A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 012 – Alleviate

Canned: Do You Have a Shortage of Beatings?

It was early morning, the smell of food emanated throughout the classroom,
The study rep, after correcting the last two math questions, wrinkled his nose and sniffed everywhere, “Which shameless bastard sneaked in fried chicken? Are you trying to stop us from studying in peace? Gao Tianyang was it you!”

Gao Tianyang smirked, and flaunted an entire box of fried chicken that he dug out from his desk. “Hungry? Want to eat it? Exchange it with your English practice paper.”
“Fuck!” There was a chorus of cursing, “I almost forgot that there’s still English!”
“Quick quick quick, some kind soul help me!”

Yesterday, the English teacher Yang Jing left them three practice papers for homework, a total of 150 multiple choice questions. Most people fell asleep before they could finish it, and this morning they end up wailing because of that.

“I just knew that the few of you definitely did not do it,” Gao Tianyang turned around while hugging the box. “I also know that our Mr Handsome over here is so damn good in English, he definitely finished everything, therefore I even prepared my bribery.”

As he clamoured, he turned around and instead saw the sight of Sheng Wang lying on the table. The sleeves that were usually rolled to the elbow were let down, and were snuggly hugging his wrist instead.
A good half of the class was scampering all over the place for homework, only he alone was asleep.

“Eh?” Gao Tianyang hovered around Sheng Wang with the box of chicken in his arms, “Broski? Morning class hasn’t begun yet and you are already sleepy broski, can you sleep after you save lives?”
Sheng Wang remained sprawled across the table. He used only a hand to feel around the inside of his desk, and later dug out three practice papers and smacked it onto the desk.

“Thank you for your gracious help.” Gao Tianyang settled the box of fried chicken on his desk, “This is my breakfast that I am offering up to you, do you want a taste?” Sheng Wang said stuffily, “I’m too full.”

“What’s up with you? Why do you sound so stuffy?” Gao Tianyang copied Old Wu’s accent, and said slowly in a dramatic voice, “Could it be that you’re crying?” Not only did he not stop at that, he even poked Sheng Wang with an Orchid Finger.
Sheng Wang silently looked up, and stared at him expressionlessly, “Your grandma’s the one crying.”

Gao Tianyang kept his mischievous finger the moment Sheng Wang lifted his head, “What the fuck? You look terrible, are you sick?”
“A little, I think. I forgot that I lowered the temperature for the air condition last night.”
“You still say a little with the way you are now?” Gao Tianyang said, completely done. “Your face screams that you’re sick right now, do you want to get some medicine from the sick bay?”
“Where’s the sick bay?” Sheng Wang asked.

There were many people in the classroom, and the air condition was usually strong. He was already feeling unwell when he left the house in the morning, lying down here worsened it. His lazy voice was getting hoarser.

Gao Tianyang said, “There’s a hill by the school’s west gate, climb up the stairs and the sick bay is right there.”
Sheng Wang said, “Where’s west?”
“……”

Gao Tianyang scratched his ears, and in that exact moment he saw someone pass by, and casually grabbed, “Tian-ge, where’s west?”
It was business as usual whenever Jiang Tian got called to the office before class started in the morning, there were always plenty of teachers looking for him, everyone was used to it. He placed the stack of papers he brought back from the office on the study rep’s desk, turned around and asked Gao Tianyang, “What’s where’s west?”

Sheng Wang eyed him, and his gaze accidentally met with Jiang Tian’s downcasted eyes.
Maybe they were still affected by the incident in the morning. They both broke eye contact the moment they met.

Gao Tianyang was completely unaware of minor details like this, and was still talking to Jiang Tian, “The west as in north south east west, I was just saying to Sheng Wang to go to the west gate, and yet he asked me where’s west, and now I’m lost too.”

Sheng Wang did not look up again, and kept his eyes down, all tired and sickly. It is difficult for anyone to be in high spirits if they are unwell, it was particularly obvious when it came to him.
Thunder rolled outside the classroom, the sky was pitch black. The lights were switched on, Jiang Tian’s shadow was casted onto his table, a cloud of overlapping dark gray.

