Chapter 43

During break time, Lin ChuSui took out her phone and looked at the voting interface on the school's official website forum.

At present, Qiao Danqi's article "My Life Enlightenment - Overcoming Myself" ranked first with over six hundred students voting for her.

Ranking second was Xu JiaNing. He was able to jump directly from ninth to second place, entirely relying on his high popularity in school.

Almost all the votes for him were from girls who were his fans.

While Lin ChuSui's article was ranked last with only ten or so votes and likes - Lu TianBai, Lu Chi, Zhang ChengYu...

The voting was real-name based with one vote per person. After voting, you could see the names.

Just as Lin ChuSui was checking one by one to see who Xiao Yan had voted for, she suddenly heard the students around her start to tease:

"Yo~~~"

"Coming to find the study god?"

"Tsk tsk tsk."

Curiously, Lin ChuSui looked up to see Qiao Danqi walking to the corridor window and stopping there.

Xiao Yan happened to be sitting by the window. He was being forced by Xu JiaNing to read the so-called "Dream of the Red Chamber" research, completely unaware that Qiao Danqi was standing by the window.

"Xiao Yan, hello."

Xiao Yan's gaze slowly moved away from his phone and looked at Qiao Danqi. Seeing her unfamiliar face, he said: "Tutoring sessions are suspended nearing finals."

"I didn't come to find you for tutoring." Qiao Danqi was very composed. Unlike most girls, she wasn't shy at all. She introduced herself to Xiao Yan: "I'm Qiao Danqi from Class 1 Senior Year 3."

"Oh."

His gaze returned to his phone again. Seemingly slow on the uptake, he left Qiao Danqi hanging for over twenty seconds before asking: "So what's your relationship with Qiao Dan?"

Qiao Danqi: ......

The boys around laughed out loud.

Qiao Danqi looked at the chuckling strangers around her, took a deep breath, and said: "Xiao Yan, I actually wanted to come and ask you some questions about studying."

"I've stopped working due to final exam preparations. Don't want to repeat myself a third time." Xiao Yan casually said, "I'm not taking tutoring sessions now."

"Ah, no, I didn't come to find you for tutoring." Qiao Danqi quickly explained, "Just some study questions I wanted to ask you."

Xiao Yan's expression darkened. "You want to freeload off me?"

"Ah."

She didn't expect the top student of the grade, Xiao Yan, to say something like this. It was a bit different from the study god she had imagined...

Qiao Danqi, who had been very confident earlier, now had a flushed face.

Lin ChuSui still felt a little unhappy inside, but listening to their conversation, she finally understood why those girls who had tried to confess to him had left crying.

Xiao Yan's thought process was really...not quite the same as normal people's.

Qiao Danqi didn't intend to continue beating around the bush with Xiao Yan either. She directly said, "Did you read my essay, 'My Life Enlightenment - Overcoming Myself'?"

"Oh, it was you."

Seeing that Xiao Yan finally reacted, Qiao Danqi's embarrassment eased up a little, and her confidence returned. Clearing her throat, she said, "I don't know if you noticed, but the person I wrote about in my essay..."

"You wrote about me."

Having her secret exposed so directly, Qiao Danqi's face grew even redder.

But she kept her cool. She firmly nodded: "Yes! Actually...I deliberated for a long time before expressing it this way, but every word I said was true."

Lin ChuSui observed Xiao Yan's expression, feeling a little apprehensive inside.

Xiao Yan seemed a little moved. He put down his phone and asked, "You were being truthful?"

Qiao Danqi nodded repeatedly: "Mm!"

Finally, Xiao Yan stood up and faced her directly.

Seeing his grand gesture, Qiao Danqi's heart raced wildly: "Xiao Yan..."

Xiao Yan looked at her and raised his chin arrogantly. His eyes were as cold as frost: "Are you publicly declaring war on me?"

"Ah!" Qiao Danqi jumped in fright: "This...I..."

Xiao Yan looked at her coldly: "So your essay was an open declaration of war on me. You want to take away my position as grade’s top student?"

Everyone fell down!

Lin ChuSui laughed so hard she almost slapped the table.

She didn't want your top student position, she wanted you!

