Chapter 42: Distance

Qiao Lan feels that at the age of 15, 16 or 17, both boys and girls are not too bad by nature, so she doesn't feel that the atmosphere of Senior 13 is representative of the whole Annex and others, and is quite excited about her new friends in the new Senior 2.

Once she was in her new environment, Qiao Lan finally got a taste of normal high school life.

Many students who live far away from home have chosen to live on campus in their second year of high school, so the proportion of students living on campus in the class has increased rapidly.

Qiao Lan's new housemates are all very friendly, especially a short-haired girl called Bai Yu who lives in the bunk with Qiao Lan.

The seats in the classroom were chosen by everyone at the beginning of the registration process, and the new class teacher seemed to care too much about this aspect. This class teacher was a problem-speaker and had to fight for a few maths problems even during class meetings.

There are only two top science classes, so the number of students in each class is much larger than in the regular version. Some of the regular classes even have less than fifty students, but both classes 18 and 28 have a full sixty.

The class is split 70/30 between boys and girls, and there are not even 20 girls in the class combined.

Qiao Lan used to be in an arts class, and I only remember that there was only one boy at the table in front of and behind Qiao Lan's table, but now in the science class, Qiao Lan is in front of and behind Qiao Lan, and there are only two girls at the back table, including a girl called Xiang Xiaohan, who lives in the same dormitory with Qiao Lan.

Xiang Xiaohan is quite cheerful and after the seats were set, Xiang Xiaohan took the initiative to introduce herself to Qiao Lan and then spoke to Tan Mo, but unfortunately Tan Mo was too slow to get to know someone and ignored her at first.

The class teacher gave a short speech during the class assembly session, saying that the top class should reflect the word top. In particular, the class teacher believed that the top three classes of the year were all in class 18, so for the first monthly examination after eleven this term, class 18 had to overtake class 28 to take the top spot.

He said with the intention of focusing on his studies and not getting into so much trouble every day.

After hearing this, the class turned their heads to look at Chen Yaoyang and Hao Ying, who were sitting at the end of the class because they were too tall, and because of these two people, things were always happening in the class that should not be happening in the top class of students.

There was always a large group of girls, all from other classes, in front of the classroom at the end of the day.

The class teacher had never encountered such a situation in all her years of substitute teaching, and was close to naming the two by name, especially Hao Ying, who said directly that some students did not get in on merit and should see their place clearly.

In the end, I wanted to scold Chen Yaoyang, but I resisted, because after all, Chen Yaoyang's record is still very good.

Qiao Lan listened to the class teacher while doing the questions.

Although the class is often rowdy, there is a strong learning atmosphere in the class and everyone is studying pretty hard.

The only thing that worries Qiao Lan is that she will lose some of her edge when she is divided into different subjects.

She used to be in the top three in her grade, but now she can't say that she is. After all, she was able to beat Chen Yaoyang by so many points, mostly because she was much better than Chen Yaoyang in History and Political Science.

By the way, there are languages.

Qiao Lan couldn't help but admire Tan Mo whenever he was handed a problem and could always work out the answer within a minute. After the class meeting was over, Tan Mo was able to explain the essence of a problem in just a few sentences, and Qiao Lan was convinced and whispered to Tan Mo, "How can you be so smart?"

Tan Mo stopped writing, turned his head to look at Qiao Lan ninja style, and said thoughtfully, "You're smart too."

Qiao Lan laughed abruptly, "I wouldn't dare say smart in front of you, I'm still a bit self-conscious"

Before the words were out of her mouth, the light around her dimmed and Qiao Lan turned her head to see Hao Ying sitting in the empty seat to her right.

Hao Ying did not care about telling people that she had paid to enter the class, but after being scolded by the class teacher in front of so many people, even if she did not care, she became concerned.

Hao Ying was recently stimulated by the class teacher's words and started to study seriously every day.

Qiao Lan was quite patient at first, but after Hao Ying came more often, she wanted to resist, but when she turned her head to Hao Ying's bright smile and serious attitude, Qiao Lan was silent and could only say something else politely, "Actually, you can ask your tablemate, he is also very good at maths.

Qiao Lan remembered the name of Hao Ying's classmate, who was the top student in Class 5 and was definitely in the top 10 in every exam.

"I asked him," Hao Ying said with a serious look on his face, "I came to ask you because he didn't know how to do it, and I couldn't do it halfway."

Qiao Lan stared at the question for a moment, took the book that Hao Ying handed her and went on to talk about the steps that Hao Ying had done.

