I'm a senior in high school, and the system says I'm going on a blind date with my childho

Chapter 261 I Won't Shout

With Yang Shuai's howling screams, the senior year of high school returned to normal.

The chalk dust fell in a flurry, intertwining with the rustling sound of the pencil tip gliding across the rolled paper, becoming the main theme of the senior class (15) day after day after the start of the new semester.

The sky in the early morning never seems to brighten completely, while the lights for evening self-study sessions are turned off later and later.

The numbers on the bright red countdown clock for the college entrance exam in the classroom jumped at a heart-pounding pace: 116, 115, 114...

It was as if an invisible hand was frantically manipulating the hourglass of time.

Even the air during the ten-minute break between classes seemed to be compressed and thickened.

The noise of Ah Jie playing around in the corridor has decreased, and more often, one can see figures rushing to the office to ask questions, or tired faces slumped over their desks trying to catch up on sleep.

The "Insider Theft" workbook, which had been eagerly anticipated, was now buried deep under an even higher stack of exercise books by He Zhiyu. She wrote faster than she could conceive a romantic story.

Even the subtle and brief interactions between Li Zhi and Shen Yuan were gradually compressed into more efficient study breaks.

A knowing glance, a quietly passed note, and a small gesture by which Shen Yuan was pulled back to his sea of ​​homework by Li Zhi by the ear.

These are all fleeting yet still present bright spots in this fast-paced exam preparation rhythm.

Shen Yuan was even more focused when doing his problems, and a burning urgency in his eyes was even greater than on the first day of school, all for that promise about 665.

The mock exam loomed like a huge, rapidly approaching shadow, looming over everyone's mind.

Time, crushed by the high-speed train of the second semester of senior year, seems as thin as a cicada's wing.

The invisible tension in the air grew ever tighter. Every time the test paper was turned over, every time the scores were announced, a brief silence fell over the air. All of this was building up silent pressure for the real "grand review" at the end of the month.

The days rolled forward relentlessly, one after another, as the pen refills were rapidly worn out and the eyelids grew heavy and tired.

For more than ten days, I was stuck in a tedious cycle of burying myself in practice questions, taking tests, and going over test papers.

It seems like only a few pages of the countdown to the college entrance exam next to the blackboard have been silently turned, and time has already slipped away to the end of February.

The cold wind outside the window has lessened its biting chill, but the air inside the classroom feels increasingly heavy as the inspection day draws ever closer.

"F---"

Ah Jie slammed his face down on the open English workbook, letting out a mournful cry that sounded muffled through the paper.

"What about the long holiday? My long holiday where I can sleep until noon and play games all night long? What about it?"

He suddenly raised his head, angrily accusing someone of ruthlessly deducting his vacation time.

"After Lao Zhou mentioned the mock exam that day, I felt like this long holiday was probably over!"

Shen Yuan, standing to the side, didn't even raise his head. His pen tip traced a smooth path on the math mock exam paper, making a soft "shush" sound.

He glanced sideways at A-Jie's indignant expression, his tone tinged with impatience at being disturbed, but more so with the pragmatic reminder he was already used to.

"Save your breath. Will yelling here make any difference?"

He tapped the paper with the tip of his pen, his eyes focused and sharp.

"Face reality. In five days, the mock exam papers should be handed out. With only a few days left, the important thing is to think about how to get a passing grade in English."

Ah Jie said sullenly, "I know... but it's just so annoying! I estimate that in the period leading up to the college entrance examination, apart from the Qingming Festival and Labor Day, there won't be any holidays after that."

Shen Yuan stopped writing and glanced up at A-Jie, who was slumped over his workbook looking utterly hopeless.

He unusually refrained from making sarcastic remarks, but instead extended his right hand and patted A-Jie's hunched shoulder with a light but firm touch.

"Alright, stop howling," Shen Yuan's voice carried a rare hint of soothing, though his tone remained blunt. "Hang in there a little longer."

