Chapter 5 - Deskmates

Qiu Mingyan didn’t understand Song Xiao’s meaning at first, looking at him blankly for almost five full seconds before reacting, angered to the point that her limbs were trembling.

“Song Xiao, what do you mean by this?! You’re regarding my mother as a maid?” Song Zheng, who had been sitting by the side immediately shrieked.

Song Zicheng couldn’t control his face. On one hand, his son’s bossy attitude was amusing, while on the other, saying this was a bit too much, thus he tried to smooth things over, saying, “Xiaoxiao, you can’t speak that way! Mingyan, don’t bother to bicker with a child, he still hasn’t recovered his memory, come sit down and eat.”

“Xiaoxiao, I know you don’t like aunt, but you’re already over fifteen, you can’t….” Qiu Mingyan sat down and took two breaths, but couldn’t help opening her mouth to say something, while speaking she began to let out tears.

Song Xiao saw her sitting down while crying, and frowned even harder. He turned to Song Zicheng and said, “Father, how could concubines sit at the same table as the head of the family…”

“Song Xiao!” Song Zicheng immediately interrupted. Seeing his son purse his lips, he felt some regret over speaking too loud. Before, Song Xiao would barely speak a few sentences to him in a year, rarely willing to speak. Not wanting him to be frightened back to his previous state, he continued, “Cough, you are not allowed to say words like ‘concubine’ anymore, tomorrow, let Assistant Si buy you some regular books.”

Having been interrupted by Song Zicheng, Qiu Mingyan couldn’t continue crying, after all, she had not married into the family yet, and didn’t have the confidence to argue at the dining table. She could only grit her teeth secretly, plotting to find Song Zicheng after dinner to complain tearfully while also bringing up the marriage matters.

There aren’t any rules at home, so since the family head didn’t mind, then Song Xiao won’t bother about it anymore, holding his bowl and eating earnestly.

He was born in a literary family, an official of the third rank, and later he even became part of the imperial family. Naturally, he possessed a noble demeanor. His eating motions were elegant and dignified, and it was pleasing to the eye.

The pair of mother and daughter who were eating at one side without tasting anything, felt even angrier at the sight of Song Xiao’s table manners.

After dinner, Song Xiao followed Song Zicheng into the study.

“Son, do you remember what you learned in middle school?” Song Zicheng gave Song Xiao books from his last year in middle school, “There’s a month before school starts, if you don’t even remember the basics, how will you pass the entrance exam?”

Song Xiao took the ‘Ninth Grade Chemistry’ book and flipped it open for a look. “Balancing the chemical equation…periodic table…” He could understand the words, but couldn’t understand them when they were put together.

“Sheng Meng High School has an entrance exam, and they split classes through the results.” When Song Zicheng saw his blank face, he knew that he couldn’t even read the textbook, thus said, “Tomorrow, Assistant Si will invite a home tutor who will give you as many remedial lessons as possible. I’ll talk to the headmaster, pay him a visit in a few days.”

Home tutor? He probably meant a private school teacher. Song Xiao understood father’s intentions, and nodded immediately. Knowledge since the ancient times had increased exponentially, so he really needed a teacher to come teach him from scratch.

“Thank you, father,” Song Xiao looked at his grinning father and felt a little dazzled. His father from the past had never been so caring towards him, only coming to check on his homework on set dates, but because he has a good memory and could memorize any book, after a duration of time, his father felt that it was a meaningless exercise, and didn’t look after him anymore.

“Silly child,” Song Zicheng tried out raising his hand and rubbing Song Xiao’s head, in turn received his son’s shocked wide eyes. The short, fluffy hair was nice to touch, and seeing his son hadn’t avoided it, he couldn’t resist touching it a bit more. “Call me dad. If you keep calling me father, you would make me feel older.”

“Dad…”

“Ai, good child…”

Qiu Mingyan, who was standing at the door holding a midnight snack, heard the sounds of the father and son laughing pass through the door, and bit her lip in hatred.