“The west is at—’ Gao Tianyang arm’s reached out and attempted to point in that direction.
Before he could find the correct position, Sheng Wang heard Jiang Tian say, “The gate where Xi Le is.”
His volume when he talked was usually not high, it was low and rumbly, with a little croak left over from changing his voice during puberty. His voice descended upon him.
Sheng Wang let out an ‘oh’, and nodded to show that he understood.

It was Gao Tianyang who instead was slow on the uptake, “What’s Xi Le?”
A few seconds later, he abruptly realised, “Ah, I remember now. Yes, the convenience store by the school’s west gate is called Xi Le, I don’t usually go there. Only for PE class then I’ll buy a couple of bottles of water there, it’s closer to the parade square. You know that place?”
It looked like Sheng Wang fell asleep again, he only responded a few seconds later, “I ate there before.”

“How come I never knew that we can eat there?” Gao Tianyang as the PE rep was usually stupidly fast when it came to running. Even though he always grumbled about the year one monsters taking up the canteen, he was able to fight for food right from the tiger’s jaws, and had never felt the pain of being forced to go to the convenience store.
“Mm,” Sheng Wang responded.

With this, even someone who’s bad at noticing things like Gao Tianyang realised that something was wrong.
While Sheng Wang did not look up, Gao Tianyang made use of that opportunity to point at him, and mouth exaggeratedly at Jiang Tian: He looks like he’s in a bad mood, don’t know which fucking idiot pissed him off.

After he said so, he discovered that Jiang Tian did not intend to gesture back at him at all, he only looked at him with a poker face.
Gao Tianyang continued to ‘speak’ exaggeratedly: Why do you look so grumpy too? Were my gestures too ugly?

Before Jiang Tian could respond, he suddenly had a revelation: Could it be…your fault?
He’s screwed, he called Jiang Tian a fucking idiot.
A myriad of emotions came over Gao Tianyang’s face, he eyed Jiang Tian’s expression, and tested the waters: Was it really because of you?

With Gao Tianyang’s understanding of Jiang Tian, he would definitely nod if he was the one behind it, if it wasn’t him he would certainly say “that has nothing to do with me”.
But this time, he only watched Sheng Wang, with not a single sound coming out of him.

What the hell!
Gao Tianyang muttered, and did not dare to blabber anymore.

He poked at Sheng Wang who was giving in to sleep again, “You already know where’s the west gate, maybe you should go to the sick bay when you’re free later?”
“It’s too far, I’m not going.” Sheng Wang sniffed, the feeling of having his nose clogged up made him frown in irritation.

He flipped up the collars of the uniform, grabbed at the lapels, and zipped all the way up.
The lapels of the Fuzhong school uniform was navy blue, when it was completely lifted up it covered the lower half of his face, below his nose. The contrast made his skin look pale.
As he bit at the top of the zip, he dragged his sleeves and went back to resting on the table, and said, muffled, “Wake me up when it’s class.”

And the two bastards Gao Tianyang and Jiang Tian did not wake him up for class.

The first two periods were English, and they would be going through the 150 practice questions from last night. The English teacher, Yang Jing, was already tall enough, she even liked to walk on ‘stilts’. The moment she stood on the platform with her high heels, she would get a good view of every action made by all 40 plus people in class.

She caught view of Sheng Wang with a single look, her index finger knocked on the desk, “What’s going on? The student lying down, you think that you can get away just because of your high score in English?”
Upon hearing that, all the students looked over.
Gao Tianyang raised his hand under the feeling of countless gazes, Yang Jing gave him a head nod, “Speak.”
“He’s sick,” Gao Tianyang explained.
“Oh,” Yang Jing nodded, “sure then, let him lie. When he’s awake, please inform him to come see me for a chat during noon break.”
Gao Tianyang: “……”

What kind of cruel joke was it to chat with Yang Jing? When that woman got angry, even the principal was scared of her.
The weekly test the week before last week, the broadcast system spoiled during listening comprehension for English, and wasted 20 minutes of the students’ time. The vice principal and Big Mouth Xu was in charge of patrolling around for year twos. The two middle aged men managed to get yelled at by Yang Jing in the corridor for ten minutes straight, and did not manage to get a single word in. They even started sweating as a consequence, and had to borrow tissues from the class monitor in Class A who was next to the windows.

