Chapter 6 - Excuse Me, Can I Rewind?
『 Translator – Divinity 』
The classroom gradually filled up.
The air was filled with chatter.
In the otherwise tedious routine of school life, even something as simple as changing seats was a rare and exciting event.
They were all old classmates who had been together for four years, so a simple greeting should have been enough. Yet, some people insisted on shaking hands, making it seem as if they were establishing diplomatic ties.
In contrast, the area around Zhang Shutong and Gu Qiumian could only be described by the awkward silence.
Both of them were busy packing their schoolbags with their heads down.
Setting aside whatever Gu Qiumian was doing, Zhang Shutong was genuinely occupied. Organizing school materials from eight years ago was a seriously time-consuming task.
The next class was English. A quick glance around the room revealed students placing their English test papers on their desks; they were probably going to review the answers.
He finally got his things in order and found his English test paper. He already felt that he had been dawdling, but when he glanced at his deskmate, she was somehow still organizing her things.
Zhang Shutong smiled helplessly. He figured she didn't want to make conversation with him, but felt that just sitting there silently would be awkward, so she was making herself look busy.
While he could understand her reasoning;
Aren't your arms getting tired?
Taking advantage of the break between classes, he took out the test paper and looked it over.
He had been worried that he wouldn't be able to keep up, that he'd forgotten everything he had ever learned.
But a closer look revealed it to be quite simple. English, of course, was an exception. Geography, his biggest headache, had already had its final exam. He wasn't too concerned about Chinese, since that was a subject based on cumulative knowledge.
As for math... he still remembered the basic concepts of geometry and algebra, but he'd forgotten the problem-solving strategies. Maybe drilling some practice questions would bring it back.
Politics and history were subjects that depended entirely on rote memorization. He used to take meticulous notes, and his teachers would always earnestly say, "Study this hard, you'll definitely need it in the future." In reality, he never used it in the future at all, but it was proving useful now that he had returned to the past.
Besides, he'd always had a good memory. Rote memorization was a piece of cake; it would just require sacrificing some of his free time. His main focus would still need to be math.
With a rough study plan forming in his mind, Zhang Shutong sat quietly in his seat, taking in all the sights of his school days.
As he listened to the chatter around him, it slowly dawned on him what a remarkably strange seat he had chosen through some twist of fate.
With Lu Qinglian in front of him, Gu Qiumian next to him, and himself, all three victims were gathered together.
The feng shui in this spot was truly awful.
If they had a class reunion eight years from now, the class president might say, "Long time no see, everyone! Three people couldn't make it today. Guess who?" though there'd be no prize for guessing correctly... Okay, so he didn't have much of a sense of humor.
Zhang Shutong had grown accustomed to solitude over the years. If he didn't have something to occupy his hands, his mind would easily wander. He imagined that if the class were divided into study groups, their little trio could easily win the banner for "Quietest Group."
They would even take first place in a "no-talking challenge":
Lu Qinglian was quiet by nature and wasn't interacting with her new deskmate at all. He was more or less the same. Gu Qiumian might have been more talkative, but then again, she was sitting next to her sworn enemy.
He was the type who never minded a lull in conversation. He thought it was perfectly nice for people to just prop up their chins and watch the snow fall outside the school building. It might be a bit silly, but it was pleasant. A big reason he liked fishing was that it gave him the chance to space out and get lost in thought.
But while he didn't mind, Gu Qiumian minded a great deal.
He glanced over and saw that she was, incredibly, still busy, her brow furrowed in concentration.
You're going to study a hole right through that schoolbag.
Just as he was thinking this, a cracker from some unidentifiable brand was held out in front of him:
"Here, this is for you. Let me borrow your English test paper later."
Gu Qiumian said with a straight face.
So she really had been searching for something, and after all that time, had embarrassingly failed to find it.
Most people would have said, "Could I borrow your English test paper for a second? I accidentally forgot mine." A polite person would have added a "thank you." But not her.
Zhang Shutong found her request to be very much in the "Young Lady" style—a direct, transactional exchange. He nodded, accepted the cracker, and pushed his English test paper toward the center of the desk.
"Shouldn't the answer to this one be B?" Gu Qiumian asked after studying it for a moment. She didn't look at him, her eyes fixed on the paper in a very stream-of-consciousness manner.
