The student on duty for our class is decided in order with our student numbers. It’s always two students a group and the student on duty changes every day. Our student numbers were created when we first arrived at the school and was decided based on how many strokes we had in our names.
The fewer strokes you had in your name, the smaller the student number, and the more strokes in your name, the larger the number.
If you took our class as an example, Niu ShiLi’s student number was 01 because his name had the least number of strokes. If you wanted to beat him, you would need a name like Ding Yi or something similar.
However, Xiao Qin’s name had 16 strokes, which was fewer than Shu Sha’s 22 strokes, but Xiao Qin’s student number was 45. That’s because she was a transfer student and was the last to enter our class, so she had the largest student number for our class.
During the time when Zhuang Ni was away from school and when Xiao Qin transferred over, our class had a total of 44 students. It could be evenly divided into 22 student duty groups and it made the class leader excited.
Now that Zhuang Ni returned, we had to rethink the way we divided the groups for our class with 45 students. The class leader finally decided: we won’t start with Niu ShiLi’s 01. The students on duty for the first day of school will be herself and Zhuang Ni, then it would alternate as usual.
Basically, it meant the class leader would have to be the student on duty twice every cycle. It also solved the problem with an odd number of students plus the fact that Zhuang Ni couldn’t partner up with boys.
Her well-thought-out arrangement was completely disrupted by the fact that her mother was staying in town for two more days.
I’ve never seen the class leader so eager to go home.
Normally, even if she wasn’t the student on duty, she would stay a little longer to see if her classmates needed help. The time she used on staying in class instead of going home to make dinner was made up later by simply riding her bicycle faster.
Today was different. In order to be able to go home early and stay a little longer with her mother, the class leader had already swapped student on duty schedules with Xiong YaoYue before PE class even ended.
“Winnie, I know you don’t have a good relationship with Zhuang Ni. Zhuang Ni also never does any work when she’s the student on duty, but can you help me out? Thank you.”
The class leader pressed her hands together and begged Xiong YaoYue.
“Leave it to me.”
Xiong YaoYue patted her chest. Since she was too hot, she left her school uniform open and she had a thin white vest underneath. It was pretty tight on her and slightly revealed her cleavage.
As she slapped her own chest, she made her her body that was underneath the vest bounce.
“It doesn’t matter if Zhuang Ni doesn’t do any work, I can do the tasks alone. The main issue is that Zhuang Ni caused me problems after she returned.”
“What kind of problems.” The class leader did not understand.
“Problems involving our names.” Xiong YaoYue scratched the band-aid on her cheek and said, “I finally found a nickname I liked called Winnie, but now when others call Zhuang Ni’s name it makes it sound like both our names end in Ni and it makes us seem like nuns…”
“I wouldn’t mind being a nun highly skilled in martial arts like in ‘The One-armed Magic Nun’, but I don’t want to become a nun with Zhuang Ni, it makes me uncomfortable… Class leader, how about you call me by another nickname, ‘Yue Yue’, when Zhuang Ni is present.”
“Is there a need for that?” The class leader didn’t really approve of Xiong YaoYue constantly changing her nicknames. The class leader was actually insistent on calling everyone by their full names and rarely called them by their nicknames.
“Of course!” Xiong YaoYue shouted out loud, “Class leader, call me ‘Yue Yue’ when Zhuang Ni is with me, that goes for everyone else too.”
Eunuch Cao, who was attracted by Xiong YaoYue’s cleavage, snickered: “Xiao Yue Yue, you’re a girl and Zhuang Ni is also a girl. How would the two of you get together? How about I act as an intermediary connector…”
Before the class leader and Xiong YaoYue could react, Loud Mouth had dragged Eunuch Cao over to hit him.
“Eunuch Cao, you asshole, who told you and Liu HuaiShui to organize the prettiest girl in school election. You even added my name up there to make fun of me, so go and get votes for me.”
Eunuch Cao couldn’t really breathe as he was being choked by Loud Mouth’s lobster pincers. His face had the same color as liver as he struggled to breathe, “Why would I get votes for you, I didn’t vote for you… stop choking me, I’m dying…”
On the other hand, Xiong YaoYue continued with sincerity, “Class leader, as long as you are willing to call me ‘Xiao Yue Yue’, I’ll also call you ‘Xiao Ban Ban’.”
“No need.” The class leader shook her head, “If you don’t call me ‘Xiao Ban Ban’, I might call you ‘Yue Yue’ to distinguish you from Zhuang Ni. Actually, I think Winnie and Zhuang Ni aren’t even close, why do you have to separate it?”
