Chapter 213’s vibrant, flourishing scene of all things vying for life is still vivid in my mind, no matter how I look at it…

Half an hour before evening self-study, the classroom was brightly lit.

Jiang Nian had just received fifty thousand yuan and was as happy as if it were New Year’s.

This short period in the evening, undisturbed, was perfect for using the Zhang Ningzhi memory fragments given by the System.

Since this thing was given by the System, its authenticity was not guaranteed.

Of course, he didn’t believe it entirely, treating it as if he had watched a movie, or played a simulation game, using it to gather some useful clues for himself.

After all, he was only eighteen; firstly, he hadn’t done those things. Secondly, his fate line had already changed, so what was there to say? Just watch for fun.

He had to take responsibility for things he hadn’t done.

Wasn’t that bullying an honest person?

With ten thousand grievances upon him, and snow flying in June, he had no one to appeal to. He pleaded for the great Lord Qingtang to preside over his case.

As soon as he entered the court, the gavel struck, and the questioning began.

“Who is before the court?”

He replied, “A man burdened with ten thousand grievances.”

The Lord was greatly startled and hurriedly descended from the main hall to greet him.

“The man with ten thousand grievances finished what?”

Jiang Nian smiled shyly, “Occasionally, I also play some Three Kingdoms Kill.”

The great Lord gasped, and gestured to his attendants.

“Kill him and feed him to the dogs.”

This was the true state of Jiang Nian’s unjust suffering; in short, it was one sentence:

Just go for it first.

Jiang Nian reached out and clicked on the task panel, which displayed: 【Zhang Ningzhi Memory Fragment in use.】

From his experience of watching the memories provided by the System twice before, he knew that time in reality was not completely still during viewing.

The next second, as if entering a cinema, the lights instantly went out, and his vision was plunged into darkness.

Before the visuals connected, sounds like a tide surged from all directions.

“Who are you chatting with?”

“Why don’t you look for yourself and find out?”

A faint light appeared; the two seemed to be on a street.

The perspective swayed a bit, then stabilized, and “I” handed the phone to her.

Zhang Ningzhi, wearing a small white dress, slightly raised her head.

“No, I won’t look.”

Based solely on her appearance, she was probably under twenty-eight years old.

At this time, the two had not yet broken up, and from the scene, it could be inferred that they were in the honeymoon phase.

The girl’s youthful demeanor had faded, and she had fully blossomed. Her figure was slender and well-proportioned, curvaceous, making her a true beauty.

“Alright, then don’t look.”

The perspective shifted slightly, and he saw Zhang Ningzhi secretly glancing at his phone.

Her large, purple-grape-like eyes were round and adorably sneaky.

Jiang Nian couldn’t help but feel a little helpless and directly used the front camera to “arrest” her peeking appearance on the spot.

When he handed it to her to see, Zhang Ningzhi exclaimed.

“Ah! Delete it!”

The scene shifted, this time in a room.

Faint coughing could be heard, suggesting illness.

Soon after, a call came in.

The scene began to accelerate, the sounds became noisy, and about an hour of time flowed within the scene.

Zhang Ningzhi arrived, carrying her cute cross-body bag.

The dialogue was unclear.

She leaned down and pressed her forehead against his to check his temperature, then rolled up her sleeves and went into the kitchen to cook porridge.

After feeding him medicine, they chatted by the bed.

Slowly, the first-person perspective changed to a third-person perspective.

For the first time, Jiang Nian saw himself in the System’s memory fragments—a familiar face. He was unshaven, his face thin, and the room was full of printed Materials.

“He” fell asleep, and Zhang Ningzhi also quieted down.

She sat on the chair by the bed, chin in hand, quietly staring at his face for a long time.

After an unknown period, she slowly got up, tidied the room, and silently went downstairs to take a taxi home.

The scene began to accelerate: playing games, going out, watching movies. The visuals were not clear, like damaged or missing video, with no substantial content.

Then, his vision darkened again, and then brightened.

It seemed to be late at night, below a high-end residential complex, with scattered lights looking up.

A figure appeared at the entrance of the complex; walking closer, it was Zhang Ningzhi.

Her eyes were red, probably from being scolded by her parents, with tears streaming down her face. She bowed her head slightly, looking aggrieved, and had cried until her eyelids were swollen.

When asked, she shook her head and stubbornly said,

“I deliberately cried like this; this European-style inner double eyelid is very popular recently, and it looks good in photos.”

Then the two really took many photos outside the empty complex. Zhang Ningzhi picked the best one and asked him,

“Am I prettier, or is the girlfriend you dated in college prettier?”

Jiang Nian was stunned; this sentence contained more information than hundreds of viewings of the previous two scenes combined. Damn, so he had another one in college? Why hadn’t the previous tasks mentioned it at all?

The scene didn’t pause; he gave a dry laugh.

“You’re prettier.”

“Hmph, that’s more like it.” Zhang Ningzhi visibly brightened up.

She ran to a distant streetlamp and took two photos, seemingly to prove that she really liked those tear-swollen inner double eyelids that resembled a fawn’s eyes.

She took photo after photo, finding angles against the streetlamp, then skipped back. Zhang Ningzhi looked up at him, her eyes pleading.

“Jiang Nian, let’s take a photo together. We’ve been together for so long and haven’t really had a good photo…”

The scene abruptly ended, the perspective slowly detaching like a candle flame in the wind.

It moved further and further away until it was completely swallowed by darkness, and white light slowly bloomed.

Jiang Nian opened his eyes; he was still in the classroom.

