Chapter 331: Can Anyone Else Do It?

Lü Xuan?

Under the desk lamp, Jiang Nian put down his pen, utterly forgetting who this person was.

Just delete her.

Bing—a new message came from Lü Xuan.

"If I'm a scammer, I'll be a dog!"

Jiang Nian clicked into her QQ profile again and saw a full row of SVIP subscriptions—his interest stirred instantly.

Maybe he could borrow her membership later.

First, figure out who she is—most of his old classmates were forgotten. Some marginal people were unremarkable, their names hard to recall.

"Your space is locked—still claiming you're not a scammer?"

Seeing this, Lü Xuan hesitated for an instant, then granted Jiang Nian access to her space.

"Opened. Tell me when you're done."

Jiang Nian saw the message and snorted inwardly. He thought: You want me to finish and then close it? You're really putting on an act.

He opened Lü Xuan's space and scrolled down endlessly. Found this girl really was from No. 2 High School—she'd posted plenty of cringey status updates.

【Told Zi Qing she was a little fairy, she feared I wouldn't believe her, so she did a transformation dance right in front of me—I awkwardly voiced her sound effects myself.】

【Licked my hand on the street today, imitating a cat demon. A few people stared at me—they must've thought I was a cat demon. (Cool)】

【Couldn't solve the problem (laughing cry), so I thought of Xi Yangyang, then jumped around the classroom thinking.】

After reading it all, Jiang Nian fell silent.

AI still can't replace humans—what kind of abstract nonsense is this?

No wonder she didn't open space permissions—she must've blocked everyone. Then why not lock her statuses? Doesn't she trust QQ?

After verification, Jiang Nian sent her another message.

"Why is your album locked?"

Lü Xuan: "(smile) What do you want to do?"

"See who you are—who knows if you're a scammer or a hacked account," Jiang Nian replied. "Open it or I delete you."

Lü Xuan: "I have something to do (smile)."

"Oh, three," Jiang Nian began counting down.

On the other end of the phone, Lü Xuan bit her lower lip. She'd already sacrificed too much for curiosity, but she truly wanted to know.

This was way more addictive than reading Green River BE novels—like a real-life dating variety show.

Finally, she clenched her teeth.

"Fine, I'll let you see it."

After sending it, Lü Xuan opened her photo album. There were no special pictures—just ordinary photos.

She sent a follow-up message urging: "Done yet? Hurry up."

Jiang Nian scanned through them and realized he did recognize Lü Xuan's face. No. 2 High School had many pretty girls,

and Lü Xuan was one of them.

But she was reclusive; rumors said her family background was powerful. A few troublemakers had pursued her for a while.

Rumor had it those guys transferred schools, and it just died out.

Of course, it was only rumor.

He never imagined Lü Xuan was this cringey behind the scenes—unbearable to look at. Aside from being pretty, she was just a two-armed weirdo.

"Mm, done."

Lü Xuan: "You didn't save them, did you?"

Jiang Nian: "Are you that self-absorbed?"

Behind the screen, Lü Xuan's face flushed bright red. She'd asked instinctively—after all, she had her pride—but then she reconsidered.

In terms of looks, Jiang Nian was probably on her level too. People with high looks really didn't bother with such things.

Even, people who looked good often chose partners who were plain-looking. As long as they themselves were attractive, they didn't care about their partner's appearance.

Lü Xuan: "(sweat) I was just joking."

But Jiang Nian did not reply.

This made Lü Xuan anxious. She waited a long time before finally sending another message to test his attitude.

"Can I ask you something?"

Five minutes later, Jiang Nian replied.

"I'm sleepy. Tomorrow."

Seeing this, Lü Xuan was speechless. She instinctively wanted to send something, but remembered her earlier offense… and gave up.

On the other side.

Jiang Nian didn't care what Lü Xuan wanted to ask, but he instinctively felt that dealing with people like her required repeated teasing.

Poke her a few times, and she'd naturally think before speaking.

