"Have you handed in your winter vacation homework?" The math teacher was in her early thirties, with shiny black hair that was straight and stuck to her scalp. It was obvious that she had had a perm done on the second day of February before school started. She walked up to the podium and tapped the blackboard twice with an eraser. "I told you to correct the questions in the workbook after you finish them. Did you try to fool me by just copying the answers?"
"No---" the whole class answered in a long voice.
"Very good," the math teacher nodded with satisfaction, and then raised a stack of test papers and shook them. "I took out some questions from the exercise book and made a test paper. Do it in this class to see if what you just said is true."
As soon as these words were spoken, there was an immediate commotion below the podium, and the word "end" was clearly written on many people's faces.
The test papers were passed from front to back, mixed in with the low voices, making a "rustling" sound. Liam Tang received the test paper and heard the math teacher say "Come in" in front of the podium.
He took out a pen and started to do the questions, and out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Ethan Yang walking in.
How long does it take to ride a bike to school? This thought flashed through his mind, and then he quickly came back to his senses and focused on the test paper.
They were all basic questions, and except for the last big question, there was nothing to worry about. Liam Tang finished quickly, then closed the test paper and put it on the corner of the table, and couldn't help but tilt his head back.
There were two rows of tables and an aisle between him and Ethan Yang. He could catch a glimpse of Ethan Yang's movements just by turning his head slightly.
Ethan Yang was sleeping on the table.
This is really the standard configuration of a poor student, Liam Tang thought, then retracted his gaze, took out the Olympiad exercise book and started looking through it.
The girl at the same table turned to look at him and asked in a surprised whisper: "Finished? So fast."
Liam Tang's eyes fell on the exercise book, and he easily pulled out a hat: "Well, it's very simple."
The girl was stimulated and looked at him as if he was a monster for a few seconds, then turned her head away without saying a word and continued to do the questions.
The math teacher walked up to him, picked up his test paper, looked at it for a while, and asked before taking it away: "Were you from No. 3 Middle School?"
"Yeah." Liam Tang nodded.
No. 3 Middle School is a public high school located in the suburbs of Runcheng. Its teaching staff and teaching equipment barely meet the passing line. In Runcheng, only the "common people" who cannot afford the expensive school district housing and cannot use connections will reluctantly step into that "poor school".
When Liam Tang was still in junior high school, Alexander Yang promised Grace Tang that he would let Liam Tang go to Runcheng No. 1 Middle School in the future. However, Ethan Yang's mother died suddenly on the eve of the summer entrance examination. Alexander Yang was also under pressure from the deputy mayor election, so he naturally did not dare to confirm the rumors about his private life.
During that time, Alexander Yang was busy establishing his image of integrity and honesty, and even his visits to Grace Tang were greatly reduced. He was probably already terrified to put his eldest son, who did not have any high school entrance exam results, into a key city school, so he naturally had no time to care about his youngest son, who had never called him "Dad".
Liam Tang was working on his homework when a hand suddenly reached out from the table in front of him, handed him a small note, and said in a low voice, "Please pass this to Ethan Yang."
The pink slip was neatly folded. In this case, it should be the answer to the test paper. Liam Tang looked up and saw a girl two seats in front of him looking back cautiously in the direction of Ethan Yang. Judging from the tense lines on her neck, she seemed to be a little nervous.
If I remember correctly, it should be the girl who was sitting on the living room floor, very close to Ethan Yang yesterday.
Liam Tang lowered his head and continued to do his homework, ignoring the request from the person sitting in front of him.
The hand was left alone for a moment, then retracted, and with a slightly complaining "tsk" sound, the student in front changed the direction of the note and passed it to the student on the other side of the aisle. Then it passed unimpeded to Ethan Yang's hand.
Liam Tang glanced at Ethan Yang and saw that he was called up. He straightened up from the desk and seemed to have taken the note.
It is a key city school. It has top-notch teachers. Everyone wants to get in.
---It really lives up to its reputation, Liam Tang mocked in his heart, and then ticked the answer on a question.
After the second class in the morning, the monitor came running over and asked him to go to the head teacher's office to get the exercise book.
