Chapter 57 Lack of Concentration

"Experiencing life? Are you playing a primary school teacher in your next drama?" Xiao Yao asked.

"Mhm." Ye Jiaying nodded. "I wouldn't have thought you knew so much, even understanding what experiencing life means." She had spoken completely on impulse just now, originally assuming that a child of Xiao Yao's age wouldn't know anything about such concepts.

"Hehe, I understand a bit," Xiao Yao said with a cheeky grin. "Teacher Ye, as an actress, suddenly running over here to be a teacher, you must find it quite unfamiliar. You were definitely tortured pretty badly by that bunch of kids today, which is why you secretly ran over here to cry and let off some steam, right? If any little brat in your class made you angry, just tell me, and I'll beat him up to vent your anger. But only the boys, mind you; I don't hit girls."

"Pfft." Ye Jiaying was instantly amused by Xiao Yao. "What on earth is going through your head, kid? Would a teacher let you go fight with your classmates? And you want to go fight classmates just to vent the teacher's anger? Is that how a teacher behaves?"

"No fighting, no fighting," Xiao Yao hurriedly said. "Look, Teacher, since your mood is better now, can we just pretend you never saw this phone and let me off the hook?"

"So you were teasing me earlier?" Distracted by Xiao Yao's playful banter, Ye Jiaying felt much better. Her mood, which had been on the verge of collapse after being tormented by a group of children all day, was significantly eased, and she even felt the urge to tease him back.

"No," Xiao Yao quickly protested. "Teacher, whoever you tell me to beat up, I'll beat up. If you tell me not to fight, I won't fight. I'll listen to the teacher in everything."

"Really, everything I say?" Ye Jiaying asked with a smile.

"I swear." Xiao Yao raised his right hand, extended his middle three fingers, and nodded repeatedly.

"Alright then, hand over the phone." Ye Jiaying reached out her hand again.

"Ah?" Xiao Yao, who had just looked resolute, instantly slumped and coaxed, "Teacher, cut me some slack, please."

"The phone!" Ye Jiaying said sternly.

"Oh!" Crestfallen, Xiao Yao placed the phone into Ye Jiaying's palm.

"Let's go. It's getting late, hurry back and go to sleep." Ye Jiaying stood up, took Xiao Yao's small hand, and walked toward the dormitory building.

She escorted Xiao Yao to the door of his dorm room, stood outside watching him obediently get into bed to sleep, and only then gently closed the door to return to her own room.

Lying back in bed, Xiao Yao felt no sleepiness at all, his mind frantically plotting how to get his phone back. For a moment, he considered blackmailing Ye Jiaying again by exposing her identity to ruin her life-experience stunt; the next moment, he contemplated sneaking into her room in the dead of night to steal the phone back. After turning it over and over in his mind, deciding either that it was too despicable or too shameless, he ultimately decided to endure it. Today was Tuesday, only three days away from the weekend; he might as well wait until he went home for the weekend to ask for the phone back. Anyway, they didn't search people when entering the school, so he could just bring it back next week.

Life as a primary school student felt quite novel to Xiao Yao, but the primary school curriculum was thoroughly boring to him. Naturally, it was quite normal for Xiao Yao's mind to wander from time to time during class. When a teacher caught a student spacing out in class, they certainly wouldn't let it slide; the usual approach was to immediately call on them to answer a question. Xiao Yao was quite straightforward about it. The very first thing he would do upon standing up was admit that his mind had just wandered and he hadn't heard the teacher's question. Just as the teacher was about to scold him a bit, he would ignore the uproarious laughter in the classroom and very politely ask the teacher to repeat the question. Once the teacher repeated it, Xiao Yao would immediately and accurately provide the answer. This left the teachers with a belly full of unventability, forcing them to simply offer a cold reprimand to pay closer attention in class.

Within two days, four subject teachers had reported this issue with Xiao Yao to his head teacher, Teacher Jiang. Seeing that four different teachers had come to her with this problem, coupled with the fact that she had experienced it in her own classes as well, Teacher Jiang finally couldn't help but call Xiao Siqi.

***

Three days later, Ye Jiaying had adapted somewhat. Unlike the first two days when she would collapse onto her bed in exhaustion the moment she got the children in her class settled down for the night, today she still had some energy left. Therefore, upon returning to her room, she didn't immediately fall face-first onto the mattress. Remembering Xiao Yao's confiscated phone, she took it out on a whim to check it, only to find that a new text message had arrived at around seven o'clock that evening.

Seeing "Dad" listed as the sender, Ye Jiaying hesitated repeatedly before finally tapping to open the message. To her surprise, she found a rather eccentric text: "Son, your head teacher, Teacher Jiang, called me today saying that your concentration hasn't been very good during classes these past two days, your mind has been wandering frequently, and it's not just her—four or five other teachers have said the same thing. She asked me to talk to you about this when you go home this weekend. Since you have your phone with you, I'm not going to wait until the weekend to ask you directly. If you really find the first-grade curriculum boring, how about Dad figures out a way to have you skip straight to the fourth grade? You skipped directly to the third grade before without any issues, and so much time has passed since then—why not just jump straight to the fourth grade? If you really don't want to stay with those older kids, then do me and the teachers a favor and pay a little attention, alright? Don't make things too difficult for your old man. Reply with a call if you have the chance after reading this, or send a text if you don't. Stay safe, and make sure the teachers don't discover your phone."

