Chapter 9

The entire morning, Jiang Nian's head was buzzing.

What the hell is going on?

A girl?

Xu Qianqian's words from this morning still echoed in his ears: "Her ID card name is Zhou Haifei, but she never changed it because the college entrance exam is coming, and everyone just calls her Haifei."

Fuck, Zhou Haifei is a girl!

No wonder she never showed any romantic interest from high school through college—Jiang Nian thought, what the hell could he even say now? Should he tell her he's good at chemistry, and that's just aluminum and copper?

But upon reflection, it actually made sense.

Jiang Nian knew Xu Qianqian—her orientation was definitely fine. Even if a CEO showed up, there'd be no chance—that was just reality.

The system was benchmarking against his future self in another timeline: a thirty-eight-year-old loser who'd just hit rock bottom, competing against someone who'd already succeeded.

Besides, the task reward was so low—only five thousand yuan.

During the break after the second class.

Jiang Nian loitered in front of Xu Qianqian's class, saw no teachers around, and walked right in. Generally, wandering into other classes wasn't allowed—but exceptions were made for those with thick skin.

After all, Xu Qianqian ranked among the top in the Olympiad class and was also a beauty. No class officer would suddenly lose their mind and shout, "No outsiders allowed!"

"Hey, Qianqian, your little childhood friend's here."

"Get lost!"

One of Xu Qianqian's female classmates teased her, and suddenly the whole group burst into laughter. This was typical high school girl behavior—pointing at a boy and yelling, "Your husband, your husband."

But this wasn't a youth idol drama—nobody would blurt out stupid shit like "X School's Top Handsome Guy." Being called "husband" was rarely a compliment.

Xu Qianqian blushed and slapped her female deskmate.

"Don't talk nonsense."

Jiang Nian, however, looked completely unfazed—he stepped right into the aisle, struck up a conversation with Xu Qianqian's deskmate, and within a few sentences had the girl beaming.

One advantage of being part of the social circle: good at interacting with people.

But it was useless anyway—except for Xu Qianqian's deskmate, no one cared about this kid from the parallel class.

It wasn't discrimination—reality in school was based on grades, or family background. If you had one of those two things going for you, you were popular.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, uh, I've got a math question—this one..." Jiang Nian wrote the problem on her scratch paper. He genuinely didn't understand math—he had to ask more often.

Xu Qianqian tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned over to take a look.

"Oh, this one uses..."

Her deskmate, Song Xiuyu, kept glancing back and forth between the clean-looking Jiang Nian and Xu Qianqian, her eyes sparkling, her lips curling into an involuntary smile.

Finally, Jiang Nian asked one more question.

"Who's Zhou Haifei?"

Xu Qianqian's eyebrows twitched slightly, but she whispered the answer anyway.

"Third row, fifth seat, against the wall—the one with glasses... Don't stare directly at that girl, Jiang Nian, are you a pig?"

Jiang Nian glanced once—there, on the side of the classroom, was a girl with glasses, thin, head down doing homework, her hair covering half her face, indistinct.

As if struck by sudden intuition, the girl with glasses lifted her head and looked over. Their eyes met for an instant—she had an ordinary face, then calmly lowered her head again.

After Jiang Nian left.

Song Xiuyu poked her deskmate's waist. "Hey, Qianqian, you really grew up together?"

"Sort of."

"I heard when Li Bai married his childhood friend, he didn't even turn around when entering the bridal chamber—probably too awkward." Song Xiuyu chattered, making Xu Qianqian blush.

"What are you talking about!"

"Li Bai," Song Xiuyu said innocently, eyes twinkling with mischief. "What? You think I meant someone else? Are you implying..."

"You're going to die, Song Xiuyu!"

Jiang Nian returned to his class. For the system task, he had no good plan yet—she'd never even spoken to Xu Qianqian. How was he supposed to do anything?

The most direct solution was to make Xu Qianqian officially paired with someone—visible only to Zhou Haifei.

But that was just fantasy—commonly called wishful thinking.

For now, he'd wait and observe.

For three straight days, Jiang Nian was busy catching up on math.

The first monthly exam of Gao San—commonly called the Gao San diagnostic test—was tomorrow. Compared to the system's five thousand yuan, this was clearly far more important.

He didn't want to stay in this class—the diagnostic exam granted transfer rights. The top students from the upper tiers swapped with the bottom-tier students—that was the unspoken rule.

As for why he wasn't studying physics—let's just say the physics examiners had a slight sadistic streak; the class would produce a whole bunch of students scoring single digits.

His physics grade wasn't bad—around sixty points—no need to waste time.

"Jiang Nian, when did you start studying?" Le Zhi sauntered over, plopped down in front of him with a lewd grin. "What got into you?"

Jiang Nian looked up, thinking how to answer—he couldn't say, I want to get away from you losers.

"Oh, nothing, just studying for fun."

"Liar. This is the classic sign of a breakup." Le Zhi, thin as a pole, had a voice like Tianxia Wu Zei from Guobao Te Gong. "Still thinking about that?"

Jiang Nian smiled outwardly, muttered something vague, and internally cursed every single one of their mothers.

"We were just joking. Just clear it up sometime," Le Zhi said, legs crossed, grinning. "It's weird without one of you."

"How about this—after the monthly exam the day after tomorrow, Zhou Yuting says we're all going for barbecue. You in?"

Jiang Nian didn't look up. "No."

Le Zhi got the brush-off and left immediately.

Jiang Nian sat at his desk, gripping his pen tightly. Suddenly, he remembered the past—and realized he was an idiot for ever hanging out with this bunch.

In the end, these people only gather together to act pretentious—one second they're freely judging others.

If they're in a bad mood, the next second when someone kindly asks after them, they'll immediately pull a cold face like idiots.

This group even worships that kind of sudden cold-face personality, being held up by others and thinking they're cool. They carry a sense of superiority—purely looking down on people like dogs.

In the end they're just idiots, and mixing with this kind of person will sooner or later turn you into one too.

Taking a deep breath, Jiang Nian continued reviewing.

The next day, the diagnostic exam arrived.

Gao Yi's weekend holiday freed up a teaching building to be used as the exam hall for Gao San. Because it involved class placement, the school attached great importance to it, and proctoring was stricter than ever.

Jiang Nian took his stationery bag and found the exam room in advance.

The exam arrangement followed the college entrance exam exactly; the first subject was Chinese, and the seats in the exam room were spaced very wide apart. The student in front was a quiet girl in a summer school uniform, her arms fair-skinned.

When passing back the test papers, the girl turned around. Her features were pretty, her brows and eyes gentle; she wore jeans paired with the white summer school uniform, making her skin look very pale.

When handing over the answer sheet, the bangs on either side of her cheeks hung down like the tip of a writing brush, as if they were about to slice through this stifling summer and carve out a cool, crisp scene.