Rebirth: Once Again With You

On the following day, Li Caiyi left the classroom as soon as she finished her lunch. She could not sit still, knowing that Shen Qiang might be closer to her than she thought.

The first place she went to was the teacher's office. She was delighted when she found her homeroom teacher inside.

"Excuse me, Teacher Shi? Do you have some time?"

The young teacher raised her head. "Li Caiyi? Do you have something you want to ask about the lesson?"

"I do want to ask you about something, but it is not about the class." Li Caiyi fiddled with her fingers.

Teacher Shi showed full attention to her now, considering Li Caiyi rarely spoke to anyone in the class. "Alright. What is it?"

"I want to know if there is anyone named Shen Qiang in this school."

Teacher Shi knitted her brows in confusion. "I thought you were going to consult me about something. Why are you asking that?"

Li Caiyi had prepared an answer if the teacher asked her, so she replied immediately. "This person helped me before on the street, and he dropped a keychain with his name on it. I want to return it to him and wonder if he is one of our students in our school."

"Hmm, then you can just drop the keychain here, and I will help you return it to him. If that person really is our student, that is."

"I want to return it to him by myself if I can. I have not thanked him yet for his help."

Teacher Shi noticed something from Li Caiyi's words, and the corner of her mouth curled up with a playful smirk. "Well, well. I see that someone is eager. Let me guess, did that boy make your heart flutter?"

Li Caiyi's cheeks heated when she heard her teacher's teasing. She wished she was not a person who could be read easily, but her reaction had given it all away. Teacher Shi grinned even wider.

"Ah, the springtime of youth! When I was in high school, I was also like you, chasing after the boy I liked. Gosh, I missed those times!"

"Teacher, it is not like that!"

Teacher Shi playfully waved her hand. "Ah yes, yes. That is the usual reaction when someone finds out who your crush is. You are not convincing anyone if you said that with such a red face."

Li Caiyi pressed her cheeks with her palm, and indeed, her cheek felt hot to touch.

'What am I, a teenager? Wake up, Li Caiyi! You are a full-grown adult. You are embarrassing yourself!'

Li Caiyi coughed a few times to regain her composure before she asked again, "Teacher, can I ask you to check it for me?"

After she had fun teasing the younger girl, Teacher Shi stopped joking around and went back to serious mode. "I usually can not disclose a student's data, but I think it should be fine if you only want to check for a name and class. Wait a minute."

Teacher Shi grabbed a file from her desk and gave it to Li Caiyi. "This is the list of our students' names. Try to find which class he is in."

Li Caiyi gratefully accepted it. "Thank you, Teacher Shi!"

"Haha, do not forget to bring me a gift if things go well between the two of you," she said with a wink. Li Caiyi only laughed dryly before taking the heavy file to an empty table in the room's corner.

Li Caiyi used her finger to trace the name list from up to down. She searched for every student with the same name and wrote their full name and class. So far, she managed to find two students with the same name—one from the second year and another one from the third year.

"Well, it turned out better than I expected," Li Caiyi smiled in satisfaction. She did not want to waste any more time, so she quickly returned the file to Teacher Shi after she finished checking it and left the teacher's office.

***

Her next destination was the 2-C classroom. The school arranged the class by student's grade, and Li Caiyi belonged to the 2-B class, while Li Chunhua was in the 2-A class.

When Li Caiyi thought about how Shen Qiang could be studying in the room next to hers all this time, her heart beat faster.

Li Caiyi hastened her step subconsciously, so it did not take long before she finally arrived in front of the 2-C classroom.

Before entering the classroom, she straightened her hair and made sure her uniform and glasses looked neat. After making sure everything was in their place, she took a deep breath and was ready to meet Shen Qiang.

Li Caiyi did not know anyone from this class, so she was actually kind of nervous. She approached the friendly-looking girl standing near the door.

"Uhm, excuse me? Can I have a minute with you?"

The girl looked at Li Caiyi with widened eyes. "You are… not Li Chunhua, right? Are you Li Caiyi from class B?"

Li Caiyi did not expect that someone would recognize her. "You know me? Have we met somewhere?"

"No, we did not know each other officially, but I heard about you. You are Li Chunhua and Senior Li's sister."

