Chapter 342: Why Is He Taking His Clothes Off?

A one-armed embrace, touching and then parting.

He got Jiang Nian all worked up.

Hold on, there are too many clothes on. Give me ten seconds to take them off first.

He really was an idiot—what kind of person wears a jacket at high noon? Since the sun was out, wearing less didn't seem to matter.

Li Qingrong separated from him, feeling a little dazed. Suddenly everything went quiet, and ripples stirred across the lake in her heart.

Under the sunlight, Jiang Nian casually slipped off his jacket and cleared his throat.

"Ahem, suddenly feeling a bit hot."

Hearing that, Li Qingrong gave him a puzzled glance. After a cold gust blew past, the guy actually shivered.

Yet he stubbornly held on, stamping his feet.

"Today's breeze is quite—"

Li Qingrong wasn't good at small talk and didn't know how to pick up his line. So she simply stayed silent, standing in place like a block of wood.

Jiang Nian felt a little awkward and put his jacket back on.

"Seems like it's gotten cold again, all thanks to Li Hua's jinxing yesterday. Let's head back first, I can still ask you a few questions."

The moment she heard the word "questions," Li Qingrong was like she'd caught a keyword. This she could do, so she gave a small nod.

"Mm."

Jiang Nian was really just trying to lighten the mood—even if he was awkward, he couldn't exactly be himself in broad daylight; after all, he was pretty introverted.

"Let's go then. By the way, what do you want to drink?"

Up on the fifth floor, at the window.

The fight was long over; five or six people were crowded at the window, staring down at the two inside the wall, pointing and commenting.

"Shit, did you guys see clearly just now? They really hugged? And the class rep went first—"

"Cut the crap, what are they doing over there?"

"Hugging, duh."

"Bullshit! They were climbing the wall! Ah Cheng and I came over from that side!" Lin Dong swore, pointing at the wall from afar.

"Jumping down from there, no one can land steady. So the class rep must have lost her center of gravity and fallen forward."

"Put that way... it actually makes some sense." Yang Qiming rubbed his chin, "It couldn't be, right—class rep, you guys tell me?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Wtf, why is he taking his clothes off?"

"Maybe he's just hot. The sun's out in the middle of winter, feeling a bit warm is reasonable, right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Heh, a bunch of cowards refusing to face reality." Sun Zhicheng sneered, "I saw it clear as day—they hugged."

Unlike the losers around him, he didn't find the idea of Jiang Nian actually winning over the class rep all that hard to swallow.

Quite the opposite—he actually felt a weight lift in his heart.

If Jiang Nian really got together with the class rep, then wouldn't Chen Yunyun be—? He just couldn't believe it; after all this, could he still lose?

Heartbroken? Miserable?

Not even close. Right now Sun Zhicheng just wanted to howl—he wanted to howl.

"What's he doing now?"

"Who knows, some lunatic."

"So should we spread this around?"

"Better not, maybe it's a misunderstanding. Rumors can melt gold—if we say it, even a lie becomes truth, and that guy gets the benefit."

"Wtf, just thinking about him getting hugged by the class rep, I won't be able to sleep at noon."

"Shut up, damn you!"

"Scatter, scatter! Knew I shouldn't have come out to watch the show, wtf."

At noon, the classroom was empty.

The math joint exam started promptly at three, no need to take attendance in the classroom—students could head straight to the exam hall from home or the dorm.

So basically everyone from Class Three had gone back to rest.

Lunch break wasn't long enough to go over many problems anyway. Jiang Nian had only asked the class rep three questions in total—not that there weren't more he didn't know.

Quite the opposite—there were too many.

Asking was pointless; even if he got this problem, the moment the numbers changed he'd fall for it again.

Trying to boost his math score in a short time was itself a gamble—gambling on the question types, gambling on whether they'd be ones he knew.

Li Qingrong lowered her eyes. "Still have questions?"

He did.

Kissing he didn't know how to do—could she Shoubashou Sect teach him how?

