Through The Strait Gates Chapter 3

Xu Xilin dashed into the corridor, rushed onto the 2nd floor, kicked Cla.s.s One's back door open, and ducked into it. He smoothly grabbed a random person's uniform jacket dangling on the back, and briefly shook the dust off it, changing it on without any hesitation. Then he rolled up his jacket and stuffed it into the bag, threw it under the table, messed up his hair with one hand and took off Tsai Jing's gla.s.ses with the other, stuffing Tsai Jing's gla.s.ses on bridge of his nose. A successful transformation.

"What, a human conjuring act?" Tsai Jing commented.

"Whatever," Xu Xilin replied, "Whose jacket is this?"

"I think it's Lao-Ye's."

"Lao-Ye" was the guy sitting in front of them's nickname. His surname was Lao--the same one as the Lao in *"Lao Tou Zi". His entire name was also a simplified matter: Lao Cheng. When Kang Xi's Dynasty first broadcasted on the Central 8th channel, dear cla.s.smate Lao Cheng was infatuated with it , and also gained a habit of calling himself "Ye". After a while, he went up two generations straight, and became the entire cla.s.s's *"Lao-Ye".

"Lao-Ye" did not have quite the outstanding handsomeness. His face was sandwiched in between three layers of pimples on the inside and three more on the outside. He twisted back to look at them once he heard himself mentioned, and then he spread his "tumbling in red dust face"to wink at Xu Xilin, speaking in a pinched, high voice, "This is something given by the female king, and I won't let anyone else take it. Please take yours off and give it to me, *Er-Ye."

Xu Xillin's face was the shade of a vegetable's. "My dear *Qi-Guan, the 'youth and beauty cracking pimples' on your face is already enough to make into a fried dish, so can you not tarnish the holy name of the gorgeous youth?"

Lao Cheng's heart, as fragile as gla.s.s, was absolutely shattered by these peasants. Hurt, he clutched his chest, and walked over to the blackboard to heal.

After all the people not needed were gone, Xu Xilin finally lowered his voice and spoke to Tsai Jing, "I've solved that problem of yours. From now on, the people looking for their money back will only hunt your uncle down, and they won't bother you anymore. If you feel like it, maybe you can talk with that McDonald's again after school today. See if they'll give you another chance, and if they won't, let them give you the night shift, and I'll get a few guys to help you out regularly."

Tsai Jing's gla.s.ses were taken off by Xu Xilin, so his eyes couldn't really focus, which made him seem extra stunned. "Thanks."

He went silent for a moment, and felt like a mere "thanks" was too easy for something like this. "Xilin, if anything happens in the future..."

"Stop," Xu Xilin laughed, "Don't repay me with yourself, I'm still pure."

Tsai Jing laughed awkwardly, but his brows were still tightened up. "How much did you spend?" He asked timidly.

Xu Xilin did not just simply spend some money—he was close to being broke after this errand.

Though he had quite a lot of pocket money usually, he was generous when it came to paying for meals, and did not have even the slightest bit of sense when it came to saving money. And all his newly received lucky money were in a bank card. He could get it if he wanted to, but he didn't dare to—because that card was registered under his mom's identification card, and she had a savings alert on her phone. A sudden large withdrawal would definitely alert her, and the empress dowager would have him interrogated herself within five minutes.

But to Tsai Jing, Xu Xilin pressed his upper lip to the bottom one, and swallowed in every bit of the difficult situation he was in.

"Don't worry, I spent only three bucks buying my brother a popsicle."

It wasn't that he was a saint that never left a name on every good deed he made. If it was someone else, it might've gone another way, but Tsai Jing, really, Xu Xilin couldn't. Tsai Jing's days were simply too miserable. Even a simple cla.s.s fee was paid in a large handful of banknotes. If he let Tsai Jing know that he owed him such a large favor, though Tsai Jing would be grateful to him, it would be hard for them to stay such close friends anymore.

Tsai Jing couldn't taste the feeling in his mouth, and put a hand on Xu Xilin's shoulder. "Brother......"

Before he could give his speech of grat.i.tude, the furious grade director burst into the room from the front door, and interrupted Tsai Jing's whole stomach of *mixed feels.

