Chapter 1 “The Moral Education Office Is Here to Catch Young Couples.”

In late April, Xishui City had just been washed by a rain. The sky was a clear blue, and the grass looked leisurely and soft.

Xishui City was surrounded by three mountains, with the Xi River winding through it. It was a place of outstanding natural beauty.

Tongze County was about a two-hour drive from Xishui City. It was now half past two in the afternoon. Luo Yi sat in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, bored, staring at the double-flowered cherry blossoms lining both sides of the road, as bright as rosy clouds.

“Xiao Yi, your aunt will pick you up from school this weekend. When you go to her place, be polite and don’t cause her any trouble,” Luo Hengzhou reminded her.

“Got it, Dad,” Luo Yi answered obediently, then turned her gaze to the side-view mirror.

In the mirror was a girl with black hair cut just to her ears and thin bangs. Under the bangs were a pair of apricot eyes like a cat’s. Her skin was pale, and her light-colored lips carried a faint sickly look.

Perhaps because she had been born premature, her health had never been good. She suffered from low blood pressure and low blood sugar all year round. She never got seriously ill, but minor illnesses kept coming one after another.

She said in a low voice, “Dad, how long are you going to be in Africa?”

“Developing mineral resources isn’t something that can be done overnight.” Afraid his daughter would feel unhappy, Luo Hengzhou added, “Don’t worry. I’ll come back during the New Year and holidays. When you have winter or summer vacation, you can also come to Africa.”

“I’m not going. It’s too hot. I’ll get sunburned.”

Luo Hengzhou was answering the national call to aid Africa. He was about to go to Nigeria with several business partners to develop copper mines.

Before leaving, the one he worried about most was his precious daughter.

Luo Yi’s mother had passed away early, and he had never remarried. Father and daughter had depended on each other. Fortunately, the mines under his management had brought in considerable profits over the years, enough to guarantee the two of them a comfortable life.

In order for someone to look after her, Luo Hengzhou specially transferred her to Xishui No.1 High School. Her aunt’s family lived in Xishui.

“Xishui No.1 is a provincial key school. Every year it sends about twenty students to Tsinghua and Peking University. You have to study hard, understand?”

Anyway, I’m not one of those twenty, Luo Yi thought to herself.

Luo Hengzhou turned the steering wheel and rounded an intersection. Xishui No.1 High School came into view.

Red walls and white bricks, shaded by green trees. On the stone tablet at the entrance were several large gilded characters: Xishui City No.1 High School. Beside them were a few smaller characters that seemed to be the name of a famous calligrapher.

After getting out of the car, they went to the office. The teachers were in a chaotic rush sorting exam papers.

Today was the midterm exam. The physics exam had just finished, and chemistry was about to begin.

Luo Hengzhou took Luo Yi to find Ji Changming, the homeroom teacher of Class 6, Grade 1.

Ji Changming was a thin, tall man in his thirties. He wore a pair of thin-framed glasses and a plaid shirt, looking refined and scholarly. He was grading the physics papers that had just been bound together.

“Teacher Ji, this is my daughter Luo Yi.”

“Hello, Teacher,” Luo Yi said shyly.

“Luo Yi, is it?” Ji Changming put down his red pen. His eyes behind the clear lenses looked her over. “Everyone is still taking exams. You can only go to the classroom during evening self-study. First go to the dormitory and put away your luggage, then go to the academic affairs office to collect your school uniform and textbooks.”

“Where is the classroom?”

“Come find me in the office at seven. I’ll take you there.”

Luo Yi collected her things, then tidied up her dormitory bed. When she looked at the time, it was only five o’clock.

Luo Hengzhou took her to a restaurant outside the school for a simple meal. During the meal he talked nonstop like Tang Seng, saying a great many things. Father and daughter then parted ways.

Back at school, the time had not yet arrived. Luo Yi wandered aimlessly around the campus.

She tugged at her sleeve. For her, even the smallest size of the school uniform was still a bit large. The uniform of No.1 High was the classic student tracksuit style, red and white.

The bell marking the end of the exam rang. From the teaching building came a thunderous noise. Students poured out of the classrooms in a dense mass, gathering into a red ocean.

At the end of that ocean was the school’s two-story cafeteria.

When Luo Yi had still been studying in Tongze, she had already heard of Xishui No.1 High School.

All the middle schools in Tongze put together would be considered to have overperformed if they managed to send even one student to Tsinghua or Peking University each year. So Xishui No.1, which sent about twenty every year, was practically a legend.

