Chapter 160: I Have No Backbone

“Tsk tsk, Yuan Zhengchuan is truly being unreasonable.”

“Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I was right there watching, his face was really scary.”

In the girls’ dorm, four or five girls were scattered around, discussing the day’s events.

Next door, Ji Jiayu’s dorm had even more people watching the show, gossiping for over an hour without dispersing.

“Timi!”, “Timi!”

Discordant sounds rang out, and Chai Muying and the other girls looked up towards the source of the noise.

On the top bunk, Chen Yunyun and Wang Yuhe sat leaning against the wall. Their two pairs of clean white feet rested against the green bed rail, and the ceiling fan whirred overhead.

“Hmm? Yunyun, are you two playing a game?”

“Ah, yes.”

Chen Yunyun knew the inside scoop of Ji Jiayu’s gossip, so she naturally wasn’t very interested. As for Wang Yuhe, she cared even less, as long as the young couple didn’t cause trouble during nap time.

Just as she was speaking, a boy’s voice came from Wang Yuhe’s phone.

“Can you hear me?”

The dorm fell silent, and Chen Yunyun was also stunned, not expecting Wang Yuhe to put it on speaker. She had originally planned to use headphones, so why was it so sudden?

Four or five roommates instantly stood up, all looking up and gathering below Wang Yuhe’s bunk, ready to gossip.

At this moment, Wang Yuhe’s phone unexpectedly emitted a sound.

“Wang Yuhe is a primary school student!”

Upon hearing this, the girls’ dorm burst into laughter! A chorus of chirping voices!

“Hahaha, is that Jiang Nian?”

“Primary school student, hahaha.”

Wang Yuhe, unable to bear it, gritted her teeth and said,

“You’re the primary school student!”

“You are, I’m not.” Jiang Nian retorted.

“You are!”

“Your dad I’m not, you are.”

The entire girls’ dorm listened to Jiang Nian and Wang Yuhe’s fierce two-minute argument about who was the primary school student, laughing so hard they could barely breathe.

“You two are incredible, are you kindergarten kids?”

Hearing this, Chen Yunyun also found it amusing and asked her roommates before the game started,

“Do you guys want to play?”

“No thanks, you guys play, I don’t know how to play this game.”

“Haven’t downloaded it.”

“Thanks for the invite, I’m busy gossiping next door, heard Old Liu called.”

“I’m going too, I’m going too, I love gossip the most.”

After asking around, no one wanted to join, so only Jiang Nian and his two teammates played.

Although they were roommates, they weren’t very familiar with Jiang Nian and felt awkward participating.

Moreover, a team with one boy and four girls is generally considered a punching bag, a scapegoat, a losing team. The soft persimmon, the marshmallow of five-player queues.

What’s the point of constantly losing, unless it’s playing with familiar friends?

For example, every time Ma Guojun and Li Hua went to the internet cafe to play together, the two would definitely curse and complain. Fatty’s face would turn red from all the swearing, but next time he’d still ask Li Hua to play.

It wasn’t necessarily deep father-son affection, but rather the nature of games. If you don’t play with friends around you, even if you win a lot, it’s meaningless.

The game was still on the loading screen when Chen Yunyun spoke.

“Jiang Nian, I’m a bit bad at playing.”

Wang Yuhe emphasized, “I’m very good.”

“It’s fine, just play casually, my skills are also just average,” Jiang Nian comforted her, “It’s already nine o’clock, aren’t you guys having a late-night snack?”

Chen Yunyun was speechless, maneuvering her hero towards the defense tower.

“You forgot, we ate at eight.”

Soon, Jiang Nian’s voice came through the microphone, accompanied by the sound effect of a skill leveling up.

“Oh, oh, the cafeteria still has food that late?”

“Yeah, because this dorm cafeteria mostly serves boarding students,” Chen Yunyun explained while playing, “There aren’t as many people eating dinner as there are at lunch.”

“The dishes at the second-floor window are tastier, and they usually save them to sell at a discount in the evening.”

Wang Yuhe added, “It only costs five yuan at night for two meat and two vegetable dishes.”

Jiang Nian: “Don’t say anymore, I’m so upset I didn’t get to take advantage of that.”

