Kidnapping the Female Teacher's Best Friend - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

After morning reading class on Monday, Mo Zibei took the collected English homework to Lin Xiaoran’s office.

Lin Xiaoran took a sip of hot water from her cup, glanced at the exercise books, and asked: “Is it all here?”

“Three books are missing.” There were forty-seven students in their class, and forty-four books were submitted.

“Mhm.” Every class had a few students who absolutely refused to hand in homework.

Lin Xiaoran said nothing more, pulled out the exercise books, and began grading them.

Mo Zibei continued to stand there, unmoving.

“Something else?” Lin Xiaoran looked up at her.

“Are Teacher Lin and Mu Hanxi classmates?”

Lin Xiaoran stopped writing upon hearing this, leaned back in her chair, and looked up at her: “Mo Zibei, Mu Hanxi is six years older than you.”

Mo Zibei lowered her gaze, her fingers rubbing the edge of the office desk: “Are Teacher Lin and Elder Sister Mu classmates?”

“Yes,” Lin Xiaoran continued to grade homework, a smile on the corner of her lips. “We were college classmates.”

“Oh.”

Lin Xiaoran suddenly seemed to think of something and said: “Hanxi’s English is exceptionally good. She scored near perfect on the Gaokao, and after graduating from university, she studied abroad in England for two years.”

Mo Zibei’s eyes flickered slightly, ripples stirred in her heart. After a long pause, she said in a low voice: “Teacher Lin, I’m going back now.”

Lin Xiaoran hummed, watching her leave while sipping her hot tea, shook her head with a smile, and continued grading homework.

After the first period of Chinese class, the second period was English.

During the break, Mo Zibei picked up her English book and started reading.

Qu Junzhi glanced over, surprised: “Why are you actively reading English? Have you changed your ways?”

Mo Zibei’s attitude toward English was much like her attitude toward math—she couldn’t bring herself to like it.

“My English subject is weak.”

“I know that,” Qu Junzhi blinked, looking confused. “The question is, why are you suddenly willing to study it?”

Mo Zibei didn’t respond, then frowned slightly. She couldn’t understand the reading comprehension, didn’t know many words, and her grammar was poor; her foundation was truly lacking.

Qu Junzhi reached out and covered the text she was looking at: “Why are you ignoring people again?”

“I’m not ignoring people.”

She clearly was ignoring people, and Qu Junzhi felt a bit annoyed by her behavior.

Du Chenxing, returning from outside, glanced at the two of them, walked over, and lowered his voice: “Mo Zibei, Zhou Ruoxin is looking for you. She’s waiting in the corridor.”

“Oh.” Mo Zibei put down her book and stood up.

As soon as she walked over, Zhou Ruoxin handed her a box of yogurt and casually asked: “What’s the next class?”

“English.”

Zhou Ruoxin pursed her lips, wanting to say something, but stopped herself.

“I will listen carefully in class,” Mo Zibei inserted the straw into the yogurt box. “I want to learn English properly now.”

Zhou Ruoxin’s eyes sparkled, and the smile on her face couldn’t be contained: “Really?”

“Mhm.” Mo Zibei also smiled faintly.

“Then remember to ask me what you don’t know,” Zhou Ruoxin was even more excited than her. “I can also help tutor you on weekends if you have time.”

“Okay.” Mo Zibei sipped the yogurt through the straw.

Since class was about to start, they didn’t chat much and each returned to their own classrooms.

Seeing her walk in drinking yogurt, Qu Junzhi felt uncontrollably annoyed again.

During this English class, Mo Zibei listened with exceptional seriousness. Unfortunately, her poor foundation meant she couldn’t keep up.

After English class, they had to go for the big class break run. Every Monday to Friday, all students had to go for the run during the morning recess.

Students were trickling out, but Mo Zibei was still sitting at her desk copying English notes. She had borrowed the notes from Gao Jie. Her deskmates had been stunned for an entire period and were no longer as surprised as the surrounding classmates.

“Mo Zibei,” Du Chenxing reminded her, “It’s time for the run.”

“I know,” Mo Zibei replied while writing. “I’ll go in a moment.”

The discipline committee member was urging people at the front, so Du Chenxing had to follow them out.

“Stop writing,” Qu Junzhi said, trying to snatch her pen. “Everyone is almost gone.”

“Mhm, mhm, I know.” Mo Zibei dodged her grab, wrote one more sentence, and then stopped writing.

“I’ve never seen you this active before,” Qu Junzhi walked side-by-side with her. “What motivated you?”

“Let’s go quickly, we’ll be late soon.” Mo Zibei started to speed up.

“Now you know you’ll be late?” Qu Junzhi grumbled, but quickly kept pace.

Mo Zibei’s height was not short even among the boys. She stood in the back rows during the run, where there were more boys.

