The Slip Into the Pool Chapter 7

It was a quarter before five when Ethan Cheng, who was lying on the bed, opened his eyes.

Having a too accurate biological clock is not always a good thing. I haven't worked the night shift at the convenience store for three weeks in a row. I could actually sleep a little longer on Saturday.

After washing up, Ethan Cheng cooked the porridge. While waiting for the pot to boil, he opened the book on classic Olympic topics again. He had never taken a class to learn Olympic mathematics. Last week, he took two classes with the math teacher of Class 1 and found that his problem-solving ideas were very different from the teacher's. In order to find the fastest and most stable solution, he took out the draft paper he used yesterday and recalculated.

It was not yet six o'clock when Grace Cheng got up, but Ethan Cheng had already put on his bag and was ready to go out. Breakfast was placed on the dining table, covered with a porcelain bowl to keep it warm.

"Mom, I'll be home late today. I need to go to the bookstore to look for some information." Ethan Cheng said as he changed his shoes.

Grace Cheng walked to the door and asked, "Doesn't the tutoring start at nine o'clock? Why are you leaving so early?"

"I left a book in the classroom," Ethan Cheng straightened up and raised his hand to hold the door handle, "I'll go to school and review my books."

Grace Cheng asked him to wait a moment, and took out a pair of gloves from the inner room and handed them to him: "You are going to ride a bike to school, right? It's cold outside, put these on."

Ethan Cheng's bicycle was parked in the corridor at the corner of the second and third floors. The security of the old community was non-existent, and it was easy to be stolen if it was parked downstairs. He held the front bar with one hand and the seat with the other, and was about to lift the bicycle. Grace Cheng, who was leaning against the door and watching him, suddenly said: "There are children coming to our house for class today."

Ethan Cheng was stunned for a moment, and said, "Mom, you should rest at home. You don't need to take any work. I earn enough as a tutor."

"I'm bored at home and want to find something to do." Grace Cheng covered her mouth and coughed twice, saying lightly, "I just happened to think of it and let you know, not to ask for your opinion."

Ethan Cheng carried his bicycle downstairs, turned left at the entrance of the community, and did not go towards No. 6 Middle School.

Recently he found a job helping out in a breakfast shop, working from 6 to 8 o'clock, which just happened to be around class times. If business is not heavy, the boss will let him leave early.

Saturday mornings are more leisurely than weekdays. While serving the dishes and clearing the tables, Ethan Cheng is still thinking about whether he can find another odd job after evening self-study from Monday to Thursday. He just needs to be home before midnight so that he can lie to his mother and say that he is doing homework at school.

He didn't want to use the word "cheat", but he had no choice but to cheat. Grace Cheng had always disapproved of him working outside to earn money, hoping that he would concentrate on his studies. However, she had been hospitalized for half a year, spending almost all of the family's savings and almost selling the house. Later, unable to afford the high hospitalization expenses, Grace Cheng chose to be discharged from the hospital and go home to rest. Ethan Cheng took the initiative to take a year off from school to take care of his mother, and the family had no income during this period.

Once, Grace Cheng had a high fever and passed out in the middle of the night. Ethan Cheng took his mother to the hospital. Because there was not enough money on the card, the hospital refused to make an exception, so the mother and son stayed in the corridor outside the ward all night. Grace Cheng was on an IV drip, so Ethan Cheng raised his arm to hold the saline bag. Keeping the same posture for a long time caused blood circulation problems, and his arms and hands were swollen after a night.

From then on, he deeply understood the importance of money. He could ignore the cold eyes of others, but he just didn't want his mother to suffer that pain again, and he didn't want to be easily servile to others when faced with temptation in the future.

The breakfast shop job was relatively easy for Ethan Cheng. Two hours later, he rode his bike to the Garden Community, which was more than ten kilometers away. Tutoring was charged by the minute, so the earlier you started, the earlier you could finish. He wanted to go to the bookstore to buy books before noon, and after the afternoon class, he would go to the commercial street near the Sixth Middle School. It was lively at night, and maybe they would hire part-time workers after 9:30 p.m.

