My Desk Mate is My Fiancée - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Getting Close to Her Will Bring Unluckiness…

The monthly exam scores were posted on the announcement board outside the senior high building.

Everyone had already privately learned their subject scores, but the school-wide ranking came out a little later. Zhong Xiu pushed her way through the crowd with her backpack to check the rankings.

When Zhai Yong walked past earlier without saying a word, Zhong Xiu estimated that Lin Xi had secured the first place easily. Still, it was best to confirm; otherwise, she would feel unsettled.

Although Lin Xi had come for the exam this time, she was a newly presented Alpha. She had grown quite a bit taller, and hadn’t fully caught up on nutrition. Zhong Xiu worried that her brain might not be at its peak.

Finally squeezing to the front of the honor roll, Zhong Xiu looked up. Sure enough, the first line, marked in red, was the name of classmate Lin Xi.

Following were two, three, four, five, and then sixth place was Zhai Yong, second in the class.

Old Tang’s bonus was safe.

Zhong Xiu then looked for her own name. She had done poorly in Chinese this time, so she didn’t have much hope, starting from the bottom of the list to find her name and checking her Chinese score.

Hey, it seems pretty good, not as bad as she thought. Five hundred and twenty-first place, an improvement of one spot from last time.

“If your Comprehensive Science score was even slightly better, you wouldn’t be in the 500s, you know that? The total score is 300. Who are you showing this one-hundred-plus score to? Tell me, are you trying to infuriate me?”

Old Tang’s voice echoed from the math office, scaring away the birds on the nearby tree.

It must be noted here that Old Tang actually had a good temper. He rarely spoke so harshly to students unless they were particularly mischievous. But Zhong Xiu was different. Old Tang was frustrated by her underachievement, and since she was his niece, he didn’t mince words.

After two years, Zhong Xiu knew his routine: as long as she let it go in one ear and out the other, didn’t argue or resist, and recited the Chu Shi Biao internally, the matter would pass.

Besides, the bonus was secured. Did he really think she hadn’t seen him beaming while boasting to other teachers just now?

A new young math teacher came over specifically to ask what was wrong with Zhong Xiu, as the obedient Beta girl didn’t look like a student who caused trouble.

“My niece,” Old Tang glared at Zhong Xiu with a look of disgust. “She scored 140 in Chinese, but only 9 points in Physics!”

“140 in Chinese—in ancient times, that would make her at least a Tanhua (third place in the imperial exam)! A blessing on the ancestral grave! I mean, Old Tang, and you’re still scolding her?” The teacher who had been working with Old Tang for over ten years clearly understood his routine. He just wanted to show off, so he deliberately flattered him.

“Exactly,” the young teacher didn’t understand, but he knew scoring 140 in Chinese was difficult. He looked at Zhong Xiu with surprise. “The college entrance exam seems to have a ranking for single subjects. With such good Chinese scores, she shouldn’t have to worry.”

“But there are professional restrictions,” Old Tang sighed helplessly. “Forget it. I arranged for the top student in the school to sit next to you, and I haven’t seen you absorb any of her influence.”

Zhong Xiu had just finished reciting the Chu Shi Biao. If he didn’t stop soon, she would start the Chen Qing Biao.

Just when she thought she was free, Old Tang dragged her out into the corridor again.

“For this seating adjustment, are you still sitting with Lin Xi?”

“Mhm,” Zhong Xiu found it strange. Zhai Yong hadn’t gotten first place, and Old Tang usually wouldn’t specifically ask her, as she didn’t have much choice and could only be chosen by others.

“Alright,” he folded the score sheet and put it into his jacket pocket.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing much, but according to the rotation, the student who was supposed to sit in the row in front of you applied to me. They said they didn’t want to sit there. I asked several students, and none of them were willing to sit there.”

Now Zhong Xiu understood. “Didn’t want to sit in the row in front of them” translated to “didn’t want to sit with Lin Xi.”

Old Tang didn’t know much about the students’ affairs, so Zhong Xiu could only ask for news in the Little Tigers chat group.

You Tian immediately sent her a link to the forum.

The most popular sticky thread had a dramatic, clichéd title: [Getting Close to Her Will Bring Unluckiness]. Zhong Xiu already guessed who “her” referred to and clicked to see the details.

It started by discussing the car accident involving Lin Xi’s parents, which clearly referred to the incident that happened that day in the cafeteria, and the dates matched up.