“It’s better to separate us.” Zhuan Ni heard the conversation, so she looked back at us and said, “My Ni has a girl character in the word, but Winnie’s Ni does not. So she isn’t even a girl, she’s just a bear…”
“Who’s a bear?” Xiong YaoYue said angrily, “Winnie is a fashionable name without bear in it. Now, I can’t even use the nickname all because of you.”
Zhuang Ni said back: “Winnie is just a bear. Also, I’m angry I can’t be on duty with the class leader, so don’t annoy me.”
“Who needs you on duty, I can do it myself.” Xiong YaoYue glared at Zhuang Ni, then looked at the class leader.
“Class leader, don’t worry, I won’t slack off today and I’ll do my job properly. Hurry up and go home so you can get spoiled by your mother, you probably don’t get many chances a year…”
The class leader lowered her head and blushed after she was exposed by Xiong YaoYue, but she didn’t deny it.
It seems like the class leader only shows her childish side in front of her parents! I’m really curious on how the class leader acts spoiled towards her mother. Does her mother give her daughter a lap pillow or tell her bedtime stories?
Although Xiong YaoYue said she could do her duty alone, Zhuang Ni didn’t leave after school ended. She found Gong CaiCai and asked her to stay behind with her to draw chalkboard art on the blackboard.
Zhuang Ni was responsible for drawing and Gong CaiCai was responsible for writing the words. This was a regular combination since our first year. It really made our class blackboard a lot more colorful and often got our class first place.
It was a good thing that Zhuang Ni returned to school and started to draw on the blackboard again with Gong CaiCai, so the class leader had no reasons to stop them.
However, Zhuang Ni has publicly declared several times that she wants to be a couple with the class leader as well as Gong CaiCai. If she lets Gong CaiCai stay behind to draw, the two of them might stay even later than Xiong YaoYue, so you really can’t help but worry.
Normally, the class leader would not hesitate to stay behind to supervise and see if Zhuang Ni would go overboard with Gong CaiCai, but today she was hesitant because then she would have less time with her mother.
I noticed the class leader’s dilemma, so I volunteered: “How about I stay behind to help. Xiao Qin and I could both stay behind. I’ll help Winnie clean and Xiao Qin can help Gong CaiCai with the chalkboard art or something…”
“Sure.” Xiao Qin said excitedly, “I like to draw. You can leave class 3-3’s blackboard to me.”
The class leader thought about it and knew I did it so she could go home earlier, thus she nodded.
“Then I’ll leave it to you. If anything happens, just give me a call…”
I don’t think Zhuang Ni would do anything to Gong CaiCai with me, Xiao Qin, and Xiong YaoYue here. It’s not like she’s going to strip off her clothes right in front of us.
But before the class leader left, she whispered to me: “Don’t let Xiao Qin touch our blackboard. I’ll rather have you draw on it than have Xiao Qin draw on it. I was looking forward to our board placing at a high rank for this month…”
I nodded to say I would keep a close eye on Celery-sensei so she can’t hurt our eyes with her vegetable drawing skills.
In the blink of an eye, it was already 6pm. The classroom was already empty other than the students who stayed behind.
Originally, we were supposed to have evening self-study when we entered our third year, but since the State Board of Education explicitly prohibited evening self-study, 28 Middle postponed it to until two weeks after the start of the school year. Evening self-study will probably start again around September 16th. They even put on an act by sending everyone a note called the “third year evening self-study agreement”, which stated that evening self-study was there to satisfy the strong demands of the parents and students and participation was completely ‘optional’.
The agreement had to be taken home to be signed by the parents along with the student and the teacher in charge of the class. It was made to look legit, but the student’s wishes were not taken into account at all. If any of us dared to tell our parents we weren’t going to participate, then they would think we were trying to cut classes and give us a beating.
So the classroom being empty after 6pm will be a rare occurrence in the future.
“I’ll treat you guys to grilled kidneys.”
Xiong YaoYue quickly finished her tasks with me and Xiao Qin’s help, so she happily said she would treat us.
She wasn’t only treating us, she also asked Zhuang Ni and Gong CaiCai: “What about you two, do you like chilis or cumin? If you don’t like it, then I’ll tell them to not add it.”
Even if they didn’t have a good relationship, Xiong YaoYue would never purposely skip Zhuang Ni alone. Xiong YaoYue would never be that petty.
But Zhuang Ni didn’t appreciate it and said coldly: “Cai Cai and I won’t eat those unhygienic foods. I prepared food for two people in my insulated lunchbox. Although I planned to eat it with the class leader, but it’s the same if I share it with Cai Cai.”
“Tsk, then whatever.” Xiong YaoYue walked quickly out of the classroom, then less than 10 minutes later, she came back with 3 skewers of grilled kidneys. The three of us sat in the empty front row and watched Zhuang Ni and Gong CaiCai draw while commenting.
“It’s a little salty.” Xiong YaoYue said after taking a bite.
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