The Fake Girlfriend is Online - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: As Expected of Scholar Qing

After the incident where the two of them ended up in the South District police station together, Qing Moran’s attitude toward Mu Jinxuan changed considerably. To say her attitude became “better” wouldn’t be quite right; after all, Qing Moran’s original public image was already gentle and considerate. However, since then, Mu Jinxuan felt that Qing Moran was being much more “real” in front of her.

“Deskie, let me copy your English homework.” In the morning, Mu Jinxuan rushed into the classroom and reached out to ask Qing Moran for her homework the moment she sat down.

“Didn’t do it again?” Qing Moran said with a look of disdain.

“Sigh, I’ve been too busy lately, no time for homework.” Mu Jinxuan rummaged through her drawer to find the assignment from yesterday; she hadn’t even brought the work home.

“Heh, you just didn’t bring it back at all, didn’t you, kid?” Despite her words of disgust, she honestly pulled her notebook out of her bag and handed it over.

“Xiao Qing,” Mu Jinxuan said earnestly, “you should call me Sister.”

Qing Moran instantly snatched her English notebook back, glared at her fiercely, and turned to hand it over to Li Jingjing, who was coming around to collect the English homework.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Mu Jinxuan, who was busy fumbling for a pen, watched helplessly as the homework within her reach flew away.

“Sister Xuan, you are already a mature high school student; you must learn to do your homework by yourself.” Qing Moran flashed an extremely brilliant smile at Mu Jinxuan. Li Jingjing, standing behind them, was also amused; she felt that the relationship between the School Bully and Scholar Qing was getting better and better.

“Don’t think that just because you’re Xiao Qing I won’t dare do anything to you,” Mu Jinxuan said, feigning a vicious look.

“Jingjing, let me take a look at your English, will you?” Since she couldn’t copy from her scholar deskie, there was still the English class representative standing behind her.

“No way, Boss Mu, please spare me. Don’t you know? Li Yulan and Li Fei gave a dead-set order: if anyone lets you copy their homework and gets caught, that person has to copy the assignment fifty times. I wouldn’t dare.” As she spoke, Li Jingjing backed away, terrified that Mu Jinxuan would insist on copying her work.

Hearing this, Mu Jinxuan frowned. She really hadn’t known that Li Yulan had pulled this stunt; she was truly picking a fight with her. But did her deskie, who had just tried to lend her the homework, know about this news?

“Deskie, did you know about this?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Whoa, you knew and you still let me copy it? Truly a friend who has faced life and death with me.” Hearing Qing Moran’s affirmative answer, Mu Jinxuan’s smile turned radiant. She raised her arm, intending to drape it over her deskie’s shoulder.

“Don’t give me a reason to hit you,” Qing Moran said in a low voice, shifting her body slightly to avoid Mu Jinxuan’s arm.

“Hey, we have the friendship of going to the station together, at least. Don’t be so heartless.” The arm that failed to reach the shoulder didn’t feel awkward; she moved it up to brush against the tips of Qing Moran’s shoulder-length hair and smiled.

Mu Jinxuan could feel that her deskie’s attitude toward her was no longer as hypocritical as when they first met. In front of her, she would occasionally get grumpy or blurt out some profanity. Mu Jinxuan suddenly felt that she was different from the “flamboyant b*tches” outside.

“A friendly reminder: the first period is English.” After Qing Moran finished speaking, she watched as Mu Jinxuan remained—expectedly—unfazed.

“Hmm…” Mu Jinxuan flipped through yesterday’s assignment and found there were five reading passages, one cloze test, and an essay. Geez, is this homework for a tenth grader?

Qing Moran watched her deskie frown as she prepared to cram her English homework. She smiled gloatingly and pulled her phone out of her drawer to scroll through messages.

Ring, ring, ring! The school bell rang just as the English teacher stepped into the classroom.

Entering the room, the English teacher placed a stack of test papers on the podium. The students below craned their necks; even if they couldn’t see their own papers, they wanted to see the score on the top sheet.

“Alright, pull your necks back. Li Jingjing, distribute the papers after class. This period we will review yesterday’s homework. Correct your previous test papers first, and we’ll go over them later.” The Class 1 English teacher was a new teacher who had just started working at the school. She was under thirty and looked like a university student. Her temper was naturally good, but she had a teaching habit from who-knows-where that made all her students want to cry.

She would call on people to summarize the main idea of the articles.

The English teacher flipped through the workbook to yesterday’s assignment and said, “Is everyone ready? Here we go.”

As a fresh teacher, she was full of enthusiasm and her tone was extremely gentle, but the students sitting below desperately hoped she wouldn’t call on them—especially those who had copied their homework.

“What was the first passage about?” Mu Jinxuan had only just finished the first paragraph of the first passage. Unfortunately, this was a narrative piece, so reading the first paragraph wasn’t very helpful.

“Call me Sister and I’ll tell you,” Qing Moran whispered, raising an eyebrow.

“Xiao Qing, tell me the summary, and I’ll let you be the sister.”

Before Qing Moran could roll her eyes, the English teacher couldn’t take it anymore: “Mu Jinxuan, what are you doing? Come, share with us what you’re talking about that’s making you smile so happily.”

Called by name, Mu Jinxuan stood up, secretly pinching her deskie’s arm. She felt like every time she did something with her, she ended up in trouble.

