Through The Strait Gates Chapter 11

VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT T/N: DO XUN IS PERMANENTLY CHANGED TO THE CORRECT DOU XUN. DO NOT ASK ME WHY I HAVE NEVER NOTICED THIS ERROR UNTIL NOW.

ANOTHER T/N: Someone else's kid(in asian culture): the kid you're ALWAYS compared to

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In no time, the first midterm scores began to launch air raids at the students like a ma.s.sive thunderstorm. The attack lasted a full day. It wasn't so bad like moans of pain sounding everywhere, it was just a whole bunch of kids being panic-stricken. The phenomenon of students running and goofing around was temporarily gone. The ones that had f.u.c.ked up were wailing in their hearts, while the ones that had done okay were not comfortable to be brave.

In a sentence, the whole cla.s.s had their heads bowed in silent mourning, celebrating Tomb Sweeping Day early.

Unsurprisingly, Xu Xilin hadn't done well--even math, his best subject, was ten points lower than his normal score.

But he wasn't under too much pressure either. This was his normal pattern anyways--he always bombed his first midterm of the semester, since he wasn't fully recovered from the holidays' excitement yet. His grades would get better exam by exam, and get to the highest point at finals.

Then when he got back after another break, he would end up back in square one again. In full circle, it was.

He personally felt that this pattern wasn't anything bad. There wasn't a break before uni entrance exams anyways.

Yu Yiran threw a murderous paper ball back. Xu Xilin leaned back and caught it with both hands..

Yu Yiran turned around, and made a beheading sign across her neck. On the slip of paper was written, The math helper said that someone got a full score on math, is it you?

Xu Xilin raised his math exam for her to see, and shrugged, frowning.

Yu Yiran furrowed her brows like she was thinking about something, but then turned back to ask Luo Bing.

There were the "Three Musketeers" in Cla.s.s One's math: Luo Bing, Xu Xilin and Yu Yiran. They were the ones the math teacher could rely on for help when they accidentally got stuck while lecturing. The three of them basically took turns having the highest score in math.

Xu Xilin looked sideways. He watched Tsai Jing fold up the corner on his exam paper where the score was, and knew that he did badly again.

Tsai Jing was unbalanced on his subjects. He had always found math and physics difficult. Even if he poured in all his efforts, his grades were still stuck in the same place, not improving, nor dropping. But this semester, doing part time jobs took too much of his time and energy, so his scores on these two subjects were getting even worse.

Even Qilixiang thought that Tsai Jing should switch to liberal arts, but Tsai Jing himself refused.

To the public, Tsai Jing's reason was that liberal arts had less professions to choose from. Xu Xilin knew that was bullis.h.i.+t though.

The true reason was that Sixth High School chose sciences over liberal arts, so there were no key cla.s.ses for liberal arts. If he chose liberal arts instead, it meant that he was demoted from a key cla.s.s to a normal one.

(key cla.s.ses: top students crammed into one cla.s.s basically)

When people gossiped about this, they wouldn't think that it was the school that didn't have good liberal arts teachers. They would only think that the student failed to catch up, so the student used the excuse to switch from sciences to liberal arts to escape to a normal cla.s.s.

Of course, most people couldn't even take care of themselves, and couldn't care less of other people were switching subjects or demoted. But even if just one random person noticed it, and said it this way, to Tsai Jing's sensitive pride, it would be invalidating him entirely. He couldn't bear it.

For a second, Xu Xilin wanted to say, "You can't keep on like this, you're spending so much time on part time jobs". But when the words were on the edge of his lips, he knew that his words were easy for him to say since he wasn't in Tsai Jing's shoes, and it was only going to start a fight. So he swallowed them back. His family was doing well, so well that he even had worries out of boredom every now and then, thinking that his life was hard. Compared to his own, he couldn't even imagine how Tsai Jing survived.

Xu Xilin quietly corrected his own math exam, and set it aside--this way, when he was gone after school at night, Tsai Jing could take it to check his own.

