Through The Strait Gates Chapter 4
Xu Xilin was Cla.s.s 1's organization leader, and was also on the school's basketball team. And he was also extremely loyal to his friends and acquaintances. He often used the the advantage of his position to help his cla.s.smates get a spot on the court. If there was anyone that he wanted to become friends with, no matter male, or female, he could. Being the core of the group of the back three rows in the cla.s.s, this was the first time he had received such a baffling and rude face.
"*Psycho." Xu Xilin thought.
(a better translation would be "a.s.shole", but let's keep it the Chinese way)
He did not became a people person because he was cheap and sticky. He did not have the kink of pressing a hot face to a cold a.s.s. The initial good impression towards Do Xun incinerated into ashes blown away.
In a blink of an eye, Xu Xilin moved a certain Mr. Dou into the "doesn't know to appreciate favor--weirdo" column.
Dou Xun was probably one, really.
If defining anyone else as being unsociable was "cannot fit into the major group of people", dearest cla.s.smate Dou Xun's unsociable was probably "cannot fit into the species".
For the whole week, except for questions in cla.s.s that he was forced to answer, Dou Xun wasn't seen to talk with anything else alive.
Every day, he sat in the most isolated corner of the cla.s.s, arrived early and left late. Came alone, departed alone, and except for leaving through the back door to go to the bathroom, he basically didn't walk around even the least bit in cla.s.s.
He never lift his head up while walking, and didn't really look people in the eye. Except for the time in cla.s.s, he always had a pair of headphones on, blocking out the noise around him completely. At first, when people met him in the school or in the corridors, they would greet him friendly, but as he never even glanced at them once, slowly, no one did it anymore.
All the boys in the cla.s.s, with Xu Xilin as the lead, viewed him with absolute disdain.
The last period of Thursday was a free study period. Xu Xilin texted the school basketball team's coach, and reserved the court. He picked this day because Tsai Jing didn't have work on Thursday night.
In this decade, smartphones weren't a thing yet, and the non-smart phones weren't common among high school students yet. The main communication channel among students were still pa.s.sing notes around.
Xu Xilin tossed the crunched-up note to the student in charge of sports in their cla.s.s. "Hey, did you bring a basketball?"
Wu Tao, the student in charge of sports in their cla.s.s, was someone who was the best at sports among normal students, and the best at studying among sports students. As he performed extraordinarily above his usual level in the senior high school entrance test, he successfully became the only sports special student in the experimental cla.s.s. But as he preferred having fun over studying, and had to undergo harsh training every day, he did not have exactly the best experience in the experimental cla.s.s. Only when fun was involved did he fit in the cla.s.s, specifically Xu Xilin and the other guys, completely.
Wu Tao's note came back quickly. "No, but I think Yiran brought one."
Yiran's full name was Yu Yiran, and she was actually a girl. But the young lady was 1.78 meters tall, and weighted 78 kilograms, exactly twice as the lightest girl in cla.s.s. She couldn't fit in any of the girls' uniforms, so she had to order a boys' one. And she fitted in completely with Xu Xilin and the other guys, and played basketball with them, gender conformity tossed aside like trash.
An helpless Tsai Jing helped them pa.s.s the note back and forth, and turned back to tap on Xu Xilin's blank biology test. "They'll have to be pa.s.sed back when the bell rings! Quick!"
They would have to attend forced free-study periods at night once they were in third grade, which meant this was the last semester that they could go out after school. Xu Xilin's mind had already drifted away to the basketball court, and he absentmindedly answered a few inheritance questions. Basically dumba.s.s permutation questions. They didn't require brain cells. Once finished, he glanced at the experiment designing questions after it, and they were so G.o.dd.a.m.n annoyingly long that he couldn't even start on reading the questions themselves.
Seemingly bored, Xu Xilin did some pen spinning for a while, and then tore off a note anxiously, scribbling on it, "Both Tsai and Lao-Ye are going to go. You bring two. Half court, 3v3."
After he finished writing it, he saw Tsai Jing glaring at him seriously, and he had to put on a smile, promising, "This is the last one."
This time, he was too embarra.s.sed to pa.s.s it through Tsai Jing, so he tossed the ball of paper, hitting Wu Tao straight on his head.
Wu Tao gave him a middle finger, scribbled something on the note, and tossed it back--an eye for an eye. Unfortunately, his aim was off, and the paper fluttered away from its designed route, landing on Dou Xun's desk.
Xu Xilin: "......"