Ah. Of course, everyone would recognize her from that. When you were close to someone famous, people could not help but recognize you, too.

"Yes. That is right. I came to find Fu Shen Qiang. Is he here?"

Li Caiyi mentioned the full name just to be sure. The girl tilted her head in bewilderment. "Wait, you too? Since when did that guy become so popular?"

'Too?' Li Caiyi thought that the girl's reaction looked unusual. However, she did not have time to ask because that girl had called for Shen Qiang.

"Fu Shen Qiang! Someone is looking for you again!"

"Huh?"

Every other thought suddenly washed away from her mind, leaving a sense of expectation and longing. Li Caiyi gulped nervously before she looked up.

Her gaze fell to a chubby boy with an oily face. The boy ran over to them, and the fat on his belly bounced around like a basketball. Li Caiyi's eyes widened in shock. This was… Shen Qiang?

The boy noticed Li Caiyi before he smiled smugly. "To think many beautiful ladies would seek after me today, I must be in luck today."

Li Caiyi smiled awkwardly. She did not want to judge other people so quickly, so she kept a positive mind. Perhaps Shen Qiang would look like this when he was fat? It did not matter how he looked as long as he was indeed the Shen Qiang she was looking for.

"Hello. I need to talk to you for a bit." Li Caiyi said in a small voice, but suddenly the entire class who watched this scene was in an uproar. Some even made a whistling sound.

"Shit! Fu Shen Qiang, you are just a fatty, but how can you be so lucky?!"

"How could you get ahead of us and become popular? Tell me your secret, dammit!"

"Are those two's eyes functioning properly? Out of all people, why would they go for the fatso?"

Li Caiyi felt extremely uncomfortable being in the center of attention. Her figure shrunk as she tried to avoid people's gaze.

Fu Shen Qiang noticed that, so he used his sweaty hand to grab her hand and dragged Li Caiyi outside. "You single dogs! Go bark somewhere else, and don't ruin other people's happiness!"

"What did you say, you pig? Who wants to be like you? Roll! Roll away with that round belly of yours!".

Li Caiyi could still hear shouts of anger and curse even from the hallway. She was so confused by this turn of events, but she was thankful Fu Shen Qiang brought her out of that situation, so she let him drag her.

When they arrived at a quieter and secluded hallway, Fu Shen Qiang finally stopped. He panted so hard, and his face looked like a balloon that could pop out at any minute.

"Are you okay?" Li Caiyi asked her.

"This… is… nothing… *wheeze."

It certainly did not look like nothing, but Fu Shen Qiang insisted he was fine, so Li Caiyi waited for him to steady his breath before she finally asked what she came for.

"Fu Shen Qiang, have you ever had a girlfriend before? Or someone you like?"

Shen Qiang said he rarely interacted with girls, so this point was very crucial to ask.

Li Caiyi's question took Fu Shen Qiang aback. But later, he seemed to understand something. He coolly swept his hair behind with his fingers as he flashed his most charming smile. "What? We have only met for a few minutes, but you already can't wait to leap into my arms. You are bolder than you look. I like it."

"Huh?" Li Caiyi could not understand why he suddenly said that at first, but after a few seconds, she finally understood why there was such a huge commotion in the C class earlier.

She hurriedly waved her hand. "I think there is some kind of misunderstanding here. I do not mean it like that!"

Fu Shen Qiang shook his head. "No need to be shy, little kitten. All you need to do is nod, and I. Will. Be. Yours."

Li Caiyi felt like worms were crawling under her skin. She shuddered more when Fu Shen Qiang suddenly pinched her chin and leaned in closer, making the big pores on his face look more prominent.

"I can not say you are my type, but your face looked the same as Li Chunhua, so I guess you will do as well."

No! There was no need for further asking. Li Caiyi could already tell that this disgusting guy could not be her Shen Qiang. Putting the difference in their physique aside, Shen Qiang would never throw a lame pickup line or treat other people rudely like this!

"I'm sorry, I got the wrong person!" Li Caiyi swatted his hand away and ran as fast as she could.

"What the—?! Kitten?! Where are you going?!"

Li Caiyi closed her ears, hoping that it could help prevent that voice from haunting her dream tonight.