Desk-mate, Do You Like Me? - Chapter 19

Chapter 19

The bell for morning self-study rang just as Li Mo arrived at the classroom.

Ran Nannan was already sitting at the podium, staring intently at Li Mo.

“Yo, good morning, Teacher~”

“What good morning? Hurry up and sit down.” Li Mo was a frequent offender on the late list. Ran Nannan wouldn’t have given him a pleasant look if his English grade wasn’t relatively decent.

“Everyone, take out yesterday’s exam papers and copy the answers,” Ran Nannan tapped the desk. The blackboard was filled with the answers.

Xu Qing took out his papers. He was used to doing the work on the paper first before transcribing it onto the answer sheet. The answers on his paper were almost identical to the standard ones.

“Desk-mate, you’re really amazing,” Li Mo leaned over, expressing genuine admiration.

“You…” Xu Qing was about to ask why Li Mo didn’t have his papers when he remembered that Li Mo was taken to the Academic Affairs Office before the Math exam was even over yesterday and never returned, missing the English exam as well.

Xu Qing subtly pushed his papers toward Li Mo.

At noon, Li Mo closed his book and was about to head to the cafeteria when he saw Jian Anxun standing at the doorway, smiling and greeting Shen Shuyi.

However, Shen Shuyi chose to ignore him, walking around Jian Anxun with a cold expression.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Men in love are terrifying,” Li Mo casually draped his arm around Xu Qing’s shoulder, smiling brightly. “But Shen Shuyi doesn’t seem to like him.”

Xu Qing gave a faint glance, uttered an “Oh,” and didn’t seem to care.

“I had to clean the toilet by myself yesterday,” Xu Qing suddenly remembered as they reached the door. Li Mo was suspended and sent home at noon yesterday, but the punishment remained, so he cleaned the washrooms on two floors all by himself during lunch break.

“I’m so sorry about that. I’ll clean by myself today. You can just watch from the side.”

“I was planning to do that anyway.”

In the cafeteria, Xu Qing was serving his food, and Li Mo followed behind him.

Although Li Mo often walked with Xu Qing, this was the first time they sat down to eat together. Previously, Li Mo either went to the convenience store or ate with Tang Dawei and the others, while Xu Qing was always alone.

“Yuck, it’s so salty.” Li Mo tasted the green bean stir-fry with meat. The first bite was so salty it almost made him pull a face.

Xu Qing, who was busy picking out the shredded carrots from his dish and tossing them aside, chuckled: “Is this your first time eating cafeteria food? You’ll get used to it.”

Li Mo stuck out his tongue, noticing Xu Qing constantly picking out food, and casually asked: “You don’t like carrots?”

“No.”

“Being a picky eater is bad. It wastes food.” Saying that, Li Mo raised his chopsticks and picked up a few shredded carrots from Xu Qing’s plate. “I’ll reluctantly help you eliminate them.”

Xu Qing laughed: “Don’t put yourself out, ‘Mr. Handsome’.”

Li Mo shrugged: “Thanks for the compliment. I’m not putting myself out at all.”

Since they had to clean the toilet later, they didn’t eat much. When they arrived at the dorm building, there still weren’t many people around.

Starting from the fourth floor as usual, Li Mo held the mop and cleaned the floor with rare seriousness, at least more seriously than in the past few days.

Xu Qing leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, and lazily raised his eyes: “Are you sure you don’t need my help? You look like you’re struggling to work. Can you manage alone?”

“How can I go back on what I promised? A man can’t say he can’t,” Li Mo replied without raising his head.

After quietly scrubbing the floor for a while, the number of people returning to the dorms gradually increased.

The faucet on the fifth floor still hadn’t been fixed, so everyone was coming to the fourth floor to wash up. The washroom, which was usually not crowded, was now full of people. A bunch of guys were squeezed together; you didn’t need to lift your arm to smell the armpit odor.

“Oh my god…” The clean floor was quickly marked with muddy footprints again. Li Mo simply stood in the corner, leaning on the mop, waiting for the crowd to leave.

“Li Mo?” Bai Sheng, holding his washbasin, was squeezed toward Li Mo. “Still cleaning the toilet? How long do you have to clean?”