The whole cla.s.s went silent suddenly. The grade director was close to having a heart attack from all the running, scanning the room to search for the student he was chasing, but failed to find out Xu Xilin due to the "dress up". Br.i.m.m.i.n.g with anger but with no subject to direct it at, he screeched, "Cla.s.s is going to start soon, and only this cla.s.s is a mess! You'll be in third grade next year, what are you all planning to do? Ah? Don't you guys need to act like the experimental cla.s.s you're supposed to be? What's next cla.s.s? Why is the teacher not here yet? Off reincarnating?"

The English teacher, who had just arrived at the door with a folder under her arm, walked straight into a cannonshot.

The grade director glared at the innocent teacher, and kept on going. "Some young comrades also need to check their work att.i.tude, if you're fooling around yourself, how are you going to manage the students?"

Finished, he walked out, feet limping, flab swinging.

Involved even though nothing was her fault, the English teacher immediately swung her ponytail around, picked up a chalk, and turned around and scribbled the word "menopause" on the board.

"So, before we start cla.s.s, we're going to have a short lesson on vocabulary outside the curriculum." The teacher straightened her gla.s.ses. "'Menopause', meaning when one stops having periods completely. It can be used in ways such as 'menopause symptoms'......"

The whole cla.s.s burst into roaring laughter.

For the first half of the cla.s.s, the teacher stood on the same side with the cla.s.s, and it was quite the merry course. Unfortunately, the teacher wasn't able to stay on the same boat with the students for long, and she quickly unveiled her nature of being the "cla.s.s enemy". She pa.s.sed out a set of fill-in-the-blank practices, which had ten articles in total, all of them long, unnecessarily extended, and a giant pain in the a.s.s, as homework.

After cla.s.s was dismissed, except for those who needed to go to the bathroom, no one got up from their seats. Everyone wanted to finish at least one article before the next cla.s.s started.

This was when Dou Xun came into the room with the homeroom teacher.

The two straps of his backpack were on one side of his shoulder, and his perfectly clean shirt collar stuck out of his gray jacket. He didn't look up even once when walking.

Someone murmured a single sentence. *"Is there anyone who transfers schools in high school?"

In the front of the cla.s.sroom, the homeroom teacher clicked on the lecturn twice with her knuckles. Then she patted the boy's back, smiling brightly. "Be quiet, everyone. Today a new family member is joining our cla.s.s."

The homeroom teacher's nickname was "*common jasmine orange", and she was also known as "kills within three steps". She fervently loved perfumes with pungent smells, which also helped her avoid mosquitoes in the summer. When she talked, she loved to use parallel-structured sentences, and adored all sorts of expired chicken soup for the soul. Her mood was always as agitated as the roaring sea.

Can't really figure out why this specific physics teacher just can't be chill.

But today, no one got gooseb.u.mps because of her "family member"—all of their gazes were stuck on the newcomer. The young adolescents, male and female and others, used only a second's moment to to reach a consensus—this guy was really attractive. A pair of straight, neat thick brows and a pair of raven black eyes—he even had a face full of uncaring att.i.tude.

The homeroom teacher clapped her hands together kindly. "Come here, Dou Xun, introduce yourself to the cla.s.s, let them know you."

The whole cla.s.s, out of respect for the gorgeous face, gave the hottie a moment of silence to speak.

Who knows that the hottie didn't give them any *"face", opened his eyes, and swept his gaze over the whole cla.s.s. Then he moved the piece of gum in his mouth from one side to the other. "Missus, where do I sit?"

"*Qilixiang", left to dry on the lecturn, purple-d into an awkward eggplant. Her expression stiffened. For a split second, she really wanted to teach this little son of a b.i.t.c.h a lesson, but unfortunately, there was 3000 dollars worth of kindness newly deposited in her shopping card, so she couldn't.

"Qilixiang" was stuck in an awkward position, unable to go forward, unable to take a step back. She decided to pretend that she hadn't been offended. Giving herself a graceful way out, she replied, "How are a young man like you so bashful? Let's see, there's a few empty desks at the back of the cla.s.sroom, take one, and if you're not near-sighted, you'll have to sit in the last row, my apologies. We'll adjust it in the future..."

