Chapter 11: Homework
With a look of “Am I still dreaming?” on her face, she watched blankly as Huai Dan put the dog back in its bed and turned to see her brother collapsed on the sofa. She sighed.
Huai Dan nudged Luo Jing’s shoulder.
Luo Jing didn’t react, half his face pressed firmly against the sofa, his whole body sprawled like a puddle of mud.
Huai Dan hesitated for a moment, then reached out to carry him upstairs. Luo Jing suddenly opened his eyes drowsily.
Seeing an arm in front of him, he instinctively grabbed it and pulled himself up.
Huai Dan stumbled, a helpless expression appearing on his face. After steadying himself, he helped Luo Jing stand up straight and patted his shoulder: “Go back to your room and sleep.”
Luo Jing nodded with his eyes closed, walking unsteadily towards the stairs. Huai Dan watched his unsteady gait, seemingly hesitating whether to help him upstairs.
As he watched Luo Jing successfully reach the second floor, he met Luo Feng’s dazed gaze from the hallway.
Huai Dan raised an eyebrow slightly, as if asking what was wrong.
He didn’t offer any explanation for this strange phenomenon.
Luo Feng rubbed her eyes in disbelief and checked the time on her phone again.
It was indeed 6:30 a.m. Why were these two downstairs at this hour?
And both fully dressed.
After seeing Luo Jing, eyes closed, subconsciously drifting like a ghost up the stairs to Huai Dan’s room, then skillfully drifting inside and closing the door, Luo Feng was completely awake.
The click of the guest room door closing seemed to echo in Luo Feng’s heart.
But having slept late, she couldn’t resist her thirst, so she followed her original plan and went downstairs for a glass of water.
Huai Dan was sitting on the sofa looking at his phone. Hearing someone coming down, he glanced up instinctively.
Luo Feng walked into the living room, picked up the kettle from the coffee table, poured herself a glass of water, drank half of it, and sat down on the single-seater sofa beside him, keeping a distance, then asked with genuine confusion, “What’s going on with you two?”
“Ask your brother,” Huai Dan also poured himself a glass of water and took a sip, replying after hearing her question.
Luo Feng gave him a complex look: “Did that whimsical little devil drag you off to do something… You’re really spoiling him. If you like him so much, just adopt him as your younger brother.”
Huai Dan looked up from his phone screen, as if pondering, then after a while, said seriously, “Okay.”
Luo Feng was almost speechless. This was the first time she had seen Huai Dan joke, and it felt very out of character.
Before they met, she had actually thought her brother would be the type of child Huai Dan would dislike.
Huai Dan liked quiet, his personality as cold as his name. Logically, he should avoid children and noisy people, let alone her brother, who, in her eyes, was a perfect combination of the two.
But unexpectedly, they got along very well.
Luo Feng had never seen her friend so patient with anyone. This troublesome little devil was the first.
What was even more surprising was that Huai Dan seemed to enjoy it.
What kind of spell had this Luo Jing cast on him…
Luo Feng stared into space as she drank her water, gradually losing herself in thought.
Actually, she wasn’t fully awake yet, and as she spaced out, she started to feel sleepy again. Plus, she wasn’t interested in having a heart-to-heart with her quiet friend, so after thinking for a moment, she put down her glass and went back upstairs to sleep.
It didn’t matter how Luo Jing had managed to win Huai Dan over; their good relationship wasn’t a bad thing.
…But was Huai Dan really not annoyed by this little devil?
Looking at the closed door of the guest room, she thought with mixed feelings.
At 10 a.m., Luo Jing finally woke up in the guest room.
He was still a bit dazed when he first woke up, staring blankly at the empty room.
He vaguely remembered doing something troublesome… It seemed he had dragged Huai Dan out to watch the sunrise.
But the current environment was too deceptive, and Luo Jing wondered if it had all been a dream.
After a moment of blankness, his consciousness returned, and his slightly sore feet and gradually clearer memories told him that he had indeed dragged a person and a dog out to watch the sunrise in the middle of the night.
…Where was the victim?
Looking at the empty bed, Luo Jing was stunned. He picked up his phone, checked the time, then got out of bed and opened the door.
Looking downstairs, he saw Huai Dan and his sister sitting on opposite sides of the sofa, separated as if by a chasm, making him wonder if they had exchanged even a single word while he was asleep.
His sister was leaning against the armrest of the long sofa, playing on her phone. Huai Dan sat upright on the other side, reading a book with glasses perched on his nose.
Luo Jing’s eyes then landed on a pile of ominous-looking things on the coffee table.
After realizing what they were, he froze, instinctively wanting to retreat to his room and lock the door.
“You’re awake, Xiao Jing.”
But his timing was clearly off.
Lin Xue’s gentle voice rang out, cutting off all his escape routes.
Luo Jing closed his eyes in despair.