After the bell rung, Xu Xilin didn't disturb Tsai Jing since he was buried in schoolwork. He packed his backpack, and stood up, "You going with me, Tao?"

Wu Tao gestured at him helplessly. "I have extra training tonight."

Every time, after exams, Wu Tao would have "extra training". It was probably that he couldn't fit into the cla.s.s' mainstream mood, and had to find another way to go back to his "main profession".

Yu Yiran, crazed, was still yelling like crazy at the front, "Who was it? WHO WAS IT! No, this isn't working, you have to let me die understanding who I was beaten by!"

Her fur ball like hair was everywhere, kind of like a mad Xie Xun*. Xu Xilin and Lao Cheng shared a look, and retreated sideways in silence, their backs against the wall.

*Xie Xun: A character in a Jin Yong novel, had the t.i.tle of "Golden-Haired Lion King". Has huge, wild, frizzy gold-blondish hair.

Of the usual loud bunch, they were the only ones remaining here today.

"This semester's yellow book answers' money are here, do you want to eat barbecue? My treat..." Before Lao Cheng could finish his sentence, he suddenly froze, and then shoved Xu Xilin, "Hey, is that Dou Xun?"

Xu Xilin looked up, and saw Do Xun, who always got out of school the first, standing at the cla.s.sroom's back door doing nothing like a door G.o.d*.

*door G.o.d: more like door guardians, they usually have their portraits painted on the doors.

"What is he doing, standing guard?" Lao Cheng asked.

"Waiting for...someone, I think?" Xu Xilin answered not so surely, "Maybe me?"

Lao Cheng was astonished. "Is that a question you're saying?"

"Wait, let me try."

Lao Cheng: "......"

What did he mean by "trying"?

Then he watched Xu Xilin walk past Dou Xun nonchalantly. Dou Xun glanced at him, and then followed like a huge feline waiting to be fed, his silent footsteps haughty.

Lao Cheng was flabbergasted.

Xu Xilin turned back and waved at him helplessly--this "luggage" was too huge, inconvenient to carry around. The barbecue had to wait.

What was the thing between him and Dou Xun now?

Xu Xilin was actually confused too.

A shared smile wipes away every grudge?

But no one had smiled.

Yet he was uncomfortable to ask, either. Because even though they had gotten into a fight before, as the anger ebbed as time pa.s.sed, the reason simply seemed super flimsy. If he kept talking about it, it would make him seem like someone who held on to grudges instead.

Xu Xilin's footsteps suddenly stopped. When he stopped, so did Dou Xun.

Xu Xilin tentatively spoke, speaking the first human sentence he had to Dou Xun in a few days. "How about we get some milk tea?"

Dou Xun looked down, and messed with some pebbles on the ground with the tips of his shoes. "...sure."

Five minutes later, the two of them headed home, both with a milk tea. As their mouths were occupied, the silence seemed less awkward.

When they pa.s.sed a flower shop, Dou Xun suddenly stopped. He pointed at the hydroponic ceriman in the shop and said, "Give me one of these."

Xu Xilin turned back, immediately realizing what this was for--Grandma's ceriman had died a while ago, and she had been talking about getting a new one everyday. Xu Jin and Xu Xilin were both more forgetful than the other, and no one ever remembered to get one.

Xu Xilin sweated. "I'll do it, let me pay."

Dou Xun stepped aside silently without arguing, as it was for Xu Xilin's grandma, not his.

When they got home, Xu Xilin kicked off his shoes and dashed into Grandma's room with the plant in his hands...even stepping on Dou-dou.

Dou-dou howled in pain. Then it turned around and latched onto Xu Xilin's pant leg, and was dragged by him into the room like a long-haired turtle.

"Look what you're doing...ooh!"

"Lao-lao*, look! Dou Xun bought you flowers."

Lao-lao: Grandma

Dou Xun, who was changing his shoes, paused abruptly.

Grandma Xu's rambling voice sounded from inside. "I've told you so many times, but you never hear it, how could Xiao Xun remember it by just once? He even helps Ms. Du do the dishes and other ch.o.r.es, how about you? Look at him, and then look at yourself!"