Before she could finish her sentence, she saw the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d walk towards the final row, ignoring her.

Qilixiang: "......"

She bit back her anger, stuffed her hands in her pockets and rubbed them, and felt like she needed at least 6000 dollars' worth of "kindness" next time.

Dou Xun's skin was very pale, giving his features the illusion of ink on paper. His eyes were half-lidded, his double eyelids extending towards his temples. A straight nose, but thin lips. He gave off an icy mood, but a silent one.

If a pretty girl was walking on the streets, more women would stare at her than men. It works the other way too. Most female high schoolers hadn't reached the level where they could drool at a guy's face publicly, but the guy's had already started to whisper at each other.

Lao Cheng turned back and prodded at Xu Xilin's desk with his pen, whispering to him, "Where is this guy from? New here, but dares to pull our *Xiang-Xiang down?"

Xu Xilin though this Dou Xun was pretty good-looking, and blatantly stared at him, shaking his head as a uncaring reply to Lao Cheng.

Lao Cheng shifted the focus of his attention quickly. "The two of you, give your '*yellow leaflets' to me."

The "yellow leaflets" weren't actually banned 18+ books—they were Sixth High School's self-printed practice books. The school forced the students to buy it, and everyone had one. More than four hundred pages thick, it did not have even one character of nonsense. All of them were questions, with no answers at the back.

Cla.s.s One of second grade was the science experimental cla.s.s. And it had a faster course progress than all the other cla.s.ses. So Lao Cheng, the ultimate a.s.shole, spent all of his breaks digging answers from the students a meter within him. After cross-comparison, he would combine them into a private set of answers, and sell them to both normal cla.s.ses and liberal-arts cla.s.ses preparing for finals.

Xu Xilin casually pulled out a book from his desk and gave it to him, toned down his free and unorganized posture, and pulled his chair, which was a meter away from his desk, back to where it should be, giving Dou Xun some s.p.a.ce.

Lao Cheng kept on screeching. "This is the math one! I've already done the math one this semester, I need the physics one!"

Unfortunately, Lao-Ye has lost his place as the emperor's favorite—seeing as Dou Xun was about to take a seat, Xu Xilin stood up to help him out, completely ignoring Lao Cheng.

But before his well-intentioned hands could reach out, with a crash, Dou Xun has placed his desk where he wanted it to be—a meter away from the person in front of him, Xu Xilin. They were so far apart, the *Chu river Han boundary could be drawn between them.

Xu Xilin: "......"

Dou Xun had a really, really good memory, and instantly recognized that Xu Xilin was the guy that ran past downstairs earlier. And from the sports students' att.i.tudes, they're in the same group of friends.

He loomed above Xu Xilin and gave him a look full of distaste, a large and bold-lettered "f.u.c.k off" written in his expression.

Translator's Note:

1) Lao Tou Zi: a character from the novel "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer" written by Jin Yung
2) Lao-Ye: maternal grandfather
3) Er-Ye: Second Lord(Er: 2nd, Ye: Lord)
4) Qi-Guan: an character from Tsao Xue Qin's Dream of the Red Chamber, an actor(hence the Guan)
5) common jasmin orange: a plant that has a very distinct smell. Its name in Chinese is "smell can spread over seven miles", "Qilixiang". Usually used in cooking(leaves), a herb.
6) face: Chinese politeness, social requirement, complete bulls.h.i.t
7) qilixiang: Chinese for common jasmin orange
8) Xiang-Xiang: Qilixiang(the homeroom teacher)
9) yellow: Chinese for inappropriate stuff
10) Chu river Han boundary: a boundary between two warring sides back in ancient China times(the Chu-Han contention)

Note#2: "Mixed feels"

I don't want you guys to be mistaken because of the translation—not of these feels are romantic(I'm scared that the words I use will make you guys misunderstand stuff)

Note#3: "No one transfers schools in high school!"

In countries like China, people work extremely hard in junior high for their entrance test to senior high. They spend a lot of effort, and that's why it's so rare to transfer schools in senior high, as they might not be able to get into one that's as good as their old one, which they worked so hard for.

Note#?:
The promised update~