Chapter 371: The Sports Field Bows

"Everyone's going?" Jiang Nian felt a twinge of surprise.

"Our class got picked." Li Hua's face was full of excitement, ("Seems like there's another competition-prep class too, forgot which one.")

"Which class?"

"Fou... Class Four, probably."

Hearing that, Jiang Nian's eyelid twitched.

"Then I'm not going, I haven't finished my homework yet."

He simply felt that this kind of speech was superficial, unable to get to the root of students' anxiety, and attending the lecture was a complete waste of time.

If you really want to de-stress, better to play some.

Games.

"Damn, no way, you're really not going?" Li Hua was a bit dumbfounded, turning his head to glance at the stream of classmates filing out.

"Go to hell!" Jiang Nian said irritably, pulling out a chemistry test paper, "Your dad's gotta study, doesn't love joining the crowd."

"Doing homework every day, what's there to write?" Li Hua didn't understand.

"616 minus 608 equals 8." Jiang Nian's face was calm as he looked at Li Hua and said, "Those extra 8 points your dad has will always be your dad's."

"Eat shit, eat shit!!" Li Hua's face instantly turned red.

In that instant, he thought of King Goujian of Yue. But then he thought of the real historical Goujian, so he activated his pretty-boy skill.

Sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall ≠ endorsing Goujian.

Doing problems with formulas is just fast!

"Next exam, I'll score 80 points higher than you!" Li Hua was in high spirits, swearing fiercely, "The shame of Jingkang has yet to be avenged!"

Jiang Nian heard this outrageously shameless trash talk and couldn't hold back his expression for a moment.

"Ha, you're getting worked up."

If bro scores a 650, where the hell are you gonna get 730?

To be fair, Lao Hua does have some humor cells on him.

Heath Ledger flew all the way to Zhennan specifically to play the Joker well. He observed Li Hua for a month before the later on-screen classic came to be.

"Hey, Jiang Nian, you're not going?" Yao Bei Bei came to find Baby Zhizhi to walk together, asked casually, didn't really mind.

Jiang Nian wasn't the only one in class not going to the lecture, there were at least five or six others.

"Not going." Jiang Nian nodded, seeing Zhang Nianzhi about to leave, he grabbed her, "Why are you going too?"

"What's up?" Zhang Nianzhi looked completely baffled.

She was the typical go-with-the-flow type, hearing there was a lecture. She didn't dare skip, as long as Yao Bei Bei went, she went.

Seeing Jiang Nian openly grab her in the classroom, she couldn't help but blush.

What if he asked her to stay?

. What should she choose?

"You're going too?" Jiang Nian asked.

"Yeah." Zhang Nianzhi hesitated slightly, thinking how hard it is to choose, she'd already promised Beibei, hard to stay.

"Huh? Then no one's gonna peel oranges for me." Jiang Nian's face was blank.

Sun Zhicheng was passing by the corridor with Lin Dong, originally in a good mood. Hearing Jiang Nian say something like that, instantly stopped smiling.

Couldn't help but glance at a certain someone, fists already hardening.

byd is really putting on an act!

Gender must be a plastic bag, can hold so much.

Hearing that, the expression on Zhang Nianzhi's face instantly vanished. She gritted her teeth and unleashed a flurry of wild punches on Jiang Nian.

"Who's gonna peel for you! Go die, go die!"

Jiang Nian laughed, Baby Zhizhi didn't have much strength. He couldn't be bothered to dodge, stuffed the last orange from his pocket into her clothes pocket.

"Then go ahead."

Zhang Nianzhi left in a huff, not wanting to stay with this heartless person. Before leaving, she deliberately glanced at Chen Yunyun.

Seeing that she and Wang Yuhe were also going to the lecture, she finally looked away.

Yao Bei Bei stretched out her hand, palm up.

"Any more?"

Jiang Nian instinctively was about to spit in her palm, seeing Yao Bei Bei recoil fast, he felt a bit regretful.

"None left, I'll buy you a whole basket tomorrow."

"Then call Li Hua, let him help you carry it." Yao Bei Bei also joked along, truly deadpan saying ghost words.

Eighty or ninety percent of the people in the classroom had left, only five or six people who asked for leave remained.

Jiang Nian didn't go, Li Qingrong couldn't be bothered to go either.

The two didn't ask for leave, but Cai Xiaoqing still automatically asked leave for them, the homeroom teacher wouldn't say much either—one was a Tsinghua-Peking seed, one was a star of inspiration,

If Jiang Nian could get 650 in the provincial joint exam, Old Liu would have to enshrine him. Not asking for Tsinghua-Peking, just getting into a C9

would do.

The empty Class Three classroom, bright lights like snow.

Jiang Nian seriously flipped open a test paper, facing the web of knowledge points in his mind, doing problems while thinking.

