Despite the ongoing virus, the school hadn’t sent any notices to delay the opening of the sester.
On the seventeenth of February, Experintal Primary School began the second half of the school year on ti.
The morning streets were cold and deserted, with drizzling rain falling from the sky. Xu Qingfan and Xia Xiaoxiao sat at the noodle-roll shop waiting for the bus, shivering as the cold wind blew in.
"It’s so cold~" Xu Qingfan pressed his palms under his bottom because his teeth were chattering, distorting his voice as he spoke.
"Haha, it’s been like this all week. There’s nothing we can do on rainy days, but when the sun cos out it won’t be cold anymore," explained the noodle-roll shop owner while sipping tea on the side.
"The bus is here." Xia Xiaoxiao sniffled, picked up her backpack, and said to Xu Qingfan.
"Boss, we’re off, may your business prosper, haha." Xu Qingfan opened his umbrella and, with Xia Xiaoxiao’s support, boarded the school bus.
The school bus displayed the current temperature, and Xu Qingfan glanced at it, "No wonder it’s so cold, today it’s actually only 3℃!"
Friends from the north, accustod to temperatures tens of degrees below zero, might sneer at Hong Kong’s 3℃, but you have to understand that the temperature felt by the human body is related not only to the absolute temperature but also to the humidity!
When the humidity in the air increases, the perceived temperature will also decrease, and at that mont, if a gust of wind blows, I believe you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the phrase ’bone-chilling cold’.
They say art cos from reality, and Xu Qingfan believes that Ma Di must have had a profound understanding before he could write lyrics that resonate with life, like "you are in the brilliant sunshine down south with heavy snow, I am in the cold nights up north with all four seasons like spring."
"This is what you get for not making hot water yourself," Xia Xiaoxiao handed her hot water bottle to Xu Qingfan.
Inside was freshly boiled water, and the little girl had been holding it to keep her hands warm while waiting for the bus.
"Let’s share." Xu Qingfan flashed a toothy smile at her and reached out to grasp the part of Xia Xiaoxiao’s hand that wasn’t covered by the bottle.
The bus still had the sll of disinfectant lingered inside, but opening windows was deed too cold, and leaving them closed was uncomfortable. Xu Qingfan held his breath and breathed through his mouth all the way until the school bus finally reached the school.
He could have slept in today, but a pen, a night, and a lamp did not create a miracle for Xu Qingfan.
He still had more than half of his happy winter break howork unfinished, and he had no choice but to co back early to continue writing.
The funniest thing was, late last night around ten o’clock, as Xu Qingfan was vigorously writing in his room, his mother called him to the living room to answer a phone call.
Xu Qingfan was puzzled. Who would call him so late? Yao Jiping said it was Lin Wanning calling for him.
After he picked up the phone and said, "I’m Xu Qingfan," Lin Wanning, upon hearing his voice, started to sob and then cry, "Wuu wuu~ Brother Qingfan, Wanning can’t finish the howork! Wah wuu wuu wuu..."
Xu Qingfan couldn’t help but laugh unkindly: "It’s okay, I haven’t finished either. I’ve only done 32 pages, how about you?" he asked.
"Huh?" Lin Wanning clearly paused for a while, "Let check... I... I’m on page 38... yay?" The crying at the other end of the line suddenly stopped.
"Don’t worry, we’ll copy Xiaoxiao’s work together tomorrow. One page a minute, we’ll definitely finish by nine!" Knowing he had a companion, Xu Qingfan suddenly lost the motivation to try hard, thinking it’s ti to grow, and staying up? What’s there to stay up for!
"Okay! Then Ningning won’t write either, I’ll do it together with Brother Qingfan tomorrow at school!" Lin Wanning replied through her tears, breaking into a smile.
"See you tomorrow!"
"Brother Qingfan, good night!"
...
When he returned to the classroom, Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi were indeed already sitting at their desks.
Both of them were furiously writing, and when Lin Wanning heard so noise, she looked up, and seeing that it was Xu Qingfan who had arrived, her face imdiately showed delight: "Brother Qingfan, good morning, Xiaoxiao, good morning!"
