Chapter 6 - Class Monitor
Compared to the cool and mature appearance he had when he was thirty, this face was still very soft and immature, but for Song Xiao, who had interacted with him for ten years, he definitely would not recognise wrongly.
Right at that moment, the recess bell rang, Teacher Jia turned and left the classroom, and the classroom immediately became lively.
“Wow, no way, he actually sat next to the class monitor…” The students of Special Class One were whispering quietly.
“Guess how long it’ll take before he’s beaten up?”
“Oh my gosh, the monitor is moving!”
A group of boys gathered to watch a good show while the girls feared for Song Xiao.
Song Xiao watched the person before him slowly sit up. He put a hand on the back of his chair, a pair of dark eyes staring at him aggressively. Song Xiao only felt the bottom of his heart shaking, swallowed his saliva and enunciated his words as he said, “Hello, my name is Song Xiao, what’s your name?”
This sentence was taught by Si Dashu while they were on the way to school, who said that when he met his classmates he had to ask in this way, only then could he be friends with them.
The dark pupils shrunk for a second, his thin lips pursed into a line.
“My name is Liu Lu, your name is Song Xiao, right?” A cheerful female voice sounded out. Song Xiao turned around and saw the girl who sat in front of him had turned her head and was smiling at him. This girl was very cute, and when she smiled there was a pair of dimples on her cheeks.
“I’m Qian Jiahui,” the boy sitting next to Liu Lu also turned around to join in on the fun, “Brother, your name sounds really familiar ah, hehe, congratulations, you’ve chosen to sit next to our monitor…”
Qian Jiahui’s incessant chatter stopped abruptly, the hand that had just extended suddenly shrunk back, and he made a gesture of pulling a zipper over his lips.
“Yu Tang,” the monitor withdrew the gaze he had given Qian Jiahui, slowly turned around and continued looking at Song Xiao. “My name is Yu Tang.”
His voice was low and pleasant, along with the clear and brightness that only youths had.
Song Xiao’s hands clenched under the table, but his face did not change, curving his eyes and said to Yu Tang, “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Yu Tang stared at Song Xiao for a while, let out a low hum through his nose, then didn’t continue speaking. His hand was on the table, two fingers tapping on the table.
This was the habit of the Jingyuan emperor. He had always used two fingers to tap against the armrest of the imperial throne. Song Xiao watched the two slender fingers move back and forth, as if it was knocking against his heart, striking against the weak hope within his chest.
Suddenly, Yu Tang stood up, stuck one hand in his pants pocket, gave him an overbearing look then turned to leave. The boy behind Yu Tang also stood up, following after him to leave the classroom with a lowered head.
Song Xiao felt a little dazed. He didn’t know what just happened.
“As expected, he was ignored.” Someone gloatingly said.
“Hey, you sure aren’t tactful.” A short boy came over and knocked on the table. “Did you think you could simply sit next to the monitor? I advise you to move seats, sit next to our Hua jie, maybe you’ll leave an intact corpse.” The boy pointed over to the girl whose eyes were shining, smiling with hidden intentions.
The reason why the girl was called Hua jie wasn’t because her surname was Hua, but because she was easily infatuated. She hadn’t let off any males in class who were the slightest bit handsome, except for the class monitor, whom she daren’t entangle with.
Hua jie saw Song Xiao looking at him, and immediately formed a heart shape with her hands, she walked over swaying her hips, a face full of complaint, saying, “Aiya, Song Xiao, how come you didn’t sit next to me? Class monitor’s temper isn’t good, sitting with him…”
Before she finished speaking, she felt a chill from behind her. Hua jie immediately froze. Slowly turning her head, she saw that the class monitor had left and returned. Before she knew what was going on, she had already reflexively gave way.
Yu Tang ignored the surrounding people, grabbed Song Xiao’s wrist and dragged him out.
“Wah, there’s going to be a good play!” The boys of the class basically plastered themselves to the window side, waiting to see Song Xiao be taught a lesson.
“Emp- Yu Tang, why are you dragging me out?” Song Xiao was stumbling after being grabbed by Yu Tang, staggering his way out of the classroom.
“To receive student tags.” Yu Tang turned his head and looked at him expressionlessly.
Song Xiao blinked, then heard an announcement, the form teacher’s powerful voice bellowing, “First year class’s monitors, immediately go to the general office to receive student tags.”
“Um…” Song Xiao opened his mouth. This kind of matter, simply picking a student was enough. The two of them had seats in the middle of the classroom, this guy didn’t need to walk such a big round just to get him, right?
“A deskmate is someone who helps with the odd jobs.” Yu Tang seemed to be in a good mood, the corner of his lips slightly lifted, with a hand still on his wrist, pulling him along.
