Chapter 43 – I’m Chasing You

translator: xiin
editors: butter & XavierForest

152L: …… +1

153L: I f*cking thought that this would be a feel-good article where Brother Yu used his results to slap the haters in the face, but before I could even feel good, I ended up tossing myself in as well 🙂

154L: Too cruel

155L: QAQ I’m going to tell my mother that there’s no need to burn incense and pray for me. Goodbye, Brother Yu

The crowd that had just been idling in the forums were all confused when they saw this reversal. They could only say things like 666, badass, badass.

Sure enough, wasn’t it funny when the joke was on someone else? Especially when it came to someone like Song Yu, who brought the wind and bloody rain with him.

The monthly exams would be a crematorium—a crematorium for the haters.

By now, it was likely that they were all hoping that Song Yu would get good results.

The monthly exams were approaching.

Song Yu was no longer buried in exam papers.

Xie Sui split up his time, planning out when he should memorize words, memorize ancient poems, and memorize chemical equations. The schedule was very clear.

He was also forced to fix the problems he’d gotten wrong. Each physics problem had to be done three times before he understood them thoroughly.

It was the same for mathematics. He repeatedly went through a single exam paper, answering the questions several times over.

Xie Sui marked them personally. The first time he did so, he wrote more words in red pen than the answers Song Yu had filled in.

Xie Sui’s comments were all very direct, and the tone was cold, “Don’t try to be clever and create formulas. Generally, everything you come up with ambiguously is wrong.”

Song Yu: “… Oh, okay.”

But it had to be said that Xie Sui had helped him sort out a lot of the confused thinking in his mind.

They only focused on functions and mechanics, and the periodic table of elements.

With that, the monthly exam didn’t seem to be particularly difficult.

Song Yu also started to eat in the canteen during the final week prior to the exams to save time.

Ma Xiaoding wasn’t the tiniest bit nervous about the upcoming monthly exams. He went out to play in Internet bars every day, and Song Yu was busy with his own affairs, so he didn’t concern himself with him.

That left only him and Xi Bowen to eat together.

Xi Bowen sat behind them and watched as Song Yu worked hard for a week, making him want to give Song Yu all the meat in his bowl. His eyes were filled with the heartache an old father would feel for a child when he looked at him, “Brother Yu, eat more, don’t tire yourself out.”

Song Yu looked at the extra spare ribs in his bowl with an extremely strange expression on his face.

He glanced at him oddly but didn’t say anything.

Xi Bowen sighed in his heart. He had been lucky enough to have seen several of Song Yu’s papers and understood that the textbooks in A City and Jing City were very different.

Brother Yu’s spot in the top 100 was a little difficult. It would depend on how God Xie’s teaching went.

“Brother Yu, you’re studying so hard. Are you planning to attend A University?”

Xi Bowen asked tentatively.

Song Yu took a bite of his vegetables and thought about it.

A University was the university that Xie Sui had entered in the original novel. It was also the place where he’d met Scum Gong #2, the stupid president who’d used him as a substitute.

However, Wang Ci was gone, and Grandmother Chen wouldn’t have an accident in senior three. It was hard to say what changes would happen due to the butterfly effect from these events.

“I’ll give it a try.”

Song Yu didn’t have many expectations regarding what university he would attend.

He felt that he’d transmigrated into the book for Xie Sui.

As he chewed on his rice.

Song Yu’s brain, which was a little tired from focusing on learning for so long, suddenly thought of something, but it was fleeting and couldn’t be captured.

There was a stir in the canteen at this time.

Xi Bowen looked up, stilled, then said to Song Yu in a low voice, “Brother Yu, that seems to be No.1 High School’s school flower.”

Song Yu swallowed the rice and looked up.

He saw a girl walk in, a myriad of stars surrounding her like the moon¹a myriad of stars surrounding her like the moon – drawing admirers to cluster around her. She looked very conspicuous in a place where everyone wore a school uniform. Her looks probably followed the ‘pure’ route, and she was wearing an expensive white sleeveless dress, with black hair that hung down to her waist.

She ignored everyone’s gazes and came towards them.

Xi Bowen’s mouth dropped wide open. He was about to be scared silly.

The whispers from the people around them drifted over.

