Duan Yuche didn’t know that Cao Feng had come to see him before he woke up, and, seeing that he was still sleeping, quietly left.
Cao Feng felt that he needed to calm down. He went to school for the competition and ran in a complete daze. After he finished running, Ma Xiaobo patted his arm vigorously, saying that he did well and ran really fast. Cao Feng was still in a trance, and couldn’t shake himself out of it.
His brain couldn’t stop thinking wildly about didi’s relationships, suspecting every man who had ever come into contact with Xiao Che as being the one to lead didi astray.
“Cao Feng, you performed so well today, why is your mood so poor? Are you worried about your grades?” Ma Xiaobo originally wanted to praise him, but when he saw that Cao Feng was not in good condition, he said, “Come to my office later. The English test papers were graded early, you can take them and pass them back to your classmates.”
Cao Feng went to the office just in time to see Ma Xiaobo turn on the computer and start to adjust the seating plan.
He glanced at it out of the corner of his eye. Du Pengfei’s name was still right next to Duan Yuche’s.
Cao Feng stared at the computer screen for a few seconds, hesitating several times. He wanted to tell Teacher Xiaobo to put him next to Duan Yuche instead.
In the end, he couldn’t even manage to get the words out.
Cao Feng had written a program and tried it a few times. It should work, but from beginning to end Cao Feng still didn’t know whether he should use it or not. What if he were found out?
Cao Feng handed out the test papers, and wasn’t even in the mood to see what grade he got.
It was He Tiantian at the desk in front of him who turned around and saw the 130 points on his test paper, and “wow”-ed: “Your English is this good?”
Usually, every time Cao Feng stood up to speak English in a foreign teacher-led class or English class, he would get made fun of. No one would have thought that he could get a score of 130 in the test!
He Tiantian was all smiles as she said: “I only got 89 in the exam, haha. I got some questions wrong, can you help me explain them?”
Cao Feng’s reactions seemed to be half a beat slower. He looked down at the test paper, but had no reaction.
The smile on He Tiantian’s face started to falter: “Cao Feng?”
Only then did Cao Feng come back to his senses. He forced a smile: “Okay, which question do you not know?”
He Tiantian pointed out several multiple-choice questions, and all of them were relatively simple and classic grammar questions. Cao Feng’s grammar was very good, and after only one glance he told her: “This has ‘only’, so you can’t use the superlative.”
“’Witch’ refers to both a person and a determiner.”
“This clause…”
He spoke very fast, as if he were impatient, and asked her after he finished speaking: “Do you understand?”
“Understood, thank you.” He Tiantian didn’t take grammar lessons seriously at all, so how could she understand these things? She was just looking for an opportunity to talk to him. She batted her eyes, “You don’t seem very happy today.”
“Yeah.” His voice was a little hoarse. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
He had barely slept at all last night. In order not to let himself think too much, he crawled out of bed to continue repairing the music box. When he woke up in the morning, he didn’t even shave the stubble on his face, and he looked terribly tired.
He Tiantian asked him: “Is there something wrong?”
“Yes…” Of course Cao Feng was unwilling to reveal Xiao Che’s private details; he would keep it a secret, but he did need some opinions from others.
He paused for a moment, and then said, “I have an online friend, we’ve been chatting for a while, every day, just…recently, I found that he seems to be that, that…”
It was difficult for him to say those three letters.
He Tiantian: “What?”
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.
“It’s… gay,” Cao Feng emphasized, “He’s not someone I know, he’s just an online friend, but I’m kind of…”
“Jjc’a jmmfqa la?”
“Sc……”
“Ktlcx sbeg cfalhfc lr j qfgnfga?”
“Lf’r cba j qfgnfga, tf’r gfjiis ubbv, P pera…mjc’a ecvfgrajcv.” Jjb Mfcu’r fzqgfrrlbc kjr jiwbra tfjgaygbxfc.
“Vb ktja jgf sbe ublcu ab vb?” Lf Kljcaljc rjlv. “Gb sbe kjca ab vfifaf atja oglfcv’r mbcajma?”
Jjb Mfcu lwwfvljafis rtbbx tlr tfjv.
He Tiantian said: “Actually, you don’t have to think that it’s gross or anything. There are two students in our grade, they’re both, you know.”
“Male?”
“Female, lalas.” He Tiantian said.
“Women can also…?” Cao Feng’s expression became even weirder.
“That’s nothing. What decade is it now, Cao Feng, don’t be so old-fashioned. I have some Japanese danmei comics, how about I lend them to you so you can understand it a little! Your online friend isn’t some kind of pervert, that kind of people are just born like that. It’s determined by genetics, you know!”
Cao Feng nodded.
