Doing It Over Again [Rebirth]

5: Trying your luck 2.0

"Well, a lot of people in the ordinary class do well." Shen Shao didn't think it was a good idea to sort students into classes based on grades, but that was the way things were done these days and it wasn't up to him. It was normal for a general class and experimental class to quarrel. Naturally, nobody wanted to admit to being worse than someone else.

"The thing that matters most is your own grades, not anyone else's." After Yang HongQiang began sharing a desk with Shen Shao, his admiration grew like a surging river. Good grades, good looks, good in sports even, liked by teachers as well as students. How many people in their class could say that?

What Yang HongQiang didn't know was that in ten or twenty years, such people would be called "male gods" or "winners in life".

"Instead of thinking so much about those things, think about how to raise your grade on the midterm." Shen Shao took his math book out of the drawer. "Next class is math. Be careful, Mr. Yang might ask you to get up and do a problem."

Yang HongQiang suddenly shrank down. He looked at the neatly written notes in Shen Shao's math book, then at the pages in his own book where he hadn't written a single word. He suddenly felt it wasn't unreasonable for Shen Shao to be first in the class. At least he worked hard.

At first Shen Shao's daily school life was calm and uneventful. No one knew who began spreading the rumors that Shen Shao was an orphan without a father or mother, his family was miserably poor, and so on.

Shen Shao was well-known, the top student in the entire grade, and the gossip soon spread to everyone. Eventually there were all kinds of versions of the story.

When the students in Class 1 heard the rumors, some of them didn't believe it, but others went around secretly repeating everything. A lot of students from their class came from well-off families. In normal times they never came into contact with anyone from such bad circumstances. They saw Shen Shao every day and mostly just thought he was good at tutoring his classmates.

However, by the time the midterm exams were over, a lot of students had begun to stammer nervously in front of Shen Shao, and fewer went up to ask him for help. Shen Shao heard about the rumors too, but he didn't care. Anyway, that kind of talk couldn't affect him much.

On the Friday afternoon before the holiday break, Yang HongQiang, who'd been holding back for several days, finally couldn't stop himself. "Shen Shao, is it true what those kids are saying about you?"

The moment he said this, the students in front and behind them immediately turned to stare at Shen Shao. Obviously, there was a lot of interest in this question.

"You mean the rumor that my mom committed suicide and my dad ran away with another woman?" Because of the holiday, Shen Shao was packing up a few textbooks and preparing to go home to study. When he heard Yang HongQiang ask this question, he paused, then ducked his head and said in a low voice, "What they said is true. Right now I live on the money my mom left me to study. I live in a rented house. If you look down on me and don't want to be friends with me anymore, I understand."

"How, how could I look down on you?" Yang HongQiang stammered and quickly explained, "That's not what I meant. I just... I just care about you, really!"

"Yeah, please don't be sad, okay? That's not what we meant." The girl in the front seat, Yang XiaoXia, was the daughter of a business owner. Although her grades weren't very good, she was able to enter the experimental class after her parents pulled some strings. "We just didn't know what to believe, that's all."

Shen Shao intended to take advantage of these children's sympathy, but it was best to take a light approach instead of making a solemn announcement or telling people how pitiful he was. "That's good. I was just worried that after everyone knew, you wouldn't want to be friends with me anymore."