"Morning!" Xu Qingfan pressed his icy palm against Lin Wanning’s face, causing the little girl, who had been hunching over, to straighten up suddenly.
"Brother Qing Fan, your hand is so cold! Are you also having kidney deficiency?" Lin Wanning shrank her head away from Xu Qingfan’s hand and turned to ask him after dodging the assault.
That "also" seed to reveal a lot. Uncle Lin, oh Uncle Lin, you wouldn’t want your kidney deficiency to be exposed, would you?
"I’m a bit anemic, and my hands get cold in the winter," Xu Qingfan explained.
"Then you need to eat more red dates; mom says they’re good for replenishing blood!"
"Right, let’s check your winter vacation howork!" Xu Qingfan turned and said to Xia Xiaoxiao.
Xia Xiaoxiao pouted without saying anything, then dug out her ’Happy Winter Vacation’ workbook from her backpack and handed it over to Xu Qingfan.
"Quick, copy it!" Xu Qingfan moved to the left, making space for Zhang Yiyi to sit down too, placing Xia Xiaoxiao’s winter vacation howork in the middle, and the three of them sat side by side copying it.
"Just fill it up, the teacher won’t check. Yiyi, don’t write so neatly!" After Xu Qingfan finished copying a page, the other two had only done about a third. This speed was not okay; they probably wouldn’t finish even if they kept at it until noon.
Thanks to Xu Qingfan’s guidance, Zhang Yiyi and Lin Wanning started to change their handwriting to cursive and followed another of his suggestions, making the font size bigger whenever facing a long text and only copying the first sentence of the answer, which increased their speed of copying the howork several tis over.
Seeing that the ti to submit the howork at nine o’clock was drawing near, yet with more than thirty pages still blank in the ’Happy Winter Vacation’, Lin Wanning started to get anxious, "Brother Qing Fan, what should we do? There’s still so much left, and it’s almost nine!"
"It looks like it’s ti to use the Killing Move," Xu Qingfan sighed.
"What Killing Move!" Lin Wanning looked at him with hopeful eyes.
"Glue two pages together to make them one!" Xu Qingfan said and promptly took out a glue stick, brushed the pages with a thick layer, and carefully pressed two sheets together seamlessly.
"Will this really work?" Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi were both flabbergasted.
"Hurry up and glue. The teacher won’t check thoroughly. Trust your group leader!"
After exchanging a look, Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi seed to make up their minds and solemnly nodded their heads.
The thirty-sothing pages of howork quickly turned into just a dozen or so, and the remaining parts, which were mostly multiple-choice and calculation questions, were tackled within seven or eight minutes—thus the ninety-sothing pages of ’Happy Winter Vacation’ were effortlessly conquered!
"Not happy at all!" Lin Wanning, having copied the last problem, collapsed onto the desk in utter existential exhaustion.
Xu Qingfan collected the howork from all four group mbers and put it on the teacher’s desk. The damn winter vacation’s howork was finally bluffed through.
"Why didn’t you do your winter vacation howork either?" Now that he had relaxed, Xu Qingfan finally had the ti to ask Zhang Yiyi the question he’d been wanting to ask.
He had always regarded Zhang Yiyi as soone who, in the traditional sense, would be considered a well-behaved girl, one who should complete her howork on ti.
Zhang Yiyi glanced at Xu Qingfan sowhat sheepishly and wrote on a piece of paper: "I traveled abroad with mom during the winter vacation, and I left my howork at ho."
"Okay... I guess!" That’s a compelling reason.
"Why didn’t the group leader do his howork either?" Zhang Yiyi asked back.
In Zhang Yiyi’s eyes, Xu Qingfan had always been the epito of a good student and a good child, so she found it unbelievable that he would be copying howork too.
"Just as the West cannot lose Jerusalem, winter vacation howork must also be left until the last day!" Having written that, Xu Qingfan stood up and patted Zhang Yiyi’s head. Nope, his legs were kind of numb!
[The group leader is truly impressive!] The little girl looked up at Xu Qingfan with eyes full of admiration.
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