A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 058 – Exile

He Softly Called Out, “Ge.”

The language teacher, Beckon Money, had given that group of bigshots who were terrible at lyrical writing an advice: if you really can’t crap anything out, you can save the emotional parts for the night. She said that people are more emotional in the late night, they wouldn’t be like this in the day.

Sheng Wang felt that this made an incredible amount of sense. As he stood at the waiting platform for the school bus, six plus in the morning with the northwest wind blowing at him, he instantly felt that whatever that caused him to toss and turn in his bed was nothing at all.

Even Sheng Mingyang knew that his son was unflappable and never got too deeply involved; he refused to stumble into deep holes and get mud all over him. If there was trouble blocking the path, all he needed to do was to walk away. If a thorn was stuck to his side, all he needed to do was to throw it away. Just like that Tri-Quality nomination from a long time ago: since he wasn’t happy with how he got it, then he might as well not want it.
He had always been good at letting go.

Didn’t Big Mouth Xu say so before? It was normal for sixteen-seventeen years olds to be a little restless; he just happened to channel that restlessness in the wrong direction, that’s all.

He remembers he would often game on the living room couch into the night back in middle school. Not a single light was switched on, only the flickering lights from the phone or the television screen were present. At the health checkup held in year three, his vision had already dropped to 4.8. Afterwards, he didn’t participate in gaokao as he had gotten a direct admission to high school on recommendations, and got to enjoy a holiday in advance. By the time high school started for year one, his vision had already recovered—pseudomyopia, correcting his vision was all he needed to do.

It was the same now; some correction and everything would be fine.
With a little cool down, it would be alright.

The rain in late autumn didn’t rush to come and go like summer rain; every time it rained, it lasted for several days. The beads of water rode with the wind, splattering everywhere, both heavy and wet.
Yang Jing was in charge of following the students this morning. The moment she came, she pointed at a few students, saying, “Who are you freezing your asses off for in this cold weather by wearing so little? I’m talking to a few certain residential students.”

There were only two residential students in Class A, this was no different from directly calling them out by name and chiding them.
She side-eyed Jiang Tian and Sheng Wang. “Didn’t the school send a group message last night to remind everyone that the temperature is dropping today? Will wearing another sweater kill you?”
Jiang Tian said, “Didn’t check SMS.”

The way he spoke on a normal basis sounded like he was talking back, the teacher had already been used to it. Yang Jing mercilessly exposed him, “Why didn’t you check SMS? Your phone has been in your hands for the entire time, you clearly are quite diligent with using it.”
Gao Tianyang butted in at the side, “Reporting, Jing-jie, he was checking WeChat. Who even looks at SMS other than for verification codes?”
Yang Jing pointed at him, “Shut up.”
Gao Tianyang zipped his mouth shut in aggrievement.

Jiang Tian didn’t ask for his useless contribution; after this guy explained, he kept his phone and shot Sheng Wang a glance. Sheng Wang’s school jacket had sneakily been unzipped to go down below the lower half, revealing a single thin long-sleeved shirt inside.
No wonder Yang Jing had to yell at him.

Sheng Wang was zoning out when a patch of white flashed right before his eyes. He looked up in mild shock, and saw Jiang Tian’s hand reaching out from a pocket—from the distance of slightly more than a step away—and took matters into his own hands by pulling his zip all the way up.

The school uniform had a high collar when it was flipped up, enough to circle the entire neck. The crook of Jiang Tian’s fingers accidentally touched Sheng Wang’s lower jaws, causing him to slightly tilt his head up.

His gaze swept across Sheng Wang’s face. He released the zip, and his hand lowered as he said, “If you are warm, you might as well wear short sleeves. Saves the effort too.”

Not again, this douchebag with cutting words.
Sheng Wang obediently unrolled the sleeves that he previously rolled to his elbows, and said defensively, “I’m not even the one who unzipped it.”
“You’re telling me I’m the one who did?” Jiang Tian said.
“The zip slid down by itself, go ask it if you don’t buy it.”
“……”
The douchebag with cutting words looked aside, and laughed from the anger. Or maybe he really was laughing.

Commotion indistinctly spreaded in the girls around them, tiny whispers and giggles were mixed with exchanges of private words. According to this feedback, Jiang Tian’s smile likely caused hearts to race.

