“Aaaah…!”

Early morning.

Gan Lan woke to Ye Yubai’s bloodcurdling scream.

He clutched his head and wailed.

“I actually fell asleep last night?”

He could hardly believe it.

“Oh my god, I feel like I missed out on millions.”

Gan Lan calmly stretched and yawned.

Everything had gone according to plan.

She’d deliberately dragged things out for half an hour last night, finished her homework, and successfully avoided the awkwardness of having to feed him.

But Ye Yubai was obviously very unhappy.

He wanted her to feed him!

He wanted to see Gan Lan’s shy little expressions!

He even wanted to hear her call him an idiot or a dummy!

Sigh…

Now it was all gone. There was nothing left.

Gan Lan handed him a warmed-up sandwich and poured him a cup of coffee.

Ye Yubai was still slumped over the table, looking like a total couch potato.

“I feel awful. Like my heart’s been stabbed.”

He wiped at the nonexistent tears in the corners of his eyes and sighed.

Then he turned his gaze to Gan Lan.

“Can we still make good on our deal from last night?”

There was a hint of pleading in his voice.

Gan Lan blew on her coffee.

She raised her eyes slightly.

And looked at him.

“No.”

She rejected him with a single, concise word.

“Why!”

“You missed your chance.”

Gan Lan polished off breakfast as quickly as she could, then went to the entrance to change her clothes and shoes and get ready for school.

Ye Yubai was in a bad mood and didn’t eat a thing.

With school time fast approaching, he had no choice but to follow close behind Gan Lan and head out.

Hands in his pockets.

He gazed up at the sky.

“I just want her to feed me one bite of something. Why is that so hard?”

…

They arrived at school.

Their homeroom teacher was already standing by the classroom door.

Inside, a few scattered voices could be heard reading aloud.

Gan Lan handed in her homework, returned to her seat, and picked up a book.

Ye Yubai was still slumped over his desk, looking like a sorry lump determined to take his lazy-fish act to the next level.

“We’ve got an English dictation in a bit.” Gan Lan tapped on his desk. “Quit sleeping.”

Ye Yubai turned his face toward her and blew the bangs off his forehead.

He looked deeply aggrieved.

“Gan Lan~”

“Talk normally. No whining, and we can still be buddies.”

“Aww~”

“Tsk.” Gan Lan glared at him irritably. “What is it? Spit it out.”

Even if Ye Yubai didn’t say a word, Gan Lan could pretty much guess what he was after.

It was obviously that deal from last night.

Ye Yubai pulled a box of chocolate sticks from his schoolbag and waved it in front of Gan Lan.

“Feed me one of these. Other people’s boyfriends get this kind of treatment, but I don’t.”

That puppy-dog whine of his was absolutely lethal.

Gan Lan practically melted when she heard it.

It was really hard to say no.

She gave a little cough, then snatched the chocolate sticks from Ye Yubai’s hand.

She tore open the wrapper, took out a chocolate stick, and held it to his mouth.

But Ye Yubai didn’t eat it. Instead, he intently studied her profile, counting her eyelashes.

“Hurry up and eat!” she scolded in a low voice.

Their homeroom teacher was standing at the front of the classroom. There was no telling when they might turn around and spot the two of them.

“When you feed someone, don’t you look at them?” Ye Yubai asked on purpose.

Gan Lan’s cheeks visibly turned red.

She ducked her head behind her book.

“Just eat already! Why are you so demanding?”

She could tell Ye Yubai was messing with her.

But stuck in this position, she really didn’t know what to do.

Should she pull her hand back, keep holding it there, or just shove the thing straight into his mouth and be done with it?

Ye Yubai gave a cheeky grin.

He looked as if he’d seen every last bit of her inner struggle.

“If you don’t look at me, I’m not eating.”

“Fine. Don’t eat!”

Gan Lan decisively pulled the chocolate stick back and stuffed it into her own mouth in a huff.

Her cheeks moved as she chewed. She was unbearably cute.

As she ate, she thought she might as well finish the whole thing and save herself from any more of his ridiculous demands.

So she grabbed a handful and stuffed it into her mouth.

The reading in the classroom was loud now, and no one noticed the sound of her eating in the back row.

Gan Lan finished the whole pack of chocolate sticks as quickly as she could.

Then she casually tossed the cardboard box into the trash can behind her.

“There. It’s all gone now. Hurry up and study!”

Ye Yubai grinned happily.

He casually pulled a whole box out from under the desk and held it out to Gan Lan.

“Here. Don’t rush—there are plenty more packs.”

“…”

Gan Lan was at a complete loss for words.

She glared at Ye Yubai and shoved the shipping box back at him.

“Dream on! I’m not feeding you again!”

…

“All right, everyone. Clear your books off the desks and get ready for dictation.”

The English teacher walked into the classroom.

The morning dictation was about to begin.

Ye Yubai tapped the corner of Gan Lan’s desk. “Lend me a dictation notebook. I forgot mine.”

Gan Lan said, “I told you to get everything ready before school! You…”

Ye Yubai pulled a five-yuan bill from his pocket and placed it in her palm.

Gan Lan sighed.

So this guy had been good at using money to smooth things over from the very beginning.

But she hadn’t brought any spare notebooks. What was she supposed to do?

All she could do was tear two sheets from her own notebook and toss them to him.

The dictation began soon after.

The English teacher rattled off the words so quickly that Gan Lan gradually started falling behind.

She ran a hand through her hair.

Then sighed.

She’d studied them pretty well last night, but maybe she’d tried to memorize too much. Now she couldn’t quite remember the words from the first unit.

A few of the words sounded exactly alike, and she didn’t know which ones to write.

Just then, Ye Yubai secretly poked her arm and passed her his vocabulary notebook.

Gan Lan frowned. “What are you doing?”

Ye Yubai said, “Copy mine. I guarantee they’re all right.”

Gan Lan said, “I don’t want to!”

Ye Yubai chuckled. “You don’t? Get one wrong and you’ll have to write it ten times. Are you sure you don’t want to?”

Gan Lan looked at the wide stretches of blank space in her notebook and began to waver.

But after thinking it over for a while, she decided to trust her own answers.

Just then.

A piece of chalk suddenly went whoosh through the air and hit her pen, dead on.

Gan Lan jumped.

The English teacher gave a cold snort. “Some people don’t study themselves, and then they drag their classmates down with them!”

Gan Lan’s gaze darkened.

Her hand trembled slightly as she gripped her pen again.

Ye Yubai suddenly stood up. “Teacher, you got the wrong person. I was the one who insisted on talking to Gan Lan. It was my fault. I’ll reflect on it.”

The English teacher froze for a moment.

Then Ye Yubai raised his voice. “But my stomach hurts. Borrowing a tissue from a classmate isn’t exactly a big offense, is it?”

As he spoke, he rummaged through Gan Lan’s schoolbag and pulled out a small paper box.

“Teacher, I need to use the bathroom.”

He stood up and grabbed Gan Lan by the arm.

“Gan Lan says she needs to go too.”

With the English teacher staring at them in a daze, the two of them brazenly walked out through the back door.

Gan Lan felt a strange, inexplicable unease.

She lowered her head and glanced over without thinking.

When she saw the letters “ABC” on the little paper box in Ye Yubai’s hand, her heart nearly stopped.

That bastard!

Why had he taken the pantyliners she’d brought along?