Please, I'm Trying to Study, Your Highness! - chapter 15

The afternoon campus was bathed in a gentle orange glow from the setting sun.

The chatter of students descending the stairs gradually faded away.

I carried a plastic bucket full of water. With the “Unyielding” buff, its heavy weight felt no different to me than carrying an empty bucket.

But to maintain my “ordinary person persona,” I had to act as if I was struggling a bit.

Today was my turn for duty, so I had to stay late at school.

This was exactly the kind of extra energy expenditure I hated most.

The surface of the water swayed slightly with the arc of my swinging arm, and my footsteps echoed in the empty hallway.

Ever since I was forced to participate in that basketball game,

the aftereffects have lingered far longer than I expected.

These past few days, my presence in the class has noticeably increased.

The most direct sign is that when I walk into the classroom in the morning, more classmates greet me proactively.

Those boys who used to be just blurry faces would wink and say, “Morning, Block Master.”

A few bolder girls would giggle and tease as I passed by.

These changes are still within a controllable range, nothing too serious.

After all, in their eyes, I’m still that classmate with poor physical ability who occasionally bursts out with a bit of talent.

The “ordinary person persona” hasn’t collapsed.

The real trouble comes from two things.

First, Xia Shiyu.

She had clearly heard all the details of that game from others.

Her gaze toward me became once again full of subtle meaning.

That kind of scrutiny and curiosity, like discovering a “discarded toy” actually hiding new features, made me uncomfortable like a thorn in my side.

Second, my desk drawer, once stuffed with reference books, began to occasionally fill up with a few pink paper letters.

I found these sudden love letters headache-inducing and genuinely baffling.

It was just a basketball game where I slacked off the whole time.

A lucky shot, a single block, and suddenly my popularity skyrocketed to this extent?

Are these girls’ hormones really that cheap?

Or is the logic of this wish-fulfillment world just that shallow and straightforward?

What I saw as trouble, Wang Lei and Monkey saw as miracles worthy of worship.

Watching me toss those envelopes straight into the trash, their faces cycled endlessly between jealousy and heartbreak.

They came to a simple, blunt conclusion:

Play basketball and you become cool; become cool and you get love letters.

So now, every day they pester me, shouting, “Starting today, I’m going to practice basketball hard too,” and begging me to teach them the “block secret.”

To this, I could only respond with speechless silence.

After school in the afternoon, the noisy campus returned to calm.

Dragging my feet, I carried the bucket toward the classroom stairs, already planning which sets of practice papers to tackle tonight.

Just around the corner, a slender, quiet figure grew larger in my pupils.

It was Shen Ruanruan.

She was carrying her backpack, coming down from upstairs.

She wore a custom school uniform, ironed without a single crease, her steps light and silent. It looked like she had just finished tidying up and was ready to go home.

My first reaction was to pretend I hadn’t seen her.

I immediately lowered my head, focusing my gaze on my own pair of faded sports shoes.

Getting involved with this kind of “center of trouble” was never part of my plan.

“Lin Classmate?”

I pretended not to hear, kept my head down, and walked forward.

Planning to avoid this unnecessary social interaction in the most energy-saving way.

But Shen Ruanruan walked straight up to me.

A faint scent wafted from her, probably the fresh smell of sun-dried laundry, nothing like Xia Shiyu’s aggressive perfume.

“Lin Classmate.”

Her voice, tinged with a smile, sounded again.

Gentle, yet impossible to ignore.

With my plan exposed, I had no choice but to stop.

My grip on the bucket tightened, and a few drops of water splashed out from the sudden halt.

I looked up, putting on my usual social mask. “Shen Classmate, you haven’t gone home yet?”

“I just went to the office to ask the teacher a few questions.”

Her answer was as proper as ever.

She glanced at the bucket in my hand, her clear, beautiful eyes flashing with understanding. “Is it your turn for duty in Class Three today? Must be tough.”

“It’s fine, it’s just my turn.” I replied perfunctorily, already preparing to find an excuse to slip away.
Yet she showed no intention of leaving. Instead, as if chatting idly with an old friend, she tossed out a new topic.

“Lately… I heard you’ve received a lot of… letters?”

When she said this, the girl’s voice was lowered, making it impossible to discern any emotion.

Her face didn’t show the gossipy look other girls might have; she simply stated a fact gently.

“Huh?”

I hadn’t expected her to bring this up, and felt instantly awkward. “It’s all just some misunderstandings.”

“Misunderstandings…” the girl softly repeated, not probing any further.

Her gaze slid from my face to the shadow behind me, stretched long by the setting sun.

“Speaking of which.”

Her tone suddenly became airy, as if lost in a brief memory. “Lin Classmate… you’ve always been like this.”

“Hm?” I was a little confused.

“That is, always so good at helping others as if it were nothing.”

The girl’s gaze returned to me, her eyes a few degrees softer than usual.

“Actually… back in middle school, I always wanted to find a chance to properly thank you.”

Middle school? Thank me?

My central processor spun rapidly, trying to search for anything related from those memory fragments marked as “low-value information.”

As an extreme energy-saver, unless necessary for social interaction-like remembering the main players in the “Shen Ruanruan’s anonymous donation incident in middle school”-my brain would regularly perform deep cleaning on unimportant “junk files” that wouldn’t impact the future.

So, the search result was…

A complete blank.

So, I spoke a heartfelt truth.

“Really? I’ve pretty much forgotten all about it.”

“…”

Just as I was about to say something else to end the conversation,

I noticed Shen Ruanruan’s expression had become a little strange.

The usual gentle look on her face hadn’t disappeared,

but that gentleness now felt like standing outside in the dead of winter, sending a chill through me.

The ever-present faint smile at the corners of her lips had straightened, even showing the slightest downward curve.

She just stared at me in silence, her once clear almond-shaped eyes suddenly turning into two bottomless, ancient wells.

An indescribable chill crept silently up my spine.

My survival instincts blared a loud alarm at that moment.

I had no idea what I had said wrong.

But I knew clearly that I had to leave this place of trouble immediately.

“Shen Classmate… I still have to mop the floor, so I won’t chat anymore. I’ll be going now.”

I found the lamest excuse.

Without waiting for her response, I grabbed the bucket and almost fled past her, quickly heading toward Class Three’s classroom.

Behind me, that gaze still clung to the back of my neck as if it were tangible.

She… seemed a little angry?

The thought flashed through my mind, but I immediately dismissed it.

No way.

This was Shen Ruanruan.

The Saintess Your Highness of the campus forum with zero negative reviews-how could she possibly get angry over such a trivial “forgotten past”?

Well… what’s done is done, no point thinking about it.

Better clean up first, finish early, and go home to study.

…

I didn’t notice that after I left, Shen Ruanruan stood there for a long time.

Her face, gentle as jade, showed no expression as she stood quietly.

Her gaze only shifted after the boy’s figure disappeared from view.

The last rays of the setting sun refracted through the glass window, casting a lonely and eerie long shadow behind her.

Her slender hand, which looked as if it couldn’t even lift a heavy object, gently rested on the metal railing beside her.

Her fingertips slid over the cold, painted surface.

Her five fingers slowly curled in, one by one, tightening into a fist.

No sound was made.

Yet the sturdy iron railing, as thick as an arm, let out a faint metallic groan of compression and distortion in her seemingly delicate, boneless palm.

No one knows how long it was before Shen Ruanruan finally let go.

She started walking again, turned, and with her usual light, silent steps, headed downstairs.

On the once-smooth surface of the railing, a clear indentation in the shape of her knuckles was left behind.