Chapter 154: Do I Smell? (Thanks to Hall Master Cultivation-All-Nighter for the Tip!)

The next day, overcast.

Jiang Nian stood at the front door, debating whether to bring an umbrella.

A few hundred grams of umbrella stuffed into his schoolbag was an unbearable burden, and more importantly, he wanted to gamble. That feeling of nailing it in one shot was very satisfying.

To wrestle with the heavens—what boundless joy.

When he arrived at the classroom, there were hardly any people in the class.

Morning reading hadn't started yet when Ma Guojun the big fatty came in from outside the classroom with a small bag on his back. The moment he entered and saw Jiang Nian, a lewd smile immediately spread across his face.

"Yo, Jiang Nian."

Ma Guojun set down his schoolbag, walked to his desk and said.

"Do you know who took Yu Tongjie's books yesterday?"

"Who?"

"Nobody took them at all. They were thrown out the window by someone from a liberal arts class on the fifth floor." Ma Guojun grinned like a blooming flower, pushed up his glasses with his middle finger, and laughed again.

"I heard that guy did badly on his exam, was in a bad mood, and then tripped over his own books. The cleaning lady downstairs saw books falling from the sky, thought they were ones students didn't want, and took them away."

Hearing this, Jiang Nian looked up.

"Did he get them all back?"

"How could he? Like flowers scattered from heaven, hahaha." Ma Guojun laughed heartily. "I heard he only got part of them back. The rest, nobody knows where they went."

Jiang Nian laughed too, but the science comprehensive exam was at nine, so he couldn't really get into it.

"Let's see how it goes."

Ma Guojun listened to Jiang Nian's words, steady as some old cadre, and couldn't squeeze out the emotional response he expected. His mood was like edging while jerking off—stuck in an awkward middle ground.

So Fatty Baby went back to his seat, planning to share the news with Li Hua later.

After a while, Zhang Ningzhi arrived.

The two exchanged greetings, and then another carton of fruit milk appeared on Jiang Nian's desk.

Jiang Nian stared at the fruit milk in a daze for a while, wondering if he'd been drinking too many of Zhang Ningzhi's drinks. He needed to find a chance to pay her back—treat her to something to eat or the like.

He wasn't short on money now, only short on grades. After all, this was a classroom where strength reigned supreme.

He reviewed for a while, then morning reading began.

Qian Bao walked into the Class 3 classroom with light, brisk steps, went in for one second, then backed right out.

She stood by the classroom door, pinching her nose, and said.

"Open the windows, open the windows. What is that smell in your class?"

Lin Dong looked a bit awkward. The clothes he'd washed yesterday had been dried in the shade and had a faint musty smell. He blamed the dorm balcony being enclosed, with all the clothes pressed together.

His roommates were a pure bunch of lazy asses too—they didn't put away their clothes even after they dried. As a result, his own clothes hadn't dried, his shorts hadn't dried, and in a fit of pique, he simply didn't change.

Wearing the same underwear for a couple more days was fine—nobody else would know anyway.

Compared to him, Ceng You was even more outrageous. That son of a bitch washed clothes by stomping on them with his feet. He'd pour in a little detergent and start stomping, reading web novels while he did it.

And in the same dorm, Lin Dong vaguely remembered that Ceng You's underwear hadn't dried either. At this very moment, Ceng You was probably going commando, wearing jeans with nothing underneath.

Ugh, gross guys.

Swoosh—every window flew open.

Qian Bao pinched her nose and came in, looking at the sparse students doing morning reading. She wore a knit cardigan, and as she paced around the classroom, she instructed.

"It's not winter yet. Open the windows for ventilation when you have nothing to do."

The math exam was over, cutting the pressure in half, and Jiang Nian wasn't as tense as yesterday.

He watched Qian Bao pass by, then turned to ask Zhang Ningzhi.

"Hey, do I smell?"

Zhang Ningzhi instinctively leaned closer at his words and smelled only the scent of laundry detergent.

"No."

She kept a straight little face, with half a sentence left unsaid. Besides the detergent smell, there was also a special fragrance—not something you smelled with your nose, purely sensed by feeling.

She couldn't describe that scent. It was kind of... pleasant.

"Haha." Jiang Nian grinned. "Then can I smell yours?"

"No no no! Don't!" Zhang Ningzhi's face flushed red, and she ducked to the side.

Jiang Nian was used to going back and forth in intense exchanges with Xu Qianqian all day. Once he got to the classroom, he found his seatmate acting like a bot—so pathetically weak.

To be honest, with someone like Zhang Ningzhi, Jiang Nian could trick her into having five kids without her ever knowing what hit her.

