Class Beauty

Class Beauty, originally titled My Class Monitor, My Class, is a long urban-life novel by the web author Tianchao Shusheng (later known by the pen names Aobiy e and Wei Beibei), totaling 654 chapters and about 2.01 million words; it was serialized on Qidian Chinese Network and completed with the finale "Reunion (Grand Finale)." The novel unfolds from the first-person perspective of "I": a teenager returning home from school at the start of summer vacation finds that the one who opens the door is the strikingly beautiful female class monitor from his high school days; even more surprising, this former "class beauty" has now married his father and become his stepmother. Thus, over a long summer vacation when his father is away and only the two remain at home, a story unfolds around the daily life and emotional ups and downs of a blended family. The work records, in fine everyday strokes, the process by which "I" and the stepmother class beauty move from awkwardness and friction to gradual understanding and coexistence, interspersed with the protagonist's dealings with classmates and friends and his adolescent worries. The author excels at weaving real news and personal observations into fictional plots; the protagonist is constantly engaged in psychological self-struggle and repeated weighing of options, and the writing carries a distinct flavor of marketplace life and light comedy. The sequel Kill Prison and the follow-up Medical School continue the storylines of characters of the same name, forming an interconnected series of works.