Next time she approached him, the conversation would naturally get straight to the point—no more wasting time on nonsense.

At night, he packed up his exam papers and fell asleep immediately.

The next day.

Jiang Nian woke up early and ran into Zhou Haifei in front of the steamed bun shop.

"Next, what'll you have?"

The owner bent over grabbing buns, lifting the steamer lid to release swirling steam. The cold street held few people; the shop's steamer racks towered high.

"One vegetable bun, one steamed bun," Zhou Haifei said.

After buying, Zhou Haifei wasn't sure whether she should wait for Jiang Nian. After all, they knew each other, and the street was nearly empty.

If she just walked away, it would seem too cold-hearted.

Soon, Jiang Nian walked toward her, biting into a bun and casually waving hello.

"Help me with a small favor upstairs, okay?"

"What?" Zhou Haifei, walking behind him, munched her steamed bun at a distance.

Cupping the steaming food in her palms, a sweet flavor spread in her mouth. She couldn't help feeling moved, suddenly happy.

She usually just ate a packet of powdered steamed buns from the cafeteria—cheap, convenient, and good for mental training.

If she ate too well, she'd lose focus on studying.

Others had second chances; she had only this one. Pass, and she'd be a fish in the sea; fail, and she'd fall into the abyss.

For safety's sake, she didn't plan to go home for the New Year—avoiding being trapped and pestered into marriage.

"Give this notebook to Xu Qianqian. I'm too lazy to go in." Jiang Nian pulled out a math notebook from his backpack.

Zhou Haifei froze for a moment, then took the notebook.

"Okay."

Jiang Nian casually bought two cups of soy milk, handed one to Zhou Haifei, and left without giving her a chance to refuse.

English morning reading.

Li Hua slid into the classroom, barely making it in time to stop Cai Xiaoqing from writing his name down.

"If sorrow forgets love!"

Ma Guojun recited vocabulary from his wordbook, simply because Old Liu had suggested moving morning reading up by five minutes.

Since the English monitor had organized it, he stood up too.

He turned and saw Li Hua acting up again, and burst out laughing. He chuckled maliciously, pointing at Li Hua.

"Kids like this dumb fool all look the same—Chinese or Western medicine won't help. His IQ is stuck at a four- or five-year-old's."

"Hey hey hey, a bit too arrogant, kid," Li Hua dashed to Ma Guojun's front and struck a JOJO stance.

Jiang Nian watched the whole thing and laughed, commenting sharply.

"Li Hua's the type who'd suddenly sit up at midnight, sneer into a dark corner, pretending he sees ghosts."

Hearing this, Ceng You and Wu Jun Gu in the front row turned around, instantly drenched in sweat.

"Fucking hell, take down the surveillance," Ceng You flipped them the middle finger.

"Come on, everyone's done this before," Wu Jun Gu felt awkward. "I thought… it was pretty niche."

"Actually, when you do this move, you're terrified. You feel someone's watching you, so you try to scare them first."

Li Hua walked over from the aisle, heard their conversation, and chimed in.

"That's nothing. I used to imagine I was a commander on the battlefield. Urgent military news—my most loyal soldier died."

"Then at midnight, I screamed passionately, mourning my soldiers. I cried so loud my parents came running." "What happened next?" Jiang Nian asked.

"They dragged me to the countryside for a ritual. Fucking hell, I knelt for three hours. Monks and Taoists showed up. The firebowl burned my eyes."

As he finished, everyone in the group burst into laughter.

"I did something like that too, after watching The White Snake. I draped a white veil over my head and wandered around the house."

Zhang Ningzhi grimaced and whispered.

"My mom was taking off her makeup in front of the mirror, saw a flash of white dart past, and screamed there was a ghost."

After they finished speaking, they turned to Jiang Nian.

Jiang Nian swallowed hard. "What? Why are you all looking at me?"

"Tell us yours—it must be even crazier," Li Hua said.

"Shut up, I was a well-behaved kid," Jiang Nian waved them off, refusing to reveal a single childhood memory.

