The weather was still cold, but the gentle sunlight made me feel inexplicably warm.

"Cough cough, it's so cold~," Lin Wanning said with her hands in her pockets, propping up her arms.

Xu Qingfan immediately understood and slipped his hands from behind into her pockets, placing his palms just right and pushing the girl as they walked.

Their childish behavior was clearly not new, and even Xia Xiaoxiao was no longer surprised because Xiao Ruawen was doing the same thing from behind her.

Zhang Yiyi smiled and recorded the funny daily occurrence with her phone.

At last year's photography competition of Apple, their casual snapshots made it to the finals, but unfortunately, they lost to a photo titled "The Mentally Challenged Also Have Their Spring."

"It would be great if we didn't have to do drills during the long break; it's so tiring," Lin Wanning whined, pouting her lips.

"If you don't exercise properly, you'll need to be carried up the mountain again," Xu Qingfan said, poking her forehead with his chin.

"Hehe~ Brother Qing Fan will carry me," Lin Wanning looked up, smiling and making eye contact with him.

Xu Qingfan glared at the girl, then pushed her to hasten their pace towards the school gate.

Just then, the broadcast overhead suddenly stopped, and they sensed that something bad was about to happen.

"Oh oh~ we're going to be late," Xu Qingfan glanced at the time at the guard room; it was almost time for morning study.

As soon as he finished speaking, the next second, four figures had already rushed past them into the school.

"Everyone, run!"

"If you're late, you wash dishes at noon!"

Xu Qingfan and Lin Wanning dumbly watched the others run away, then exchanged a glance.

The next moment.

"Wait up, we haven't got on the bus yet!"

"Wait for us~"

The two maintained their combined mech mode and chased after the others.

...

As expected, all six were late.

When Xu Qingfan and Xiao Ruawen finally returned to the class out of breath, the teacher hadn't arrived yet, which meant they weren't officially late as it wasn't seen.

There weren't many students seriously reading early in the class; half were sleeping, and of the remaining half, a third were eating breakfast—fried rice, buns, soy milk, fried dough sticks...

There were even scents of menthol oil, active oil, and Yunnan Baiyao permeating the closed classroom.

Xu Qingfan, initially unaccustomed when he sat down, slightly opened a window to air it out, but after a few minutes, the smells seemed to have become invisible, fully assimilating with his nose.

"Brother Fan, close the window, it's freezing to death," Wu Shichong said, hugging his chest and shrinking his neck.

The window was directly blowing on him, and in less than a few minutes, his sleepiness was completely blown away by the cold.

Xu Qingfan firmly closed the window, and despite that, perhaps due to a psychological effect, Wu Shichong still trembled with chattering teeth.

He glanced at what Wu Shichong was wearing: a summer uniform, a sweater, and just a thin overcoat on top.

The collar of the school uniform showing over the sweater, topped with an overcoat, would look pretty handsome if he wasn't "shivering."

Unfortunately, he was as skinny as a stick.

"You should learn from Lai Chenglang, who's wrapped himself in maybe seven or eight layers by now, wearing two school coat layers alone," Xu Qingfan shook his head and threw a few remaining heat packs from his drawer to him.

"Hey, thanks Brother Fan," Wu Shichong breathed a sigh of relief, his trembling hands picking up the heat packs.

"Having one layer is just his style, preference for style over warmth, that's how he is," Lai Chenglang didn't feel embarrassed at all though he was wrapped up like a rice dumpling, still as confident as ever.

"Bah! I... am... not... cold," If his teeth hadn't chattered while speaking, everyone might have believed him.

"Pfft..."

The three girls in the group couldn't hold back and burst out laughing.

Making the beauties laugh made Wu Shichong quite happy, filled with a sense of fulfillment.

"Laugh what laugh, I was just pretending, just kidding; I wash with cold water even in winter at home," Wu Shichong straightened his back proudly after the heat pack started working.

But his handsomeness didn't last more than three seconds.

"Don't bother with him, Brother Fan; he's got his eyes on a girl from the next class, trying to look good for a chance encounter with her," Lai Chenglang revealed with relish.

As soon as they heard there was gossip, Xiao Ruawen, Wang Xuan, and Chen Qi all perked up their ears.

"Who, who, is she a good student?" Xiao Ruawen impatiently asked.