Gao Tianyang regretted, “Then I should probably still wake him up.”
Yang Jing raised an eyebrow, “You dare?”
Gao Tianyang shrunk into his uniform, “Nevermind.”

Jing-jie’s temper was always unpredictable, Class A had a both love and hate relationship with her, nobody dared to piss her off.
Yang Jing reached her hand out to a boy sitting in the first row, “Here, pass me your paper.”

That boy’s name was Qi Jiahao, he was the English rep for Class A. He was super concerned about his ‘face’, he had a build of a giant, and from body type alone he should not be in the first row. Yet, his vision was really too poor, after a month of badgering the homeroom teacher, he finally badgered his way to the first row.
Yang Jing never liked to use the example answers when going through papers, she would take the paper from the rep every single time. Class A students were already used to it.

To Qi Jiahao, having his paper commandeered by Yang Jing was an extremely thrilling thing. On one hand, all his mistakes would be directly exposed to her, and she had no qualm when it came to scolding him, but on the other hand, he felt as if he was receiving special treatment, and could not help but feel a little proud.

Qi Jiahao presented his script, after a glance however Yang Jing changed her mind again, “Nevermind, I’ll spare you for today, I’ll get a different person to commandeer instead.”

Everyone tensed up, and all lowered their heads, terrified that Jing-jie would spot them in the sea of people.
Everytime this lady reached a difficult question that people usually got wrong, she always dragged Qi Jiahao in public, and just Qi Jiahao alone wasn’t enough. She would call on everyone one by one to get them to explain the grammatical concepts and train of thought behind the question, if they could not say it they would have to stand. There were more than 40 people in class, there could be more than 30 all standing up at one point, who wouldn’t be scared?

She looked up, her gaze circled Sheng Wang twice, and finally landed on the person sitting behind him, “Jiang Tian.”
Everyone first let out a sigh of relief, and then looked over in unison.

Jiang Tian was still wearing that expression of his, he was not nervous at all. Just as he took the papers on his desk and was about to stand up, Yang Jing suddenly said, “Hand me the paper of the person sitting in front of you to me.”
Jiang Tian shot a glance at Sheng Wang’s head, “The practice is inside his desk, he’s in the way.”
Yang Jing said, “Oh, then just dig it out.”
“……”

Jiang Tian did not come out of the student affairs’ office, he did not have the ability to search through other people’s desks. He felt a little headache coming on as he looked at the unconscious person in front of him. He propped his arms against his desk.

He took a look at Yang Jing, walked to Sheng Wang’s side and reached into the desk.
Sheng Wang ‘s uniform looked like he filled it up completely, but in actuality, it was all empty at the edges. When Jiang Tian’s arms brushed past the fabric, a partially formed thought materialised in his mind—
This person was really a little thin.

He managed to find the three practices inside the desk, and just as he was about to retreat, someone suddenly caught hold of his wrist.
The person once lying on the table moved a bit, and raised his head from the crook of his right elbow. His fringe was slightly messy from being pressed on, his eyes were half opened, a pale crescent of light was reflected in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Sheng Wang asked, his sleepy and hoarse voice was tinged with the annoyance from being woken up.

Jiang Tian’s finger curled a little.
He shot a glance at Yang Jing, who was standing on the platform, and said in a low voice, “Class started.”
After he spoke, he withdrew his hand, straightened up, and passed the practices to Yang Jing.

Sheng Wang buried his head for three seconds, and suddenly bolted up. He covered his face and leaned against the table behind, and mumbled, “For how long?”
Jiang Tian’s voice came from behind, even when it was lowered it could not change the frosty quality to it, “40 minutes.”
Sheng Wang was the image of confusion, “???”

Only until Yang Jing waved his paper, “The rep would usually get four to five questions wrong for this kind of practice paper, let’s see if student Sheng Wang could match that standard or not.”
Qi Jiahao casted a glance at him.
Yang Jing said, “Ok, let’s look at the first question.”
Sheng Wang took a while to digest it, and finally understood this meant that lesson just started.

He pulled a long face as he sat for a while, and dug out the phone inside his desk. He pulled up Jiang Tian’s WeChat, and sent him 50 eye rolls.
Canned: Do You have a shortage of beatings???

TO BE CONTINUED.