Zhang Shutong glanced over and tapped option A with his finger. He was eating the cracker and couldn't talk.
The cracker was pretty good. Cheese-flavored.
But why was it salty?
Once he'd mostly swallowed, he explained out of habit,
"This question is testing the past progressive tense."
He really had tutored people in English before, online.
Gu Qiumian's merit was that she was never argumentative. When you told her something, she would think it over herself, and nod once she understood. She wasn't like some students who would look up with an innocent face and ask, "But Teacher, why do I feel like it should be this..."
The teacher doesn't know either!
"Any other questions?"
"Nope."
Another pack of crackers was placed in his hand. Gu Qiumian said she didn't like being in anyone's debt. Zhang Shutong asked if he could trade them for a sweet version, saying he wasn't a fan of the savory ones.
"I don't have any," she refused crisply, then added, "Ask again tomorrow."
"That won't be necessary."
"Didn't you sit here for the crackers?" Gu Qiumian's tone was level, but it sounded sarcastic.
How did we get back to this topic?
Zhang Shutong decided to change the subject with a compliment.
"I saw your funny-face drawing," he said, gesturing to the window.
"It's pretty good. You have real artistic talent."
Who knew that she would retort angrily:
"That's a sheep!”
A sheep?
Now it was Zhang Shutong's turn to be stunned.
"A goat or a sheep?"
It doesn't look anything like Pleasant Goat, either.
Gu Qiumian ignored his question completely, gave the window a haphazard wipe, and shot him a fierce glare.
"What's wrong with your eyes? Even my old deskmate could tell what it was."
"Right, right," he said, thinking, my sincerest apologies for breaking you two up.
"How about I switch seats with him?"
"Forget it, he's too annoying." She rolled her eyes. "You're annoying too, but at least you're quieter."
It was as if they had instantly become familiar. Zhang Shutong decided to build on this particular "strength" of his and promptly shut up.
Speaking of which, that old deskmate... his name was Zhou Ziheng, right? The boy with the somewhat dark skin he had seen just a moment ago.
Thinking of this, Zhang Shutong scanned the classroom, only to find the boy staring right at him. The moment their eyes met, the other boy quickly ducked his head.
Zhang Shutong looked away, finding it strange.
A short while later, Du Kang came panting back. The first thing he did upon entering was glance at Lu Qinglian, after which he started desperately making faces at Zhang Shutong.
Too bad our telepathic connection died out years ago, Zhang Shutong thought, I have no clue what you're trying to signal.
Their class had nearly sixty people, and the reseating wasn't finished yet, so the homeroom teacher had Du Kang distribute the milk now.
When he passed by Zhang Shutong, he deliberately slowed down and lowered his voice:
"I'm gonna faint."
Don't faint on me, he thought. Hearing that ancient joke makes me want to faint, too.
Thinking it was about Lu Qinglian's seating arrangement, Zhang Shutong pointed to the empty seat claimed by his jacket to show he'd saved it for him. But to his surprise, Du Kang looked incredibly touched:
"That's more than enough, man. I never thought you'd go this far for me."
What are you on about? I honestly don't get it. Maybe we should just stick to the old jokes.
Then he heard Du Kang ramble on:
"I know I told you I wanted to sit behind Lu Qinglian, but she happened to sit in front of Gu Qiumian, and there's nothing to be done about that, right? You really didn't need to go out of your way to provoke Gu Qiumian for my sake. It's not like you can drive her off, so it still ended up a failure."
"......"
As the guy spoke, he even started spouting idioms:
"But seriously, man, feeding yourself to the tiger like that was just reckless of you, Shutong. As the old saying goes, 'a gentleman does not stand beneath a crumbling wall.' And look, Gu Qiumian is glaring at the both of us right now..."
Having said that, he got spooked and ran off.
"What were you two whispering about?" Sure enough, the Young Lady's voice came from his side. "Gu Qiumian this, Gu Qiumian that," she complained.
"He wanted to sit next to you, but I took the spot, so he came to settle accounts," Zhang Shutong replied calmly.
The explanation was perfectly reasonable. It was a well-known fact that Du Kang liked Lu Qinglian; even his past self had been able to see it.
