Eric Bennett rubbed his hands together, mustering up the courage to speak: “Ms. Morgan, um, can I ask why you made me the class representative? Well, maybe you don’t know, but my score on the high school entrance exam was pretty average.”

“Pretty average?” Emily Morgan gently set down her coffee cup, sat up straight, and looked at him intently. “Some people are just born to work with literature. Maybe their grades aren’t that high, but their potential is definitely not small.”

Eric Bennett didn’t understand what she meant. Admittedly, his literary foundation was decent, but how did Emily Morgan know that?

“I read your essay.”

“Essay? The composition from the entrance exam?” There was no way Eric Bennett could remember what he wrote for that exam.

“You should know better than I do which essay I’m talking about.” Emily Morgan tapped her fingers on the table. “If it were graded as an entrance exam composition, most people—including myself—would probably give it a zero. But a very small number of people might give it a perfect score.”

She looked at Eric Bennett, just stared at him: “Only this once. Don’t let it happen again.”

Chapter 9: I’ll Marry You

“Essay? Don’t let it happen again?” Eric Bennett blinked, pretending to be calm. “What are you talking about?” His heart was pounding, and he wished he could crawl into a mouse hole.

Emily Morgan saw him playing dumb and helplessly rubbed her temples, looking at him seriously: “You seem very curious how I knew, right? Well, your handwriting is very beautiful, very mature, so it’s easy to distinguish from other boys. Maybe you don’t know, but all the single-person radicals in the love letter’s characters are written in a special way, with one continuous stroke. Later, when I saw you sign your name after your student number, I knew that love letter was written by you. The character ‘Ren’ has a single-person radical.”

Eric Bennett swallowed dryly. “So that’s why you made me the Chinese class representative?”

“Yes. Setting aside the nature of your actions, the love letter itself was quite commendable.” Emily Morgan spoke without blushing or skipping a beat, showing no sign of embarrassment. Maybe she never saw herself as a man in the first place.

No wonder—she was twenty-six, a full ten years older than him!

As he thought about it, Eric Bennett seemed to make up his mind and smacked his head hard. “Ms. Morgan, just like I said in the letter, I really…” Before Eric Bennett could confess, Emily Morgan interrupted him with an unquestionable tone: “Let’s end this prank here. I hope you’ll focus on your studies.”

A prank?

Maybe she was trying to change the subject, or maybe she really thought that.

Eric Bennett didn’t know what Emily Morgan was thinking, but since she’d said this much, if he kept pestering her, it would only make things worse. He gave a bitter smile, hung his head, and said goodbye dejectedly, “Sorry, Ms. Morgan, I’ll head back now.”

“Mm.”

Just as he opened the door, Eric Bennett suddenly remembered something and turned back: “Uh, could you not tell Ms. Miller about this? I’m afraid…”

“I called you here alone because I never intended to make a big deal out of it.” Emily Morgan opened a reference book and started reading, not even looking up. “But if there’s a next time, I can’t make any promises.”

Eric Bennett took a deep breath, feeling down: “Are you threatening me?”

Emily Morgan suddenly stopped flipping the pages, her gaze snapping to Eric Bennett. “You could see it that way.” Clearly, Emily Morgan was not pleased with his last remark.

……

Heartbroken?

Then drink!

It seemed like the natural thing to do.

Emily Morgan’s reaction was pretty much what Eric Bennett expected. He wasn’t all that upset, just felt it was only right to drown his sorrows in alcohol.

He found a lamb skewer stall at the entrance of an alley a bit far from home. “Twenty skewers, three big kidneys, a pack of Honghe cigarettes, and a bottle of Erguotou, the fifty-six percent kind.”

After just two gulps, his face was already turning paler and paler. Eric Bennett had always had a weak stomach, so drinking never made him flush—instead, the more he drank, the paler he got.

He’d barely finished half a bottle of Red Star Erguotou before he was basically done for, staggering home in a daze.

“Hao, what’s going on with you?”

Eric Bennett groggily lifted his heavy eyelids and saw a voluptuous woman. “Aunt Lily, didn’t you… hic… go traveling?” He hiccupped, making Olivia Scott frown. “I just got back this morning. Sigh, you’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”

Eric Bennett lost his balance and bumped into the wall. It felt pretty comfortable, so he just leaned there. “No, didn’t drink much, hehe, hic, just about half a jin.” He looked a bit proud—after all, in his previous life, he could only handle about three liang at most, so this was a pretty good record.

Olivia Scott, who was around thirty, lived in the west wing and had been an old neighbor of Eric Bennett’s family for years.

She shook her head and glanced toward the north wing, hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward to support Eric Bennett and pulled him toward her house. “It’s already dark. I think you’d better not go home tonight—stay with Aunt Lily.”

Eric Bennett, bleary-eyed, was stunned: “How can I do that?”

Olivia Scott covered her mouth and nose with her fair hand. “You reek of alcohol. If your big brother and sister see you at home, they’ll beat you to death. Come on, come inside with Auntie.” Olivia Scott’s father and Eric Bennett’s grandfather were very close friends, so the two families had always been close.