang had looked as though he wanted to say something to her the day before the exam. He had probably wanted to speak with her even then.

The photo incident on the school forum had not happened yet.

So someone had probably snitched on her.

Ji Xingshen? Huang Pingting? Or some completely unrelated busybody?

How tiresome.

Everyone said life did not have that many spectators, yet somehow they were everywhere.

Lin Shu said, “Thank you for your concern, Teacher. I have been a little tired lately, but I bought some supplements. I just need to grit my teeth and get through it.”

…

Li Gang frowned. Meeting Lin Shu’s sincere gaze, he brought up her performance on the recent physics and mathematics quizzes.

Her scores had indeed dropped.

As her physics teacher and homeroom teacher, Gangzi was nothing if not observant about such things.

Lin Shu said, “I find those two subjects difficult, so I’ve fallen a little behind. But you don’t need to worry about me, Teacher. Please continue teaching at the level of most of the class. You can’t make special arrangements just because of one person.”

Gangzi was speechless.

If he had not been teaching Lin Shu since her first year of high school, he might have thought he was speaking to some old hand who had spent decades navigating the rough waters of society.

Even Gangzi would jump over a wall when pushed hard enough.

“Lin Shu, have you been seeing someone from the class next door?”

“Yes.”

“The top student in Class Two can’t even make the top twenty in the grade, so the students at the bottom are out of the question. You’ll be reassigned to another class again next semester. Don’t think that getting into the honors class means you can rest easy forever.”

“I know. There’s no way I’d abandon you and transfer to their class.”

Lin Shu sounded utterly sincere.

Li Gang choked.

The words he had prepared got tangled in his throat and refused to come out.

Lin Shu sighed. “Teacher, you need to take better care of yourself. I heard you were still grading papers when you had a cold. Papers can never be finished, but your health is the foundation of everything. If something happened to you, what would all of us do?”

All right.

The conversation had completely gone off the rails. Lin Shu had somehow turned it into a counseling session for Gangzi.

The man paced back and forth, took a deep breath, and spoke more heavily.

“…As your homeroom teacher, I have to remind you of something. Lin Shu, being a pretty girl is not necessarily a good thing. The college entrance examination is a major turning point in life. Look at Ji Xingshen: he has excellent grades and a family to support him. And you? If a child from an ordinary family doesn’t seize control of her own fate now, it will be too late for regrets later.”

“Teacher, is that the experience of someone who has been through it all? Do you dislike being a teacher now?”

Gangzi pressed his fingers to his temples, his headache visible to the naked eye.

Lin Shu had always been rather reserved. In the past, during their few conversations, she had simply listened obediently to whatever the teacher said.

How had she become slipperier than a loach?

Li Gang had not wanted to say anything too harsh, but now he had no choice.

“When the midterm results come out, I’ll contact your parents and have a serious talk with them about your recent condition.”

Lin Shu gave a small “Oh.” “Teacher, my parents aren’t in Tongshi.”

Gangzi merely tilted his head and waved her away, telling her to return to formation.

Everyone in the class had been watching.

Zhou Ya was extremely anxious. She asked Lin Shu what she and Gangzi had talked about. Gangzi’s neck was red, and he looked as though he had been boiled. Normally, he was the one who made students turn red during these conversations.

Lin Shu grinned. “He just showed me a little concern. I think he got shy.”

All right. Now it was Zhou Ya’s turn to choke.

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…

The midterm papers would not be handed back until Wednesday.

Apparently, the grading this time was being exchanged with No. 7 High School. The teachers had not explained why, but it was probably connected to the group cheating incident that had been reported earlier.

Whatever.

They could talk about it on Wednesday.

Even if she had done badly, Lin Shu was not afraid of Gangzi calling her parents. Lin Zou had been summoned to school every few days in the past; this was nothing.

Lin Shu made a special trip to Class Seven to find the boy who had made the post. The moment she arrived, everyone in the class turned to look. The students loitering outside the classroom also swarmed in behind her.

Anyone who refused to watch a spectacle was a coward.

“Yan Zhichao, were you the one who made that post?” Lin Shu asked.

Yan Zhichao was lying face-down on his desk beneath his school uniform. At the sound of Lin Shu’s voice, he shuddered, then tugged the fabric over himself more tightly.

What was he doing, pretending to be a dung beetle?

Someone began jeering, saying that his moonlight had arrived and telling Yan Zhichao to get up and look.

Lin Shu swept her gaze around the room.

Once everyone had quieted down, she said clearly, “Don’t secretly photograph people anymore. And don’t photograph bathrooms either. Right now, people are only laughing at you. Next time, you might end up behind bars.”

With that, Lin Shu turned to leave.

From beneath the uniform, Yan Zhichao muttered, “If you dare do it, why be afraid of people taking pictures…”

“Hm? If you dare do it, why be afraid to show your face? Why cover your head? Are you the Bathroom Food God?”