"Tch.”
In response, Gu Qiumian let out another inscrutable "tch."
Before long, Du Kang trotted over again, holding up a plastic bag with two cartons of milk left in it. He offered one to Zhang Shutong.
"Strawberry."
"I don't want it. You know what to do," Zhang Shutong hinted.
"C'mon, it's just one seat, no need to feel guilty. Strawberry's your favorite."
...It's really not my favorite, he thought. Please, just stop talking. The tigress is already watching me.
He pretended he was about to poke Lu Qinglian with his pen, as if to say, if you give it to me, I'm just going to give it to her. That finally got Du Kang to back down. He shuffled forward a step and stammered for a good while before finally managing to say:
"Er, Classmate Lu... look, there's extra milk today. Do you want some...?"
"No, thank you," came the reply in a clear, cool voice.
And just like that, the boy was at a complete loss. Zhang Shutong felt a surge of anxiety on his behalf.
Quick, come up with an excuse, he thought. Even saying, "The weather's great, have some milk," is better than just standing there in silence.
But Du Kang didn't dare meet Lu Qinglian's eyes. Just then, the homeroom teacher finished assigning seats and clapped his hands like he was herding little chicks.
"Alright, everyone settle down! That's enough chatter."
Du Kang scurried back to his seat, terrified Old Song might call out, "Hey, Du Kang, if there's extra milk, why not give it to me?" That would have been mortifying.
Just then, a girl who wanted to get a drink of water put on a cute, high-pitched voice:
"Aiya, Teacher, you forgot, the bell for class hasn't rung yet."
Song Nanshan revealed a cruel smile:
"You forgot that the next period is my class."
The class immediately erupted in howls of despair.
Starting class during the break was a habit of every teacher, no exceptions, no mercy.
But their homeroom teacher had one good point: he allowed students to drink water during class.
Zhang Shutong never understood where some teachers got all their rules, like not even allowing a cup on the desk. But when it came to Song Nanshan, as long as you weren't eating, you could even drink your milk in class if you felt like it.
Of course, many good students were in the habit of drinking during the break—like Lu Qinglian.
Hearing the teacher's instruction to be seated, she sat with her back perfectly straight, neck stretched gracefully like a swan, and began to diligently review her test paper.
There were also "bad students."
Like Zhang Shutong, who didn't stand on ceremony in front of Song Nanshan and calmly stuck the straw into his carton as if nothing was wrong.
The cracker, of course, was off-limits. There had to be mutual respect. Old Song had just cut him some slack, and since class had officially begun, he wasn't going to abuse his good relationship with the teacher to act special. Even his younger self wouldn't have done something like that.
Another example: Zhang Shutong's deskmate. What can you say, the Young Lady's family was just plain rich. While everyone else had the standard student milk, she pulled a carton of Deluxe Milk from her seemingly bottomless schoolbag and calmly stuck in the straw.
What kind of heretic actually likes to drink plain milk?
But the Young Lady didn't drink it immediately. As if recalling something, she placed her carton of student milk on Zhang Shutong's desk and said nonchalantly:
"Here, for you.”
This has to be another perk of being her deskmate.
Zhang Shutong thought, amused.
Snacks when you're hungry and milk when you're thirsty every day. He finally understood why Gu Qiumian's previous deskmate had been staring daggers at him.
"This one counts as sweet, so now we're even," she added as a specific point of clarification. Only then did she lift her carton of Deluxe Milk, her cheeks puffing out slightly as she drank.
"Thanks, then."
What followed was a pleasant class time.
Their school wasn't advanced enough for multimedia classrooms yet; there was just an overhead projector next to the teacher's desk. You could place a test paper on it to project it onto a screen, though you'd have to draw the curtains when the sunlight was too bright.
Then, Song Nanshan took out his filthy briefcase and, while telling the class,
"Quiet, quiet, review it on your own for a moment," he began rummaging inside for the answer key, occasionally muttering to himself, "Hey, I swear I put it in here..."
Watching this utterly unreliable scene unfold, Zhang Shutong felt a sense of familiarity.
As a child, he never thought of him as a proper adult. He would smoke in front of the students on weekends without a second thought. Because he was trying to quit, his drawer was always full of lollipops, and he would slap one into the hand of any student who was feeling wronged.
