Chapter 12: A New Desk Mate and Unveiled Secrets

He Yao had never expected Teacher Lin to call his magical girl form ‘cute’… Yet, even hearing it brought no joy, only a profound sense of awkwardness.

How utterly mortifying would it be if his teacher ever discovered his ability to transform?

He Yao silently resolved to keep this secret under wraps at all costs.

****

The morning hours swiftly came to an end.

After a brief nap in the physics lab, He Yao returned to his classroom for the afternoon lessons.

It was then that he noticed a change: his desk mate was different.

Previously, a rather ordinary boy sat beside him. Their relationship had never been particularly close, and the boy held little understanding of ‘otaku culture’ or anything similar, which severely limited their interactions.

Now, however, Ye Liuyun occupied the seat beside him.

This sudden change immediately filled He Yao with immense pressure.

‘What on earth happened?’

Changing seats wasn’t an extraordinary occurrence, especially for someone like Ye Liuyun. If he were to tell the teacher, ‘I find looking up at the blackboard from the front row too tiring; I’d prefer to sit further back,’ the teacher would likely not object to such a request.

But what could it mean for him to move from the third row all the way to the sixth?

Surely, the best seats for class were the third and fourth rows? They weren’t like the first two rows, which required craning one’s neck and risking a teacher’s spittle, nor were they as distant as the fifth and sixth rows.

They were considered prime locations for optimal learning.

However, this had always been irrelevant to He Yao, who much preferred the back rows.

‘Why would Ye Liuyun suddenly move to sit beside me? What is he planning?’

“He Yao, hello! We’re desk mates now.”

‘Desk mates? What an archaic term!’

‘Nobody uses a single shared desk anymore, so why ‘desk mates’? And are we even that familiar with each other?’

He Yao had always been indifferent to types like Ye Liuyun. After all, Ye Liuyun was incredibly popular, a genuinely sunny disposition—though curiously, despite Teacher Lin also being bright and cheerful, he didn’t seem quite as universally adored…

‘Wait a minute.’

‘Speaking of Teacher Liu… could my perception of Teacher Lin be flawed?’

“Hello, Student Ye,” he responded coolly. He wasn’t adept at conversing with people like Ye Liuyun.

Thus, he had no desire to prolong their conversation.

Instead, he rummaged through his backpack and pulled out *Filial Piety* to read.

He was nearing the end of the book. It wasn’t particularly long, and had it not been for the numerous events of the previous week, he would have finished it then.

“He Yao, what are you reading?”

“…A light novel.”

“What genre?”

“Magical girl.”

Ye Liuyun suddenly seemed intrigued. “Oh? I never would have thought you’d be interested in magical girls, He Yao. Didn’t you assist Emerald recently? What do you think after actually meeting her? There aren’t any pictures online, so everyone can only cosplay Emerald based on their impressions.”

“…Nothing much. I didn’t have much interaction with her.”

He Yao secretly glanced at Liu Xingyue, who was diligently working on her homework.

He truly didn’t want to engage in an extensive conversation with Ye Liuyun. However, for a ‘normie,’ finding topics of conversation seemed effortless. Ye Liuyun continued, “Then which magical girl do you prefer? For example, in our city, it has to be Rainbow Jade, right? She’s the strongest magical girl here, after all, with countless fans.”

‘I really don’t want to discuss this with you…’

“I prefer… Ink Crystal, I suppose?”

‘Liking myself shouldn’t be a problem, right?’

“Ink Crystal? You mean the magical girl who just debuted the day before yesterday, making her first appearance?” Ye Liuyun sounded surprised. “You encountered her?”

“Yes, I was just about to buy something at the time…”

“What does she look like?”

“…Hard to describe.”

“That’s true, I suppose. Magical girls are like that, after all.”

Though not by choice, He Yao found himself chatting with Ye Liuyun for over ten minutes before the class bell finally rang. He put away his novel, then turned his gaze to the podium, watching the teacher lecture.

As a diligent student, Ye Liuyun naturally paid close attention to the lesson.

However, while listening, he subtly observed He Yao.

He noticed that He Yao wasn’t taking any notes.

He simply sat there, appearing somewhat distracted.

‘Is he even listening properly?’

‘Could it be true, then, what those people said—that his grades are simply copied?’

He sighed internally. ‘Whether he cheats or not… it has nothing to do with me.’ He had acted impulsively, swayed by the opinions of some classmates.

He recalled an incident from lunch earlier that day.

****

“Ye Liuyun, that He Yao, all he does is read novels and play games all day. He barely greets anyone. Last time, when the water cooler in the classroom needed changing, we asked him for help, and he actually said, ‘I don’t drink from it, why should I carry it?’ How could someone like him be a hero?”

A girl in their class named Tian Qingyao had spoken these words.

Her small group of friends then began to chime in with agreement.

“Exactly! And with his attitude, he still managed to rank second in the class. You didn’t see it, he hardly studies at all. Is he some kind of genius? He must have cheated.”