Liam Tang responded, asked about the location of the office, and walked out of the classroom.
There were many people during the break, and the students waiting in front of the elevator blocked the corridor. As he was about to miss the next elevator, Liam Tang lowered his head and walked through the crowded crowd, turning to the staircase on the side.
The classroom was on the third floor and the teacher's office was on the eighth floor. He climbed five floors and was slightly out of breath.
"Turn left after you get out of the elevator... Where is the elevator entrance?" Liam Tang has never been very sensitive to directions since he was a child. Whenever he arrives in a new environment, he needs to adapt for a while before he can figure out the direction. He stood at the staircase on the eighth floor, recalling the route the squad leader had told him, when suddenly a voice came from behind him: "Turn left."
The voice was so close that Liam Tang was slightly startled. His heart skipped a beat at that moment. He immediately realized that he was blocking the way, so he stepped aside to make way for the person behind him, and turned around and said casually: "Thank you---"
---It turned out to be Ethan Yang.
After a moment of hesitation, half of the word "thank you" was stuck in his throat.
Ethan Yang didn't say anything. He took advantage of the space he made and walked in front of him.
It's true that you can't see him when you look down, but you can see him when you look up. Liam Tang stood there, looking at Ethan Yang's back and thinking.
"Go left", it seems that he knows where he is going, so he should be going upstairs to find the head teacher.
Liam Tang speculated so, and followed Ethan Yang, always keeping a few steps away from him.
At ten o'clock in the morning, bright sunlight shone through the window onto the floor and onto Ethan Yang's slightly shaking back. As he walked forward, the window frames continued to cast thin slanted shadows on him.
---The boy in front of me who is wobbling a bit is my brother. My biological brother.
This thought inexplicably flashed through Liam Tang's mind, and he was in a trance for a moment.
He suddenly became curious about how the figure's owner would react if he called out "Brother" to him at this moment.
Will he stop? Then, will he turn around? Or will he keep going? Or will he pretend he didn't hear me and won't even stop?
I really want to try it. Liam Tang looked at the back and stopped his thoughts in time.
Walking to the door of an office, Ethan Yang pushed it open and disappeared from his sight.
Liam Tang then lowered his eyes, walked forward a few steps, stopped at the door, looked up at the sign on the door, and reached out to push the door open.
As soon as he entered the room, he saw Ethan Yang standing next to the table diagonally opposite him, with his back to the door. The head teacher, who was blocked by the door, heard the sound of the door being pushed open, and immediately leaned over to look at him: "Come here?"
"Yes," Liam Tang walked in that direction and stopped when he was a few steps away from Ethan Yang, "Teacher Qiu, I'll get the exercise book."
"They are all on the cabinet over there," the head teacher stretched out his arm and pointed forward, "Take any books you didn't have in school before."
Liam Tang walked to the row of low cabinets and began to look for books. He heard the head teacher say behind him: "The math teacher came to me right after class and reported that he handed in a blank paper again? What happened?"
Ethan Yang's voice sounded a little careless: "I can't do it."
"You don't know any of the questions?"
"Well, I don't know any of them."
Didn't someone pass him the answers? Liam Tang moved aside with a few books in his arms. Didn't he copy them? Or was that not the answer? No one would pass him a love letter during an exam, would they?
"What can I say to you? I've said it eight hundred times," the head teacher said, as if he was furious. "I'm telling you the truth. In all my years of teaching, you are the most gifted child I've ever seen. Every teacher agrees with this. Why don't you want to learn? Ethan Yang, Ethan Yang, put your brain on my head and I'll learn for you, okay?"
"Isn't talent meant to be wasted?" Liam Tang heard Ethan Yang say this not far behind him.
"What a heresy!" The head teacher slammed the table, annoyed, "Just look at your dad, he's so busy every day, and he has to come to school several times in person, isn't it just to make you correct your study attitude? You don't have to correct it too much, just learn a little bit..."
All the exercise books stacked together were about half a meter high. Liam Tang first moved them to the ground, then bent down to pick them up, resting his chin on the top book, and walked out of the office silently.
Ethan Yang is so lucky. Liam Tang thought so as he walked out of the office.
