Gu Zhuoyan hung up as soon as he finished speaking, not even leaving a "goodbye". The screen quickly went dark, leaving not a sliver of light in the room. He sat there in the pitch-black darkness for a while.

He mulled over how to hit on Zhuang Fanxin.

But often, the plan is one thing, and the fucking execution is another.

Gu Zhuoyan picked up his phone and browsed casually. He unintentionally opened his Moments and saw that the latest post was about a summer special attack training session from his cram school teacher. His gaze lingered on "special attack" for a few seconds before he scrolled past it to the next post.

Zhuang Fanxin had posted a photo two hours ago, right after leaving his house. The photo showed two hands facing each other. One hand, very slender and pale, belonged to Zhuang Fanxin, and it was holding that stack of math papers. The other hand was darker and held a box of cake, probably belonging to Zhuang Fanxin's deskmate, Qi Nan.

Caption: The scene of the transaction.

Gu Zhuoyan commented: "You get cake for letting a classmate copy your homework?"

Soon, Zhuang Fanxin replied: "There's no such thing as free homework to copy in this world."

Gu Zhuoyan: "Then did I explain the problems to you for free? How come I don't have any cake?"

This one sentence stumped Zhuang Fanxin. He had sought help to solve the difficult problems in his homework, then traded the completed homework for a cake, acting as the middleman and pocketing the profits all for himself.

Gu Zhuoyan waited for a long time without a reply. Just then, Xue Maochen called him for dinner, so he pocketed his phone and went downstairs. The family didn't have a rule against talking during meals. Xue Maochen was coaxing Gu Baoyan to eat more vegetables, while Gu Zhuoyan ate and looked at his phone.

Zhuang Fanxin finally replied: "What flavor of cake do you like?"

Was he trying to compensate him? Gu Zhuoyan was only joking, but instead of explaining directly, he said pretentiously, "I have no appetite."

Zhuang Fanxin: "Why? Are you angry?" with a terrified emoji.

Gu Zhuoyan: "I have an exam the day after tomorrow. I'm anxious."

Zhuang Fanxin couldn't help but feel puzzled. 'Would someone with such good grades also get anxious? Could it be that only his math scores are outstanding?' Like a Bodhisattva, he put himself in the other's shoes, guessing that Gu Zhuoyan must be feeling quite uneasy about going to an unfamiliar school for an exam all by himself.

He sent: "I'll go with you the day after tomorrow."

Gu Zhuoyan didn't offer any pleasantries, replying with a "Thanks" as if his goal had been achieved. Putting down his phone, he had a good appetite and got another bowl of rice. Seeing how hard Xue Maochen was working to coax the child, he tapped the rim of his bowl to warn Gu Baoyan to be less willful.

Gu Baoyan was quite scared and started eating obediently. Xue Maochen shifted his attention from his granddaughter to his grandson, asking with concern, "Zhuoyan, how are the preparations for the exam the day after tomorrow?"

"I haven't prepared," Gu Zhuoyan said, picking up a piece of vegetable. "This school isn't ranked in the top ten nationally. It'll be easy to pass."

Xue Maochen suggested, "Then come fishing with me tomorrow?"

Gu Zhuoyan changed his tune, "I suddenly feel like I need to memorize some vocabulary. You should go fishing by yourself."

Early in the morning two days later, Zhuang Fanxin's lanky figure was pacing in front of the Xue Family's gate. As soon as Gu Zhuoyan appeared, he went up to meet him. As agreed, he was accompanying the other to his exam.

He had originally wanted to have a driver take them, but Zhuang Fanxin suggested taking the subway to get familiar with the route, so Gu Zhuoyan compromised. After they had walked a short distance, Zhuang Fanxin turned around and started walking backward, facing Gu Zhuoyan.

Zhuang Fanxin was wearing a pair of well-fitting capri jeans, his two slender legs moving nimbly. On his upper body, he wore a short-sleeved tennis shirt in a bright red, which made his arms and neck look exceptionally fair. Gu Zhuoyan's gaze naturally drifted over, and he smiled slightly.

"What are you smiling at?" Zhuang Fanxin smiled as well.

Gu Zhuoyan said, "I'm smiling because you're dressed so festively." After teasing him, he added a compliment, "But red suits you."

