Zenith Class 2 was doing the same down the hall, except chanting and pumping their fists, "Zenith bound, Zenith bound!"

Their head teacher left the room with a final warning. "Just remember, we can't let Pinnacle take any spots!" As the last strand of her hair disappeared around the corner, the boys swarmed around Chi Yang.

"You talked to her, right?"

"What did she smell like?"

"Did you find out her name?"

"She's a goddess!"

The babbling overlapped and merged until Chi Yang finally slapped his hand down on the desk. "Everyone shut up for a minute!"

Chi Yang basked in the attention, pleased as a peacock that he'd gotten the jump on all the other boys.

"For your information, we bumped into each other in the hallway. After that, we had a pretty good talk and then went to class."

"Dude," Xu Haoran complained, "You talked to her for at least five minutes. You gotta give us more than that, bro!"

Xu Haoran had been tight with Chi Yang since they were kids and could tell by the smirk on his face that Chi Yang was taking this one as a victory over all the rest of them.

"That means you actually touched her," one of the boys said in awe. "Bro, please, give us something, we're dying here!"

A few of the boys were muttering among themselves. "If that idiot from Class 8 had taken a better picture, maybe we'd all have a better idea of what she looks like!"

Said idiot in Class 8's ears itched briefly before he shrugged and looked back down to his papers.

"Fuck it, if we weren't on a restricted study period right now, we could go to her classroom to get a look!"

Chi Yang waved a hand and said, "Okay, dudes, just settle down. I'm sure she'll be in the cafeteria at lunch, so you can look at her then."

He hesitated. "Just... she seems nice, so don't go overboard with her.

.....

Unaware of the storm swirling around her presence, Jiao Jiao skipped the cafeteria and carried her lunch to the courtyard. Finding a stone bench under a flowering tree, she sat in the warm sunshine.

Taking a bite of her apple, Jiao Jiao found that she had two messages waiting.

(Darling Mom): Keep your smile on Jiao Jiao! Jiayou!!!

(LQ): How's it going?

Her mom's excessive use of punctuation made Jiao Jiao grin. She shot off a quick response.

(WhisperingBlooms): Thanks Mom. It's been pretty good so far, but everyone seems nice! **( ' ∀ ' )**

That was a bit of a stretch since she hadn't actually talked to anyone in her class yet. But a lot of the boys smiled at her, and Chi Yang seemed okay. She turned her attention to Li Qian's question.

(WhisperingBlooms): It's been alright. Have you ever been here? The school is huge!

(WhisperingBlooms): My head teacher is also my math teacher, and he seems okay. The other students like him a lot.

Li Qian must not have been busy because his reply came almost immediately after Jiao Jiao sent her last text.

(LQ): Have you met any of the kids yet?

(WhisperingBlooms): No, there was a free period after homeroom, but everyone was busy studying. I haven't talked to my seatmate yet, either. She looked kind of annoyed when I sat down so I just worked on my math papers.

(WhisperingBlooms): Oh! I did crash into a boy this morning... (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄

(LQ): Well, you're pretty good at that (＾◡＾)

(WhisperingBlooms): No teasing about that Brother Qian. I'm already embarrassed enough as it is! Ai!! Bell's about to ring, gtg...

As soon as Jiao Jiao bounced up from the bench, she swayed with dizziness, and blurred images flashed in her mind for a moment. Holding her throbbing head, she decided to visit the infirmary before going back to class.