He glanced at the watch in Li Hua’s desk drawer; only one minute had passed. After watching so many memories, his heart was already as cold as an old ice pop from the convenience store.

To be honest, he didn’t feel much.

Aside from sighing at how cute Zhi Zhi-baby was, the most surprising thing was undoubtedly that he had dated someone in college? No, why wasn’t that mentioned at all in the previous tasks?

But it didn’t matter; it was just a simulation anyway.

He didn’t understand why the System said he had a girlfriend in college if he did.

It was as if the System had custom-designed his life, destined to be disheartened and down-and-out.

The choice was in his hands; he could get into a first-tier university even with his eyes closed.

Who would bother with a tough second-tier college romance? He would take off directly once he got into a good university.

A month ago, he embarked on his journey from the parallel class, beginning his sprint to an advanced class.

The unattainable Olympiad had extended an olive branch to him, and he easily secured his spot.

That vibrant, flourishing Realm, where all things competed, was still vivid in his mind.

No matter what, he already had nearly three hundred thousand yuan in his pocket; the advantage was his.

Ten minutes before evening self-study, Zhang Ningzhi arrived late.

As soon as she entered the classroom, she found a few chocolates on her seat.

Her apple cheeks lifted involuntarily; even though she knew in advance, she was still somewhat delighted to see them.

“For me?”

“Yes, unless they’re for Li Hua?” Jiang Nian glanced at her.

“The group leader can just eat dirt; he bet someone last time that he could eat a pound of dirt anyway.” Zhang Ningzhi mercilessly complained, already accustomed to attacking Li Hua.

Or rather, in the sixth group, attacking Li Hua was politically correct.

There were simply too many points to attack him on; Zhang Ningzhi was merely fitting in.

“Chishi! Chishi!!” Li Hua clutched his head, looking incredulous, “Okay, okay, you guys treat me like this, I’m going to do a standing long jump from the windowsill now.”

Jiang Nian was used to it, a wide smile on his face.

“Hua, why don’t you ask if there’s some for you?”

Hearing this, Li Hua joyfully turned his head and asked,

“Is there?”

“No.”

“Tsk tsk tsk, are you so easily teased, baby?” Jiang Nian chuckled, while pretending to reach into his pocket, “Why don’t you ask if I’m lying to you?”

“Then are you lying to me?”

“I’m not lying to you.” Jiang Nian pulled out his phone from his pocket.

“Ah!!! Chishi! Chishi!” Li Hua couldn’t stand this inhuman persecution anymore, clutching his head and scurrying away, carrying his books to swap seats with Yao Beibei.

Yao Beibei arrived, not even sitting down.

“Let’s switch; I want to sit with Zhizhi.”

Jiang Nian was a bit speechless, but still got up and swapped seats. Sitting in Li Hua’s spot, he was both close to the aisle and infinitely close to the big fatty Ma Guojun.

As evening reading began, Ma Guojun turned and looked at him, unable to hold back a laugh.

“Li Hua swapped seats again, goddamn it?”

“Yeah, probably his dick is bleeding, and he’s too ashamed to show his face in the back.” Jiang Nian shamelessly slandered Li Hua, “Look at his pathetic state, always hanging out with the gays.”

Ma Guojun also laughed, pushing up his glasses.

Evening reading began.

The good thing about this seat was its proximity to the aisle for easy entry and exit; the bad thing was the shortened direct distance to Dong Wensong, allowing him to hear Grand Tutor Dong’s ‘jade voice broadcast’ during evening reading.

“Masaka (could it be) that you haven’t even bought any goods (merchandise)? Then what do you call yourselves otaku? At most, you’re just anime fans.”

When phrases like “Redou Ni” and “Qikeshou” came, Jiang Nian fell silent.

Damn, a thousand years of accumulated good fortune.

He turned to look at Ma Guojun, the big fatty’s mouth moving rapidly. He was unmoved by Grand Tutor Dong’s ‘jade voice broadcast,’ clearly an experienced ‘mother hunter.’

Evening reading ended, and Grand Tutor Dong encountered a deskmate who set him up for a conversation.

“I actually dislike some fake (knockoff) stuff; it’s really…”

Yu Zhiyi was reviewing her last joint exam results, habitually scrutinizing those around her.

She suddenly discovered something strange: Jiang Nian’s English scores were too stable, as if they had made a home in the 140s range.

She wanted to study Jiang Nian’s method for improving English scores and had even checked Jiang Nian’s previous English scores at the academic affairs office before evening self-study.

She found that after Jiang Nian’s score suddenly jumped to 140 before he moved up a class, it had never dropped since.

She also asked the English class representative and found that this person hadn’t done English homework for a month.

His score of 140 contained not a single drop of sweat, but was entirely the talent that led to success.

It was utterly absurd.

Thinking this, Yu Zhiyi suddenly felt immense pressure. She had gained 0 experience from Jiang Nian and was feeling irritable when she suddenly heard ‘heh heh heh’ pig-like grunts coming from the front of the second group.

Accompanied by words like ‘Watashi,’ “Eh? I pushed it.”

Yu Zhiyi glanced towards the front of the classroom, thinking that Dong Wensong was having another ‘pig plague.’ Usually, she would just tolerate it, but today she was utterly annoyed.

Thinking of this, she poked Yang Qiming in front of her.

“Ming-ge, up front.”

Yang Qiming had been quite dejected recently, but unless a man was almost dead, he still had no resistance to “holy crab.” He took a deep breath and spoke bluntly,

“Puppet army, get out of Class Three! Hey, what the hell are you doing!”