Qiao Danqi was dumbfounded.

"Others have tried to challenge me in the past, but they ended up dying terribly." Xiao Yan glanced back at Xu JiaNing: "Not only did they not get first place, they fell to third place."

Xu JiaNing instantly felt like he had been shot in the knee. Flipping his desk angrily, he yelled, "What’s that got to do with me!"

Qiao Danqi was at a complete loss for words. With her essay, she thought she and Xiao Yan had established a soulmate-like relationship that was already well-known throughout the school.

But now with Xiao Yan's words, he had shattered their "scandal" -

What soulmates! Their thought processes were separated by tens of thousands of miles!

Qiao Danqi left with a red face, furious.

Xiao Yan yawned lazily, seeming a little weary and listless. He sat back down and continued calmly reading articles. Feeling Lin ChuSui's dark eyes fixed intently on him, he lazily raised his gaze -

"You want to challenge me too?"

"Don't dare!"

Lin ChuSui immediately fawned over him, massaging his arm: "Even with ten times the guts, I wouldn't dare challenge your supreme status, Study God." Xiao Yan primly withdrew his arm: "Speak some more nice words."

Looking at him, Lin ChuSui couldn't help a brilliant smile emerging: "Study God, wishing you longevity and good fortune for thousands of years, unifying the martial world."

Xiao Yan also smiled. Very impolitely, he reached out and pinched her creamy cheek, squeezing her into a hideous expression: "Get into the grade's top 100. Study God will help you unify the martial world."

"Okay."

Lin ChuSui also reached out to pinch Xiao Yan's cheek, but he dodged it.

"Don't touch me."

"You can touch me but I can't touch you?"

"Mm."

"I'm still going to touch you!"

Behind them, Lu Chi looked at their back and forth face-touching and expressed that he was tired of life -

"Should I go bring the civil affairs bureau over for you two?"

The online voting for the essay contest officially kicked off. Xu JiaNing's ranking skyrocketed, going straight to no.1.

Meanwhile, the popularity of Qiao Danqi's essay plummeted due to Xiao Yan's merciless "You're declaring war on me," dropping down to second place.

When students went to reread her essay, the earlier vague beautiful halo was gone. Instead, they felt she seemed a bit...self-deluded.

Lu Chi and the others were still only concerned about Lin ChuSui's essay -

"ChuBro, your essay isn't good."

He poked the front row Lin ChuSui with his pen: "It's been so long but there are still only four of us who have liked it."

"You, Lu Little Sis, Zhang ChengYu? Who else?"

"And me." Xu JiaNing didn't even lift his head while doing homework, calmly saying, "A courtesy vote from your dear brother. Take it, no need to thank me."

Lin ChuSui turned around, resting her elbows on his desk: "You'll vote for me? I thought you'd vote for yourself."

"I did vote for myself initially. But now it looks like I don't need to." Xu JiaNing arrogantly said, "My classmates have good taste. They won't let such a pearl be covered in dust."

Lin ChuSui rolled her eyes: "Oh, so impressive."

Xiao Yan put down his pen after finishing his homework. He silently took out his phone and opened Lin ChuSui's essay.

Unlike Xu JiaNing's clickbait title, her essay was called "What Kind of Person Do I Want to Become," a very simple and exam-oriented essay.

"What kind of person do I want to become? I look up at the sky, the vast expanse dotted with twinkling stars. That person who could give me the answer has already become one of those stars. But he definitely wasn't the brightest one. My past self looked and looked, but could never find him. I lost my direction."

"Later, someone told me that it's a blessing if you can grow up with someone by your side in this world. But if not, you have to learn to grow up alone."

"There are still many sights to see on life's journey. Perhaps I should pluck up my courage and go take a look at those sights. Dad would want me to do that too."

"Now, just like Dad, I also have someone I want to protect. I will work hard to make myself stronger, to be able to protect him."

...

The corners of Xiao Yan's mouth twitched.

The essay had a tinge of youthful sadness, but the emotions were very sincere.

As Xiao Yan read the essay, he knew Lin Xiuze must also be reading it.

Little Miss Lin ChuSui finally let go. She tried to say goodbye to her past self through this essay. So even though there were few readers and most of the votes were from relatives and friends, Lin ChuSui didn't care at all.