“If you can’t accept it, you can delete that online friend of yours. Or you can talk about it, otherwise, being choked every time you chat with them, won’t it feel uncomfortable? The reason why prejudice exists is because you haven’t tried to understand.”
“You’re right.” Cao Feng seemed to be convinced by her, and let out a breath. Then he smiled, and took out a chocolate bar from his schoolbag and gave it to her: “Thank you.”
“It’s all right.” He Tiantian said, her eyes curved in a smile. “Friendship among classmates is a virtue.”
In the evening, it was time to watch a movie again. This time Cao Feng did not stay at school. He told Ma Xiaobo that he was not feeling well, and then went home directly.
The house was being renovated, and some cardboard boxes had been cleared out in the yard. The door was wide open, and the hum of an electric drill came from within.
What happened?
Cao Feng entered the door with his schoolbag on his back, and saw Duan Yuche with his legs crossed, one long leg hanging over the sofa and a controller in his hand. He was playing a single-player racing game on the TV.
As soon as Cao Feng came back, Duan Yuche was distracted and crashed into a car. Gameover. A curse word in who knows what language burst out of his mouth.
Even if he didn’t understand, Cao Feng could tell from his tone that he was swearing.
“You’re back? Why so early?” Duan Yuche threw away the game controller and tilted his head to look at him. “For you, a good son, my father specially started renovations for you to turn the basement into a studio. Are you happy?”
Cao Feng nodded, and his mouth opened, saying just one line: “I wanted to come back to see you, so I asked for leave.”
Duan Yuche was stunned for a moment, and then the corners of his mouth raised just a little: “I’m much better. I went to the hospital this morning to see a chiropractor, but I’m going to visit Zhou Zeliang tomorrow, so I’ll also ask for leave tomorrow too.”
“…You’re going to see him?” Cao Feng’s tone was a little strange.
“He seems to be really sick, and he has to go to the hospital to change medicines every day.” Duan Yuche thought he was faking it at first, and even Zhou Zeliang thought he was faking it, but after an examination, he was unlucky enough to end up actually getting sick.
With this sickness, he couldn’t go to school for at least a month.
Cao Feng frowned slightly, as if he had some unresolved worries: “Tomorrow is Saturday, I will come back from school in the afternoon to go with you.”
“…What’s going on with you today?” Duan Yuche also noticed the problem with his mood. “Did you fail the exam?”
Cao Feng didn’t know why Xiao Che and Uncle Duan would think about his grades when they saw him in a bad mood. If he failed the exam, he would be sad, but he definitely would not be in such a state of despair.
Just as Cao Feng was about to say something, Duan Shumin suddenly came up the basement stairs and greeted him, “Hey! Xiao Feng is back? Quickly come down and take a look.”
“Okay.” Cao Feng glanced at his didi. When he got down, his mouth opened wide.
The basement wasn’t a large space, no more than twenty square meters, and there was a locked door leading to the underground parking lot.
There used to be some random objects in the basement, but now all them had been removed, leaving only the high-end black massage chair. The furniture Duan Shumin had bought arrived that afternoon, and had just been moved in. There was a huge workbench, and various tools such as electric saws, glue guns, and electric drills were hung on the table and on the wall.
Duan Shumin said: “I almost emptied the hardware store. I don’t know if you need these, but I bought them all anyway. The massage chair has a remote control, I don’t know where I lost it, but it doesn’t need the remote control either. I’ll try and see if it works tonight. Xiao Feng, from now on, this is where you create your inventions!
“What do you think? Do you need anything else? If you need anything, Uncle will buy it for you.”
“This…it’s too good, Uncle Duan, I…” He was incoherent. “Thank you, I, I don’t know how to repay you…”
“Young man, just work hard.” Duan Shumin studied at a teaching university, and was assigned to teach in mountainous areas after graduation. In the mountains, many children would go their whole lives without ever seeing the outside world. Cao Feng worked so hard. Helping him achieve his dream could be regarded as Duan Shumin’s own selfishness.
Cao Feng had already grown much taller than himself. Duan Shumin patted Cao Feng’s shoulder, and said, “Uncle is waiting for you to become a scientist in the future.”
Cao Feng nodded vigorously, and the rims of his eyes reddened: “Please don’t worry, I will work hard. I will…”
“Okay, okay. You don’t need to say so much, we’re a family.”
“Why is my father so nice to you?” Duan Yuche came down to take a look, feeling a little sour. The furniture wasn’t cheap, and the cost of decorating wasn’t low either. It looked like Duan Shumin really wanted to raise a scientist.
Cao Feng smiled, but didn’t answer.
In the evening, Cao Feng tried the code on the computer in his room, then registered a WAN mailbox, created several emails with different titles, and uploaded the Trojan horse.