But in Zhennan, topics like marriage and having kids didn't interest many people.

Because of certain traditional customs.

Around eight fifteen, the class began to stir.

Jiang Nian stood up to pack his things. He looked at Zhang Ningzhi—Zhi Bao was packing too.

He'd originally wanted to say he'd treat her to something after the exam, but worried it might affect her performance today. After thinking it over, he decided to shelve it and bring it up after the afternoon exam.

The class monitor had already left long ago; Jiang Nian hadn't even noticed when she slipped out of the classroom.

Since the science comprehensive exam was also very important, as usual, he didn't go wandering between exam rooms. Instead, he stayed put in his exam room, quietly recalling the questions he'd reviewed last night.

Ring ring ring—the exam ended.

The instant he put down his pen, Jiang Nian let out a long breath. Although the joint exam still had one final subject—English—for him at this moment, the exam was already over.

He'd done everything he could on the science comprehensive. He had no idea how many points he'd get.

He thought he'd performed well and might break two hundred and twenty. For a top student that goal was a bit low, but for him, it counted as a wild ambition.

When the exam let out, he didn't see Li Qingrong on the road; he was busy heading off to eat.

He was really hungry.

You can skip looking at pretty girls, but you really can't skip eating.

Rushing through the science comprehensive exam, he nearly fried his brain. Doing problems while constantly checking the clock — that flustered look was just like an old man with a frequent and urgent need to pee.

During lunch break, Jiang Nian had nothing left to review, so he stood in the hallway playing on his phone.

"Hey!" Chen Yunyun popped up out of nowhere.

"You scared me half to death — where did you even come from?" Jiang Nian said, still shaken, patting his own chest, though he felt he should be patting the culprit instead.

"From over there in the hallway. You were playing so seriously, I just couldn't resist scaring you a bit." Chen Yunyun said with a grin, hands clasped behind her back.

"Yesterday I was afraid of disturbing your review, so I didn't ask — so, how did you do on the exam?"

Jiang Nian's first impression of her had been roughly that of a lively pretty girl. But not the stunning type — she had a delicate, refined beauty.

Looking closely now, he found Chen Yunyun was indeed quite pleasant to look at the longer you looked.

A typical southern girl — an oval face, delicate features. A small nose tip, rather thin lips with a healthy pinkish flush, and eyes with a certain spark of spirit.

Chen Yunyun grew a little self-conscious under his gaze and turned her head away.

"What are you staring at me for?"

"What, I have to pay to look an extra two times?" Jiang Nian shot her a glance. "Did pretty well, I guess. Spent a whole month grinding problems to stockpile experience, then dumped it all in two days."

Chen Yunyun: "What kind of way is that to put it — 'stockpiled' then 'dumped.' It just sounds weird."

There were too many things to complain about, and for a moment she didn't know what to say.

"Of course there's a fee. Did you pay today's friendship fee yet? Venmo me fifty."

Ding — Chen Yunyun's phone buzzed.

"Wait, you actually sent it?!"

Her face reddened, and she hurriedly refunded the money to Jiang Nian, saying softly,

"I was just kidding."

"I know. Treating you to milk tea." Jiang Nian glanced at her. "Thanks to the forty or fifty math sets you lent me — I saw exact questions on those on the math test."

"No need, it's all thanks to your own effort." Chen Yunyun waved her hand in refusal.

"That won't do — one thing at a time. Then next time I'll just take you to the milk tea shop directly." Jiang Nian said, "Bring whoever you want, play some cards or whatever."

Chen Yunyun hesitated. "That'd be too expensive."

"Fine, then I'll just treat you alone."

"Al-alone?" She immediately got nervous — wasn't that basically a date? Weird. "Just the two of us? Isn't that—"

"Relax, nothing weird will happen — as long as you don't seduce me."

"Huh??!!" Chen Yunyun was dumbfounded.

Jiang Nian's expression remained unchanged. "Like inviting me to play Honor of Kings or something — I only just quit not long ago."

Chen Yunyun was a bit speechless. She felt that around Jiang Nian, she was being led around by the nose. She'd always thought she was pretty talkative, able to chat with anyone.

Now she realized — she just hadn't run into a social terrorist yet.

Jiang Nian, this kind of person — kind of hard to evaluate.

Before the afternoon English exam, Jiang Nian strolled over to Li Qingrong's exam room.

Yu Tongjie didn't show up.

Squirtle was probably still immersed in the pain of losing half his books — he hadn't even read half of them, yet half his textbooks and review materials were gone.

"Class Monitor." Jiang Nian sat down.

Li Qingrong glanced at him, her expression cold.

(End of chapter)