Qing Kuang Chapter 116

Published at 10th of May 2023 01:21:41 PM

Chapter 116
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So what his dad meant by that is Kou Chen was two points away from passing one exam?

Although Huo Ran always felt that with how Kou Chen could only pass one or two exams before, it wouldn’t be easy for him to pass all of them. It was normal that he failed some. 

But suddenly hearing that he really did fail one made him feel a wave of disappointment.

Kou Chen worked really hard these few weeks. He lost weight, had bags under his eyes, and it even got to the point that Tao Rui forced him to sleep for a while in the infirmary last week. She told him to keep a reasonable schedule and not work to the point of completely exhausting his body.

 

 

But in the end, he still failed one exam. Huo Ran knew it wasn’t unexpected, but he still felt really bad. He hasn’t felt this strongly even when he failed his own exams.

The Seven of them were all in shock. They’ve worked so hard together, and it was all because Kou Chen pushed them to start. They were half forced and half motivated by him, and they all wanted Kou Chen to reach his goal. 

At Kou Chen’s dad’s yell, they all froze and fell silent.

 

They all hurt for him.

Huo Ran glanced at Kou Chen, who was staring into the back of his dad’s head. He didn’t know what was going on inside his head.

To receive such news first thing in the morning was pretty shocking.

 

When Kou Chen’s dad threw his phone down and turned around, he immediately startled and fell back into his chair. “This-!”

“Uncle Kou!” They hurriedly greeted.

“I forget there were still so many people here, scared me.” Kou Chen’s dad pinched between his brows. “How are you guys so quiet?”

 

“Which exam did I fail?” Kou Chen rushed to him and asked. 

“English,” His dad stood up and patted his arm. “Let’s eat first, Auntie Wang already got everything ready, if you want milk…”

“I failed English?” Kou Chen questioned.

Kou Chen’s dad didn’t really have the heart to tell him, so it took a couple of seconds before he jerked his head down in a small nod.

“What about the others?” Kou Chen continued. 

“I’m not sure,” Kou Chen’s dad said. “Aren’t you guys going back to school today? You’ll find out then…”

“I felt better about English than math!” Kou Chen raised his voice. “If I failed English then there’s no way I passed math! Fuck–!”

“You passed! You passed!” Kou Chen’s dad took a step to the side as he yelled and blurted out, “You passed math! You passed everything! Just English! English! You were two points off! But…”

“There’s no way!” Kou Chen couldn’t quite accept that. He turned around to face them. “I fucking passed everything else? Just English was two points off?” 

“That’s already great!” Huo Ran quickly tried to comfort him. “Even passing one exam would be great in the past, now you only failed one! You hear that?”

“But how did I pass math if I failed English!” Kou Chen was still yelling. “Zhifan said my English was better than math! And the math exam was really hard this time!”

 

“You performed better during math, maybe English…” Xu Zhifan was cut off by Kou Chen’s dad.

“That’s why it doesn’t sound right!” Kou Chen’s dad smacked the table. 

“What do you mean?” Kou Chen asked.

“It’s not right that you failed!” Kou Chen’s dad was very annoyed.

“That’s right!” With that acknowledgement, Kou Chen started yelling again.

“I’m going to your school right now,” His dad growled as he headed towards the door. “I’m going to ask your English teacher for the paper! I need to see who marked it!” 

“Right now?” Kou Chen paused.

“What do you think?” His dad put his shoes on. “Or else they’ll be handed out soon, if I want to check it it has to be right now!”

Before Kou Chen could say anything, he had already slammed the door shut behind him.

“What if it wasn’t marked wrong?” Kou Chen finally reacted. He turned around to them, “If it wasn’t marked wrong do you think my dad will beat the teacher up?” 

“How would we know?” Xu Chuan hissed. “He’s your dad…”

“Dad—” Kou Chen opened the door, only to see the car speed out of the driveway. “Fuck, you’ve never been so worked up when I failed an exam before!”

“That was when you failing was normal,” Hu Yi said. “It’s different now.”

“I feel like he wants you to pass more than you do,” Jiang Lei sniffed. “How moving.” 

 

“Yes, he asked me,” Old Yuan said. “He was a bit worked up, thinking you should’ve passed.” 

“Not just a little,” Kou Chen said. “He’ll go to you first, you have to hold him back, I don’t want him to start cursing people out… It’s kinda unlikely that two points were marked wrong anyways, right?”

“Speaking off… I was a little surprised too,” Old Yuan said. “So was the English teacher, I asked to see the paper again, don’t worry.”

