Chapter 221 How can you study well while hanging out with insects?

Evening self-study began, and the class slowly stood up.

Jiang Nian loved to observe Zhang Ningzhi when he had nothing to do, staring—

Anyway, he finished his homework in the afternoon. Doing homework during class felt the same as doing a side hustle at work; in short, it was incredibly satisfying.

Zhang Ningzhi noticed someone’s gaze and was a bit speechless.

“What are you doing?”

“Thirsty.”

“Didn’t you bring your own water?” Zhang Ningzhi glanced at him, no longer looking directly at him. “If you don’t have water, just bear with it and get some after class.”

Their feelings had grown distant after all. Jiang Nian felt uncomfortable not being able to freeload drinks.

“Give me half a box of your lemon tea.”

He was no longer using imperative sentences but directly stating his request.

That’s how freeloading works: try your luck, even if it’s for something already consumed.

“No.” Zhang Ningzhi was annoyed with him every day.

“Later, I’ll steal the straw from your drink, and then you’ll have no choice but to share half with me,” Jiang Nian said calmly, uttering something outrageous.

Zhang Ningzhi’s head felt hot. She was both angry and wanted to laugh, so she just kept a straight face.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

Li Hua, unable to tolerate the two of them, complained,

“Just be a person, please.”

“What’s wrong, baby, are you jealous?” Jiang Nian glanced at him, then suddenly asked, “Oh, right, Hua, have you ever tried peeing into boiling water?”

Li Hua froze, stroking his chin.

“Why not?”

“Heat transfer, it’ll scald you from the water rising up,” Jiang Nian coaxed. “A hundred degrees Celsius, it’ll be a truly shocking farewell to your bird.”

Hearing this, Li Hua was so scared he almost shriveled up.

Boys could empathize with such fatal blows, even if the misfortune didn’t happen to them.

“You’re talking some really messed up stuff.”

He thought for a moment, instinctively feeling it was a fallacy.

But then he reconsidered, liquids indeed flow back when hot.

After thinking for a long time and still not understanding, he simply decided to boil a kettle of water and try it after school.

Carpe diem, seize the day.

Evening self-study was about to end, and a voice suddenly echoed in the gradually quiet classroom.

“A-Cheng, you’re playing video games again. Why don’t you take a break and read a book?”

The class erupted in laughter; even the girls couldn’t hold back.

Honestly, the guys who constantly told gay jokes and wrestled around during breaks were mostly straight.

Some girls laughed uncontrollably, perhaps because they genuinely enjoyed gay content.

“Opening strike!”

“I’m a historian, this is the Little Southern Liang Dynasty.”

“Why isn’t Sun Zhicheng bro talking? Is he naturally humorless?”

“That day, I just couldn’t stand Lin Dong’s nagging, so I rushed out. Who knew I’d meet a strange person who wanted to take me to the convenience store.”

The classroom was filled with chatter. Evening self-study began in this inescapable atmosphere, slowly quieting down only after the bell rang.

About ten minutes later, Old Liu slipped in through the door, carrying a stack of test papers.

“Weekly test, everyone!”

The classroom instantly fell silent; everyone was stunned.

After two seconds, the poor souls finally realized the gravity of the situation and immediately wailed.

“I’m numb, a Chinese test on the first evening self-study session?”

“I haven’t even finished my homework yet!”

“How dare you! What did Chinese do to you? This is illegal! Come with me to turn ourselves in.”

Jiang Nian didn’t feel much about it; he quite liked Chinese tests.

A Chinese test took three evening self-study sessions, plus essay writing.

All told, it was enough to completely consume an entire evening self-study period.

Of course, a math test would be even better; from looking down at the first question to looking up, face flushed with steam, two hours would vanish in an instant.

“Last Sunday, due to the parent-teacher conference, the weekly test was postponed,” Old Liu was still explaining on stage. “Anyway, it has to be taken sooner or later.”

“Students, clear your desks. Please sit in your positions from the last weekly test. No changing seats, and no whispering.”

With a rustle, the class began to clear their desks.

Some moved their books from the desk shelves to the side of the podium, while others chose to put them into the iron cabinets embedded in the wall, purely out of boredom.

Jiang Nian didn’t have many things in his book basket; he just gathered the books on his desk and tossed them in.

After finishing in one second, he turned to help Zhang Ningzhi, whose desk was more cluttered, tidy up.

This was twisted love.

Big brother is uncultured, big brother doesn’t like to talk, but big brother loves you.

This was also the ‘beautiful, strong, and tragic’ trope at play, making you regret not giving him lemon tea, so he’d morally blackmail you.

Of course, this trick was useless against scoundrels with negative moral scores.

Zhang Ningzhi saw Jiang Nian silently helping her clean up and felt a pang of guilt, realizing her tone earlier had been a bit harsh.

He carried Zhang Ningzhi’s books to the side of the podium. When he returned, he saw Zhang Ningzhi take out a box of lemon tea from her drawer.

She hesitated for a moment, then quickly handed it to him.

“This is for you.”

Jiang Nian immediately brightened. No matter what, yay!

“Thanks, baby.”

The noisy classroom drowned out his words, but Zhang Ningzhi, who was next to him, heard them clearly.

Baby?

Although Jiang Nian often acted crazy and liked to call boys ‘baby’ for no reason—this word had been inflated countless times in Class Three’s gay slang—

Still, hearing it once still caused a violently explosive flutter in her heart.