While doing problems, use the questions to build the knowledge network.

However, he wasn't truly some top student after all. The foundation of 600 points would never reach the throne of 650.

So when actually doing problems, he'd still get stuck on hard ones.

Sometimes, the gap between 600 and 650 isn't big. But 680-690 is an entirely different concept.

Li Qingrong pressed him down firmly from above.

No, it should be stepping on him.

He couldn't even reach the class monitor's pomegranate skirt—best he could do was slide his soles underneath. It sounded humiliating, but sliding like that must feel great.

Time slipped away, and when he looked up again, it was already second-period evening self-study.

The ones who went to the lecture hadn't returned, so no one was maintaining discipline. Of those left behind, two were chatting.

Listening to them while doing problems made a decent white noise.

Li Qingrong had no heart for solving problems; she propped her head up and stared into space. Her mind wasn't thinking about anything—she simply let time spin uselessly.

Until a test paper appeared in her line of sight, and her gaze finally focused.

"Why are you zoning out?" Jiang Nian asked, puzzled, then pointed to a chemistry problem. "Can't figure it out—take a look for me."

Li Qingrong didn't answer why she was zoning out; she couldn't explain it herself. She had no worries, no thoughts at all.

Class Monitor lowered her gaze, her cold, detached aura deepening. But when she lifted her eyes to look at someone seriously, there was a chill that kept people at arm's length.

Jiang Nian felt nothing—he didn't even look at her eyes. Who looks people in the eyes? Real people look elsewhere. "Embracing Qingqing, your wrist looks so nice."

Li Qingrong's gaze paused, then she reread the problem from the beginning.

"Mm."

A few minutes later, Li Qingrong finished explaining the problem to him.

"Understood?"

Jiang Nian studied it carefully, nodded, and said thank you. Then he turned back and continued writing intently. After a while, he turned again and asked.

"Wanna go for a walk around the track?"

Hearing this, Li Qingrong looked up at him, slightly surprised.

"Aren't you doing problems?"

"Take a break—I didn't go out during the last break." He glanced at his phone. "Ten minutes down there."

Li Qingrong pressed her lips together and looked away.

"Mm."

They both stood up and left the classroom, one behind the other.

The classroom was nearly empty; their departure drew no attention. After all, no one was watching—everyone was doing their own thing.

They went down to the third floor.

Jiang Nian glanced at Room 304—the Olympiad Class Four students had indeed all left.

The sports field closed at eight; the synthetic track was damp. But there were no swollen puddles or large pools of water.

Under the moonlight, a loud *thump* came from the soccer field.

He turned his head at the sound and saw a few people kicking a ball under the streetlights at the edge of the field, where it met the teachers' dormitory area.

Jiang Nian was stunned on the spot, glancing again at the field.

There are puddles on the field—do they really want to play like this?

Skipping self-study to practice?

Two "Holy shit!" shouts rang out, then a sharp *crack*—the ball veered off course and flew vaguely toward them.

In the darkness, its trajectory was invisible.

Jiang Nian instinctively stepped back a few paces, using muscle memory to stop the flying ball, then kicked it back with a powerful strike.

Soccer, as a sport, is already somewhat elite.

First, you need a decent field; second, you need a goal. You also need enough people—five or six players just isn't fun.

Few students at school like soccer; most boys head for basketball. Mainly because there are more courts and it's easier to form teams.

These guys were weird—skipping self-study to practice.

"What grade are you in?" Jiang Nian called out from afar.

"Senior Three, Class 304."

"Huh?" Jiang Nian's first reaction upon hearing they were from Olympiad Class Four was disbelief; his second was, actually, reasonable. He'd blamed Class Four so often, he couldn't believe anyone from there would skip class.

We've docked you guys so many points—still daring to cause trouble?

But then he thought again: their new homeroom teacher was going through menopause. Class Four students, with so many demerits already, didn't care anymore.

"Which class are you from?" they asked, not stepping forward, their figures lost in darkness, only faint silhouettes visible.

"Oh, Olympiad Class One," Jiang Nian said, defaulting to blame-shifting.

Beside him, Li Qingrong glanced at him, then silently looked away until they reached the far end of the track.

Suddenly, she asked: "You're from Class One?"

"Yeah, sort of—I've always wanted to transfer," Jiang Nian said carelessly. "Heard Class One's got lots of girls. Yuan Zhengchuan transferred over and hasn't wanted to leave since."

"He was hot and heavy with Ji Ming's niece, but last month he found yet another girlfriend."

"I came early once—before six-thirty. Saw Yuan Zhengchuan and his new girlfriend hugging and kissing at the school gate."

"It was foggy in the morning—I got scared. Thought the Biohazard scenario had dropped—zombies on the highway."

