Desk-mate, Do You Like Me? - Chapter 14

Chapter 14

What Li Mo hadn’t expected was that this bad luck would truly befall him.

On the day of the monthly exam, Li Mo quickly found his seat. Xu Qing was in front of him, the wall was to his left, and to his right sat a small boy wearing heavy glasses, his face covered in freckles—a typical bookworm look.

Xu Qing turned sideways and whispered: “The one on your right is in Wu Xiuxiu’s class. Be careful during the exam. Wu Xiuxiu doesn’t care about the facts.”

Li Mo gave an OK sign: “An upright man fears no ghost.”

Xu Qing pursed his lips. He had witnessed Wu Xiuxiu’s severity before. She had once unjustly accused someone of cheating by copying her student’s answers, even though the accused was far smarter than her student and had no need to cheat.

Even though the wrongly accused person desperately tried to defend himself, Wu Xiuxiu stubbornly insisted on his guilt. The matter eventually escalated to the principal and almost got the student expelled.

Ding-a-ling—Five minutes until the exam begins. Invigilators, please show the candidates whether the exam papers are sealed…

The examination room was silent.

Yu Wencheng held up the sealed bag, displaying it from all angles to the candidates. Then, the exam bell rang, and he and Wu Xiuxiu started distributing the papers from opposite ends.

The first exam was Chinese, one of the few subjects Li Mo was proficient in.

His mother had told him since childhood that anyone who couldn’t even master Chinese was a traitor. Li Mo certainly didn’t want to be a traitor.

The exam officially began.

Yu Wencheng sat at the podium, a steaming cup of tea by his hand. Wu Xiuxiu wandered the aisles. When she reached the person on Li Mo’s right, she lingered for a long time, smiling with obvious satisfaction.

Turning to Li Mo, her face instantly filled with disgust. Looking forward to Xu Qing, she wore an expression of clear admiration again.

Li Mo secretly looked up and rolled his eyes behind Wu Xiuxiu’s back. Does the favoritism have to be so obvious?

Yu Wencheng coughed from the podium, and Li Mo immediately lowered his head.

This small action was still noted by Wu Xiuxiu, but she didn’t say anything.

Li Mo had known he was talented in writing since he was little. His essays had always been cited as examples. He had once tried submitting short stories and received good feedback, but later Li Mo got lazy. Reading other people’s writing was more enjoyable.

The essay topic this time was simple: “The Internet Age.” As a good young man who spent a lot of time online, Li Mo’s thoughts flowed instantly, and he wrote furiously.

The Chinese exam ended. Next, the science classes would take Physics, and the liberal arts classes would take History.

Physics… such a hair-pulling subject.

Li Mo yawned. His Physics grades were just average. In junior high, he could score over 80, but in high school, his highest score was 65, and since then, it had hovered around 40.

High school Physics was inhuman!

“Hey, Brother Xu.” Li Mo leaned forward to talk to Xu Qing. “Do you always get full marks in Physics?”

“Occasionally. Usually around eighty or ninety points.”

Li Mo gave a thumbs-up: “Awesome. A big thumb-up for you.”

Xu Qing slightly raised an eyebrow: “You’re not good at Physics? Then why did you join the science class?”

“I’m just a little slow to grasp things, nothing else…” Li Mo thought of his 60 in Chemistry and paused for a moment.

“A little slow to grasp things in that, too?” Xu Qing finished the sentence for him and couldn’t help but chuckle. “You seem to have quite a few areas that need ‘grasping’.”

Li Mo waved his hand: “That has to happen slowly. I can’t handle it if I grasp everything all at once.”

“Ahem.” Yu Wencheng stood at the podium and cleared his throat. “The next exam is about to begin. Students, please return to your seats and refrain from whispering.”

Li Mo sat back in his chair, boredly staring out the window while waiting for the papers to be distributed.

Although autumn had arrived, the weather remained stuffy. It would probably only get cold after the sports meeting was over.

Li Mo was actually looking forward to winter. He hoped it would snow heavily, accumulating a thick layer on the ground so he could lie on it like a corpse. This was “corpse-lying” (tǎng shī), commonly known as “playing dead.”

He remembered one winter break when Li Mo lay face down, motionless in the snow. Yu Wencheng, who had just arrived home, was nearly scared to death. If Li Mo hadn’t gotten up, he would have called 911.

That feeling was very comfortable. Not having to worry about anything, letting his body sink into the soft, cold snow, as peaceful as death.

Thump-thump

Li Mo came to Wu Xiuxiu was standing at his desk, looking very impatient. He looked down and saw the exam paper had been handed out.

Li Mo bent his head and started writing. Physics… he couldn’t understand it when he listened, and he couldn’t learn it when he studied. He wrote down what he knew, and for what he didn’t, he could only write down the formulas and try to fudge the rest.

The multiple-choice questions were relatively simple. He chose the answers he knew, calculated the ones he could, and when he got frustrated, he followed the “three shorts, one long” principle.

The free-response questions were difficult. Li Mo only managed to solve the first one. For the rest, besides scribbling down all the seemingly relevant formulas, he couldn’t even make up a reasonable number.

Half the exam time had passed. Li Mo checked his answer sheet. The paper was clean and neat, the handwriting beautiful, but the content… was somewhat lacking.

Li Mo estimated his score. OK, 100 points! Time to sleep!

…

Of course, this was just Li Mo fooling himself. He was good at cheering himself up.

