After being reborn, I gained a childhood sweetheart who appeared out of nowhere.

The two arrived at the bus stop at the school gate, and just as they arrived, a bus was about to pull into the station, so they boarded it.

Because they were in a rush to leave the school, there weren't many people on the bus, and there were plenty of empty seats. Lin Chuan and Chen Xiyu found a seat and sat down.

As soon as she sat down, Chen Xiyu took out her phone and started playing with it, swiping her fingers as if she was reading a novel. Lin Chuan turned his head, glanced at it, and exclaimed, "Oh wow, those familiar sentences, those familiar scenes and plots, isn't this the novel I wrote?"

"What, you want to see it too?" Chen Xiyu turned to look at him.

"No," Lin Chuan said.

"By the way, if you won't tell me the title of your book, could you tell me what kind of story you wrote?" Chen Xiyu asked, looking at him.

Lin Chuan thought for a moment, "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river, a story of a poor boy."

"Are you sure?" Chen Xiyu squinted.

"Sure."

Chen Xiyu smiled, as if she believed him, "Then when can you tell me the title of your book?"

"Wait until the chicken finishes pecking at the rice..."

"So you just don't want to tell me?"

"No, it's just that it's not a very good book, so I won't waste Miss Chen's time on it," Lin Chuan said.

"A novel is all about whether you like it or not. Grades aren't the only factor. Some books don't do well on the grades, but that doesn't mean they're poorly written," Chen Xiyu said confidently, leaving Lin Chuan, the author, speechless.

Just then, the bus announced that it had arrived at its stop. Lin Chuan, not wanting to continue the conversation, immediately stood up. "We've finally arrived. Let's get off. Let's get off."

The bus stopped at the roadside with the bus stop sign. The two got off together and walked towards their home. When they reached the bottom of the apartment building, Lin Chuan stopped and showed no intention of going upstairs.

"Aren't you going back?" Chen Xiyu took two steps before stopping and turning back to look at him.

"You can go upstairs yourself, I won't go up," Lin Chuan said.

"Where are you going so late?" Chen Xiyu asked.

"I have something to take care of and need to go out," Lin Chuan said.

Chen Xiyu was taken aback, and then she understood why Lin Chuan was in such a hurry to take her to the bus.

"You're going out now, so you won't be back until very late. Did you tell Aunt Wang?" she asked.

"I'm not going to say anything more. My parents are probably asleep by now," Lin Chuan said. "I can't exactly wake them up and tell them I'll be home later."

"Go upstairs, I'm leaving, bye-bye." Without waiting for Chen Xiyu to say anything more, Lin Chuan waved and turned to leave. His figure in school uniform quickly disappeared at the end of the street.

Lin Chuan walked out of the street in his residential area, then turned into a small alley. Following his memory from more than ten years ago, he walked around the alley for a while before finally stopping in front of a two-story building.

It was a somewhat old residential building, with much of the white paint on the exterior walls peeling off, revealing the original cement walls.

The main gate in front of the building was tightly closed, but there was a small door on the side that was open. Looking inside, it was extremely dark, and Lin Chuan walked straight in.

The further you walk inside, the darker it gets. Then there's a staircase leading up. Before you even reach the end, you can hear shouts and the sound of keyboards clicking.

He went up to the second floor and then lifted the curtain of the inner room. The room contained more than a dozen old computers, dilapidated chairs, and several greasy-looking men. The small space was filled with a faint smoke, and the pungent smell of smoke mixed with the smell of mildew.

This is a legitimate "illegal internet cafe," smaller and more run-down than the one Wang Xu went to before, with only a dozen or so computers. The person guarding the computer that was turned on was a boy who looked even younger than him.

The environment was incredibly dirty and chaotic, but internet access was very cheap, only one yuan per hour. He had come here quite a few times when he was in junior high school.

Lin Chuan found a corner, turned on his computer, sat down, logged into his QQ account, and opened his backup online document, which contained his novel's drafts.

I opened the novel website, logged into my author account, posted the content I would be updating today, and then started writing.

As for why he ended up writing in an internet cafe, it all started a few days ago. It was a dark and stormy night, and although it was past midnight, he was still writing because of a burst of inspiration. As he was typing, the computer screen in front of him suddenly went black.