Because of character limits, the long text message had been split into two parts, upper and lower. After reading it, Ye Jiaying was speechless for a long time. A child was being criticized by teachers for lacking concentration, yet his father's very first reaction was to have him skip straight to the fourth grade, asking him to "show some respect" and pay attention. Moreover, the phone had even been smuggled in secretly with the parent's permission, and the father had coached him on how to hide it from the teachers—what kind of bizarre parents were these?

Gritting her teeth, Ye Jiaying left her room, walked over to the door of Xiao Yao's dormitory, pushed it open, and called out, "Xiao Yao, come out for a moment." It was not yet nine o'clock, and lights-out time hadn't arrived. Although the children were all in bed, none of them were asleep yet, so she didn't worry about waking the others.

Just then, the door of the neighboring room opened, and Teacher Deng, the life-skills teacher for Class Two, stepped out upon hearing the commotion. Seeing Ye Jiaying standing at the door of her class's boys' dormitory, she asked with some puzzlement, "Teacher Ye, is something wrong?"

"Oh, Teacher Deng. I have a little matter regarding Xiao Yao from your class," Ye Jiaying said with a smile.

At that moment, Xiao Yao, having heard the noise, had already walked out. Ye Jiaying said to him, "Come to my room with me for a minute."

"Wait," Teacher Deng said, looking even more perplexed and suspicious. "You? You're taking a boy from our class to your room?"

"It's like this. Xiao Yao's aunt is a very close friend of mine. Today she discovered that her nephew and I are at the same school, so she called me to ask how he was doing. Coincidentally, there are some family matters she asked me to pass along to him," Ye Jiaying said with a smile.

"So that's how it is. Then I suppose you're practically half a family member to him," Teacher Deng said, her expression clearing as she smiled. "Since you're at the same school, you should indeed look out for him. Go ahead then."

"Alright, thank you, Teacher Deng. Don't worry, I'll personally walk him back shortly and watch him get into bed before I leave. I absolutely won't let him run around." Ye Jiaying hastened to add.

"Rest assured, rest assured," Teacher Deng waved her hand repeatedly with a smile. "Xiao Yao has behaved very well these past few days, very disciplined. He hasn't really given me anything to worry about." Since she considered her a family member of sorts, she naturally only spoke of the good things.

*Disciplined?* Ye Jiaying thought to herself. *The confiscated phone is still sitting in my room; it's just that you haven't noticed he's undisciplined.* However, she had no intention of snitching on Xiao Yao, so she merely nodded and led him back to her room.

True to it being a girl's room, the moment Xiao Yao stepped inside, he caught a whiff of a faint, pleasant fragrance. He didn't dwell on it, however, and instead smiled at Ye Jiaying, who had just closed the door and turned around. "How come I didn't know I had an aunt? As expected of someone who has won Best Actress, your acting is truly superb, and you can just spout nonsense without blinking."

"Then you must mean you want me to tell Teacher Deng the unvarnished truth, including the part about me confiscating your phone? Fine, let's go right now." With that, Ye Jiaying made a motion as if to open the door.

"Don't, I was just joking," Xiao Yao hurriedly grabbed her arm, changing the subject. "I wonder what Teacher Ye called me here for?"

Ye Jiaying took out Xiao Yao's phone and handed it over. "Teacher wants to apologize to you. Your dad sent a text message, and fearing it might be an urgent matter, I read it. I apologize for violating your privacy, and I hope you'll forgive me."

"Then can you guarantee you won't look at it in the future?" Xiao Yao took the phone and looked at her.

"I guarantee it!" Mimicking Xiao Yao from that night at the gazebo, Ye Jiaying raised her right hand and extended her middle three fingers.

"Alright, then I accept your apology and forgive you." Only then did Xiao Yao open the text message inbox to read the message. After reading it, he quickly tapped out a reply and handed the phone back.

Seeing Xiao Yao's thumbs flying rapidly across the virtual keyboard, Ye Jiaying took the phone back and smiled, "You're pretty handy with a phone."

Ignoring the remark, Xiao Yao simply said, "Thanks for letting me read the text, Teacher Ye. Is there anything else?"

"May I ask what you replied to your dad? You aren't actually going to skip straight to the fourth grade, are you? Can you really just skip straight to the fourth grade?" Ye Jiaying couldn't suppress her curiosity.

"I told my old man that I'll pay attention in class from now on and won't go straight to the fourth grade. As for whether I *can* do the latter, that question is declined. If there's nothing else, I'm heading back. Goodbye, Teacher." With that, Xiao Yao directly pulled open the door and slipped away.

"Hey—" Watching Xiao Yao slip away in the blink of an eye, Ye Jiaying swallowed the words stuck in her throat, feeling increasingly curious about this child.

The next day, in the classroom, right before the first class in the morning.

Xiao Yao smiled and said to his deskmate, Cheng Yaojia, "Yaoyao, don't you like singing and dancing? The class committee elections are the week after next; how about I nominate you to be the class's commissioner of arts and literature?"

"Really? Of course that's great. Thank you." Cheng Yaojia said happily.

"You're welcome, we're deskmates after all," Xiao Yao said. "Though as my deskmate, could you also do me a favor?"

"What favor? Tell me," Cheng Yaojia replied loyally.

"It's just that later on, if a teacher calls on me to answer a question in class, could you quietly repeat the teacher's question to me from underneath the desk?" Xiao Yao asked.

"Just repeat the question? You don't need me to tell you the answer?" Cheng Yaojia asked cautiously.

"No answers needed, just tell me what the teacher asked."

"No problem!"