Chapter 45

Zhang Ningzhi felt she'd lost all her face today, "Okay… thanks, I'll transfer you the money on my phone."

"Mm." Jiang Nian nodded.

Even the landlord had no surplus grain; the money in his hands was partly saved for his next task, like the one offering double rewards for buying fitness courses.

The rest he planned to use at home—he couldn't think about buying a house yet, but he could consider upgrading his quality of life by replacing some appliances and furniture.

Rather than spending money to show off, he preferred to spend it on his parents, Jiang and his wife.

Jiang Nian took the two water cups out of the classroom, picked up the umbrella hanging on the windowsill of the corridor, and strolled slowly toward the far end of the hallway; his pocket phone vibrated once.

He pulled it out, glanced at it—Ningzhi had sent a regular red envelope.

Opened it—fifty yuan.

Huh?

She gave too much; Jiang Nian suspected that if he hadn't brought the white porridge, he'd have gotten a hundred. No wonder she's the young lady of Nanjiang Bay—she really knows how to spend.

You usually joke and v-me fifty—now you're serious?

Jiang Nian placed the water cups on top of the water dispenser, turned, and walked downstairs while typing a reply: "White porridge is normally two-fifty, but the cafeteria lady usually sells me two."

He wasn't deliberately implying good looks got discounts—even though his face was only worth fifty cents, the discount was almost matching Alipay's facial recognition red envelope.

Ningzhi: "Your face is only worth fifty cents?!"

Huh?

Such cautious phrasing—she added an exclamation mark after the question mark, and no emojis, to show she wasn't mocking at all.

Fifty cents!! Fifty cents is still love.

Cemented heart.

Jiang Nian replied with a dragon emblem, tucked his phone back in his pocket, glanced at the rain, opened his umbrella, stepped into it—getting good at living off others.

But fifty yuan comes with fifty yuan's service—he passed the cafeteria without stopping.

Sorry, Auntie, she gave me too much!

Outside the school's west gate was Hongqi Road; the main gate opened onto a short street. Next door was a pedestrian street lined with small supermarkets—everything you needed for eating, dressing, and daily use.

He picked out a wrapped piece of old red sugar, then bought a box of steaming hot white porridge from a roadside porridge shop—the price shot straight up to four-fifty.

Too bad, no facial recognition discount of fifty cents.

He didn't forget to buy himself a bottle of Sprite—the 1.25L Fat Sprite. If he directly bought drinks for those bastards, they'd feel psychological pressure.

But if he bought just one big bottle, no words needed—they'd help themselves.

After finishing everything, he returned to the Gao San building under his umbrella. Actually, the Gao San building had a name—it used to be Qindian Building, but by Jiang Nian's cohort, it was renamed Side Building.

The school administration understood passive aggression—no need for diligence, just don't be immoral.

Jiang Nian stepped onto the stairs, shook the water off his umbrella, and the droplets fell straight down the stairs, vanishing instantly. As he reached the third floor, thunder rumbled through the clouds.

Lightning lit up the corridor—he saw a familiar figure on the third floor: Zhou Haifei with her black-rimmed glasses. Their eyes met for a second, then quickly looked away.

"Here."

"Thanks."

Zhang Ningzhi took the still-hot white porridge and knew it wasn't from the cafeteria—there was a porridge shop outside, but with such heavy rain just now…

She sipped the porridge slowly; Jiang Nian had already left.

Afternoon.

First period was physics; Jiang Nian suddenly opened his eyes. He didn't even know when he'd fallen asleep—only now, upon waking, did he realize he'd just been asleep.

Shit, I thought I was paying attention.

Chinese school youth drama has no JK pure love—only classroom pure boredom.

He turned to see Li Hua—this guy was already pulling out camphor oil. He was planning to smell it… he licked it! He actually drank a bit of camphor oil!

Holy shit!

That instantly snapped Jiang Nian awake—he nudged Li Hua.

"You're really that hungry?!"

Li Hua didn't hold back: "Bro, try some."

"No need, bro, you keep it all to yourself." Jiang Nian waved him off—camphor oil really worked; the moment he saw him lick it, his drowsiness vanished.

"Give me a sip, Xuezi." Li Hua reached out.

"What dirty word is that?"

"If not Xuezi, should I call it Bi zi?" Li Hua eyed the Fat Sprite on his desk. "Whatever it is, give me a sip—my mouth is full of that taste."

Jiang Nian handed him the Sprite; Li Hua quietly unscrewed the cap to release pressure, and while the physics teacher turned to write on the board, he quickly tilted the bottle and poured a mouthful into his mouth.

Instantly, the sour-bitter burn—Jiang Nian saw his eyes turn red, and couldn't help giving him a thumbs-up.

Awesome! No wonder science geniuses are different!

Bro, don't die of a biohazard next to me. Eighteen years old—I'm scared of Level 2 mutated zombies.

The girl in front, Zhang Ningzhi, was also sleepy, a faint ache in her stomach. She'd eaten a few mouthfuls of hot porridge at lunch and felt much better—she reached down and picked up her thermos from the floor.

She didn't place it on the desk because she feared it might accidentally fall during class or self-study—*thump*—drawing everyone's stares, which would be a crushing social death for her.

The hot water had been filled by Jiang Nian; thinking of that, Zhang Ningzhi felt a faint, tingling ache in her heart.

She unscrewed the lid—steam curled up.

Sniffed—it wasn't plain water. It was red. Zhang Ningzhi froze, instinctively glancing up at the physics teacher—he was still writing on the board.

She took a tiny sip—it was indeed red sugar.

Jiang Nian is too thoughtful.

Jiang Nian:???? Are you lying?!

Of course fifty yuan comes with fifty yuan's quality—do one job, dominate one job, every job breaks your defenses.

The bell had barely rung for the end of class when the whole class collapsed onto their desks.

During the break between the second and third periods, the fat Ma Guojun automatically refreshed himself beside Li Hua's desk. He reached a hand toward Jiang Nian and, without touching, chugged a big swig of Sprite.

"Thanks, Brother Nian."

After saying that, Ma Guojun felt something was off, and turned to ask Jiang Nian, who was propping his head up doing math problems.

"Jiang Nian, you used to be at No. 2 Middle School, right?"

"Yep."

"Do you know how to play basketball?"

"Yeah, I learned it when I was a trainee at TF Family." Jiang Nian answered lazily and at random, "Later I got my trainee status revoked for beating up a judge."

"You knew him at No. 2 Middle School?" Li Hua asked curiously.

Zhang Ningzhi in the seat in front was memorizing vocabulary, but she also quietly pricked up her ears.

"No, I remember there was some idiot at No. 2 Middle School also called something-Nian, got into it with three or four people playing ball." Ma Guojun scratched his head, "Won the fight and got carried away, threw those guys' shoes into the toilet."

Jiang Nian turned his head away as if nothing had happened. "Yeah, that really was pretty stupid."

Ma Guojun looked puzzled. "It wasn't you, was it?"

"Huh?" Jiang Nian put on an exaggerated look. "How could it be? I didn't like playing ball in middle school. In fact, I only started learning in high school—don't go slandering me every two seconds."

"Fair enough, I'll find someone to ask another day." Ma Guojun nodded.

"Hey~ you..." Jiang Nian pointed at him, smiling very forcedly, "No need for that, right? What if the guy's already gone abroad to study? Why are you so gossipy?"

Hearing that, even Zhang Ningzhi in the front seat turned around, and a group of people looked at him with strange expressions.