Lin Chuan's first thought was that the power was out? Then he turned to look at the socket next to him and found that the light was still on. He then realized that the computer must be broken.

The next day, he asked around and found out that repairing the computer would cost at least three to five hundred yuan.

It wasn't a lot of money, but Lin Chuan was short of cash and didn't want to ask his family for money, so he planned to wait until the beginning of next month, which would be about two weeks, and then take his computer to get repaired after he received his royalties.

Before this, he could only write in internet cafes, so he only updated once a day a few days ago. This only cost him one or two yuan for internet access each day, which didn't cost much. It just took some time to travel back and forth.

However, the fact that I come to an internet cafe to write is truly "dedicated".

Lin Chuan typed away at the internet cafe until 12:30 a.m., while many young people or students with dyed yellow hair were still playing games around him. He then logged off and went home.

After arriving home, Lin Chuan unlocked the door with his key. He didn't go in immediately to look around and found that no one was in the living room. Everyone was asleep at this hour. He went back to his room, got a new set of clothes, and went into the bathroom to take a shower and change into clean clothes.

He instantly felt refreshed. After all, those shady internet cafes smelled terrible, and every time he came out, he was covered in the smell of smoke, so strong that he couldn't shake it off. He didn't want his parents to see him like that.

So the whole process was done very quietly, like when I was in junior high school sneaking out for an all-nighter and afraid of getting caught.

After washing up, Lin Chuan returned to his room. Just as he sat down on the bed, his phone rang.

I picked it up and saw it was a message from Chen Xiyu. This guy was still awake; it was almost one o'clock.

"Are you still outside?" Chen Xiyu asked.

"I'm back," Lin Chuan replied.

"Really?" Chen Xiyu asked.

"real!"

Chen Xiyu lay on the bed, holding her iPad in both hands. After thinking for a moment, she lifted the blanket and put on her slippers. She still wanted to go and check.

Just then, her iPad vibrated again; Lin Chuan had sent her a photo.

In one of the blurry photos, Lin Chuan is making a scissor gesture towards the camera. The background is his room, and he looks like he just took a shower. His hair is still wet and hanging in front of his eyes. Under the light, his features look handsome and refined.

After saving the photo, Chen Xiyu turned on the iPad's camera. A delicate, fair face appeared in the screen. She imitated Lin Chuan, making a peace sign, and clicked the shutter button in the middle.

With a click, a photo resembling a headshot was saved, and she sent it directly to Lin Chuan.

After a while, Lin Chuan sent a question mark emoji.

Chen Xiyu replied with a grinning emoji, then put the iPad aside, lay down on the bed, and went to sleep.

…………

On Friday morning, after the last PE class, Lin Chuan and Wang Xu carried the equipment to the textbook room. This was supposed to be the PE committee member's job, but he was absent today, so only he could do it.

On his way to the textbook room, he ran into Cheng Xue, who was waiting for him.

Seeing this, Wang Xu said, "Um...should I avoid this?"

"Stop dodging me!" Lin Chuan said, then looked at Cheng Xue and asked, "What's up?"

"You need to memorize the lesson that Teacher Xue taught yesterday before you leave school this afternoon," Cheng Xue paused, as if afraid that Lin Chuan would misunderstand something, and continued, "because you forgot it after school on Wednesday, so I came to remind you."

"So it's on your back after school?" Lin Chuan asked.

"Yes." Cheng Xue nodded.

"Um, I want to go home earlier..." Lin Chuan sighed. He usually goes home on time on Fridays, not because he's in a rush, but because if he's delayed at school, his parents will be waiting for him to have dinner when he gets home.

He also wants to finish his meal early today because he's going to the internet cafe.

Cheng Xue was silent for a moment, then said, "If you don't want to memorize this afternoon, you can memorize it later. Just finish memorizing it."

"Aren't you going back to your dorm for a nap later?" Lin Chuan asked.

"No need today," Cheng Xue said.

"Is the class representative that good?" Wang Xu couldn't help but say. In his opinion, it seemed as if Cheng Xue had sacrificed her lunch break to "accommodate" Lin Chuan. However, having learned from the previous experience, he didn't continue to chatter.