Feeling the touch on his shoulder and hearing the brief words, A-Jie lifted his face slightly from his workbook and glanced at Shen Yuan.

Shen Yuan's eyes didn't show much emotion, but he still received that tacit support.

Ah Jie's lips twitched, which was an admission of his situation, and he nodded sullenly.

Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he straightened up a bit, propping himself up on the table, and asked, his voice carrying a hint of curiosity after venting his fatigue.

"Hey Yuan'er, what do you think... what can the school do to us during that 100-day countdown rally in a couple of days?"

He raised an eyebrow, trying to imagine the scene: "We can't just listen to the leaders babbling again, can we? Are we going to make the entire senior class stand on the playground and shout slogans?"

Before Shen Yuan could speak, Yang Ze, who had been looking down in the front seat, suddenly turned around.

"Otherwise what?" He raised an eyebrow, glancing sideways at A-Jie with a look of disdain that said, "Isn't this as obvious as a louse on a bald head?"

"Are we supposed to go to the gymnasium to enjoy the air conditioning?"

"The leaders are giving speeches with great enthusiasm, while we're down here 'fighting for our ideals!' 'Striving for 100 days!'... It's the same old routine, don't get your hopes up."

Ah Jie was choked up again, his back, which had just straightened, bent back down, and he pressed his forehead against the cold English exercise book, muttering incoherently.

"...Fine, I get it...So it has to be this way, right..."

Seeing his expression, Shen Yuan continued to be sarcastic, speaking in a slightly teasing tone.

"Be content. Before the second mock exam, I'll get you emotional and give you a lecture on 'thanking your parents and teachers.' You'll be all teary-eyed, which will make it even more interesting."

"Thanks for reminding me..." Ah Jie finally raised his head a little, turned his face to Shen Yuan's direction, and rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Please, school, have mercy on me! Just standing there shouting slogans is already stupid enough, but making people cry on top of that, what kind of image does this senior year have?"

After saying that, A-Jie buried his face even deeper into his arms, his voice muffled as if it came from underground.

"...I'd rather memorize vocabulary words, please."

Shen Yuan scoffed. Even a stupid kid is willing to memorize words, which shows how effective this thing is.

However... Shen Yuan was actually quite looking forward to seeing what would happen then.

He stopped provoking A-Jie and lowered his head to immerse himself in his exam paper again, the rustling of his pen ringing out once more.

The bell signaling the end of evening self-study finally broke the silence of the night.

The classroom instantly erupted in noise. The sounds of desks and chairs being moved, books being packed into bags, and tired yawns mingled together, announcing the temporary end of the day's sprint.

Shen Yuan shook his slightly sore wrists and haphazardly stuffed the mock exam papers on the table into his schoolbag.

As always, Li Zhize was methodical. He put the pens into his pencil case, then neatly arranged the exercise books he needed to take home before zipping it up.

After saying goodbye to their close classmates, Shen Yuan and Li Zhi left the classroom.

Although the temperature has gradually risen, the night wind is still biting cold.

As soon as they stepped out of the heated teaching building, both of them involuntarily shrank their necks.

The dim streetlights cast long shadows of the two people walking side by side on the ground.

In stark contrast to the bustling breaks during the day, the streets home are now sparsely populated, with most students walking briskly with their heads down, eager to get back to their warm beds as soon as possible.

The daytime hustle and bustle of this stretch of road between the teaching building and the school gate has settled into the unique desolation of a winter night, with only the soft sound of shoes scraping against the ground.

As they walked, Shen Yuan's tall figure beside them suddenly slumped slightly.

He slowed his pace and leaned his shoulder slightly towards Li Zhi.

"Well……"

A slightly sticky groan escaped from Shen Yuan's throat, like a large dog throwing a tantrum.

Li Zhi didn't stop walking, but turned his head to look in surprise.

Shen Yuanzheng was looking down at her, the streetlight casting a small shadow between his deep-set eyes.

