Henry Howard didn’t really have any particular game he wanted to play, so he just clicked on whichever icon on the desktop looked appealing. He was playing absentmindedly when suddenly a hand reached out in front of him. That hand’s index finger curled and knocked on his desk.

Henry Howard looked over and saw a kid in a white hoodie, hair still damp, asking him, “Do you guys come here to stay up all night often?”

“Not that often,” Henry Howard said. “Just a few times a month.”

Ethan Young nodded, feeling like he’d gained another layer of understanding about the world of underachievers. He’d never thought about this before, so he lowered his head and typed a line into his phone’s memo: All-nighters at the internet café, twice a month.

The two of them teamed up for a few rounds of games. By the end, Ethan Young was so tired he couldn’t keep his eyes open and fell asleep on his desk.

Henry Howard took off his headphones and didn’t keep playing. He turned his head and looked at his deskmate for a long time. He realized that the crazy urge to smoke he’d had earlier in the internet café had somehow been smoothed out. Ever since he’d stood under the wall and hugged this person tightly, he’d gradually calmed down.

The lighting in the internet café was dim, and the glow from the computer screen fell across Ethan Young’s face.

Henry Howard stared for a while, unable to look away, and bit down on the candy in his mouth, crushing it.

The next day, Henry Howard and Ethan Young both went to class with dark circles under their eyes.

“What’s up with you two?” Wanda clicked his tongue in amazement. “What did you do last night? Or did our class monitor stress you out so much you got dark circles?”

Xavier Stone had never given up. All sorts of sticky notes often appeared on Henry Howard and Ethan Young’s desks, covered in formulas and vocabulary words, sometimes even a bit of motivational chicken soup. Things like, “If you don’t work hard when you’re young, you’ll regret it when you’re old,” “Live and learn,” “Come on, you’re just a step away from success.”

If Xavier Stone’s family gave him more pocket money, he’d probably buy them a pile of extra practice books too.

Henry Howard slumped onto his desk as soon as he arrived: “Nah, we pulled an all-nighter at the internet café last night.”

Wanda asked, “Ethan Bro too? No wonder you didn’t watch that movie with us yesterday.”

“What movie?” Henry Howard’s head hurt from the all-nighter, and he didn’t know where his mind was wandering. He said, “My deskmate isn’t that kind of person, don’t lead him astray.”

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46. Chapter Forty-Six

The piece of paper Henry Howard left for him was still on the desk. During last night’s self-study, Wanda had even passed it around the class. In the end, all the boarders admitted defeat. After guessing for a while, not only could they not figure out what it said, some even wondered how many characters were on the paper, and someone even joked it looked like oracle bone script.

By comparison, the handwriting Henry Howard used during exams was already much more careful—at least it just looked ugly, not like ancient script.

Seeing it, Ethan Young remembered and casually tossed the crumpled paper back to him: “What’s this crap, what did you even write?”

“Not coming back for evening self-study,” Henry Howard opened it and glanced at it, then said after reading, “You can’t read it?”

“” Ethan Young really wanted to slap the paper onto his face.

Henry Howard admired the note for a while: “How could you not understand? I wrote it very seriously, look at this handwriting.”

Ethan Young was afraid he’d start going on about some grand structure: “Enough, shut up.”

Except for when he was talking to Ethan Young, Henry Howard spent the whole morning either sleeping or fiddling with his phone. When Old Thompson called on him to answer a question, he just said, “I don’t know.”

“What’s up with Bro Henry today?” Luke Carter and the others usually looked forward to hearing Henry Howard answer questions—there were always unexpected surprises, since class was so boring. “He’s acting weird.”

Wanda turned around and looked, seeing the back of Henry Howard’s head: “Maybe he’s just too tired from the all-nighter.”

Henry Howard was hunched over, his forehead resting on the edge of the desk.

He held his phone in his hand, tucked between his legs, typing in the chat box: I went to look for Ray Jr..

As he typed, he deleted each character one by one, and in the end just stared at the words “you Old Jay”.

Jay Ray was right about one thing—no matter what, it’s useless.

What’s done is done, and it all started because of him. No matter what he said, it was useless.

After Ray Jr. dropped out, no one kept in touch.

