Chapter 10 - TMCTM Chapter 10

As soon as Tao Xi left the classroom, he shredded the paper and threw it into the trash can. He didn’t join any clubs, but he also didn’t want to go back to the classroom so quickly.

So he just wandered around in the Qiushi Building. Most clubs’ classrooms were in the Qiushi Building. Tao Xi saw a Comic Club, a Go Club, a Street Dance Club, a Movie Club, a Science Fiction Club…

There were so many clubs that he hadn’t seen them before. He looked around for a meeting and picked out a few posters of clubs he was interested in in the newspaper shelf on the first floor. He planned to go back to study carefully and read which club he was interested in.

Before long, he unconsciously followed the music and walked to the rehearsal hall of the Symphony Orchestra on the top floor of Qiushi Building. Standing in the dark corner by the door, he saw Lin Qinhe playing the piano through a small piece of glass.

But soon he saw Yang Duole playing the cello not far away.

Everyone in the orchestra performed their own role. The expressions on their faces were confident and calm, as if they were born in a concert hall wearing a Chinese costume. The musical notes from different instruments were wonderfully blended into melodious music under the command.

Tao Xi hadn’t heard this song before, he just stared at Lin Qinhe, just as how he stared at the live screen in the class of Qingshui No. 1 High School.

It took a long time for Lin Qinhe to appear on the screen once, just as how long it took for the moon to be full moon once in the sky.

But every full moon, Tao Xi engraved the moon into his heart.

Now he was standing in a dark corner across a door, awkwardly imitating Lin Qinhe’s gesture of playing the piano with his fingers, as if returning to the dilapidated classroom in Qingshui No.1 High School. Lin Qinhe was still more than a thousand kilometers away from the screen, and he could only awkwardly copy Lin Qinhe’s words with a pen and draw Lin Qinhe with a pen.

He was clearly standing outside the door not far away, but he seemed to have never entered Lin Qinhe’s world.

Suddenly, Tao Xi saw Lin Qinhe who was playing the piano slightly turned his head and looked at the door where he was standing.

He ran into Lin Qinhe’s sight. At that moment, his hand clenched tight, but he quickly realized that the corner where he was standing was very dark and could not be seen clearly, and Lin Qinhe’s sight quickly returned to the score, confirming that it was just an illusion.

Tao Xi left the orchestra’s rehearsal hall. When he reached the first floor, he put the pile of posters in his hand back into the newspaper rack and then returned to the empty classroom.

He walked to his seat and sat down. He took out the final examination papers of Wenhua No. 1 High School that he had asked Zhou Qiang before. At that time, they didn’t use the papers of Wenhua No. 1 High School in the Qingshui County final entrance exam, so as not to hit the county students.

Tao Xi had already squeezed out the time to finish the Language, Mathematics and Science papers. He took out the unfinished English papers and was about to start to do it, but he smelled a faint fragrance of flowers.

He put down the pen and smelled it carefully, and found that the fragrance of flowers came from the drawer of Lin Qinhe next to him.

Tao Xi hesitated before he bent down and looked at Lin Qinhe’s drawer, and found that there was a red rose wrapped in pink translucent paper, tied with a snow-white bud ribbon, and there was a pink envelope next to the flower.

He guessed that the girl who had a crush on Lin Qinhe took advantage of the club activities and secretly came over here.

But don’t even think about it. Lin Qinhe would definitely go home after finishing the club activities. If he found it the next day, the flower would have wilting already.

Moreover, Lin Qinhe hated dead flowers.

There was actually someone who stepped on thunder more accurately than himself, and he suddenly gained a sense of balance.

Tao Xi didn’t care about the rose. He wanted to remind Lin Qinhe about it tomorrow morning so he continued to do the paper.

What was the relationship between the activities of the club activities and him? All of them needed money, and they couldn’t add points for the college entrance examination. It was better to engage in learning.

After all, he was not a person with a good family background.

As he was answering half of the English paper, the closed back door was suddenly opened. Tao Xi was taken aback, turned his head and found that it was Lin Qinhe who was about to walk in with a sheet of music.

“Don’t come here!” Tao Xi shouted loudly without even thinking about it.

Lin Qinhe frowned and looked at him, but he still stopped, standing at the door and did not enter.