Luo Yi sat on a stone bench, observing this group of academic elites rushing toward the cafeteria. Most of them wore glasses. The boys had crew cuts, the girls wore ponytails. There were tall ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, many still had acne on their faces.

Huh. It seemed top students didn’t look any different from ordinary people?

But one thing Luo Yi could be sure of: there were no weird clothes or extreme hairstyles. That was already much better than the schools in Tongze.

While she was observing humanity, Luo Yi vaguely felt something rubbing against her calf.

She looked down and met a pair of bright yellow eyes. It was a cat.

This cat was not the least bit afraid of people. Its body, fat as a ball, rubbed back and forth against Luo Yi’s calf, making purring sounds.

Luo Yi reached out and stroked its orange fur. It was smooth and soft, feeling quite nice. Clearly it was well fed.

Only that belly…

Could it be pregnant with kittens?

Just then two female classmates walked past. Luo Yi heard them discussing today’s exam.

“Physics was so hard. I didn’t know how to do the last two big questions.”

“Me too. I just wrote the formulas. Whatever points I get, I get.”

When they spotted the cat, the gloom of the midterm exam vanished in an instant.

“A Fei is here. I forgot to bring it food.”

“After dinner let’s go to the little supermarket and buy it a sausage.”

So this cat had been raised on food from everyone. No wonder it was so friendly.

Luo Yi looked at A Fei. It lay on the ground with its round white belly facing up, meowing at her.

That coquettish look must mean it was asking for food.

“Sorry, I didn’t bring any food,” Luo Yi said softly.

A Fei seemed to understand human speech. It immediately flipped over, stood up, flicked its tail, and walked off toward the sports field.

Luo Yi: “……”

What an ungrateful cat.

That didn’t seem right either. After all, she hadn’t done it any favors.

Luo Yi decided to go to the little supermarket and buy a sausage to keep with her, so that next time A Fei wouldn’t leave empty-handed.

When she returned to the office with the sausage, it was exactly seven o’clock.

Ji Changming handed her the student card and led her toward the teaching building.

“There are three periods of evening self-study. The first ends at eight, the second at nine, the third at ten. Boarding students usually don’t return to the dorm until after ten.”

“The morning wake-up bell is at six. You have to be in the classroom before seven for morning reading. The class schedule and duty roster are on the notice board in the classroom. Copy them down later. You’re on duty this Friday, sweeping the cleaning area. Arrive half an hour early in the morning and let the group leader take you there.”

Luo Yi silently noted down Ji Changming’s words.

Class 6 of Grade 1 was in the easternmost classroom on the first floor of the Grade 1 teaching building.

When the two of them reached the back door, Ji Changming did not immediately push it open. Instead he observed for a while through the small window on the back door.

Luo Yi was not tall. Even when she stretched her neck, she could not see what was happening inside.

From what she could tell, the classroom was very quiet.

In her previous class, whenever the teacher was not around, it had been as chaotic as a pot of porridge. People talking, people roughhousing. Completely uncontrollable.

After about a minute, Ji Changming finally pushed open the back door.

The students were all honestly bent over their desks reading or doing homework. Even when Ji Changming entered, no one turned to look. Only the female class committee member writing homework on the podium glanced at them.

Ji Changming pointed to an empty seat in the last row and said in a low voice, “Sit here for now. Tomorrow the whole class will rearrange seats.”

Luo Yi nodded, put her schoolbag into the desk compartment, pulled out the chair, and sat down.

After Ji Changming left, a few boys in the back row began secretly glancing toward Luo Yi.

The new girl was quiet and gentle. Her skin was as white as snow. Her slender wrists looked as if they would snap with a single twist.

She was taking out her books one by one and stacking them on the desk, then picking up a pen and starting to look at the textbook.

Luo Yi was not a clever student. Even in Tongze her grades had only been slightly above average. Now that she had come to Xishui No.1, she estimated she would probably rank at the bottom.

Just earlier Ji Changming had asked how far she had gotten in physics. She said she had only just reached universal gravitation.

Ji Changming told her to look through the book herself first, because No.1 High had already taught the sections on electric and magnetic fields.

She lacked any talent for science. These things were too difficult for her. After only a short while she could no longer maintain the image of a “diligent student.”

She raised her eyes and saw that every classmate around her was buried in their studies.

