Beyond the OutlineChapter 10

Class Seven’s literature teacher was Lao Meng. Meng Guowei entered the class with a pile of practice worksheets and placed them on his desk. “It’s class time, put your things away.”

His gaze went past the podium and stopped at the back row, discovering that Xu Sheng and Shao Zhan had actually switched their seats. NQat5q

Meng Guowei, “The plans for this lesson are these. We’ll first finish the ancient poetry vocabulary we didn’t finish last class, then I have a few ancient poems I carefully prepared for you guys to appreciate. If we have time, we can discuss them together…”

Literature class was always extremely boring.

Chrysanthemum Garden.

Meng Guowei’s classes were also especially serious, racing against time and only talking about the knowledgeable points. To someone like Xu Sheng, who was a bad student, he could only manage to gather his attention and listen for a while when the teacher digressed from the topic. Taking this kind of class was basically torture.

At first, he even forced his eyelids open to listen to Meng Guowei talk about “gist” and “artistic technique”, then couldn’t hear anything clearly after that. sKaNHF

Shao Zhan tapped his index finger on his desk and woke him up, reminding him, “Listen to class, take notes.”

Xu Sheng grabbed at his hair, only then managing to open his eyes with much difficulty. According to the principle of “if I have to suffer, then so must you”, he took his phone out from his pocket and also reminded him, “Don’t lift your head to look at the blackboard. I never look at the blackboard during class. Sleep or play games, choose one of the two.”

“…”

Xu Sheng tossed his phone in front of Shao Zhan. “Find one that you want to play in the games category.”

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Although the two of them had switched bodies, their bedrooms, phones, and other personal items temporarily hadn’t swapped.

Neither of them knew when this current situation would end. Humans were very good at subconsciously giving themselves some hope. The two of them felt that this situation probably wouldn’t last very long.

There was no need for a password for the phone. Shao Zhan could just use his fingerprint to unlock it.

He swiped over Xu Sheng’s phone screen. He hadn’t yet found the games category before he was attracted by the very unique home screen wallpaper. oM4j9f

It was a sketch of a street.

The whole drawing was of a street scene. Streetlights, a corner store. Inside the store, facing the door, were two shop staff conversing with customers, but these were merely drawn with a few strokes. The most inked part was a cat, sleeping under the streetlamp in the corner.

The cat was dozing in an uncharacteristically well-behaved manner, its paws gathered and its tail curled.

The other parts had been lightly shaded in with a pencil, creating a feeling of a dark night, with only a circle of light shining from the streetlamp. Then a line extended to the other side, becoming unusually empty. f5mn4F

This artwork was full of the traces of a person’s work. It didn’t seem like some picture off the internet.

The pixel quality wasn’t high either. The result from taking a picture with the phone wasn’t very good, the drawing obviously greyish and slightly fuzzy.

Xu Sheng saw his lack of reaction. After copying the notes on the blackboard, he spun his pen and said, “…Don’t tell me you’ve never played games before at this age.”

After Xu Sheng said this, he felt that this might actually be a possibility. He was bored to death in class, and a form of amusement had appeared at the right time. “How about this, I’ll teach you.” V4 yCz

Shao Zhan swiped over and tapped on the games section. “Turn your head back around.”

Xu Sheng shrugged and spun his pen around again. Meng Guowei was rolling up the coursework book while writing on the blackboard. “Everything I’ve just said only touches upon the surface meaning. But the deeper meaning…”

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

Xu Sheng’s phone didn’t have much except a large collection of games. From Fight the Landlord to Honor of Kings, there was no game he hadn’t played.

Shao Zhan was too lazy to pick, and randomly opened one. d7kFVp

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

He had just gone online, and hadn’t even found a match yet when a friend’s ID named “Wild Butterfly on Mountain Peak” sent over a few messages.

Qliv Deaafgois bc Zbecajlc Ufjx: Dbrr, sbe jcv atf raevs ubv. Tbe akb, vfrxwjafr?

Qliv Deaafgois bc Zbecajlc Ufjx: Po sbe’nf yffc xlvcjqqfv pera yilcx.

Qliv Deaafgois bc Zbecajlc Ufjx: C ofk vjsr jub sbe fnfc abiv wf atja rbwfbcf ilxf tlw… 6qOcHY

Pa kjr rbwfbcf firf’r ujwlcu jmmbeca joafg jii, Vtjb Itjc lclaljiis kjcafv ab bnfgibbx la, yea ktfc atf kbgvr “rbwfbcf ilxf tlw” jqqfjgfv, Vtjb Itjc qjerfv.