“Sister Xiao Qing said she feels this article has no difficulty and is very simple,” Mu Jinxuan said as she stood up, still using the name “Sister Xiao Qing.” The classmates were all dumbfounded; they didn’t expect the School Bully to be so nice to her deskie that they were calling each other sisters. Meanwhile, sitting next to her, Qing Moran reached out and stomped hard on her foot.

“Oh? Qing Moran? Qing Moran is indeed very capable. Her score was very high on the last exam. It’s impressive that her English hasn’t dropped after missing two months of school. In that case, why don’t you tell us what the first passage was about?” The English teacher looked at her with a smile, ignoring the fact that there was no logical connection between the sentences.

Originally, hearing the first half of the sentence, everyone thought the teacher would definitely call on Qing Moran to answer. They didn’t expect this move; she really didn’t play by the rules.

Mu Jinxuan looked at the article pretentiously and began to speak.

“Joan is a celebrity. She grew up in China, but she is very famous in both China and the United States.” After summarizing the first paragraph, Mu Jinxuan stopped.

Hearing her summary, the English teacher and the class, who were waiting for the rest of the story, turned to stare at her. They waited a moment before realizing she was truly finished.

“And then? What about her story?” the English teacher asked patiently.

“The story follows should be very exciting, but I only read the first paragraph.” Facing the extremely gentle English teacher, Mu Jinxuan couldn’t bring herself to say anything irritating and looked at her apologetically.

As everyone knew, the English teacher was the one Mu Jinxuan treated with special consideration—unlike the way she was prickly toward Li Yulan or casual with Li Fei.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t do the English homework?”

“Yeah.” Mu Jinxuan admitted without hesitation.

“Alright then, come to my office after class to make up the homework. Now, Qing Moran, tell everyone about this story.”

Qing Moran, who was called up, smoothly explained the entire story and finished answering the subsequent questions.

“Good, both of you sit down. Perhaps you all feel this is just an English assignment and it’s no big deal. But as you saw just now, Qing Moran’s understanding of the article was very accurate, and she could smoothly provide the answers for the questions. I only want to emphasize one thing to you: language intuition,” the English teacher said, pausing for a moment.

“If your intuition is good, you’ll naturally do the questions very quickly—sometimes you don’t even know why the answer comes out. English is different from other subjects; I only require you to read at least half an hour of English every day.” After that, she began to explain the first reading passage.

During the minute or two it took for Qing Moran to summarize the idea, Mu Jinxuan had scanned through the article. Indeed, this piece was somewhat difficult with quite a few new words. It would be understandable for someone who had checked a dictionary, but she had seen her deskie’s workbook earlier—other than the answers, it was completely clean.

The English class finally ended, and those who hadn’t done their homework finally let their hearts settle back into their chests.

“Mu Jinxuan, remember to come to my office during the long break. Everyone, remember to correct your test papers. I will conduct a spot check on the corrections next time. Alright, class dismissed.” With that, the English teacher hugged her textbook and left.

As soon as class was over, many in the classroom slumped down, burying their heads in their arms to steal a ten-minute nap.

“Man, finally class is over. My heart was about to give out during that English lesson.” As soon as class dismissed, Hu Hai felt a sense of relief.

“Fat-head, if you finished your homework, you wouldn’t be so scared,” Mu Jinxuan turned around to tease him.

“Pfft, Boss Mu, do you think I’m like you? I did it, okay? But for all the questions I did, I had no idea what they were talking about. It’s completely a case of the words knowing me, but me not knowing the words,” Hu Hai said miserably.

“Haha, Fat-head, you’re the best. Your homework is done with such ‘caliber’.” Mu Jinxuan gave Hu Hai a thumb-up, unreservedly mocking this English slacker, only to be met with Hu Hai’s tragic complaints.

Li Jingjing walked over to them, flipped through the pile of papers to find theirs, and joined the group mocking Hu Hai: “Fat-head, your English really is… hard to describe. You can score over ninety in physics and math, but your English score is just those numbers reversed. Is it because you’re like Boss Mu and have a grievance against the English teacher?”

“Oh boy, my life is just too hard.” Hu Hai took the English paper Li Jingjing handed him and looked at the score, but was unexpectedly surprised.

The surrounding people were all amused by Hu Hai, and Mu Jinxuan even feigned a few words of comfort.

“It’s okay, Fat-head. You’re only in tenth grade; there are still three years until the college entrance exam. You still have time, don’t give up.” Mu Jinxuan reached out and patted his shoulder.

“Hey!” Li Jingjing exclaimed while holding a paper. “I was wondering how Fat-head’s English could be that high. Moran truly deserves that top entrance score; she’s amazing.”

Li Jingjing handed the test paper to Qing Moran with a sincere sigh of admiration.

Mu Jinxuan leaned over to look at her deskie’s paper. On a hundred-point scale, she scored ninety-five. How well must that essay have been written?

“Holy crap!” Hu Hai suddenly shouted. “I actually scored eighty?!”

The previously depressed Hu Hai was suddenly beaming with joy, making everyone around laugh.

“No way, this is the first time I’ve scored this high! Sister Qing, from now on, you’re my big sister.” Hu Hai stood up from his seat and excitedly grabbed Qing Moran’s hand, looking like he was about to deliver an acceptance speech.

Having her hand suddenly grabbed, Qing Moran instinctively wanted to twist and pin his hand, but she was suddenly struck by the humor and burst out laughing.