Chapter 327 The Sealed Box

“Why are you suddenly scolding people?” Song Xiyun was a little wronged.

But, stupidity isn’t a hereditary disease, right?

They say don’t hit someone in the face, so why are you cursing my family?

“Who’s scolding you? I’m just asking if you have a hereditary disease.” Jiang Nian was speechless. “This is me caring about you, do you understand?”

She thought, ‘It seems so,’ and after a moment of thought, shook her head.

“No.”

As her words fell, an answer surfaced in Jiang Nian’s mind.

The verification was correct.

Jiang Nian’s heart stirred, and he thought, ‘This skill can really be used this way? Everything can be verified, right? Good, good, good.’

Time to take the civil service exam, bro.

Starting from village chief, striving towards the goal of retiring as a division-level official.

However, he had asked the System.

The verification process was actually a set of logical procedures. This proved that the verification result was objective, not Song Xiyun’s subjective opinion.

In other words, she indeed had no hereditary disease.

Since the verification skill had entered its three-day cooldown period, Jiang Nian didn’t think about it anymore. As long as it wasn’t an Innate disease, that was fine; he’d look into it later.

Perhaps it was related to diet, or past injuries and accidents.

Avoid it if possible, and even if it can’t be avoided… at least he wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes due to money.

“Did you bring anything to eat?” Jiang Nian asked.

“No.”

“How can you go to a meeting without bringing anything to eat? What kind of meeting are you attending then?”

Song Xiyun:

She remained silent, playing dead.

After a while, she felt something in her pocket. After a moment of stunned, she reached in and found a small bag of nuts.

“Thank you.”

A moment later, she felt her pocket dip slightly. Reaching inside, she found a small packet of seaweed.

Song Xiyun was impressed, “How do you bring so many snacks to a meeting?”

“Otherwise? Just listen and not eat?”

“Alright.” Song Xiyun was embarrassed.

She stared at the small bag of snacks in her hand, thinking that Jiang Nian was quite nice when he wasn’t being fierce, but she was still a little scared of him…

As for why she was afraid of Jiang Nian, she wasn’t sure, but they didn’t interact much usually. Her impression of Jiang Nian, accumulated over time, was that he was rich but foolish, and also a bit fierce.

“Why aren’t you eating?”

She hesitated for a while, then spoke.

“I’ll share it with Qianqian back in the classroom.”

“Holy crap, you guys are really…” Jiang Nian was speechless, and too lazy to argue with Song Xiyun anymore; she was like a block of wood.

He could feel Song Xiyun had a stereotype of him, but he didn’t pay much attention to it.

A ‘father’ always has to bear more.

The meeting didn’t last long, ending in about a little over one class period.

When Jiang Nian left the conference room, he felt a chill down his spine. He turned around and saw Yu Zhiyi looking at him with resentful eyes.

A few breaths later, Yu Zhiyi caught up with Jiang Nian with the flow of people.

She first glanced at the young girl beside Jiang Nian, then at Jiang Nian, and when she spoke, it was like an air conditioner vent.

“Favoring friends over love, are we?”

“Hey! You shouldn’t say that.” Jiang Nian pointed at her, correcting, “Talking nonsense, where are the friends?”

“You!” Yu Zhiyi couldn’t hold back.

She had clearly lent him a physics Secret Manual for improving scores at noon, but by evening, he was denying it.

Looking at Jiang Nian’s shameless face, a four-character idiom couldn’t help but surface in her mind.

It was dismissal time, and passing students cast curious glances at the group of two girls and one boy, including Zhang Xiaofan.

However, before he could see clearly, Jiang Nian and the others disappeared into the crowd going downstairs in the blink of an eye.

Back in the classroom.

Under the fluorescent lights, a blackboard full of weekly test answers met their eyes.

The chemistry class representative was a bit anxious, asking twice in five minutes if everyone had finished copying. He was preparing to go up and erase the math answers to put up the chemistry answers.

“Damn it, what’s your hurry? Can’t wait, can you?” Lin Dong led the charge, immediately attacking the chemistry class representative.

“No, don’t we need to check the chemistry answers?” Yin Qidong was a bit lacking in confidence; he had already checked his answers.

He got a perfect score on the chemistry section of the weekly comprehensive science test and was eager to show off.

The surname Yin was extremely rare in Zhennan.

Their family came from Holland (homophone) in the last century, claiming their ancestors were half-scholars who studied abroad, and they took pride in it.

One of his notable incidents was creating dense smoke in the chemistry lab during his second year of high school, causing the entire class to scramble out of the lab.

This was historically known as ‘Emperor Shandu, Smoke in the Mid-Lane’.

By chance, Yin Qidong became the chemistry class representative for Olympiad Class 3 in his third year of high school, but his presence was generally not strong.

“Check what? The ones from the meeting just got back.” Lin Dong tied Jiang Nian and Yu Zhiyi to his war chariot. “You’re in such a hurry, can’t you wait for them to finish checking their answers?”