Lin Shu abruptly turned back and yanked away the uniform covering him.

Facing the terrified boy, Lin Shu gave a cold laugh.

“What kind of achievement is it to bully girls? Being called a moonlight by someone like you is a tremendous humiliation. Do I have to slap you twice before you realize what you’ve done wrong?”

The girls in Class Seven pointed at him and shouted in unison, “What kind of achievement is it to bully girls, you pervert?”

Yan Zhichao shrank farther into himself.

Someone came over, laughing and joking, trying to smooth things over.

Lin Shu said, “You were one of the people who replied to that post too, weren’t you?”

The boy trying to mediate immediately sprang away, waving both hands emphatically to show that he had not.

Lin Shu did not lay a hand on anyone. She simply stared silently at Yan Zhichao until he looked away, then turned and left.

What an absurd spectacle.

The corridor outside the classroom was also packed with onlookers. One after another, they craned their necks and whispered among themselves.

When Lin Shu came out, they shrank back and made way for her.

She had walked some distance when someone called from afar, “Lin Shu, are you and Xie Buchan together yet?”

…

Third floor, Class Two.

Xie Buchan and several others stood at the doorway, half their bodies sticking out as they watched the commotion below. They had clearly been following everything that happened downstairs. The moment Lin Shu came up, they burst into exaggerated laughter. The guy with the perm even started clapping.

Xie Buchan leaned against the railing, facing a tree whose leaves were turning from green to gold, his back toward her.

The glint of a single earring flashed in the light.

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Like a star in daylight.

Lin Shu curled her lip and returned to the classroom.

On the side she could not see, Xie Buchan propped his chin on one hand and smiled deeply.

…

Wednesday.

After everyone returned to the classroom from morning exercises, the test papers for each subject had already been placed on the desks. Unfortunately, they had been distributed haphazardly, so everyone still had to search around for their own.

Lin Shu was missing two papers. After making a circuit of the room, she found them beneath the teacher’s lectern.

Huang Pingting and two other girls were standing around them.

Lin Shu pulled the papers away. The two girls behind Huang Pingting hurried after her and said ingratiatingly, “Lin Shu, you seem to be the highest scorer in English in our class. You might even be the highest in the entire grade. We haven’t seen anyone with a score higher than yours.”

“Really…”

Damn, am I actually this good?

Lin Shu had some foundation, but who could ever be certain about an exam?

Her expression remained calm and composed, as though she had everything under control. Inside, however, she was panicking like crazy. When other people did well, they basked in their success. When she did well, she immediately began worrying about what she would do if she failed next time.

Overall, her results were quite good. Even physics and mathematics, which she had been dreading, had turned out all right—roughly on par with Zhou Ya, who had diligently attended extra lessons every weekend.

Zhou Ya looked somewhat dispirited. She said her money had been wasted because their results had been about the same to begin with.

Lin Shu lowered her voice. “That’s because I’ve been secretly studying. Have you ever seen the library at four in the morning?”

“Pfft.”

Zhou Ya collapsed onto her desk, laughing twice. Then she tugged Lin Shu’s English paper over to look at it and was driven to despair by Lin Shu’s perfect score in listening.

“No, Lin Shu. You got full marks even with that awful, distorted audio?”

“Who would have thought? I was shocked by myself too…”

“Uh… no showing off in disguise!”

Zhou Ya corrected her mistakes and, before class had even started, was already immersed in her studies.

Lin Shu also borrowed other people’s papers and compared them, examining the questions she had gotten wrong.

…

The entire day was spent going over test papers, leaving everyone dizzy and heavy-headed.

During evening self-study, the rankings were released.

Everyone took out their phones and forwarded the list to one another. The mathematics teacher did not say anything from the podium; he merely leaned over to look at it with a nearby student.

Lin Shu ranked seventeenth in the grade, an improvement of fifty-two places from the previous monthly exam.

After making the top twenty once at the end of her first semester in high school, she had broken into it again. Truly cause for celebration.

Zhou Ya ranked forty-third, also several places higher than before, successfully entering the top fifty. Truly cause for celebration.

After all, scarcely anyone in the class went without extra lessons. Since everyone attended them, it was practically the same as no one attending them. Zhou Ya’s improvement was already extremely impressive.

Zhou Ya looked at Lin Shu enviously, her heart filled with conflicting emotions.

She had always worried that Lin Shu would decline because of her infatuation with Ji Xingshen. She had never expected Lin Shu not only to withdraw decisively, but also to reveal such formidable ability.

Poor Zhou Ya could only sigh at the gap between people.

What she did not know was that Lin Shu was practically a cheat code. An adult soul came with a study method honed over many years, a steadier state of mind, and an uncanny ability to predict exam questions…

She was a cheat in every sense of the word.

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