Chapter 86

Seeing Song Yu and Xiao Han's gazes lock, Li Heng felt a bit panicked out of reflex.

Then he reacted.

Thank goodness! Thank goodness! The two of them don't have too much entanglement yet, so it won't come to a falling out.

Song Yu knew from Chen Zi Jin's mouth that Xiao Han had been secretly crushing on Li Heng, while Li Heng had already shown her favor more than a few times.

But she didn't care about any of that.

So when she saw Xiao Han, Song Yu remained calm and composed, without a single ripple of emotion.

And Xiao Han, who was inherently a girl who loved to put on airs with a graceful bearing and cool self-restraint, was even less likely to get stage fright.

During this meeting, the two girls just greeted each other politely, and there was nothing unusual.

However, the scene that followed made Xiao Han's emotions collapse a little.

The desks in this day and age were the old-fashioned kind with flip-tops.

When Li Heng lifted half the desktop to put his bottles and jars inside, she saw a blue umbrella lying inside.

It was that umbrella of Song Yu's; she remembered it vividly.

Mr. Li, are you planning to keep this broken umbrella to breed?

It's just an old umbrella; you just say the word, and this young lady will buy you as many as you want!

The depressed Xiao Han felt even more depressed, but she still pretended to be nonchalant as she shifted her gaze, appearing generous and proper without any flaws.

Song Yu noticed her small movements, followed her gaze to the blue umbrella, and then lowered her head to busy herself with her own affairs.

Li Heng also noticed it and thought to himself, "Oh no," then sped up to put the dishes he'd brought from home into the desk before getting up and following her out.

When they got down to the first floor, Li Heng said to the oblivious Yang Yingwen:

"Old Mabu, when class ends in the second period, most people need to use the restroom. Aren't you going to go?"

Hearing this, the corners of Xiao Han's mouth curled up imperceptibly, and she feigned composure as she looked elsewhere.

Yang Yingwen glared: "Li Heng, if you want to drive me away, just say it directly; there's no need to beat around the bush. I'm just not used to seeing you, so I intentionally didn't leave."

Li Heng: "..."

Yang Yingwen, who had scolded him, finally left.

Once the country girl was gone, Li Heng turned his head to look at Xiao Han: "When did you arrive today?"

Xiao Han didn't want to answer such vapid pleasantries; there was only one direct bus from the town to Shaoshi, and it was punctual every day.

If you want to find a topic to strike up a conversation with me, find a better one; don't rely on the fact that I like you to be so heartless.

Seeing her walking forward unhurriedly and ignoring him, Li Heng followed and asked: "Jealous?"

This sudden, blunt remark caught her off guard and left her at a loss.

Xiao Han really wanted to say, "I started being jealous a long time ago."

But she didn't have the courage to say it, because she cared about this vague and fragile relationship. Whoever cares the most is the one who suffers.

Xiao Han stopped in her tracks, her eyes curving, and she feigned composure: "Mr. Li, who are you? Give me a reason to be jealous?"

Li Heng nodded upon hearing this, revealing his white teeth as he said: "It's good that you're not jealous; it seems I was just being sentimental.

Anyway, no matter what, I apologize."

Xiao Han smiled sweetly and said: "Your apologies always seem so strange. Last time you apologized to me out of guilt because you liked Song Yu, and today you're apologizing because of an umbrella. How do you expect me to talk to you, Chen Zi Jin's ex-boyfriend!"

Li Heng's eyelids twitched; this girl really had a lot of tricks.

He sighed and said: "And you say you're not jealous; look, the umbrella is already out."

Xiao Han said pitifully: "Actually, I'm not, but to save you some face—well, I'm jealous to death."

Li Heng walked two steps closer, his breath almost hitting her face: "Selling me face? Isn't making me angry to death your goal?"

"No way? Who said that!" Feeling the warmth by her ear, Xiao Han, who had just been pretending to be incredibly calm, blushed again. She hurriedly turned her head and, with courage from who knows where, ran in one breath into the teaching building where Class 206 was located.