“Is that Bai Xuexin?”

“Doesn’t she always get picked up by her driver and never comes to the canteen?”

“Oh, oh, she’s heading that way.”

“She’s looking for someone? Who is it? Who’s so lucky?”

Song Yu only glanced over once before going back to eating.

Until a figure sat down across from him.

The girl smiled and spoke in a gentle tone.

“Hello, my name is Bai Xuexin.”

Learning had become the love of Song Yu’s life a long time ago. He glanced at her lightly, his reply very much like that of a clueless straight male, “Oh, sit down, nobody’s sitting there.”

Xi Bowen: “…….”

After that, he focused on eating again and didn’t pay her any more attention.

Bai Xuexin took a deep breath and only barely managed to keep the smile on her face. She’d been pretty growing up, and not only did she know how to use her looks, but she also knew what kind of temperament would attract the opposite sex.

Internally, she felt incredibly irritated and upset. How could Xie Sui end up spending time with such an impolite and uneducated person?

But her facade on the outside remained impeccable. She tapped a finger on the table, both angry and amused, with a little bit of a coquettish tone.

“Brother Yu, can you take a look at me? I came here just to see you.”

Song Yu treated his classmates very normally and even gave her a suggestion, “In that case, you’ve seen me. Is there anything else? This is a canteen, you can eat if you want.”

“……”

Bai Xuexin.

Bai Xuexin was about to be angered to death.

Xi Bowen swallowed hard. He reached out under the table and tugged at Song Yu’s sleeve, whispering, “Brother Yu, maybe she likes you. Don’t say things so harshly, it looks like she’s going to get mad soon.”

Song Yu had enough of his food. He casually played with the leftovers with his chopsticks and sneered.

Come on, it was clear from her gaze that she definitely didn’t like him.

Her intentions were hidden.

But he still showed Xi Bowen some respect.

He looked up and asked her:

“What’s the matter?”

Bai Xuexin didn’t show as much patience toward Song Yu as she did to Xie Sui. Her expression was covered with frost and she was no longer smiling, reverting back to the usual proud expression that she used in school, “It’s nothing much. I just wanted to ask you about Xie Sui.”

This time, Song Yu didn’t open his mouth to speak.

Xi Bowen was the first to begin murmuring disgruntledly, “Why not look for God Xie if you want to ask about him? What did you come find Brother Yu for?”

Bai Xuexin smiled at Song Yu, “I’m just a little curious. Although Xie Sui and I aren’t related by blood, my aunt married into his mother’s side of the family. To some extent, he’s also a relative, and I want to look out for him.”

Relative?

Xi Bowen was stunned. If he remembered correctly, Bai Xuexin had a very good family background.

Could it be that God Xie was also a hidden son from a powerful family?

When Song Yu heard this, the hand that held his chopsticks paused, his gaze growing slightly cold.

“Okay. Ask.”

Bai Xuexin curved her lips up in satisfaction, “It seems that you’re the only one who is close with him in the whole of No.1 High School. Song Yu, you transferred here from another school and weren’t classmates with him in junior high, right? I’m very curious about what happened before the start of school that caused him to treat you so well.”

Xi Bowen was confused, his bookworm brain filled with confusion as he turned his head to ask Song Yu, “Brother Yu, what’s she asking?”

Song Yu replied indifferently, “Asking me how to have a good relationship with Xie Sui.”

Xi Bowen: “…… Ah?”

He’d spoken about this so frankly that it left Bai Xuexin stunned. She then smiled slightly through gritted teeth in embarrassment, but she didn’t deny the truth of his statement.

“Yes.”

Song Yu looked at her, his eyelids slightly raised, his pupils very light. His tone was very casual, “Who knows? It was probably like meeting an old friend at first sight.”

Bai Xuexin raised her eyebrows and repeated his words, “Meeting an old friend at first sight?”

Song Yu: “It felt like we were old friends who’d known each other for a long time as soon as we met. So I’m good to him, and he’s good to me. There’s no reason for it.”

Song Yu had been willing to listen to her because of the information he might get from her words. A hint of a frown appeared under his eyebrows and his gaze turned a little cold.

“Xie Sui doesn’t want to go home. I hope you won’t talk about it everywhere.”