In the clear days of their school life, one would only ask about looks and academic performance. Asking about looks wasn't very polite, so she had to ask about performance.

"It's the class president from the class next door, the one with the two braids, you know her."

"This kid, I don't know from where, silently added her on QQ, and had been chatting for almost half a month before he told me."

Lai Chenglang was hitting his own palm, as if he was cursing the heavens for letting this kid get a shot.

"Get lost, what's wrong with me? In our class, apart from Brother Fan who is indeed slightly handsomer than me, I'm definitely the second most handsome!" Wu Shichong slapped him.

"Ow!"

"You've got to be kidding!"

"Cough cough cough."

The two clowns started fighting right there, until Xu Qingfan tactically coughed, and everyone immediately opened their books at random pages, joining the sparse chorus of reading aloud in the classroom.

Guo Youcai probably thought the classroom smelled bad, stood at the door for a few minutes, then opened the front and back doors and went back.

Not long after he left, the student sitting near the door immediately locked it again. As the saying goes, "When the river is warm in spring, the ducks will be the first to know." How could the students sitting close to the door not know whether the classroom was cold?

Xiao Ruawen covered her mouth and nose with a book and continued to gossip: "Hey, how did you guys meet?"

Wu Shichong's urge to share surged instantly. He closed his eyes to savor the moment, and then with his eyes reopened, he whispered, "Wasn't it our group's turn to clean up the week before last? Lai Chenglang this jerk went off to play basketball instead."

"Screw you, I won that fair and square!" Lai Chenglang punched him in dissatisfaction, defending himself.

Wu Shichong ignored him and continued, "Then after I finished mopping and went to the bathroom to dump the water, guess what, when I came back, Guan Xintao was just sitting there all bright and shiny on my seat."

They exchanged glances, confounded but chose to keep listening.

"I asked her what's up, and at first, she was shy when she saw me, explaining that she sat in my spot because the view was particularly beautiful."

"Then she took the initiative to add me on QQ, and just like that, we started chatting."

The word "took the initiative" was heavily emphasized by Wu Shichong.

"Awesome." Xu Qingfan gave a thumbs-up, feeling like he had forgotten something.

"Awesome." Seeing this, the others also gave him a thumbs-up.

"Meh, it's just alright." Wu Shichong pressed down his hand, appearing nonchalant, but internally he was over the moon.

A few minutes passed.

"I don't really see anything great about the view from this angle outside the window." Lai Chenglang muttered quietly, damn, if I'd known that day, I would have intentionally lost at rock-paper-scissors.

"You know nothing!" Wu Shichong was triumphant.

[What exactly had I forgotten?]

Xu Qingfan stared blankly at his Chinese textbook, feeling like he had forgotten something important.

...

The thirty-minute morning reading session passed quickly.

The first class on Monday was the dreaded English class, taught by an aged teacher whose voice, Xu Qingfan didn't even want to say, was almost like a lullaby.

Luckily, Xu Qingfan had the foundation from his previous life's doctoral studies and had always kept up with his rehabilitation exercises, so it didn't matter whether he listened in English class or not.

Just as Xu Qingfan was dozing off, unable to distinguish between the dream and reality, a sharp voice suddenly shattered his sweet dream and the lifeless classroom atmosphere.

"Brother Wanning has sprained her ankle, you need to hurry and carry her to the infirmary!"

Many classmates were shocked awake, including Xu Qingfan.

Before he could even think, the anxious and nearly crying voice of Zhang Yiyi came again: "Wanning, Wanning has sprained her ankle, brother, you need to come quickly!"

Xu Qingfan felt a surge of adrenaline shoot straight to his crown, all traces of sleepiness gone, he bolted out of the classroom.

Soon, neither Xu Qingfan nor Zhang Yiyi could be seen in the hallway anymore.

The farce came quickly and left even quicker; from the appearance of Zhang Yiyi to the departure of Xu Qingfan, it all happened in less than ten seconds.

The English teacher hadn't even recovered when Xiao Ruawen stood up second.

"Teacher, I, I'll go check on Brother Fan, sorry." She bowed slightly and, without waiting for the teacher's permission, quickly ran out as well.

Even now, the English teacher was still bewildered.

"Ahem, there was a minor incident, let's get back to the lesson. Does anyone remember where I had stopped just now?"

"Why did we choose 'boy' for question eight?"

"Right, question eight..."

...