Jiang Nian took out his math test paper from his desk.

Looking down, on the originally blank test paper, correct answers were marked with a small red checkmark, and incorrect answers were densely filled with steps.

He was slightly lost in thought; the handwriting was too recognizable. Coming back to his senses, he couldn’t help but look at Zhang Ningzhi beside him.

“You corrected it for me?”

“Mm.” Zhang Ningzhi’s face flushed, and she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I had nothing to do, just did it casually.”

To be fair, Zhizhi was quite tsundere.

Jiang Nian was stunned, holding the test paper and pointing to a corrected spot, he said,

“How is one-half not 0.5?”

Zhang Ningzhi glanced at it, instantly speechless.

“You clearly wrote square root of 2.”

“The ‘factory’ radical, black intermediaries taking a three-quarters cut is also very reasonable, so the square root of 2 actually becomes 0.5 when you get it.”

Zhang Ningzhi:

Yin Qidong, sharp-eyed, saw from afar that Jiang Nian’s test paper had clearly been corrected, so he loudly retorted to Lin Dong.

“Jiang Nian has clearly finished correcting it, stop using such trivial matters as an excuse!”

He shouted so loudly that the entire class heard it.

Zhang Ningzhi continued doing her homework as if nothing had happened, the tips of her ears slightly red.

During the break of the second evening self-study class.

Li Hua, having gotten a box of matches from who knows where, returned to the classroom proudly to show off to Jiang Nian.

“Fire control, isn’t it awesome?”

Jiang Nian slightly raised his eyelids, put down his pen, and asked,

“Aren’t you afraid Old Liu will catch you?”

“Afraid of what?!” Ma Guojun squeezed over, his first sentence fanning the flames. “Li Hua has never been afraid of teachers since he was a child.”

“That’s right.” Li Hua was immediately hooked, puffing out his chest.

“Holy crap, isn’t this fire control?” Liu Yang came around from the podium. “Awesome, awesome, let me see.”

“No problem, let’s go, follow me to the restroom for some fun!” Li Hua, surrounded by a crowd, led a group of people out of the classroom.

Jiang Nian was speechless.

The jokes that the masters of the ‘Retarded Bar’ painstakingly wrote all night were not as good as the impromptu performances of naturally gifted players.

Jiang Nian didn’t join the fun; the Six City Joint Exam was approaching.

Honestly, he had a solid foundation of 540 points. If he focused a little during the exam, getting 580 or 590 wouldn’t be too difficult.

But if he relaxed at this moment, the exam would be completely ruined.

So, as long as he held on, then…

Destiny is with me!

Suddenly, a tapping pressure came from his back.

Hmm… speaking of which.

He turned around, looking at the cool-faced Li Qingrong, the curve of his mouth almost uncontrollable, ‘my dear wife’.

Of course, that was just his personal, male-gaze-driven thought.

Actually, this was a private and discouraged spiritual learning method. First, find a good-looking top student, then hypnotize yourself.

Then motivate… well, I’m a pervert.

“Hmm, what’s wrong?”

Li Qingrong asked Jiang Nian to turn around but said nothing. She just looked at him quietly, her eyes bright and clear.

The atmosphere became awkward like this.

Jiang Nian looked up and down, not knowing what the class monitor wanted to say. After much awkwardness,’she likes me, right?’

Yay!

Tonight! The big prison cell!

Suddenly, Li Qingrong said seriously,

“Tomorrow is Tuesday.”

“Huh?” Jiang Nian was baffled, the big prison cell wouldn’t be opening for now. “Tomorrow is Tuesday, uh… and then what?”

Li Qingrong’s cherry-red lips pursed, and she lowered her gaze, saying,

“Basketball.”

Upon hearing this, Jiang Nian immediately started sweating like a small yellow bean.

“Isn’t PE class on Wednesday? You’re planning too early, what if… what if it rains on Wednesday?”

Li Qingrong was immediately struck as if by lightning, and silently pulled out her phone to check the weather.

After a while, she frowned and said,

“Overcast.”

“Hahaha, I told you, it might even rain that day…” Jiang Nian gloated, changing his tune halfway. “It doesn’t matter if it rains, we can play something else.”

“What?” Li Qingrong asked.

“Have you played throwing pebbles?” Jiang Nian raised an eyebrow, suddenly feeling playful, and thought of a good way to trick Li Hua.

But, he could also play with the class monitor now.

“I’ve… seen others play.” Li Qingrong remembered that in junior high, many people at school played this pebble-throwing game.

The gameplay was relatively simple: find five stones of suitable size and shape. Play through levels of increasing difficulty.

First level: while each stone is thrown, pick up one stone with a single hand, until all four stones on the ground are picked up to pass the level.

If a mistake is made, it’s the next person’s turn.