Watching her back disappear quickly, Li Heng felt a strange sense of excitement in his heart. Getting along with this black-bellied and vengeful girl meant he didn't have to worry about life being dull, but he did have to guard against the danger of crashing at any moment.

…

The tense and busy days of the senior year always passed quickly; before you knew it, half a month would be gone.

During this period, Zou Aiming and Li Tuanming were locked in the office for a day without food by their homeroom teacher because they missed their Chinese and Math exams.

The incident of Que Xinyan and Zou Aiming climbing the wall was exposed, and the two were dragged by school leaders to stand under the national flag in a position of attention for half a day as punishment.

When the second period ended, Li Heng brought Liu Li and even specially bought two ice creams to save the dying, but he didn't expect to be caught red-handed by the vice-principal:

"Li Heng, do you want to stand up there too?"

Li Heng hurriedly waved his hands: "Teacher, I just came to learn from experience; I wanted to interview them about what it feels like to stand on the command platform?"

The vice-principal wasn't so easily fooled, and he said with a fake smile: "Your Dorm 215 is famous throughout the school. I've been teaching for decades, and I've seen noisy ones, but ones as stubborn as you are rare. I think you'll have a chance to get on the command platform."

Li Heng was speechless and hurriedly said: "Teacher, I really don't want to get on the command platform; I'll leave right away."

The vice-principal shouted: "Wait."

Li Heng turned to look at him.

The vice-principal reached out: "Give me the ice cream. You just had diarrhea not long ago; why are you eating so much ice cream?"

Li Heng was between laughter and tears; so after saying all that, he just wanted to mooch food and drink.

If that was the case, he should have said so earlier; he had plenty of money in his pocket, it wasn't like he couldn't afford to treat him.

Not long after he sent out "The Trouble-Maker," the reader Huang Zhaoyi wrote again.

The letter was still brought to him by the English teacher.

There was no other way; in order not to expose his identity, all his outgoing mail was addressed to the English teacher's home.

The content of this letter was two pages shorter than the last one, only 2 pages long.

Even so, Li Heng still felt it was quite a lot. After all, they were just casual acquaintances.

The general content of the letter was: She was very grateful to Li Heng for replying to her, which made her feel very happy.

In order to leave a good impression on Li Heng, she made a brief self-introduction this time. Her main job was as a teacher at the Drama Academy, and she was also a Peking Opera performance artist, as well as a part-time literary critic.

Li Heng was stunned when he saw this; he didn't expect that writing a novel would attract a Peking Opera actor.

It seems his previous judgment was quite accurate; the other party was a high-level intellectual with high literary attainment.

Further down, it was all literary exchange content. Or rather, she kept a very low profile, humbly asking him for advice on literary matters.

After reading it word for word, Li Heng was still confused. You're already a teacher at a Drama Academy and a literary critic, so what the hell are you asking me for?

His time was very precious, and he didn't have time to deal with her now. He threw the letter into his desk, planning to deal with it when he was in a good mood and remembered it.

However, he clearly underestimated the other party's ability. On the 10th day after the letter gathered dust, "Harvest" magazine called.

It was Chief Editor Liao who called personally.

There were two things in the call:

One was that "The Trouble-Maker" had passed the review, and they wanted to discuss the manuscript fee with him, still based on 30 yuan per thousand words, and then the other party was waiting...

Waiting for what?

Of course, waiting to see if Li Heng would bring up the issue of royalties?

However, Li Heng didn't ask for an exorbitant price this time; after all, it was just a small account, and the kind that would be discarded after one use.

Of course, the main reason was that he considered Old Ba's kindness to him and "Harvest" magazine's tolerance of him, so he didn't mention a word about royalties this time.

PS: I had a high fever of 39.6 degrees at noon today, and I was dizzy. I only felt better after an IV drip in the afternoon. Now it seems to be recurring, my head is very heavy, and it's hard to write. I plan to take medicine and go to bed early, striving to resume previous updates tomorrow. Sorry for keeping everyone waiting.

(End of chapter)