The usual flamboyant spirit and determination were covered by a deep weariness, revealing a softness that was almost aggrieved.

His lips pursed slightly, and his voice was several decibels lower than usual, carrying the chill of the night as it muffledly entered Li Zhi's eardrums.

"Li Bao..." He moved closer, his warm breath brushing against Li Zhi's earlobe, carrying a hint of coquettishness.

"I'm so tired... I feel like my brain has been emptied out, like I've been run over by a car..."

The focus and intensity honed during the day's intense practice finally relaxed on this quiet journey home, beside Li Zhi.

The fatigue stemming from focus, along with the pressure of the mock exam, reveals its truest exhaustion when alone.

Li Zhi's heart skipped a beat for no reason.

Looking at his dejected, comforting expression, he was completely different from the boy who studied so hard.

A complex mix of emotions welled up inside me: anger, amusement, and a touch of heartache.

"Serves you right!" Li Zhi raised his hand and precisely pinched Shen Yuan's slightly cool earlobe. The force was not strong, but more like a reproachful intimacy.

"You made me do those kinds of problems during the day, like I was crazy. Did you really think you were made of iron?"

She remained sharp-tongued, but the soft touch from his fingertips and the boy's rare show of weakness gently softened the soft spot in her heart.

Shen Yuan, instead of flinching when his ear was being pulled, shrank closer to Li Zhi, leaning half his body weight against her and letting out a comfortable murmur.

"...That's for 665..." He paused, then added in a muffled voice.

These words were like a tiny feather, gently tickling Li Zhixin's heart and making her cheeks flush slightly.

She gave a disgruntled "humph," released her grip on his ear, and instead grabbed his arm, pulling him back forcefully.

"Let's go! Thran! Hurry home! Aren't you tired of standing here in the wind?"

She half-dragged, half-pulled him toward the school gate, her tone as fierce as ever, but the way she clung to Shen Yuan's arm betrayed the girl's clumsy attempt to comfort him.

"Go back and get some rest so your brain can work faster tomorrow!"

Shen Yuan felt the strength in her arm and the warmth of her body against him, and the cold night seemed to be tinged with a touch of warmth.

A satisfied and languid smile involuntarily curved onto his tired face.

Although I was still physically exhausted, being led by her like this made the heavy fatigue seem bearable.

He let Li Zhi "drag" him forward, muttering softly with a sigh, "I know... that fierce Li Bao..."

The girl turned her head and glared at him.

Under the dim streetlights, a faint smile appeared in her eyes. She gently pinched his arm with her fingertips, her voice extremely soft.

"You're the fierce one... When you're doing practice problems, your brows furrow so tightly they could trap a mosquito, you're much fiercer than me." She paused, letting out a soft snort, tinged with a mischievous teasing: "If Zhou Shaojie saw you like this, he'd definitely give you a piece of his mind!"

Hearing Li Zhi's words, Shen Yuan smiled.

He could perfectly imagine Ah Jie's exaggerated jumping up and down.

In addition, Shen Yuan had just given A-Jie some chicken soup during evening self-study, and now he's turning around and acting all cute and cuddly with Li Zhi...

If Ah Jie saw him, he would probably call his friends to beat him up.

……

The motion-sensor lights in the hallway turned on as the elevator arrived, dispelling the darkness at the entrance of the building.

Shen Yuan stopped in the hallway and gently tugged at Li Zhi's arm, stopping her from continuing towards her door.

Li Zhi turned to look at him in confusion.

Under the lamplight, the languid look on Shen Yuan's face had not completely faded, but a bright light rekindled in his eyes, a mixture of the day's fatigue and a cunning expectation.

He leaned forward slightly, getting closer to Li Zhi, his voice unusually clear due to its lowered tone, carrying a hint of probing: "Li Bao..."

As Li Zhi looked at his suddenly enlarged face and those burning eyes, she subconsciously wanted to back away, but her ears quietly began to heat up.

This guy is at it again!

