Benjamin Clark finally looked at her, eyes wide in surprise, watching as Fiona James bowed solemnly to her.

“You child…”

But the words didn’t come out. Benjamin Clark looked at the pitch-black audience seats for a long time, then smiled at her—a very gentle smile.

“Fiona James, study hard.”

She gestured with her eyes to all the excitement around them and said, “All of this is just pointless fuss, it’s empty. Your future is what matters, you’re not a kid anymore, studying is the right path.”

Finally, she said solemnly, “So, study hard.”

She finally told herself the truth. About a promising future, about great prospects.

She said, all of that is empty. Fiona James knew she should be grateful for her guidance and reminders, but at that moment, she trembled, holding herself back, barely stopping herself from rushing up and slapping her.

She was just an innocent child. How could they treat her like this?

Fiona James gently wiped her face, her palm cool and wet with tears.

Quincy Sherman stood by, flustered and at a loss. She had only asked Fiona James one question: “Which school do you want to apply to in the future, what do you want to do?”—she never expected this good-tempered girl to just stare at her blankly, tears streaming down her face in an instant.

“Fiona James? Fiona James? What’s wrong? Why are you crying—”

Fiona James waved her hand, smiling awkwardly.

“…No, no, I just remembered some things from before.”

She sniffed loudly and said,

“I want to go to a teachers’ college and become a good teacher.”

Fiona James extra Quincy Sherman looked at her with a questioning gaze. The Fiona James in front of her was completely different from her usual gentle self; she radiated a brilliance she had never seen before, as if standing out in a crowd of thousands, shining brightly.

“I want to be a good teacher, and a good mother.”

She repeated it once more.

A solemn promise to some child in the future.

This way, I can give you all the love and respect I never received.

He only took this as a casual compliment and politeness, never even realizing what in his ordinary home could possibly make others envious. That kind of natural smile made Michelle Cindy sigh deeply.

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Michelle Cindy extra 37.2℃

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Michelle Cindy extra “I’m starving.” Mia Waters flopped down on the desk, the tips of his fluffy hair swaying gently with the movement, like foxtail grass waving in the early autumn wind.

“You didn’t eat breakfast?”

Michelle Cindy instinctively moved her lips, but the words she wanted to say were already spoken by Zoe Young from the front left.

So natural, the tone so familiar and warm, Michelle Cindy couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, but also a sense of relief.

If she had said it, it would have sounded so stiff, so awkward, and the person hearing it… would have misunderstood, right?

How could she be like them, so natural, so graceful, so close, every gesture carrying an unconscious pride.

Michelle Cindy lowered her head and continued working on the circuit diagram on her scratch paper, but the lead in her mechanical pencil snapped with a “snap,” the broken piece flying toward Mia Waters across the narrow aisle to her left. Following the path of the lead, she saw Mia Waters pitifully sprawled on the desk, face tilted up, looking at Zoe Young’s back, a few wrinkles on his forehead, while his right hand kept tugging at Zoe Young’s ponytail.

“I bet you have food, right? I think you’ve gotten fatter lately, really, your face is round now, how did you eat yourself into this? Er Er, hand it over, you must have food…”

Amid Martin Bates’s exaggerated, gloating laughter, Zoe Young said nothing, grabbed the Modern Chinese Dictionary on the desk and swung it back at him, the movement crisp, her gaze cold. Michelle Cindy even heard the dull thud as Mia Waters’s chin hit the desk.

“Why’d you hit me?” Mia Waters jumped up, clutching his chin and howling, “You trying to kill me?”

Zoe Young narrowed her eyes, grinning slyly: “You know too much.”

Michelle Cindy looked away, trying to get her thoughts back to the unfinished circuit diagram, but she just couldn’t figure out where to put the last resistor in the given conditions.

