Redemption from the Abyss: The School Beauty Insists on Pulling Me Out of the Mire

Before the morning reading bell rang, there were only a few people in the classroom.

Xie Wang threw his schoolbag on the table, took out his phone from his pocket, and handed it to Su Qinghe with the screen facing up.

"Received it last night."

Su Qinghe was flipping through an English vocabulary handbook when he heard the sound and glanced down at it.

Gu Nan.

She took the phone, read the text message from beginning to end, rubbed her thumb against the edge of the screen twice, and handed it back to him.

"Finish the exam first."

Xie Wang turned his head and glanced at her.

Su Qinghe didn't look at him, but turned a page of the vocabulary book and stared at the word "predominant".

……

Five days until finals.

Old Li stood on the podium, next to the blackboard, where a countdown sign for the college entrance examination read "189 days". But at this moment, Old Li pointed to another small whiteboard, on which was written in a flamboyant style, "Final exam countdown: 5 days".

"Final sprint!" Old Li tapped the edge of the podium with a piece of chalk; the sound could echo through three floors.

"Anyone who causes me trouble again will have their winter break homework tripled! I mean it!"

Shen Hao shrank his neck, but then realized something was wrong—he hadn't been up to anything lately.

Xu You took a mint from the pencil case and silently put it into Shen Hao's palm.

Shen Hao chuckled as he held the candy, and his whole demeanor came back to life.

Old Li glanced at him, too lazy to bother with him, and continued with the important matter:

"This final exam is a city-wide joint exam, and the rankings will be directly reported to the Education Bureau and linked to your comprehensive quality assessment. Su Qinghe, I won't mention your goals, just stay calm. Xie Wang—"

Xie Wang was tapping Su Qinghe's knuckles under the table when he was called upon. He looked up and said, "Here."

"You ranked eighth in the city's mock exam last time. This time, my goal for you is to be in the top five." Old Li leaned on the podium. "Can you do it?"

"Whether it's possible or not depends on whether Teacher Su is supportive or not." Xie Wang turned to look at Su Qinghe.

"After all, my English grades were improved by Teacher Su feeding me words one by one."

Su Qinghe didn't reply, but pinched him under the table with her fingers.

The whole class burst into laughter.

……

Ten minutes between classes.

Lin Lu lay face down on the table, her face buried in her arms, and mumbled, "Qinghe, I'm going to die."

Su Qinghe turned around and adjusted his glasses: "What's wrong?"

"Science multiple choice questions." Lin Lu spread out a dismal-looking test paper. "Look at this accuracy rate."

Su Qinghe took the test paper, scanned it, and then flipped through Lin Lu's error notebook. Three minutes later, he looked up.

"Your problem isn't with the knowledge points, it's with understanding the question." Su Qinghe took out a red pen, drew three boxes next to the wrong question, and wrote down his thought process.

"First, redo all the wrong questions on this test paper using this method, and then bring them to me to show me."

Lin Lu stood at attention and saluted: "Understood, Teacher Su!"

Xie Wangzheng, who was working on his science exam, was listening intently to the entire presentation.

He poked Su Qinghe's back with the end of his pen: "Teacher Su, could you please not use that tone when you're tutoring her?"

Su Qinghe turned around: "What kind of tone is that?"

"It's the tone you used when you tutored me in memorizing vocabulary." Xie Wang's face showed a hint of jealousy. "That's my signature tone."

Su Qinghe smacked him on the head with his notebook of wrong answers: "How childish! Do your thing."

The last self-study period in the afternoon.

Miss Chen patrolled the hall, her high heels clicking as she walked down the aisle, pausing briefly in front of Xie Wang's desk.

She bent down and flipped through Xie Wang's cloze test paper, which was spread out on the table. There were twenty questions, and he got one wrong.

It's much better than before.

MissChen looked up, managing a rare warm expression, and patted Xie Wang on the shoulder: "Keep it up."

Xie Wang responded verbally, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small curve at the corner of Su Qinghe's mouth.

He looked down and wrote four characters on the draft paper, then nudged it with his elbow:

"Give me a compliment."

Su Qinghe glanced at it, then picked up a pen and wrote below:

"We'll talk about it when your error rate drops to zero."

Xie Wang pushed it back again:

"Ms. Su, can't you be a little gentler with your students?"

Su Qinghe wrote:

"Gentleness comes after you get into the top three; it's about doing the test."

Xie Wang crumpled the draft paper into a ball and stuffed it into the desk drawer, then obediently turned to the next page of the exam paper.

……

The corridor before evening self-study.

Xie Wang leaned against the windowsill and sent Kang Ping an encrypted message with a screenshot of Gu Nan's text message attached.

Kangping replied quickly.

"Don't rush to reply. Let me check his recent movements in Jiangcheng. You should focus on doing well on your final exams and not embarrass Tianqi."

Xie Wang sent an emoji back, locked his screen, and walked back to the classroom.

……

Half past ten.

Shen Hao sprang to his feet and yelled, "We're liberated!"

Lu Yi closed the pen cap and calmly corrected, "This isn't liberation; it's like a prisoner being temporarily allowed a break."

Shen Hao opened his mouth, but found that he couldn't refute these words, so he could only angrily pack his schoolbag.

……

The entrance to 1601.

Su Qinghe took out his keys, opened the door, and glanced back at Xie Wang.

"Let's go through the English essay templates again tonight. I'll be checking them during tomorrow's mock exam."

Xie Wang leaned against the doorframe of room 1602 across the hall, tilting his head to look at her: "Teacher Su, can't you say something unrelated to studying before you go to sleep?"

Su Qinghe thought for a moment.

Go to bed early.

Xie Wang laughed.

"That's right."

He reached out and ruffled her hair. As his hand fell, his fingertips slid down her hair to behind her ear, pausing for a second before withdrawing.

Goodnight, Teacher Su.

Su Qinghe bent down and used the key to unlock the door, inserting it into the keyhole twice before succeeding.

After the door closed, she leaned against the wall in the entryway for a while, her fingers unconsciously touching the spot behind her ear where he had touched her.

……

Room 1602.

As soon as Fantuan heard the door open, it jumped off the sofa, its fluffy head nudging its legs. Xie Wang poured out the cat food and watched the calico cat bury its head in its food, making crunching noises.

He rubbed the back of Fantuan's head, sat down at his desk, and opened an English essay template.

He wrote a beginning on the draft paper, using the inverted sentence structure that Su Qinghe had taught him.

I took a picture and sent it on WeChat.

"I've finished memorizing the template, and now I'm putting the inverted sentence structure you taught me to use."

Su Qinghe replied instantly: "Where's the evidence? Send me a photo."

Xie Wang sent over a photo of the draft paper.

Su Qinghe replied with a checkmark.

Xie Wang typed another line and sent it: "I miss you."

There was silence on the other end for about ten seconds.

He replied with two words: "Sleep."

A tiny red heart was attached after the two words.

Xie Wang stared at the heart for five seconds, unable to suppress the smile on his lips.

He placed his phone face down on the table and said to the rice ball licking its paw at his feet, "Your dad's in a good mood tonight."

The rice ball flicked its tail, jumped onto the desk, and stepped on his draft paper.

The phone lit up again.

Camping.

The message consisted of only one line.

"We found out. Gu Nan met your father, Xie Zhengyang, in the Chengnan District of Jiangcheng."

Xie Wang slowly tightened his grip on the phone with his five fingers.