NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1099 - Can’t You Tell? He’s Coaxing Her (Lu Guixin Part 23)
Chapter 1099: Can’t You Tell? He’s Coaxing Her (Lu Guixin Part 23)
The next day, during the flag-raising ceremony.
While the Year Three’s Level Head was finishing up his speech, Lu Guixin left the group of Year Ones and went to stand next to the podium in preparation to recite her reflection speech.
Xi Yan stood next to her. Upon recalling that Lu Guixin had the same temper as her mother, she was afraid that history might repeat itself, and Lu Guixin would lecture people instead. Thus, she carefully said, “Guixin, let me see your script.”
“Okay.” Lu Guixin handed the slip of paper to her.
In just twenty seconds, Xi Yan finished scanning through the eight-hundred-word script. She sighed in relief when she realized that it was written in a pretty sincere manner. “Just read according to the script.”
Lu Guixin walked up to the podium when Mr. Dong finished his speech.
The girl was wearing her blue and white school uniform, tall and slim. Her hair had grown a little, making its way past her collarbones. The two sides of her hair were tucked behind her ears, exposing her fair, clean, and beautiful face.
When Mr. Dong thought about the stuff that Zhou Fu had done, he was reminded of the video of Lu Guixin beating Xia Cheng up and the things the person whose photo was hanging up on their school’s wall of fame had done.
She’s Gu Mang’s daughter… Mr. Dong got all worried now. He didn’t get off the podium. Instead, he stood next to Lu Guixin, who was about to read her speech.
Lu Guixin glanced at him, but she didn’t say anything.
Tian Rong looked at the stage and laughed. “Zhou Fu, you’ve left Mr. Dong with quite the trauma. I bet he’s going to stand next to everyone who needs to recite their reflection speech.”
Zhou Fu’s eyes remained on Lu Guixin, never moving away from her once.
Lu Guixin adjusted the microphone stand, making it taller before she started off by introducing herself in a gentle voice while holding the script in her hand. “Hello, everyone. I’m Lu Guixin from Class Nine of Year One. Regarding the incident of me beating up a Year Three student during last week’s lesson time, I’ve deeply realized my mistake…”
Tian Rong couldn’t help but chortle when he heard that. He couldn’t believe that the speech was written by Zhou Fu. He immediately zipped his mouth when he felt a cold stare coming from the side.
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never believe that her slap was powerful enough to make someone collapse on the ground, given how obedient she looks,” said a male classmate.
Tian Rong nodded and showed his agreement by putting up his thumbs.
“Last month, it was Zhou Fu reflecting on himself. This time, it’s Lu Guixin. Is it only the popular students deserve to reflect on themselves?” The male classmate stroke his nose.
“How was that reflecting on himself?” Tian Rong retorted. “That’s more like him lecturing us.”
The male students around Zhou Fu cupped their fists in obeisance.
While chatting among themselves, Lu Guixin reached the end of her speech. “I hope that this will be a warning to all. Help each other if someone’s in difficulty, maintain a friendly relationship with the fellow students, and create a peaceful school life.”
The corners of Tian Rong’s lips twitched. He couldn’t imagine Zhou Fu writing a reflection speech with a cigarette between his lips while shaking his leg.
As soon as Lu Guixin finished her speech, the sound of applause could be heard from the Year Threes group.
Tian Rong turned his head and saw an expressionless Zhou Fu standing at the side, clapping his hands. With the latter taking the lead, the former immediately clapped his hands hard and shouted, “Good! That was well said!”
The other guys who got along well with Zhou Fu did the same. “Good! You’re our role model!”
The sound of applause slowly spread and got louder and louder.
Mr. Dong, who was standing on the stage, was livid. He snatched the mic and sternly reprimanded, “Put your hands down this instant! This is a reflection, not an award speech!”
A burst of laughter erupted from the students.
…
All the students returned to their respective classrooms.
When the math class rep returned after collecting their homework and bringing it to their teacher, she went straight to Lu Guixin’s table and said, “Lu Guixin, our math teacher is looking for you.”
