Chapter 9: High School
Nie Qiu walked towards the seat in Group 4, Row 5, as Nie Aifang had instructed. Nie Qiu herself noticed that as soon as she entered the classroom, it immediately fell silent, followed by a wave of whispering.
She reached Group 4, Row 5, and saw two boys sitting there. One had dyed yellow hair with streaks of blue, shimmering with the unrestrained spirit of their age under the bright fluorescent lights. He had a nose ring, an earring, and a lip ring, all very colorful. Although he wore a school uniform, it was cut with many holes. The other boy had pure black hair and wore his school uniform conventionally. However, the eyeliner drawn on his upturned eyebrows and the tattoo on his collarbone created a sense of conflict with his otherwise good student appearance.
“Nie Qiu?” the boy with black hair asked, looking surprised. “I didn’t expect you to dare come to school? Didn’t I tell you not to come back to school?”
“Is the school run by your family?” Nie Qiu smiled. If she remembered correctly, A City High School was a public school, wasn’t it? “Besides… I am a student of this school and have the obligation and right to sit here and study.”
The black-haired boy raised an eyebrow and nudged the stunned yellow-haired boy. “Luo Xu, you go back to your seat first.” He found it rather strange; how could this woman, who usually walked with her head down, lift her head now and even dare to talk back to him.
The yellow-haired boy named Luo Xu glanced at Nie Qiu, his eyes full of scorn. “If your family is poor, don’t come to school and disgust people.”
Nie Qiu didn’t even look at the yellow-haired boy. She simply took out a handkerchief and meticulously wiped the chair the boy had been sitting on. Then, she took out a wet tissue and thoroughly cleaned the desk, inside and out, before throwing the used wet tissue into the trash can behind them.
The people in the class finally stopped whispering and looked at Nie Qiu with surprise. One girl with large wavy curls stood up and walked to Nie Qiu’s desk. “Oh, oh, oh! Look, come and see, how clean Nie Qiu is.”
Nie Qiu didn’t look at the girl either. Before coming to this school, she had anticipated such a scene. After showering, she had looked in the mirror at her appearance. This girl wasn’t particularly attractive; in fact, she could easily get lost in a crowd. Her skin was a bit dark, like a country girl who had been exposed to the sun for a long time. Moreover, this girl wasn’t particularly clean and seemed quite introverted, so being ostracized was understandable. No one likes someone who isn’t clean, not even herself.
If she had met a girl with such an uncheerful and unhygienic personality when she was in middle school, she wouldn’t have approached her either. After all… she wasn’t a saint, and she didn’t have that much extra sympathy to spare.
So, all she could do was to try her best to ignore the scornful and discouraging words, pretending they weren’t directed at her. Seeing that the desk and chair she had wiped with wet tissues were dry, she placed her schoolbag on it, sat down, and took out her books from her schoolbag.
There were nine subjects in the third year of junior high: Chinese, Mathematics, English, Physics, Chemistry, History, Politics, Biology, and Geography. Her schoolbag contained exactly nine books and three homework books. They appeared unused but were somewhat dirty.
Nie Qiu shook her head helplessly and took out the homework books as well. Regardless, she had to study. She believed that if she performed well in the next monthly exam, she could apply to change classes. This was not a class she belonged in or wanted to be in.
