Ten-Year Loyal Dog’s Road to Chasing Her Wife (GL) - Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Longting has only two seasons: summer and winter, and the transition between them is often separated by just a single rain. The chirping of cicadas can be heard consistently from March or April all the way until October; during this period, for some people, it is always summer.

Of course, for those who divide seasons according to the months on a calendar, it isn’t just summer.

As the time for the assembly drew closer, the number of people on the school paths increased, dressed in brand-new uniforms like flocks of snowy-white lambs.

The school broadcast begins at 6:00 AM every morning, and at 6:30 AM, it starts playing the recording of the previous night’s Xinwen Lianbo (National News). However, because the quality of the broadcast is poor, students usually can’t understand a single word even after a long segment has been spoken. For those who are in the classroom for early self-study, it practically has a hypnotic effect.

Yet, for students whose every day is quite boring, there are still those who stand in the corridors outside the classrooms to listen carefully even to a broadcast like this.

Even if they can’t hear a single word clearly.

Perhaps they are simply enjoying this rare moment of tranquility.

To Qiao Wan, Qiao Mo was like the 6:30 AM news broadcast, like a sunflower at sunrise, and even more like the dim streetlights beside the school paths at night. She was the synonym for “quiet”; with her by her side, for some reason, Qiao Wan felt incredibly relaxed.

She could finally think properly about what she actually wanted.

“Morning.” While passing the tenth-grade bicycle parking area, they saw scattered classmates who had arrived, greeting them with reluctant, sleepy eyes after the long holiday of “finding oneself” had passed.

Their voices sounded so weary that it felt like they would fall asleep the very next second.

“Morning,” Qiao Mo nodded to her. “Your hat is crooked.”

Since that exam before military training, the people in the class were no longer so resistant to Qiao Mo. After all, she was a top student! In a place like Longting No. 1 Middle School, what kind of person is the most precious? A top student.

As long as one is a top student, they are worthy of respect.

“Good morning,” Qiao Wan also greeted her in a generous and appropriate manner.

This earned her a relatively sober and startled look from that person: “Great School Beauty Qiao, you still have the courage to come to school?”

Qiao Wan found it completely baffling: “Why shouldn’t I come?”

The person locked their bike and left immediately as if avoiding something unlucky, leaving behind a sentence: “Go check the school’s Tieba and forums yourself. Anyway, you are now the public enemy of all the girls of course, I’m not included in that; that’s just a bunch of extremely bored people. Be careful in the future, though whether you’re careful or not doesn’t make much difference, they are very bored!”

Consequently, during the subsequent breakfast, Qiao Wan was scrolling through the forums and Tieba, but the more she scrolled, the more expressionless she became.

If it were anyone else, seeing the forums filled with insults directed at themselves, their expression wouldn’t be much better. Qiao Mo didn’t have a phone herself and didn’t know what was written there, but after a long time, Qiao Wan finally put her phone down with a defeated look. When the screen went dark, Qiao Mo knew that the content must be very bad.

She didn’t ask Qiao Wan what exactly was written on the forums and Tieba.

In every school, there are extremely bored people. They come to class and study not to learn, but for the sake of that graduation certificate. During their time at school, they make themselves very comfortable, even if that comfort is actually a form of torture to others.

The legendary “building one’s happiness on the pain of others.”

Qiao Wan drank her soy milk in one go and stared at Qiao Mo’s face across the table for a while, finally deciding to pay and leave now there were only a few seats in the breakfast shop, and it wasn’t good to occupy them for a long time. It wasn’t expensive, either; the first time Qiao Wan came to eat breakfast in this small shop, she was startled by the cheap prices and asked several times:

“How much? Say it again? Only five yuan?”

After all, in her impression, a cup of coffee could sell for twenty or thirty yuan, and that day she had ordered a bowl of tofu pudding and fried dough sticks.

She had scared the shop owner into nearly thinking he had met a crazy person. This little girl is quite pretty, why is she talking nonsense?

After walking quite a distance, Qiao Mo remained silent as usual. This time, Qiao Wan couldn’t help herself: “Don’t you want to ask what I just saw?”

“What you saw is your business; I have no right to interfere.” After a pause to catch her breath, Qiao Mo continued: “However, if you are willing to tell me, I am quite willing to listen.”

“It’s about the circus incident,” Qiao Wan breathed a sigh of relief. As if seeking some comfort, she reached out one hand and hooked it around Qiao Mo’s left arm. Her palm happened to rest on Qiao Mo’s green bracelet; a slight chill traveled from her palm, dispersing some of the anger in her heart. She became much calmer. After organizing her words slightly, Qiao Wan began to tell Qiao Mo what she had seen.

