A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 019 – Delicious

Canned: It’s My Bad.

There’s usually two types of people when it comes to those who did particularly well in English in high school.
The first type would be able to dissect the sentence into subject, verb, object, modifier, adverb and complement much precision, and thoroughly analyse the essential parts of each sentence. Whether they knew which answer to choose for which question, and how they got their answers correct and incorrect, they knew it like the back of their hands.
And the other type relied on five words: a feel for the language.

Yang Jing only needed a single look at the paper to know which student belonged to which type, as the former enjoyed circling and underlining, with many marks on the paper, while the latter basically only had ABCD.
The students she was in charge of were rather distinctive. Jiang Tian, Qi Jiahao as well as the rank B study rep and class monitor, were all the grammar type. Sheng Wang, otherwise, was the rare feel for the language type.

Yang Jing did mention during class before, that she would rather Class A practise their feel for the language more heavily instead. With a good feel for the language coupled with a good grasp of grammar, they could finish their questions at twice the speed. Still, most of these questionable kids did not care.
As it was common knowledge that Class A students were known for their speed at completing questions, that any student from any other class would most definitely be overwhelmingly defeated against them, why should they bother wasting their energy on that?
A few shameless braggards even flaunted themselves as ‘Dugu Qiubai’, and half of these ‘Qiubais’ were now left out to dry in the corridor.

After locking up the classroom door and windows, Yang Jing started her lesson. The students who were chased out of the class all started doing the make-up for their homework against the wall.

Sensibility Block was famous for its good lighting. The scorching sun rays all hit their backs. Merely a few minutes later, quite a number of boys started frantically wiping away their sweat.

“Chili meimei, do you have some tissues? Lend me some please.” Gao Tianyang borrowed tissue paper from a girl all the way across two other people.
Girls weren’t as shameless as them. When she passed the tissue over, she asked, “Did Jing-jie mention when she’ll be letting us back in?”
“She didn’t, we probably get to go back in whenever we’re done.”

“That’s doable, the future is right in my hands,” a boy, knowing that Jing-jie could not hear him, bragged as he wrote, “let’s not talk about other things. When it comes to speeding through the papers, who could do it faster than me? Not a single person!”
Gao Tianyang could not not bear to listen anymore. “Eh, turn around and take a look at who’s standing right next to you. Do you not feel diffident when standing in that spot?”

The boy whipped his head around. Right next to him was Jiang Tian’s expressionless side view.
“I’m sorry, Tian-ge.” He did not hesitate for a single second. After chickening out, he turned back around and said to Gao Tianyang, “Can Tian-ge be counted as a human? No. Therefore what I said just now wasn’t wrong either.”

Sheng Wang had just finished a page, and took the gap in-between flipping through the paper to sneak a glance at that other side.
Jiang Tian stood at the other extreme end. Due to his looming height, he was especially outstanding in the group of people, and was not hidden at all. He kept doing the paper, and did not even look up when people next to him teased him to the heaven and beyond.

Was this because he was aloof……or was it because he was in a bad mood?
Sheng Wang held the pen cap in his mouth, and felt a little guilty.

As he zoned out while eyeing that side, Jiang Tian just flipped the first paper to the other side. At that moment, his thin eyelid seemed to have raised a little.
Sheng Wang immediately retracted his gaze. He grabbed his pen and filled in a C in the bracket.
After filling it in he scanned the question, and crossed out the C and changed it into a B with a poker face.

Gao Tianyang, who was at the side, did not notice these minor little movements. He was currently tilting his head and looking into the classroom, and ruefully went, “Today, both Tian-ge and Sheng-ge aren’t there, so Old Qi’s the only king in there now.”
Jing-jie’s lessons were like setting up wooden stumps as usual, she did not spare the rest just because the class was ten plus people less. Only Qi Jiahao managed to sit back down after being called upon every single time.

