Chapter 182: It feels like something

Hu Nianzhong carried a tray through the aisle from the other side of the cafeteria and glanced over, spotting Jiang Nian and the others.

He often silently observed the people in his class, including Jiang Nian and his friends.

Seeing Chen Yunyun, Wang Yuhe, and Jiang Nian eating together didn't surprise him, but he couldn't help a flicker of envy in his eyes—they truly had a good relationship.

Setting down the tray, Hu Nianzhong shifted his gaze to Yu Tongjie's face.

"Aren't you eating?"

"Hmm, I'm not hungry right now," Yu Tongjie replied, eager to seal the deal and not in the mood to eat. "Just say it—what do you want?"

Hu Nianzhong didn't rush to answer; he knew demanding over two thousand was illegal.

Anything too outrageous would cause trouble—might even burn him alive. But encountering such a fool who looked down on others, not taking some advantage would be unjust.

Finally, he looked up.

"I want a pair of shoes."

"That's a bit forward—what do you take me for?"

Lin Dong was eating on the first floor of the cafeteria, where the crowd was denser than on the second. He had just heard Huang Cailang's request and nearly spat out his food.

"Investigate Qi Ming's ex-girlfriend? Am I some pathetic little Conan?"

Huang Cailang grew anxious, scratching his head.

"Bro, help me out!"

"How am I supposed to help?" Lin Dong was baffled. "I can't just find his girlfriend and ask her straight out if she has a new boyfriend?"

"Can't you?" Huang Cailang asked.

"Damn it!" Lin Dong was speechless. "Give me half a month, and if I add her on QQ, I'll find out what color her underwear is."

Huang Cailang couldn't hold it anymore—what kind of internet chat human pillar was this?

"Bro, I only have two days."

"Two days? Find someone else," Lin Dong said, lowering his head to eat.

He feared Huang Cailang might change his mind and forcibly take back the meat from his bowl.

His concern wasn't unfounded—Huang Cailang was capable of exactly that. The previous dorm mates were no cowards; all were insane, bold, and fearless.

"No! Yang Ge is so pitiful!" Huang Cailang thought of the day after tomorrow—Yang Qiming would be utterly despairing, and the shrimp dumplings would be eaten by him.

Out of nowhere, a wave of guilt wrapped around him, suffocating him.

"Dong Ge, try one more time—use the pretty boy tactic."

Hearing this, Lin Dong looked up, meat still in his mouth.

"Huh? Go ask Jiang Nian."

"I don't know him well, and if Yang Ge finds out about this," Huang Cailang was miserable, leaving a few bites on his tray to show his sorrow.

Lin Dong buried his head in his food, both cheeks bulging.

"I %￥#@."

"Huh?"

Chen Yunyun and the others returned to the dorm after getting hot water, saying they needed to collect their clothes.

Jiang Nian planned to rest in the dorm for a bit, but since he couldn't get in, he returned to the classroom. Honestly, he was curious what the girls' dorm looked like.

Jiang Nian had already explored half of the northern mystical realm; he could eat at the dorm or cafeteria whenever he wanted. He casually made lunch plans with boarders—he was practically half a boarder himself.

When will leadership make a decision about Jiang Nian moving into the girls' dorm?

One day, I'll write a book titled "I Have an Apartment in the Girls' Dorm." Must separate the word "apartment" to give the impression of excellent punctuation.

Half an hour before evening self-study, Jiang Nian entered the classroom.

He looked around and saw only Huang Fang and the class monitor seated. Li Hua and Ma Guojun were gone—probably still out playing basketball after lunch.

After sitting down, he turned to look at the class monitor behind him.

In the brightly lit classroom, Li Qingrong wore a three-color hybrid jacket—black, purple, and gray.

Autumn was neither cold nor hot, with occasional strong winds; a jacket over a base layer was perfectly suitable.

"Class monitor, your jacket looks great," Jiang Nian sincerely complimented. "It's pretty androgynous—I think I could wear it too."

Hearing this, Li Qingrong looked up at him.

"You want to wear it?"

"Well, uh—don't take it off! I was joking," Jiang Nian said, startled by her pulling the zipper. "I just think it looks nice."