Zhang Ningzhi leaned one hand on the desk edge, her heartbeat chaotic and messy, like footprints in snow. She blinked her eyes, appearing nonchalant, but her chest rose and fell in a prolonged rhythm. She dared not make too many movements, for fear of losing composure.

She stood still for a moment, then recovered from the sweet talk that had inflated like Zimbabwean currency.

Zhang Ningzhi then lowered her gaze, slowly tidying her exam stationery.

Her heart was still beating strongly, but she had managed to suppress it, so as not to be too embarrassed.

She silently admonished herself in her heart, don’t be so pathetic.

The Chinese exam was very tedious.

Yu Tongjie was in low spirits. He sat in his assigned seat according to his student number.

His gaze subconsciously drifted to Li Qingrong’s seat, and he felt a bit weary.

Recently, there had been too much homework, and he was falling behind in his studies.

As a result, he was almost frantically rushing to complete assignments for all subjects. He did want to copy.

But shortly after the class reshuffle, he had personally declared that he wouldn’t copy homework.

He had even secretly mocked his desk mate for copying homework, so he was now reaping what he sowed.

But it didn’t matter; he just had to wait until the seat change this Sunday.

Hu Nianzhong said he was a rather slow-to-warm-up person. He felt awkward directly approaching the homeroom teacher about changing groups and needed some time to mentally prepare.

Country folk were just troublesome.

Just as he was thinking this, he looked closely and saw Jiang Nian chatting with Li Qingrong.

Yu Tongjie: “…”

What he found strange was that his heart didn’t seem to stir much.

A month ago, he might have been depressed about it for a while, but now, only weariness remained.

Damn it, the Olympiad class really didn’t treat ordinary students like humans.

Those who knew thought they were students; those who didn’t might think they were livestock sent to school.

A wave of fatigue washed over him, and Yu Tongjie closed his eyes.

A voice even echoed in his mind: this life, he might really die of exhaustion in this awful place.

Tao Ran walked around the classroom, holding a stack of test papers and answer sheets, asking the back rows,

“Is anyone still missing test papers or answer sheets?”

“Missing an answer sheet here!” Zhou Yuting raised her hand high, speaking in a voice that was halfway between pinched and unpinched. “Here, here.”

Tao Ran was only a few steps away from her, so he walked over directly and bent down to count the answer sheets.

“How many are missing?”

“Let me see, in total… Anyone missing one, raise your hand, I’ll count.” Zhou Yuting started taking on tasks again, secretly glancing at Tao Ran during this.

Not bad, suitable for deep cultivation in the fish pond.

“One, two, three, seven in total.” Zhou Yuting smiled, her eyes sparkling as she watched Tao Ran count the answer sheets, seizing the opportunity to ask,

“Class Monitor, do you like Ford cars?”

Tao Ran was busy counting the answer sheets, and the class was a bit noisy, so he didn’t hear what she said clearly.

He vaguely heard ‘Ford something car,’ a Furi license plate?

He didn’t plan to date in high school, so he never hid his ‘X’ preference.

A true man should like furries. A bit perverted. Yes, and then what? What about it?

Are you going to kill me, friend?

He counted seven answer sheets and gave them to Zhou Yuting, then pondered for a few seconds.

“Hmm, does that thing you mentioned have fur?”

Zhou Yuting was confused. What kind of car has fur? Is it a Transformer? Some Transformers look like they have grass growing on them.

“It seems… it does.”

“Then that’s great, I like it too.” Tao Ran finished speaking and left.

Zhou Yuting was puzzled and decided to search it up when she got home that night.

Boys’ hobbies were too niche.

During the Chinese exam.

Two evening self-study sessions passed in a blink, and Jiang Nian’s hand ached from writing. Only then did he barely finish an 800-character essay. Regardless of how much was correct, he had finished it.

The essay was also just random nonsense, loosely pieced together with some clichés.

It wasn’t that he didn’t take it seriously; the important scoring points in the Chinese exam weren’t here.

Writing so many Chinese practice tests, his essay writing had barely improved.

Would writing one less Chinese practice test affect the college entrance exam?

Of course, it would.

This impact was like the biological world losing Ma Guojun. He once answered a biology question: ‘The place where sperm and egg combine—’ He filled in ‘the bed.’

Jiang Nian finished early and had nothing to do.

So he happily started staring at the class monitor again, spacing out for a while looking at her profile. Then he started spinning his pen. His own pen wasn’t good for spinning, so he set his sights on the class monitor’s pen.

“Ahem, Class Monitor, may I borrow your pen?”

Li Qingrong was writing the last two hundred words of her essay, her arm tightly circling the test paper.

Due to a certain someone’s history of peeking at essays, she had to be on guard.

Hearing this, she turned and glanced at Jiang Nian.

“Mm.”

After the Chinese exam ended, everyone in the classroom returned to their seats.

The fourth evening self-study session had not yet begun.

Li Hua suddenly stopped writing and turned to Jiang Nian, saying,

“Nian, how can you study well when you’re with insects!”

Jiang Nian flinched, fearing that this bastard would suddenly pull out a gun and point it at him.

No, it should be pointed at Cai Xiaoqing; she was the boss of Class Three. He was, at most, a standing minion.