“Mo Zibei,” the boy next to her whispered while running, “After the run, don’t leave right away. My buddy needs your help with something.”

Mo Zibei glanced at him but didn’t say anything.

The boy couldn’t figure out what she meant, and turned to ask another boy: “Did she agree or not agree?”

“I don’t know,” the boy who was asked shook his head. “You shouldn’t ask Mo Zibei about this. She’s usually quite cold; she definitely won’t be willing to help with this kind of thing.”

“But she’s deskmates with Qu Junzhi,” the boy lowered his voice. “Wouldn’t it be more convenient to ask her…”

After the run, everyone was sweating heavily. They walked towards the field, wiping sweat, as the next class was P.E.

Qu Junzhi surged through the crowd from the front rows to find Mo Zibei. Her height was 165 cm, so she ran in the front.

“Here you go.” Qu Junzhi took out a tissue and handed it to Mo Zibei.

Mo Zibei took it, wiped her sweat, and continued walking forward.

Qu Junzhi kept pace with Mo Zibei.

“Ding Mingduo seems to be looking at you,” Qu Junzhi glanced at the boy, then turned back and asked, “Does he need something?”

“I don’t know,” Mo Zibei tossed the tissue into the trash can. “He told me during the run that his buddy needed my help, but I ignored him.”

“Mhm,” Qu Junzhi nodded, then asked, “Are you thirsty? Do you want to go buy water?” They hadn’t brought water bottles when they came down.

Mo Zibei looked towards the commissary: “Let’s go.”

At the commissary, Mo Zibei bought a bottle of ice water, and Qu Junzhi wanted room-temperature water. Qu Junzhi kindly reminded her: “It’s not good for girls to drink cold things like this. You should drink less in the future.”

“It’s fine.”

After buying water, the two turned towards the field again.

After class started, the P.E. teacher first gathered everyone, led them through exercises, and then allowed free activity.

“Do you want to play badminton?” Qu Junzhi was following Mo Zibei around aimlessly. She saw girls from their class playing badminton and asked her.

“You want to play?” Before Qu Junzhi transferred, Mo Zibei usually wandered around by herself during P.E. class.

“Mhm.”

“Then let’s go.” Mo Zibei was quite fond of sports. She used to like jogging in the community when she had nothing else to do, but got lazy when the weather got hot.

Qu Junzhi followed behind her, a smile on her lips. She felt that Mo Zibei was actually quite easy to get along with.

The two went to the equipment room to borrow rackets and a shuttlecock, then played a game in the windless empty area.

Qu Junzhi was good at the sport, but her stamina was poor. After playing for fifteen or sixteen minutes, she started struggling.

“Let’s take a break.” Mo Zibei proactively called a stop.

The two sat on a stone step nearby. Qu Junzhi drank several mouthfuls of water.

“You barely look tired,” she looked at Mo Zibei and praised her. “Your fitness is much better than mine.”

“It’s alright.” Mo Zibei also unscrewed the cap and drank water.

While they were chatting, Ding Mingduo approached and stopped in front of them.

“Qu Junzhi,” Ding Mingduo had a hint of a fawning smile on his face. “Someone asked me to give you this letter.”

Qu Junzhi glanced at the exquisite envelope but didn’t take it.

“Qu Junzhi, please take it.” Ding Mingduo brought his hand closer.

“We should go back now.” Qu Junzhi nudged Mo Zibei with her elbow, picked up her racket, and stood up first.

Mo Zibei also stood up.

Ding Mingduo was left standing there, embarrassed and disgraced, like a piece of unwanted dried fish. His expression was one of shame, anger, and resentment, as if he had written the letter and been rejected, finding the situation extremely awkward.

Halfway back, Qu Junzhi suddenly said: “His request for your help earlier was probably about this.”

“Mhm.” Mo Zibei nodded.

“Don’t agree to this kind of thing in the future,” Qu Junzhi stopped walking and continued. “Don’t help them deliver love letters to me.”

“How do you know it’s a love letter?”

Qu Junzhi laughed upon hearing this: “It certainly wouldn’t be someone asking me for help with a math problem.”

Hearing her say that, Mo Zibei also laughed.

Returning to the classroom from the field, Mo Zibei met the English class representative from Class 16 in the corridor.

“Mo Zibei,” the class representative was carrying a stack of exercise books on his chest. “Teacher Lin asked you to go and get your class’s homework.”

“Mhm.” Mo Zibei responded.

When Mo Zibei arrived at the office, Lin Xiaoran wasn’t there. She was about to leave with the homework, but Lin Xiaoran’s phone rang unexpectedly. She glanced at it, and the caller ID showed Hanxi…

Hanxi, Mu Hanxi…

Mo Zibei held the homework, tilted her body and head, looked closely, and silently imprinted the phone number in her mind.

When Lin Xiaoran arrived, she greeted her calmly and then left as if nothing had happened…

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