Li Mo calculated in his head: “A few more days, I guess? I won’t have to clean during the holiday.”

“Mhm.” Bai Sheng glanced around. Xu Qing was usually here helping to clean, perhaps he was squeezed to the other side. Not seeing the person, he quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

After a few minutes, the crowd thinned out. Bai Sheng walked to the sink and bent down to brush his teeth.

Li Mo looked up and saw Xu Qing still waiting at the door, his eyes slightly narrowed, looking very sleepy.

Hurry up and clean. The sooner I finish, the sooner I can go back to sleep. Li Mo cheered himself up, took the mop, rinsed it by the sink, and cleaned the footprint-covered floor again.

Bai Sheng rinsed his mouth. When he looked up, he saw Xu Qing sleeping at the door. He was startled at first, then saw that Xu Qing didn’t have a mop in his hand, and glanced at Li Mo scrubbing the floor behind him. Anger instantly flooded his head.

“Xu Qing, the corporal punishment was for both of you, wasn’t it?”

Xu Qing lifted his eyelids. Bai Sheng had already walked up to him, his tall figure trapping Xu Qing against the corner of the wall.

“Mhm. Is there a problem?”

“Do you have the nerve to be lazy here?”

Xu Qing simply gave a faint “Oh,” and looked calmly at Bai Sheng: “Are you trying to stand up for Li Mo? Have you fallen in love with him?”

Bai Sheng visibly avoided eye contact, then put on a look of disgust: “Xu Qing, don’t think everyone is as disgusting as you.”

Hearing this, a crack appeared in the usually calm and indifferent Xu Qing’s expression.

His face turned ashen. He abruptly pushed Bai Sheng away, said nothing, and left the washroom on his own.

Li Mo witnessed the entire exchange. He looked at Bai Sheng: “What’s the beef between you and Xu Qing?”

Bai Sheng pursed his lips: “…He likes me.”

Li Mo was stunned: “Huh?”

“We were classmates in junior high. He wanted to be friends with me at the time… then last year he confessed to me, and I felt sick.” This seemed to be a humiliating secret that Bai Sheng found difficult to speak of. He didn’t dare to look up when he said it.

No wonder he has such a huge bias against Xu Qing… Li Mo opened his mouth: “But you can’t call him disgusting. Xu Qing didn’t do anything excessive. Even if you can’t accept it… you can’t trample on Xu Qing’s feelings, right?”

Bai Sheng didn’t speak. He didn’t want to trample on anyone’s feelings, but with Xu Qing’s personality, he was already willing to be friends with him, yet Xu Qing had to go and like him…

He couldn’t accept it. When Xu Qing confessed to him, his ears red, no matter how sincere his eyes or his words were, Bai Sheng only felt disgusted.

But when he met Li Mo in C City, Bai Sheng seemed to feel the same way as Xu Qing, yet this feeling could never be accepted or acknowledged.

The bell for the lunch break rang.

The fourth-floor corridor was empty. Li Mo put the mop back in its original place and walked downstairs without even saying goodbye.

The door to Room 308 was ajar. Li Mo pushed it open. Xu Qing was lying motionless on the bed, his head buried under the blanket, even though he was already sweating profusely from the stuffiness.

“Xu Qing, stop pretending.” Li Mo pulled up a chair and sat down, looking down at Xu Qing on the bed.

Muffled by the blanket, Xu Qing’s voice sounded heavy: “Bai Sheng told you everything, didn’t he? Why are you still looking for me? To confirm it?”

“I’m different from him.”

“How are you different? Can’t you see what kind of person he is?”

Li Mo remained silent. After a moment, he slowly spoke: “I don’t know the full story between you two, but… I respect you.”

“…”

Respect? Since kindergarten, Xu Qing had been looked down upon due to his family background. He didn’t like to talk, and no one wanted to be his friend, so he often huddled in corners, observing everyone from afar.

The reason Xu Qing fell for Bai Sheng was that Bai Sheng was different back then. He didn’t exclude him and was willing to be his friend.

He knew he shouldn’t harbor such feelings, but he just couldn’t let go.

Xu Qing was very stubborn. He often stuck with something until the very end. Before getting a definitive answer, he would never give up.

