DTTCM Chapter 34

Yu Zuojin arrived at the small grove on the east side of No.1 Middle School, holding his Chinese textbook in his hands.

From a distance of a hundred meters, he could already spot the striking camphor tree amidst the autumn scenery.

Among the numerous towering trees, it stood out as the most exceptional.

Yu Zuojin found the tree unremarkable; it was just like any other tree in his eyes. The only thing that set it apart was Shen Yuan sitting on its sturdy branches.

Shen Yuan was slouched on the thick branch of the tree, holding a notebook and a set of test papers in his hands.

He gazed lazily at the lush green foliage above, his gaze devoid of interest.

What distinguished the camphor tree from the others was that it didn’t shed its leaves in the autumn months of August and September. It would keep its leaves intact until the arrival of spring the following year.

It was like spring within the autumn.

Yu Zuojin stood still, observing.

The fragmented sunlight filtered through the overlapping branches and fell upon the youth, while the wind tousled his black hair. It seemed as if everything was perfectly framed around him.

As a fallen leaf dropped in front of him, he picked it up and examined its intricate veins. Suddenly, he turned his head and noticed Yu Zuojin standing at a distance.

Why didn’t he come over?

Shen Yuan raised his arm and waved.

“Hey!”

Yu Zuojin took long strides and walked towards the base of the tree.

Normally, Yu Zuojin was half a head taller than Shen Yuan, but with Shen Yuan sitting on the tree, there was over a meter’s difference between them. Shen Yuan patted the branch.

“Do you need me to pull you up?”

Yu Zuojin remained expressionless. He raised his hand and placed the Chinese textbook on the branch before extending both arms. Without even taking a running start, he relied solely on his arm strength to hoist himself up onto the branch.

Even with two people sitting on the branch, it didn’t budge a bit. The camphor tree stood firm without any sway, much taller and sturdier than imagined.

Shen Yuan gazed at his messy hair, and to his surprise, holding the Chinese textbook seemed to have reduced his unruliness by twenty points.

“Yu Zuojin.”

Yu Zuojin raised his eyes.

“Come here every day from now on. I’ll be waiting for you under this tree.”

Yu Zuojin looked deeply into his eyes but remained silent.

Sheng Yuan was already accustomed to the other’s silence.

He spread the Chinese exam paper in front of him and said, “You can start writing the Chinese paper with your notebook as a cushion.”

With that, he took the Chinese book from the branch.

“I’ll find some classical Chinese texts for you to memorize.”

As he opened the Chinese book, he was greeted by beautiful and graceful fonts.

“The characters are quite beautiful.”

Yu Zuojin’s hand holding the pen paused. The characters in the Chinese book were beautiful, but his expression was not.

Yu Zuojin stared at that Chinese book.

Sheng Yuan looked at the name written on the first page.

“Borrowed it from Zheng Zilu? I didn’t expect you two to have such a good relationship.”

“His handwriting is quite nice, you can learn from him.”

“He has also taken notes on all the key points, he’s quite attentive in class.”

With one praise after another, Sheng Yuan turned to the next page, and the Chinese book in his hand disappeared in a flash.

Yu Zuojin rudely took the Chinese book and placed it under his exam paper. He wore a gloomy expression and remained silent, focusing on writing.

Compared to the characters in the Chinese book, his handwriting looked like it had been gnawed by a dog.

But for some reason, he felt the urge to compare. He wrote slowly, stroke by stroke, persistently striving to write well.

His back was hunched, and his broad and powerful shoulders were very eye-catching.

His broad shoulders connected to strong arms, and even with a school uniform, he exuded an indescribable sense of strength.

Now he had obediently lowered his head to write the paper, with a serious expression on his face, resembling a hunting dog tied to a pillar with iron chains.

Although he didn’t show any aggressiveness, he gave off a sense of imminent attack.

A wild dog.

No matter how you chain it, it can’t be restrained.

As Yu Zuojin answered the paper, Sheng Yuan took out a palm-sized vocabulary book from his pocket.

After flipping through three pages of the vocabulary book, Yu Zuojin handed his paper to Sheng Yuan.

“You finished so quickly?” Sheng Yuan was surprised.

He took the paper, and also took out a red pen from his pocket, grading it.

While Yu Zuojin flipped through several pages of the Chinese book, he stared at the characters on it with a resentful expression.

Sheng Yuan graded the paper without any intention of praising the handwriting.

Yu Zuojin waited and waited, growing impatient, but he remained motionless and silent, sitting across from Sheng Yuan.

Sheng Yuan looked at the perfect score of 150 and Yu Zuojin’s paper with a score of only 75.

No wonder he finished quickly.

He didn’t know most of the questions, how could he not be fast!

The most severe deduction was for the composition, which was off-topic and lacked colloquial expressions, not a single idiom throughout.

“Let’s practice composition first. The composition accounts for a considerable portion of the Chinese score. Your composition is too plain. You can add some idioms and famous quotes appropriately.”

As he spoke, he lowered his head and gave Yu Zuojin a few idioms to fill in the blanks in his notebook, which would help with memorization.

Five ( ) four ( )

Nearby ( ) follow ( )

A boundless ( ) ( )

…

Sheng Yuan handed him the pen. “You write first, and I’ll find some excellent sample compositions for you.”

Yu Zuojin took the pen and looked at the characters on the Chinese paper that hadn’t been praised.

This time, he wrote more slowly and attentively than before.

His hand was large, and the pen in his hand seemed to break with a slight bend.

His black eyes stared at the paper, writing stroke by stroke, each stroke taking a long time.

As Sheng Yuan searched for sample compositions, he glanced at it.

Five (eight) four (ten)

“Yu Zuojin.”