She would get better and better.

Xiao Yan casually voted for her, bringing the vote count to 5.

The next morning when Lin ChuSui woke up, she saw over thirty circle messages for her in the [South City No.1 Middle School Belle Group]—

Lu Chi: "Chuchu Chuchu Chuchu! @Lin ChuSui"

Lu Chi: "Wake up, you've taken off!! @Lin ChuSui!"

Lu Chi: "Awesome! @Lin ChuSui"

Lin ChuSui: "What's wrong with you?"

Lu Chi immediately sent her a screenshot: "Your essay has taken off!"

Lin ChuSui clicked open the screenshot he sent. Sure enough, her essay had jumped from 10th place directly to 2nd place, just behind Xu Jia Ning's, knocking Qiao Danqi down.

"Huh?"

How could this be?

Zhang Cheng Yu sent her a screenshot, circling Xiao Yan's vote and comment in bright red bold—

"Good essay! Worth reading!"

Under this comment, there were already over a hundred reply comments—

"Haha, if you don't look at the name, this perfunctory comment makes it seem like the author bought water army supporters."

"Isn't the point that the aloof genius actually praised someone for once?"

"This must be a friendly vote, she's the genius's personal disciple who doesn't have to pay tuition fees."

"I smell a whiff of ambiguous feelings."

"Wow, a teacher-student romance, I'm kinda interested in shipping this, isn't it more fragrant than some pseudo spiritual soulmate?"

Lu TianBai: "I refuse to make associations! Focus on the content! Focus on the content! Focus on the content!"

"Are you secretly in love with the genius above?"

...

[South City No.1 Middle School Belle Group]

Lu TianBai: "Sis, could you... not use my account to argue with the comments qaq."

Lin ChuSui: "It's so boring la, few of the people who voted for me actually read my essay."

Lu Chi: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. If Xiao genius hadn't voted, commented and reposted for you, could your essay have taken off?"

Lin ChuSui: "He reposted it too?"

Lu Chi: "Yeah, reposted it to KouKou Space."

Lin ChuSui: "He has a KouKou Space too?" Xiao Yan: "What, you don't think a genius deserves to have a KouKou Space?"

Lin ChuSui: "Thank you genius for the vote, comment and repost support! Love you! [Heart]"

...

After exiting the group, Lin ChuSui immediately went to visit Xiao Yan's KouKou Space. She had always felt someone like Xiao Yan would limit social activities to the physical world, she didn't expect him to not only have a Space but for it to be wildly popular, with hundreds of visits every day.

There wasn't much content in his Space. The latest post was from a year and a half ago, the content was: "Bangs look good, or buzzcut? [Confused]"

Under that year-old post, there were already thousands of comments, all screaming in unison: "Bangs! Bangs! Genius with bangs is smoking hot!"

Then he buzzed his hair short.

He had reposted three blogs, all from two years ago. One was "Use Scientific Methods to Help You Fall Asleep Quickly", another was "Salute to the Great Firefighting Heroes".

The third one was him reposting Lin ChuSui's essay.

She felt somewhat honored to occupy a spot in such an indirectly monotonous KouKou Space.

...

Thanks to the genius's vote/comment/repost support, Lin ChuSui's essay slowly gained popularity.

Her writing was actually quite mediocre. Compared to the top ten flowery, exaggerated beautifully written essays, she deserved to be at the bottom.

Even so, an essay selected by the teacher into the top ten wouldn't be too bad.

Her writing style was simple, but very sincere, quite touching to read carefully, so quite a few classmates sincerely voted for Lin ChuSui.

Seeing the trend was off, Xu Jia Ning canceled her vote for Lin ChuSui an hour before voting ended, and voted for herself again.

Later, the top three essays were sent by the school for another round of review by the Writing Society.

Xu Jia Ning was very confident her essay would get first place.

She didn't expect the review results to come out with Lin ChuSui as first place.

The Writing Society teacher really liked Lin ChuSui's essay, and even recommended it to a local literary magazine for publication.

This brought great acclaim to Lin ChuSui at school.

Old Qin, who had always looked down on her, now inevitably looked at her with new eyes, and even specially invited her to the office to encourage her.

