Don't Pretend to Be Good

A new girl named Yun Rao transferred to Nancheng High School. She was pretty and well-behaved, spoke softly, and had the lilting accent unique to the Jiangnan water towns. In the semester since she transferred, everyone had come to like her. Everyone except Mu Shangye. The girl had just gotten new bangs when Mu Shangye's friends brought her up. "She's so sweet and well-behaved. Absolutely perfect." Mu Shangye scoffed, his face full of disdain. What an act. Keep it up. She wasn't as well-behaved as she seemed. - The rich and arrogant young master Mu had plenty of admirers at school, but Yun Rao stood out from the rest. She didn't talk to him or arrange chance encounters. Even when they ran into each other in the hallway, she didn't give him so much as an extra glance. Yet every Thursday afternoon, like clockwork, she slipped a love letter into his school mailbox. Mu Shangye couldn't be bothered to open them. He acted as if he didn't see them, letting them pile up neatly in the mailbox, one after another, until there was a thick stack. One day, with nothing better to do, Mu Shangye opened the top letter and took a look. Elegant, graceful handwriting met his eyes. The pale pink paper, decorated with cherry blossoms, carried a faint fragrance. There wasn't a single improper word in the letter. She simply and cheerfully shared little bits of her life, like she was happily chatting with an old friend. For a moment, Mu Shangye's heart skipped a beat. Frowning, he crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it away, but the next day, when he walked into the classroom, he couldn't help staring at Yun Rao for a long while. - When Yun Rao first transferred to her new school, she joined an anonymous pen-pal activity. Everyone was randomly assigned a pen pal and sent handwritten letters to the mailbox they were given. Yun Rao enthusiastically wrote one letter after another to her pen pal, but never received a reply. She kept it up for an entire semester, until she finally skipped one letter because she was too busy with final exams. The next day, during an activity period, the class's lawless bully suddenly dragged Yun Rao behind a banyan tree in a corner of the sports field. Had she... done something to upset him? The girl worried he'd beat her up and trembled with fear. The boy across from her scowled. "Did I do something to upset you?" Yun Rao froze, then shook her head frantically. A rare hint of hurt showed through the boy's fierce expression. "Then why did you..." Why did you stop writing me love letters? #Do you not like me anymore? #Waaah A self-deluded school bully and a completely bewildered school beauty Theme: Study hard and keep improving