"...Considering how hard I've been working lately..." Shen Yuan's voice carried a hint of coaxing, and the corners of his mouth curved into a flattering smile, "Could I get an early reward for today?"

Those deep eyes blinked, like a large dog trying to claim credit, almost as if it was about to stick out its tongue and pant.

Looking at his pitiful yet smug expression, Li Zhi rolled her eyes in exasperation, but a blush uncontrollably spread from her cheeks to her neck.

"You were just pretending to be a dead dog on the way home, but you showed your true colors as soon as you got to your doorstep, didn't you?!"

She was ruthless with her words, but her fingertips had already instinctively risen, as if to pull his ear.

Seeing the pure expectation in Shen Yuan's eyes and the tired look on his face after a day's hard work, Li Zhi's slight embarrassment was washed away by an indescribable tenderness.

Her raised hand paused midway before finally landing on Shen Yuan's neck.

The girl's gaze lingered on Shen Yuan's face for a few seconds, as if she were having a difficult internal struggle, her long eyelashes trembling slightly.

Li Zhi looked at Shen Yuan and asked softly, "Then—how long do you want to kiss me?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Zhi wished he could bite off his own tongue!

I clearly wanted to ask where you're from, so why did I ask this question?

The girl's cheeks instantly turned as if they were on fire.

Shen Yuan: "!!!"

He felt a sudden buzzing in his head.

Although Li Zhi's voice was soft, it was like a spark thrown into an oil drum, instantly igniting all the desires in his chest!

Without any hesitation, Shen Yuan naturally put one arm around her lower back, and then his gaze suddenly fell on the emergency exit next to him.

The next second, to Li Zhi's soft exclamation, Shen Yuan gently carried her to the stairwell on the side.

The light from the motion-sensor lights in the hallway wasn't very bright, casting a small shadow on his sharply defined profile, but making his eyes, filled with triumph and longing, crystal clear.

Shen Yuan looked down at Li Zhi's flushed earlobes and rapidly fluttering eyelashes, his Adam's apple bobbing heavily.

The boy turned her question into a declaration-like answer.

"I've wanted to kiss you for a long time."

Time seemed to slow down, concealing the unspoken intimacy and excitement within this brief yet almost eternal silent embrace.

The light dimmed suddenly when the motion-sensor lights in the hallway went out silently.

As if startled awake, Li Zhicai took a short breath and instinctively struggled.

Shen Yuan then stepped back slightly, gently nuzzling her slightly flushed cheek with his nose, letting out a satisfied sigh.

"Tsk, charging complete." His voice was thick with nasal tone and laughter, and his fatigue seemed to have been dispelled quite a bit.

Darkness enveloped the space again for a few seconds, with only the slightly rapid breathing of the two people echoing in the narrow room.

The motion sensor light turned back on when the sound was heard.

The moment the light shone down again, Li Zhi snapped back to reality.

The girl's beautiful eyes widened immediately, a mixture of lingering shyness and a hint of anger at sudden realization.

She glanced around the cold, dimly lit stairwell, then suddenly jabbed her fingertip into Shen Yuan's chest.

"Shen! Yuan!" Li Zhi gritted his teeth in a low voice, his cheeks flushed, his voice filled with shame and anger at being "tricked".

"You...you...you actually...you actually thought of this in a place like this...the stairwell! The emergency exit! How could you even think of that! You're so wicked!"

She grew angrier as she spoke, and pinched Shen Yuangang's arm, which had just been "charged," hard with her fingertips.

Shen Yuan grinned and hissed, but his face showed no remorse. Instead, it was filled with a smug look of triumph after his scheme succeeded.

He rubbed the spot where he had been pinched, and his smile became even more roguish.

"What's wrong? This place is great, quiet, no one bothers us... and most importantly, the lights turn on by themselves, so we can spot people coming in advance."

He deliberately dragged out his words, his eyes sweeping meaningfully over the girl's flushed earlobes: "To facilitate some... learning support activities that help relieve stress."