“Speaking of Old Qi, do you still remember when he just came to our class?” the boy who just bragged about his speed at doing the papers asked.
“Oh, yeah, if you didn’t bring that up I would have forgotten. He came up from Class 5, right?” another person replied.
“I remember it quite well, the mid-term exam in year one semester one, he came into our class then, and never left ever since.” As Gao Tianyang spoke he suddenly started laughing. “Eh! Speaking of speed at doing papers, Old Qi seriously made me laugh at the start. When he just came, he was in the same row as I did. There was a pop quiz that day, I think. After I finished a page, he finished half a page. When I was done, he was still stuck on the second page. In the end I don’t even remember what’s the score, either way when the lesson ended his hands were shaking as he asked me, if I was the fastest at finishing the papers in Class A. I said no, I’m one of the last few. He nearly cried.”

The few boys guffawed. “The fact that he’s this fast now with practising is also rather awesome.”
“Yeah, now it’s our turn to chase him,” Gao Tianyang said, “have you seen him do English papers? Now that’s what I call fast! Didn’t Jing-jie say so before that with the difficulty level in her English practices, with 150 questions, as long as we could finish it within two hours, we would have plenty of time when it comes to gaokao. Old Qi that bastard could finish it in one and a half hour, I timed him before.”

“How bored were you?”
“I even timed for Tian-ge before,” Gao Tianyang was unbridled with his words knowing that he was his childhood friend and he was far away from him. “That time, Tian-ge was faster than Old Qi by five minutes, he’s not human either!”

“Shit, with this level of difficulty he finished nearly 20 questions within 10 minutes?”
“Yup.”
“I want to quit school.”
“I want to too. Every single day sitting in front of him is so damaging to my psyche. Look at the entire level. With this speed, can you even find a third one?!” After Gao Tianyang finished his bold proclamations, he then remembered the new friend who scored full marks next to him.

“Oh wait, there’s still Sheng-ge, Sheng-ge should be pretty quick too.” As he spoke he stuck his head out to look, only to see that Sheng Wang was already on the second paper.

Gao Tianyang froze for a bit, and silently looked at his own paper — the first page on the first paper.
He took a look at the people around him again, they were either at the tail end of the first half of the first paper, or the start of the second half of the first paper.

He dug out his phone to check the time again. From the time they started catching up their overdue work, it had been 20 minutes, and Sheng Wang already finished 58 questions……

“What the……” Gao Tianyang’s jaw dropped, “fuck?”
“What are you cursing me out for?” Sheng Wang said.
With just this sentence alone, his dark orbs moved as he finished reading a question, and wrote a D in the bracket.
Gao Tianyang, “???”

Sheng Wang finished three questions with the natural ease of flowing water, before he finally turned around, puzzled.
Gao Tianyang said in a completely monotone cadence, “Father, You memorised the answers didn’t you.”
“I don’t have a son like you.” Sheng Wang said, completely done, “Do you suffer from ultraviolet ray poisoning or something? Speak normally.”
“No wait—” Gao Tianyang was breaking down, “How do you get the answer with only one look at the question? Don’t you need to analyse it or something?”
Sheng Wang thought for a bit before saying, “I’ll underline if the sentence structure is especially complicated.”

“There’re simple ones in these?”
“Um.”
“What do you mean by ‘um’!” Gao Tianyang had the expression of valiantly dying for justice as he said, “Just give me a quick death already. Tell me, how long do you usually take to finish Jing-jie’s 150 questions?”

“An hour.” Sheng Wang never actually did try to time before, he just gave a rough estimate. As he saw the gradually distorted expressions from this line of people, he wanted to add 20 more minutes.
In the end, the moment he opened his mouth, even Jiang Tian swept him a glance.
Out of some unknown mentality, Sheng Wang’s voice paused, and opened his peacock tail on the spot. “Yeah, roughly an hour.”

“Fuck!”
The Catching Up with Overdue Homework in the Corridor group all cursed in unison. Only Jiang Tian did not show much emotion, and coldly retracted his gaze to continue doing his papers.
There was a monkey scratching its head in bewilderment in Sheng Wang’s head. He suddenly felt that this tail opening of his was really quite pointless, it was freaking stupid.