Zhuang Fanxin pinched the front of his shirt, showing off the small embroidered badge on his left chest, and said, "This is my school's summer uniform. You'll have one too."

Gu Zhuoyan couldn't help but feel deflated. Although he had been admiring the other for a while, he didn't want to wear it himself. He imagined the magnificent sight during morning exercises: a green field full of students dressed in red. How glaring that must be.

"Look at you." Zhuang Fanxin gasped for breath. "There's a white one too. You can wear whichever you want."

They took the subway to Tianji High School. Zhuang Fanxin showed his school ID to enter the campus and led Gu Zhuoyan to the admissions office in the Office Building. Everything had already been arranged. They handed over the relevant documents to the head of admissions, and the academic principal then arranged the exam.

Besides Gu Zhuoyan, there were a few other students taking make-up exams before the start of the school year. They were all arranged in a small lecture hall.

Gu Zhuoyan casually picked a seat and sat down, silently observing his surroundings. This school had some history. The Office Building seemed to have been renovated, but the carpet in the lecture hall was very old, worn thin from years of being trodden on.

'I'll just have to make do. There's no other choice.'

The proctoring teacher came in, caught sight of an idler, and asked, "Zhuang Fanxin, are you here to help me proctor the exam?"

Zhuang Fanxin replied with a smile, "I'm accompanying a transfer student here for his exam." Being quite perceptive, he ran to get the papers. "Teacher, I'll help you hand them out."

After handing out the make-up exam papers, there was one separate placement test paper left. Zhuang Fanxin walked over to Gu Zhuoyan's desk, and as he placed the paper down, he whispered, "Don't be nervous. It's okay if you don't do well."

Gu Zhuoyan let out a soft "en," but his heart felt empty. In all his years, he had taken countless exams, big and small, but no one had ever told him, "It's okay if you don't do well."

Before hearing Zhuang Fanxin say it, he thought he didn't need that reassurance at all.

Zhuang Fanxin ran out of the lecture hall nimbly and agilely. The door closed, and the bell for the start of the exam rang at the same time. The only sounds around were the rustling of paper and pens. Half an hour, an hour passed, and people's hands grew sore from writing.

Writing. Gu Zhuoyan paused to drink some water and heard a "Hello, Teacher" from outside the lecture hall.

In the hallway, Zhuang Fanxin was leaning against the wall, reading a mystery novel he had brought with him. Coincidentally, his class's head teacher, Xia Wei, passed by. After greeting him, he asked, "Teacher, are you on duty today?"

"Yes," Xia Wei said. "What are you doing at school?"

Zhuang Fanxin replied, "I'm accompanying someone for an exam." He felt the other person sizing him up, so he couldn't help but try to please him. "Teacher, I've finished my chemistry homework."

Xia Wei said doubtfully, "I feel like you're a bit different from usual."

"I've become a tiny bit more handsome."

"Vain." Xia Wei was in a hurry to get back to his office and left. But after a few steps, he stopped, finally realizing what was wrong. He turned to look at Zhuang Fanxin as if looking at a little monster, "Who gave you permission to perm your hair?!"

Zhuang Fanxin covered his head with his book. "I was wrong!"

Xia Wei scolded, "Get it straightened before school starts!"

Inside the lecture hall, Gu Zhuoyan heard everything clearly. 'This teacher has a bit of a temper,' he thought, 'that little curly-haired guy's hair looks pretty good.'

The schedule was tight. After finishing the Chinese and Math exams in the morning, Zhuang Fanxin took Gu Zhuoyan to grab a quick bite nearby. With their stomachs full, they strolled slowly around the school.

Gu Zhuoyan let Zhuang Fanxin lead him around aimlessly. The teaching building was quiet and empty. As they passed the doorway of the Second Year, Class 3, he glanced inside. The windows were bright and clean, and on the back blackboard was a lifelike drawing of a steed, a copy of a Xu Beihong painting.

He had a vague guess, but he deliberately asked, "Which student drew that? It's amazing."

Zhuang Fanxin was so easy to fool. He couldn't hold back a smile at the praise. After admitting it was him, he said, "This is called 'taking the lead like a galloping horse,' but our class is always suppressed by Class 1 and Class 2."

Speaking of which, with an innocent cluelessness about the future mixed with a bit of longing, he said, "I wonder which class you'll test into. Maybe you'll happen to get into our class."