Once sleepiness hit, there was no stopping it. Li Mo collapsed onto his desk and fell asleep. In a daze, he thought he heard someone shouting at him.

“Li Mo! Wake up!” Seeing that shouting didn’t work, Yu Wencheng kicked Li Mo’s shin. Li Mo instantly woke up.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Is time up?”

Li Mo was bewildered. He looked up, and Yu Wencheng and Wu Xiuxiu were both standing at his desk. Everyone was looking at him. Wu Xiuxiu was furious, her face flushed red.

“You dare to cheat!” Wu Xiuxiu yelled, her finger trembling with anger. “I heard from other teachers that you’re a new transfer student this year. I heard you skipped class and fought every day at your old school and only got here because your family paid money. You’re truly worthless!”

Li Mo was dumbfounded. He just took a nap, and now someone was pointing a finger at him and calling him worthless. His anger flared up instantly: “Why are you talking like that? Can teachers just randomly insult people?”

“You dare to talk back to a teacher?!”

“Ms. Wu… is there some misunderstanding? Please calm down first.” Yu Wencheng’s expression wasn’t good either. As Li Mo’s biological uncle, how could he not know what Li Mo was like? With Wu Xiuxiu cursing Li Mo, he couldn’t keep a polite face either.

Li Mo was confused: “What did I do? You started yelling at me as soon as I opened my eyes. If you don’t want me to sleep, I won’t sleep.”

“You weren’t just sleeping during the exam!” Wu Xiuxiu raged. “You were cheating! You’re almost an adult. Can’t you learn to take responsibility for your actions?”

Li Mo was even more baffled: “How did I cheat?”

He barely had any writing on his answer sheet. Even with all the formulas written down, there were still large blank spaces. Who cheats with so many blanks?

“Teacher, are you perhaps misunderstanding me?” Li Mo held onto the last shred of politeness, trying to speak calmly.

However, Wu Xiuxiu wouldn’t listen: “If my student hadn’t reported you, you would have gotten away with it!”

Just as Li Mo was about to explode, Xu Qing stood up: “Teacher, there are surveillance cameras there. We can go check if Li Mo cheated. If we only listen to one person, then I could also accuse anyone of cheating.”

Although Xu Qing wasn’t in Wu Xiuxiu’s class, he was the top student in the grade, the Zhongkao champion, and other titles that made teachers like Wu Xiuxiu, who blindly favored good students, treat him well.

Sure enough, Xu Qing’s intervention stopped Wu Xiuxiu from continuing her attack.

“The rest of you, continue the exam!” Yu Wencheng turned back to manage the exam room, while Wu Xiuxiu and Li Mo went to the monitoring room.

In the surveillance footage, Li Mo was focused on his answer sheet the entire time, never glancing to the side. Halfway through the exam, Li Mo put down his pen and rested his head on the desk, facing the wall.

Li Mo showed no signs of cheating whatsoever. Wu Xiuxiu had wrongly accused him.

At this point, Wu Xiuxiu’s face was flushed red and white, looking incredibly embarrassed.

Li Mo spread his hands: “See? What did I tell you? You should probably go ask your student who ‘reported’ me.”

The last sentence was pointed.

Wu Xiuxiu didn’t say anything and turned to leave.

“Hey, hey, hey, Ms. Wu.” The address “Ms. Wu” gave Wu Xiuxiu goosebumps. Li Mo grinned. “Teacher, my mom always told me that it’s okay to make mistakes, but actively admitting them makes you a good child. Wouldn’t you agree?”

His unspoken meaning was: Apologize to me. If you don’t apologize, what face do you have to continue being a teacher?

Wu Xiuxiu’s face was pale. She mumbled a cursory “I’m sorry” and hurried away.

Li Mo pursed his lips. It’s a good thing I’m magnanimous. Otherwise, I’d feel cheated if I didn’t make Wu Xiuxiu kowtow to me.

What he found even more hateful was the student who maliciously “kindly” reported him.

When Li Mo returned, the exam was over, and students were filing out.

At the back door, Li Mo grabbed Xu Qing and hooked his arm around his shoulder. They walked out together, or rather, they were pushed forward by the crowd.

“Are you okay?” Xu Qing asked calmly.

“I’m fine,” Li Mo replied, every word clear. “Do you know who said I was cheating?”

Xu Qing hummed: “I know. It was the glasses guy on your right. He suddenly raised his hand and said you were copying his paper, but then he looked back and saw you were asleep.”

Li Mo frowned: “That guy has ulterior motives… What beef does he have with me?”

“Maybe he likes you and wants to get your attention that way.” After saying that, Xu Qing couldn’t help but laugh himself.

Li Mo looked down at him. Only then did he realize he was half a head taller than Xu Qing. In this position, with his arm around Xu Qing’s shoulder, Li Mo just had to look down slightly to see Xu Qing’s high nose bridge and the skin revealed by his loose collar.

Xu Qing wasn’t wearing his jacket today, and only one button of his shirt collar was fastened. With a slight lean forward, the view inside was completely exposed.

Li Mo raised his hand and tightly pressed down the loose collar of Xu Qing’s shirt.

Xu Qing looked at him: “Are you going to hit me just because I laughed at you?”

Li Mo was silent for a long time. It wasn’t until they walked out of the school building that he slowly spoke: “Can you please be more mindful of your image when you’re out and about…”