Song Xiao hurried to catch up, and turned to look at the boy not far away from them.
This boy wasn’t as tall as Yu Tang, his head slightly lowered. His breathing was very soft, if he hadn’t known that this boy was following along, he really wouldn’t have realised.
The boy saw him looking over yet didn’t have the slightest intention of greeting him, only keeping his head lowered and never further than three steps away from Yu Tang.
“His name is Dugu An.” Yu Tang said a strange-sounding name, then didn’t let Song Xiao turn his head back anymore, making him keep his head turned forward, walking properly.
Sheng Meng’s main teaching block was five connected buildings, each floor between each building was exquisitely built walkways. The general office was on the third floor in front of the common building, so they could walk straight there.
The general office already had a lot of people standing there, each class’s monitor holding a printed name list, checking the engraved name tags they had received seriously. After all, they had just become the class monitor, this was also regarded as a major matter, so all the class monitors were especially careful.
“Special Class One,” Yu Tang went to the teacher issuing name tags, reported his class name, then received a small cardboard box.
There was only one large table in the general office, and every class monitor had already completely surrounded it. Yu Tang looked at Dugu An. The boy with a lowered head rapidly scuttled into the crowd. Before Song Xiao had even properly seen what’s going on, there was already a large area of space cleared out.
Yu Tang put the cardboard on the desk and handed a name list to Song Xiao, indicating for him to check the name tags.
Song Xiao looked at the other monitors. They all had brought a classmate with them, but one was reading out the namelist while the other was looking at the name tags. Wasn’t this person amazing, passing over everything to him. He curled his lips, lowered his head to attentively look over the name list once, then threw it aside to sort out one by one.
These student tags were all made of metal, with the school emblem and the abbreviation ‘S-M’, below it was the student number and name.
Song Xiao checked the number of nametags first, after confirming that the total count was correct, he checked the names one by one, but never looked at the name list again.
Yu Tang stood on one side, looking at him with dark eyes.
“There are seventy two flowers here, below every flower there is a line of poetry. You’ve all seen it, so in a moment, zhen will pick one out, you guys will answer with the poem. The one who answers the most will win, and this emperor will reward you handsomely.” The radiance of spring was strong during the Lu Ming banquet, the previous emperor had smiled without restraint, picking up a peony.
“There are beauties in the south, like peaches and plums.” Without waiting for the others to react, the young number one scholar had already responded.
The poems under the flowers didn’t have any relation with the flowers itself, so it was extremely hard to remember. Several scholars who had the idea to be in the limelight had a head full of sweat, while that seventeen year old champion was calm and composed. Every one of his answers were correct, and with every correct answer, that pair of beautiful eyes would curve up.
“Old seven, you pick one too,” His father’s voice rang out from beside his ear, waking up Yu Jintang who had been staring in rapture.
“Yes, father emperor,” He lifted a hand to pick up a begonia, and directly handed it over to Song Xiao.
The champion with smiling eyes was surprised, both hands receiving that beautiful begonia flower, using a clear and pleasant voice to smilingly say, “Unknown where the person went, the peach blossom still smiled at the spring breeze.”
Unknown where the person went, the peach blossom still smiled at the spring breeze…
“Done.” The curved smiling eyes appeared in front of his eyes, a metal name tag was handed over, “This is yours.”
Yu Tang took the metal name tag that had his name on it. “Where’s yours?”
“Here.” Song Xiao laughed and took his out. He loved these kinds of memorizing games, so when the monitor ordered him to do everything by himself just now, he wasn’t the slightest bit unhappy.
Yu Tang reached out and took the tag with ‘Song Xiao’ engraved on it. In two or three seconds, he had ripped open the plastic packaging, opened the pin on its back and pinned it on the left breast of Song Xiao’s school uniform.
Because the distance was very close, the light peppermint fragrance could be smelt very clearly. Song Xiao was frozen still.
“Don’t move.” Yu Tang said. He seemed to have done this kind of thing very rarely, trying multiple times to pin it before he managed to do it correctly, then put the ‘Yu Tang’ tag in Song Xiao’s hands.
“Ah?” Song Xiao looked up at him in confusion.
Yu Tang frowned, “What are you being all dazed for, pin this on for… me.”
The author has something to say
Little theater
Xiaoxiao: Your Majesty, why did you put this on for me
Fish Tang: Putting on a dog collar, so you are zhen’s
Xiaoxiao: …Then I can’t put it on for you, it’s too disrespectful
Fish Tang: …Woof!
Translator’s note
You’re as subtle as a brick, Yu Tang. Also, an extra update since I didn’t update yesterday.