It wasn’t until Bai Sheng personally said he despised him that Xu Qing suddenly realized that a bird with broken wings could never fly to the sky.

His tone doesn’t sound perfunctory…

Xu Qing pulled off the blanket, his slightly red eyes meeting Li Mo’s incredibly earnest gaze. He was momentarily dazed.

Xu Qing joked: “Should I say thank you?”

Li Mo smiled: “You’re welcome.”

The speed at which Huaying No. 1 High School graded papers was unusually fast. The exams were just over yesterday, and the results were posted this afternoon. The entire grade’s rankings were posted on the first-floor corridor.

Taking advantage of the break between classes, Li Mo followed Tang Dawei downstairs to check the results.

The first place was undoubtedly Xu Qing, who firmly held the top spot with a total score of 698.

Bai Sheng was ten points behind Xu Qing, firmly securing the second place.

“Holy cow, full marks in Math and Biology… What does that even mean?” Li Mo stared at Xu Qing’s scores in a trance. Since he was little, he had never seen anyone in his class or school who could achieve such a high average score.

Tang Dawei: “It means he can get into Tsinghua or Peking University with his eyes closed.”

Top students are terrifying…

With over a thousand students in the grade, the results were posted on several wall panels. Li Mo scanned from the beginning to the end, finally finding his name on the second-to-last results sheet.

“305… Holy cow, I still scored this high even after missing one exam.” Li Mo genuinely admired himself. “I thought I’d be dead last.”

“Hehe… Don’t worry, the person in last place only scored a little over one hundred points,” Tang Dawei scored over four hundred points, putting him in the middle range. “But you seem to be the last one in our class.”

“Oh, never mind then.”

“…”

Li Mo arrived at the classroom just as the class bell rang. He stood at the door and gave the report: “Report, teacher, I accidentally had diarrhea.”

This excuse was completely worn out. Qi Miao shook his head helplessly and sighed: “Hurry up and sit down.”

“Yes, teacher. Thank you, teacher.”

Li Mo quickly ran back to his seat and started talking as soon as he sat down: “Xu Qing, I checked your scores for you. 100 in Chinese, 100 in Math, 100 in English, 100 in Physics, 100 in Chemistry, 100 in Biology. First place in the grade.”

Xu Qing cursed: “Go away, you idiot.”

“Just kidding.” Li Mo casually tore off a piece of paper and wrote down Xu Qing’s actual scores. “Here, first place in the grade is real.”

Xu Qing had already estimated his score but still took the note Li Mo handed him.

“…Students, before we officially start the lesson, I have something to tell you.” Qi Miao picked up the chalk and wrote “Sports Meeting” on the blackboard. “You’ve all finished your exams and seen your scores. Next week will be our school’s grand sports meeting. To ensure you all relax well, the school has specially added more PE classes.”

But a collective groan went up from below.

“Oh my god, I don’t want to have so many of He Zheng’s classes…”

“This is terrible. Coach He will work us to death.”

“Baojuan, Baojuan, my leg—”

Qi Miao clapped his hands, signaling for silence: “Alright, alright. Why are you so unhappy about a few more PE classes? The list of sports meeting events is with the PE representative. Go find Lin Yi after class to learn more and sign up actively for events. The teachers will also give you rewards.”

“I’m not participating. I’m not participating even if I die. I’m already tired just climbing the stairs usually…”

“During the sports meeting last year, Coach He dragged the participants to run every day, running during class, running after class. It hurt just watching.”

“My legs were born to run fast for mealtime, not to run 800 meters…”

Li Mo laughed: “You sound weak. Are you unable to perform?”

Xu Qing coughed: “Don’t forget, you have to sign up for two events.”

Li Mo: “…”

“Oh, right,” Qi Miao pointed at Li Mo. “Li Mo, Coach He specifically told me that I must make the sports-loving student Li Mo in my class sign up for two events. Is Li Mo the only one in our class with that name?”

Tang Dawei answered for him: “Yes, he’s the only one in the whole school named Li.”

“Good. Lin Yi, pay extra attention to that. We’ll continue with the new lesson.”

Li Mo: My pain, your pleasure. (Heartache JPG.)