 

“If it wasn’t marked wrong,” Kou Chen sighed. “Don’t just give me the points, I don’t want them.”

“I won’t,” Old Yuan smiled. 

 

 

Right after they got the paper and Old Yuan and the English teacher looked it over, his office door was pushed open. Kou Chen’s dad poked his head through, and then he knocked.

“You’re here?” Old Yuan said with a smile. “Kou Chen just called and said you were coming. Here, we’ll look it over together.” 

“Good morning, sorry for the interruption.” Kou Chen’s dad walked in and nodded to the teachers that were still eating breakfast.

“Kou Chen’s father is quite qualified as a parent,” One teacher laughed.

“Not really,” Kou Chen’s dad said. “I couldn’t even be bothered to beat him when he failed in the past. He just worked so hard this semester, and I wanted to see if I can squeeze some extra points out.”

Old Yuan pushed the paper towards him: “Take a look.” 

Kou Chen’s dad looked at the paper and frowned before clicking his tongue: “Did he write this with a cockroach’s antenna…?”

The English teacher laughed out loud: “He does have to work on his handwriting, but his Chinese characters aren’t bad.”

“He scored very well on his essay,” Old Yuan said. “He followed the prompt well and used the provided materials…”

“Don’t change the topic yet,” Kou Chen’s dad held a finger up in apology. 

Old Yuan smiled and did the same.

Kou Chen’s dad stared at the paper, going through each and every letter carefully.

To be honest, even if he could squeeze two more points out of Kou Chen’s paper, it should be docked another two points. He didn’t know if it was some side effect of his fear of snakes that all of his words were twisted like a snake.

Kou Chen’s dad sighed. 

He flipped the page over and stared at his some more. His eyes were starting to hurt. He could very much empathize with the teacher if they really did mark something wrong.

“Oh, what did he write here?” The English teacher suddenly reached out and pointed.

 

“Fill in the blanks?” Kou Chen’s dad immediately followed his finger. Then he smacked the table, “He wrote froze! It’s froze, right? Then it’s not wrong! Blahblahblah why couldn’t you plant trees during New Years, because the ground froze! That’s what I wrote! It’s not wrong!”

“It’s… way too hard to read?” The English teacher frowned and looked closer at the paper. “Did he change the z to an s and then back again? It’s nor very clear, the teacher might’ve mistaken it for an s and marked it wrong?” 

“Kou Chen actually remembered the word froze?” Kou Chen’s dad nearly started crying.

The three of them were all quite shocked. They were originally looking to see if they could squeeze some more points out of the mini essay at the end, but they actually found a marking mistake?”

“You can give him points for that, right? Teacher?” Kou Chen’s dad asked eagerly.

“Yes,” Old Yuan replied. 

“That’s right,” The English teacher nodded with a smile. “Then… it’s a pass?”

“Holy shit.” Kou Chen’s dad clapped his hands and spun around on the spot. “I knew my son could pass everything! He even passed math! The English exam wasn’t as hard as math!”

The teachers all started laughing.

“I’m sorry, lost myself for a moment there,” Kou Chen’s dad smiled. Then he clasped a fist in the other hand, “Thank you for changing his mark. I’ll be going now, I have a meeting at work today…” 

“Go,” Old Yuan nodded.

Kou Chen’s dad walked briskly to the door, and then he stopped: “Don’t tell Kou Chen I was here…”

“Didn’t you leave right in front of him?” Old Yuan said.

“Oh, I forgot. Thank you, teachers! Have a good day!” Kou Chen’s dad left the room. 

 

When The Seven of them arrived at school, they went straight for Old Yuan’s office, but there was nobody there.

“Did your dad chase them all out?” Huo Ran stared at the empty room in shock.

“Wake up,” Xu Zhifan nudged him. “Look at the time, they must be in class by now!” 

“Then why did we come to the office?” Hu Yi said.

“If a fight did break out they’ll probably keep it in the office,” Xu Chuan guessed.

 

“To the class,” Kou Chen laughed. “Come on, come on, forget it.”

They ran to the classroom, and Old Yuan was indeed standing at the lectern, talking to a group of students. 

Kou Chen couldn’t care about anything else. He went up to Old Yuan and tugged him away to the side. “Did my dad leave?”

“Yeah,” Old Yuan smiled. “He left ten minutes ago.”

“Did he make a fuss?” Kou Chen was a bit worried. “Did he yell at anyone? Hit anyone?”

