Lovely Allergen

Chapter 26: To Be Dependent on Someone Else's Grace

Yue Zhishi had been very eager for winter break, but as a year three student soon to face the high school entrance examinations, his actual holiday was pitifully short at only seventeen days. He spent three days catching up on sleep at the very start of the break, and one fifth of his holiday disappeared. The few days celebrating Lunar New Year also flew by very quickly, and in the blink of an eye, only half of his break remained.

This feeling was almost exactly how it felt to chase after manga chapter updates — new chapters were eagerly, keenly opened, but before you felt like you've read enough, there was no more and you could no longer continue.

Holidays never lasted long enough.

Song Yu went back to school one week earlier than he did, and Yue Zhishi lonesomely worked on his homework by himself. The night before starting school again, he grabbed the homework questions he couldn't do and went to Song Yu's room. Song Yu was in the shower, so Yue Zhishi held his notebook and spun in circles where he stood, the new rug on the floor soft and comfortable underneath his feet. When he sat on it, he no longer felt the cold floor.

He saw Song Yu's schoolbag on the floor, still yet to be packed away, and unintentionally glanced inside to see a few pouches of cat food.

Why was gege bringing cat food to school? To give to friends?

Yue Zhishi was too lazy to think too much about it. Since Song Yu wasn't in the room, he pulled out a raspberry flavoured lollipop from his pyjama pockets and threw it into his bag.

Everyone started to feel the pressure of the upcoming high school entrance examinations after school resumed, and the study atmosphere around the school thickened heavily compared to before. The first round of mock exams arrived after only one week of classes. Yue Zhishi's results weren't too bad: he took first place in English, and his other scores were all in the upper ranges of his class. Even though his grades weren't at the very top, they were always very consistent, and he should have no problems entering Peiya high school's advanced classes. Lin Rong and Song Jin had also never truly required certain results from Song Yu and Yue Zhishi, so the two of them had a healthy mindset and weren't too nervous about their entrance examinations.

Yue Zhishi was someone who was very clear about when to play and when to study. He would always finish his homework during the evening self-study sessions, his efficiency and focus at their very highest while he waited for gege to finish class. As long as he finished all of his work, he would be able to bike home together with Song Yu and might even be able to eat some late night snacks together — it was an unparalleled incentive.

"I'm so jealous. It's not like you don't play around at all, and yet your scores are still so good." Jiang Yufan was completing his flower bed cleaning duties for this week and was holding a broom higher than his head. He didn't pay attention to where he was sweeping, and accidentally swung the broom at Yue Zhishi. "Your brother must've given you some private attention over the winter break."

Yue Zhishi took the broom with a move like one of those martial artists in a television drama before he cleanly confessed, "He didn't, he didn't have time to tutor me."

"What was he so busy doing over the break?"

"Sleeping." Yue Zhishi dropped the broom down and went to rescue the packaging of an instant noodle packet. It'd been blown away by the wind just after being swept over. "He slept for over ten hours every day, and after he woke up, he stayed in his room to watch movies or documentaries. Stuff like Earthflight or Voyage of the Continents."

"How do you know?"

"I watched them with him after I finished my homework." But he'd lost focus more often than not and ended up falling asleep in Song Yu's bed.