Lu Guixin put the cap back on her bottle and twisted it after taking a sip of water. “Okay. Thank you.”
Upon arriving at the math department, Lu Guxin saw that her math teacher was looking at her exam paper for this monthly exam. So she walked straight up to the teacher. “Are you looking for me?”
The math teacher placed her answer sheet and the result ranking in front of her. She then pushed her glasses up. “What’s this? I praised you for doing well last month. How come your score dropped again? You barely got a few questions correct. The ones you did wrongly were careless mistakes.”
Lu Guixin quietly hung her head low.
The math teacher sighed and then said gently, “The fact you did well the other time shows that you’re smart and that you can improve with hard work. Were you affected by what happened online?”
Lu Guixin remained silent.
Although all the teachers were quite surprised that Lu Guixin had beaten up a fellow student, they thought that it was only natural for one to behave abnormally if they were forced to a corner. Hence, she was still a good and quiet girl with bad results for most of the teachers.
“Alright, that’s enough for now,” said the math teacher. “I’ll explain the questions in class later. You go redo this paper. Show the detailed steps, too. I want it latest by tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
The math teacher nodded. “You can go back now.”
“Okay.”
…
While Lu Guixin was on her way back to the classroom, she happened to run into her form teacher at the corner of the stairs. She politely greeted, “Hello, teacher.”
“Ah, it just so happens that I was looking for you.”
Lu Guixin froze.
The form teacher showed her the result slip in her hand. “What happened to your grades? Out of 1700 over people, you rank top 300 from the bottom? How come you suddenly dropped 700 places?”
Lu Guixin, who was too lazy to find an excuse, simply said, “I didn’t do well on the exams.”
The form teacher looked at her and sighed just like the math teacher. “I understand that you were affected by what happened. Things are already over. I hope you’ll get back into condition as soon as possible.”
“Okay.”
As soon as the form teacher left, Lu Guixin furrowed her eyebrows in irritation. If I knew things were going to be so troublesome, I wouldn’t have purposely done that.
…
The Year Three cohort.
The recent chat history of Tian Rong and his sister was all about Lu Guixin. Upon knowing her results, Tian Rong immediately told Zhou Fu about it. He had a complicated look on his face as he whispered, “Zhou Fu, didn’t you say you tutored her? How come her results are getting worse?”
Bottom 300th? If the questions were hard, everyone would’ve also found them hard. There wouldn’t be a situation where her ranking dropped so much. Zhou Fu didn’t respond to Tian Rong’s question. Instead, he took out a laptop from his backpack and began typing on it.
It turned out that he was hacking into the school system. Lu Guixin’s answer sheets were all displayed on the computer screen.
He didn’t tutor her on politics, history, and geography, but he did on science and mathematics. The typical examples he had summarized for her matched most of the questions on her monthly exams, but she got them all wrong. Did she do that on purpose? I asked her to get the top 300, but she got the bottom 300 instead.
Tian Rong grimaced when he saw the zero marks for the various questions. “What the… Isn’t that…” Too low of a score…? I’ve never gotten so many zeros in my exams before.
Zhou Fu took a deep breath and went on to check the next answer sheet. “The scores look pretty good.”
…
The entire day was spent going through the exam papers for every subject. After every lesson, the respective subject teacher would ask to speak to Lu Guixin and ask about her results, and she would obediently respond to them. She didn’t even have the chance to take a nap in between lessons, and when she accidentally fell asleep during lessons, the teachers would make her stand up for the rest of the lessons.
It was half-past ten when their second period of night study session started. After revising her work for a while, Lu Guixin couldn’t stand it anymore. She dragged Tian Lu out to go to the night market and eat something to relieve her stress.
“I’ve been standing all day. I’m exhausted.” Lu Guixin scrunched her face. “I’m ravenous, too. I want to eat a lot of food.”
Just then, her shoulders felt a lot lighter, as if somebody had lifted her backpack. She turned around and saw Zhou Fu behind her.
