Daydreaming about Me

Chapter 20

The midterm exams at Eighth High School were scheduled right after the National Day holiday. After the statutory seven-day break for National Day, the first day back at school would directly be an exam day. Therefore, this week’s classes were scheduled continuously for seven days, with make-up rest days later.

When Liu Fujiang announced this news, everyone cheered. After the cheering, they began to worry.

Li Lin, clutching his school uniform collar, gasped from behind, “I feel like I can’t take it anymore. Just five days of classes and I already feel suffocated. Five days is the maximum amount of intense classes I can handle.”

Lin Yujing didn’t feel much about it. Compared to going home for the weekend, she preferred staying at school. She even started considering whether she could stay at school during the National Day holiday as well, using the excuse of preparing for the midterms.

During the afternoon self-study session, after finishing her English vocabulary, Lin Yujing received an enthusiastic invitation from Song Zhiming. He sent her a dancing husky emoji, followed by a black person blowing a kiss emoji, and asked, “Hey girl, wanna team up for a game?”

Lin Yujing thought this guy was quite brave. Considering how poorly she played in the morning, he still had the courage to invite her to play again.

She glanced at the remaining unfinished homework sheets. There weren’t many left. She put down her pen and replied with an “Okay.”

Within two minutes, Li Lin gently poked her shoulder from behind. “Hey, Lin Yujing, join us. You can follow me in the game.”

Shen Juan turned his head.

Lin Yujing smiled, “How many people?”

“Counting you, three. A team usually has four people, so we can just find a random player to fill the spot. You follow me, I’ll teach you. Song Zhiming is too far away, it’s inconvenient to talk,” Li Lin said.

Lin Yujing nodded, turned to meet Shen Juan’s gaze.

Her deskmate stared at her without blinking, his gaze calm but with an underlying hint of disdain, as if saying, “Hope you know your limits.”

“…”

Lin Yujing felt a bit wronged.

How could anyone be perfect? She was already so excellent, so what if she played games a bit poorly?

She sighed, “If you guys are finding a random player, I better not play. I’m too bad at the game. It’s fine with classmates, but it’d be bad if we dragged a random player down and got scolded.”

Li Lin waved his hand, “It’s okay, if anyone scolds you, we’ll scold them back. There are three of us, what are we afraid of? We’ll just make sure they lose.”

Lin Yujing wanted to say something else when Shen Juan suddenly asked, “What game?”

Li Lin froze, his neck turning slowly like a puppet on strings, frame by frame, and he named the game, “It’s, uh, a shooting game.”

Lin Yujing found it amusing. She could even sense Li Lin’s nervousness.

After being in the same class for so long, sitting in front of and behind each other for this long, this seemed to be the first time Shen Juan spoke to them.

Shen Juan nodded and continued, “You’re missing a player?” Li Lin mechanically said, “Uh… yes.”

“I’ll join,” Shen Juan said.

Lin Yujing raised her eyebrows.

Li Lin’s jaw almost dropped.

Later, whenever Li Lin recalled this, he couldn’t help but feel that it was the most unforgettable battle of his life.

Shen Juan, the school tyrant of Eighth High, known for his countless legendary stories and almost beating his previous deskmate to death, a figure whose mere silhouette made him too scared to speak and live in constant fear, requested to join their game team during a self-study session.

Lin Yujing had never played this game before, and neither had Shen Juan. They both turned around, connected to Li Lin’s unlimited data hotspot, and downloaded the game. After setting up a team, Lin Yujing glanced at Shen Juan’s ID: “jyzjbd.”

Looking further, she saw that although he had just downloaded the game, he had already given himself a signature— “A Low-key Sharpshooter.”

Lin Yujing: “…”

Only at times like these could Lin Yujing sense Shen Juan’s deeply hidden adolescent eccentricity.

Li Lin explained the game to both of them. Since Lin Yujing had already played a bit during the morning session, she knew how to shoot and move. Her main issues were poor shooting skills and not being able to see the opponents clearly. Shen Juan was a complete novice, so Li Lin looked like he was giving him one-on-one tutoring.

