Bella finished calculating the last major question and, without even bothering to check her work, threw her pen and workbook straight at Ye Jinzhi.
"Done!"
She pushed her chair back like a freed animal and ran barefoot back to her bedroom as fast as she could.
With a loud bang, she quickly locked the door, and just to be safe, twisted the lock two more times.
She really couldn't take it anymore; she was really, really, really too sleepy.
She dove headfirst into the soft blankets. At this moment, nothing in the world mattered more than sleep.
In the study, Ye Jinzhi leisurely glanced over her answers.
It wasn't until he heard the crisp sound of the lock clicking at the end of the hallway that he let out a low chuckle.
"Still so naive."
He stood up and casually pulled a set of spare keys from the drawer.
Inside the bedroom, Bella had just fallen asleep. In her daze, she seemed to hear the faint sound of metal turning.
The mattress dipped behind her, and a familiar scent instantly enveloped her.
But she was just too tired to open her eyes and went off to a date with the Sandman again.
Ye Jinzhi naturally scooped her into his arms. The two fit tightly together like spoons. His large hand rested on her slender waist, and his chin rested on the top of her head.
Bella shrank back uncomfortably, and the man lowered his head to drop a punishing light peck on the tip of her ear:
"Be good, did you forget... whose house this is?"
A good night's sleep.
The ringing of the alarm clock forcefully dragged Bella out of her dreams.
She groggily forced her eyelids open. Her phone alarm read six o'clock.
She subconsciously reached out to her side, but her fingertips only touched empty bedsheets.
Bella instantly sobered up. Sitting up to look, she thought: Good heavens, when did I get back to my own little room?
"How bizarre," she muttered, shuffling in her slippers toward the desk.
The workbook with her wildly scribbled handwriting from last night was now sitting right in the middle of the desk.
On it were the practice questions Ye Jinzhi had assigned, and behind every major question was a bright red checkmark pressed so hard it almost pierced the paper.
Bella stared at the red checkmarks for two seconds, her cheeks inexplicably growing a little hot.
She didn't have time to dwell on it. She stuffed everything into her backpack, quickly washed up, and went downstairs.
The early morning air still carried a refreshing chill. With a freshly bought steamed bun in her mouth, Bella expertly squeezed onto the rickety bus.
Most of the passengers were students in uniform. She found an empty seat by the window, sat down, and pulled out a sheet of required high school poetry from her bag.
With the shadows of the trees retreating rapidly outside the window, Bella began to recite silently.
The first exam was Chinese.
The basic questions at the beginning were easy enough, but when it came to the fill-in-the-blank dictation section, Bella was a bit dumbfounded.
"You ask when I will return from my journey west? The perilous path... what is too high to climb again?
I only see sad birds crying in the ancient trees, male and female flying together through the woods."
Staring at the fill-in-the-blank question, her pen hovered over the paper for a long time.
The word was right on the tip of her tongue, but it was as if her hand had disconnected from her brain.
"Chan yan?" she muttered softly.
"I'm doomed. I type too much on my phone normally, and now I've forgotten how to write this word by hand," Bella frowned.
...
After finishing the Chinese exam, aside from worrying about writing the wrong characters and possibly mistranslating the classical Chinese, Bella felt the rest went okay.
Before she could rest for long, the next exam was Math.
The very second the test papers were handed out, Bella didn't rush to write her name. Instead, as if possessed, she flipped the paper to the last page.
The moment her eyes fell on the final major question, she let out a breath of surprise.
This question... was actually exactly the same as the ones Ye Jinzhi had given her last night!
Aside from minor tweaks to a few core figures and an extra little trick question at the end, the logic for solving it and the core formulas were exactly the same.
Sure enough, her classmates didn't call him God Ye for nothing.
Thanks to last night's special training, her pen moved as if guided by a divine force, and the complex calculations automatically broke themselves down in her mind.
After writing the final stroke, Bella let out a long sigh of relief and rolled her stiff neck.
She casually looked up and saw the boy sitting to her left rolling his eyes at the window in despair, squeezing his ballpoint pen until it creaked, clearly having given up the fight.
The girl on her right, however, was completely different, scribbling furiously on her scratch paper and making a rapid, continuous noise.
Bella lowered her head and started working from the first question.
...
After a whole day of back-to-back exams, she was feeling a bit overwhelmed.
When the final subject was over, Bella felt as if half her soul had flown away. Her whole body felt light, and stepping on the stairs felt like walking on clouds.
At the corner of the stairs, not paying attention, she bumped straight into someone's chest, hitting her face so hard it hurt.
"Sorry, sorry, I didn't see..." Bella kept her head down, apologizing hastily while subconsciously stepping back.
"It's fine."
As the familiar voice fell, Bella looked up at the person.
He was the last person she wanted to see right now. She pursed her lips and turned sideways to bypass him.
But just as they brushed past each other, the boy's gaze swept over the fair side of her neck. His eyes trembled slightly, as if burned by something, and he suddenly grabbed her wrist.
"Wait a minute."
Bella turned back in confusion. Before she could ask why, the boy stepped half a pace closer, his voice lowered to a whisper:
"What is that on your neck?"
Realizing something, Bella guiltily raised her hand to touch her neck and stayed silent.
"A hickey."
His tone instantly darkened, every word seeming to be squeezed through gritted teeth:
"Who left it?"
Bella was taken aback at first, then laughed out of sheer annoyance at his attitude of trying to catch a cheating spouse, giving him a huge eye roll.
Hearing the approaching noise in the hallway, Bella was afraid someone would see them wrestling like this, so she irritably snapped:
"You! You left it, okay?! Hurry up and let go!"
Hearing her answer, his tense shoulders subconsciously relaxed their grip. The lingering warmth of Bella's wrist remained on his fingertips, but his brain had completely short-circuited.
When did he...
Why didn't he remember doing such a thing to her?
Bella ignored him. After saying that, she stomped on his foot twice and ran off.
Outside the school gates, she did something unprecedentedly extravagant: she hailed a taxi straight home.
Right now, her mind was completely empty; she only wanted to merge with her bed and become one.
She slept deeply and darkly. When she opened her eyes again, it was already past nine in the evening.
Bella sat up, rubbing her messy hair. Looking at the cold kitchen, she really had no energy to cook, so she simply ordered takeout.
Just as she was slouched on the sofa waiting for her food, the front door clicked open.
Shen Wenjing dragged her leaden legs inside, looking entirely like a withered rose.
"Phew—I'm dead tired."
Shen Wenjing threw her backpack on the floor, slumped onto the sofa opposite Bella, and wailed with a twisted expression,
"Bella, I feel like my poor brain was violated by the exams today.
Really, it fought to the death and refused to yield, but in the end, it was no match for those test-making teachers and was forced to submit."
Bella was amused by her vivid description, and her previously sluggish mind was jolted awake by a few degrees.
The two of them polished off their takeout in no time. Bella sprawled lazily on the couch and casually put on a relaxing variety show to kill time.
Shen Wenjing took out her phone and leaned in close to Bella:
"Bella, forget about those boring celebrities for a second. Quick, take a look at this."
Bella took a peek, and it wasn't bad at all: seven shirtless men lined up in a row.
