Winter Time Rendering

Her expression was still blank, but at least she seemed more animated than she had during the morning reading session.

Zhang Shutong, who also had a lollipop in his mouth, wondered, ’Then why does she only ever frown when she talks to me? It’s a little intimidating.’

He then heard Ruoping ask:

"I was going to have Shutong call for you. I wonder if he did..."

"Oh, he did? That’s fine then. Wait, what did you say he was going to call you?"

"What?"

Ruoping suddenly whipped her head around and glared at Zhang Shutong.

"Tch, pervert!"

Zhang Shutong walked into the classroom, completely baffled. Gu Qiuyan had also returned by then. She wasn’t alone; three other girls were gathered around her, chatting animatedly.

That wasn’t entirely accurate. It was more like Gu Qiuyan was sitting at her desk while the three girls stood beside her, chattering away about something.

Getting closer, he saw that Gu Qiuyan was scrolling through her phone. Zhang Shutong recognized it as the latest iPhone model. He remembered you had to pay a premium for it, and the price had been driven up to exorbitant levels for a while.

Gu Qiuyan kept her eyes on the screen, occasionally reaching into her school bag to pull out some snacks. The colorful wrappers were a dazzling sight, covered in foreign languages he didn’t recognize. In any case, you definitely wouldn’t find any low-end stuff like Wang Wang breakfast sausages here. He wasn’t even sure if an Oreo would be worthy of gracing this table.

She placed the snacks on Zhang Shutong’s desk, paying no mind to how the girls divided them. The girls ate, their cheeks puffed out, as they racked their brains for all sorts of gossip and amusing stories to liven up the mood, all just to coax a smile out of the young miss. But Gu Qiuyan would just nod distractedly or occasionally curve her lips into a slight smile. When the snacks on the desk ran low, she’d just pull another pile out of her bag.

One of the girls noticed Gu Qiuyan wasn’t interested and tactfully changed the subject, complimenting her on her new phone.

The topic had barely been introduced before someone else quickly jumped in. "Whoa, wasn’t that model just released in the United States in September? It’s not available in the mainland yet, right? I read online that the ones you can get now are all snatched up from Hong Kong. They’re crazy expensive and nearly impossible to get one."

Another girl added, "Forget the new model, I’ve only ever seen the old one online. I’ve never seen anyone actually use one. It’d be nice if I could afford one someday."

Another girl, the type to act cute, pouted and said, "Qiumian, Qiumian, let me see it, please? I’m begging you..."

In reality, though, they didn’t have a good eye for luxury. Zhang Shutong had already noticed yesterday that the most expensive item on Gu Qiuyan was probably her ladies’ wristwatch. It might have been worth tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. He hadn’t looked into the specifics, but in any case, the phone was likely worth less than her wool coat.

Hearing this, Gu Qiuyan put her phone down. She gave the Apple logo on the back a strange look before handing it over. "If you want to look, go ahead," she said casually. "I’m not interested in these electronics. An uncle gave it to me, so I just started using it." This, of course, elicited another round of envy from the girls.

But Zhang Shutong felt she probably wasn’t lying, nor was she deliberately showing off. Hadn’t they seen how she typed with just one finger? A single, fair finger, tapping away at the screen, slow as death...

As he got closer to his seat, they had already moved on to the next topic:

"So, are we still going to hang out with Zhao Yang today...?"

"No."

Gu Qiuyan didn’t even look up.

"He actually asked me to apologize to you on his behalf. You know how he is, his brain doesn’t work right. He misspoke. He shouldn’t have gone around telling people he likes you. Qiumian, what do you think..."

Gu Qiuyan looked up at the girl, who immediately bit her lip and fell silent.

The other two girls glanced at each other, quietly put down the snacks in their hands, and also shut their mouths. It seemed no one dared to make a sound before Gu Qiuyan made her stance clear.

The once-boisterous little circle froze just like that. Gu Qiuyan was, of course, the master of this circle. And just as the conversation ground to a halt, Zhang Shutong arrived back at his seat.

But he never would have expected the girl who had been biting her lip to suddenly let out a "Whoa!" Her eyes darted over to Zhang Shutong, seemingly sparkling like little stars.

"A hottie, a hottie! Qiumian, is this your deskmate? Since when?"

The two girls behind her also joined in the teasing, immediately changing the subject:

"You look really familiar. What should we call you, senior?"

"He’s way better than your last deskmate, Qiumian..."

As they spoke, they instinctively made way for him, looking as if they were about to ask for his autograph at any second. Their attitude was incredibly enthusiastic.

Zhang Shutong, however, noticed that the truly clever one was the girl who had been biting her lip. While her words were about him, her eyes never stopped observing Gu Qiuyan’s expression. As for the other two, they were always a beat behind, their attention genuinely seeming to have been diverted.

Gu Qiuyan merely gave him a faint glance.

"Not familiar."

She uttered the two words crisply and placed her phone face down on the desk. The three girls, who had been mid-sentence, shut their mouths again. The atmosphere turned awkward. They all looked at each other, but no one spoke, until Gu Qiuyan waved her hand dismissively.

"You guys can go back for now. We’ll talk about lunch later."

As if granted amnesty, the three girls quickly said their goodbyes and scurried out of the classroom.

Zhang Shutong returned to his seat. If someone were to ask his thoughts, it would probably be that he had just witnessed Gu Qiuyan’s "young miss" side firsthand. Before, he could only sense her uniqueness by staring at the building block castle on the bookshelf. Now, it was much clearer.

He still had two things on his mind. One was finding Zhou Ziheng, which was simple enough. But the urgent priority was writing a speech draft. That was what gave Zhang Shutong the biggest headache, as he wasn’t good at this kind of thing.

He was mulling over how to "draft" a document—God knows why he’d used a word like "draft"—when the Chinese teacher walked into the classroom. She clapped her hands and announced a pop quiz on the text, brazenly combining the morning reading session with the first period.