“Save me! Jiang Nian!” Chen Yunyun cried, “He, he, he, ahhh, why is there always someone flashing next to me, why is he always targeting me?”

“Ahhh! Jiang Nian, why did you take my minion wave?” Wang Yuhe was furious, “You’re so shameless, deliberately talking to distract me!”

Jiang Nian: “You guys sacrifice a bit, it’s not a big problem, I’ll send you red envelopes in the group later.”

Chen Yunyun: “…You…”

Wang Yuhe: “…So shameless.”

After two games, Chen Yunyun kept dodging, and Wang Yuhe was the first to break down.

“My teammate said my Xiao Qiao is worse than a cannon minion!”

Jiang Nian: “To be fair, it’s true.”

“Ah, you! Jiang Nian, how can you say that!” Wang Yuhe trembled with anger, “No, I’m going to curse back!”

Chen Yunyun tried to stop her, but it was too late; Wang Yuhe had already opened the all-chat.

Late at night, in the girls’ dorm, after lights out.

The roommates had just returned from gossiping next door, and upon reaching their dorm door, they found it pitch black inside, only hearing faint, almost imperceptible sobs.

The girls froze instantly, their hair standing on end, various horror movie scenarios about girls’ dorms flooding their minds.

“Holy crap, where’s that crying coming from?”

“Could it be that the previous batch of senior students didn’t leave completely, and one or two stayed behind?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, senior students only stay in the boys’ dorm,” one girl jumped out to refute, “If that kind of situation happens, the school leaders would definitely organize a dorm swap between boys and girls.”

“You know, when I was in my first year of high school, I heard…”

“Holy crap, Chai Muying, don’t say it!”

Chen Yunyun couldn’t hold back, and turned on her flashlight on the top bunk. She patted the quilt of the adjacent bed with some helplessness, persuading,

“Yuhe, don’t cry anymore.”

After speaking, she suddenly didn’t know what else to say to persuade her.

The roommates gathered around, and Chai Muying, who had a good relationship with the two girls, asked curiously,

“Weren’t you playing games? Why are you crying?”

Wang Yuhe poked her head out from under the quilt, wiping away tears as she explained.

“My teammates cursed at me, they said I played worse than her grandma’s braised pig trotters.”

The roommates looked at each other, “Jiang Nian cursed you?”

“Not him, it was the other two matched players in the team.” Wang Yuhe cried in hiccups, “I couldn’t curse them back, and I was mocked.”

“I, I got anxious, and cursed them in Hakka, they… they, wuwuwu.”

Chai Muying: “They cursed you again?”

“No, they…” Wang Yuhe cried even more sadly, “They quit the game, saying they wouldn’t play with a little Japanese, wuwuwu!! I’m not…”

…I’m not a little Japanese, wuwuwu.”

Hearing this, the dorm fell silent for a few seconds, then erupted in huge laughter.

“Hahaha!!”

“I’m dying of laughter, little Japanese… that’s really insulting.”

“Where’s Jiang Nian, didn’t he help you? Curse him!”

Wang Yuhe stopped crying and poked her head out from under the thin quilt again.

“…I can’t curse him.”

“Why? Did Jiang Nian help you?”

“No, he laughed the loudest.” Wang Yuhe cried, sobbing, “But, but he sent me a red envelope, and I had no backbone and accepted it.”

Hearing this, the dorm’s laughter grew even louder.

After the laughter subsided, Chai Muying began to recount the gossip she had gathered from all directions.

“This time it’s a big deal, I heard the Homeroom Teacher got scolded.”

Chen Yunyun chatted intermittently with Jiang Nian while pricking up her ears to listen. Wang Yuhe also stopped crying; she was happy to hear that Ji Jiayu was in a bad situation.

Early the next morning.

Jiang Nian scooped up a handful of clear water under the faucet and splashed it on his face to wake up a bit.

Facial cleanser? What’s that stuff?

Clear water is a level ten skincare product, usable for any skin type, oily or dry. At most, he would use shower gel to wash his face while showering.

Sulfur soap was a bit of a cheat, more like a medicine than a medicine, a complete nuclear strike on the skin.