Of course not.

Jiang Nian was starting to get a headache. The afternoon math joint exam was less than two hours away, even counting generously.

With that kind of time, might as well nap.

Lunch break was long.

Jiang Nian woke up to find it was already two o'clock. The classroom was still dead silent. Normally, afternoon break would have started by now.

He stepped out to take a leak, came back to find Li Qingrong awake too. A few more people had refreshed into the classroom, looking like they'd just arrived.

"Why not sleep a bit more?" Jiang Nian sat down at his seat.

Li Qingrong shook her head. "Can't sleep."

"Hmm, twenty more minutes and it'll be time to head to the exam hall." Jiang Nian nodded and turned back to flip through the test paper.

Li Qingrong stared at his back for a few seconds, then reached out and tapped him.

"Jiang Nian."

"What?" He turned around, slightly surprised—it was the first time the monitor had called him by name.

She lowered her eyes and whispered softly, as if offering comfort.

"Math isn't hard."

In the exam hall, thirty minutes remained until the end of the joint exam's math test.

"You still need to install the anti-fraud app," Jiang Nian muttered to himself as he wrote, "Who the hell wrote this question?"

Some things don't magically explode into bloodlust or sweep away a thousand enemies just by shouting about "bonds, village, everyone."

The truth proved: math is still the boss.

And a teacher's words only gain serious weight after the exam ends—this math paper was downright insane.

Due to cheating, the papers were all replaced.

You couldn't gauge the difficulty of the Chinese paper—just felt it was elegant. But as soon as the second exam, math, began, everything changed instantly.

Leaving the exam hall, Jiang Nian heard someone cursing the math paper.

"Who the fuck wrote this?! Fuck the cheaters! If not for them, we wouldn't have gotten new papers!"

"Please help me pass—can I even get eighty?"

"Fuck, I laughed while solving the problems. Never in my life have I seen something so ridiculous—damn conic sections."

"The geometry diagrams were too abstract—I suspect they were drawn with a fucking compass. Shit, it's just a black mess—what the hell am I supposed to see in this structure?!"

Jiang Nian felt conflicted—he had no confidence in his performance. Love life was going well, but exam life was failing; he just hoped he could hold onto 120.

A big drop wasn't likely, but improvement was out of the question.

Back in the classroom.

A group clustered around Li Hua or Lin Dong, frantically discussing the papers, pointing at their own sheets, laughing wildly.

"Holy shit! My brain must've short-circuited—why did I pick C?!"

"Wait, I don't get it—why is the answer root two? Tell me, tell me!"

"If this were the Gaokao, I'd be done for."

"Let's go, back to the dorm to play games. Exam's over—what's the point of arguing over answers? Boring."

Yang Qiming shook his head, then led Huang Cailang out of the classroom.

"These guys are so boring—why scream after the exam?"

"Hehe, Brother Yang," Huang Cailang chuckled in agreement, "I heard Dong Wensong bombed it and is taking a leave."

"Take a fuckin' break!" Yang Qiming burst out laughing, "That idiot's always floundering around with half a brain—he deserves to bomb."

Mid-sentence, he suddenly realized something.

"Cailang, you mean that girl from the liberal arts class also bombed it? Girls cry easily—she's probably crying right now."

Hearing this, Huang Cailang instantly understood his intent.

"Bro, if you go comfort her now, won't it be the perfect chance to strike?"

"It's like delivering charcoal in the snow!" Yang Qiming corrected him, then immediately acted: "Let's go see."

The two climbed up to the fifth floor—luck was on their side.

Lü Xuan sat alone, leaning on the railing, scrolling on her phone; the evening breeze stirred her long hair, and far away stretched vast crimson sunset clouds.

Beautiful beyond words.

Yang Qiming's heart began pounding violently—he suddenly grew nervous. In that instant, he felt pure delight.

Perhaps time had already erased everything.