Behind them, Li Qingrong suddenly lifted her head.

She remembered in middle school, once seeing Jiang Nian playing the Sunflower Pointing Acupoint Technique outside the classroom, striking the pose shown below.

Then, as he turned, the teacher caught him—and he was punished by doing the Sunflower Pointing Acupoint Technique against the wall for a whole class.

Thinking of it, Li Qingrong couldn't help smiling softly.

The first two classes were back-to-back English lessons; the whole class was drowsy.

Qian Bao walked around while explaining the sixteen verb tenses. When she returned to the podium, she found Li Hua dozing off.

Her lips twitched. "Oh, really?"

Trying to hide in plain sight, huh?

"Li Hua!" Qian Bao exploded, snapping him awake. "Question four—what's your answer?"

Some students still paying attention looked up, bewildered.

Huh? Weren't we just covering the future perfect continuous tense? Where did a multiple-choice question come from?

Seeing the kid in front stumble to his feet, they all grinned. No one spoke—they waited to see the show.

"Answer… what?" Li Hua was half-asleep, his mind foggy. He blurted out, "I pick Wang Feng."

"Hahaha!!!"

"Holy shit! Wang Feng!"

In an instant, the whole class erupted in laughter.

"Don't say it—Li Hua's got real ambition in his dreams," Jiang Nian was the first to pile on. "He's already on The Voice stage."

Ma Guojun laughed hysterically. "What song did Li Hua bring? Tell us, we'll vote for you."

Qian Bao was furious, staring coldly at Li Hua.

"You've got real dreams, huh?"

Li Hua was instantly drenched in cold sweat, thinking it was all Jiang Nian's fault — that bastard. Singing while doing problems during morning self-study.

"Teacher..... no, I mean..... the answer is...... C.

The moment the words fell, the class burst out laughing again.

"What the hell kind of answer is C!"

"Killing me — Dad's Huabei is yours to inherit."

No matter how clueless Li Hua was, he caught on now. There had never been any multiple-choice question at all — Qian Bao had been bluffing him the whole time. He immediately felt guilty, muttering to himself inside.

Secretly wondering how Qian Bao had gotten so damn shady too.

In the end, Li Hua was rewarded with standing for an entire class. He slunk off to the back row, not the least bit sad — because,

P. E. class.

There's P. E. at noon — the one thing to look forward to all week.

Monday and Tuesday are exams plus going over the papers, Wednesday is P. E. class. Thursday you grit your teeth and push through, Friday you watch the news weekly, and the weekend — straight to it!

The joint exam!

When you break it down, a week isn't actually that hard to endure.

After all, most of the time is swallowed up by exams, and the rest of the time you can always find a spot to come up for air — a fish breaking the surface to blow bubbles.

Third period, math class — the whole class was a bit absent-minded.

It was a bright sunny day, and a great slab of sunlight at the classroom door spilled onto the podium.

Li Qingrong stared at the patch of sunlight in the corner of the blackboard, lost in thought. Thinking about playing badminton later lifted her mood at once.

"Grab the shuttlecocks! Grab them!! Claim a court!"

"Wanna play table tennis?"

"Obviously — I'm the little Ma Long."

"Bullshit, then I'm Echizen Ryoma!"

Sunlight filled the entire classroom, a clear, bright wash of light. The room was in chaos — everyone busy rushing downstairs to claim a court.

Li Qingrong picked up her badminton racket and paused before leaving her seat.

"I'm heading down first."

"Mm-hmm, sure." Jiang Nian flashed a K hand sign.

After the class monitor left.

Zhang Ningzi lay sprawled on the desk, staring at Jiang Nian with a brooding look. Her gaze was a little resentful, as if her intelligence had regressed to that of a seven- or eight-year-old.

"Did you and the class monitor make plans?"

"Uh...... yeah, why...... why?" Jiang Nian, unable to stand her stare, stammered. Zhang Ningzi immediately puffed up with anger and said furiously,

"You big liar — you stood me up last time too!"