"Cut it out, you two." Tsai Jing sighed, and threw his pen down, turning back to whisper at Dou Xun, "Dou Xun...That cla.s.smate over there, can you pa.s.s the piece of paper on your desk to me?"
That son of a b.i.t.c.h, Dou Xun, definitely heard them, but he deliberately ignored them on purpose. p.i.s.sed off, Xu Xilin frowned. He had the loyal side of him--he's nice to everyone who's nice to him--but he also had the spoiled side of him: who hates him was a complete dumba.s.s to him.
Seeing him like that, Tsai Jing knew that the "young master" was about to explode, so he reacted quickly and held Xu Xilin back. "Forget about it, I'll get it."
Tsai Jing looked around, and checked that there were no teachers snooping on them in the corners. Then he moved his chair a little bit, said a polite "sorry to bother you", and reached out his arm to grab at the ball of paper on Dou Xun's desk.
Dou Xun suddenly grabbed the piece of paper, and tossed it into the trash can in the corner.
Tsai Jing's personality was soft and slow, and he was unable to respond in time, stunned. But Xu Xilin was enraged instantly, standing up immediately. Just this moment, Qilixiang came in the room, and her dead-fish eyes glared so fiercely that they were close to bursting out of their sockets. "Xu Xilin, why are you standing up!"
Tsai Jing grabbed Xu Xilin's arm. Dou Xun raised his gaze up, his expression blank. His gaze met Xu Xilin's once with a lot of content, both snickering and aggression included.
"Don't worry Missus, I dropped a pen, and he's helping me look for it." Tsai Jing said, and grabbed at Xu Xilin, "Sit down."
Qilixiang walked around them a couple of times, make sure the kids weren't messing around, and then walked to the lecturn, her heels clacking. She sat down, and started to write lesson plans.
After a while, Tsai Jing pa.s.sed a note over carefully, poking Xu Xilin's arm. "Tao wrote a new one for you. Okay, now, it's a really cold day, so why are you boiling with anger?"
Xu Xilin stayed silent, and took Wu Tao's note, thinking, "I'll have to teach him a lesson once I get the chance."
Dou Xun pulled out a paper towel, dabbed it with some water, and wiped on where the note landed three times, the image of Wu Tao's back leaning against the bathroom door burning in his mind.
"Trash." Dou Xun thought, and raised his hand, the half wet ball of paper ill.u.s.trating a clean curve in the air, landing precisely in the bin in the corner.
The light disturbance alerted Qilixiang, who was at the lecturn. Her gaze scanning across the room, she saw Dou Xun stuff his headphones back into his ears like no one was there, and lowered his head.
It gave her a headache.
Qilixiang, being the person she was, did take the shopping card Dou Xun's dad, Dou Junliang, gave her. And she did worry about Dou Xun's situation. For the couple days since he arrived, she went and communicated with every single subject's teacher and every student of the cla.s.s committee. But Dou Xun didn't take any of their bulls.h.i.t--like an uncooperating hedgehog.
The tip of Qilixiang's pen stopped. She called on a student in the front row. "Luo Bing, come with me."
Cla.s.s 1's cla.s.s committee was made up of various disparate components. It included students like Wu Tao, the sports committee, who did not study at all, students like Xu Xilin, the organization leader, who did not give the slightest f.u.c.k about the teacher, and students like Luo Bing, the cla.s.s president, that would take a fart from the teacher as their criteria.
The next day, after inter-cla.s.s exercise, Luo Bing went and found Xu Xilin. "Can you help me?"
Before Xu Xilin could reply, Wu Tao and Lao Cheng, the two b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, both stretched out a palm, and pushed him forward. Wobbling, Xu Xilin almost knocked into Luo Bing.
"f.u.c.k, are you guys crazy?" said Xu Xilin.
Wu Tao and Lao Cheng laughed, their laughter making them not unlike a pair of quacking long-necked wild ducks. It was known throughout the whole cla.s.s that Luo Bing had a crush on Xu Xilin, and her face popped into a cherry shade of beet red.
Xu Xilin actually didn't have any thoughts about Luo Bing, but to a guy in p.u.b.erty, the mere thought of "this girl likes me" was exciting enough. Luo Bing's face flushed red, and he floundered around even though he had absolutely no reason to. "Yeah, okay......What is it about?"
Qilixiang gave Luo Bing a task: to talk with Dou Xun, and make sure he fits in with a rest of the cla.s.s as soon as possible.