He wanted to help her carry the bag. “Let me carry it.”
Lu Guixin’s face instantly darkened. She smacked his hand away and stalked off in huge strides.
Zhou Fu followed her, staying half a step behind next to her and placing his hand at the bottom of her backpack to help lessen its weight.
When Lu Guixin moved away to avoid his hand, he forcefully snatched the backpack off her.
“Return it to me!” Lu Guixin reached out to grab the bag.
Zhou Fu, having the height advantage, supported the base of the backpack and raised it high in the air.
Other than Tian Rong, all the guys behind were speechless to see this.
“What’s Zhou Fu doing?” someone asked.
“Can’t you tell? He’s coaxing her,” answered Tian Rong with a shrug. Nobody else would dare to slap him and throw the food he bought into the trash bin.
The guys gulped and said in unison, “We can tell, but we just can’t believe it…”
Knowing very well how they feel, Tian Rong patted their shoulders.
Now that the night study session was over, there were a lot of students on the road, and all their eyes were glued to Zhou Fu and Lu Guixin.
Zhou Fu ignored the stares.
Upon arriving at the night market, the group split off to go buy the food they each wanted to eat.
Tian Lu looked at Zhou Fu and then at Lu Guixin before following Tian Rong and the others.
Zhou Fu followed behind Lu Guixin. Whatever she ordered, she would use his phone to scan the QR code to make payment. While waiting for the barbecued chicken wings, he asked her, “Coke, juice, or fruit tea? Tian Rong and the others are at the convenience store.”
Lu Guixin said nothing.
It just so happened that the barbecued chicken wings were ready. After packing them, the boss handed the paper bag to her.
“Thank you,” said Lu Guixin politely. She was just about to reach out to get the food when Zhou Fu stretched his hand out.
He was already carrying a lot of food in that hand. Using his other hand, he texted a voice message to Tian Rong, asking the latter to “buy a bottle of each flavor.”
Lu Guixin ignored him and turned around. She walked to the roadside of the school gate and quietly stood there waiting for Tian Lu and the others to come back.
Zhou Fu stood in front of her on a step lower than hers and stared unblinkingly at her. “Lu Guixin, I’ll be careful when I talk in the future. Don’t be angry anymore.”
The girl looked afar towards the convenience store and refused to even spare him a glance.
Zhou Fu cupped her chin and turned her face towards him. “Look at me. Didn’t you say that I’m good-looking and that you want to become my girlfriend?”
Lu Guixin stayed silent for a second before saying, “Why did you suddenly become so shameless?”
Zhou Fu smiled. The plaster at the corner of his lips crinkled a little. “I learned it from you. You seemed quite skilled at wooing me, and you succeeded.”
Expressionless, Lu Guixin smacked his hand away and continued to look in the direction of the convenience store.
Zhou Fu shifted towards the side this time and blocked her vision with his tall build.
“Get lost.” Lu Guixin frowned and glared at him.
“Nope.” He looked into her beautiful eyes and said alluringly, “I got used to you chasing me, so you have to get use to me chasing you now, my princess.”
“Why should I?”
Seeing that she was responding to him now, the tension in Zhou Fu eased a little. He said earnestly, “I really know my mistake. Can you please forgive me this time, Your Highness?”
Lu Guixin lifted her chin even higher and said coldly, “No, I don’t like people who are stupid.”
“Well, birds of a feather flock together. I spent too much time tutoring you that I became stupid, too.”
“Get lost!” Lu Guixin sent a kick flying in his direction.
Zhou Fu hurriedly dodged the kick, his eyes narrowing as he looked down.
Tian Rong and the others happened to see this scene as they made their way back while carrying lots of food.
“Why are you two fighting again?” Tian Rong had a complicated look on his face. He was truly curious about how Zhou Fu was always able to rile Lu Guixin up so much that she was always scolding and beating him.
Just like that, Tian Rong and the others saw Lu Guixin turn around and storm back to the school with Zhou Fu chasing after her.