A little over an hour later, Ye Qingqian came back to check again. This time, though, Lin Ran had already finished cleaning the classroom. The cobwebs were gone, the fan and its cover had been wiped clean, all the peeling paint had been scraped off the walls, and the windowsills had been scraped clean too. It looked like he’d sprinkled water over the floor again; it was still wet. The dusty smell was gone from the classroom, and the air had been completely refreshed.

Ye Qingqian made another circuit of the classroom and found she couldn’t pick out a single thing wrong. Lin Ran had cleaned it incredibly well!

Lin Ran looked up from his phone and turned to her. “I’ve finished cleaning. I’ll mop again once the floor dries, and then I’ll be done. If there’s nothing else, I’ll head home once I’m finished.”

“You can’t go home yet,” Ye Qingqian said.

“What now?” Lin Ran frowned. Was Ye Qingqian just looking for trouble?

“Since you’ve finished cleaning, come find me in the office later. We’ll go out shopping together this afternoon,” Ye Qingqian said with a smile.

“That’s not my job,” Lin Ran said, looking Ye Qingqian in the eye.

“You’re right. It’s not your job, but I’m assigning it to you as an extra task. The more capable you are, the more work you get!” Ye Qingqian said with a beaming smile.

Lin Ran narrowed his eyes. So she really was looking for trouble.

Before leaving, Ye Qingqian reminded Lin Ran to close all the doors and windows when he left.

After finishing his work, Lin Ran didn’t go to the office or leave. He went to check on Su Shijie. Sure enough, when he reached the classroom Su Shijie was responsible for, it was just as he’d expected—the rich young master had done such a terrible job cleaning that it was painful to look at. So Lin Ran kindly cleaned the classroom for him, then told Su Shijie that Shen Qingyuan and Ye Qingqian were going out shopping that afternoon and still needed one more person.

Without needing to hear another word, Su Shijie let out an excited yell and ran straight to the Student Council office.

Lin Ran carried all his things downstairs, put on his headphones, and headed home with music playing.

He’d just left the school grounds when his dad, who’d been missing for months, called him. His dad said he’d be coming back in a few days and told Lin Ran to clean up the house, throw out anything useless that needed to go, and give the place a good cleaning. He also said he’d have a surprise for Lin Ran when he got back.

Lin Ran didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As soon as he hung up on his dad, Su Shijie called. He chewed Lin Ran out over the phone. “What the hell do you mean, they still need one more person? I went running over there like an idiot, and then they told me they’d specifically asked for you! They didn’t need me at all! That was so embarrassing!”

Before Lin Ran could say anything, Su Shijie told him to get his ass to the Student Council office right away and go shopping with them that afternoon—or Ye Qingqian would cross him off her list. Lin Ran acted like he hadn’t heard a word. He’d already done what he was supposed to. If Ye Qingqian kept threatening him like this, he had no problem taking it up with a teacher.

Ye Qingqian might be popular with the teachers, but the teachers at No. 5 High School didn’t blindly take the side of outstanding students. Right was right, wrong was wrong, and if you did something wrong, you had to apologize. That was the principle the teachers at No. 5 High School followed. Even students with poor grades weren’t singled out too harshly. Of course, at No. 5 High School, a student with poor grades might do just fine at another school. They only seemed to struggle because the place was full of top students.

When he got home, Lin Ran took off his jacket and started getting the fish ready. Su Shijie had bought so many fish yesterday, but he wasn’t much of a fish eater, so Lin Ran had been left to finish them all.

Lin Ran figured that after eating such light meals for over a month, having all this fish around was like a chance to indulge. He’d already decided what to make for lunch: steamed sea bass was a must, then one more fish braised in sauce. Perfect! Two fish and a bowl of rice would be plenty.

After getting all the ingredients ready, Lin Ran went back to his bedroom, pulled out the summer homework he hadn’t finished, and got back to work. There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of homework for the summer after his first year of high school, but there wasn’t very little, either. If Lin Ran buckled down, he could finish it in a week. But finishing too early would leave him with nothing to do, so he’d split the assignments up and did a little each day.

He worked on his homework and read for a while. When it was about time, Lin Ran went into the kitchen to make lunch. He hadn’t counted on Su Shijie joining them. Knowing him, he’d cling to Shen Qingyuan no matter what, even though she wouldn’t give him the time of day.

But just as Lin Ran was frying the fish, someone rang the doorbell. He could even faintly hear Su Shijie calling for him to open the door.

Lin Ran hurried to open the door, then immediately went back to the kitchen. He didn’t see the two girls who’d come with Su Shijie.

“Why are you back too?” Lin Ran asked casually.

“What else was I supposed to do, not come back? Seriously, what’s wrong with you? Your upperclassman asks you to go shopping with her, and you just ignore her. If word got out, you know how many people at school would be fighting for a chance to go with her? And you’re over here keeping your distance.” Su Shijie grinned. In the living room, he gestured for Ye Qingqian and Shen Qingyuan to sit on the sofa.

Su Shijie was baffled. He desperately wanted to know what was going on between Lin Ran and Ye Qingqian. There was no way he’d believe nothing was going on between them.

