MM | Chapter 10

WeChat ID

Boss Zhao put away his phone and looked up, only to hear the guy who was dining and dashing say seriously, “You can tear up the bill.”

The boss chuckled, “No way, I run a small business, I can’t afford to tear up this bill.”

Sheng Wang sighed long and hard, then squatted on the ground, holding his head.

He didn’t like going out in the sun. His skin was as fair as Jiang Tian’s, and any hint of color showed clearly. The boss noticed that the back of his neck to his ears was completely red and couldn’t help but laugh more. “Is it that bad?”

Sheng Wang snorted, his voice muffled, “I have thin skin.”

Luckily, Eight-leg Crab and the others didn’t hear this, or they would have scoffed at him.

This handsome guy, when thick-skinned, was unbeatable, able to shamelessly act up without blinking. Claiming “thin skin” was itself shameless. But recently, he’d been getting embarrassed quite a bit.

Thinking it over, it was all Jiang Tian’s fault.

Those ten minutes felt like an eternity. Boss Zhao nudged his shoe and said, “You can get up now. The one paying is here.”

Hearing this, Sheng Wang immediately stood up.

He peeked out and saw Jiang Tian turning from the path of Xiushen Garden. The glass door chimed as it opened. Sheng Wang leaned against the counter, pretending to be serious. The redness on his neck and ears faded as he stood, and he put on a convincing act.

“You’re something else,” he heard Jiang Tian say.

Sheng Wang looked up at him, giving a dry laugh, “I left in a hurry and forgot both my phone and brain in the classroom.”

He always believed in the principle that “if you admit your mistake quickly, no one will have the heart to scold you.” Combined with his confusingly charming face, he had never been in trouble for years.

But Jiang Tian wasn’t buying it. After hearing his sincere self-mockery, Jiang Tian sarcastically said, “I didn’t expect I’d have to pick up and drop off someone for a meal.”

Sheng Wang: “…”

He was about to retort when Jiang Tian walked past him to the cashier to scan and pay. He was still wearing his school uniform, sleeves rolled up, making his arms and legs look long.

Boss Zhao asked him, “Do you need anything else?”

He glanced at Sheng Wang.

Sheng Wang: “?”

Jiang Tian was a bit taller than Sheng Wang. Sitting in the classroom, it wasn’t noticeable, but standing this close, especially when Jiang Tian’s gaze swept down from the corner of his eye, that few centimeters’ difference was obvious.

Jiang Tian seemed to be losing patience, “He’s asking if you want anything else.”

Sheng Wang thought for a moment, moved to the side of the freezer, grabbed two bottles of water, and respectfully placed them on the counter. “Thanks.”

Jiang Tian: “…”

The walk from Xi Le Convenience Store to their teaching building was quite far, taking about ten minutes. Jiang Tian checked the time, pocketed his phone, and walked leisurely.

Sheng Wang didn’t catch on right away, so he also followed unhurriedly back to Mingli Building.

As a result, they entered the classroom only to lock eyes with the math teacher.

The math teacher, surnamed Wu, was the middle-aged bald man who had called Jiang Tian for a talk during evening self-study.

The lunch break for Grade 2 Senior at Affiliated High School was an hour and a half—half an hour for eating, half an hour for napping, and the remaining half hour was Old Wu’s. He came around every noon to hand out exercise sheets, specifically practicing math bonus questions, to be completed in 30 minutes.

Old Wu glanced at the clock on the back wall of the classroom and asked Sheng Wang, “There’s 15 minutes left. Are you planning to revolt or what?”

“Crap, I forgot,” Sheng Wang said, bewildered.

“I don’t know if you forgot crap, but I know you’re probably out of time,” Old Wu spoke with an accent, each word like a slow opera. He even pointed a finger at Sheng Wang, making the scene quite entertaining.

The whole class burst into laughter.

Sheng Wang, holding the water in one hand and covering his face with the other, quickly rolled back to his seat. Jiang Tian followed him, still unhurried.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Sheng Wang turned to glare at him as soon as he sat down.

Under his glare, Jiang Tian pointed upward with his pen.

Sheng Wang looked up to see the clock had moved two more ticks, leaving 13 minutes.

Damn.

Student Sheng’s handwriting was ugly but fast. However, math wasn’t like copying text. He was as busy as a bee, but still only managed to finish most of it.