S: ?

Xu Sheng’s username for his gaming account was simple. Just a single letter.

After this question mark was sent, only after half a minute did the other party send over a long string of words. GTD0yc

Wild Butterfly on Mountain Peak: Solemn and serious, utterly desolate, void of humanity, is basically insane, let me think again, oh and also one more phrase, even worse than a beast.

“Wild Butterfly on Mountain Peak is Zhang Feng.” Xu Sheng had just remembered, as soon as he went online, Zhang Feng would most likely come and find him. “From Class One, he might look for me. Anyway whatever he says you can just reply with ‘oh’.”

As Xu Sheng said that, he actually saw from his peripheral vision the row of words ‘Wild Butterfly on Mountain Peak’. “What did he send?”

Shao Zhan flipped the screen over, and showed it to him. wvsJti

Xu Sheng, “…”

Shao Zhan seemed to let out a cold laugh. The phrase ‘cold laugh’ wasn’t appropriate because the ‘cold’ part accounted for 99.9% of the total meaning. “He scored so little on the language test, but he really knows his idioms.”

Xu Sheng froze, and consciously turned his head back to listen to class.

Zhang Feng had unknowingly sold Xu Sheng out. nw3sdK

He was in Class One watching with wide eyes as “Xu Sheng” started a match on his own without bringing him along, and felt extremely confused.

Previously, Zhang Feng actually did harbour admiration for the study god; after all, his results were so good and outstanding that it was hard not to be impressed, which was why he had come to Class Seven several times, just to see the study god.

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But the review and the disciplinary actions that Xu Sheng experienced made him so frustrated with Shao Zhan that he couldn’t take it. When he heard Zhang Feng say those two words ‘study god’ he had been annoyed. “Do you want your brother or do you want the study god?”

Zhang Feng had hit his thigh. “Of course it’s brother!” kyTF2K

While Shao Zhan was in the middle of playing the game, Meng Guowei distributed some minor test papers to the classroom.

Xu Sheng opened the test paper, and lowered his head to look at the first question.

Xu Sheng thought internally that pretending to be “Shao Zhan” during language class wasn’t very difficult; after all, he could read and understand Chinese characters. In any case he had  stayed strong and finished listening to half the class.

He still knew a bit of basic knowledge. T9plAj

With this, Xu Sheng started to answer the first question, filled with confidence.

“Wrong.” Shao Zhan had finished playing half the round and suddenly spoke up.

“Which problem did I do wrong?” Xu Sheng raised his head.

“You should ask which problem you did correctly.” WFbqcP

”…”

Xu Sheng didn’t know where Shao Zhan’s attention was coming from. He could still play the game while watching him solve the problems. “These few problems I did, none of them are right?”

Xu Sheng once again faced this creature called a study god.

Shao Zhan probably didn’t play games often, but in the next round, he more or less was familiar with the basic mechanics and techniques. When the second round started, he had the faint aura of an experienced player. Compared to Zhang Feng, who was still a rookie after playing for a year, the contrast was tragic. KtmoYh

The most excessive thing was–– He really could play and look at the problems at the same time.

Shao Zhan said one sentence, and Xu Sheng wrote down one sentence. The half-sheet of test paper was solved very quickly.

Now, there were less than five minutes to the end of class.

Meng Guowei usually never collected his in-class worksheets and only reviewed them after class ended. Because of this, the two of them didn’t consider waiting for Shao Zhan to finish writing a set and then switching papers. TBdlRx

Turns out, Meng Guowei’s mood was rather good today. He started fiddling around with the projector on the desk. “There’s no time left. I’ll post all the correct answers for everyone on the blackboard. Correct it using that; these few problems aren’t hard.”

Xu Sheng had already finished his responsibilities for the lesson. He leaned back and squinted at the rag by the blackboard, waiting for class to end.

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But in the next second, he heard Meng Guowei say, “Shao Zhan, bring your paper up.”

When the students in the class heard that the answer key was the study god’s paper, they immediately sat up straight, each of them bearing the same expression as the Gao Zhibo sitting across the aisle. sX73Rw

“…”

Xu Sheng hadn’t thought Meng Guowei’s ‘correct answers’ had meant this.

Shao Zhan couldn’t continue playing the game on his phone and immediately pressed the exit button.

Meng Guowei finished figuring out the projector and walked down the aisle smilingly. “Come, let’s display it for everyone.” CJU1i9

Meng Guowei wanted to directly take away the paper placed on Xu Sheng’s desk.

He tried to take it away, but didn’t succeed.

