Chapter 121: Little Things About Dating ⑤
He felt it was necessary to talk to Nie Qiu and Li Kai.
So after the class he was attending ended, he beckoned to Li Kai and then left with him.
For a moment, the classmates in the classroom began to whisper. Although it wasn’t unusual for the class monitor to go to the classroom office, it was the first class of the afternoon. If there were no special arrangements and no homework to collect, Li Kai shouldn’t have been called to the office!
If one were to be called to the office now, there would only be one possibility: being called in for a talk by the teacher! Previously, when classmates in the class were dating, they were also called to the office for talks.
Over time, everyone knew that when Teacher Yang waved at someone as he left after class, that person was being called in for early romance! Boys were called more often, so there was always a saying among the boys: “Hey, have you ever been called to the office by the teacher?”
It was as if being called to the office by the teacher for a heart-to-heart talk was something glorious. As for girls, they were naturally called much less often. After all, girls were more sensitive, and Teacher Yang himself was a male teacher. It wouldn’t be very appropriate to often call girls to the office, especially with the current news about issues between teachers and students, which could easily lead to negative impacts. Regarding girls, he would rather have their parents educate them than call them to the office to lecture them. Of course, if the situation hadn’t become serious enough to be actual dating, he would try to talk to the girls in public first.
Teacher Yang was somewhat surprised. He hadn’t expected Li Kai to honestly admit that he liked Nie Qiu! To be honest, in his many years as a teacher, whether it was him calling students to the office for early romance issues or other teachers doing so, not a single student had admitted to actually dating, or rather, no one had admitted to liking that person.
Aside from worrying about being lectured by the teacher or having their parents called, such boys and girls actually lacked a lot of responsibility.
What surprised him even more was that Li Kai admitted to liking Nie Qiu and also admitted to confessing to Nie Qiu, but Nie Qiu refused! Yes, refused! He had been young too, and he had experienced the carefree youth of campus life. So he knew that boys like Li Kai were actually the most attractive to girls. He wasn’t bad-looking, had a slightly mischievous demeanor, and came from a good family background. In his opinion, during junior high school, if such a boy confessed, there probably wasn’t a girl in adolescence who could refuse, but… Nie Qiu did.
The reason for the refusal was very simple: she hoped Li Kai’s grades would surpass hers before he said such things to her. To be honest, ever since he heard the news that Li Kai and Nie Qiu were dating, he had been worried about Nie Qiu’s grades declining. But now it seemed… not only would their grades not decline in the future, they might even improve because of it.
He couldn’t help but sigh, Nie Qiu… had truly grown a lot. He couldn’t find any trace of the old Nie Qiu. The old Nie Qiu wasn’t exactly dirty, but she was very introverted, practically invisible. She would just sleep with her head on her desk during class. He also knew that Nie Qiu’s family sold barbecue at the night market, and he had told Nie Qiu’s mom many times not to let her child help at the night market. The main reason Nie Qiu slept in class was to make up for sleep lost from helping at the night market.
And now Nie Qiu? She arrived at school early every day to attend class, patiently explained difficult concepts to her classmates, wore a clean and tidy school uniform, and led the students in the class to make progress together. She even set such a condition when Li Kai confessed to her. He had to say, he… was very pleased.
After Li Kai left, he no longer considered talking to Nie Qiu, because… this had nothing to do with Nie Qiu at all!
Ever since he made a solemn promise to Nie Qiu that he would definitely score better than her on the exam, Li Kai had been putting in his utmost effort every day. If he had only studied diligently during class before, now he carried a book with him whether he was in class or not, either previewing or reviewing, either reading or doing problems.
Nie Qiu saw this and confirmed one thing: Li Kai was serious. He wasn’t playing with her or playing a prank; he genuinely liked her.
She didn’t know why Li Kai liked her, but she knew that generally, first love… wouldn’t last. However… Li Kai’s yearning for love couldn’t help but move Nie Qiu. In junior high, wasn’t such pure love the most beautiful thing?
Gradually, whenever Nie Qiu saw Li Kai, she would unconsciously smile and even proactively ask Li Kai if there was anything he didn’t understand. Although Li Kai was reluctant to admit he didn’t understand things due to pride, occasionally he would bring out problems for Nie Qiu to solve together.
As graduation approached, almost every class had teachers printing exam papers for students to practice, to gain experience for the Senior High School Entrance Examination. Class 10 was no exception. Previously, Nie Qiu had asked Nie Aifang for some money for exam papers, but ended up using the money to buy ingredients for making dumplings.
When the English Teacher walked into the classroom with the exam papers, almost all the students confidently believed they would do well. Li Kai was no exception. After all his hard work recently, he was sure he would do better than last time!
But after receiving the papers, almost everyone was dejected. It was difficult, too difficult! Their foundation was not solid, so even if they worked very hard now, they wouldn’t learn much. Therefore, recently the teachers had been using first-grade books to quickly summarize and explain topics. But if they were given actual Senior High School Entrance Examination papers, how could they possibly do well?
For basic questions, like tenses and vocabulary, they could certainly do multiple-choice questions of that type. However, answering questions based on reading passages was more difficult. Huang Yan, Peng Yu Yang, and Nie Qiu quickly started writing. Huang Yan and Peng Yu Yang were very grateful at that moment for learning a lot in Class 1 previously. Because the book Zhang Qidi had taken out was a collection of essays, understanding compositions was not difficult as long as they remembered the vocabulary. Although there were still many things they didn’t understand, Huang Yan and Peng Yu Yang understood much more compared to other classmates.
Nie Qiu, needless to say, her English was naturally good. Apart from carelessness, she wouldn’t make any mistakes.
During the exam, Li Kai watched Nie Qiu write smoothly while he had to check everything letter by letter, word by word. He felt a sense of setback, but he didn’t want to copy Nie Qiu. For him, this exam was a trial, and the result should be his true score. Although this score might be discouraging, he wouldn’t resort to copying because Nie Qiu was sitting right next to him!