Huang Cailang showed perfect restraint, stopping where he was. He watched Yang Qiming slowly approach Lü Xuan, silently cheering for Brother Yang.

The next second, Lü Xuan sensed something.

She turned her head and saw a stranger smiling at her—she jumped in fright, clutching her phone tightly.

"Who are you?"

Yang Qiming was also nervous; seeing her turn and stare at him with suspicion, he panicked.

"I I I am—"

He thought fast and blurted out.

"I'm from the Student Union—we're doing a survey on exam psychology. Classmate, how did you do on the math exam?"

Hearing this, Huang Cailang secretly admired Brother Yang's quick wit.

Lü Xuan looked slightly embarrassed. "Not bad—I think I'll get 140. A bit harder than usual. How about you?"

The phrase "how about you?" left Yang Qiming stunned.

In the end, he managed to get Lü Xuan's QQ number by claiming he'd need to follow up, and she agreed to keep his name anonymous.

On the way down, Huang Cailang suddenly realized.

"Bro, liberal arts and our stream don't use the same test papers."

"Cailang, you're focusing on the weirdest thing," Yang Qiming patted his shoulder. "We got her contact—who cares what paper she used?"

"Damn, Brother Yang."

"Haha, her name's Lü Xuan—what a beautiful name!" Yang Qiming waved his hand. "Come on, I'm treating you all this afternoon!"

Drip—the card swiped successfully.

Jiang Nian was confused—he was eating alone in the cafeteria when Yang Qiming and his buddy passed by and were suddenly "treating" him.

Watching Yang Qiming's joyful, retreating back, he couldn't help but ponder.

Won the lottery?

Just then, his phone buzzed again.

After sitting down, he pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at it. Seven or eight unread messages, the little red dot count still climbing rapidly.

Lv Xuan had been persistent, insisting on asking questions every single day.

The reason Jiang Nian hadn't deleted her was, one, because they really were middle school classmates. Two, her legs were pretty white—the kind of white that practically glowed.

He tapped it open and saw they were all urging messages.

"You there? You there?"

He instantly felt speechless and replied.

"?"

Lv Xuan was a little shaken, and replied instantly.

"Can you stop sending me question marks? I just want to know a few things. You already looked, you can't go back on your word."

Jiang Nian typed back: "I only agreed to pass your friend request. What else did I agree to?"

The other party is typing.

After quite a while, no message came through.

Jiang Nian just assumed the other side had backed down and didn't think much of it. He kept his head down and continued eating, taking the chance at month's end to scroll through some videos.

Before long, Lv Xuan's message popped up.

"Just consider it helping me out, please."

Jiang Nian glanced at it, not really caring.

"So many people support you, it's the same without me."

Lv Xuan: "?"

"I don't even know what you actually want to ask, and if it's something bad I won't say it." Jiang Nian was curious too—what was this person trying to ask?

"You're together with Li Qingrong, aren't you?" Lv Xuan asked.

Jiang Nian replied instantly, "Good friends."

The moment he sent it, a burst of footsteps sounded behind him.

Jiang Nian turned his head and saw Lv Xuan walking over holding a bottle of drink. She was wearing a light-colored windbreaker, looking very cool and dashing.

"Not even a friend—are you stalking me?"

Lv Xuan immediately flushed red, and said angrily.

"I'm just passing by and happened to see you. What stalking? Don't talk nonsense!"

Hearing that, Jiang Nian immediately waved her away.

"Fine, fine, fine, hurry up and go."

"With that kind of attitude, there's nothing more to say to you. If there's anything you don't understand, go Baidu it yourself."

Hearing this, Lv Xuan immediately softened.

"Sorry"

"Who are you apologizing to?" Jiang Nian was a bit impatient. "Hurry up and go, don't ruin my mood for eating."

Lv Xuan's mouth opened slightly, thinking to herself, what gives him the right to be so harsh. But the moment she thought of her sunk costs, she deflated again.

"Bro, I was wrong, I just want to ask about something."