The School Prince is a Girl - Chapter 12

Once Bai Xi finished communicating with 002, she noticed Yu Mo staring at her. Feeling a bit confused, she asked, “What is it?”

“You were spacey just now. What were you thinking about?” Yu Mo’s face was expressionless and appeared quite serious. In reality, he was more shocked than anything else. When he realized Bai Xi was spacing out and ignoring him, he had felt a tiny, almost imperceptible spark of anger and resentment.

No one would ever truly understand how profound and impactful such a tiny emotional fluctuation was for someone with an emotional deficit. It was like a terminally ill patient seeing a sliver of hope for a cure.

Unaware of what the male lead was thinking, Bai Xi nodded honestly. “Just thinking about a few things. I feel like I can get a bit more pocket money on my end, so don’t worry about funds for now. As for people… if you think about why the big families are so desperate to shove their elite heirs into this school, haven’t the ‘treasures’ already been delivered right to our side?”

“That’s true in theory, but don’t forget our current situation,” Yu Mo reminded her. “I don’t even have the chance to contact my classmates privately. My family won’t allow me to have any personal connections; you should be aware of that.”

Looking at his situation—two years of high school without a single friend and being constantly restricted and monitored—if he and Bai Xi were to start building a faction with such fanfare, they’d be dragged back to their families in minutes. Even just being close to Bai Xi was dangerous.

A sudden flash of inspiration hit Bai Xi. She tapped her fingers on the desk, rested her chin on her crossed hands, and looked up at Yu Mo sideways.

“I have an idea. I’ll pretend to pursue you relentlessly, and you’ll act like you can’t stand me. We’ll stir the school into a muddy mess. While everyone is distracted by the chaos and the flood of conflicting rumors coming out of Nanluo, you can fish in troubled waters. Who will know what’s real and what’s fake?”

It was perfect. Bai Xi wanted to praise her own wit—a masterstroke that killed multiple birds with one stone. She could satisfy the Plane Management Bureau, develop her own secret resources, and recruit the “Chosen One” male lead as an ally. Even if her identity was eventually exposed, she believed she could fly far away without paying the price for the “original” plot’s actions.

Yu Mo had no objections. He looked down at Bai Xi, who was lying on the desk looking up at him. “But… won’t that cause trouble for you?”

Oh, he’s making progress. Bai Xi looked at the male lead, surprised he was actually worried about her. She reached out and patted his shoulder. “Trust me, it’s fine.”

“Bai Xi! Yu Mo! Both of you, stand up! You’ve been whispering for the whole lesson—are you quite finished?”

This time, Bai Xi wasn’t lucky enough to have the gentle English teacher or the Art teacher lost in his own world. Instead, she had run into the “boss” of the class: the Physics teacher and Form Teacher, Old Liu.

As a physics teacher in his late thirties, Old Liu’s greatest achievement was the fact that he wasn’t bald yet. That thick head of black hair was his pride among the middle-aged male faculty. Right now, however, that hair was practically standing on end from the frustration Bai Xi and Yu Mo were causing him.

Having escaped him for a day and a half due to her minimal class time, Bai Xi had finally fallen into the clutches of the law on the afternoon of the second day of school.

“I can see that neither of you plans on listening to the lecture. Come on then, go stand at the very back of the room. That way you won’t block the other students’ view from the front row.” Seeing the two of them stand up looking dazed, Old Liu waved them off casually, completely indifferent to whose family “young masters” he was punishing.

For the first time in her two lives, a teacher was treating her like an ordinary student. Bai Xi was momentarily unable to adjust. Seeing the male lead already expertly packing his textbooks, she realized this was the Form Teacher’s usual routine. Resigned to her fate, she grabbed her book and followed Yu Mo to the back of the class to serve their punishment.

Seeing them standing obediently in the back, Old Liu tapped the blackboard. “What are you looking at? Look at the board! Have you figured out how to solve this problem yet?”

Watching a group of little young masters and princesses—who usually wouldn’t give anyone a second glance outside—now bowing their heads in concentrated calculation while Old Liu roared and insulted them from the podium, Bai Xi felt a sudden sense of reality.

This felt like the real school life others described, rather than the one she had grown up with, which was filled with nothing but flattery and sycophancy. She remembered that in her previous life’s middle school, the school had established a class just for her. A dozen teachers revolved around her alone; even if she got a question wrong, the teachers would only smile tentatively and point it out with extreme caution, glancing nervously at the dozen bodyguards her grandfather had stationed nearby.

“Bai Xi! You’re already standing in the back and you still dare to space out! Get up here and solve this problem. If you can’t, you can expect to stand there all afternoon!”

Old Liu’s roar shattered her memories. Glancing at Yu Mo, who shrugged helplessly, Bai Xi shoved her textbook into his hands and walked toward the podium.