“…I think you might have some misconceptions about your father?” Old Yuan patted his arm. “He was very polite, very civilized.” 

“And then? You looked at my paper?” Kou Chen continued.

“You have to thank your dad when get home,” Old Yuan said. “He didn’t really think he could squeeze some extra points out…”

“He did?” Kou Chen’s eyes went wide.

“Holy shit?” The others were standing off to the side, but hearing that, they all leaned in. 

“He got the two points?” Huo Ran was nearly on top of Old Yuan. “Really? He got the two points? He passed?”

“Yes.” Old Yuan smiled.

“Did you give them to me?” Kou Chen stared at Old Yuan.

“I didn’t,” Old Yuan said. “You changed an s to z, and your handwriting was messy, so the teacher read it wrong and docked some points.” 

“Really?” Kou Chen asked. “Why does that sound like a joke? It’s really true?”

“Your dad found it,” Old Yuan said. “He was over the moon.”

Kou Chen didn’t say anything.

“Alright, you can relax now. You passed all of your exams.” Old Yuan patted his shoulder. 

“What about us?” Jiang Lei jumped in. “How did we do?”

“You’ll find out in just a bit,” Old Yuan said. “I couldn’t ask about all of you, that would annoy the teachers to death.”

 

“But you asked about Kou Chen?” Wei Chaoren said. “That’s a bit biased.”

“Kou Chen’s situation is different, all the teachers know.” Old Yuan smiled. “They all told me themselves, it was a huge thing.” 

“That’s true,” Xu Chuan ruffled Kou Chen’s hair. “Kou Chen, you better thank your dad later.”

Kou Chen snorted a little before turning to leave.

 

Huo Ran followed him back to their desks. He stood up again right after he sat down. 

“Come on,” Kou Chen flicked his earlobe.

“What?” Huo Ran looked at him.

“To pee,” Kou Chen said.

“…Seriously?” Huo Ran stood up. 

“Hush,” Kou Chen walked to the door.

Huo Ran sighed and followed him.

 

“Fuck.” At the bottom of the stairs, Kou Chen grabbed his shoulders and leaned all of his weight on him. “I’m feeling so much right now.” 

“Touched, right?” Huo Ran immediately understood. “Forget you, well all feel really touched. It’s kinda a big deal for your dad to go so far. He’s a horror movie butcher after all.”

Kou Chen laughed: “Do you have the guts to say that to his face?”

“Nope,” Huo Ran said.

“I almost can’t believe it,” Kou Chen said. “I know he’s good to me, I was just annoyed that he never believed in me, that he didn’t want to have a proper conversation… Of course, I don’t really make it easy for him, but to see him like that, I’m almost… scared to go home.” 

“Why?” Huo Ran looked at him.

“I’m scared he’ll hug me and start crying.” Kou Chen said.

 

Huo Ran couldn’t hold back his laughter. A long while passed before he finally spoke: “Will he?”

“Who knows? He’s so, you know. My mom even says we’re very similar.” Kou Chen tsked. “Similar my ass.” 

“But it’s true,” Huo Ran rubbed his back.

 

Inside the bathroom, Kou Chen didn’t really want to pee. He just stood in front of the urinal.

Huo Ran looked around to make sure they were alone before he asked: “Did you already piss your pants?” 

“Do you want to fucking die?” Kou Chen glared at him fiercely.

“Then what are you doing?” Huo Ran motioned with his hand. “You can pee now.”

“Who said I needed to pee?” Kou Chen said.

“Then why are we here?” Huo Ran questioned. 

“Hug me.” Kou Chen turned around and hugged him, putting his chin on his shoulder.

“What a great spot for it.” Huo Ran held him tight.

“I looked. There’s people on the field, they’re all playing ball.” Kou Chen said. “Only here might be empty… Ranran.”

“Yes?” Huo Ran hummed. 

“I’m really happy. Really,” Kou Chen said.

“I can tell,” Huo Ran smiled.

“And very glad,” Kou Chen said. “Good thing I met you. If I didn’t, I might’ve just gone abroad to spite my dad. If I did, then I…”

Huo Ran closed his eyes. 

Then you’ll never see me.

“Wouldn’t pass my exams,” Kou Chen said.

 

…Okay then.

Huo Ran didn’t question Kou Chen’s logic. He just hummed again: “Mhm.” 

“I love being with you,” Kou Chen said.

That’s more like it!

“Yeah,” Huo Ran smiled.

Chapter end