In the past, every time Lin ChuSui stepped into the office, it was to get scolded and criticized. This time when she went in, she was somewhat nervous.

When Old Qin saw her come in, he smiled and waved his hand. She reflexively dodged to the side, afraid Old Qin would hit her.

"Lin ChuSui, don't be so scared."

"Sorry Teacher Qin, it was... a reflex."

Old Qin brought a stool for Lin ChuSui and let her sit down, even pouring her a cup of water.

Lin ChuSui was so honored she didn't know what to do with her hands.

Only the top few students in the grade got to enjoy Teacher Qin's personal water-pouring service in the office.

Lin ChuSui quickly stood up and said, "Teacher Qin, I'll just stand and talk, you doing this... makes me uncomfortable."

Old Qin's expression was gentle as he grumbled, "Good for nothing."

"Yes, yes." Lin ChuSui had a silly smile.

Just then, Xiao Yan walked into the office and politely said, "Teacher, you asked me to come help organize the end of term archives."

"I called you twice before and you didn't show up. Now you're so eager to come?" Old Qin said irritably: "I know what you're up to. If you didn't come, what do you think I'd do, eat her up?"

Xiao Yan glanced at Lin ChuSui but didn't say anything, and familiarly started helping the homeroom teacher organize the student roster.

"Teacher Qin, did you ask me here for something?" Lin ChuSui asked apprehensively.

"Little Lin, I read your essay, and heard from some classmates about your father's situation."

Old Qin guiltily said: "As your homeroom teacher I didn't even know about this, I really failed in my duties. I also wasn't very good to you before, and said some excessive things..."

"Pshh." Lin ChuSui waved her hand, blushing a little.

She had never blamed Old Qin. Although she was unruly, she still knew right from wrong.

Old Qin had scolded and yelled at her in the past out of frustration that she wasn't improving. Otherwise with her terrible grades, an irresponsible homeroom teacher would have just let her be long ago.

"Little Lin, actually I've always felt you're very smart, you just don't apply your mind to studying. If you focused your mind on the right things, what couldn't you learn well? Just look at this essay contest, didn't you get first place! And won honor for our school."

Lin ChuSui hadn't heard praise from a teacher in a long time, she grinned from ear to ear, waving her hand: "It's not that great, but Teacher Qin, I've always deeply respected you. You're a great teacher."

"Hahaha, nonsense, I just have a little more experience than the average teacher."

"And I just have a slightly better memory than the average student!"

Seeing the two chatting more and more happily, Xiao Yan figured since Lin ChuSui wasn't getting scolded, he could relax. He said, "Teacher Qin, the materials are organized, I'll get going first."

"Okay."

Seeing Xiao Yan leave, Lin ChuSui also bid farewell, but Old Qin called her to stop: "Wait, Lin. I asked you here because I hope you can set a goal for yourself."

"A goal?"

Old Qin nodded: "Since your father has passed, as your homeroom teacher, I'll be like a father from now on. I didn't fulfill my duties to you before, but now I've decided to make up for lost time."

"Oh..."

Lin ChuSui had a very bad feeling!

"Set a goal for yourself. For the final exams, try to reach that goal. I'll supervise you."

Lin ChuSui scratched her ear and glanced back at Xiao Yan, meeting his bright dark eyes right on.

She remembered the bet she lost to Xiao Yan before. The stake was... the top 100 in the grade.

At that moment, Xiao Yan looked at her with a kind of almost loving expression, encouraging her to set this goal.

Lin ChuSui sighed and said with determination, "Then I'll set a goal of... being in the top 100 of the grade. Once I achieve that, I'll aim for Peking University."

"Good!" Teacher Qin slapped the table: "Promising! As expected of my student!"

Lin ChuSui was startled by him: "Don't get so excited, I might not be able to complete it..."

"Since you've made this pledge yourself, you have to strive to fulfill it."

Teacher Qin patted her slender shoulders: "If you can't complete it, next semester, I think you shouldn't sit next to Xiao Yan anymore. Let him partner with a student who needs more help."

Before Lin ChuSui could react, Xiao Yan tripped and fell on his way out the door.