If Ma Xiaobo’s seat chart file was on his desktop, the Trojan horse would automatically download it, and then tamper with the excel data, changing the names of Du Pengfei and Cao Feng. After five seconds, the Trojan horse would start the self-destruct program.
The whole process would only take half a minute, and it would be entirely completed in the background. As long as Ma Xiaobo clicked on the email link, it would be activated.
Cao Feng racked his brain to create several hoaxes.
The first email was #Congratulations on winning the first prize! Please click on the link…#
The second letter is #The Internet broke at the news of a high school teacher who won two hundred million in the lottery, he actually spent the money on……#
The third letter is #jjchess gifts you 1000 Happy Beans, please collect it as soon as possible…#
Cao Feng accidentally saw Ma Xiaobo playing an online landlord game on the computer, and he was very invested in it, too.
After setting up several automated emails, Cao Feng turned off the computer and found a test paper from his schoolbag.
“Xiao Che, this is your test paper. It was just issued today.” When he walked over, he just so happened to meet Duan Shumin who was also in the room, and for once was playing puzzles with his son.
But it wasn’t so much as playing with puzzles as it was sitting next to the puzzle and just watching, basically not helping with anything.
The jigsaw puzzle was almost one-fifth complete now. It was the result of Cao Feng and Duan Yuche’s joint efforts, and while it wouldn’t win any prizes, it was extremely interesting to Duan Yuche, and he didn’t care at all about winning.
When Duan Shumin heard that it was an exam paper, he raised his head: “Which subject is it? How many points did you get?”
Duan Yuche didn’t even see the test paper, so he replied directly: “88 points.”
Duan Shumin: “…”
Duan Shumin: “Son, let’s talk about it, can you not focus solely on this number 88? Sometimes you can achieve other numbers, for example 150. English is your strong point.”
“What’s the use of getting 150?” Duan Yuche said, relaxed. “I’m getting 10 or so points in other subjects, and I like 88.”
Now Cao Feng understood why Duan Yuche only did some of the questions. He had checked his didi‘s test paper on his way back, and many questions were left untouched, but the ones Duan Yuche had done happened to equal 88 points.
In the face of this subject that was as difficult to him as a primary school level question, Duan Yuche’s pleasure lay in controlling the score, not in achieving the full score.
Duan Shumin asked again: “What about Xiao Feng, what did you get?”
Duan Yuche also looked at him.
“I didn’t do well.” Cao Feng was a little ashamed, “I got 130 in English and 100 in physics. I don’t know about other subjects.”
“130? 100?” Duan Shumin repeated. “The maximum grade in physics is 100, right? So you got a perfect score?”
“En.”
“Good work! Hahahaha, Xiao Feng, you really give Uncle face.” Duan Shumin had high hopes for Cao Feng, and Cao Feng did not disappoint him. This kid was hardworking, level-headed, and self-motivated!
Duan Shumin even thought in his heart that he would call Teacher Ma tomorrow and let Cao Feng and Duan Yuche sit at the same desk. With such a good role model by his side, no matter what it would still be somewhat motivating.
As for Duan Yuche, seeing his father glowing and praising his “other son”, he didn’t say a word.
Cao Feng was going to come over to talk to his didi, but because his uncle was there, he held back.
Early the next morning, Ma Xiaobo entered the office and logged into his work email. All the work group chats had notifications pinging, and right then, the computer coughed twice, and an email reminder popped up in the lower right corner: #Beautiful female dealers are online shuffling cards……#
What the hell, he closed the email.
The first period was Class 7’s class. Ma Xiaobo entered Class 7, supervised a round of morning reading, and realised that he forgot to bring his cup, so he went back to the office.
At this moment, the office computer coughed twice again, and he looked up to see a new email: #The Internet broke at the news of a high school teacher who won two hundred million in the lottery, he actually spent the money on……#
What kind of mess!
Why were there so many scam emails? Is it so easy to deceive a teacher of the people? At first glance, two hundred million is obviously a lie.
At noon, Ma Xiaobo had to print some test questions to prepare for the afternoon class. When he opened the word document, an email popped up again in the lower right corner.
Huh?
1000 Happy Beans?
Teacher Ma falling for an obvious scam email is too funny ToT
i also liked the discussion between cao feng and He Tiantian, hopefully cao feng continues to learn !
I also really liked the convo on sexuality! It’s a (rare) breath of fresh air compared to some other novels. The author’s been doing a decent job of balancing societal norms and individual values, and this topic is no exception. A round of applause for He Tiantian!!
The fact that Cao Feng leveraged his computer science acumen to rearrange a seating chart for his crush is hilarious but also very in character. This guy’s the embodiment of devotion