Outside the window, Ye Ying had just been tasked with delivering test papers to the fourth floor. She nearly dropped the papers when she heard Old Liu’s roar. Curious, she looked into the window of Senior Class International Two. She saw the “Young Master” Bai—who had been so invincible and arrogant on the playground—now standing dejectedly in the back, dragging his feet toward the podium. Her lips curled up into a subconscious smile.

Sharply sensing Ye Ying’s gaze, Bai Xi looked out the window as she walked and caught the lingering smile in Ye Ying’s eyes. Bai Xi glared at her and gave her a small “you just wait” look. Ye Ying simply raised an eyebrow dismissively and walked out of view.

“Oh? Moving slowly and still finding time to ogle a girl? You seem quite leisurely,” Old Liu said, having caught the interaction between Bai Xi and Ye Ying perfectly. Once Ye Ying was gone, Old Liu rolled up his sleeves and gave Bai Xi an unfriendly grin. Just as Bai Xi was about to say something, Old Liu’s expression shifted into something fierce. “Solve every single problem on this blackboard. We aren’t dismissing until you’re finished!”

Bai Xi: …

“No way, Teacher! There are only twenty minutes left and these are four major problems. How could Bai Xi finish?”

“Old Liu, your excuses for staying late are getting more and more creative!”

“Bai Xi, just give up. You can’t finish anyway. At worst, we’ll just help you stand back there all afternoon!”

The class erupted in wails. Old Liu smiled triumphantly. “If Student Bai Xi listens to your ‘brilliant’ ideas and chooses to give up, then the whole class will stand in the back this afternoon while I explain these four problems. We’ll dismiss when I’m done talking.”

“No! Go, Bai Xi! We can’t let Old Liu explain—he takes twenty minutes for just one problem!”

“We’re counting on you, Bai Xi!”

Bai Xi picked up the chalk. Looking at the scene of the teacher and students bantering together, she suddenly wanted to laugh. This is how a teacher-student relationship should be, she thought. Both sides could be relaxed. She had to admit, she was starting to like this school.

Settling her mind, Bai Xi began to focus on the problems. Old Liu wandered around the classroom, checking to see if anyone else was struggling and offering explanations. Of course, the process involved his signature style—the sound of him slamming his hand on desks echoing over the chatter.

“This was taught in the first year! Did you eat your brain for lunch? You forgot the laws of physics and got the conversion wrong! If you could get the right answer with this, Newton would climb out of his coffin to slap you!”

“Galileo never said that! What, did you dig him up to hear it from him yourself?!”

“Which god-forsaken teacher taught you this method? Have you completely abandoned the Law of Conservation of Energy?!”

Amidst the roars, Bai Xi finished reading the four problems. Though she had been a rebellious youth, her grades had always been top-tier. The International Class at Nanluo used foreign languages for their exams—one question might be in English, the next in French—to cultivate the students’ linguistic abilities.

The logic behind the questions also differed from standard exams, which took Bai Xi a moment to process. Once she understood the patterns, however, it wasn’t difficult.

The chalk left a rapid trail across the board. Bai Xi wrote quickly and clearly, using the most concise methods possible.

At the exact second the bell rang, Bai Xi finished the final stroke. She let out a sigh of relief. “Teacher, I’m done. Can we dismiss?”

Old Liu, arms crossed, stood in the back next to Yu Mo. He squinted through his 3.0-diopter glasses at the board full of answers and grinned. “Fine. Another Yu Mo has appeared! Alright, you’re lucky. Don’t erase the board yet—the next period is also Physics, and I’ll be using these for the lecture. Dismissed!”

Amidst a wave of cheers, Old Liu gave Bai Xi an appreciative look and swayed his way out the back door.

Having shared the “trauma” of being punished by Old Liu, the students of International Class Two suddenly felt that Young Master Bai was becoming more “down-to-earth.” Holy cow, we’ve all been punished by Old Liu together now. What’s the difference between us?

“Wow, Bai Xi, you’re amazing! Which school were you at before? Do you really know how to do all these?”

Now that the ice was broken, students who had previously kept their distance began to approach boldly.

“Like attracts like! I knew Yu Mo’s desk-mate couldn’t be ordinary. Great Scholar Bai, please bless this lowly one so I can survive the weekly exam!”

“Move aside, let me worship too. May the two Great Scholars protect me; I can’t be in the bottom ten again.”

“I’m making a big wish: May the two Great Gods protect our class so we can crush those losers in Class One. Did you see their smug faces the last time they barely beat us? We absolutely cannot let them overtake us this time!”

Looking at the circle of classmates bowing and pressing their hands together as if they were offering incense to two deities, Bai Xi and Yu Mo exchanged a look. They hadn’t expected this “accidental harvest.”

With this, the problem of building connections didn’t even need to be solved—the solution had delivered itself right to their door.