"I wasn't being nice to anyone. This was an assignment given by the teacher," Cheng Xue said, glancing at Lin Chuan one last time. "I don't want to be late for my trip back this afternoon."

"Okay, the responsible class representative is really touching," Lin Chuan said. "How about we meet in the classroom in half an hour?"

"Okay." Cheng Xue said and left without looking back.

Lin Chuan and Wang Xu put the basketball back in the equipment room and went to the cafeteria.

"I really feel that Cheng Xue treats you differently," Wang Xu said. "She seems cold to you, but she's actually quite nice to you. She's even willing to sacrifice her lunch break for you."

Lin Chuan chuckled, smiling but saying nothing.

When Lin Chuan arrived at the cafeteria entrance, he could see Chen Xiyu, Zhao Jiajia, Zhou Yun, and a few others already waiting there.

"You guys are so slow!" Chen Xiyu waved to Lin Chuan.

"I need to get some work done," Lin Chuan said as he walked over.

They walked together to the cafeteria, but they felt that there were as many eyes on them as ever... After finishing their meal, the girls went back to their dorm, while Lin Chuan and Wang Xu went back to the classroom together.

Lin Chuan entered the classroom and immediately saw Cheng Xue writing on her test paper. Hearing footsteps, she looked up and, seeing Lin Chuan walk past her desk, asked, "When are you starting to memorize?"

"Ten minutes?" Lin Chuan said, explaining that this had been the routine for memorizing texts for the past few days.

"Okay." Cheng Xue lowered her head and continued writing her test paper.

Lin Chuan returned to his seat, took out his textbook, and started reading. The frequent spot checks this week were really troublesome. He had been reading for a while, so he didn't wait for Cheng Xue to call him and went straight over.

"Go outside to memorize it. There are other students in the classroom," Lin Chuan said. There were several other students in the classroom, all quietly reading or resting.

"Okay." Cheng Xue nodded, got up and followed Lin Chuan out of the classroom.

The place Lin Chuan found for reciting was actually the corridor connecting the teaching building. The two of them stood by the corridor and began to check the assignments. Fortunately, there was only one text this time, and Lin Chuan finished quickly.

"Okay, that's enough," Cheng Xue said.

"Are you planning to do this every week?" Lin Chuan asked.

"It was only this week that the homeroom teacher asked me to help with spot checks," Cheng Xue said.

"Then why did you agree? You could have refused, just like during military training." Lin Chuan asked. Although it's normal for class representatives to check memorization, one-on-one checks are clearly "beyond" the duties of a class representative, especially several times a week.

If you really have to say, Cheng Xue did have a reason to refuse.

"I agreed to help you because I owe you a favor. This is my way of helping you with your studies," Cheng Xue said. Her words were nice, but her tone remained cold.

"Didn't you invite me to dinner?" Lin Chuan asked.

"The value is not commensurate," Cheng Xue said.

"You really like to calculate everything very clearly."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Cheng Xue said calmly.

Lin Chuan had heard similar words before, also spoken by the girl in front of him.

Since the start of the semester, the two haven't had much contact, but he could tell that Cheng Xue was the kind of person who took everything very seriously.

She will complete the "spot check" tasks assigned by the teacher properly, no matter who the target is. She doesn't like to owe others anything, and she has to repay even the smallest favor.

She usually keeps to herself, and the only person she can really call a friend is probably her deskmate and roommate Zhao Jiajia. But even so, she still insists on asking Zhao Jiajia to bring her breakfast every time.

"So, I owe you a favor from before?" Lin Chuan asked again. For him, his childhood was a long time ago, so he was wondering if he really didn't remember.

Cheng Xue suddenly paused, her expressionless face turning cold, like ice. But she didn't say anything, only replying, "No." Then she turned and left.

Lin Chuan didn't understand. He had never owed anyone a favor, yet the other person's expression made it seem like he owed them eight million.

This was the second time I had asked. If the other party was unwilling to answer, I wouldn't ask again. Three strikes and it's over.

Although we're still in the same class now, we don't interact much. We'll probably be in different classes in the second year of high school, so why bother thinking about things that have no answers?

Lin Chuan strolled back to the classroom, read for a while at his seat, then, feeling sleepy, he lay down on the desk to rest...