In the morning, I taught a girl in the second grade of junior high school, and she was taught math, physics and chemistry. The girl's parents were probably afraid that she would be bullied, so they would knock on the door every 20 minutes and bring her tea and snacks.

After a few times, the little girl threw away her pen and tried to lock the door. Ethan Cheng advised her, "They care about you too."

The little girl snorted: "Who needs their concern like this!"

After closing the door, the little girl let herself go and stared at Ethan Cheng unscrupulously while he was lecturing.

"Teacher Cheng, do you have a girlfriend?" the little girl asked with a red face.

Ethan Cheng: "No."

"Then...then..." The little girl was waiting for this moment, and she mustered up her courage to ask, "What kind of girls does Teacher Cheng like?"

Ethan Cheng was calm, without even raising his eyelids, and circled two more places on the exercise book with a pencil, and pushed it towards the little girl: "Finish these questions and I'll tell you."

The student I taught in the afternoon was a junior high school boy named Wei Jiaqi, who was studying in the junior high school department of the Sixth Middle School.

This is an old customer. Ethan Cheng worked as a tutor here last semester and successfully helped Wei Jiaqi rise more than ten places in the class in the final exam of the second year of junior high school.

Normally, the employer should be quite satisfied with this situation. However, when Wei Jiaqi's mother heard that Ethan Cheng had transferred from the prestigious Normal University Affiliated High School to the unknown No. 6 Middle School, she immediately questioned his ability. She came in five or five times during breaks to talk to him about tutoring fees, saying that the extracurricular tutoring fees of a certain teacher in No. 6 Middle School were not much higher than his, implying that she wanted to deduct money.

This time, Ethan Cheng brought the certificate for the first prize in the physics competition. After seeing it, Wei Jiaqi's mother reluctantly shut up and did not mention the issue of reducing the hourly wage again.

To show his sincerity, Ethan Cheng spoke for an extra half an hour. When the get out of class was over, the shy and introverted Wei Jiaqi was very embarrassed and stuffed a bag of candy into his pocket at the door, begging him not to be angry.

When he got downstairs, Ethan Cheng took a deep breath of fresh air, then exhaled slowly, feeling that all the fatigue of the day had been released. He peeled a candy and put it in his mouth, then rode his bike to No. 6 Middle School.

I may not be able to do these two tutoring jobs for long, so it’s always a good idea to prepare for a rainy day.

There are many shops near No. 6 Middle School, and there are many tutoring and recruitment information posted on the door of every house, some with mobile phone numbers, some with email addresses. Seeing that it was still some time before dark, Ethan Cheng bought a two-hour temporary card at a nearby Internet cafe with his ID card as a deposit, ready to submit his resume and check other solutions to the problem in the Olympiad book online.

As soon as I sat down and turned on the phone, the old straight-screen phone in my pocket vibrated and the caller ID showed "Zhang Peiyao".

Max Ye woke up when someone came to the next box.

Weekends were the most boring for him. After lunch, Owen Zhou and his friends planned to go to a newly opened disco in the city center. Max Ye didn't want to go, so he parted ways with them near No. 6 Middle School. But he didn't want to go home and face his hypocritical father, so he simply booked a double room in a nearby Internet cafe, played games for a while, browsed the school app for a while, and then lay on the sofa and slept for half the afternoon.

The soundproofing in this Internet cafe was not very good. The person next to him put his cell phone on the table and he could feel the vibration. It vibrated for one minute and then stopped for half a minute, which made Max Ye restless. He raised his foot and was about to kick the wall when the call was finally answered.

"Hey, what's up?"

The deep and mellow male voice seemed familiar.

Max Ye couldn't help but prick up his ears and leaned towards the wall. The person on the other side probably didn't expect to be eavesdropped, so he turned on the speakerphone. The conversation came through the thin board, and every word was heard clearly.

"I'm outside, just tell me what you want to say."

Compared to the cold male voice, the girl's voice on the phone is much gentler and more lovely.

"Don't be like that... Even if we're not in the same school, my heart is still with you."

"I said I don't care. Don't look for me again."

"You're just mad at me."

"No."