No wonder people said the school atmosphere was important. Even if she didn’t want to study, in this kind of environment there was nothing else she could do.

She finally managed to hold on until the dismissal bell rang. Luo Yi hurried out of the classroom to get some air.

She was not good at dealing with people. She was afraid classmates would crowd around and ask this and that.

She felt inexplicably oppressed.

She touched the sausage in her pocket. She wondered if A Fei was still hungry. It still had little babies in its belly, after all.

Thinking of this, Luo Yi walked toward the sports field.

Streetlights had been turned on across the campus. The pale light made the leaves of the shrubs shine with an unreal glow.

She indeed found A Fei wandering on the plastic track of the sports field. She jogged over. A Fei flicked its ears and darted into the dark little woods beside the track.

“Meow meow?” Luo Yi followed into the woods in the dark, imitating a cat’s call as she searched for A Fei.

Tonight even the moon was stingy with its light. Luo Yi could see nothing. She could only faintly hear the rustling of leaves in the breeze.

If only she had brought her phone, she could have used the flashlight.

After searching for a while with no result and sensing that the class bell was about to ring, Luo Yi was about to turn back when A Fei suddenly appeared.

“So you were here.” Luo Yi squatted down, twisted the sausage into two pieces, and squeezed them out bit by bit. A Fei ate with big mouthfuls in delight.

Just then, with a soft “thud,” something fell into the little woods.

A Fei sensed the movement and immediately bolted away.

Luo Yi stood up helplessly and looked in the direction the object had come from.

Right after that, a figure hurried into the little woods and came face to face with Luo Yi.

“Classmate, did you see a soccer ball?”

Luo Yi tilted her head up and blinked. From the build, the other person should be a fairly tall boy, but she could not make out his face.

Playing soccer this late at night? What enthusiasm.

“It seems to have fallen over that way.”

“Thanks.”

The boy was just about to go look for the ball when suddenly a strong beam from a flashlight shone into the little woods. Luo Yi instinctively raised a hand to shield her eyes.

“Who’s in there? Come out!” A deep male voice roared toward the little woods. The birds nesting in the trees all took off at once with a “whoosh,” leaving a few residual shadows in the sky.

Luo Yi heard a quiet “fuck,” and then a strong hand covered her mouth.

“Don’t speak.” The boy lowered his voice beside her ear. His warm, damp breath brought a tingling sensation. “The Moral Education Office is here to catch little couples.”

Author’s Note:

New story is here~~

Pre-collection for the new novel He Is Not Gentle can be found in the column.

Synopsis:

Five years ago, the Chen parents packaged Chen Luoru’s older sister Chen Yang as a socialite and promoted her to the Meng family’s young master Meng Jianchen, who was studying in the United States.

On the eve of the wedding, Chen Yang was found to be pregnant, but the child was not his.

To avoid a huge scandal, Chen Luoru was called back to the country by her parents with endless phone calls to take her sister’s place.

Chen Luoru: “I understand the reasoning. But I’m only sixteen this year, still in high school. Get married???”

Chen parents: “Meng Jianchen has already agreed to this marriage.”

Chen Luoru: “Is he the devil?”

Little Theater 1

In five years of marriage, Chen Luoru had only seen Meng Jianchen three times: when they registered, at the wedding, and now.

She came out of a brightly lit London pub with a male friend and saw a tall, slender man standing beside a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Meng Jianchen held a long umbrella. On the ring finger of his left hand was a wedding ring.

Raindrops slid down the edge of the umbrella. His lips were pressed tightly together, his gaze deep and unfathomable.

Chen Luoru heard him say slowly, “Had enough fun? Mrs. Meng.”

Little Theater 2

Chen Luoru proposed divorce to Meng Jianchen for the Nth time, yet this damn man could not be steamed, boiled, hammered flat, or stir-fried.

She was so angry she ran to a luxury store and went on a crazy shopping spree using his card.

Rarely enough, Meng Jianchen actually chased after her: “Stop making a scene. Go home.”

Chen Luoru: “Can’t you even coax me a little?”

Meng Jianchen wrapped an arm around her waist: “Be good. Don’t be angry anymore. Come home with me, okay?”

Chen Luoru said loudly, “Brother-in-law, don’t touch me. Big Sister will get angry if she finds out!”

Every gaze in the store instantly focused on Meng Jianchen.

That night Chen Luoru was thoroughly “educated” by Meng Jianchen in person.

She cried while begging, “Husband, I was wrong. Be gentler.”