Chapter 24: Illusion

He could go to the homeroom teacher, who had approached him last time, and if he asked, he could sit with Qiao Lan immediately.

But Tan Mo doesn't want to do that.

From the world to the classroom, Tan Mo has his own rules, and even something as small as changing seats has its own rules and its own way. Qiao Lan had asked him last time why he didn't take the test if he knew how to do it, but he had thought that whether he knew how to do it had nothing to do with whether he took the test or not, but now Tan Mo had found the relationship.

Qiao Lan has switched to a different position, and is somewhat less happy about it.

Chen Yaoyang sat on her left again, farther away from Tan Mo.

Last week, Qiao Lan clearly felt that Tan Mo's speech had improved because of the close proximity of her seat, and then a week later she switched seats and could no longer talk to Tan Mo whenever she turned her head.

She glanced back at the girl sitting in front of Tan Mo, pulling the table stool forward, deliberately leaving Tan Mo with a large space.

Qiao Lan stares at the girl for a long time, and finally moves away.

Some of Tan Mo's actions are often difficult for Qiao Lan to understand at the present time, and sometimes even misinterpreted, but after some time passes, Qiao Lan will be able to figure out Tan Mo's meaning.

For example, Tan Mo ignored her last time because of a comment about drinking water, or Tan Mo talked to her in the western restaurant, but suddenly became mute when she came to school.

Tan Mo's thinking is different from normal people, so sometimes it's slightly difficult to understand him, but there is one thing that will make it easier, and that is, no matter what Tan Mo is thinking, he will never have any evil thoughts, which means that the starting point of anything he does will not be harmful to her, and it's even in fact for her own good.

Just thinking about it, Qiao Lan is a little bit angry and sad, so people think Tan Mo is scary, but in fact, he is more simple and clean than anyone else.

Following this line of thought, Qiao Lan finally understood why Tan Mo did not talk to her in class, or why he did not talk to her in front of the other students.

He was worried that people here would alienate her or vilify her for being close to him.

Qiao Lan's eyes were a little sore again.

She really wasn't a sentimental person, the number of times she'd cried in her last life could be counted on two fingers, she'd grown like a weed for twenty years, and now at the sight of this teenager, the softest spot of her heart was touched over and over again.

There was this one person in the world who was so kind that she felt her heart ache.

Pei Ning was talking to her about a problem, and when he was talking, he suddenly realized that Qiao Lan had lost her voice, and when he looked at her, he realized that Qiao Lan was staring blankly.

"Ugh, what are you thinking about", Pei Ning grabbed Qiao Lan's arm, "I'm not too good at this question either, so wait for me to look at it again..."

Qiao Lan couldn't help but turn her head to glance at Tan Mo's position again, only to meet Tan Mo's eyes, his beautiful light-colored eyes staring at her silently for half a second before lowering his head again.

Qiao Lan felt that she was probably hallucinating in her eyes, and at the moment Tan Mo lowered her head, it was as if she sensed the sadness in Tan Mo's eyes, mixed with a kind of indifference of being abandoned by the world.

Qiao Lan's fingers trembled, and she suddenly shook off Pei Ning's hand, which was still gripping her arm, Pei Ning was surprised and asked her what was wrong, Qiao Lan froze.

She didn't know what was wrong.

She just had the illusion that Tan Mo didn't seem to like Pei Ning being so close to her.

"It's okay," Qiao Lan whispered, dropping her eyelashes, "or won't it."

"Too difficult will not, how to do, a moment to hand in", physical chemistry and Chen Yaoyang can have a fight with Pei Ning also can not do the questions, Qiao Lan himself even more hopeless, she looked down at the questions on the paper, half a long time later stood up, took the paper to Tan Mo's position to go.

It was the end of class, and the students in front of Tan Mo were not in their seats. Qiao Lan walked over and sat in the seat in front of Tan Mo, pulling the chair that was originally far away from Tan Mo to a place very close to Tan Mo, not caring about the gazes that were falling on her all over the class.

Tan Mo saw Qiao Lan coming this way, his hand clenched uncontrollably as he watched Qiao Lan sit in the front seat again.

Why did she come over, she wasn't talking to Pei Ning, Pei Ning's hand was even on her arm.

Tan Mo couldn't control the inexplicable and unsettling emotions that welled up inside him.

He saw Qiao Lan talking to Pei Ning, and he felt that he might not be any different to Qiao Lan than Pei Ning, no, there is still a difference, he is no better than Pei Ning, because he is so painful after leaving Qiao Lan, but Qiao Lan is still talking and smiling to the others.

Even though he had already thought of taking Pei Ning's place, every minute and every second was hard for him.

