This humble Taoist priest wants to take the college entrance exam.

Chapter 162 Class Monitor, Can You Fly? (One update today)
October 5th, the last day of the holiday.

Holiday time always flies by so quickly. Chen Shi'an had nothing else to do today, so at the invitation of the class monitor, he went to play badminton with her in the morning.

The agreed time was 9:00 AM.

Chen Shi'an still gets up at five o'clock.

After getting a bicycle, he changed his way of expanding his map from parkour to cycling.

He set off on his bicycle at the crack of dawn, cycling around for about twenty or thirty kilometers before returning home at seven o'clock.

After closing up shop last night, Li Wanyin treated everyone to a late-night snack. Wu Jiayun and Yan Yufei, her two best friends, slept in Li Wanyin's room last night.

Actually, it wasn't too late when I got back from closing up shop and having a late-night snack last night. The main thing was that I slept with my two best friends, and we chatted in bed until 3 a.m.

Li Wanyin's bed was the same width as Chen Shi'an's, 1.5 meters. No one knew how the three older sisters squeezed together to sleep, or what time they went to sleep. Anyway, when Chen Shi'an got home around 7 o'clock after riding his bike, the three older sisters were still asleep.

On his way back, Chen Shi'an stopped by Wen Zhixia's aunt's house to buy breakfast.

I just happened to bring back a bag of new rice from the mountain, so I cooked a pot of porridge and ate it with steamed buns.

At eight o'clock, Chen Shi'an had just finished cooking his porridge and was about to eat some steamed buns when Lin Mengqiu called him via WeChat.

Aside from the WeChat call he missed while on the mountain, this was the first time Chen Shi'an had received a WeChat call from Lin Mengqiu.

He picked up his phone, and before he could even speak, the WeChat call on the other end ended.

Chen Shi'an then noticed the WeChat message Lin Mengqiu had sent him earlier. He realized that the class monitor's WeChat call wasn't actually a 'phone call,' but just a way to remind him to check the message.

Ling: [Are you awake?]
Ling: [?]
Ling: [Have you had breakfast?]
Ling: [?]
Ling: [Where is everyone?]
Ling - WeChat call in 1 second

The earliest message was sent at seven o'clock when Chen Shi'an had just returned home. For the next hour, Chen Shi'an didn't look at his phone, as he was cooking porridge in the kitchen.

With the notification from the WeChat call, Chen Shi'an finally saw the message.

I didn't expect the class monitor to wake up so early. I don't know why I looked for him so early in the morning.

Seeing that the girl had hung up the WeChat call, Chen Shi'an didn't tolerate it and called her back.

The other end refused to answer the call.

Chen Shi'an: [?]
Ling: [?]
Chen Shi'an quoted the message 'Ling: [Are you awake?]' — [Yes, I am awake.]
Chen Shi'an quoted the message 'Ling: [Have you had breakfast?]' — [Getting ready to eat.]
Chen Shi'an quoted the message 'Ling: [Where is she?]' — [At home]
After he finished replying to all the messages, Lin Mengqiu's messages reappeared.

Ling: [I'm coming to find you]
Chen Shi'an: [What?]
Ling: [Opens the door]
Chen Shi'an: [?]
It has to be said that the class monitor's language skills are truly concise. Chen Shi'an has now also learned to use a question mark, after all, there really is only one simple question mark that can perfectly express his current mood.

One second he said "I'm coming to find you," and the next he said "Open the door!" Is our class monitor some kind of superhuman who can shrink the distance and teleport thousands of miles in an instant?!

Before he could ask any more questions, in the quiet house in the early morning, Chen Shi'an heard familiar footsteps coming from the hallway outside through the door.

No, you really arrived?!
A short while later, a soft knock sounded on the door.

The movement was so light that Chen Shi'an could easily tell that Lin Mengqiu was only using one knuckle to knock on the door. Calling it a knock would be an exaggeration; it would probably be more appropriate to describe it as a flick.

"Tap, tap, tap,"

The sound was crisp and light, like the very essence of a young girl, like cool spring water striking a rock.

Chen Shi'an put down his chopsticks, got up, and went to open the door.

Sure enough, the class monitor, whom I hadn't seen for four days, appeared at my doorstep carrying a badminton racket.

At eight o'clock in the morning, the morning sunlight shone through the windows of the corridor, illuminating the space. Tiny dust particles floated like little elves along the path of the light.

When the door opened, Lin Mengqiu was standing on the doormat, her white badminton shoes lightly brushing the edge, her hands in the pockets of her sports jacket. Her gaze first fell on Chen Shi'an's face, then slowly swept down to his taekwondo uniform, and finally glanced past him into the living room.