Xi Bowen was in an incredulous daze as he walked out of the canteen and it took a long time before his reasoning could sort out the logic of the situation. The school flower wanted to chase God Xie so she came to find Brother Yu, who had the best relationship with God Xie, in order to ask him how to chase him?

“… Every step is reasonable, but I feel that it’s totally wrong when added up together. How can a girl ask a boy’s fellow brother about how to get along with him? How can friendship and love be the same?!”

Song Yu replied, “Ignore her, she’s sick.”

That night, it started to rain. The weather in September was unpredictable.

Perhaps it was because the monthly exams were just around the corner—

Song Yu was also particularly serious. After all, he really wanted to study well. After the self-study period in the evening, he directly went to find Xie Sui to work on his homework.

Xie Sui had specifically converted a room in the apartment into a study.

Song Yu sat at the desk and fiddled with the desk lamp, clenching a hand around his pen as he struggled with a functions problem he’d done wrong countless times.

Xie Sui dimmed the desk lap from where he was sitting beside him and asked, “How long are you going to take?”

The sound of the rain outside could be heard clearly.

Song Yu was always very sleepy when it rained. His eyelids were already fighting against him, but he stubbornly insisted on finishing the question.

“Wait a minute, I’ll figure out what A is right away. I’m just a few formula sets short.”

Xie Sui took a look at the question, “A is 5. Go home and sleep.” Did this child know that going to bed late was bad for his health?

Song Yu was listless, “It’s meaningless for you to tell me. I’ll have the answer after solving this linear equation with two unknowns.”

He was tired from calculating, so he simply laid down on the desk and used his pen to do the calculation on some draft paper. Because it was a very basic calculation, Song Yu felt particularly sleepy, his brain woozy and drowsy. He cast about for a casual topic and muttered, “It seems that the school flower plans to chase you. She came to ask me about it.”

Xie Sui closed the book he was reading. He didn’t care about this at all, but he still picked up the thread of the conversation.

He said lightly, “Is that so.”

The sound of rain seemed to have become the best lullaby. Song Yu’s vision gradually blurred, and his writing began to wobble. His voice grew smaller and smaller, like he was talking to himself.

“Yeah, I think there’s something wrong with her brain. What kind of method can there be when chasing someone? Just be good to them, isn’t that enough? Whether or not you succeed is something else, but the basics have to be there.”

“Also, what’s she asking me for? I’m not chasing you.”

When Xie Sui heard this, he only felt that there was an itch in his throat. He wanted to laugh, but he spoke softly instead.

“Yes, you’re not chasing me.”

Song Yu’s eyes were fluttering open and closing repeatedly. He finished the linear equation and worked out a ‘5’ as the answer, then lost all his spiritual motivation. He fell asleep at the table, satisfied.

The light from the desk lamp was warm, and his skin looked delicate and milky under the light, his eyelashes casting shadows over his cheeks. His breathing was deep and even, and his sleeping face looked quiet and well-behaved.

It was still raining outside as the weather slowly moved into autumn.

Xie Sui set down his book and looked out.

The gloomy, dark night, the endless rain. It was clearly very annoying weather, but his heart felt unusually soft at this moment.

He tilted his head, leaning close to Song Yu’s ear. He smiled slightly and whispered, “Yuyu?”

The teenager didn’t answer him.

Xie Sui dropped his gaze, his dark eyes carrying a smile like a deep river of stars.

His cool voice lowered, holding a kind of gentleness that melted into the night.

“You’re not chasing me, I’m chasing you.”

Even from the start, that woman’s cause and effect was wrong.

It wasn’t that he liked Song Yu because Song Yu was good to him.

It was because he liked Song Yu that he allowed this ‘goodness’.

Perhaps it could be considered love at first sight.

—

Butter’s Thoughts:
Butter has no thoughts.
Butter is melted.

There was too much unexpected sugar.
XS is too strong.

(Also happy Lunar New Year!)

XavierForest’s Thoughts:
Am melting too.
Getting cavities.
I love sugar sprinkled on my dog food.

xiin: happy Chinese New Year~

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  a myriad of stars surrounding her like the moon – drawing admirers to cluster around her