"Mm." Li Qingrong clearly was pleased.

Jiang Nian didn't know how he sensed her happiness—her expression hadn't changed much, yet he just felt she was happy.

He picked up the glass teacup on his desk, took a sip, and glanced at Ma Guojun's desk. There sat a black metal mesh pen holder, holding only two pens.

Seeing the spacious interior, he impulsively grabbed one of Li Hua's pens.

Whoosh—the pen flipped through the air and clattered into the holder.

Seeing this, Jiang Nian smiled.

He leaned down and gathered every pen from Li Hua's drawer—finally including the pencil—six pens total, one by one tossed into the holder.

After a while, he'd thrown them all in.

Jiang Nian was about to laugh again when suddenly a pen was handed to him from behind.

He froze, turned his head, and saw Li Qingrong watching him. She seemed puzzled he hadn't taken it, so she pushed the pen forward—it was her own pen.

"No thanks, I'm not throwing anymore," Jiang Nian explained.

"Mm." Li Qingrong quickly retracted the pen.

Not long after, Zhang Ningzhi returned.

"Move over."

"Oh, oh." Jiang Nian didn't act up, and crawled forward perfectly normally.

"Hmm?" Zhang Ningzhi instinctively felt something was off, but couldn't say what. After returning to her seat, she asked curiously, "Did you eat this afternoon?"

"I ate." Jiang Nian was leisurely, and asked casually, "By the way, didn't you and Yao Beibei go feed the chickens?"

"No, Beibei said Lin Dong didn't let her bring food, since one chicken was missing she didn't want to feed them." Zhang Ningzhi blushed. "We went to a shop at the front gate to eat, the chicken soup noodles were really good."

Jiang Nian nodded. "Pretty good, innate agricultural saint body."

Zhang Ningzhi was a little embarrassed by what he said. Her little friend was an abstract social butterfly, and her deskmate was even worse off — it felt like being surrounded by people who lived for the drama.

She shook her head, pulled the off-track topic back, and asked in a roundabout way.

"Did you go eat with Lin Dong?"

Jiang Nian thought for a moment. "Pretty much."

"Huh?"

"Not Lin Dong, it was a member of Lin Dong's group." He didn't hide a thing. "I went with Chen Yunyun and the others, mooched a meal, was pretty happy about it."

Zhang Ningzhi turned away, in no mood to talk to him. She thought, happy my ass, I'm not happy.

A few minutes later, evening reading was about to start, and Li Hua also came back.

His first reaction was to look for his books. He reached toward the desk, but suddenly a sharp screeching sound rang out.

"Holy shit! Where are my pens?"

At the same time, Ma Guojun also shouted.

"Whose dumbass pens are these?"

Jiang Nian lowered his head to read. Every day at school was just too damn exhausting. A lotus blooming in the mud, he had to behave himself every single day.

Li Hua got all seven pens back, and the first person he suspected was Jiang Nian.

"Was it you?"

Jiang Nian shook his head, looking utterly blank.

"Dunno."

Sun Zhicheng tilted his head back and glanced at the fluorescent tube on the classroom ceiling.

Evening reading — the class was packed, standing shoulder to shoulder.

He squinted slightly, took a piece of chewing gum from his pocket, and popped it into his mouth. This was one of the ten ways to boost charm he'd seen on some short video.

Chewing gum — blab blab blab helps make the face more 【attractive】 and look cooler. The video even used Jordan as an example, so now he had no choice but to believe it.

The second he started chewing, a sudden crack went off in Sun Zhicheng's mind, like a flash of lightning.

It felt like something was about to come out!

Charm — damn charm!

The sweetness of the gum exploded between his lips and teeth, and the chewing motion passively leveled out his gaze. His eyelids drooped slightly, giving him a look of looking down on the whole world.

It came out! Confidence came out!

Sun Zhicheng turned his head toward a corner of the classroom, and his gaze met Yu Tongjie's.

What an idiot!

He himself didn't know why he found Yu Tongjie so repulsive — maybe it was because the look in the other's eyes made him uncomfortable. The hell are you looking at, you weirdo?

As he chewed and chewed, Sun Zhicheng suddenly felt a bit parched.