After passing the first level, the difficulty increases. Throw two stones, and while they are falling, pick up the remaining three stones.

None of the thrown stones can touch the ground, otherwise it’s a loss.

And so on, three stones, four stones, five stones. The key to this game is to catch all the thrown stones.

This severely tested the player’s hand speed and reaction time.

Of course, if you say you usually play a lot of League of Legends and have incredibly fast in-game hand speed, then you’re awesome, you’re amazing.

“Seeing others play counts as having played. When was that?” Jiang Nian asked an extra question, “High school year one? Or…”

“Junior high.”

“Oh… junior high, that crappy place Second Middle School indeed had a lot of people who loved to play this.” Jiang Nian’s expression was a bit strange, he muttered.

In fact, he remembered that Second Middle School was a mixed bag, with quite a few’spiritual youths’.

He shook his head, not wanting to think about that unlucky place, Second Middle School. At that time, he got into a fight with a bunch of jerks, uh… except for Le Zhi.

That idiot was set up, got a beating for nothing, and lost a shoe.

But the scene was too chaotic at the time, and that incident was just the fuse for subsequent events, and the time span afterward was too great…

Jiang Nian didn’t want to think about it, feeling that he was also a bit idiotic back then, and in the end, he was too lazy to be a good person and do good deeds.

To eliminate 80% of it, the country still had to step in.

Without a powerful backing, how could a few kids dare to act like that? They were just imitating, thinking this and that.

If they had known earlier that once the ‘big brothers’ outside school graduated from junior high, they would be called to the suburbs by factory black intermediaries to collect wages and get slapped in the face in turns.

The big brothers were trained like dogs, losing all their swagger. The little brats in junior high naturally couldn’t save face either.

Still hanging out?

The answer was obvious.

In the past two years, the country took action from the source to eliminate the ‘big brothers’ outside school, and the campus atmosphere at Second Middle School improved.

The saying ‘to set things right, one must first clear the source’ is not without reason.

“Tomorrow I’ll scout for some stones… Never mind, I’ll look for Li Hua’s eraser. Cut two pieces, make one.”

Li Qingrong didn’t understand, but nodded.

“Mm.”

Third evening self-study class, the bell rang.

Seven or eight minutes into self-study.

Li Hua finally sauntered in from outside the classroom door, his face full of smiles. Like a triumphant rooster, he lifted his chin and swaggered in.

As soon as he sat down, he excitedly said,

“Nian, you don’t know how fun matches are. In the dim restroom, my strike was simply Prometheu…” Halfway through, Li Hua suddenly froze.

Jiang Nian and Zhang Ningzhi were playing ‘throwing pebbles’ on the desk, only the ‘pebbles’ were of a special material, and a bit familiar.

He looked several times, then frantically searched inside his desk.

Panicked!

“Holy crap! Where’s my eraser!” Li Hua, exasperated, grabbed Jiang Nian’s collar directly. “Where’s my eraser!”

“Da da di da da!”

“You bastard!” Li Hua immediately got furious, gritting his teeth. “Still playing with Dao Ge’s meme! I’m not done with you!”

“Isn’t it just an eraser?” Jiang Nian pushed his hand away, calmly saying, “So stingy, are you a man or not?”

“Holy crap! You damn…!” Li Hua was about to settle the score when he suddenly heard Jiang Nian say, “If you win, I’ll compensate you with three.”

He immediately suppressed his anger, his competitive spirit rising.

“Hey, I’m a top-notch master at this game.” Li Hua tossed his hair, taking the five small eraser ‘pebbles’.

He threw and caught, almost making a mistake on the first level.

Li Hua’s expression was slightly awkward, but he still had the first move advantage. He could continue to the second level, so he forcibly saved face.

“Ahem, a bit out of practice.”

Second level, it fell with a ‘thud’.

Jiang Nian and Zhang Ningzhi immediately turned into suppressed-laughter emoji, both looking at Li Hua and then starting to whisper.

“The group leader isn’t even as good as me; I can at least last until the third level.”

“Hey, you can’t say that.” Jiang Nian didn’t hide his volume at all. “What if Hua has a hidden illness?”

“Oh… that’s true.”

Upon hearing this, Li Hua immediately became unbearable.

“red stone! red stone! red stone!!!”

After school in the evening.

Lu Xuan got into her family’s pick-up car at the school gate, closing the door with a bang, her backpack placed on the back seat.

The taillights lit up, and the black Audi slowly drove away from the school intersection.

She looked down, scrolling on her phone, and suddenly remembered what she had seen on the way to the meeting during evening self-study, that fleeting glimpse.

For some reason, she felt it looked more and more familiar.

The memory was somewhat distant, but not entirely without a trace.

After returning home, she did not wash up as usual. Instead, she moved a chair in front of the cabinet and stepped onto the stool barefoot.

She opened the top cabinet of the wardrobe and took out a box from inside.