Yu Zuojin’s hand holding the pen paused, he raised his head, and his dark eyes stared at Sheng Yuan’s lips, with a fleeting expectation in his eyes.

On the paper were the characters he had worked hard to write.

The gentle breeze rustled the leaves, and the notebook fluttered in the wind.

Under the shade of the camphor tree, Sheng Yuan spoke.

“Don’t force me to slap you.”

Yu Zuojin: “…”

The two of them studied under the camphor tree for an hour, with half an hour remaining before the end of lunch break. Sheng Yuan packed up his things, while Yu Zuojin stood under the tree, waiting without leaving.

Sheng Yuan said, “You should go back first. I have an appointment with someone, so I won’t return to the dormitory.”

Yu Zuojin stood there unmoving.

Sheng Yuan jumped down from the tree. “What? Curious?”

It seemed that Yu Zuojin didn’t participate in any class activities. On the day of the school anniversary, he would probably be sitting in the audience. Now was a good opportunity to campaign.

“I have a song and dance performance at the school anniversary next Friday. Today, I’m going with classmates to rent costumes and props. Don’t forget to come and watch my performance.”

Sheng Yuan patted his shoulder and left.

Yu Zuojin felt the strength on his shoulder and followed closely behind him, just one step behind.

Like the scent of the camphor tree, it surrounded him.

The Chinese teacher had been on leave for three consecutive days, so the first afternoon class was changed to self-study. Lin Xiaoyuan, the cultural committee member, organized an early trip to the photo studio to borrow costumes and accessories. The earlier they went, the more choices they would have.

Sheng Yuan came out of the small woods and went directly to the entrance of No. 1 Middle School to meet with others.

A total of ten people went, and because they had to carry back many things, there were six boys and four girls.

Xia Zhiqi, Cun Tou, Xiao Pang… all were in the group.

They were eager to work so as to avoid attending class.

Jin Anzhu couldn’t participate in this rental activity because of his injured shoulder and inability to carry things. He cried in regret.

Lin Xiaoyuan counted the number of people and, seeing that everyone had arrived, took out the class fund.

“Our class funds are tight, so we need to bargain for everything in the photo studio.”

“What if we can’t lower the price?”

“Then say you’re an orphan and ask the other party to pity you.”

“…”

When you are away from home, you can create your own identities.

The first afternoon class bell rang, and students of Class Ten gradually returned to the classroom.

The first afternoon class was Chinese, and it felt like the teacher was singing a lullaby on the podium.

The students who didn’t take a nap during lunch sat in their seats, intending to give the Chinese teacher some face and endure for ten minutes before sleeping. They had already planned out their sleeping positions in their minds.

The classroom door swung open, and a tall figure walked in, holding a textbook. The class monitor was about to stand up and call for attention, but when he saw the person entering, his legs gave way, and he plopped down onto the floor.

The previously buzzing Class Ten fell silent as if their necks had been twisted. Yu Zuojin entered the classroom, carrying a brand-new Chinese book.

His eyes were as dark as ink, and he had a cochlear implant device hanging from his ears. The suction cup wires were thrown behind his ears, adorned with the pink Band-Aid. His expression was cold and aloof, and the mole under his eye looked even more eye catching.

Tall with long legs, his presence immediately drew everyone’s attention.

He was undeniably handsome, but his level of danger was extremely high, you could only watch from a distance.

Yu Zuojin’s appearance held everyone in Class Ten on tenterhooks.

In their memory, Yu Zuojin never attended class. They rarely saw him in the classroom during regular times.

Yu Zuojin wouldn’t come to class without a reason.

Unless someone in the class had provoked him.

Gulp—

The class monitor swallowed his saliva. It was widely known that Yu Zuojin was not someone to be trifled with. As the class monitor, he felt a strong sense of responsibility. If Yu Zuojin were to get into a conflict with any of his classmates, he had to be the first to step forward and intervene, even if it meant taking a punch.

Thinking about it, he suddenly felt he was heroic.

Fuck, he would look so charming.

However, when he saw Yu Zuojin’s arms, the class monitor silently shrunk back.

One punch would be enough to floor him.

He quickly looked towards the window—it wasn’t open.

This way, he could avoid Yu Zuojin throwing someone out of the window.

After all, the rumor forum posts about Yu Zuojin were explicit. Although the versions had reached 17-plus, every edition contained scenes of him throwing classmates out of the building.

Everyone secretly observed him, afraid to meet his gaze.

Just as the students of Class Ten held their breaths and focused, Yu Zuojin spoke.

His voice was hoarse, with a low tone.

“Seat.”

The class monitor was stunned.

“S-s-seat?”

The seating arrangement in the class was changed every Monday, and Yu Zuojin had been absent from the classroom for so long that he didn’t remember where he used to sit.

Of course, no one else knew either.

The class monitor quickly stood up, trembling as he tried to find a seat for him. “Where is Classmate Yu’s seat?!”

“Where’s my brother’s seat?!”

“Here… here it is!”

“No, it’s here!”

“Classmate Yu’s seat is here.”

“Classmate Yu’s seat is over there.”

The classmates frantically searched for his seat, as there were too many empty seats due to the delinquent students skipping class.

In a state of chaos, fearing that the other party might lose patience, they randomly chose a lucky audience member and made them surrender their seat by force.

Just by standing there, Yu Zuojin terrified them all.

After two minutes of prolonged searching, they found Yu Zuojin’s seat at the first desk of the third row.

Directly facing the podium.

When students changed seats, they often had their own intentions, wanting to avoid sitting too close to the teacher. The delinquents in the class rarely showed up for lessons, so everyone tacitly arranged the empty seats to be in this feng shui area.

However, now, looking at Yu Zuojin’s seat…

Everyone: “…”

Damn it, who on earth placed him here?