It was like the candle flame that had intruded in the darkness, and was moving away from him little by little, and he was not sure, as he chased after it, that it would ever light up for him again.

For normal people, there is sometimes a lack of security, but for Tan Mo, there is no security at all.

But now that Qiao Lan is here again, Tan Mo's irritation and restlessness, which he couldn't suppress just now, seems to have found an outlet in an instant. He stares at the letters in the book for a long time, and then he can't hold back from looking at Qiao Lan and asking her what she's doing here.

Qiao Lan puts the paper on the table and drops it another way, right in front of Tan Mo, "Looking for your problem ah, how come I can't do this question, Tan Mo, you must know it."

Tan Mo's icy gaze moved away from Qiao Lan's face and settled on the back of Pei Ning's head, "You can ask him."

Qiao Lan looked along Tan Mo's line of sight and turned back, "It's too hard, Pei Ning, he doesn't know how."

So he asked Pei Ning first, and Pei Ning didn't know how to ask him?

Tan Mo lowered his head, looking at the overly simple question in front of him and looked back to the book in front of him, "I don't know how to do that either."

He sure does.

Qiao Lan checked, Tan Mo read that book a few days ago, even college students find it very difficult to understand that book how can not understand a physics problem in the first year of high school.

He won't.

That cold and sad look in his eyes just now wasn't really an illusion at all.

"Well, you won't either, so forget it."

Tan Mo's body stiffened again at the sound of those words.

That's it... Forget it? Going away again soon?

Qiao Lan retrieved the roll without walking away, plopping back down on the back of her chair, her voice brisk, "The questions were incidental anyway."

Tan Mo froze, her eyelashes fluttering, incidentally?

Qiao Lan's smiling eyes curved, "The main thing is to look for you to talk, and you don't take the initiative to look for me, so it can only be me who comes to look for you, and then ask how to do this question by the way."

The candle flame, which had gradually moved away from the darkness, returned.

Tan Mo looked at the smile on the girl's face, his fingers trembled lightly, and after a long time he spoke, "Give it to me."

"What?" Qiao Lan didn't react for a moment.

"Roll."

Qiao Lan froze, then smiled, "Help me out, just this one, it's so hard."

Tan Mo picks up the pen, and less than ten seconds later, the tip lands on the roll and quickly writes out a string of words.

This was the first time Qiao Lan had seen Tan Mo write, and with his quick, clear and beautiful handwriting, and his almost non-thinking yet decisive and confident demeanor, Qiao Lan suddenly felt that the young man in front of him was glowing with light.

Qiao Lan looked at the slender, pale hand holding the pen and sighed, "Tan Mo, you have nice fingers."

Tan Mo's fingers twitched.

There's something to be said for sickly white hands.

Last word written.

Tan Mo re-passes the paper to Qiao Lan, "It's almost time for class."

Qiao Lan chuckles softly, "In a minute," and takes the roll and stands up, putting the chair back down to resume her seat.

Many of the students in the class who stared at her looked at each other and finally shook their heads.

"You've changed seats and you're going over there specifically?"

"What the hell are they talking about?"

"Am I reading this right, Tan Mo writing?"

"Maybe it's just Qiao Lan teasing him, if he could write, then I'd be at the top of my grade."

Pei Ning, who had been drilling and studying, didn't notice what happened, but only knew that Qiao Lan had left her seat for a while, and when she came back, she had actually done the problem she hadn't been able to do.

"Made it?"

Pei Ning took a look at it and realized that his answer was different from Qiao Lan's. He did it too.

"Doing it wrong," says Pei Ning, "I think so."

Qiao Lan refuses to be corrected, "I think I'm right."

After holding their own opinions, neither of them corrected the paper, after handing it in, the physics class handed it out again, Pei Ning looked at his own 0 points, and then look at Qiao Lan's 12 points, dumbfounded.

Tugging over Qiao Lan's paper, he looked at it for a long time and realized something was wrong, "No... This isn't your writing, you asked someone."

"Yeah."

"Ask who."

Qiao Lan looked back with a smile, "A genius."

Pei Ning: "......"

Another week passes, and when she comes to school again, Qiao Lan is even farther away from Tan Mo.

The homeroom teacher warned the students at the back of the rankings during class, "As the teacher has said, seating according to the rankings is not completely according to the rankings, so students at the back of the rankings don't need to be discouraged, as long as you have made progress, and as long as you can let the teacher see your progress, you can still become a classmate with better grades. So, the opportunity is reserved for those who are prepared again, do you all understand!"

"I hear you..."

At the end of class, Li Fan and a few others gathered in front of Chen Yaoyang's desk and joked, "Yaoyang, go out and move around?"

Chen Yaoyang was working on a problem, "I don't have time at the moment."

