The Silent World And Him - Chapter 01
The day I met Qin Yu was an ordinary day, yet one worth remembering for a lifetime.
Coming out of the cafeteria, a piercing cold wind with snowflakes swept straight into her face, causing Pu Chen to shiver involuntarily.
Groups of students who had just finished lunch were pouring out behind her, and she shifted aside.
The campus was blanketed in white, in front of the cafeteria, a snowstorm overnight had broken a branch off the old tree, and the broken branch was on the verge of falling.
The weather forecast said the lowest temperature today was minus eight degrees Celsius. When she left in the morning, her dad had put a pair of thick insoles in her snow boots.
« Peng Jingyang, you’re such a jerk! »
Immediately after, a group of boys burst into laughter.
Pu Chen turned her head to look.
Four or five boys were having a snowball fight, the one who had just cursed was hit in the mouth by Peng Jingyang’s snowball. He spat while wiping his mouth.
Pu Chen knew them, they were from her class. In the first year, there were a total of twenty-eight classes, and the top students were in the first two classes.
Retracting her gaze, Pu Chen pulled the zipper of her uniform all the way up and walked steadily down the slippery steps into the thick snow.
She preferred to step where no one else had walked, her footsteps accompanied by the crisp sound of crunching snow.
While others went to the cafeteria in groups, she was used to being alone, attending classes and eating alone.
She left two curved footprints in the snow she passed through.
Laughter and chatter filled the air on the way back from the cafeteria to the classroom.
Just after finishing the monthly exams, this heavy snowfall became their stress reliever.
« Bang! » Pu Chen’s vision went black, her forehead wet and cold, she didn’t know whose snowball hit her.
« Sorry. »
Pu Chen looked up, the tall boy running towards her was Peng Jingyang.
« Are you okay? » Peng Jingyang asked again, recognizing Pu Chen. This snowball was originally thrown at him by a classmate, but he dodged it, and it hit Pu Chen’s forehead perfectly.
Pu Chen shook her head, she wiped her forehead with her sleeve, and typed on her phone to show him: [It’s okay.]
Peng Jingyang apologized again and then went to find his companions.
« You hit Pu Chen from Class Ten. »
« Oh, it’s her. »
The voices of the few people grew fainter.
Because of her special physical condition, her name was known throughout the school, even the campus heartthrob Peng Jingyang knew who she was.
Back in the classroom, before Pu Chen could sit down, someone called her from the doorway: « Pu Chen, Teacher Lu wants you to go to the office. »
Pu Chen looked towards the voice, it was a girl from the next class.
She nodded to indicate she understood.
Teacher Lu was their homeroom teacher, teaching English.
Her grades were average, only English was barely passable, so she was appointed as the English class representative.
Every time Pu Chen went to the office, she would knock on the door first, afraid that suddenly showing up and being unable to speak would startle Teacher Lu.
« Knock knock, » she lightly tapped twice.
Lu Baisheng looked up from the test papers, the office was warm, and he was only wearing a white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up.
« Teacher Lu. » Pu Chen greeted silently with her lips.
With simple lip reading, Lu Baisheng understood what she said. The person she called most often was Teacher Lu, and occasionally she would say thank you to him.
« Come see how much you scored on this monthly exam. » With that, Lu Baisheng handed her the test paper.
Three bright red numbers, 118.
Pu Chen flipped through the exam paper roughly, trying to spot where she had made mistakes.
« Not bad. Aim for over 125 on the final exam, » Lu Baisheng said as he took the paper from her and circled the questions she shouldn’t have gotten wrong.
Pu Chen looked at the mistakes, all of which had been emphasized by Teacher Lu in class.
Lu Baisheng’s phone on the desk vibrated. Glancing at it, he saw it was from Director Sun and answered it.
The conversation was brief, with Lu Baisheng only saying, « Okay, I’ll be right there. » Hanging up, he said to Pu Chen, « We have a new transfer student. »
Pu Chen nodded, unsure whether the new student was a boy or a girl.
« Afternoon PE class is canceled, replaced with an English class to review the exam paper, » Lu Baisheng said, handing her a stack of midterm exam papers from the table.
Pu Chen left with the exam papers and met the English class representative from the next class in the hallway, heading back to the classroom together.
The English class representative swooned over Lu Baisheng’s appearance, exclaiming, « If Teacher Lu taught our English class, I would definitely score over 140 on every test. »
Pu Chen smiled lightly in response.
Their Class 10 was well-known throughout the school, not only because of her, who was speechless, but also because of their homeroom teacher, Lu Baisheng.
At the beginning of the school year, there were no fewer than ten versions of rumors related to Lu Baisheng. It was said that his family background was so prestigious that it was difficult to climb up to, he had an Ivy League education background, and his love life was tumultuous, having been forced into marriage by his family and coming to teach in Sucheng out of anger.
Anyway, the more the rumors spread, the more exaggerated they became, and eventually, Lu Baisheng became the standard male lead in romance novels.
But the only thing that could be confirmed was that Lu Baisheng was from Beijing.
Soon, they reached the classroom door.
The English class representative’s infatuation came to an end.
Pu Chen walked to the platform and announced to everyone that afternoon PE class was replaced with an English class to review the midterm exam paper. She hadn’t finished her last few words when cries of lamentation erupted from below.
With this weather, PE class couldn’t be held, and they had been looking forward to self-study class to read extracurricular books. Maybe they could even take the opportunity to nap, but now all their plans were ruined.