Xu Xilin had the same cheeky smile on his face.

Grandma Xu then came out of the room in tiny steps. "Thank you, Xiao Xun. I'm so happy. Come and see what delicacies Grandma have left for you."

"What about me?" Xu Xilin said indignantly.

Grandma Xu glared at him.

Xu Xilin looked down, sharing a look with Dou-dou. "Ugh, I've fallen out of favor."

Dou-dou bared its teeth at him in hatred and pulled fiercely at his pant leg.

"It's on now, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Qilixiang, the wicked thing, had sent everyone a report card with scores, cla.s.s rank and grade rank on it. It was to be taken home and signed.

Half past ten that night, Xu Jin, who was just home from working overtime, took the report card Xu Xilin pa.s.sed over to her, yawning. She glanced at it, poking at him while she signed it, "d.a.m.n, son, you ranked five last semester, now you're ten. It's twice more, the growth's delightful, great!"

Xu Xilin brandished his teeth at her in a fake attempt to b.u.t.ter her up—he knew that she wasn't actually angry.

Xu Jin never asked him to have tip top scores: as long as he knew what he was doing, it was okay. In her eyes, being in the top one hundred or even first place wasn't as important as vein conscious of what he was doing.

......Of course, this was only when there wasn't a comparison.

When she read Dou Xun's report card, even the broad minded Ms. Xu choked at the giant gap between the two.

Xu Xilin sneaked a peek—so the "pig" Yu Yiran was screaming about was Dou Xun! There were six subjects this midterm, but Dou Xun managed to have a total score of more than eighty points higher than him!

The furious Xu Jin immediately remembered a ton of details. She realized that compared to Dou Xun, who woke up early and went to sleep late, her son was basically a lazy donkey that only knew to eat, drink and have fun. Even though Dou Xun despised homework and never did it, he paid attention to his studies, and would study extra materials on his own. Plus, whether it was studying or doing anything else, he always gave effort into it—he even does cleaner dishes!

The comparison really...is killing said person's mom with anger.

After three seconds, Xu Jin finally couldn't hold it back anymore, and turn around facing Xu XIlin, projecting the famous line, "Look at him, and look at yourself!"

Xu Xilin: "......"

Just when Xu Jin was gearing up for another round of attack with her silver tongue, and "baptize" Xu Xilin with her words, Grandma Xu came out at the noise. Grandma opened her mouth to say, "Why are you just home, have you eaten? What did you eat? Were you eating junk food again? Ay, look at you, you don't eat well, neither do you sleep well. All you know is to wrap makeup on your face everyday, like that actually works..."

Xu Jin's head was close to exploding. Right as she wanted to "Mom" for once, she was "Mom-ed" herself. She quickly shut up in empathy, planning to slink away.

At this moment, Xu Xilin saw that Xu Jin had a mail package in her hands, which flashed before his eyes for only a second. He vaguely saw his name on the package.

"Hey, Mom..."

Xu Jin supported herself on the door, and glanced at him, surprised.

"What is that?" Xu Xilin asked.

Xu Jin answered nonchalantly, "Something a business partner sent, what's the matter?"

Xu Xilin blinked. "Oh."

He thought that he must've read it wrong--since he had the same surname as his mom, he probably mistook Xu Jin's name as it own. Xu Jin never easily tampered with his stuff.

He quickly turned his focus to somewhere else, turning around to ask Dou Xun, "Um...did you bring your English test home?"

"Yeah."

Xu Xilin looked at him nervously, and Dou Xun looked back even more nervously. The tension was to be triggered at any moment. As if they weren't talking, but were throwing bombs at each other!

Xu Xilin suddenly found it a bit hilarious, and laughed out loud.

Dou Xun absolutely didn't know what he was laughing at, but he was determined to follow along, so he had to laugh along, bewildered.

This time, it was really a smile that took away all grudges.

T/N:

I'm back! Sorry for the prolonged hiatus, I never meant for it to be this long TUT