Chapter 419: Let's See the Legs

"Trying to change the subject, huh?"

"We'll see. I'm not really into that, anyway." Xu Shao spread her little hands. "I don't really care about that kind of thing."

Jiang Nian coughed. "I really am planning to, though."

So, what exactly is "that"?

Xu Qianqian thought for a moment, then looked at him with a perfectly serious face.

"Still, I wouldn't recommend you do it, because I'll break your legs."

The two of them were far too familiar with each other, each holding the other in a deadlock.

The moment she caught the expression on Jiang Nian's face shifting and gradually drifting toward "that," Xu Qianqian realized this guy was thinking dirty.

Hearing that, Jiang Nian paid it no mind.

If he could do "that," breaking his legs wouldn't affect eating, nor would it affect getting frisky. No harm done — practically no harm at all.

What if only one leg got broken? Wouldn't that be a bargain?

In front of a late-night snack stall, white steam rolled.

Xu Qianqian's little face was white with a rosy flush, pretty as porcelain. Her eyes, when hungry, went all hazy and unfocused. "Two skewers of fish balls, no—... actually, make it five..."

She thought for a moment, then turned her head and asked.

"Jiang Nian, do you want fish balls?"

"Fish balls are for you. I'll eat something else." Jiang Nian waved her off, looking at the rolling fish balls with zero appetite.

"Oh, boss, two skewers then." Xu Qianqian held up two fingers, smiling in front of the stall, her pear-shaped dimples faintly showing.

Jiang Nian stood to the side with his bag, watching.

To be fair, Xu Qianqian was like an ice cream. Always swaying right in front of his eyes, glowing white under the streetlight.

Even after all these years, every time he saw her, there was still a faint sense of being struck by her beauty.

Xu Shao — the simp-killer.

After getting home.

Before washing up, Jiang Nian glanced at his phone — no new messages. After washing up and blow-drying his hair, the moment he was back in his room, he glanced again.

Twenty-seven unread messages.

Hm?

Out of pure survival instinct, his phone's lock screen never displayed message contents.

So every time he checked his messages, it was a gamble.

If it was a corporate promo message, he'd instantly lose it and start cursing.

Honestly, these blasted promo accounts have zero sense of boundaries.

After tapping in, he found two new WeChat messages from the class president. The other twenty-six came from a QQ group of three.

He thought for a moment, then opened WeChat first.

After all, WeChat usually meant business — who knew, there might be some new directive.

"(Image)"

"I squeezed your little chicken."

Jiang Nian glanced at it and felt something was off. Suspecting his eyes were playing tricks, he looked at the message again.

"What?"

The moment he replied,

Li Qingrong answered instantly.

"Squeezed your......

"

Is that the point? Obviously not.

Why was the class president suddenly playing that stuff? For someone who sends smiling emojis as reaction images, this was a bit too avant-garde.

"No, who taught you that?" Jiang Nian, baffled, typed and asked, "It wasn't Cai Xiaoqing again, was it?"

Li Qingrong: "She won't let me say."

Alright, got it.

The smiling tiger with no guts — Nie Qiqi.

Jiang Nian didn't have the heart to squeeze the class president's little chicken either. The thing was, he didn't even enjoy that kind of game, so for a moment he was struggling to keep a straight face.

"I give up. I'll get my dignity back tomorrow."

After exchanging goodnights with the class president, he sat at his desk, pulled out the test paper, and worked on it for about twenty minutes before finally opening Q

Q.

It was nearly midnight.

He was used to this by now, and he was ready to batch-reply all the messages.

Zhang Ningzhi sent a cute sticker, urging him on.

"Beep beep, come chat."

Jiang Nian glanced at it and replied manually.

"Did you shower?"

"I did. (Cute)"

Jiang Nian: "Then let's see the legs — see if you washed them clean."

"You pervert!" Zhang Ningzhi sent a disgusted-face sticker, then asked curiously, "Are you done with the test paper?

"Yeah, almost." Jiang Nian answered honestly. "Just need.....

However, Zhang Ningzhi didn't seem all that interested in the test paper itself. Before he could even finish sending his message, she replied instantly with a question.

"So after you finish the test paper, what do you usually do?"

If anyone else had asked that kind of question, Jiang Nian would have found it strange. But if it was Zhang Ningzhi, it felt perfectly reasonable to him.

As long as she's a cute pretty girl, even if she has ulterior motives, that's fine.

"After finishing the test paper......" Jiang Nian typed, thought for a moment, then said, "I'll read some Ostrovsky for a while."

Don't ask who that is — anyway, anything with '-sky' in the name is high-class.

Ding ding!

Zhang Ningzhi sent a confused little round-face emoji and asked directly.

"Don't you watch that kind of video?"

Jiang Nian: "?"

What video — the kind where... amid the sparse shadows of apricot blossoms, one plays the flute until dawn? That would actually be quite elegantly classical.

His style points shot up once again at this moment.

He suddenly realized something — turns out when he'd been running his mouth during Sunday evening self-study about manual transmission, Baby Zhizhi had taken it seriously.

A little awkward, but not too bad.

"Oh oh, I was just kidding." Jiang Nian typed an explanation. "I study on Sundays, so I don't like going to the internet cafe with them."

(continuing from previous line)

In reality, he didn't study either.

Usually, he was busy with afternoon tea socializing on Sundays. Either playing cards with girls, or freeloading off Baby Zhizhi. Zhang Ningzhi: "Liar, little fibber."

After sending the message, she enthusiastically forwarded Jiang Nian a blog post about how teenagers should practice restraint.

Jiang Nian was struggling to keep a straight face, and for a moment didn't know what to say.

"I'm really not."

"Oh, I know you're not."

He swiped out of the chat interface, deciding that in the future he should say less random nonsense in front of Baby Zhizhi, to avoid being misunderstood. He tapped open Chen Yunyun's chat window, and a new message popped up.

Chen Yunyun: "What are you doing?"

"Doing a test paper, want to look at legs." Jiang Nian's daily chats with Chen Yunyun had almost become a habit, and he spoke more directly now.

"Huh?" Chen Yunyun was dumbfounded.

"Why?"

"No reason, just want to look."

After a while, Chen Yunyun agonized for a bit.

"Fine."

Seeing this, Jiang Nian assumed she was joking.

The next second a picture popped up — a dimly lit top bunk in the dorm at night. The outline of a pair of slender legs could just barely be made out.

Out of instinct, he reflexively saved the picture. Only after doing all that did he unhurriedly begin to slowly appreciate it.

Without a doubt, these legs weren't internet photos — they were real shots.

Hazy ice-cream legs, slurp slurp.

Jiang Nian waited a while, but Chen Yunyun's recall never came. He immediately realized this picture wasn't her limit.

In the middle of the night, it couldn't possibly be meant as advice, could it?

He felt Chen Yunyun had a prejudice against him — he was only mouthy about that stuff, but in real life he wasn't like that at all.

Jiang Nian: "Any more?"

Chen Yunyun: ".

One can only say the desire for knowledge is human nature.

After reluctantly finishing looking at the leg photos, he chatted with Chen Yunyun for a few more lines. Figuring it was about time, he said goodnight.

Among them, Yao Bei Bei was the most outrageous — she alone had sent a huge string of messages.

Jiang Nian tapped in and read all the messages, and his expression couldn't help turning strange. He typed, deleted, typed again, then replied,

"I'll look at it tomorrow."

Yao Bei Bei replied instantly too: "Okay."

The next day.

Even though he had still been doing test papers until two in the deep of night, after getting up early, Jiang Nian's mind was still full of images of legs.