He must be angry, Henry Howard thought. If it were him, he wouldn’t be able to take it either.

Later, he looked for a lot of people, asked around everywhere Ray Jr. used to live, and finally got his home address.

He still remembered every word, every punctuation mark Ray Jr. had said back then.

“Bro Henry, you can’t take all the blame for this, but I still can’t help resenting you.”

“But I don’t want you like this either. Go back to school, what’s the point of dropping out like this?”

“Me? I’m not going back, and I don’t plan to find another school. My family’s helping me find a training course, hoping I’ll start working and making money soon.”

Henry Howard tossed his phone into the desk and closed his eyes.

At noon, during the lunch break, Logan Wright and Luke Carter carried a cardboard box into the classroom together. The distance from the office to here was three whole buildings, and as class monitor, Luke Carter clearly didn’t get much exercise—by the time he reached the classroom door, he was about to collapse, gasping, “Everyone, prizes for the sports meet! Make way, make way.”

No. 2 High was pretty efficient—the sports meet had just ended, and the prizes were already here.

“What prizes?” a curious student went over to look.

“This time, the prizes were personally chosen by Manager Jensen, very unique, you’ll definitely—” Luke Carter paused, then continued, “—not like them.”

With that, Luke Carter used a small knife to cut open the box, revealing a neatly packed box of extracurricular textbooks, from “English After-Class Reading” to “Taking You Into the Magical World of Physics,” covering almost every subject.

“Come on, pick, pick whatever you want.” Luke Carter said, “First place gets priority. Who’s first?”

The athletes who participated in the sports meet: “”

Luke Carter: “Bro Henry, stop sleeping, you got first in push-ups, come pick something?”

“No,” Henry Howard didn’t even look up, muttering, “Whoever wants them can take them.”

Luke Carter asked again, “Ethan Bro?”

Ethan Young said, “Pretend I never participated in the sports meet.”

No wonder they were at the bottom of the grade—making them read and do exercises was worse than death.

In the end, Quinn Shaw picked two classics, Logan Wright picked a physics workbook. The other athletes all looked reluctant, only Xavier Stone watched with envy, reserving in advance: “PE rep, count me in for the next sports meet, any event is fine.”

The class was still noisy when William Warren came in with a stack of test papers under his arm.

“Don’t think just because the semester’s just started you can slack off—count on your fingers, there’s not much time left!” Old Warren put down the papers, then pulled out a piece of chalk from the box. As he spoke, he accurately tossed the chalk at a student in the back row, hitting them on the head. “Midterms are coming up soon. I want to see what kind of results you’ll get.”

Henry Howard didn’t even react to being hit, just twitched his fingers and changed position to keep sleeping.

Ethan Young saw Old Warren handing out test papers and kicked Henry Howard, reminding him, “Test.”

A pop quiz, a beefed-up version of the monthly exam, and a preview of the upcoming midterms.

No moving desks, two periods of exams in a row.

There were still a few minutes before the papers were handed out. William Warren said, “If you need to use the bathroom, go now. Don’t come to me later saying you need to pee—I don’t care, hold it.”

The students dragged themselves to the bathroom, all in low spirits: “Another test? Why are there endless tests?”

Xavier Stone took advantage of these few minutes to cram as many key points into them as possible, nagging Henry Howard awake.

Xavier Stone spoke while adjusting his glasses, very seriously: “Did you remember? This question is guaranteed to be on the test. Just use the formula I just gave you, memorize it, it’s easy points. If we do this, our class average will go up by 0.5 points.”

Henry Howard: “”

Ethan Young: “”

So much for sleeping.

Henry Howard went to the bathroom to wash his face, then came back to get ready for the test. When the papers were handed out, he realized the black pen he’d used to leave a note yesterday was missing.

He searched for a while, then gave up and decided to ask his deskmate for a pen: “Hey, Old Young, do you have a spare pen?”

Ever since he’d discovered that underachievers never brought pens to exams, Ethan Young had wanted to put this into practice to show off his professional skills. Today’s pop quiz was finally his chance, so he replied, “I don’t have one either.”

The two “penniless” deskmates stared at each other for a long time, then Henry Howard patted the shoulder of the student in front: “Hey, buddy, can I borrow two pens?”