“What’s this?” Shen Juan asked.

“Ch-ch-ch-change guns,” Li Lin stammered, “The one next to it reloads.”

Shen Juan lifted his eyelids and gave him a look, “Why are you trembling?”

Li Lin internally screamed, I’m scared of you!!! What if you suck at the game, get frustrated, and beat me up to vent your anger!!!

“N-no…” Li Lin said quietly, “I’m just a bit cold.”

Lin Yujing couldn’t help but laugh, leaning closer to whisper, “Deskmate, your expression is always so serious, it’s a bit scary.”

Shen Juan looked at her and whispered back, “Did I scare him?”

Lin Yujing nodded.

Shen Juan raised an eyebrow, “Then why aren’t you afraid of me? You even dare to sit next to me?”

“I’m scared,” Lin Yujing said, “But being scared doesn’t help. Someone has to stand up and sacrifice. If I don’t go to hell, who will? I’m the lucky one destined to be tortured by fate.”

“…”

Shen Juan chuckled, straightened up, his face indifferent and emotionless.

Li Lin shivered and instinctively scooted back.

Shen Juan looked at Lin Yujing, “Did I torture you?”

Lin Yujing shook her head, “No.”

“Am I not good to you?” Shen Juan asked.

“You’re good,” Lin Yujing said sincerely, “You’re as warm as a spring breeze. No one treats me better than you.”

Li Lin: “…”

Shen Juan: “…”

No more conversation.

This girl was infuriating with her words. Using her innocent face, her fox-like eyes blinking, saying things that made one’s anger surge.

But did she say anything wrong? Did she curse you?

No.

She praised you, saying you were as warm as a spring breeze.

The anger couldn’t be expressed, stuck there, making one both helpless and amused.

Shen Juan threw his phone on the desk with a “thud.” He narrowed his eyes at Lin Yujing.

Li Lin closed his eyes, bracing for the impending wrath of the school tyrant and the ensuing chaos.

Ten seconds later, all was calm.

Li Lin opened his eyes to see the school tyrant sighing in frustration.

The school tyrant sighed in frustration.

The school tyrant merely sighed and then picked up his phone again, as if nothing had happened, and asked, “Are the game accessories automatically equipped?”

Li Lin was still processing: “Huh?”

Li Lin: “Oh—yes, automatic, but you can also change them yourself.” Five minutes into the game, Shen Juan got his first kill.

Lin Yujing stood beside him, unable to see the opponent. Li Lin was about to teach Shen Juan how to control the recoil of the gun when he saw Shen Juan prone, aiming, and with a “bang,” landed a headshot.

After this promising start, Shen Juan seemed like a lit firecracker, taking down opponents one after another. By the time they reached the final zone, his ID “jyzjbd” had already racked up double-digit kills.

In the end, they took a blazing first place, with Lin Yujing barely firing any shots and just riding on their success.

When the game ended, Song Zhiming jumped up from the other end of the classroom. He was sitting in the second-to-last row by the window, completely diagonal from his teammates and couldn’t see what was happening on their side.

“Damn, Da Li! That random player was strong! Must be a high-ranking player,” Song Zhiming shouted across the classroom to Li Lin, “Quick, add him as a friend so we can play together again! But what’s his ID supposed to mean? Is it ‘The Most Awesome’? Really? Okay, this guy’s showing off, but I’m impressed. He’s awesome.”

Li Lin: “…”

Li Lin had a complex expression, not knowing how to explain that this “Most Awesome” guy had only downloaded the game twenty minutes ago.

He sneaked a glance at Shen Juan.

Shen Juan was sitting sideways, looking at his phone with an indifferent expression. Li Lin felt he could read “Just casually killing and winning,” “What a stupid game,” “So damn boring,” and “What’s even fun about this game?” written all over Shen Juan’s face.

But that was all. He didn’t even seem impatient.

Li Lin remembered the school tyrant’s earlier sigh of helplessness.

