Fancy Me, Professor!

[This chapter is dedicated to Mtaisho97 for the nice comments that he/she has been leaving in my stories for the month of June and for being a silent reader who suddenly commented! Thank you so much for the support! I hope to continue reading your comments in the near future! :D]

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Zhang Ren and Shu Xian already started their classes.

With Shu Xian and Zhang Ren continuing to encode more abstracts of the theses and dissertations that were forwarded to them so they can input it in the university's catalogue, both of them were actually quiet than usual.

It was already 3:30 in the afternoon. The moment their phone buzzed as it indicated them that it's Shu Xian who's going to have her break first, she broke the silence when she stretched, whispering to Zhang Ren.

"I will be having my break now. Do you want me to buy you some food so later you will already have food for your break?"

"No need," Zhang Ren commented, thanking Shu Xian anyway. "Thank you, but enjoy your day!"

With that, Shu Xian grinned and got her hamburger that she bought a while ago during lunch for her snack. With her getting her water bottle as well, she then went to the lounge to take her thirty-minute break.

The moment Shu Xian entered the lounge, she saw Zhong Li turning his head instinctively to look at her the moment she opened the door, a small smile appearing on the girl's face as she greeted him.

"Oh, Zhong Li! Nice to see you again in the lounge," she commented, Zhong Li, nodding as he scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, umm… I'm sorry to tell you this, but I don't know how to say it but I can't beat around the bush either."

"Oh!"

Shu Xian already guessed it, a wider grin appearing on her face as she made a guess.

"You want to ask help from me in doing your English homework?" she asked, Zhong Li nodding as he answered her question.

"Yeah… is it… too obvious?"

"Well, yes," Shu Xian answered with a light chuckle, already grabbing a spare chair and sitting beside him. "With us only talking because of homework, then I could guess this much since this is the second time we've encountered each other in the student lounge, right?"

With this pointed out, Zhong Li couldn't help but nod in agreement, Shu Xian already taking a bite of her burger after she took the wrapper off.

"Well, what's the topic about this time? I'll try my best to help," she asked and added, Zhong Li giving her his notebook as he opened the part where it showed his homework for World Literature.

"It's another subject I'm taking—a minor one, but still English."

"Alright," Shu Xian asked, getting the notebook from him. "Lemme read the instruction."

The penmanship of Zhong Li is actually pretty good—even better than Shu Xian's! With her smiling as she appreciated his writing, she read the instructions easily and already knew what the professor is asking.

The instruction read:

Do a self-analysis on the story "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. Identify the characters and then their probable symbolism. Afterward, identify the plot of the story and provide a summary to further support your claims.

"Huh…"

Shu Xian couldn't help but furrow her brows, cocking her head to the side as she said aloud her comment.

"I wonder why your professor is asking this much when this is just a minor subject," she mumbled, enough for Zhong Li to hear.

"I don't know," he honestly said, shrugging at the same time. "Either way, to be honest, I'm too lazy to read. Can you help me with this?"

"No problem," Shu Xian answered in a heartbeat, already helping Zhong Li first by providing him the summary of the story with how she knew the story, the guy writing it down on his notebook as fast as he could.

"A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner, first published on April 30, 1930, in an issue of The Forum.

The story takes place in Faulkner's fictional city Jefferson, Mississippi, in the southern county of Yoknapatawpha. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine.

Shu Xian further explained that the story is divided into five sections.

In section I, the narrator recalls the time of Emily Grierson's death and how the entire town attended her funeral in her home, which no stranger had entered for more than ten years. In a once-elegant, upscale neighborhood, Emily's house is the last vestige of the grandeur of a lost era.

Colonel Sartoris, the town's previous mayor, had suspended Emily's tax responsibilities to the town after her father's death, justifying the action by claiming that Mr. Grierson had once lent the community a significant sum. As new town leaders take over, they make unsuccessful attempts to get Emily to resume payments.

When members of the Board of Aldermen pay her a visit, in the dusty and antiquated parlor, Emily reasserts the fact that she is not required to pay taxes in Jefferson and that the officials should talk to Colonel Sartoris about the matter.

However, at that point he has been dead for almost a decade. She asks her servant, Tobe, to show the men out.

Hearing this, Zhong Li couldn't help but scrunch his nose in disgust.

With him knowing that Emily had killed the man and had slept with the corpse for a very long time and then the villagers learned after, he thought that the character in the story, Emily, is a person with necrophilia.

"I actually tried reading the story a while ago… but with it lengthy and even the translation a bit difficult to understand, I figured I'd ask you. When you made it simple for me to understand… wow, the story is indeed morbid," he commented, making Shu Xian laugh.

"Well, yes! We will further talk about the meaning of the story and what the symbolisms are—along with the themes it has," she replied, Zhong Li now listening to her as he was grateful that Shu Xian is willing to help him even though they're not that close.