Tao Xi pointed to Lin Qinhe’s table and said, “You don’t like flowers? Someone gave you roses and letter. They are in your drawer. Do you want me to take away the flower for you, or do you want to cover your nose and take it away yourself?”

Lin Qinhe frowned deeper when he heard the words and slight disgust was in his eyes. He said coldly, “Take away everything for me.”

Both flowers and letter were taken away.

Tao Xi was startled, and his thorns stood up inexplicably. He chuckled lightly, biting hard: “Others spent half a day writing a letter and carefully selected a rose. You don’t even look at it and throw it away. Don’t you even care about other people’s minds?”

The tone was very choking, but Tao Xi couldn’t help but empathize with the girl whom he didn’t know who she was.

He thought of so many letters he had written, and he also remembered that the girls in Qingshui No. 1 High School had never received a reply. What an irony.

It was so fucking ironic. He was lucky that he changed his handwriting and pretended to be a girl.

But he never thought that Lin Qinhe would never read these letters and would throw them away as rubbish.

Tao Xi suddenly felt that he was the funniest joke in the world, stupid and cheap.

He tightened his lips and stared at Lin Qinhe, with undisguised anger and malice in his eyes, but Lin Qinhe still looked at him with indifferent eyes, and asked in a cold voice:

“Why should I care? Why does it matter to you?”

Tao Xi was stunned.

Yeah, what was wrong with him?

If Lin Qinhe read the girl’s letter, then he was moved by their heart and promised to be with that person, he would not be happy at all.

The anger came inexplicably and went inexplicably, Tao Xi didn’t know why he was no longer angry, so he had no choice but to feel that he was still a sick idiot

He bent down and took out the bunch of roses and envelope from Lin Qinhe’s drawer. He was about to go to the trash can and threw it away when Lin Qinhe suddenly said “Take an opaque plastic bag and throw it away.”

Tao Xi asked subconsciously: “Why?”

Lin Qinhe’s tone was already a little impatient, “Do you want to see this if you’re the one who wrote this?”

Tao Xi was stunned for another moment before realizing that if he threw it in the trash can, then it was very likely to be seen by other students who went to throw trash. If someone took it and read…

Okay, even if he threw away the letters, it was discarded with dignity. Tao Xi decided to forgive half of it graciously.

He silently took out the opaque plastic bag that he had packed earlier in the morning from his drawer, put the flowers and envelope in it and fastened them before throwing them in the trash can.

When he returned, Lin Qinhe was already sitting in his seat, doing the English papers given by Bi Aoxue.

Hey, even Xueshen had to squeeze time out of the club activities to catch up with homework.

Tao Xi continued to do the final set of English papers. He finally completed the final exam papers of Wenhua No.1 High School, but he did not have the answer.

Then he thought about Lin Qinhe’s paper. Wasn’t it the same as the answer? After hesitating for a while, he finally poke Lin Qinhe’s arm with a gel pen.

“What are you doing?” Lin Qinhe didn’t stop writing.

“Let me borrow your first year final paper.” Tao Xi said.

“Threw it.”

“…” Tao Xi was speechless and couldn’t help but say, “Shouldn’t you keep the papers? You can revise the wrong questions when reviewing later.”

“No need.” Lin Qinhe finally put down the pen and looked at him sideways.

Fuck, Tao Xi was stunned by the words. The crush meant that he had no wrong questions so there was no need to review it.

“Oh, forget it, I will ask another classmate to borrow it tomorrow.”

Tao Xi was just about to put away the paper, but Lin Qinhe suddenly reached out and took the paper to his table to look at it.

“Eh, eh! Give it back to me!” Tao Xi shouted, but he didn’t use his hand to grab the paper.

“Aren’t you going to check the paper?” Lin Qinhe took out a red pen from his pencil case and start reading his English essay.

Tao Xi suddenly became nervous. He withdrew his hand, as if sitting on pins and needles, watching Lin Qinhe draw a line on the English essay with a red pen. His eyes swaying from side to side.

It was even more nervous than when a teacher in elementary school graded the paper in front of him!

“Your composition vocabulary is too weak.” Lin Qinhe said.

“Oh.” Tao Xi nodded obediently. In English, Lin Qinhe and his teacher were indistinguishable, or almost all subjects were indistinguishable.

Lin Qinhe read the test paper again and quickly graded everything except the listening test that he didn’t do. Tao Xi didn’t know whether this person remembered the answer after more than two months, or he knew the answer as soon as he looked at the question.