He buried his head in his phone and sent a message to Song Zhiming: “Don’t you think Shen Juan isn’t as terrifying as the rumors say and seems quite gentle?”

Song Zhiming, urging him from the other end of the classroom to quickly add the “Most Awesome” guy as a friend, suddenly fell silent and sent a message back: “Gentle?? Are you crazy?”

Shen Juan’s patience could barely sustain him for one game. After it ended, his first action was to uninstall the app. Lin Yujing didn’t want to play anymore either. In this world of guns and cannons, she couldn’t feel any joy in the game, only a slow-burning sense of humiliation, as if she were blind.

She never wanted to touch this game again.

They both uninstalled the app, and just before doing so, Lin Yujing noticed that Shen Juan had changed his signature from “A Low-key Sharpshooter” to “Casually Killing and Winning.”

“…”

Lin Yujing couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

She had never seen someone so cocky.

The self-study session was almost over. She turned her head to look at Shen Juan. Shen Juan noticed her gaze, turned his head, and slightly lowered it: “What’s up?” “Admit it, this wasn’t your first time playing,” Lin Yujing said expressionlessly. To her surprise, he straightforwardly admitted: “It wasn’t my first time shooting.”

Lin Yujing wanted to say, “I knew it! You see, you admitted it!” But after a few seconds, she realized something was off and said, “Huh?”

“Do you like playing this?” Shen Juan said nonchalantly, “If you like it, I can take you to play with real guns someday.”

Whoa, what?

Two big words flashed in Lin Yujing’s mind.

She immediately felt that her own rebellious teenage years, where she thought she was quite tough, were nothing in comparison. The most she had ever handled was a stick.

Now, Shen Juan was directly elevating from cold weapons to hot weapons. Our social king is truly different!!!

Shen Juan’s “someday” might mean years later, and Lin Yujing soon forgot about it, focusing on the upcoming midterms after the National Day holiday.

It was the first midterm exam since the start of their second year. Lin Yujing initially thought that, despite their lack of enthusiasm for studying, her classmates would at least make some last-minute efforts. But after observing for a few days, she realized that the ones studying were still the same people. Middle-tier students like Li Lin were only slightly more diligent in doing their homework.

There was a reason why no teacher wanted to take Class 10, and why Liu Fujiang, who had never been a homeroom teacher, was put in charge. Although, aside from the competition class and the experimental Class 1, the other classes weren’t divided strictly by grades, Class 10, as the last science class, had a third of the grade’s worst students.

As a result, when Liu Fujiang received the exam seating chart, Lin Yujing found that half of the last three exam rooms were occupied by their class.

Everyone was quite happy about this. The exam rooms were filled with familiar faces, making it easier to engage in various antics.

Although Lin Yujing didn’t understand how copying from equally poor students could be helpful.

Li Lin, who was in the third-to-last exam room, was ecstatic when he saw the seating chart: “Wow, did I perform exceptionally well in the last final exam? I told you, I always excel in crucial exams. I’m a key player!”

Lin Yujing: “…”

Having always been in the experimental class and taking exams in the first exam room, Lin Yujing couldn’t understand his joy.

She silently turned her head and met Shen Juan’s gaze again.

Shen Juan was looking down, silently watching her.

Lin Yujing glanced at the seating chart again. The midterm exam seating was based on the final exam scores from the previous year. Lin Yujing didn’t have a score, and Shen Juan had just returned from a break, so neither of them had scores. They were both in the last exam room, seated in a serpentine arrangement, side by side in the last row.

Lin Yujing felt as if his gaze was implying something.

“Shen Juan,” Lin Yujing carefully chose her words, “Exams aren’t that important. They’re just a way to identify gaps in knowledge. You should aim to show your true ability, so you can know where to improve. Don’t you agree?”

Shen Juan looked at her with a complex expression, as if she were a fool.

“With Teacher Xiao Lin’s help, I think you can at least score forty in physics,” Lin Yujing encouraged him, “Good luck.”

Author’s note:

Shen Juan: So, you really want me to prove myself with my grades, huh?