Pu Chen handed out the exam papers one by one, with the highest score being 142.
She had two exam papers left in her hand, which were drowned out by a chorus of astonishment.
« Which class is he from? Why is he so handsome! »
« He must not be from our school; I’ve never seen him before. »
« Could he be a transfer student? »
« I hope so, I hope so! »
There was a lot of discussion around, with uncontrollable excitement in their voices.
Pu Chen turned around and saw a boy standing next to Teacher Lu, presumably the new transfer student Teacher Lu had mentioned.
Judging by the appearance, the new transfer student was at least 183 centimeters tall, maybe even taller. He was wearing a brand new winter school uniform, with the zipper open, giving the much-criticized school uniform a different feel when worn by him.
The boy’s pitch-black eyes seemed indifferent, as if he had no interest or curiosity about the new class.
« The new student’s hairstyle is nice, much better than Peng Jingyang’s. I like to see such clean and refreshing boys, pleasing to the eye, » a girl sitting in the back row commented.
Her desk mate, a boy, chimed in, « Maybe he went to the hair salon for a haircut before coming. »
Laughter erupted around them.
The girl said, « Seriously, you’re toxic. »
She playfully tapped the boy on the head.
Pu Chen handed the last two English exam papers to the girl and her desk mate, the only two who failed in the class.
Lu Baisheng took the blackboard eraser and tapped the podium to quiet them down.
Pu Chen returned to her seat. Her desk was next to the podium, the most special seat in the class, convenient for the teacher to ask her questions during class, and she used her phone to type out answers for the teacher to see.
Over the years, her typing speed was not much slower than speaking.
Pu Chen gently pulled out her chair and sat down. Qin Yu stood in front of her desk, and the hem of his school uniform brushed against the stack of thick books on her desk.
A girl sat alone by the podium, and Qin Yu glanced at Pu Chen more than once.
Next was the new student’s self-introduction.
Pu Chen was too close to Qin Yu; she had to tilt her head up to see him, which would be too obvious, so she decided to focus on the English exam paper she had just distributed.
The new transfer student introduced himself, his voice matching his demeanor, clear and pleasant.
Turned out his name was Qin Yu.
There was an empty seat in the second-to-last row near the back door, and Qin Yu temporarily sat there.
Many people were distracted by the handsome new student and gathered to gossip after class.
« I heard from Qin Yu’s desk mate that he transferred from Beijing. »
« Why didn’t he stay in Beijing? Is he so desperate that he transferred to our province for the college entrance examination? »
Of course, here’s the translated paragraph with spaces between each paragraph:
—
« Maybe he’s not from Beijing, so he can only transfer back to attend high school. »
« Why do you care so much? As long as there are handsome guys to look at. I declare that from today onwards, Qin Yu will replace Peng Jingyang and become the new school hunk. »
In terms of appearance, Qin Yu is superior, but Peng Jingyang is a top student.
Peng Jingyang won first place in the national math competition and second place in the chemistry competition. Besides competitions, he also excels in academics, consistently ranking in the top three in monthly exams. With these accolades, Qin Yu’s appearance alone lacks persuasiveness.
The girls in the class are gossiping about Qin Yu. In the tea room, Pu Chen overheard a few girls from her class boasting to girls from other classes:
« We also have a school hunk in our class now. No need to envy Peng Jingyang in Class 1 anymore. »
« Really? Is he even more handsome than Peng Jingyang? »
« Well, I think Qin Yu is much handsomer than Peng Jingyang. »
« Uh huh, but what about his studies? »
« His studies… um… »
The boasting suddenly lost its confidence.
Because Qin Yu sleeps during class and his grades don’t seem to be that good.
Pu Chen doesn’t know what state Qin Yu is in during class; she always sits by the podium and never looks back. If she hadn’t been appointed as the English class representative, she might not even recognize all her classmates.
—
The second period in the afternoon is English class. Lu Baisheng looks at Qin Yu more than once during class, but Qin Yu remains asleep with his head on the desk for the entire class.
After class, Lu Baisheng only spends a moment explaining a wrong question to a classmate. When he looks up again, the second-to-last row near the back door is empty.
There’s no sign of Qin Yu in the corridor either.
« Pu Chen, come with me to the office. Fetch Qin Yu’s test papers for him, » Lu Baisheng says.
Pu Chen nods and follows Lu Baisheng to the office.
Lu Baisheng hands Pu Chen a stack of all the test papers done during this period, eight in total. He instructs Pu Chen, « Make sure Qin Yu completes all of these by the end of school on Friday at the latest and submit them to me. »
Pu Chen: « … »
Today is already Wednesday.
Does Qin Yu have enough time to complete so many test papers?
Pu Chen takes the test papers back to the classroom, but Qin Yu is not at his seat.
Pu Chen tears off a piece of paper and writes down Lu Baisheng’s request: « Teacher Lu wants you to complete all test papers and hand them in by the end of school on Friday at the latest. »
She leaves the note along with the test papers on Qin Yu’s desk and asks his desk mate to remind him again.
Five minutes before class, Pu Chen takes her water bottle to refill it. When she returns to the classroom, the note she wrote for Qin Yu is stuck on her desk with a few lines of hastily written words:
« Could you please give me the correct answers to all the English test papers, class representative? Thanks. ——Qin Yu »