When the bell rang, Old Wu clapped his hands to stop them and had the last student collect the papers.

Jiang Tian stood in front of Sheng Wang, holding his own paper, waiting for five seconds as Sheng Wang struggled to write the last number of the problem. Then he mercilessly snatched the paper away.

“Wait a minute,” Sheng Wang said seriously.

Jiang Tian paused, thinking he had something important to say. Instead, Sheng Wang reached to grab his paper, mumbling, “You really went all out to mess with me, hurting yourself to hurt me. I want to see how many problems you managed in 13 minutes.”

The result was despairing. Jiang Tian, the freak, had finished it all.

“Are you a ghost?” Sheng Wang couldn’t help but say.

Maybe it was his overly dazed expression, but Jiang Tian, holding Gao Tianyang’s paper, smiled briefly. It was too short to tell if it was mockery.

Old Wu completed another round of tormenting and left contentedly with the exercise sheets.

The remaining students cleared their desks, preparing to nap. They were used to this schedule, almost like a biological clock. Some started snoring lightly as soon as they laid down.

Sheng Wang turned and lightly tapped the desk behind him, the sound as soft as a paw scratching.

Jiang Tian was putting his pencil case into the desk and looked up, asking quietly, “What now?”

“Give me your WeChat ID,” Sheng Wang whispered.

Jiang Tian: “?”

“To pay you back,” Sheng Wang explained immediately. He hesitated for a moment, then added, “Or you can give me your AliPay account. You choose, hurry up.”

Jiang Tian looked at his outstretched palm without speaking, seemingly considering which to give.

Any wait can create a nervous illusion. Sheng Wang’s hand lay open on Jiang Tian’s desk for a while, feeling somewhat uneasy. He glanced at the clock again, wiggling his fingers to urge, “Hurry up, I need to sleep.”

Jiang Tian took out a pen and wrote a string of numbers, placing the note in Sheng Wang’s palm.

Sheng Wang clicked his tongue, muttering, “It stuck to my hand.”

He turned back, peeled off the note, and saw it was clearly a phone number, usable for both WeChat and AliPay.

Sheng Wang pursed his lips. He lay down like the others, resting his forehead on the desk, but his hands fiddled with his phone under the desk.

He hesitated between the two icons, then opened WeChat to search the number.

The next second, the search result popped up.

The person’s WeChat nickname was just a period, exuding coldness and indifference, clearly Jiang Tian. However, his avatar wasn’t as cold, showing a cat perched on a courtyard wall, looking down.

Sheng Wang raised an eyebrow and clicked to add as a friend.

He waited for about two minutes without a response. Turning to look, he saw that guy already asleep.

Jiang Tian’s sleeping posture was fixed, always with his right hand behind his head, long fingers naturally curled, resting on the back of his neck.

Most of the class was asleep, and the rest were drowsy. The classroom wasn’t silent, with breathing and soft snores mixed with the low hum of the air conditioner, quieter than anything else.

Such a quiet environment easily led to daydreaming. Sheng Wang stared at Jiang Tian’s fingers for a while, suddenly noticing a scar on the back of his neck.

It seemed to be an old mark, a round spot where the skin was uneven, like a burn. His fingers just covered it.

Sheng Wang was stunned for a moment, then quickly looked away.

He knocked his forehead back onto the desk, playing with his phone for a bit, then opened AliPay before sleeping, entering Jiang Tian’s number again to transfer the lunch and water money.

Just as he finished, a buzzing sound came from the desk behind him.

Sheng Wang: “…”

He stiffened his neck to look back, relieved to see Jiang Tian still asleep. He took one of the two bottles of water from his desk and placed it by Jiang Tian’s hand, then quietly lay back down, muttering an insult at the stupid app.

For some reason, for the rest of the day, Sheng Wang’s mind kept flashing back to Jiang Tian’s burn scar, even though it had nothing to do with him.

It wasn’t until he lay back on his big bed at night that the image was temporarily replaced by something else—

He was clutching his phone, trying to squeeze in a game before sleep. His phone suddenly vibrated, making his fingers tingle.

The notification bar showed a new WeChat message.

At two in the morning, who was sending him a message? Eight-leg Crab didn’t keep such hours.

Curious, Sheng Wang opened WeChat, finding it wasn’t a message but a friend request approval.

A new contact appeared at the top of his chat list, displaying “You and . are now friends. You can start chatting.”