Chen Shi'an was also looking at her. Four days had passed, and the class monitor hadn't changed much. She still had her usual aloof demeanor, except that her black hair, which used to reach her back, seemed to be shorter. The ends of her hair had a natural curve, falling an inch above her original length, and the thickness had also been reduced. The breeze coming in from the stairwell window made her sway slightly. Without the cumbersome feeling of overly long hair, she looked much lighter. Coupled with her matching tracksuit and the racket slung over her shoulder, she exuded a clean and refreshing aura.

"Squad leader, can you fly?"

Chen Shi'an spoke first.

"..."

As expected of the person she disliked the most, his very first words made Lin Mengqiu roll her eyes at him.

"How are you so fast? You're even faster than me. I can't even arrive a second after sending a message."

Chen Shi'an knew, of course, that Lin Mengqiu couldn't teleport over, but he just smiled at her with a slightly teasing expression.

"...I messaged you but you didn't reply, so I came over directly."

"Luckily, the class monitor had a racket instead of a knife, otherwise I wouldn't have dared to open the door for you."

"..."

Lin Mengqiu suddenly regretted it; she should have brought the knife with her.

"Didn't we agree on nine o'clock? Why did you come so early, class monitor? I was thinking of coming to your house later."

"I woke up with nothing to do, so I just wandered around."

"And then you came here?"

"×!"

Lin Mengqiu didn't want to talk to him about this anymore. She was just taking a casual stroll, and who knew she would end up here with him!
Luckily he was home, otherwise if she had gone to look for him and found no one there, she really would have poked him with the tip of her pen.

Having someone as your deskmate who can go an entire day without looking at their phone is fine during class, but during holidays, heaven knows how difficult it is to get even one reply from them...

"...Let's go."

Lin Mengqiu still had her hands in her coat pockets, and slightly raised her chin.

"where to?"

"Play badminton."

"now?"

"Ah."

"I haven't had breakfast yet, can I have some first?"

"it is good."

"Squad leader, come in."

"it is good."

Chen Shi'an stepped aside to make way, and Lin Mengqiu took her hands out of her pockets, lowered her head slightly, and walked into the house beside him.

After passing by him, her slightly awkward little hands were put back into her pockets, curled up warmly.

Chen Shi'an closed the security door and returned to the living room.

"Please have a seat, class monitor. Have you had breakfast?"

"not yet……"

"Let's eat together then. I just made some porridge and bought a lot of steamed buns."

"no need……"

"Alright, then class monitor, sit down and wait for me to finish eating first."

Seeing the girl's expression stiffen, Chen Shi'an couldn't help but laugh out loud. He went back to the kitchen to get her a set of bowls and chopsticks and pulled out a chair from the dining table.

"Come and sit down. We're going to play ball later, so we can't skip breakfast. Try the porridge I made. It's new rice that the villagers gave us when we went back to the mountains. It's mid-season rice that was harvested last month, and the rice smells wonderful."

"Did you bring this back from the mountain?"

"Well, try it."

Chen Shi'an opened the lid of the pot of hot porridge on the dining table, and a wisp of steam carrying a rich aroma of rice rose up.

Rice porridge is a very easy food to digest, and Lin Mengqiu usually likes to eat it. But she had never smelled such a rich aroma of porridge before. It looked like plain white porridge with nothing added, but the pure fragrance of rice was absolutely amazing. She wondered how Chen Shi'an had cooked it.

Having skipped breakfast, her stomach was empty. Finally, she stopped being polite and put down the badminton racket bag on her shoulder, sitting down on the dining chair next to him.

Chen Shi'an was skilled at cooking porridge, and his scooping technique was also very clean. Not a drop of porridge dripped from the edge of the bowl. Before the porcelain bowl could be heated by the hot porridge, the girl stretched out her pair of clean, cool hands and warmed the porcelain bowl with her palms. A sense of warmth immediately seeped into her heart.

Unfortunately, the porcelain bowl was too hot, and she couldn't keep it warm for more than two seconds. She gently curled her hand and let go, obediently placing the porcelain bowl on the table. She picked up the porcelain spoon, scraped a layer on top of the porridge, gently blew on it to cool it down, and then put it in her mouth.

She found the plain white porridge delicious. As the warm porridge entered her mouth, Lin Mengqiu felt a warm sensation spreading through her stomach, and she squinted her eyes slightly.

"~~~"

It was definitely the right decision to come to the Taoist priest on an empty stomach...

I also got to eat breakfast there.

"How's my porridge? Pretty good, right?" "Mmm..."

"Be careful, it's hot. Here, there are some steamed buns."

"Thanks……"

The girl, who had been speaking with a stiff tone just moments before, softened up after eating Chen Shi'an's food.

Unlike her, Chen Shi'an didn't put the bowl on the table. He wasn't afraid of getting burned, so he picked up the whole bowl with his left hand and used his chopsticks to pick up a big bun with his right hand, eating the bun and porridge one bite at a time.

Because Chen Shi'an's cooking is really delicious, Lin Mengqiu always eats his food very carefully and attentively, and you can't tell that she is picky about food at all.

