Shift Change

Gu Yue had been suffering these past few days.

She felt like a little fish jumping and flopping on a scorching hot iron plate, pressed down by a metal spatula.

The torment had left her looking haggard.

She also lacked the courage to test Lin Yu’s attitude toward the boundary she had crossed with him.

Until three days later.

When Lin Yu came to tutor her at home.

Seeing his expression as calm as ever,

she finally gathered her nerve and asked a small question.

When she learned that Lin Yu thought she had simply taken the clothes out of the spin dryer and hung them on the clothesline,

Gu Yue died a little inside with relief.

Only you would think that!

But overall,

Gu Yue still felt much lighter.

When someone treasures a certain emotional relationship too much,

compared to getting closer, people often fear losing it even more.

Day by day, life passed by, as calm as an ancient well.

Senior year already had few holidays.

After the New Year,

Lin Yu and Gu Yue didn’t enjoy many leisurely days before

school started.

According to common sense,

the second half of senior year

should make the classroom environment oppressive and heavy.

Without exaggeration,

a student’s twelve years of effort all boiled down to that final push a few months later.

But Lin Yu sat in the classroom and looked around.

He watched his classmates—these lazy bums who ate, drank, and never let anything weigh on their minds—

and felt a wave of despair.

He deeply realized that he couldn’t keep going like this.

To emerge unstained from the mud—

that was an extremely rare case.

Most of those who crawled out of the mire were big wild boars covered in filth from head to toe!

He couldn’t stay in this learning environment any longer!

Lin Yu made up his mind.

Especially when he thought of Gu Yue.

That made him even more certain.

Gu Yue’s personality had always been flighty.

If her old friends lured her back,

she might just toss her books aside and run off with them again.

Over this winter break, he had barely managed to pull her grades up a bit.

He couldn’t let her fall back into her old ways!

Thinking this,

Lin Yu took out his phone and sent a plea for help.

After all, students had the least say in school.

If he wanted to change classes,

he needed external help!

Between the two super-assistants, Qing Mo and Zhao She,

Lin Yu naturally chose to message Zhao Dahu.

Why trouble big shots like those two over something so trivial?

Letting Dahu handle it was enough.

Lin Yu sent the message in the morning.

By noon,

he had already received the notification to change classes.

In the hallway,

carrying large bags and bundles, Lin Yu ran into Gu Yue, who was also loaded down with her stuff.

They met in the corridor.

Gu Yue, carefree as ever, grinned at Lin Yu with her teeth showing.

Her smile held a pure joy that was either lovely or a bit silly—hard to tell.

It looked quite cute.

The smile was contagious,

making Lin Yu’s own lips curl upward.

They gathered in the hallway and followed the teacher leading them to the fourth floor.

That was the floor for the good students.

Upon reaching the fourth floor,

among several classes,

Lin Yu picked one at random and walked in.

His rule for choosing a class was simple:

As long as Tang Manman wasn’t in it, it was fine.

He wanted to avoid any unnecessary trouble.

After leading Gu Yue into the classroom,

since there were no empty seats,

Lin Yu simply grabbed another desk from the back of the room

and placed it against the wall.

Gu Yue followed his lead,

dragging an empty desk from the back, setting it next to Lin Yu’s, aligning them, and grabbing herself a chair.

She sat down beside Lin Yu.

Gu Yue didn’t know why,

but she suddenly felt a burst of overwhelming happiness.

Even during home tutoring,

they had been closer than this.

Yet Gu Yue just found being desk mates with Lin Yu incredibly joyful.

It felt as though her heart was pumping not blood,

but honey-sweetened sugar water.

Tucked away in this small corner of the classroom,

sitting so close to Lin Yu,

surrounded by desks, walls, windows, and him,

Gu Yue felt a unique sense of security she couldn’t describe.

It was like lying in the same bed with Lin Yu,

making her want to keep smiling.

Lin Yu sat beside her,

pulling books from his bag and stuffing them into the desk cubby.

He happened to glance at Gu Yue out of the corner of his eye.

Three question marks popped up in Lin Yu’s head.

What was this idiot giggling about again?

…

…

The learning environment in the new class was indeed nothing like their original one.

In this new class,

Lin Yu once again experienced that urgent pressure—where if you bent over to pick up a pen,

by the time you looked up, the scribbles on the blackboard were already impossible to follow.

But thanks to his study experience before crossing over,

Lin Yu could keep up with the pace.

Not so for Gu Yue, who sat beside him.

In every subject’s class,

her face clearly showed a dazed expression of “Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing here?”

She looked like a mole that had gotten lost while digging a tunnel,

exuding a kind of innocent, harmless air.

Facing this clueless little slacker who could barely tell east from west,

Lin Yu could only study like crazy during class,

and teach like crazy during breaks.

He even applied to the teacher to take Gu Yue to an empty classroom during self-study sessions,

giving her crash courses to make up for lost ground.

Luckily, Gu Yue was somewhat determined.

As for moderately difficult points,

she could memorize them within three tries.

Then, over the following days, she would randomly forget them…

…