"Crap, what's wrong with you," a few people were shocked and thought of something like glancing over to Qiao Lan, "Getting ready to snatch the first one back."

Chen Yaoyang didn't bother.

"You didn't even study much before, history and politics didn't memorize much at all, a little bit of memorization before the exam this time, definitely number one again, why worry so much."

"Just in case."

The crowd of schoolchildren were silent, probably not quite understanding the healthy competition between the schoolchildren.

Li Fan thought about it, looked back at the Qiao Lan sitting behind him and whispered, "In fact, don't underestimate Qiao Lan, her last physics and chemistry combined was seven points lower than Yao Yang, and she's so hardworking, in addition to teasing Tan Mo to play with the class almost all in the book, and she is really strong in the literature."

Language, history and politics, these three subjects generally can not pull too big a gap, but last time Qiao Lan these three subjects than Chen Yaoyang higher than nearly thirty points, than the arts very strong Song Yao are higher than a dozen points, which is very scary.

Chen Yaoyang has such a strong sense of self-esteem that he doesn't want to be pressed by Qiao Lan anymore, so it's understandable.

A few of the scum sighed, they weren't encouraged at all by the fact that their brother was such a bully.

"Ever since Qiao Lan came in first last time, our class is like a chicken blood."

Who says it isn't? Even Chen Yaoyang is getting real.

"I suddenly feel a bit ashamed, you know what I saw this morning, damn I saw Tan Mo actually reading a history textbook", Qin Yang's voice is loud, although not shouting at the top of her voice, but Qiao Lan's seat was close to Chen Yaoyang, and when she heard Tan Mo's name, she stopped writing. When she heard Tan Mo's name, she stopped writing.

Qin Yang laughs, "Stupid people know how to study, really, I really think we should read too, fuck who hit me."

Qiao Lan expressionlessly squeezed past Qin Yang's back, "Get out of the way."

Qin Yang: "......"

He was 5'9" and stood in a walkway less than a meter wide, which really blocked the way.

Li Fan pulled Qin Yang back and watched Qiao Lan walk away before whispering, "Why do I think she did it on purpose?"

Qin Yang's eyes light up, "Hit me on purpose?"

Li Fan knew Qin Yang was fucking up again when he saw her like this, "You just said Tan Mo, Qiao Lan is not happy, right?"

"I said, what does Tan Mo have to do with her?"

"Who knows, Qiao Lan protects Tan Mo like a child," Li Fan shook his head, "Didn't he have a fight with Tang Qin over Tan Mo earlier?"

"Go outside if you're talking crap and don't bother me with the questions", Chen Yaoyang frowned and told a few people to get lost, dropping his pen when Qin Yang had a few people cleaned out.

Grass.

Suddenly I don't want to do it.

*

Qiao Lan went through her notes and spent the rest of the day adding whatever she could think of that she hadn't written down in her book.

She did hit Qin Yang on purpose, but by the time she was done, her heart was beating a little faster.

Qin Yang talks tough, but she's not lying.

He said Tan Mo was reading a history book.

Tan Mo also read history books before, Qiao Lan once saw clearly, that is a world history lecture notes, very thick, very professional, according to the reasoning of Tan Mo has read that kind of book, will never read the textbook.

There's so little content compared to the books he reads.

But Tan Mo is actually watching.

People with AS disorders hate change, they like to repeat their day to day life according to their own plan, so whenever a little difference appears, it must mean something else.

It was because of this that Qiao Lan suddenly guessed what was going on, she found it hard to believe but couldn't help but be happy.

What if it's true.

What if Tan Mo is really determined to make a change.

Tan Mo did not tell her or talk to her about it, so Qiao Lan could not ask Tan Mo.

You can't ask, but you can do something else.

Tan Mo is very smart, so for math and physics, Qiao Lan thought of the physics problem that Tan Mo did in a few seconds that day, and felt that her worries were completely unnecessary.

But historical politics is not quite the same.

Knowing more than you know doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a high score on the test.

Some of the answers are dead on and not in the book.

The next day, Tan Mo arrives at school only to find two more notebooks in his desk hole.

On the cover are two big words, Qiao Lan.

Tan Mo, with a vague tremor at the tip of her heart, took out her notes and opened them gently.

The fine and dense knowledge points, very complete, and in order to distinguish clearly, also used different pens to mark out, afraid that he could not see the same.

One history, one politics.

In fact, since he had made the plan, he had already asked Uncle Chen to make many copies, and Uncle Chen was very quick and brought back more complete and richer knowledge, but looking at the book in his hand, Tan Mo still didn't want to give it back.

After going through them all, he asked Uncle Chen to make a copy and returned it to Qiao Lan the next day.

Qiao Lan looked at the book in her hand, so she's finished?