The next day, Si Dashu found a home tutor, a twenty year old graduate student from the best university in A city, named Ding Hui, working as a home tutor during summer vacation to earn her tuition money.

Upon entering, she realized it was a wealthy household, and inevitably felt a little nervous. Second generation young masters weren’t easy to serve, a few days ago she had tutored one. He had a head full of blond hair, a face with a disdaining expression, after studying for a few days he didn’t want to study anymore.

Song Xiao walked down from the stairs. When he heard he was meeting the tutor, he let Aunt Chen pick a somewhat formal attire, a white button up shirt and black slacks, and even wore a small necktie.

“Xiaoxiao, this is Teacher Ding, A University’s graduate student taking her master’s degree,” Si Dashu smiled at Song Xiao who was standing at the stairs while saying, “Teacher Ding, this is Song Xiao, freshly graduated from middle school.”

Ding Hui looked up, saw the boy walking down the spiral staircase and was stunned for a while.

His posture was tall and straight, pace unhurried. His delicate chin was raised slightly, yet didn’t seem the slightest bit haughty, instead bringing a sense of nobility of the highest standard. In that split second, she felt as if she had met a genuine prince.

Song Xiao knew that modern women could enter school just as men did, and he greatly respected this girl who could study a master’s degree. He walked up to Ding Hui and nodded, “Hello, teacher.”

“Hello, little prince.” Ding Hui immediately smiled. Such a handsome and polite youth, he definitely would be popular.

If she could see this face every day, this job would absolutely be worth it, and she wouldn’t even mind if they paid her less.

“Our Xiaoxiao recently had an incident, and can’t remember anything from the past. We have to trouble Miss Ding to teach him from the beginning,” Seeing the two of them going to Song Xiao’s room, he anxiously explained.

“You can be at ease,” Ding Hui waved her hand in disbelief. An hour later, she finally realized what was called ‘teaching from the beginning’!

“You should know what a quadratic formula is, right? Eh, then do you know what’s a mathematical equation?” Ding Hui looked at the boy who had a blank face and clutched her hair. This was teaching from the education of a primary school student!

Ding Hui pulled out primary school to middle school third year textbooks from Song Xiao’s bookcase and started teaching from the beginning.

“Wow, you learn pretty fast, did you remember something?” Ding Hui was curious about this amnesia which had always appeared in television shows, so she tried to learn more about it.

Song Xiao lifted his head from the book to give her a glance, then continued to read and ignored her. This female teacher taught pretty well, but she was too unreserved, patting his head silently and always watching him with a silly smile.

Time flew by in an instant. Even though Song Xiao had a retentive memory, the knowledge from primary school to middle school was too much, and he could only roughly swallow up what he could, not thoroughly understanding the subjects. Up until the opening ceremony of high school, he still hadn’t learned the knowledge of junior middle third year.

Ding Hui said that without the knowledge of middle school third year, studying in high school was akin to reading obscure writing, and persisted in letting him finish learning the subjects of middle school third year.

In this manner, it took another week before Song Zicheng brought Song Xiao to school to register.

The entrance examination had already ended, and the classes had all been separated, the benefits of this kind of school was that they were more tolerant towards second generation students who paid tuition fees, letting Song Xiao take the exam by himself.

The former Song Xiao’s grades were not good, so the teacher in charge of splitting classes took the test paper which had been thoroughly bombed and didn’t feel that it was inappropriate.

He took a form and asked, “Do you have anything you’re particularly good at?”

“The zither, go, calligraphy, and painting, all are pretty good. I’m particularly good at the flute.” Song Xiao earnestly replied.

The teacher looked at him. This boy really wasn’t modest. Seeing that Song Xiao had the backing of the Xinghai entertainment agency’s president, he wrote ‘performing arts oriented’ on the form, then assigned him to the Special Class One class. Many students had fathers who mixed within the entertainment circle, so even if they didn’t study well they could go to an art school.

The so-called special class, wasn’t an advanced class where top students were gathered, but was a class where students specialized in one particular skill could get bonus credit or had been specially recruited were gathered. To put it bluntly, it was where unenthusiastic second generation students attended class.

