Chapter 248: Li Qingrong: Also Changed Yesterday shuhaige.net

While the boy was talking big, he was also quietly observing Zhang Ningzhi.

Apart from Zhang Ningzhi's flawless appearance, what stood out even more was her stiff expression.

His own topic didn't seem to spark any enthusiasm for conversation in her at all.

Part of the reason was blamed on the chance encounter, leaving no time to prepare. The other part was that he already knew very little about Zhang Ningzhi to begin with.

Besides knowing she was rich, pretty, had good grades, and had a quiet personality.

Other things like what she liked, what she disliked, which celebrities she followed, what songs were playing in her earphones — he knew none of it.

Just as he was about to cut straight to the point and get her to accept his friend request.

A hand appeared without warning and, with a snap, grabbed Zhang Ningzhi's wrist.

The motion was crisp and clean, without the slightest hesitation, yet seemed somewhat sharp.

The boy froze and turned his head to look.

He saw another tall boy standing there, who with a light tug pulled Zhang Ningzhi over.

He gave him a casual glance, his gaze unfriendly.

"Your classmate?"

Zhang Ningzhi looked up and saw it was Jiang Nian, and immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

"Mm."

"It's good to chat with classmates, you should talk more." Jiang Nian said so with his mouth, but directly pulled Zhang Ningzhi away as he spoke, "But Li Hua is about to die, let's go back and check on him."

"We'll chat again when there's a chance, Li Hua's got only one breath left hanging on. Our group isn't complete, he can't close his eyes. Let's go, let's go, the dead come first."

The boy stood frozen in place, watching helplessly as they left.

Evening self-study was approaching, and the campus paths were full of students hurrying along.

At the basketball court by the cafeteria entrance, a few clusters of people were still playing basketball in the dark.

The Gao San teaching building was brightly lit, yet couldn't illuminate the gloom in his heart.

Gone?

Just like that, someone swooped in and snatched her away?

The group leader is dying? That excuse is way too ridiculous!

Even using a more proper excuse, like the teacher looking for Zhang Ningzhi, would have worked.

That guy did it on purpose.

Meanwhile.

After Jiang Nian had pulled Zhang Ningzhi about ten meters, he gently let go of her wrist.

"Who was that to you?"

Zhang Ningzhi wasn't sure, but she thought she detected a hint of jealousy.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Want to hear the truth?" Jiang Nian smiled.

"No."

Zhang Ningzhi knew all too well the power of someone's venomous tongue; lacking the confidence to win, she simply didn't fight.

Rather than getting so angry her chest hurt again later, she took the initiative and confessed.

"A classmate from our old class, named Du Jiaming."

"Oh, I know, Xiao Ming." Jiang Nian cut in, "Back in elementary school there was always the math problem, Xiao Ming has five apples, how to divide them equally among four people."

Hearing that, Zhang Ningzhi was also led astray by him and asked curiously.

"Five apples, four people, how to divide?"

"Back then Xiao Ming kept one for himself and gave the rest to the four people."

Saying this, Jiang Nian smoothly took the green apple fruit milk from his coat pocket and handed it to her.

"Here, split for you."

"Oh oh, thanks." Zhang Ningzhi took it in a daze, wanting to pick up the topic about her old classmate, only to find she couldn't continue it.

She glanced down at the fruit milk, feeling a little hesitant in her heart.

She secretly wondered if he really didn't want to know, that his truth was that he didn't care?

Really didn't care?

Thinking this way, Zhang Ningzhi walked along with her head down the whole way.

When she looked up, she realized she had walked to the bottom of the Gao San building, watching Jiang Nian about to step from darkness into light.

"Wait!"

She instinctively called out, but actually didn't know what to say next.

"Mm?" Jiang Nian stopped. He was standing at the edge of the steps, next to a white drainage pipe, turned around and asked, "What's up?"

Zhang Ningzhi wanted to ask him how he happened to show up there, but her brain almost instantly reasoned out his logical response.

He would definitely say, did I ruin your peach blossom luck?

This guy was too annoying, how could he just toss out such an aggressive line.

She couldn't ask it like that.

She thought for a moment and could only switch to a relatively gentler way of asking.

"Did you go specifically to buy fruit milk, and then happened to run into me on the way?"

Jiang Nian went "ah," and rubbed his neck.

"Sort of. When I was eating this afternoon I ran into someone I know and forgot to buy it. Back in the classroom I remembered again, so I went downstairs to buy it and bumped into your rotten peach blossom luck."

Zhang Ningzhi's chest tightened; this person was really too annoying.

"What rotten peach blossom luck!"

"Proper peach blossom?" Jiang Nian said, surprised.

"It was never that, just a classmate I wasn't close with before!" Zhang Ningzhi was about to be driven mad by him—this guy had always been petty, holding grudges for no reason.

If Jiang Nian took one step forward, rebutted with a line, or said anything sharp, he would crack open the boundary between them with a single sentence and interfere with her freedom.

There's that caged-bird flavor to it, Hinata Ningzhi.

However, Jiang Nian only said "oh," thought for a moment, then asked.

"Are we close?"

Zhang Ningzhi snorted, then resumed her haughty little princess posture.

"Wouldn't know."

Saying so, she pushed past Jiang Nian and went upstairs on her own, head buried.

People really are different from one another.

Zhang Ningzhi had always been a bit slow on the uptake—but only with people who didn't matter.

Because studying was exhausting, and if she had to scatter her energy, it would be hard to fight her way out of the parallel class. Shutting down some functions, blocking out some people—that was the only way to focus on studying.