No matter what it was, it was quite abnormal.

“Can you get full marks in listening?” Lin Qinhe asked.

Tao Xi shook his head honestly: “No, usually about two questions will be wrong.” He was very weak in listening and speaking. Thank you for not having the oral exam for the college entrance examination, otherwise he would be finished.

“Go back and practice.” Lin Qinhe’s tone was beyond doubt.

“Got it.” Tao Xi nodded.

“For this set of papers, you can probably get 133 points. It is 5 points lower than the average score of the Class 1, and 1 point lower than the lowest score of Class 1.” Lin Qinhe said. What he meant that he was still far from staying in Class 1.

Tao Xi was inevitably a little depressed. He hung his head and gave a hum.

“Have you done the papers for other subjects?” Lin Qinhe asked.

Tao Xi hurriedly took out the other test papers. He put his head on Lin Qinhe’s desk, his embarrassment was gone.

Lin Qinhe graded the papers one by one and each set was marked with a total score at the end. He then analyzed one by one the gap between him and the average and lowest score of the first class.

To sum it up, there were still five words: “You are still far behind.”

Tao Xi finally had no strength to be depressed. He put his chin on the desk, his eyelashes were drooping, only nodding numbly and saying, “I know.”

Perhaps his expression was too pitiful. Lin Qinhe looked down at him for a while before he took the supplementary materials on his desk, opened the book and began to mark with strokes. He told him where he needed to focus on while drawing,

Tao Xi nodded repeatedly.

Finally, Lin Qinhe asked suddenly: “Do you know where your biggest problem is?”

Tao Xi didn’t have the energy to think. He turned his head and laid on the table in the direction of Lin Qinhe. He raised his eyelashes to look at him, his eyes were clear, only pure curiosity, and asked, “Where?”

“You can’t find the point.” Lin Qinhe paused, looking at him as he said that.

It seemed to be true. Tao Xi thought about it. He always felt that he had to practice everything he read, and he didn’t know which piece to dig deeper, so he behaved obediently: “I will find out later.”

Lin Qinhe didn’t seem to believe it so he asked, “Then you tell me, what is the point of what I told you last time?”

Tao Xi was stunned. It took him two seconds to react. The last thing Lin Qinhe said to him was the things he said after the basketball game. After all, he had barely spoken since then.

But the memory of that day was really not good, Tao Xi still felt heartache and when he thought of those words, he still felt wronged.

He raised his head from the table, no longer looking at Lin Qinhe, his upper body was stiff, and he couldn’t hide his full grievances as soon as he said: “Don’t you just want me not to use him in the future…”

He lowered his eyelashes and pursed his lips, stubbornly not wanting to say the name.

“No.” Lin Qinhe said flatly.

Tao Xi was stunned, then he heard Lin Qinhe continued in a calm tone: “My point is, if you have something to say, say it to me directly, I will listen.”

I will listen.

Tao Xi was stunned for a while, suddenly felt a little hot in his eyes, sore in his chest, and his throat dried. He lowered his head, for fear that Lin Qinhe would see the expression on his face as he tried to reply in a calm voice, “I see.”

“So, what do you want to say to me this morning?” Lin Qinhe asked, his voice even a little soft, as if he was afraid that if the tone was a little harder, the people on his side would not want to say it.

Tao Xi took a deep breath.

The piece of paper with the words carefully written one by one was torn apart by him and thrown into the trash can with his lack of courage.

He seemed to have exhausted all his strength before putting the pieces together again, suppressing the growing sound of the mountain whistling and tsunami in his heart into a trembling voice and said:

“I want to continue to be your tablemate.”

“Okay.”

Without hesitation, Lin Qinhe agreed softly.

It was still the word “okay”, just like after physical education class that day. It was extremely low, but Tao Xi felt as if he had suddenly stepped on a soft cloud. Below the clouds was the Qingshui River in March. As soon as the wind blows, the peach blossoms in the col fall over the clear stream.

Tao Xi squeezed his nails deeply into his palms, only to control himself so not to cry in front of Lin Qinhe.

That would be embarrassing.

He bit his tongue and couldn’t help but continue: “I still want you to help me to stay in the first class.”

That was how he liked to push his luck.

But this time Lin Qinhe did not agree to him quickly.