When she looked up, she met Chen Shi'an's gaze.

She lowered her head again and continued eating her steamed buns and drinking her porridge.

"Did the class monitor get a haircut?"

"……Um."

She didn't even look up, she just kept eating.

After a while, when Chen Shi'an still didn't say anything, she looked up at him and found that he was still looking at her.

"……What's wrong?"

"It's nothing."

"...Isn't it pretty?"

"good-looking."

"Oh."

She lowered her head and continued eating.

"It looks much fresher than before."

"~~~"

When was it cut?

"yesterday."

"Did the squad leader come back on the night of the 3rd?"

"Ah."

"So what did you do yesterday?"

"Doing homework."

"Oh, I haven't done it yet."

"×!"

Lin Mengqiu glared at him, thinking, "What a lazy bum! He knows he hasn't done his homework, yet he doesn't come home early. Does he think he'll finish his homework by himself if he goes to play at that annoying cicada's house all day?"

"Where is Sister Wanyin?"

"He's still not awake. He must be tired from setting up his stall last night."

Are there other people here?

How did the class monitor know?

"..."

Lin Mengqiu didn't say anything, but just gestured with her chin towards the two pairs of shoes at the door, the meaning was clear - there are a lot of shoes piled up at your door.

If it weren't for the fact that those two pairs of shoes didn't look like the colors Wen Zhixia wore, she would have suspected that the annoying cicada had moved into his house.

"The class monitor is very thoughtful. Two of Wanyin's friends are here, the two older sisters who went cycling with us last time."

"Ah."

Lin Mengqiu nodded.

"Has Sister Wanyin started selling milk tea?"

"Yeah, class monitor, how about I make you a cup later?"

"……you?"

"Hmm, how about it?"

"it is good."

The girl felt a little ashamed. Heaven knows when she had become so greedy, like a big glutton. She couldn't move away once she heard that it was made by him.

She ate the steamed bun in her hand and then asked Chen Shi'an:
"Did you make this too?"

"This isn't the one I bought. How does it taste?"

"It's alright, where did you buy it?"

"Little Cicada's Steamed Bun Shop".

"..."

Lin Mengqiu suddenly felt that the steamed buns weren't so delicious anymore.

……

After finishing breakfast, Chen Shi'an went to his room to get his things.

Lin Mengqiu finished her bowl of porridge, but there was still half a steamed bun left. Seeing that Chen Shi'an had returned to his room without closing the door, she got up from the dining table, took the half-eaten steamed bun, and stood at his doorway, eating the bun while curiously watching what he was doing.

Compared to Wen Zhixia, Lin Mengqiu had a much stronger sense of boundaries. Even though Chen Shi'an's door was open, she didn't step inside. Instead, she stared boldly at his room without making a sound.

Chen Shi'an turned around and glanced at her, seeing her standing at the door eating a steamed bun, and casually invited her over:

"Please come in and sit down, class monitor."

"...There are no chairs."

"Why are you so particular? Just sit anywhere, on the bed or on the floor."

As Chen Shi'an spoke, he sat down cross-legged on the floor.

Unlike him, Lin Mengqiu didn't care about her image. Since he had invited her, she gracefully entered his room.

It was only a difference of two or three steps, but it felt like the difference between inside and outside. The girl felt inexplicably uncomfortable. The room was a very private space; in fact, even her father wasn't allowed to go into her room.

But she herself walked into Chen Shi'an's room in a very casual manner.

They even sat on his bed.

Lin Mengqiu sat with her bottom against the edge of the bed, still eating half a steamed bun in her hand. She even slowed down her eating speed, because after finishing the bun, she had nowhere to put her hands, which she didn't know where to put.

Compared to her own mattress, Chen Shi'an's mattress was a bit firmer. Although she didn't get close to smell it, his bedding and pillows were right next to her, so much so that Lin Mengqiu couldn't tell if it was just her imagination, but she smelled a stronger scent that belonged to him.

No one knew what Chen Shi'an was doing at the moment. He took out a few small porcelain bottles and a wooden box. He was using the small porcelain bottles to measure the wood, and then he took out a carving knife to carve the corresponding grooves on the wooden box.

The girl's straight back gradually relaxed. She braced her feet against the floor, scooted her bottom further into the bed, and sat down a little deeper.

"What are you doing?" Lin Mengqiu asked curiously.

"You'll find out later."

"...What are you doing?"

"You'll find out later."

"You are……"

Before Lin Mengqiu could finish speaking, Chen Shi'an suddenly turned around, and the relaxed girl's body suddenly tensed up.

"Monitor."

"……explain."

"Don't let the crumbs from the steamed bun fall on my bed."

"……I know!"

(One update today. I didn't go home for the Mid-Autumn Festival this year, but I didn't expect my parents to come all the way to visit me. The holiday is coming to an end, so I'll go out for a walk too...)
(End of this chapter)