Gu Zhuoyan played dumb, "It couldn't be that coincidental."

"That's true," Zhuang Fanxin nodded. "It's fine, we'll be in the same grade anyway."

After exploring that floor, they went downstairs to leave. Out the side door at the end was a garden with large banyan trees, and four paved paths connected to the library building opposite.

This was the most beautiful part of the school. Zhuang Fanxin asked curiously, "What was your old school like?"

Gu Zhuoyan said, "The classrooms are all more or less the same, but the students at our school were very unruly. They might practice dancing in the cafeteria or hold a party in the science lab. They were all pretty hard to manage." It was hard to explain in just a few sentences, but it did make him a little homesick. "For a while, forming bands was popular, and there weren't enough piano rooms, so a band occupied the Taekwondo hall. The people from the Taekwondo hall asked the fencing club for help, so I led some people over."

Zhuang Fanxin asked, "Did you fight?"

"No," Gu Zhuoyan said. "The band's lead singer turned out to be a childhood friend of mine, so we just listened to them hold a concert in the Taekwondo hall."

Zhuang Fanxin remembered the group photo on Moments, the one with four boys on horseback. That childhood friend must have been one of them. Gu Zhuoyan nodded. "The one who formed the band is called Lu Wen. The other two are Lian Yiming and Su Wang."

For teenage boys, friendship is the most precious thing. Zhuang Fanxin was afraid that talking too much about it would affect the other's mood. He led Gu Zhuoyan westward and found a staircase in a nook. Under the stairs was a small, empty space sheltered from the wind and light.

This staircase led to the rooftop but was off-limits. Zhuang Fanxin said, "This little corner is the only outdoor blind spot for the school's surveillance cameras."

Gu Zhuoyan looked at the few fallen leaves on the ground. "It's quite clean."

"Of course it's clean," Zhuang Fanxin said, annoyed. "I swept it every day before the break."

Seeing the other's slight surprise, he tried to build suspense, "Last semester, during the break of an evening self-study session, I was hiding here and got caught by the head teacher. Guess what I was doing?"

Gu Zhuoyan said with a deadpan expression, "Kissing your girlfriend."

Zhuang Fanxin froze, his face flushing instantly. "How is that possible? I don't have a girlfriend..."

Gu Zhuoyan smiled then. "Then what were you doing?"

Zhuang Fanxin said, "Qi Nan and I were hiding here slurping rice noodles. They were a bit salty, so Qi Nan went to the tuck shop to buy drinks. I was the only one left when the head teacher happened to pass by."

The noodles were too fragrant. The head teacher followed the smell and caught Zhuang Fanxin red-handed, punishing him by making him clean for a whole semester.

After listening to such a tragic story, Gu Zhuoyan burst out laughing. He put his arm around Zhuang Fanxin's shoulders, sympathetically leading him back to the lecture hall. In the afternoon, there were the comprehensive science and English exams. The proctoring teacher took pity on him and allowed Zhuang Fanxin to wait in the air-conditioned hall.

Zhuang Fanxin was curled up in the last row, far away. He grew sleepy in the afternoon and gradually couldn't hold on any longer, falling asleep during the English listening comprehension part. When the bell rang and the papers were collected, the other students left as if escaping a sea of misery. Gu Zhuoyan stood up and looked back, seeing the distant back row empty. He looked again, and saw a tuft of curly hair trembling slightly.

Gu Zhuoyan walked over, pursed his lips, and sat down next to Zhuang Fanxin. He silently opened the music library on his phone, searched for "March of the Athletes," and hit play.

Not even ten seconds later, Zhuang Fanxin woke up with a start. "Is it time for morning exercises?"

Gu Zhuoyan turned off the music. "I finished my exam."

Zhuang Fanxin suddenly let out a sigh of relief. He sat side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder with Gu Zhuoyan, facing the spacious lecture hall and the podium, as if they were classmates attending a lecture.

"Ai," he mumbled, "it would be great if you got into our class."

Gu Zhuoyan smiled without a word. In his heart, he knew everything as clearly as a mirror, his acting skills were on par with Tony Leung's, and he was putting on an act like a big-tailed wolf.

The author has something to say: The reason for the breakup is unrelated to Gu Zhuoyan's plan. If you're looking for a plot with seduction, exposure, a breakup, and a reconciliation, please take a left turn out the door and go back where you came from.