The form teacher was a female teacher in her forties. She looked very experienced. “I am your form teacher, Teacher Jia. Let your parents help tidy up your dorm, you will follow me to class first. You’ve missed a week of class, so you can’t miss any more.”

Teacher Jia spoke no further and pulled Song Xiao to leave, leaving Song Zicheng and Si Dashu staring blankly with a bunch of bags. The headmaster who accompanied them smiled proudly, saying, “This form teacher was dug out by me from the city’s top middle school, and she’s very responsible, you can rest assured that handing over the child to her was the right decision.”

Si Dashu looked at the teacher’s disappearing back and pulled the corner of his lips. Like he said, this teacher was nothing like that of an aristocratic school, instead extremely alike to his high school form teacher.

Song Xiao, carrying his schoolbag and a stack of new textbooks, followed his form teacher to the classroom. This period was self-study, so there were no teachers.

Teacher Jia stood at the teacher’s desk and used the blackboard eraser to knock on the table. “Raise your heads. This is Song Xiao, our class’s new student. Please welcome him, everyone.”

Scattered applause resounded, and Teacher Jia let Song Xiao introduce himself.

“Hello everyone, my name is Song Xiao. This is the first time meeting everyone, I hope you schoolmates can advise me in the future.” Sheng Meng High School had a unified school uniform, which was an altered form of a suit. The short sleeved shirt on Song Xiao’s body made it seem like he was wearing a formal attire.

The class was quiet for a few seconds.

“Cheh, where did this bookworm come from? And he even said schoolmates…” A boy from the first row scoffed.

“How handsome!” A girl couldn’t help saying this. The class instantly buzzed with conversations, covering up the boy’s voice.

“My god, do you think he’s as handsome as the class monitor?”

“They’re different types ba, this one is obviously a gentle and soft type ah…”

“Quiet!” Teacher Jia roared, and the class immediately quieted down. “There are a few empty seats, so you should go pick one yourself. This period is almost over, yet you guys still aren’t rushing to complete the next class’s homework, you all must be very free, right?”

Song Xiao looked around. Because this was an aristocratic school, there weren’t many students per class, and there were around thirty students in this class, with two desks put together each. The classroom only had three seats left, all of which had one desk occupied. One was a boy with thick glasses, and his hair was oily, as if it hadn’t been washed for several days. Another was a girl with glittering eyes, staring at him fixedly…

Song Xiao couldn’t stand sitting next to the boy who hadn’t washed his hair, and it’s not proper for men and women to interact closely, so the girl was also inappropriate. He could only move his focus to the last seat.

It was a tall boy who looked very clean. He couldn’t see his face because he was lying on the table sleeping soundly. He could only see a handsome head of hair and slender white neck.

Song Xiao walked over and sat next to him.

Sensing someone near him, the boy who was sleeping like a dead log instantly woke up, looking up towards the person who had the audacity to sit next to him. Song Xiao also reacted by turning to look at him. This one look, and both of them were simultaneously stunned.

Song Xiao looked at the appearance of the young man before him and nearly teared up. The sharp brows, bright eyes and thin lips, it was the unparalleled handsome face of the Jingyuan emperor!

The author has something to say

Small theater

Fish Tang: Do you know what a desk mate is for?

Xiaoxiao: What?

Fish Tang: Table, bed too, to have the same desk means that you and I have to have the same bed too.

Xiaoxiao:……..

Teacher Jia: (╰_╯)#

Little gong appeared, no need to pluck off feathers, lalalala

Translator’s note

And that’s the final chapter where there was good translations! After this, the previous translations were just mtl, so I’m sure quite a few readers are eager to read after this!

Also, for the readers who have been reading the past few updates, which I’ve been updating daily: so I’ve been doing my best to keep to daily releases, but because of irl assignments, which is a heckload, sometimes I might not be able to post every day. This is why my release schedule is noted as sporadic, instead of daily. Please be patient with me 🙂