The classroom door opened amidst the group of people cursing. Yang Jing stuck out half her body and said, “You think I couldn’t hear you? You even started swearing while doing your late homework?”
Gao Tianyang poked his head out and said, “No, Jing-jie, we’re just expressing our thoughts on Sheng Wang’s speed at doing questions.” After he spoke, he quickly shrunk back.
Yang Jing gave a cold laugh, lifted her chin and said, “When I told you guys to practise your feel for the language, you did not, and now you can feel your distance from him?”

“How do we practise this, teacher?”
“Listen, read, and speak more.” As Yang Jing followed the train of conversation to that point, she asked, “Sheng Wang, have you stayed overseas before?”
“Nope, I didn’t,” Sheng Wang said, “but my dad has a few foreign friends, one of their sons came over for exchange for a few years. Back then he stayed in my house, nowadays we would voice chat once in a while. Maybe that had an impact.”
“No wonder.”

After Yang Jing mumbled, she started acting fierce again. “That’s why, you clearly could easily finish this, and yet you still dare to hand up an empty piece of paper. Keep staying outside then. Stay for the entire two periods, nobody will be allowed to come in at all. If I don’t show you some colours, you wouldn’t know how to spell ‘terrified’ at all!”

“We are already very terrified, teacher.”
Yang Jing laughed derisively, and locked the door.

When class ended, the top floor of Sensibility Block was extraordinarily boisterous.
Not only did students of Class A come out for a tour, every single class from the twelve classes downstairs all had someone heading upstairs, there were even quite the number of students in the year one block opposite crowding against the windows.
Even the teachers in the office could not stay put anymore, and all came out to mock them. Old Wu, who taught math, went to the hot water room twice within ten minutes. The math rep could not bear to look anymore, and asked, “Teacher, You really have to drink so much hot water during the hottest parts of summer?”
Old Wu leisurely said, a cup in his hands, “I’m here for a tour.” He had zero intention to cover up his interest in joining in the chaos and was just there to watch the world burn.

The students of Class were always a little cheeky, and these teachers were already used to it. As long as it wasn’t lesson time, they could make all sorts of jokes. After Old Wu spoke, he even stuck out his fingers, pointed at the three girls passing by in the corridor, arms looped around arms, and said, “There, the three gals there, from class 8, right? I’ve seen them go back and forth for like three to four times. Eh, is the second floor toilet spoiled?”
“Yeah, yeah, we had to queue.” The three girls blatantly fibbed, and ran away like a wisp of smoke. Even as they ran they did not forget to sneak a look. When they passed by Jiang Tian they giggled and blushed, when they passed by Sheng Wang they also giggled and blushed again.

It was not that young master Sheng Wang had never experienced being a tourist attraction before, it was just that today’s was really too embarrassing.
He pinched the paper and covered his face. He nudged here, he nudge there, there was truly nowhere to hide.

The school bell finally rang. The tourists entered like the tide, and receded like the tide. The tourist attraction was left stuck there.
Sheng Wang let down his paper, and let out a sigh of relief. He grumbled, “Is Fuzhong really this free after class?”
After he spoke, nobody answered him. He turned to look, only then he realised that the King of Showing Support, Gao Tianyang, had lost him. Right now, standing next to him was Jiang Tian.
He seriously shuffled all the way from the front door to the back door of the class.

The sun remained scorching hot. The ten plus of them were steaming like buns that just left the tray, any closer to each other and the sticky warmth would annoy them.
Jiang Tian also had sweat gathering at his sideburns. Under the glow of sunlight, his Adam’s apple was adorned with a layer of moisture. Still, he looked like he was ice cold, like drinks that just left the fridge. There may be condensation covering him all over, but he was still ice cool.