If they had nothing to do with each other, why would Ye Qingqian come all the way to Lin Ran’s house and insist he go shopping with her? Did that make any sense? Ye Qingqian was friendly, sure, but if you wouldn’t help her, she wouldn’t waste time chatting with you.

“She’s just looking for trouble. Why would I go with her?” Lin Ran said with a dry laugh.

The three people in the living room froze at that answer. It was just so…

Su Shijie gave Ye Qingqian a strange look, as if to ask, Had you done something awful to Lin Ran before?

Ye Qingqian could only spread her hands innocently under Su Shijie’s gaze. She had no idea either!

“What’s for lunch? I’m starving. And don’t tell me you didn’t make anything for me,” Su Shijie said.

Lin Ran’s cheerful voice came from the kitchen. “You guessed right. I thought you’d cling to Shen Qingyuan, so I didn’t make anything for you. But since you’re back, it’s just one more pair of chopsticks.”

Su Shijie fell silent for a while. Lin Ran started to wonder what he was up to.

He put the fish in the pot to simmer, wiped his hands, and stepped out of the kitchen to take a look.

At the sight, Lin Ran wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

There were three people in his living room: one guy and two girls. The guy was Su Shijie, and the two girls looked an awful lot like Ye Qingqian and Shen Qingyuan.

Su Shijie waved and gave an embarrassed smile. “I think we’ll need two more pairs of chopsticks!”

Lin Ran didn’t say anything, but his face practically said he was annoyed. Without a word, he went back to the kitchen.

“Was he always like this?” Ye Qingqian couldn’t help asking. Even if he was putting it on, he was doing a little too good a job. The Lin Ran she remembered wasn’t like this.

Su Shijie looked a little troubled. “He was fine before summer vacation, at least. But after it started, I don’t know what happened—he just changed. I’ve wondered more than once if someone swapped out his soul.”

“Did he change all of a sudden?” Ye Qingqian asked.

“Yeah, it happened out of nowhere. He was fine the night before, then he was different first thing the next morning. I mean, the day before summer vacation, I could still talk to him about pretty girls. The next day, he could barely be bothered to respond, and if I said too much, he’d get annoyed. But don’t get the wrong idea, Upperclassman. Lin Ran isn’t like this just with you—he treats every girl the same. I keep saying he’s got some kind of iron monk possessing him.” Su Shijie laughed.

“Something must have happened to Lin Ran in the past, and then something after summer vacation triggered him,” Shen Qingyuan suddenly said. She hadn’t spoken until now.

Su Shijie and Ye Qingqian both paused. That did seem possible. According to the student information booklet, Lin Ran came from a single-parent family.

“How much do you know about his past?” Ye Qingqian asked Su Shijie.

Su Shijie shook his head and spread his hands. “Honestly, I don’t know. Lin Ran never talks about his past. The most he’s ever told me is about his dad, who’s always busy and rarely comes home.”

“All right, then. We’ll get going. Come to Qingyuan’s place this afternoon,” Ye Qingqian said with a nod, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“You’re not going to ask him?” Su Shijie pointed toward the kitchen.

Ye Qingqian smiled and shook her head. “If he doesn’t want to come, I shouldn’t force him. That’s all.”

Then Ye Qingqian left Lin Ran’s house with Shen Qingyuan.

As soon as the two beauties were gone, Su Shijie ran into the kitchen and kicked Lin Ran in the ass. Then he pointed at Lin Ran’s nose and yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you? What was that look just now? Did your upperclassman get someone to beat you up? Get someone to yell at you? Do something to you? Do you really have to treat her like that? Even I can’t stand watching it!”

“I barely know her, and she threatened me into doing work at school for no reason. Then she pushed for more. I think it’s generous of me that I didn’t kick her out,” Lin Ran said, still cool and detached.

Su Shijie rubbed his head, then patted Lin Ran on the shoulder. “Man, you… Sigh, I don’t even know what to say. If something’s bothering you, talk to me. Don’t keep it all bottled up. Think it over, and tell me over lunch: why do you hate girls so much, okay?”

Lin Ran didn’t want to talk to anyone about this. He knew there was no way to explain it properly. Even if he did, people would just say there was something wrong with him.

Yes, Lin Ran really did have a psychological disorder: he hated girls. But it had built up little by little over fifteen years. Lin Ran could say without hesitation that, in his previous life, from the age of eight onward, his world had been filled with mockery, contempt, scorn, and bullying. For fifteen years, the only light had been his ex-girlfriend agreeing to date him. But even that one bit of light had turned out to be a joke. None of that might seem like much to a normal person, but he was Lin Ran—a Lin Ran who’d spent fifteen years being mocked and looked down on.

Su Shijie bringing up the past reminded Lin Ran of what had happened in his previous life. About a month after he started his second year of high school, some relatives would show up and cause a scene. In front of a crowd, they’d say all kinds of awful things about his father. After that, rumors would start spreading that his mom had run off with someone else and that he was a bastard. Before long, his father would move them to another place again.

If that was how things were going to unfold, the first thing he had to do was stop it from happening.

Lin Ran didn’t want to talk, and Su Shijie didn’t press him. Everyone had secrets they didn’t want others to know. So Su Shijie gave Lin Ran’s shoulder a comforting pat, then washed the dishes without being asked. Before leaving, he told Lin Ran he’d be home late that evening, so there was no need to make dinner for him.