Qiao Lan's real age is twenty, not two, and she knows how powerful her face is now. Hao Ying has been here too often for Qiao Lan not to have guessed.

But Hao Ying hadn't said anything outright, and since Hao Ying's questions were really serious, Qiao Lan couldn't say anything directly.

While giving Hao Ying a lecture, Qiao Lan suddenly had a thought: she had been talking to Tan Mo more often than Hao Ying every day.

When Hao Ying finished her question, Xiang Xiaohan, who was sitting behind Qiao Lan and Tan Mo, smiled and asked Hao Ying, "You knew each other before."

Hao Ying's handsome face smiled even wider, "I know him, I've known him since the first semester of my first year of high school", he came here to ask Qiao Lan a question, 70% of his mind was actually on Qiao Lan rather than the question. Now that Xiang Xiaohan had asked him about it, he was in a good mood to talk about it.

"Guess how I met her."

"How do you know each other," said the girls of Class 18, who were more keen on their studies, but everyone liked to speak to handsome men too.

"I sat behind Qiao Lan in the first semester midterm exams of my senior year," said Hao Ying, who paused for a moment, "Oh crap forget about it, it's a bit embarrassing."

"Xiang Xiaohan laughed, and Qiao Lan frowned as he sat in his seat, wanting to say something but holding his tongue.

Qiao Lan refocused on his previous physics book and turned his head to call out to Tan Mo.

Tan Mo turned his head to look at her, and for a moment Qiao Lan met those beautiful light brown eyes, but there was something different about them, not the emotionless indifference, not the ease with which he looked at her, but the irritability Qiao Lan hadn't seen in a long time.

The last time I was in this state was a long time ago when I didn't allow Tan Mo to come to the Western restaurant.

Qiao Lan was taken aback by Tan Mo and subconsciously grabbed him by the arm, "What's wrong with you?"

Tan Mo stared at her steadily for a good two or three seconds before suddenly waking up as if he had.

The class is very good for Qiao Lan, there are no unfriendly classmates from senior year, even Tan Mo can see that the class is very welcoming to Qiao Lan, especially the boys.

Qiao Lan's seat is no longer surrounded by Pei Ning, who was the only one who came to ask questions in the first year of high school, but now there are always people who deliberately gather here at the end of class time.

Tan Mo is not stupid, and although he is slow to feel emotion, he can see that Qiao Lan was once unpopular and even ostracised in Class XIII.

When two people are in the same situation, there is a subtle sense of closeness, they are equally unpopular and have no other friends, so there seems to be an illusion that no one else can interfere between them, so even though Pei Ning comes to Qiao Lan every day, Tan Mo never really hates Pei Ning.

But now, everything is different.

Day by day Tan Mo realises that the space between him and Qiao Lan is slowly being interjected with all sorts of names.

There are both men and women.

But what annoys Tan Mo most is that he was the one who pushed for this to happen in advance.

He had been upset that others couldn't see how good she was, so he spent over a year personally putting Qiao Lan in front of everyone, and he wanted those who didn't know how good she was to see how good Qiao Lan was.

Now, as he had hoped, everyone had seen it.

What he forgot was that everyone aspires to be good, and some people find Qiao Lan good and choose to be close, just like him.

Tan Mo looked down at Qiao Lan's hand gripping his sleeve and reached out, only to pull it back with a sudden thought.

In that moment just now, he actually wanted to reach out and hold this hand.

He couldn't figure out why the urge had suddenly arisen or why he hadn't done so, he just knew that a voice in the back of his mind was telling him it wasn't okay.

Tan Mo recognised Hao Ying from the next day.

The sunny and healthy guy who used to walk around Qiao Lan talking and laughing has been around Qiao Lan lately.

He controlled himself from thinking about Hao Ying and what she had just said, and returned his eyes to Qiao Lan's face, tugging at the corners of his lips, "It's okay."

Since Qiao Lan taught him how to smile, he has repeated the expression in front of the mirror so many times to make Qiao Lan happy that he has become so adept at it that he can do it by lifting the corner of his lips, and it has even become a subconscious reaction.

Qiao Lan saw him smile, but still gave Tan Mo's arm another uneasy squeeze, most likely to relax him.

She had lived with Tan Mo for almost two months, two months in the same space, and there was inevitably a lot of intimacy that she didn't even realise was there, she had even massaged Tan Mo's legs, so she didn't feel anything like that.

Hao Ying, who was talking at the side, saw Tan Mo's cold face smiling at Qiao Lan, and the way Qiao Lan's right hand landed on Tan Mo's body, and her speech stalled for a moment before she looked away and resumed her conversation.