He never used their full names, always "Shutong," or "Ruoping," or "Qinglian." And while Zhang Shutong still couldn't define what it meant to be mature, he sincerely believed that Song Nanshan was an outstanding teacher.
But you couldn't have actually lost the answer key, right?
Luckily, after rummaging for ages, Song Nanshan finally dug it out and put it on the projector. Some of the questions had numbers marked next to them, likely a count of how many students had answered incorrectly. You could also see a small, red, oily stain in the bottom-left corner.
Such is the tragedy of a single man.
He understood because he, too, had often worked while eating.
But as soon as Song Nanshan started explaining the material, that unreliable air of his would vanish, and he would become like a commander before a great army, completely confident and in control:
"This question looks tricky, but as long as you pay attention to the tense..."
"And this one here. There's a difficult vocabulary word, but it's okay if you don't understand it. I'll teach you a trick: whenever you see the word 'but' used to show contrast, you can treat everything that came before it as... ahem... as completely irrelevant."
He was truly methodical when reviewing the test—fast, yet detailed. For Zhang Shutong, however, these problems were child's play.
So he didn't follow along with the lecture, instead using the opportunity to mentally redo the test.
There was one other person not paying attention: Lu Qinglian. Her head was lowered, and she was writing something with her pen.
"Now for this one. It's a classic problem; I can hardly be bothered to go over it again. Didn't I emphasize this countless times before the test? I'll explain it one last time." (You could never take a teacher's "one last time" at face value.)
"Oh, right. This problem type was also in this week's homework. Those of you who did it diligently probably noticed. I'll just cover it all at once."
With that, Song Nanshan started digging through his briefcase again. He had just been getting warmed up, but the search started to frustrate him, so he just grabbed the topmost copy from a stack of 5-3 practice books on his desk.
"Forget it, let's just use someone else's for now. I had my annotations all written out, I'll put them on the board later. Everyone pay attention…”
Zhang Shutong had just finished his first carton of milk and was getting ready for the second. He tore the plastic off the straw, put it in his mouth, and watched the whole scene, thoroughly amused.
Familiar formula, familiar flavor, familiar unreliability.
Song Nanshan, still oblivious to his "star pupil's" inner slander, walked back over to the projector. With his back to the class, he flipped open the cover and seemed quite pleased.
"Perfect, it's Shutong's. In a little while, I'll have him come up and explain it."
Zhang Shutong froze.
Although he couldn't remember what the English homework even was, with his level of English, he could have easily gone up and explained it on the spot—and probably in greater detail than the homeroom teacher, at that.
So, explaining the problems was never the issue.
The issue was... why was that 5-3 practice book his?
Just like that, the 5-3 practice book was placed under the projector's lens, like a prisoner, bound and gagged, being led to the guillotine, waiting for the blade to fall.
A sudden chill ran down the back of Zhang Shutong's neck. He had always trusted his intuition. He shot to his feet.
"Wait—"
But it was too late.
The room was quiet. Some students stared intently at the blank projector screen; others whispered amongst themselves.
The teacher, Song Nanshan, was hastily flipping the practice book to the homework page; the boy, Zhang Shutong, had shot to his feet; the girl seated diagonally in front of him, Lu Qinglian, who had been looking down, happened to glance up; his deskmate, Gu Qiumian, startled, was turning to look at him in surprise.
The scene seemed to freeze in place.
And then, under the gaze of the entire class, the image that appeared on the screen was not yesterday's homework, but a piece of scratch paper.
Written on the scratch paper were three names: Zhang Shutong, Lu Qinglian, and Gu Qiumian.
The three names had been connected to form a triangle.
Every single pair of eyes in the room turned to look at Zhang Shutong.
Gu Qiumian's shocked expression seemed frozen on her face, which was now visibly flushing red. She shot him a venomous glare.
"Give it here!"
Without another word, the girl reached out and snatched the unopened carton of milk from him.
Zhang Shutong bit the inside of his cheek. It hurt.
He slowly sank back into his seat, the weightless straw still between his lips. He took an unconscious, sharp breath through it. Only a single thought remained in his mind.
Excuse me, can I rewind?