I Might Have Fallen in Love With My Childhood Sweetheart-Chapter 5 - 4 Changing Desk Mates

Qingran got up unusually early the next day, at 6:12 AM, and upon sitting up, she felt a faint headache at her forehead and a slight pain in the joints of her right hand as she rubbed them.

After a night of drinking, she was feeling quite unwell and sighed, thinking that she could no longer trust Aunt Zhao's fruit wine that supposedly doesn't get one drunk.

After washing up, the hazy memories from the previous night's drinking floated back to her: Aunt Zhao was as usual beaming and coaxing her by calling her "Mom", Li Qingmo still disdainfully commented on her embarrassingly bad tolerance for alcohol, Xie Ying'an uncharacteristically asked her to unlock her phone and asked who he was.

Tsk, Xie Ying'an must have been drunk too.

Their home was not far from the school. After having a bowl of porridge and not seeing any sign of Li Qingmo coming downstairs, Qingran sent him a message and then headed to school on her own.

Qingran usually sleeps well, she seldom went to school during early self-study unless the teacher specifically asked her to. She arrived early today, and apart from the usually hardworking top students, there were only a few others around as most students were still leisurely getting into the school mood shortly after the start of the term.

Just as Qingran sat down, she saw Wen Shiyi entering the classroom through the front door. Wen Shiyi smiled and greeted her as she passed by Qingran's seat, saying, "Morning!"

Qingran responded with a smile, "Morning!"

Wen Shiyi adjusted the breakfast in her hand and asked Qingran, "Have you had breakfast?"

"I have." Qingran nodded and casually opened her English textbook.

"You're up so early!"

Wen Shiyi then went to the seat at the back, and many like her brought breakfast to eat at their seats, while some top students were simultaneously having breakfast and reading books.

Just as Qingran had recited a few English words, she saw Ruan Ruan, who was drinking soy milk, walk in through the front door looking rather listless, making her way to her seat before noticing Qingran.

"Damn, Ranran, you're starting to come to morning self-study? This is forcing us slackers into a corner!"

Qingran gave her a look of resignation: "What are you talking about, I just got up early today."

Ruan Ruan put her bag into the desk well and proficiently took out a stack of books to place on the desk top, making it easier for her to do some fidgeting during class. She pulled out her "life-saving" egg from her bag and placed it between two stacks of books. She also took out her English book, planning to memorize vocabulary with Qingran.

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Not many words were memorized when she quietly leaned in, "Ranran, I just saw the school bully and the school heartthrob at the school gate. My god, they actually came to class together!"

Qingran frowned, "Xie Ying'an came to class today?"

She had thought Xie Ying'an would go to the airport to see off his parents.

"Yeah, Brother An didn't come on the first day of school, many were guessing if he transferred to another school. Good thing he didn't."

Qingran didn't say more, focused on memorizing the vocabulary, and Ruan Ruan also put aside her gossip to zealously study.

After all, having a strong-willed top student like herself serves the advantage of "leading others to study hard," which teacher Old Wu saw right through Ruan Ruan's personality: smart but lacking in self-discipline and overly curious. Students like her need a desk mate who performs better, speaks less, and is more proactive than her, to give her a sense of urgency, spurring her to focus and study hard.

Of course, Old Wu had observed for a long time that pairing good students with poor ones could end in one of two outcomes:

First, the good students could be tempted to slack off along with the poor ones.

Second, the poor students might feel challenged by having someone both better and harder-working than them, and start to buckle down themselves.

Fortunately, Qingran had strong willpower and lived up to Old Wu's expectations, not only leading Ruan Ruan to improve her grades, but also instilling a sense of urgency in other middling students around to boost their motivation to study more than before.

As morning self-study was almost over, students gradually filled up the classroom. Xie Ying'an's seat was near the back door, and he usually entered the classroom from there.

Although Su Chen had already informed him yesterday about Old Wu assigning him a new desk mate, when he saw that unfamiliar slender figure sitting next to his seat today, he still couldn't help feeling a bit annoyed and furrowed his brows.

He didn't head to his seat, and his gaze habitually scanned the front seats, where Li Qingran, sitting upright, was making pre-class notes on her textbook.

Unlike protagonists with powerful 'cheats' who could top the class with a glance at their books, Qingran didn't have such memory prowess, but she had patience and good comprehension, and she always worked hard, which always placed her at the top of her class.