“Mom,” he turned around unsteadily.
Lin Xue smiled and said softly, “Come downstairs and do your homework.”
“Your sister said you’re too idle and wanted to find something for you to do, so she took out your homework.”
Luo Jing exhaled, a look of resignation on his face.
Glancing at the pile of white test papers on the coffee table downstairs, he finally broke down, his eyes dull as he slowly made his way down.
Huai Dan looked up when he heard the noise and witnessed the entire process of a junior high student’s reluctance to do homework.
Luo Jing walked step by step to the coffee table and sat down dejectedly on the thick carpet, looking at the mountain of test papers in front of him, feeling despair.
“Who, who still has so much homework to do now?” Luo Feng gloated behind him.
But she soon stopped laughing.
Whoever suggested it had to supervise it. Luo Feng, half forced and half amused, took on the task of watching Luo Jing do his homework.
The task was clearly not going smoothly.
Boys of this age were naturally restless. After writing a few words, he would start spacing out, playing with his pen, and staring at the ceiling.
“Luo, Jing,” Luo Feng said, staring at the child who had been playing with the dog by its bed for half an hour, tiring the dog out, “If you don’t come and do your homework, I’m confiscating your phone.”
Luo Jing turned his head and stared at her resentfully: “It’s all your fault.”
“Seeing as you have nothing better to do than drag people out to climb mountains early in the morning… you’ll have to do it sooner or later anyway… Forget it, I’m too lazy to care about you.” Saying this, she threw Luo Jing’s phone to Huai Dan, leaving behind a “I’ll leave it to you” before making a quick escape.
Huai Dan looked at Luo Jing’s phone in his hand, then looked up at the child who was killing time playing with the dog. He noticed his expression change from resentment to grievance, staring at him pitifully.
Huai Dan’s lips curled up, and he put the phone aside: “Come and do your homework.”
“…Okay.” Ultimately, he wasn’t family, and Luo Jing couldn’t throw a tantrum, so he trudged over to the coffee table he loathed.
Actually, Luo Jing’s resistance to homework wasn’t because he couldn’t do it. On the contrary, his grades had always been excellent since kindergarten, and coupled with his likeable and well-behaved appearance, he was often praised by teachers.
He simply couldn’t sit still.
Who liked doing homework anyway?
Huai Dan was reading the news on his phone when he saw from the corner of his eye that Luo Jing, after being quiet for a while, had reverted to his old ways.
Luo Jing was currently working on a math test paper. Doing math problems was like playing a game. Sometimes, encountering a difficult problem was more interesting than doing basic ones.
The math teacher advocated the tactic of doing a large number of practice problems. He had assigned more than ten test papers, plus a workbook. Luo Jing had reluctantly finished a few and then given up.
The same types of questions, repackaged over and over again, even the layout of the test papers was identical. His spirit gradually sank into the endless repetition, as if he could see the end of time.
His gaze slowly drifted away from the test paper, and he suddenly found the whole world becoming interesting and lively.
This coffee table was really a coffee table.
This carpet was really a carpet.
This scrap paper…
His hand unconsciously moved the pen onto it, slowly starting his masterpiece.
“What are you drawing?” Luo Jing was so engrossed in his creation that he didn’t notice someone behind him.
When he heard the voice, he didn’t react immediately, only vaguely feeling the light dim, then instinctively replied, “Plastic Bag.”
Hearing its name, Plastic Bag barked in response.
Luo Jing’s wandering soul was called back by the bark. He turned his head and saw Huai Dan on his right, leaning in close to look at his drawing.
He was startled and guiltily covered his unfinished work.
Huai Dan chuckled and sat down next to Luo Jing: “Are there any problems you don’t understand?”
“No, I understand them all,” Luo Jing rested his chin heavily on the test paper, dejected.
“If you understand them all, why aren’t you doing them?”
“It’s too boring,” Luo Jing replied, then turned to Huai Dan and said sincerely, “Brother, I want to play games.”
“No.”
Seeing Luo Jing’s dejected look, Huai Dan found it amusing: “How much homework do you have left?”
Luo Jing handed him a handwritten list. Huai Dan’s first reaction upon seeing it was: “Why don’t you buy a calligraphy book and practice your handwriting?”
Luo Jing was embarrassed and angry: “I just scribbled that down!”
“…Okay, scribbled.” Huai Dan’s voice carried a hint of laughter as he started to check how much homework Luo Jing actually had.
Actually, if evenly distributed according to the holiday days, the amount of homework wasn’t much.
But Luo Jing clearly hadn’t realized this. Most of his homework was still left, clearly having been forgotten during his playtime.
Huai Dan was used to planning everything in his life, and he subconsciously started to allocate Luo Jing’s homework according to the remaining days of the holiday.
“Brother, why don’t you help me do it?”
The child beside him suddenly spoke.