"Then why are you so mean to me? You ignored me when I went to Sixth Middle School to look for you. You weren't like this before... Do you have another lover?"

"No."

"I'll ask my dad to let me transfer to No. 6 Middle School, okay?"

"not good."

Faced with the boy's ruthlessness, the girl couldn't help herself and cried: "You are just angry with me, angry that I spread the news and got you expelled from school."

When Max Ye heard this, he shuddered.

There was no doubt that Ethan Cheng was next door. What the girl was saying on the phone might be the thing he heard from Owen Zhou yesterday - Ethan Cheng liked boys, and he transferred to No. 6 Middle School not only for the scholarship, but also because his scandal was exposed and everyone in the Normal University Affiliated Middle School knew about it. The school did not say it clearly for the sake of face, but in fact he was expelled. I heard that he even took a year off. Finally, he had nowhere else to go, so he transferred to No. 6 Middle School.

"No." Even after hearing about such a cruel past, Ethan Cheng's voice did not change at all. "I have forgotten about this a long time ago. You should forget about it too."

The following conversation was basically the girl crying and confessing, with Ethan Cheng occasionally responding to show that he was listening.

Max Ye cried and imagined a bloody drama in his mind of a girl trying to persuade Ethan Cheng but ended up using the wrong method and driving him away. When he heard the news yesterday, he didn't think it was that exciting. It was a ridiculous thing, and no one saw it with their own eyes, so it was boring. Now that he heard it with his own ears and confirmed its authenticity, Max Ye felt a little happy and gloating.

The only thing that makes him happy recently is seeing Ethan Cheng get into trouble and suffer humiliation.

Max Ye was in a good mood, humming a song quietly, and then he crept back to browse the web for a while. By chance, he saw a post on the school forum titled "I ran into a handsome guy on the playground, does anyone know his name?" He clicked on it, hoping that he would find the right person. A photo of Ethan Cheng suddenly appeared on the first floor. It seemed that it was secretly taken during physical education class, and his facial features could barely be seen. The replies below were filled with screams of "Ahhhhhhhhh". Someone on the 50th floor answered the question: Ethan Cheng from Class 1, Grade 2, had just transferred in this semester.

Then someone posted other photos anonymously, saying that he was not only handsome, but also a top student. The post inexplicably turned into a flattering post. I continued to scroll back and saw someone saying: I declare him the most handsome boy in our No. 6 Middle School. No one objects, right?

A bunch of replies echoed this.

Max Ye rolled his eyes and quickly typed a line of words on the reply box: Fcuk you, you gay B@st@ard.

When he pressed the send button, it got stuck and the interface repeatedly prompted "Please log in to post your message". He entered his common online name "Ni Qin Ge Bu Yi Tie Ge", but tried the password five times and each time it was incorrect. He was so annoyed that he wanted to smash the keyboard, but was afraid of being discovered by someone next door, so he turned off the phone, put on his shoes and prepared to go home with a rage.

When he pushed open the door of the box, his foot was tripped by something and he almost fell flat on his face. He also lost his grip on the card in his hand and it flew out in a parabola.

He looked down and found that his shoelaces were untied. Fortunately, these were all single rooms and there were not many people passing by in the corridor. Max Ye squatted down with a dark face to tie his shoelaces.

No one knew that he liked to wear slip-on shoes not because they were convenient, but because he didn't know how to tie shoelaces. No matter how he tied them, they didn't work. They would come loose after he stood up and walked a few steps. James Ye bought these shoes for him. If Laura Luo hadn't taken them out and placed them at the door when he went out today, he wouldn't have worn them at all.

After casually tying a knot, Max Ye moved forward with a bent waist, intending to pick up the Internet card that fell next to the water dispenser in front.

I took two steps and saw a bony hand picking up the card on the ground.

This time Max Ye reacted quickly enough. He turned around, opened the door, and threw himself onto the sofa, trying his best to hide his body behind the door.

Just as he was about to kick the door of the private room, Leo Liao's loud voice came from behind: "Student Cheng, are you also here to the Internet cafe to look for study materials?" He paused for less than half a second, and then said in surprise as if he had discovered a new world, "Student Ye, you are here too!"