A cacophony of voices began to openly criticize He Yao.

Ye Liuyun himself hadn’t been particularly concerned by the matter. After all, he bore no grudge against He Yao, so why meddle? He also didn’t know if what these people were saying was true.

Carelessly offering opinions and comments could easily lead to trouble.

Therefore, he had remained silent throughout.

“How about this, Ye Liuyun? You switch seats with me and go see if He Yao is cheating? If he cheated on the exam, then that heroic deed of his must also be fake!”

He Yao’s desk mate had suddenly proposed this.

Ye Liuyun was momentarily stunned.

“That’s a great idea!” Tian Qingyao immediately agreed. “Ye Liuyun, you’re also first in class. If you spend some time with him, you’ll definitely know if he’s genuinely capable. I’ll bet his grades and his heroic act are both fraudulent!”

“Wouldn’t that be inappropriate?”

“What’s inappropriate about it? Should we let someone like that deceive the public? We’re upholding justice here!”

After some back and forth, Ye Liuyun found himself swapped to be He Yao’s desk mate.

Observing the current situation, he felt that perhaps the words of those few people held some truth—but what did it matter?

As for whether He Yao was a hero or not—the commendation banner and the prize money had already been issued to him. Could reporting it now really lead to their cancellation?

Even if He Yao did cheat on exams, it had no actual bearing on his heroic deed.

Humans weren’t absolute embodiments of good or evil. There had even been news of a murderer, at large for over a decade, being apprehended after performing a heroic act.

There was no necessary connection between someone cheating on an exam and being a hero.

Even if you caught someone cheating, you couldn’t strip them of their heroic title. Moreover, if you people went around questioning and reporting, wouldn’t you essentially be saying, ‘Are all you adults and officials blind?’

Ye Liuyun sighed softly, feeling as though he had been drawn into an incredibly troublesome situation.

His parents often said that more friends meant more opportunities. In school, it was acceptable to have poor grades, but one must have many friends—yet this sentiment now felt incorrect.

He felt as though he was about to be harmed by his ‘friends.’

****

“He Yao, tell us about the last multiple-choice question. You were the only one in class who got it right. How did you approach it?”

Ye Liuyun watched He Yao stand up.

The teacher was currently going over the final multiple-choice question from last week’s math exam, which was actually a function equation. However, compared to the longer problems that required a detailed solution process, multiple-choice questions were much easier. Often, one could quickly arrive at the answer using substitution.

Ye Liuyun hadn’t chosen correctly at the time, but he had figured it out after reviewing it at home.

He watched He Yao rise.

“Typically, for substitution, one would choose numbers like 0, ±1, and then see if there’s a corresponding answer among the options. But this question is different. If you substitute 3 into this problem, you can get the correct answer. As for why it’s this number, it’s because of the equation itself…”

He calmly explained the solution to the problem.

However, what surprised Ye Liuyun wasn’t simply that He Yao had solved it—after all, anyone who looked at the answer afterward and thought it through could answer it… he, of course, overlooked the vast majority of people who wouldn’t bother.

He realized that He Yao hadn’t been ignoring the lesson. Although he stared at the blackboard as if daydreaming, neither looking at the test paper nor taking notes, he had been listening.

And he was incredibly focused, clearly understanding everything the teacher was saying.

Even Ye Liuyun himself, if suddenly called upon to answer a question, would need a few seconds to collect his thoughts. But He Yao stood up and answered immediately.

He was genuine.

His grades were absolutely not the result of cheating, as those few people had claimed! This person possessed a high level of skill! His second-place ranking in the class was authentic!

He saw a satisfied expression on the math teacher’s face.

Clearly, teachers understood better than students whether someone was cheating.

“Very correct, He Yao. You may sit down!”

He Yao sat back down.

Then he resumed staring at the blackboard in the same manner.

This piqued Ye Liuyun’s interest. This person had ranked second in the class before, but he hadn’t paid much attention to the specifics. Quietly, he pulled out the previous report card.

He himself had achieved near-perfect scores in almost every subject.

But He Yao, aside from Chinese Language and Physics, had perfect scores.

Or rather, his Physics score seemed to be missing just twelve points from the last major problem?

Was that major problem particularly difficult? No, it wasn’t.

He knew clearly that the last major problem was actually less difficult than the second-to-last one—

If he were to add that score…

‘His score would be higher than mine?’

‘No, just that score doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t do the last major problem, but…’

‘Is this person manipulating his score?’

‘If he’s manipulating his score, why bother ranking second in the class?’

‘There wouldn’t be much point in manipulating the score that way, would there?’

He was genuinely becoming quite interested in He Yao now.

He Yao felt a surge of panic. He knew Ye Liuyun was watching him, and it made him deeply uncomfortable. As a shut-in, he wasn’t accustomed to being exposed to the gaze of strangers.

‘You say Ye Liuyun is a classmate, not a stranger? Give me a break; there’s no difference. He’s even worse than a stranger.’