"—You still dare to say that! Who the hell would climb to the 18th floor for no reason?!"

Li Zhi was even more embarrassed by his twisted logic and blatant insinuations, and raised her foot to kick him.

Shen Yuan nimbly dodged the weak kick, his low, cheerful laughter echoing softly in the empty corridor.

Looking at Li Zhi's angry yet breathtakingly beautiful expression, the boy felt as if his very soul had been electrified, and all thoughts of the mock exam countdown and the fatigue from doing practice problems vanished instantly.

This girl... is indeed his cure, and the driving force behind his desperate pursuit.

The motion sensor lights went out again amidst their silent standoff.

In the dim light, only the boy's smiling whispers and the girl's shy yet annoyed hums could be heard, intertwining to create a youthful melody that belonged to the two of them on this night of preparing for their senior year of high school.

Time flies by, and two or three days have passed in the blink of an eye.

This should have been an ordinary day, but the college entrance examination gave it an extraordinary significance.

Countdown to the National College Entrance Examination: 100 days.

In the classroom, Ah-Jie was chewing on a pen cap and impatiently swinging his toes on the table leg.

The bright red "100" on the blackboard irritated him.

He placed the workbook on the table, and the sound of it passing through the rustling of the pages carried to the ears of the people around him.

"Today is the 100-day countdown rally on the playground! Can you guess what new slogans we'll have this year?"

"No guessing."

Shen Yuan's words effectively shut A-Jie up.

Ah Jie pursed his lips and shrugged with disgust.

"I, Zhou Shaojie, am putting this out there today: let whoever wants to shout, shout! I won't say a word! Do you think your English score will magically improve by just standing there shouting like a broken record?"

Yang Ze chuckled and poked the test paper with the tip of his pen: "Come on, Brother Jie, you're the loudest one at the sports meet."

"How can that be the same!" A-Jie retorted, banging his fingers on the table.

"The sports meet was really fun! This thing is just a formality! I'd rather use that time to memorize a few more words!"

He grew angrier the more he thought about it, and added angrily, "Anyone who echoes that is a dog!"

Zhuo Peipei pushed up her glasses, the lenses flashing with a sharp light: "I suggest recording this, we can collect the evidence later."

He Zhiyu covered her mouth and chuckled, her pen scribbling something down in her notebook as she muttered, "Materials +1..."

Shen Yuan lifted his eyelids from the math exam paper and lazily tossed out a sentence: "You talk as if you can only memorize English words now that you've stopped shouting slogans."

Ah Jie was choked by these words, and the "I'm the most clear-headed person in the world" expression on his face instantly froze.

He opened his mouth to refute, his mind racing, but he realized that Shen Yuan's words were like a sharp knife, precisely stabbing him in the weak spot.

It's true that he doesn't want to shout slogans, but his resistance to English words is equally ingrained in his DNA.

Ah Jie opened his mouth, but found that he couldn't find a powerful way to respond.

In the end, all that anger could do was roll his eyes even wider and mumble a muffled "Damn it!"

He buried his face in his arms, sullenly venting his pent-up resentment on the innocent exercise book, as if trying to shove those damned English words from the paper into his brain.

Time is like a silent wind sweeping across pages of rolled paper.

After the morning self-study session, the two consecutive math classes made the time fly by.

"bell--"

A loud sound rang out throughout the entire teaching building.

Old Zhou listened to the bell ring for a while, then reluctantly threw the chalk in his hand onto the podium.

"Let's go, let's go to the big playground."

It's clear that the 100-day countdown rally is more important than the extended class time.

At this moment, the corridor was filled with the lively sounds of senior high school students.

The flow of people was like a rushing stream, quickly pouring out from the doors of each classroom and merging into the main corridor, where the noise and footsteps became dense.

As for the first and second years of high school, they benefited from the 100-day countdown rally for the third year.

The first and second-year high school students were kept behind for extended periods of time.

(End of this chapter)