Sheng Wang raised an eyebrow at him, both smug and taunting. He then looked down and buried his lower face into the collar. He rolled the jacket’s sleeves to his wrist, and stood at a spot where the wind was weaker with his back facing Jiang Tian. He bit on the zip out of habit.

Yet a moment later, he suddenly realised that the zip he was holding in his mouth was what his Ge had just touched.
……
This is really going to kill him.
Sheng Wang was silent for a few seconds, and released his jaws.

The school bus soon arrived. Sheng Wang didn’t like the crowd, so he boarded the bus at the end of the group.
He thought that there wouldn’t be many seats left and thus he would have to be separated from Jiang Tian naturally, but he did not expect Gao Tianyang—that idiot—to pat on the pair of seats in front of him, and say, “Here! I saved you two seats, am I not your fuzzy little jacket?”

If Sheng Wang has a lighter, he would set this jacket on fire there and then.

It was nearly a 40 minutes ride from Fuzhong to Nangao. Sheng Wang already did not have a good sleep, and he did plan to “cool down” after all, therefore the moment he boarded, he stuffed in his earpiece and planned to catch up on his sleep.

The school bus wasn’t exactly new, the rubber at the side of the window pane was a little worn out, it was terrible at sealing the bus; the draft constantly got in through the gaps. Sheng Wang closed his eyes and leaned against it for a while, and was a little cold from the tiny gusts of wind.

He pulled his collar up, and buried the entire lower half of his face inside the collar. He switched to an angle where the wind could barely get him, and continued sleeping.
A few seconds later, he felt Jiang Tian shift around. The fabric lightly rustled, and that irritating draft suddenly disappeared.

Sheng Wang half lifted his eyes amidst the bleariness, and saw Jiang Tian on his phone, his right hand propped against the edge of the window pane. As he rested his head on his palm, his arm happened to block that hole.

Sheng Wang’s heart skipped a beat, and gradually slowed down again.
Most of the students were sleeping on the bus, with some still hugging the buddha’s leg at the last minute. There were muffled snores, the shuffling of paper, and softly spoken recitations; none of them was as loud as the torrent of rain outside the bus.

He looked at Jiang Tian in silence for a while, and suddenly felt that Beckon Money’s words weren’t exactly right. The day was not a time solely for rationality.

“Ge,” he softly called.
Jiang Tian’s finger swiped at thin air, and turned to him in surprise.

“I’m just letting you know, wake me up when we’re about to reach.” After Sheng Wang spoke, he yawned, and slumped over in a withered manner.
Jiang Tian finally snapped out of it after that term of address. He frowned as he stared at Sheng Wang’s complexion. “Are you unwell?”
“Noooo,” Sheng Wang dragged his voice, sounding as if he had something else he wanted to say. He dug out his phone and typed in WeChat for Jiang Tian: bus driver uncle’s style of driving is a little too wild, I’m car sick.

Jiang Tian’s eyes stopped on that alias. Last time he saw it, it was his full name. At one point he didn’t know, it suddenly became ‘Ge’.

He was briefly dazed. By the time he came back to himself, Sheng Wang had already kept his phone and was asleep once more. Once that pair of clear, bright eyes closed, the radiant or sometimes crafty smirk at the corner of his lips faded and flattened into a plain straight line, the sense of dispiritedness became heavy instantly.

He seemed a little wilted, sort of uncomfortable, and not very happy either.

*
The midterm exams lasted for two days. This time round, the papers for English, mathematics and physics were all difficult. Howls and wails of complaints chorused all over the corridor, a huge wave descending the moment a subject was over. By the time every subject was over, they were basically dead.
When the school bus drivers drove the students back to Fuzhong, they felt as though they were holding vigils for the dead.

To Sheng Wang, the paper being difficult, the lack of sleep, whether he liked someone, all had zero impact on him. He wouldn’t become too stupid to answer the questions just because he channeled his restlessness in the wrong direction.

He was the only one who could control his grades; it wasn’t an issue of his abilities, but whether he wanted to or not.

When they alighted the bus, half of Class A was busy with comparing their answers with each other, the other half was busy yelling at each other, “I screwed up for this subject, how ‘bout you?” “I did so shittily for this one, you?” “I nearly couldn’t finish all the questions, how about you?”
Sheng Wang always said “I’m ok” in the past. This time round, it all became “so-so”.

