Chapter 232 What are you babbling about? Do you like me?

The street was deserted, most of the shops on both sides were closed, and the orange streetlights cast a dim, yellow halo.

Jiang Nian walked under a streetlight, his shadow lengthening then shortening.

“After all that talk, Xu Shao, you’re not a class officer?”

“Are you?” she retorted.

“Ahem, give it time,” Jiang Nian prevaricated, “I observe that our class’s biology representative is lazy, addicted to male beauty; I will surely replace him.”

“Your biology representative is a girl?”

“He’s a boy.”

Xu Qianqian: “…”

The two ambled home, and after entering the alley, they started talking about the holidays again.

“Are there any holidays this month?

“Sunday, six hours.”

“Not that, I mean a long holiday of a day or two.” Xu Qianqian tightened her backpack. “I’ve been saving a TV series, and it’s already had its finale.”

“Which one?”

“Get lost, I’m not telling you.” Xu Qianqian shot him a glance, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “No way you’re getting spoilers, you won’t guess it.”

“Why don’t you watch one episode before bed?”

“I’d get sick of studying after watching it.”

“It’s not that exaggerated,” Jiang Nian said.

He emerged from the alley, turned into a narrow path, and took a shortcut home through the gaps between the buildings on either side of a ditch, with Xu Qianqian following behind him.

As they went upstairs, Xu Qianqian suddenly said,

“Did you go play basketball this afternoon?”

On the stairs, Jiang Nian’s movements paused.

“Nonsense, I was studying in the classroom.”

“No?” Xu Qianqian looked up at him, a slight smile playing on her lips. “You looked quite impressive. Didn’t you quit the team? And you can still fight with those guys?”

“Didn’t fight.”

“Hmph, you admitted it, didn’t you?” Xu Qianqian narrowed her eyes, with a triumphant expression of having caught him. “Stop getting involved with those people, or I’ll tell Aunt Li.”

Jiang Nian’s little yellow beans were sweating. Old Arthur, huh? Always the same trick.

“Xu Qianqian, do you do anything besides tattling?”

Hearing this, her brows furrowed.

“I’ll tell my dad.”

Jiang Nian silently gave a thumbs up, “Alright, in the name of your father.”

Two doors closed, no goodnights.

This was their daily routine; once home, they mostly just wanted to shower and get into bed. Listen to some music, scroll through Douyin for a few minutes, then slowly fall asleep.

The difference was that Xu Qianqian occasionally chose to watch online classes.

Jiang Nian only wanted to score over six hundred points and was content with that; once out of school, he lost all ambition. At home, he just wanted to rest, hiding under the covers to look at welfare girls.

After showering, he lay in bed, the room’s speakers softly playing ‘Love in BCE’.

【Priest, temple, conquest, arrows, whose past is this.】

Li Qingrong lowered her gaze, staring at the line of text on Jiang Nian’s QQ page.

Favorite song: “Love is seven yuan.”

She searched, clicked play, 【I love the scene where you belong only to me in the crowd, passing by the Sumerian goddess, I make a wish in the goddess’s name】.

After listening, she prepared to sleep.

Ten minutes later, she fumbled for her phone in the dark. She opened Jiang Nian’s QQ again and looked at it for a while.

She brought up the 26-key keyboard but didn’t know what to send so late at night.

111:.

The other party responded quickly, showing ‘typing…’.

Li Qingrong specifically checked the time, 23:25; he wasn’t asleep yet at this hour.

Does he have a habit of staying up late?

What topic should she bring up? Was the other person doing homework?

While she hesitated, a message had already been sent.

Jiang Nian: “?”

Li Qingrong looked at the question mark on the screen, feeling inexplicably that all the pressure had returned.

“1.”

Jiang Nian: “2.”

The two sent numbers from 1 to 32, before Jiang Nian lost his patience.

“Class Monitor can’t sleep?”

“Mm.”

“Then it must be a posture problem. What’s your usual sleeping posture?” Jiang Nian usually found it hard to feel sleepy before midnight unless he was exceptionally tired.

He had played less than half a game of basketball that afternoon, barely breaking a sweat, let alone feeling sleepy.

Li Qingrong: “Lying down.”

Jiang Nian replied with an emoji, Grandpa Niu: Where’s Tutu?

After sending it, he worried the Class Monitor wouldn’t understand and was about to give a very silly explanation.

Suddenly, a message came through, a newly taken photo.

【Image】.

The dim room had only a bedside lamp on, light spilling from the specially shaped wooden lamp fixture.

The girl, with her hair down, lay on her side, holding her phone to take a picture.

The scene was indescribable, only that the Class Monitor’s aura was as thin as a clear mist.

Jiang Nian typed, “Try this 【Image】.”

Cross-body style.

He was only slightly serious with the Class Monitor; if it were a chat with Huang Beibei, the solution for insomnia would probably be judo—one round and you’d be tired.

What? Still not tired?

Then review the old to learn the new.

In the prime of youth, mountains of gold and silver overlapping, hair like clouds wanting to cross cheeks like snow.

Li Qingrong didn’t reply for a long time.

Jiang Nian thought she had fallen asleep and didn’t pay much attention, switching screens to look at welfare girls.

Douyin late at night was full of good stuff, either ghost stories or welfare girls, both of which easily stained the covers.

“Shadow by the window.” Jiang Nian was focused on his phone when it buzzed with a new message.

“Okay.”

The sense of horror instantly vanished.

He was a bit helpless and clicked into the Class Monitor’s chat interface.

“Did it work?”

After two minutes, Li Qingrong still hadn’t replied.