“Damn, it’s only the start of ninth grade, there’s still a whole year until the high school entrance exam, what’s the rush? Moving morning study to seven o’clock, I have to get up a little after six, how can I get up? If I stay in bed a bit longer, there’s no time for breakfast… Do you have food or not, or did you already eat it all…”

Mia Waters’s shameless voice buzzed in her ear, and that resistor with nowhere to go floated in Michelle Cindy’s mind like a little boat with no shore.

“Er Er, is this yours?” Mia Waters, who rushed into the classroom at the last minute, plopped down on the chair, picked up the tea egg on the desk, and gently poked Zoe Young’s back with his free hand.

Zoe Young glanced back, giving a gossipy look that said “we’ve noticed this for a while,” and replied with a grin, “I don’t lay eggs.”

Martin Bates mumbled, “I noticed it as soon as I got here, no idea who put it on your desk.

Ask someone who got here earlier than you.”

Michelle Cindy immediately went on full alert, even feeling her back tense up. She always arrived at the classroom very early, everyone knew that. If Mia Waters asked, if Mia Waters asked…

Michelle Cindy extra But Mia Waters just looked around, chuckled “hehe,” and very unceremoniously started peeling the egg.

Michelle Cindy heard a faint sigh in her heart.

She didn’t have much pocket money, maybe she could only buy him breakfast once.

Still, at least she’d done what the heroines in novels do—secretly bought breakfast for the boy she liked.

Carefully carrying it, sneaking it onto his desk, cautious and precious, acting casual, every move giving her a sense of presence.

A sense of presence. As if heaven was filming from afar with a camera, and she, harboring secret feelings, was unknowingly playing the lead in a sweet story.

Michelle Cindy glanced up at Zoe Young, who was smacking Mia Waters on the head with a dictionary because he was eating too loudly, then lowered her head again, feeling the unspeakable pressure in her heart lighten a little.

She didn’t know why.

It was as if the documentary about the carefree lives of the main characters had been turned, by her secret act, into a youth film with a deep theme and unique perspective.

Thinking this, she smiled a little, and out of the corner of her eye, she accidentally caught Mia Waters’s gaze.

He was peeling the egg, his eyes sweeping lightly over her, not pausing for even a second.

Michelle Cindy’s pen paused for a moment, then she hurriedly started writing again.

Can’t even daydream? It’s exposed so quickly.

Outside, the sun was climbing between the buildings. The long, dreamless day was just beginning.

Sometimes Michelle Cindy would look up and see classmates gathered around Zoe Young and Mia Waters’s desks, asking for help with problems, and feel a moment of envy.

At this point, Michelle Cindy was already firmly in the top five of the class. Though she couldn’t shake Zoe Young’s lead, she was clearly much stronger than the perennial sixth-place Mia Waters.

But no one had ever asked her for help.

Maybe because in this chaotic school, few people really studied, and the few who did were used to asking Zoe Young and Mia Waters; maybe because she used to be seen as an idiot, and for the sake of pride, no one would really “ask without shame”; maybe because Michelle Cindy always wore a perennially stiff “don’t you dare bother me” face—of course, that’s what Mia Waters said.

Back then, Michelle Cindy couldn’t control her expression, and sometimes a look of envy would slip out, caught by the ever-busy Zoe Young.

She joked, “Meixiang, why don’t you come help out?” with a hint of mock reproach in her tone.

The Zoe Young-style gentleness and understanding.

With a kind of protagonist’s aura from novels and movies, dazzling everyone else, yet so thoughtful, so flawless, so infuriating.

Michelle Cindy instinctively wanted to refuse, but didn’t want to lose face to the ever-popular Zoe Young, so she struggled, forced a smile, and moved her lips in vain.

“Come on, with that ‘don’t you dare bother me’ face of hers? Even if you gave me three guts, I wouldn’t dare ask her!”

At that moment, Mia Waters’s teasing laughter rang out, Zoe Young once again grabbed the dictionary and swung it back without hesitation, and Michelle Cindy took the chance to lower her head, her cold face confirming Mia Waters’s joke.