The first time they heard that, Gao Tianyang, Song Sirui and co all honestly paused, but that was all they did. Nobody treated this seriously at all.
It was only until the few schools were done marking the papers, then did the people understand this line.

It was a Wednesday that day.
Jiang Tian was startled awake at around five in the morning, and when he opened his eyes, he discovered the balcony door was blown wide open by the wind at one point. A bird came crashing in with soaked feathers, drenching an entire area with moist mud, knocking over a glass of water, and then flying away in a flurry.

The moist mud happened to be on Jiang Tian’s clothes, which Jiang Tian had just left out to dry. The glass belonged to him too, the water soaked the book nearest to it: Jiang Tian’s collection of Olympiad questions.

He cleaned up that horrified mess on the table, and took down his dirty clothes to wash it again, thus completely losing any trace of sleepiness. He stuffed Sheng Wang’s dangling hand back under his blanket, and watched him for a while as he stood by the bed. He finally sat down.

For some reason, he felt that this day wouldn’t go too well.

Old He entered the classroom right on the dot, a few stacks of the physics paper in her arms as well as a complete list of everyone’s results.
All and any racket instantly reverted back to silence, the entire class of people all behaved. They eagerly fixed their eyes on that list, its corner lifted up by the wind.

Old He didn’t appear to look too fine, but she did look like that after every major exam, so nobody was surprised by that.

“Our class, as a whole, has performed within expectations. Out of the four schools, we have the highest average score for physics, for maths, second highest for chemistry, third for language and fourth for English. Teacher Yang Jing isn’t pleased about this, be prepared to get scolded later.”

Nobody dared to even breathe too heavily, the moment they thought of Yang Jing they didn’t dare to move.

“There is a praiseworthy point this time round.” He Jin’s eyes scanned across the entire class, and landed on Jiang Tian first. “The first place goes to our class for the combined exams for four schools, out of a total score of 480, the first place has left the second place behind by 21 points.”

The difference was larger than the last combined exam’s, it broke a new record. Class A was in an uproar for a while. As Gao Tianyang clapped, he turned to say to Sheng Wang, “He’s not human, right! My Tian-ge is no human at all!”
Sheng Wang laughed as he seconded, “Yeah, he’s screwed up!”

Jiang Tian’s mood improved for that short moment, the pen pinched between his fingers heavily rapped on Sheng Wang’s shoulder.
“Hiss, you’re too unreasonable.” Sheng Wang pretended to be in pain as he clutched onto his shoulder, “You’re not letting me speak the truth either?!”

He Jin knocked on the lectern, and the class soon quieted again. She said, “I also have to commend that there are more students entering the top few than usual. In the past, there would usually be 10+ students who fell out of the top 45 places, this time round, there are only 5.”

The people wanted to cheer on instinct, and just as they were about to begin, they suddenly recalled that these five would have to switch classes, and managed to abruptly brake.

“I’ll be getting each group leader to pass down the individual results slips soon.” He Jin paused, and continued, “Those who didn’t get it, go see me in the office during the long break. We’ll have a chat.”

With this, everyone understood: those who didn’t get their result slip were basically out of the 45 places.
Each group leader weaved around the classroom. Not even two minutes later, all the result slips were given out. When Gao Tianyang got his slip, he nearly sobbed from joy.

He had amazing luck, with both his weaker subjects being very difficult this time, other than the bigshots at the top, there weren’t much difference in everybody’s results, thus saving his life. Therefore, his total point gave him exactly the 45th place.
He fiercely kissed the score two times, and turned around to share his joy with Sheng Wang instantly. Yet, his face froze the very next second; there was no slip on Sheng Wang’s table.

The clamour of noise completely dissipated in a certain instant, everyone merely had to look around to find out the result of “change of class” this time.

The five students who had to get out were Zhang Xin, Zhou Sitian, Zhao Rui, Wang Zelin……as well as Sheng Wang.

At that moment, the classroom was dead quiet.
Sheng Wang tilted his head slightly, and saw that the pen in his Ge’s hand had stopped spinning. With a smack, it plummeted onto the table.

He lightly blinked, and thought, I really did do what they said, when I start being reckless, I’m the exact same as Zhao Xi. However, he didn’t do this recklessly, he merely decided to send himself into exile, and cool down a little.

This may slightly hurt, but he will be okay soon.

TO BE CONTINUED.