Facts proved her method worked.

Only after moving up a class, that method had failed countless times.

There are always some people you simply can't ignore.

Jiang Nian returned to the class and gave Li Hua a chokehold first thing.

"So you're Reiner, huh?"

"Eat shit!" Li Hua resisted, then said, "Did you hear? Another test tonight, damn."

"Test on what?"

"English."

"Oh, what's that got to do with me." Jiang Nian instantly lost interest upon hearing English—anyway, he'd speed through it—"Wait, why are you asking me?"

"Let's discuss—help me write an essay, will ya?" Li Hua's face was all sycophancy.

"It'll be obvious."

"Fair point, I'm done for." Li Hua's face crumbled, and he slumped back into his seat. "I really don't wanna write English. Is there any way to improve fast?"

Hearing this, Jiang Nian glanced at Li Hua.

Last time Li Hua had shared his "white moonlight" little story with him, and at the time Li Hua was worked up.

So much so that Jiang Nian had held back some words—for instance, that liking someone doesn't have an expiration date.

But there was no need to say it. The point was, there really were quite a few ways to memorize vocabulary.

Ahem, aside from cheating.

Although Jiang Nian's English grades had benefited from cheating, the subsequent practice and drilling were all done by himself. Vocabulary alone doesn't represent everything.

His case was putting the cart before the horse—he'd reverse-engineered a bit of vocabulary-memorizing experience from it.

"There really is."

"Father, do tell." Li Hua rolled his homework book into a microphone and held it up to Jiang Nian's mouth. "My future lewd—no wait, happy life depends on you."

Jiang Nian didn't pay much attention to the details and pulled over the required 3,500 words for the college entrance exam.

"There are two ways. One is to brute-force it."

"Eliminate that." Li Hua didn't hesitate.

"The other is a three-step process: filter and organize the words." Jiang Nian said, "Sort out what you need to memorize, or you can just buy someone else's pre-sorted list."

"Anyway, you don't know many words, so this won't be a problem."

"The second step is to use various roots, affixes, phrases, or abstract methods to memorize them. The third step is review—generally only useful when doing problems or when the memory is vivid."

Li Hua understood the first two steps. After all, Qian Bao often pulled Li Hua out for tutoring both in class and outside, and had spoken about the tricks and methods for memorizing vocabulary.

Things like drilling problems, going back to the textbook units, the five-minute forgetting node. Or memorizing words on A4 paper, on small cards, on sticky notes.

The principle is simple, but doing it is hard.

But the "vivid memory" Jiang Nian had just mentioned was a brand-new version he hadn't heard before.

Li Hua twitched his brows and asked.

"How do you mean, vivid memory?"

Jiang Nian smiled contemptuously and began chanting his magic.

"The loli you like doesn't like you at all, Hua. You're way too abstract. She only sees you as a friend. Goddesses generally like gentle warm guys."

"You motherfucker!!" Li Hua was getting heated.

"Hey, I know you're worked up, but hold on a sec." Jiang Nian held him back. The evening study hall was noisy, so he raised his voice a bit and said loudly.

"Goddess, lady, like, like—combine them and you get ladylike—gentle, refined."

"Got it memorized? Hua."

Li Hua was dumbfounded. "Holy shit, you stabbed right into my lungs—how could I not remember it?"

"See? Vivid memory, right?" Jiang Nian snapped his fingers. "You're discharged—you're saved."

Honestly, Li Hua had never been this speechless before.

"I really want to swap in a pair of ears that haven't heard any of this. Where's my knife?"

Evening study hall ended, and sure enough, an English test was held.

The test papers came rustling down, and Li Hua felt a bit emo.

Jiang Nian acted like nothing had happened, even a little proud—he'd basically performed a miraculous cure.

If nothing unexpected happens, Hua will never forget this word for the rest of his life.

Sigh, it's still useful for the CET-4 and CET-6 exams.

Suppose your friend Li Hua lost in a global election. Please write a letter to comfort him.

Just copy a template — isn't "ladylike" a ready-made killer move?

Chinese cuisine — you can't write "刀削麵" (knife-shaved noodles), so write "Ladylike noodles."

Who cares, just copy the template and be done with it.

After the first evening self-study period, Jiang Nian finished his English exam paper early.

He stepped outside the classroom to relieve himself, and on his way back ran into the class monitor. Seeing that she seemed to be heading downstairs, he couldn't help feeling a little curious.

"Where are you going, class monitor?"

Li Qingrong paused and turned her head to say.

"To carry the combined science exam papers."

"Really? Then I'll go too." Jiang Nian didn't ask whether she needed help — asking would be pointless anyway. "Hey, why isn't Tao Ran and the others going to get them?"

Li Qingrong walked down the stairs side by side with him, her eyes flickering slightly.

"They haven't finished their exams."

Once Jiang Nian thought about those class representatives' English grades, he understood.

This paper had to be handed in for grading, so it really wouldn't do to leave before finishing it.

The class monitor and he didn't have to worry about that — they'd both finished.

"I see, then I should definitely go even more." Jiang Nian was happy to get close to the class monitor — close as in physically close. "Class monitor, you changed to a new hair tie today?"

What he actually wanted to say was: class monitor, you smell so good.

But saying that would be suspicious of being a creep. He decided to play it by ear first, to avoid making the class monitor uncomfortable.

With their long legs, the two reached the second floor in the blink of an eye.

In the dim stairwell, Li Qingrong glanced back at him and said in a low voice.

"I changed it yesterday too."

(End of chapter)