Maybe she was wrong and Tan Mo didn't even want to take the test?

There were still ten days to go before the second monthly exam, and as usual, the teachers were going to start preparing to put out the papers, but when class started, the homeroom teacher told everyone the not-so-good news.

"What about this time, we bought the monthly exam papers of XX First Middle School in S. XX First Middle School, everyone knows it, right?"

As soon as he heard that, the class had begun to wail.

There isn't a student these days who hasn't heard of XX1.

The top school in the big province of college entrance examination, every year the province Tsinghua northern admitted students, XX a middle school can account for half.

This time when they bought the papers of this school, all of them understood one fact at the first moment.

That is, this monthly exam is going to be very, very hard.

The class began to wail, but there were also students who were in a relatively good mood, such as Pei Ning and Chen Yaoyang.

Papers are difficult, then the gap is wider, especially in subjects like Maths Physics English which are very easy to pull off, and are advantageous for students who are at the top of their game.

Especially attached to the middle school there is a very sick operation that is 150 points for each course.

Take someone's 100-point paper and change the score for each question to 150, so that each question is better, and that spread will be bigger with it.

Qiao Lan is a bit flustered.

Still panicking about physics, of course.

She's not bad at physics, and she's in the top five in her class, but she's not as talented as Chen Yaoyang or Pei Ning.

Qiao Lan doesn't want to lose to anyone but Chen Yaoyang.

Over the next ten days or so, Qiao Lan became more and more desperate, and learned to take advantage of the fact that it was actually possible to spare a little time for physics in English class, for example.

Pei Ning, whose poor English grades often dragged her behind, was about to cry when she saw Qiao Lan reading physics in her English class.

Why is life so unfair? He's so serious, but he still can't keep up with English.

Qiao Lan thought for a moment, "It can't be helped, your English is poor."

Pei Ning: ......

Forget about chatting.

Qiao Lan smiled, said nothing more, and resumed reading properly.

In the evening, when we returned to Qiao's family, Qiao's mother couldn't figure out what Qiao Lan had been doing all day, coming back after twelve o'clock every night.

"What the hell have you been doing all day, or I'll go to school and ask your teacher."

Qiao Lan frowned, "Part-time job."

A part-time job?

Qiao's mother froze, "Working for what."

Just in case, Qiao Lan murmured in her mind, glancing at Qiao's mother with a wry smile, "Didn't you and Second Sister want me to go out and meet someone."

"In that case, go straight to it, what's the point of studying," Qiao's mother exclaimed, and then stopped.

It's hard to have a good student in the family, because Qiao Lan was the first in her grade, Qiao's mother finally gained some face in front of Mrs. Qiao and Aunt Qiao, but it's a pity to let Qiao Lan stop studying.

It's nothing to brag about when you don't study anymore.

When she thought of this, Qiao's mother was a bit angry that her son was not good at studying, and that it would have been better if he had gotten good grades.

"No, it's better to read the book first", anyway, Qiao Er Sister's side said that she would show Qiao Lan a date, but she hasn't looked at it yet.

Qiao Lan looked at Qiao's mother with a smile, "Got it."

With a full schedule every day, time just seems to go by so fast, so fast that it doesn't feel like enough.

The second monthly exam was scheduled for Thursday and Friday of this week, and after taking the entire exam in two days, the teachers worked overtime to correct the papers over the weekend, so you could find out the results as soon as you came to school on Monday.

It was really tense and exciting.

On Wednesday, each class was given a list of exams, taped to the door, and then the desks were all pulled apart, and then exam numbers were taped to the corners of the desks, and each student was given a very crudely made "pass."

It's actually a note.

Students huddled together to see if there is anyone and who is in the same exam room, talking and laughing this before dispersing.

During the exam, there is no need to study in the morning and run morning exercises, the exam starts at eight o'clock on time, before eight o'clock on time to the examination room on the line.

Although there was no need to run for breakfast, most of the students arrived at the classroom early. Qiao Lan came a little later and entered the classroom at 7:30am, many students recognized her and some whispered to her that she was Qiao Lan.

Qiao Lan puts the book on her desk, then goes out of the classroom and down the stairs.

She stood in the morning light and looked into the distance. When a fellow classmate asked her what she was doing, Qiao Lan said, "Waiting for someone."

Waiting for someone?

Waiting for who?

I was about to ask, but then I saw Qiao Lan suddenly smile and go down the stairs towards the outside.

The classmate turned around and for a moment thought he might be hallucinating.

Why else would I see Tan Mo on exam day?

But when I looked again, I was not wrong, the person sitting on the wheelchair was indeed Tan Mo, and Qiao Lan, who had just said that she was waiting for someone, was also walking over there.

Smiling eyes curved in a soft voice, "Coming."