Evening reading ended — he was still chewing.

The first evening self-study period ended — he was still chewing.

Sun Zhicheng's astonishing willpower had no audience. Honestly, his cheeks were a little sore.

He was waiting for Chen Yunyun to turn around — not for any other reason, just hoping to be acknowledged.

Zhou Yuting was also there, why wouldn't she look at him even once. Wang Yuhe — Wang Yuhe was a bit of a stretch, that girl's competitive streak was too strong, getting her attention was no good thing.

Fine, then, let anyone come over and look at him.

Dong-ge, Dong-ge would work too — I'm right next to you. You son of a bitch! It's been a whole class period, turn your damn head and look at me, you bastard!

Yet, no one paid attention.

He kept on chewing his gum in lonely solitude, like a swordsman training with his blade through winter into spring.

The class bell rang, and he also had an epiphany — he had been too narrow-minded. Chewing gum wasn't about fishing for anyone's gaze. Was he going to stop trying just because Chen Yunyun wasn't there?

No, he would still keep moving forward — this was the story of a boy from Zhennan County becoming a handsome guy down south! Like a song written for no one in particular, growing up in solitude.

The surroundings went quiet, and he kept on stubbornly chewing.

So damn annoying!

Zhou Yuting grabbed at her hair, the knuckles of the hand holding her gel pen white as bone.

What kind of freaks and weirdoes are sitting in the back row of this classroom — how can every single one of them be so bizarre.

Smacking their lips for a whole class — could they just drop dead?!

The creepy guy in the dark corner — she really wanted to sew his mouth shut.

Is everyone sitting around him deaf? Pigs eating at the trough aren't even that loud.

So annoying, so annoying!!!

She really wanted to stand up and curse them out, but she was just an outsider. She'd only been moved up to this class a few days ago, and didn't have the courage to start any conflict with the locals, so she could only swallow her anger.

Lin Dong was using the bookend as cover to play on his phone — more accurately, to make money.

He had two WeChat accounts. When he'd chatted online before, he'd added quite a few girls. Sending some ads didn't hurt his image at all — it didn't affect it one bit.

Today he'd made a killing of twenty-five yuan — this was only the first step of his money-grabbing plan. He was waiting until after midnight tonight, and once the upgrade was complete, he'd put money into it.

If he lost, it'd only be a few hundred yuan.

Of course, this kind of thing didn't look good, and he'd only told Jiang Nian about it. On the small scale, this was just grabbing freebies; on the big scale, this was playing with fire — so it absolutely had to be kept secret.

At the thought of the wool to be gathered tonight, he couldn't help but bounce his leg in time with Sun Zhicheng's chewing.

Zhou Yuting broke down, clamping her hands over her ears. Are they slaughtering a pig over there? If you can't hold it in, just call a few more people — how did they even start harmonizing with each other!

Somebody come stop them!

Yang Qiming was lost in sweet memories of his ex-girlfriend when he was suddenly broken out of it by the leg-bouncing and chewing. He frowned at once and said, displeased.

"Who is it! Whose pig got loose, chewing away over there!"

In an instant, the classroom fell silent.

Sun Zhicheng lowered his head, his face full of awkwardness; he could even feel the piercing gazes shooting at him from all sides. He and Yang Qiming weren't that close, but they had spoken before.

From Lin Dong's mouth, he had also learned that Yang Qiming had broken up with his girlfriend not long ago.

Beyond the awkwardness, his heart was full of anger.

He really wanted to fire back at Yang Qiming loudly, saying something like, "Other people already had their tongue in her mouth — how come you still can't walk out of it?" — the kind of words that cut to the bone.

But thinking of their time as classmates, Sun Zhicheng suppressed the demon in his heart.

Yang Qiming, however, didn't rein himself in, and he said angrily.

"Sun Zhicheng, stop chewing that damn gum of yours — anyone who didn't know would think you were having a seizure!"

At those words, the fury Sun Zhicheng had just suppressed flared up again with a whoosh.

He was furious; the Buddha in his heart lowered its brows, the demon seized the upper hand, and slaughtered the last shred of reason.

"Is my chewing louder, or is the sound of your ex-girlfriend kissing someone else even louder?"