Xu Sheng pressed down on the test paper and sneakily glanced at the words on his own test paper. The words were wild, exaggerated, and full of viciousness. For a moment, he even thought of eating up his paper in one go.

Meng Guowei tried to take it away with force. The opposite party pressed even harder. jkp2LB

Meng Guowei tried taking it away again.

“Teacher.” In his hurry, Xu Sheng’s mind was aflame in panic and he didn’t even know what thoughts were flashing through. He suddenly slapped the desk and said, “Shouldn’t you give other students the chance to display their skills?”

Meng Guowei was stunned by the slap.

“Of course a standard answer is important, but I feel like you should focus on the parts that are easier to make mistakes on.” Xu Sheng took advantage of Meng Guowei’s wavering and pulled back the test paper from Meng Guowei’s hands. He continued, “…Knowing which parts make students lose points and need to be strengthened through practice, that’s the real help for them.” 7x5 q1

This made a lot of sense!

Meng Guowei felt like his head had been struck by lightning and fell deeply into thought.

He usually always liked making everyone look at Shao Zhan’s standard answers, but were standard answers really that important?!

Xu Sheng was in hot pursuit. “Gao Zhibo once told me that he actually always really wanted to show his homework, but he didn’t have any chances.” Iapfbh

Meng Guowei mused for a while and actually turned around. “Gao Zhibo, teacher didn’t think you had these thoughts.”

Meng Guowei reached his hand out. “Come, give your paper to me.”

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

The Gao Zhibo who had never said that before, “…?”

Every day, Shao Zhan’s mood was strung up high before falling back down due to Xu Sheng’s startling, unprecedented adibs that surpassed all limits. P96Ljd

Other than the little incident during literature class, both Xu Sheng and Shao Zhan had experience for the classes that came afterward. No matter if the homework was collected or not, Shao Zhan always wrote them for him in advance.

Along with the fact that school had just started, the few liberal arts classes so far were all based off of the textbook contents. It was not yet time for questions to be asked, so the opportunities for doing problems weren’t very many. Shao Zhan also knew how to do everything, and the new things they learned touched upon things that were too basic, so the teachers rarely called on him to answer questions.

School ended with much difficulty—Xu Sheng had never felt that going to school was so tiring. He didn’t need Shao Zhan’s reminder since he didn’t have any intention of running out of school. After eating dinner at the school cafeteria, he went back to his dorm to sleep.

There were a few messages from Zhang Feng on his phone. uGIPch

The messages had even been sent during class that day.

Zhang Feng: Why didn’t you take me along when playing games?

Zhang Feng: You even rejected me when I invited you??

Xu Sheng lay on the bed, not knowing how to reply. Just as he was about to casually send two nonchalant sentences back, there were two knocks on his dorm door. It was probably Shao Zhan coming over to take his assignments. nfRl0d

As expected, Shao Zhan was here to collect the assignments. He didn’t come in, just stood in the doorway, and said, “Give me the assignments.”

“They’re all here.” Xu Sheng opened the door and picked up the bookbag on the desk. He leaned against the doorjamb and said, “I’m not sure which subject is which, in any case everything that was distributed is all stuffed inside.”

As Xu Sheng said that, he noticed that Shao Zhan was holding a bag of something in his hands.

Before he could even ask what that was, the next second, Shao Zhan had tossed that bag of things directly to him. ISeLdN

“Start practicing tonight.” Shao Zhan used a ‘no negotiation’ tone of voice and said, “Every day, practice twenty pages. I’ll check tomorrow morning.”

Xu Sheng was stunned by him. “Fuck, what is this?”

After cursing, he lowered his head. Through the plastic bag, a line of words popped out at him: Do you want to learn how to write well in 30 days? Are you still bothered by your unsightly words on paper?

The calligraphy on the book was powerful, the teaching design was reasonable, and the contents detailed how to write well step by step, immersing students into practicing. lb0tux

Xu Sheng’s gaze shifted up two centimetres.

Title: ‘30 Days Makeup—Handwriting’.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

Translator's Note

a phrase meaning “lascivious man” or someone with an overt sexual expression—the character for peak is the same character is the Feng in Zhang Feng’s name. This phrase comes from an ancient Chinese poem

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8 comments

  1. Xu Sheng ia confirmed Adlib God hahahaha deym and Good luck learning how to write legibly hahahaha

    Thank you so much for the chapter!!!!~ 🙇🏻🙇🏻🙇🏻🙇🏻🙇🏻🙇🏻🙇🏻 Happy New Year everyone!!!~ Take care this 2021~