Lao Cheng frowned. "Is that mind of Qilixiang's sat on by Tao? Why would she give that task to a girl?"
Qilixiang actually didn't give the task to a girl specifically. She just told the same thing to every student in the cla.s.s committee, including both Xu Xilin and Wu Tao. It was just that except for Luo Bing, everyone else ignored her.
"f.u.c.k off. You sat on it." Wu Tao attacked Lao Cheng first. Then he turned back to Luo Bing, "Ignore Qilixiang. I'm close to suspecting that that son of a b.i.t.c.h is her b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
Luo Bing's expression was reluctant. Then she glanced at Xu Xilin as if asking for help. Xu Xilin had the same opinion as Wu Tao, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Tsai Jing pulled at him.
At first, Xu Xilin was perplexed. But then he suddenly recalled something--right, every year, their cla.s.s had a single scholarship: a fifteen hundred dollar sum. It might be nothing to everybody else, but in Luo Bing's case, it was different: she was an impoverished student. She was a tiny, thin girl. She had a mother at home with serious illness, and she couldn't work part time at midnight like Tsai Jing.
And whom this scholarship was given to was decided by the homeroom teacher.
So she had to take Qilixiang's words seriously.
"Oh, that's fine," Xu Xilin answered reluctantly, "We'll go with you."
Sixth High School had two sets of inter-cla.s.s exercises. One was the common "times are calling", and the other was ch.o.r.eographed by the school's own gymnastics team. Dou Xun did not know the latter, and neither did he plan to learn it. Every day he stood at the back like a wooden stick, and stayed there until it was over. Then he left silently, alone.
When Luo Bing called him, Dou Xun did not stop in his steps, but merely glanced at her.
Luo Bing had to jog to catch up with him, and spoke her preplanned speech, "Our school has an inter-cla.s.s exercise check every Monday, and if we're not in order, points will be taken off. It seems like you don't know how to do it yet. There's an event tonight, so can you give twenty minutes for our events committee to teach you?"
Xu Tuanzuo was shot in the face even though he was lying down. He wiped his face as if he had a toothache.
Lao Cheng draped his arm over the back of Xu Xilin's neck, and whispered in his ear in a pinched voice, "Can you let our cla.s.s's events committee teach you?"
Xu Xilin muttered a blurred curse. He was extremely reluctant. But he because he knew that Luo Bing had a crush on him, he did not have the "face" to tell her no. He had to view it as a favor of hers.
Who knew that that Dou Xun did not take it, and stopped in his steps, frowning.
Luo Bing said, "It's pretty easy, you'll get it on the first try..."
"So the check is on Monday, is it?" Dou Xun interrupted her harshly. "Then I'll get a note for sick leave from the nurse on Monday. I won't disturb you guys' points."
Finished, he stuck his hands in his pockets, and turned, walking away.
Shocked, Luo Bing's face flushed red. But she refused to give up, and walked faster, trying to catch up to him, "Wait..."
Not even turning back, Dou Xun raised his arm as a gesture to tell her not to bother him. But Luo Bing was barely over 150cm tall, and compared to Dou Xun, she was simply too short. She didn't decelerate in time, and ran right into his elbow.
It wasn't on purpose, but from other people's perspectives, it looked like as if he was impatient to talk with her, and pushed her with his elbow.
The youth's elbow was kind of tough, and Luo Bing was a little stunned.
Dou Xun was stunned, too. He moved his arms awkwardly, and felt like he should say something. But he wasn't used to apologizing, and he was just simply unable to. He frowned and looked down at Luo Bing, unsure of what to say.
Before he could decide on what to say, Xu Xilin and the other guys, who weren't far away, caught up with them.
Xu Xilin arrived. Okay--so last time it was Tsai Jing, and this time, it was a tiny girl. Son of a b.i.t.c.h really knew to *pick the soft persimmons to eat.
Enraged and boiling with anger, he pulled Luo Bing behind him, and pushed Dou Xun back, "Can you speak human? Can you act humane?"
Note#1:
1) Pick the soft persimmons to eat: means "he knows who to pick on".
Translator's Note#2:
So, uh, I wanted to give you guys something for New Years. But I decided on that today.
yeah you heard that right i finished this chappie today and i kinda feel like c.r.a.p and this chappie is probably raw and real s.h.i.tty
so please, don't be afraid to point out mistakes
happy new year to all you lovelies
HAPPY NEW YEAR~~~
新年快樂～～～