Sheng Wang also turned around, and spreaded his paper against the wall. Yet, he did not rush to finish the remaining questions.
Jiang Tian’s progress was not that different from his, with a span of a class period, he already finished more than 120 of them. There were plenty of circles and marks on the paper, along with the sentence structures he labelled along the way. His letters were messy, but nice.

Sheng Wang hesitated a little, and softly called him, “Jiang Tian?”
The person’s pen stopped for a bit.
“How did you end up not doing it?” Sheng Wang asked.
Jiang Tian casually wrote a dot next to the answer, and his gaze already moved onto the next question. He did not even lift his eyelid.

Oh no, he’s really ignoring him.
The monkey scratching its head in Sheng Wang’s mind came out again.

Just as the monkey was really getting into scratching, a girl’s voice rang next to his ears, “I think he forgot to bring the practice home.”
Sheng Wang was stumped, “He forgot?”
The one who spoke was the girl whose nickname was ‘Chili’, “I went to the administrative office last night, when I came back, all of you had already left. When I switched off the lights and locked the doors, I think I saw the practice inside his desk, right Jiang Tian?”

Sheng Wang turned around to look at that popsicle again.
“Mm.” The popsicle answered. Even though he did not look up, at least he did not act deaf.

Fine, he would respond to other people, and ignore him alone.
Sheng Wang almost started scratching right along with the monkey.

Chili, who was next to him, mumbled, “Why are you still so late this morning then? I thought you would come over early to finish it.”
After all, Jiang Tian was not someone who did not do his homework.

When she was done speaking, Jiang Tian did not have any reaction, but Sheng Wang froze.
Yeah, if he forgot his paper, he could just finish it in the morning. With Jiang Tian’s speed, he could finish a paper within twenty plus minutes before class, the rest he could catch up with when Yang Jing went through the papers. He only needed to ensure that he could do it at a faster rate than her going through it.
And why did he not arrive early?
Because someone was being prissy and dilly dallying, and somehow forcibly took that long to leave the house. Sheng Wang silently cursed himself.

In the next forty minutes, a certain person tried to use his gaze to get Jiang Tian’s attention. It failed. He also tried to use other people’s conversations as a jumping board to joke around with Jiang Tian. It failed. He even attempted to drop his pen cap next to Jiang Tian’s feet, and it still failed.
The opponent did not react at all, but young master Sheng Wang almost busied himself to death.

This state lasted all the way until English lesson ended. It did not turn for the better when chemistry started either.
When Sheng Wang returned to his seat, he was still a little listless, he was so listless to the point that Gao Tianyang nearly thought that he got a heat stroke.
“Do you want heat stroke medicine?” Gao Tianyang asked him.
“Thanks, but no need.” Sheng Wang said dryly.
He needed a cure for regret even more.

The homeroom teacher, He Jin, entered the classroom on the dot. She waved an application form in her hands as she said, “Maybe you have already heard this, but the Tri-Quality Students of the City is up for nomination again. Up till last night, we had three nomination slots in the class. This morning, after sitting in the administrative office for an hour, I managed to open up yet another slot.”

“This is still important to all of you, it can affect your advanced admission into top schools later on. If you could go for it, you should still go for it. Our class’ selection method is transparent, you know the rules. One for good grades, this is hard power. One will be picked amongst class reps, as they had worked hard for a year, they deserve a little treat, right? And there’s one with democracy, the entire class gets to vote. Any objections?”

“As for the new slot that I asked for, us teachers discussed this for a bit, and we decided to give this to the student who shows the greatest improvement. After all, hard work is also a form of capital, and it’s the capital most deserving of affirmation. How do we quantify improvement then? We do have a weekly test this weekend, and another week would be your monthly test, which is the first major test when school officially starts. We’ll judge from the performance in these two exams, okay?”

Most people were destined to never get the Tri-Quality Students of the City initially, so they weren’t too bothered. But now the additional slot gave too many people a fighting chance, quite a number of students shot up straight.
Sheng Wang gave it a listen, and temporarily shifted his attention.