“They heard Yuan Tianci calling my name, so they started speculating that we are together. I said before that I wasn’t interested in Yuan Tianci; now, hearing that we’re together is like slapping my own face.” Qiao Wan smiled with a self-deprecating curl of her lips. Even if she went to explain now, probably not many would believe her. “But in reality, I can’t explain. A few days ago, I heard my dad say that I do indeed have an engagement with Yuan Tianci. Although this thing is unreliable, if it were brought up now, the Yuan family’s reputation really couldn’t take the hit.”

The bigger the family, the more they care about matters of “face.” To them, reputation might be more important than anything else.

Longting No. 1 Middle School is not small, but they didn’t walk slowly and soon reached the assembly point. By this time, the vast majority of people had already lined up. Usually, there are no fixed positions in the line; it’s just a long queue arranged in the order of arrival. If you’re willing, you can go to the front.

Qiao Wan didn’t like standing at the front; she resolutely refused to admit she was short.

It was that same line An Xiaolei had used to tease her: “Me and my final stubbornness.”

The homeroom teacher came over to count heads. When she reached Qiao Wan, her gaze became much more complex. Finally, she voiced her thoughts: “Don’t date in high school, you know? It really affects your studies.”

Her voice was very low; if Qiao Mo hadn’t been very close to Qiao Wan, she wouldn’t have been able to hear it.

“I am not dating. Please do not believe the rumors coming from nowhere, teacher.”

But Qiao Wan’s voice wasn’t low at all, as if she were intentionally saying it for all the people around to hear.

The teacher circled her twice. Perhaps because the expression on Qiao Wan’s face was too perfect and irreproachable, combined with the fact that she herself was just a young female teacher without much experience in dealing with students, she couldn’t find much of a flaw in Qiao Wan’s face. If Qiao Wan were lying on purpose, she actually wouldn’t be able to tell. In the end, she had to drop it: “Fine, fine, take charge of your own life. But I must remind you all of one thing: there will be an exam in December that will be quite strict. At that time, you will have to carefully choose between the Arts and Sciences tracks based on your exam results.”

A commotion broke out among the students.

After a month of being carefree, they had almost forgotten they came to school for the National College Entrance Exam (Gaokao) three years from now. Now that the teacher suddenly mentioned the division of Arts and Sciences, they were instantly startled.

Holy crap, there’s an exam!

Although for high school students, continuous studying and testing should be the proper trajectory of life, they had been “slacking off” like they did last month—even classes were intermittent because of typhoons, let alone the homework affected by the lack of exercise books. Later they went to military training for ten days, where they completely let themselves go—

Calculating with their fingers, they realized they hadn’t studied properly for as long as four months.

Students: “…”

Students: “!!!!!”

Oh my god, I’m going to fail!

The guilt of not studying for a long time welled up in their hearts. The students were suddenly filled with remorse and a sense of crisis; even gossip wasn’t so appealing anymore. After all, to this group of students who “love learning,” studying was their life. What was gossip? People usually call it a boring consumer good.

Spending future money to exchange for a moment of joy.

In this school, where management isn’t very strict but the students’ enthusiasm for learning is decent, the rumors about the School Beauty and School Grass subsided at a visible speed. By the time school was over in the afternoon, almost no one was gossiping about what was going on between those two.

So what if they are a match in talent and beauty, family background, and look like the “Golden Boy and Jade Maiden”? The economic strength of the two families is comparable. Never mind that the two going out together is just like you going out with your neighbor’s older brother; even if they really have an engagement for a political marriage, so what? Even if you really have no chance, so what?

That’s other people’s business.

Even if Qiao Wan doesn’t like Yuan Tianci, it’s not the turn of “losers” like them to be liked.

Thinking this way, the bored boys came to terms with it.

When school finished in the afternoon, the entrance of Class 11 turned back into a large-scale scene for confessing to the School Beauty and School Grass. Of course, a few people also came over to take a look at Qiao Mo; after all, she was the legendary sister of Qiao Rui.

In legend, Qiao Mo had “three heads and six arms” and was omnipotent—in the impression of the eleventh grade, anyone who could tame Qiao Rui so completely must not be a normal person.

Until they saw Qiao Mo.

Under the gentle orange-yellow sunlight, the “ugly” girl was looking seriously at the exercise book in front of her, explaining a problem to the School Beauty, who also lived in legend. Her entire mind was focused on the pen, paper, and exercise book in front of her. With an occasional glance back, everyone saw a gentleness as clear as spring water.

Her smile was like the breeze outside the window gently stroking the treetops, carrying the summer chirping of cicadas to an unknown place.

That place should be fairyland.

The people who came to see the excitement were silent for a while and finally dispersed. Those people living in legends didn’t have three heads or six arms, nor were they much to look at.