However, the post was initially questioned by many people. Car accidents weren’t uncommon, and the traffic conditions were bad due to heavy rain on Lin Xi’s birthday.

The turning point occurred on the night of the monthly exam—the night the Alphas and Betas in Science Class 1 almost got into a fight. The few Alphas who defended Lin Xi were all currently on leave.

One Alpha said that when he crossed the road that night, even though the light was green, he was hit in the calf by a turning motorcycle.

The post included a picture, showing a bruised leg that almost required a cast.

—That’s too unlucky. I didn’t think in this direction at first, but then student Li also messaged me, saying his dad was inexplicably fired yesterday. He said his dad slapped him for not doing well on the exam, and it ruptured his left eardrum.

—Another student got acute gastroenteritis poisoning from the small food stall where we usually eat. How is it such a coincidence that it’s only us few?

As the thread continued, fewer people questioned it. Eventually, hardly anyone stood by Lin Xi, and most held a neutral attitude.

Saving the images, Zhong Xiu frowned slightly. Could it really be such a coincidence that several people ended up in the hospital at the same time?

But there were indeed diagnostic certificates from the hospital posted, otherwise, Old Tang wouldn’t have approved their leave.

Was Lin Yucheng behind this? It’s too obvious.

There was a strange atmosphere in the classroom. Lin Xi could feel it as soon as she walked in. The student erasing the blackboard backed away several steps when he saw her, and the classmates who had been talking together in the aisle immediately scattered as she passed.

This strange feeling only stopped when she returned to her seat. Zhong Xiu was diligently organizing her exam papers, no different from usual.

The bell rang. The Physics teacher walked in with a pile of answer sheets tucked under his arm and slammed the stack onto the podium with a smack, making Zhong Xiu jump.

If Chinese class was her heaven, then Physics class was undeniably her nightmare.

“This time in Physics, some people still scored single digits. If you had just filled in random A, B, C, or D, you wouldn’t have gotten single digits, right?” As he spoke, his gaze was fixed on Zhong Xiu’s direction.

The eyes of the other students also turned. Zhong Xiu’s poor Physics score was well-known, but this time, no one laughed because Lin Xi was also sitting there.

The academic representative had a score sheet, and even without it, Lin Xi already knew Zhong Xiu had done poorly this time. On the individual subject score sheet, besides her own score, the overall Physics grades in the class were low this time, with a large number of failing grades. Clearly, this monthly exam was particularly difficult.

It wasn’t necessarily true that randomly choosing A, B, C, or D would guarantee a score over ten. All the answers to the multiple-choice questions in this exam were somehow among A, B, and D, which was unfair to students who chose C for everything.

“If your Physics isn’t good, don’t choose the science track. I said in the first class that science isn’t suitable for Betas, especially certain Beta girls. If you choose my Physics, you won’t have an easy time, and neither will I. Why make it difficult for each other?”

Zhong Xiu rested her head in her hand and looked out the window. Everyone understood some truths, but they were difficult to put into practice. She didn’t want to hate a subject because of a teacher, but every time she opened her Physics book, she would recall the Physics teacher’s words, instantly losing the desire to study.

“Students with single-digit scores, stand up and listen to the lecture consciously. From now on, you will stand during my Physics class.” He had upward-slanting eyebrows, and when he spoke, his brows seemed to be inverted, making him look particularly fierce. He didn’t have to speak loudly to silence the entire class.

The students didn’t dare breathe loudly. It was rumored that his class, Science Class 5, where he was the homeroom teacher, was uniformly Alpha, with only one Beta boy remaining; all other Betas had transferred to other classes.

That surviving Beta boy, rumored to be his son, was scolded daily.

Zhong Xiu slowly picked up her test paper and stood up.

Actually, Zhong Xiu wasn’t the only one with poor Physics scores in Science Class 1. There was another Alpha whose Physics wasn’t very good. Lin Xi had tracked the scores down with a red pen on the score sheet, but that Alpha scored… 10 points this time, a double-digit score.

Lin Xi had helped her analyze the Physics section of the comprehensive science paper this morning. Excluding the big questions on electromagnetism, which few people could attempt, Lin Xi had quizzed Zhong Xiu on Universal Gravitation the day before the exam. Although Zhong Xiu didn’t answer any of the multiple-choice questions correctly, she filled in almost all the blanks for the Universal Gravitation experimental question, with an accuracy rate of 90%.

If the Physics teacher had seriously looked at Zhong Xiu’s test paper, it shouldn’t have been difficult to notice this.