Soon, He Jin kept the form and officially started class. Sheng Wang’s thoughts drifted back to the starting point.
He half heartedly took notes.

For a moment he even thought whatever, if he could not appease him then just let it be, leave it up to fate. After all, he had to pick one between his face and Jiang Tian. But, he could not lose this much face either. He was only sixteen, there was still plenty of time left in his life.

In the end, before he even made it for a minute, he crouched over and took out his phone.
He squeezed his finger, and opened up Jiang Tian’s WeChat.
Keep a hold on yourself.
He told himself, and then sent Jiang Tian three stickers of a tiny person crying while kneeling in a row.

He Jin was going through a major difficult sample question, and got a discussion on-going in class. It was like there were forty plus bees in class, it was not quiet at all.
Sheng Wang heard the three buzzes behind him amidst the bustling chatters.

However, a reply did not pop out in the chat. Sheng Wang closed an eye, jerked his leg, and started typing.
Canned: It’s my bad
Canned: I didn’t blank out
Canned: I just thought last night was too embarrassing, that’s why I didn’t want to talk about it

The vibration behind was abruptly cut off by someone. The words ‘The person is typing…’ finally appeared at the top of the chat. Sheng Wang stopped, and silently waited for a reply.

A few seconds later, a new message finally popped up in the chat.
Jiang Tian: Continue acting like you have amnesia then.
Canned: no
Canned: I can’t lose my face and even act like my head has issues too
Jiang Tian: ……

The conversation was no longer one sided at last. Even though the other person treasured his words like gold, coming from Jiang Tian, the word count was already impressive. Sheng Wang was getting a little ahead of himself all at once. He felt that the mood was appropriate, and so with the attitude of taking a foot after winning an inch, he sent another two lines.
Canned: How about you get a little selective amnesia?
Canned: You can just forget about the stupid things I did, pretend you weren’t there. We can just remember the good things, how does that sound?

After he sent it, he heard a light snort behind him.
Sure, even replying was enough to make him full of himself.
Sheng Wang twisted around to shoot a glance at Jiang Tian, only to see the person’s hand loosely dangle beneath the table. Judging by his posture, he probably settled his phone on his thigh. His other hand was seriously still able to take notes while distracted.

He finished writing a line without ever lifting his pen off the paper, leaned his entire body against the chair, and looked up at Sheng Wang.
At the very same time, Sheng Wang’s phone vibrated four times in a row.

He looked down in confusion, there were indeed four more messages in the chat.
Jiang Tian: Sure.
Then he sent three videos in a row.

Sheng Wang sneakily stuffed in a wireless earpiece, and opened the first one.
The clip featured an alleyway that wasn’t really wide. The street lamp stood at the corner, showering the area with a dusky yellow. An idiot in school uniform walked in a straight row beneath the street lamp. He turned around and asked at the camera, “Did you catch that clearly?”

Fuck.
Sheng Wang nearly threw his phone out.

The back of his chair smashed against Jiang Tian’s desk, making a loud clang. He Jin frowned as she looked over, asking, “Is there something wrong?”
Sheng Wang quickly plucked out his ear piece while the angle was convenient. He stood up and said, “I nearly fell off.”
“Oh.” He Jin nodded, “When it’s class, don’t rock your chairs. I’ve already said this many times.”
When Sheng Wang sat down, he heard that bastard let out a rather low laugh.

Fine.
He dug out his phone again and typed a few words.
Canned: Are you happy yet?
Jiang Tian: What do you mean.
Canned: You’re pretending, just keep pretending!
Jiang Tian: Put down your phone, it’s time for class now.

Sheng Wang stuffed his phone into his bag on instinct, and properly looked up and gripped his pen. The next second he then realised that he was too obedient. Therefore, he slowly raised a middle finger at the person behind him with his hand behind his back. Said finger was knocked down by the person’s pen.

It was like from this lesson onwards, he really did get a little closer to Jiang Tian.

TO BE CONTINUED.