He had classmates who handed him answers, teachers who encouraged him to study hard, and a father who was a deputy mayor who worried about him. He seemed to have everything.
The only one who is unlike me is Grace Tang.
"Hey? Where's Liam Tang?" The head teacher, who was thirsty from the lecture, stopped to drink some water and looked ahead. "Why did he leave without saying a word? There were so many books, and I wanted to find someone to help him move them. Forget it, let's talk about you." The head teacher retracted his gaze. "You said that every time your father came to see me in person..."
***
According to the practice of Runcheng No. 1 Middle School, the last class of each day is a self-study class. The sports students of the school team go to the playground for training, while others stay in the classroom to organize what they have learned that day.
However, the first day of school was an exception. All the teachers were called to meetings, and there was no one to watch over the classrooms or patrol the corridors. Before the end of school, many students had already packed their bags and were eagerly waiting for the bell to ring.
"Don't be in a hurry to leave later. The math teacher will be here to distribute the morning test papers." The math class representative stood up and announced before the bell bell.
"Hey - what else are you posting..." Immediately after hearing this, the whole class burst into sighs.
As soon as the bell rang, the whispers immediately turned into loud noises.
Liam Tang ignored the commotion around him and continued to work on his math problems. He felt that the answer to the last multiple-choice question was wrong, so he was checking it on a piece of scratch paper. Yin Cong, who sat next to him, came over to talk to him, and seeing that he was very frugal with words, he went to the front row to find Ying Hui.
There was only one step left. With a "pop" sound, a basketball was suddenly thrown from the right front and hit the cup that Yin Cong had placed on the table. The uncapped cup fell over, and the water inside spilled all over the table, and also splashed onto Liam Tang's face, school uniform, and the open exercise book.
"Wow, good shot!" Chen Hao immediately cheered.
"Want to bet with me on accuracy?" Lucas Feng sat on the desk, looking at him with a determined smile, "Give me the 100 yuan as promised."
Liam Tang reached out to wipe the water off his face, then looked up at him.
Lucas Feng held up the hundred yuan that Chen Hao had slapped in his hand, and turned to Liam Tang and said, "Sorry, buddy, I didn't expect you to throw it so accurately, how about I give you fifty yuan?"
This sentence was undoubtedly a naked provocation, but Liam Tang seemed to ignore him, stood up, walked to the back of the classroom and picked up the basketball.
"Hey, hey, don't be impulsive. It's not good to hit others." Lucas Feng thought he was going to throw the ball over, so he raised one arm weakly to cover his face.
The whole class immediately fell silent and turned to look at Liam Tang.
Liam Tang simply took the basketball back to his seat, shook the water off the exercise book, put it in his schoolbag, then put the schoolbag on his left shoulder and walked out of the classroom with the ball.
"Fcuk, give the ball back to me!" Lucas Feng yelled at him, quickly jumped off the table and chased out of the classroom.
As soon as I ran out, I saw Liam Tang open the window in the corridor and throw the basketball in his hand directly out of the window into the deserted back hill of the school, then walked towards the stairs with his schoolbag on his back.
"Fcuk! That's Ethan Yang's basketball, you Fcuking---" Lucas Feng chased after him, grabbed Liam Tang's collar from behind, clenched his fist and swung it towards his face.
Liam Tang turned his head and dodged, barely avoiding it, allowing Lucas Feng to hit him with nothing.
"Go Fcuking down and pick it up for me." Lucas Feng withdrew his hand somewhat embarrassedly, grabbed his collar with his other hand, and pointed out the window viciously.
Liam Tang looked at him calmly and asked, "Why did I pick it up?"
"Whoever threw it down should pick it up!" Lucas Feng was furious. He was the only son in the family and had been spoiled since childhood. No one dared to give him a cold shoulder in public.
"Whoever wants the ball can pick it up," said Liam Tang.
"Fcuk..." Lucas Feng hadn't finished speaking when he heard Ethan Yang's voice coming from behind him. "What's wrong?"
Ethan Yang had just finished training on the playground and came upstairs when he saw this close combat. He walked over and asked, "What happened?"
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