Having learned from previous experience, Jiang Nian couldn’t relax while browsing welfare girls. That feeling of unease when a friend suddenly sends a message during a’spicy’ moment.

It felt like his moral value had reset to zero.

So, he proactively sent a message to probe.

“Why aren’t you replying?”

Li Qingrong replied instantly, “Fell asleep.”

The next day.

During morning reading, Zhou Yuting left her seat and walked over to Yu Zhiyi.

“Hey, let me tell you, yesterday I…”

The two had only officially become friends two days ago, and their relationship had rapidly warmed due to similar views. Their current state was beyond friends but not yet best friends.

Yu Zhiyi couldn’t help but burst out laughing after listening.

“Is there really such a person?”

“Yes, a total jerk.” Zhou Yuting fanned herself with a Chinese knowledge checklist, complaining, “He just started by introducing himself, as if I had to know him.”

“Zhang Xiaofan, I think I remember him.” Yu Zhiyi frowned. “Is he the one who really likes playing basketball? I was once hit by a ball when I passed the court.”

Hearing this, Zhou Yuting froze. Wasn’t this the classic opening of an idol drama?

“And then?”

“What then?” Yu Zhiyi looked a bit confused, as if it was just like a normal person. “It hurt so much, I called him an idiot and left.”

Zhou Yuting was at a loss for words for a moment. Was this a normal person’s reaction?

It seemed so.

Never mind, let’s not talk about this.

“He suddenly added me, which scared me.” Zhou Yuting continued to complain, “I looked at his Moments, and it was all about sneakers, concerts, basketball, and stuff.”

“I don’t really understand all that. He said he could sing, dance, and play basketball. He said he’d admired me for a long time and wanted to get to know me.”

Hearing this, Yu Zhiyi asked,

“Which class is he in?”

“The first floor one.”

“Oh, that’s okay then, at least he’s a person.” Yu Zhiyi’s interest immediately waned when she heard he was from the first floor.

What’s the point of talking about anything if you can’t get into college?

Of course, she wasn’t prejudiced against students with lower cultural scores. It was just that their future paths and values wouldn’t be the same, and the longer they spent together, the more tiring it would be.

She had a cousin in her thirties who married a guy who started working after junior high. After marriage, they argued almost every day and could only divorce with two houses.

Then, she immediately found a male college student interning in his third year and constantly showed off her happiness in the Family chat group.

While she felt indifferent to her cousin’s happiness, purely from the perspective of finding a potential boyfriend, finding a rich one and finding one with higher scores were not contradictory.

“What do you think of him?” she asked.

“Honestly, I don’t have much of an opinion.” Zhou Yuting shrugged, looking indifferent. “He offered to buy me bubble tea, but I’m on a diet recently.”

“Then he offered to give me a gift, but I looked and they weren’t expensive. I could buy them myself easily, so I don’t need him to send them. Anything more expensive would probably make him feel the pinch.”

Hearing this, Yu Zhiyi asked curiously,

“Then why don’t you delete him?”

Zhou Yuting looked puzzled and retorted,

“Why should I delete him?”

“Keep him. I think his jokes are pretty funny, much funnier than cold jokes.”

Third large group.

Lin Dong withdrew his gaze from Yu Zhiyi and said to Sun Zhicheng, who was doing morning reading beside him,

“What are they chattering about? Do they like me?”

“I don’t know.” Sun Zhicheng had been a bit down these past two days.

Ever since he learned that Yang Qiming had quickly started dating someone from First High School, his mentality had collapsed.

Yang Qiming looked like Kabuterimon, a pig-faced man when he stood up. Was that girl blind? Did she grow up in a land of women and never seen a man?

So annoying, he didn’t want to do morning reading, he wanted to hang himself.

Lin Dong was already used to A-Cheng’s intermittent impotence; it happened about twenty days a month. Everyone thought poorly of A-Cheng, but luckily A-Cheng also didn’t try to improve.

He ignored it and began his heartfelt morning reading.

“Give me two more minutes~ Let me freeze the memories!”

“Oi, Nian, I heard there’s a challenge coming.” Li Hua typically propped his head with one hand. Seeing Jiang Nian ignore him, he shamelessly went to bother Ma Guojun again.

“Oi, Old Ma, your waistline is quite hot, isn’t it?”

Ma Guojun was rapidly reciting ancient poetry, glancing at Li Hua.

“Get lost.”

“Damn it.” Li Hua came back, looking distressed at Jiang Nian. “You think the girls in Class 4 are pretty? I really want to go to Class 4 to take a look.”

Jiang Nian shook his head, in a state where snipers couldn’t target him.

“Can’t hear, can’t hear.”

This user refused to talk to an idiot.

After the second class, Jiang Nian was already preparing to take off his clothes. Suddenly, he noticed that the broadcast for the exercise run hadn’t sounded. He thought it was really strange.

There was a commotion from the back of the classroom.

He turned his head and saw Cai Xiaoqing carrying a large red paper towards the podium.

“Quiet down.”

“Later, people from Class 4 will come to our class to issue a challenge. When they are reading the challenge, everyone in the class must remain quiet and show them enough respect.”

“After they finish, our class must stand up and shout a slogan.”

“Liu Yang, organize the specific slogan.”

Hearing this, the class immediately became agitated.

“Damn it, I suggest our class’s challenge must be written in small seal script. I don’t want people from Class 4 to see it in the exam room and be able to use it directly.”

Friendship book recommendation: Blind date genre author, Sister Chuan’s new book “My Girlfriend Died in the Past”