Tao Xi was a little flustered. He couldn’t help looking sideways at Lin Qinhe. He was obviously careful, but he said, “You don’t want me to stay in the same class?”

This thorn was getting sharper and sharper, and he suddenly thought of Yang Duole. After working hard for a year before joining the class, he couldn’t do without Lin Qinhe’s help, right?

But what qualifications did he have to compare with Yang Duole? For Lin Qinhe, he was just a stranger who had known each other within a few days.

Tao Xi’s chest was sour. He was afraid that Lin Qinhe would say “yes” to him, so he squeezed out a smile, pretending to be relaxed and pretending to say: “I won’t take too much of your time, just ask you some questions. In return, how about I help you improve your narrative writing?”

But Lin Qinhe didn’t need help on his writing.

He was like a child holding a pile of stones picked from the stream, trying to pick the best one from the stones, hoping to exchange for the treasure of others.

Lin Qinhe looked at Tao Xi’s red eyes, folded and smoothed the corners of a paper with his fingers and said in a flat tone: “Whether you can stay in the first class or not depends mainly on your own efforts. I can’t guarantee.”

Tao Xi sensed a glimmer of hope and said eagerly: “I will seize all the time to work hard!”

You know, the last thing he lacked was hard work, because he could do nothing but work hard.

Lin Qinhe turned his head and glanced at the blackboard at the end of the classroom, and with a low voice, he asked, “Really?”

There were some doubt in his tone.

Tao Xi was taken aback and glanced at the blackboard with cherry blossoms painted by him. He paused and said: “I won’t spend time drawing in the future. I helped Jiang Xinyun draw because she gave me a bottle of water after the basketball game.”

In order to highlight why he should help her, he seriously added: “The bottle of water is 12 yuan a bottle. It is very expensive.”

After speaking, he realized that a bottle of water for 12 yuan was very expensive for him, but it was nothing to most of the students in the class, especially to Lin Qinhe – it was nothing at all.

Lin Qinhe didn’t show any emotion in his eyes after hearing what he said. He just said: “You like to paint so you can join an Art Club. Don’t waste time on other people’s affairs.”

Tao Xi was slightly startled, the club.

He didn’t realize why Lin Qinhe was so sure that he liked to paint, he just heard the word “club” in a daze.

Because he suddenly thought of the scene when Lin Qinhe and Yang Duole playing in the orchestra just now and his heart ached at the thought. He still couldn’t learn to control his jealousy and couldn’t help but say: “Isn’t joining a club a waste of time?”

Lin Qinhe didn’t get angry because of his stubbornness. He said, “You can meet friends in the club. It’s not a waste of time.”

Tao Xi was silent.

He had no interest in meeting new friends.

He wanted to know only Lin Qinhe in the whole world.

But he would listen to what Lin Qinhe said. So he nodded as he said: “Okay, I’ll go and see.”

After Tao Xi finished speaking, he suddenly realized that Lin Qinhe had not promised to help him staying in the class. He was afraid that he would not be able to speak again if he let go of this opportunity today. Just as he was about to open his mouth, he heard Lin Qinhe’s phone vibrate.

Lin Qinhe picked up the phone and looked at it. After answering it, he said, “I’m in the classroom, Lele should still be practicing.”

Tao Xi slowly closed the opened mouth, and heard Lin Qinhe continue to say: “Okay, I will bring Lele home later.”

Lin Qinhe hung up the phone, stood up and said to Tao Xi, “I’m going back first.”

It took a long time for Tao Xi to lift the corner of his mouth and smile before he looked up at Lin Qinhe and said, “Okay, see you tomorrow.”

He didn’t know that his smile didn’t look good at all.

Lin Qinhe looked down at Tao Xi’s eyes and said after a while, “I will stay in the classroom for lunch tomorrow.”

Tao Xi was stunned. Before he could react, he saw Lin Qinhe turned and walked out of the classroom.

He continued to sit in the classroom where he was alone, staring at the paper on the table in a daze.

Lin Qinhe’s red correction handwriting on the paper was still there. He stared at the handwriting firmly, as if he felt that everything just now was true.

He suddenly covered his face and began to laugh, but after the laugh, he began to feel sad again, as if he was sick.

Whenever he was complacent when he got a candy for himself, he would find that other already had candy that he could never eat.

And those candies should be his.