When it came to toiletries, he only saved effort on washing his face. The rest of the toiletries didn’t require his consideration, which was one of the benefits of being a day student.

As usual, Jiang Nian went to school alone and arrived at the classroom early, just like any other day.

As long as the results weren’t out, he wouldn’t feel at ease.

But Jiang Nian didn’t expect Zhang Ningzhi to arrive even earlier; the young girl was already spacing out early in the morning. She held a pen in her hand, staring at the math textbook for a long time without moving.

“You came so early?” Jiang Nian put down his backpack and greeted her.

“Yeah, woke up very early.” Zhang Ningzhi felt a burning sensation on her face, embarrassed to say she had been nervous all night, “It seems not many people are in class?”

“The big exams are over, and with a holiday last night, certainly few people would arrive early.” He leaned back in his chair, sprawled out, staring blankly at the incandescent light overhead in the empty classroom.

After watching for a while, he let out a faint sigh.

“I really don’t want to go to school in the morning, if only morning self-study could be canceled.”

Zhang Ningzhi witnessed his inexplicable ritual the whole time and asked curiously,

“Why do you sigh every day when you come to class?”

“Nothing, just complaining about this lousy school.” Jiang Nian took out his books and test papers; his motivation for school relied entirely on looking at pretty girls.

“But it’s fine, morning reading isn’t the main point anyway.”

Zhang Ningzhi subconsciously asked, “Then what is?”

Jiang Nian didn’t reply, propping his head with his hand, he glanced at her, then lowered his head to look at the test paper again.

After two seconds of stunned, Zhang Ningzhi blinked her eyes, her eyelashes slowly falling. With a delayed reaction, she gradually understood the subtext of the conversation.

Her chest immediately bubbled like an opened peach soda, gurgling out round after round.

But… it might be someone else, he also likes talking to other girls.

It must be like that.

Zhang Ningzhi tried to cover up her thoughts, no longer daring to look at him.

“Will the results be out today?”

“Probably, maybe not all of them, but math definitely will be,” Jiang Nian said distractedly while looking at a problem, without lifting his head, “You don’t need to worry.”

…Neither of us will be demoted.”

Zhang Ningzhi’s concern was hit, and she softly hummed in affirmation.

It would be good if they weren’t demoted.

Demotion meant separation, separation from Yao Beibei, the team leader, and the others. Fangfang was also quite good, and then there was him; no matter who was demoted, she wouldn’t be used to it.

As if to ease her anxiety, the English answer sheet and math answer sheet were distributed before morning self-study even ended.

Li Hua got his math answer sheet and flicked the paper.

“146, red stone, he’s deliberately picking on me.”

Zhang Ningzhi hadn’t received her paper yet. She turned to look and saw that Jiang Nian hadn’t received his either. Her once settled heart gradually began to churn with unease again.

Zeng You got his English answer sheet and saw 67.

“Holy crap, why only 67? I even peeked at the guy in front wearing glasses! His mistakes were even more outrageous than my own!”

English and math answer sheets were distributed together in this science Olympiad class. It felt like one moment in heaven, the next in Hell. Li Hua immediately deflated when he got his English paper.

“Damn, 69.”

Zeng You heard this, stood up, and went to look at Li Hua’s test paper.

“Haha, Team Leader, you only got two points more than me!”

Li Hua was depressed, “How much did you get in math?”

Zeng You said triumphantly, “136.”

Seeing Li Hua not speaking, Zeng You became even happier. He saw two answer sheets being handed over. He eagerly leaned over to take a look, and immediately his face showed a pained expression.

Zhang Ningzhi got 140 in English, and Jiang Nian got 143 in English.

He helped hand them over, muttering,

“Are they even human?”

Zhang Ningzhi glanced at her English answer sheet, then at Jiang Nian’s answer sheet. She couldn’t help but curve her lips, a quiet sigh of relief escaping her heart.

“I overperformed!”

“Amazing, next time it’ll be 150.” Jiang Nian praised instinctively.

Turning his head, he saw Lin Dong walking over with a stack of math answer sheets. He openly stopped at the sixth group and began manually searching for their two test papers.

“Brother Nian, wait a moment, I saw both of your answer sheets.”

“You both did quite well.”