When Jiang Nian mentioned wanting to transfer to Class One, Li Qingrong gave him a slow, sidelong glance. Then she listened to his whole spiel, like he was telling a comedy routine.

She understood perfectly—he was just joking.

But she didn't know what to say, so she just let him talk. They walked round and round, occasionally nodding or murmuring in response.

After about fifteen minutes, they went straight back upstairs.

Only when second-period evening self-study ended did the lecture finally finish. The class returned, some exhausted, others energized.

"Fuck, should've stayed," Li Hua said, returning to his seat, pulling a water bottle from his desk, and gulping down half of it.

"Yeah, totally boring," Ma Guojun leaned over to Jiang Nian. "Holy shit—you did problems for two whole sessions?"

"What's up?" Jiang Nian shook his hair and stood up. "I finished one and a half papers. Wanna go pee?"

"Fuck, so intense!" Ma Guojun adjusted his glasses. "Let's go, call that idiot Li Hua—I'm coming too."

The three of them walked off, arms slung over each other's shoulders.

Zhang Ningzhi curiously glanced at Jiang Nian's desk, flipped through the exam paper, and found every question answered.

But on one chemistry problem, there were two different handwritings.

The bell rang.

The three stepped into the bathroom as the bell echoed, finding fewer people inside—but still not enough stalls, so they stood side by side.

Midway through urinating, Jiang Nian suddenly leaned over to glance at Li Hua.

"Holy shit!! You fucking asshole!" Li Hua jumped in shock, nearly stopping mid-stream. "Are you fucking insane?!"

Jiang Nian looked curious, still urinating as he stared at Li Hua.

"Why aren't you peeing?"

"Hahaha!!" Ma Guojun burst into laughter, nearly spraying on his hand. "I know an old Chinese doctor."

"Get lost, get lost! You guys are all fucking psychopaths." Li Hua ran off, belt still undone, refusing to accept this 80.

Jiang Nian and Ma Guojun erupted in laughter inside the bathroom, producing echoes that made Li Hua's heart race.

So when the three returned to the classroom.

Ma Guojun and Jiang Nian were giggling; only Li Hua wasn't.

But after returning to their seats.

Li Hua couldn't help himself again—he pulled Jiang Nian into a discussion about soccer, then added, "By the way, you really missed out by not going to the lecture."

"Why's that?"

"A bunch of girls from the liberal arts classes went—I saw one who was really pretty." Li Hua gesticulated wildly, like a clown.

"Liberal arts classes?" Jiang Nian rubbed his chin, thought a moment. "That's the floor above, right? Which class?"

"Probably the Liberal Arts Olympiad class—maybe Class One," Li Hua wasn't sure. "That guy Lin Dong even sneaked photos."

"I heard Yang Qiming knows that girl, but it sounds unreliable."

Jiang Nian just listened casually, didn't take it seriously.

"By the way, I do know a girl from the liberal arts class. She's probably in Class One too—I don't know if she went."

Hearing this, Zhang Ningzhi, who had been solving problems, turned to look at him.

"You know girls from liberal arts?"

"Um…"

"…" Jiang Nian felt something sour in his chest. "I met her by chance. We never really talked."

"Is she pretty?" Li Hua picked up the scent immediately.

"How to put it?" Jiang Nian stroked his chin, hesitated. "The cutest little Sheepie in Zhenan. Figure it out yourself."

"Oh." Li Hua's interest instantly died. "Fuck, if she's a Sheepie, she can't be any good."

"On the contrary," Jiang Nian was about to say more, but caught sight of Zhang Ningzhi—her eyes met his, and he fell silent.

After evening self-study ended.

"Baby Zhizhi, I'm heading home," Jiang Nian patted her head, slung his bag over his shoulder. "You go home early too."

"Mm-hmm," Zhang Ningzhi nodded.

She was used to Jiang Nian's little gestures—she used to correct him, but now she was desensitized, letting him do as he pleased.

"See you tomorrow," Baby Zhizhi waved.

So cute.

"Mm, see you tomorrow," Jiang Nian waved and stepped out, merging into the hallway crowd.

Third floor.

Xu Qianqian saw him emerge from the stairs and immediately joined the crowd heading down. The two walked one behind the other, meeting downstairs.

"You didn't go to the lecture?"

"No, busy solving problems," Jiang Nian yawned. "That lecture was pure waste of time. Did you go?"

"I did," Xu Qianqian yawned too, swaying forward. "Why are you so hardworking?"

"To bet with you," Jiang Nian slid his arm around her shoulder.

Xu Qianqian froze. Her shoulder pulled in, warm breath brushing her ear—she shuddered all over.

"You're insane!"

She shoved Jiang Nian away, her earlobes flushed red.