Chapter 1: Chen Nuo

(This is not a formulaic story, nor is it fan-service. Don't be quick to judge if you see something unreasonable; it will all be explained~ I want to write a proper, non-fast-food style satisfying novel, and I hope everyone enjoys reading it.)

In his previous life, after the age of 30, Chen Nuo felt his body was not what it used to be.

At this very moment, he felt that rebirth was truly a savior for men.

"Guess what I wrote?" In the darkness, Chen Nuo's voice was warm and thick.

"Stop it~" The woman giggled, her laughter soft and breathless, "You little rascal, where do you get so many tricks?"

"Guess, guess what I wrote."

"……Sun."

"That's right, sun."

……

After tossing and turning for nearly the whole night, Chen Nuo still woke up at six the next morning. In just three hours, his body was once again full of vitality.

He felt around in the darkness for a moment; early in the morning, he was full of energy again.

He smiled with satisfaction, then rolled over to sit on the edge of the bed, and began to put on his clothes in the dark.

The woman's jet-black hair spread out on the snow-white pillow, like ink spilled on snow.

Sensing the movement, she rolled over and asked vaguely, "So early~ where are you going?"

Chen Nuo reached out to turn on a bedside lamp and bent over to put on his shoes: "Going to morning study."

"……What study?" The woman heard an unexpected term, her sleepiness vanished for the most part, and she propped up her body, looking over in confusion.

Chen Nuo finished dressing and stood up: "Morning study."

The woman sat up abruptly, her eyes wide, not even noticing that the quilt had slipped down, revealing a patch of luscious, fleshy scenery: "Morning study? How old are you this year?"

Then she forced a laugh: "Are you kidding me?"

In her eyes, the boy's facial features were sharp and well-defined. He didn't have the look of a pretty boy. The curve of his cheeks leaned towards a Western aesthetic, yet remained soft; his eyebrows were thick and black, and his eye sockets were deep, making him look very three-dimensional.

He looked very man, but he was indeed young.

However, those skilled techniques from last night—where did they look like a high school student's?

"Not kidding you, the one who was with me last night is my deskmate." Chen Nuo smiled at her and went into the bathroom to wash up, his mood exceptionally cheerful.

From the first day of summer vacation until today, he had been reborn for nearly three months.

During these three months, he had been studying hard; it was just that last night he wanted to combine work and rest, so he skipped evening study, snuck out of school, and went to an internet cafe with Wang Jia to play CS.

He met this woman at the internet cafe, and as they talked, they felt that playing with fake guns in CS was boring, so they eventually opened a room together and played with the real thing.

"Beauty, bye-bye." After one night, Chen Nuo had no intention of dragging things out, said goodbye, and walked out the door.

Leaving the hotel, he walked towards the school at a leisurely pace, finally entering the classroom right on time with the bell for morning study.

The classroom was full of students, but almost no one was studying; those chatting were chatting, and those sleeping were sleeping.

In this vocational high school, although the ordinary class he was in also needed to take the college entrance exam, as for the learning atmosphere, there was no need to hope for much.

Chen Nuo walked to his seat in the third-to-last row and casually patted Wang Jia, who had his head buried: "I bought you fried dough sticks, want to eat?"

A muffled voice came from the head: "Eat. Wait a bit."

Chen Nuo placed the fried dough sticks wrapped in a plastic bag on his head.

"Damn, big brother." Wang Jia took the sticks down, raised his face, and said with sleepy eyes, "I'm not like you who can play with real guns; I can only play CS. After playing all night, I have nothing but sleepiness, and after you're done, others still want to mess with me? Do you have any sympathy?"

Chen Nuo had been deskmates with Wang Jia for two years at this school. This person didn't continue his studies after finishing vocational high school, and seven years later, he stabbed someone because of a relationship issue. Chen Nuo didn't know about it at the time and only heard about it later at a class reunion. Serious injury resulting in disability, 15 years.

At this moment, Wang Jia was just an ordinary virgin and internet-addicted teenager. He sat up straight and said with some envy: "That beauty yesterday was so pretty, Brother Nuo, was it great?"

"Eat your fried dough sticks."

That little nurse was indeed quite pretty, especially for a green young boy like Wang Jia; that pair of long legs wrapped in black silk was enough to haunt his dreams.

But this trick was ineffective on Chen Nuo.

Because he used to be a scumbag.

Of course, in 2004, this term didn't exist yet. But ten years later, the moment the word "scumbag" was invented, almost everyone who knew him said so.

In 2003, when he was in his second year of high school, he transferred to this small county to attend vocational high school.

The reason was that the municipal key high school he originally attended suddenly had a not-so-small piece of news.

The cause was that a student's parent came to the school to find the academic affairs office, saying that a first-year male student was having a puppy-love relationship with their daughter who was in her third year.

This wouldn't have been a big deal, just some criticism and education. But later, no one knew who leaked the boy's name, and unexpectedly, four or five more parents of female students came one after another.

The whole school was in an uproar.

Although that boy was considered a legend for a while, he couldn't continue studying there with that reputation.

That boy was Chen Nuo.

In 2003, because of a woman's jealousy, he left his hometown, took the monthly living expenses of several thousand given by his father Chen Bi, left the municipal key school he had paid a high price to get into, and went to a vocational high school in a county below to drift through life.

At that time, he wasted two years of his life here, doing nothing but chasing girls and playing games.

In fact, ever since then, he had never done anything proper in his entire life.

Because his grades were poor, he didn't get into college. He could only go back to work under Chen Bi, becoming an idle rich second generation.

Because he had too many girlfriends, he never married in his life, had no fixed residence, only knew how to make love, and didn't know what true love was. Finally, in that traffic-driven era, he suddenly discovered a talent he had hidden for decades.

That was his exceptional camera presence; he could cry when he needed to, laugh when he needed to, and enter a role very quickly. Give him a short drama script, and after two or three minutes, whether it was a domineering CEO or a street thug, it was no problem; he could play anything convincingly.

He became famous for short videos, relying on his ability to act cool in front of the camera and perform short dramas, accumulating millions of fans.

But there were also many haters; almost every man who followed him cursed him, saying that apart from being handsome and showing off wealth, he was nothing.

And the facts were indeed so.

Finally, he was stabbed to death by a hater at the entrance of his own garage.

This stab brought Chen Nuo back 20 years.

To date, he had been reborn for nearly three months, and had been studying hard at home.

Because he had never attended college.

In his previous life, Chen Bi and his mother Pan Chengrong argued about this countless times, which was also one of the reasons for their eventual divorce.

Not long ago, after the first monthly exam of the third year of high school, after two months of hard study, he soared, jumping from 63rd place in the class in the final exam of the previous semester to 2nd place in the class, with a total score of 623, attracting the attention of many students in the class.

At that time, after seeing his grades, Chen Nuo excitedly ran all the way to the office and asked his head teacher, Wang Laoshi: "Jiaotong University or Fudan? Is it possible to get into Tsinghua or Peking if I push a little harder?"

Wang Laoshi smiled with indulgence and said only one sentence: "Go back and memorize vocabulary."

From then on, Chen Nuo had a strong opinion of Old Wang and didn't really want to talk to him.

"Hey, today is the day the county-wide unified exam results come out, right?" Chen Nuo suddenly remembered and asked Wang Jia.

Wang Jia yawned and said: "God knows."

"Incompetent." Chen Nuo said earnestly, "I advise you to study hard; studying is the right path."

Wang Jia said: "You think I don't want to study? But I'm not you; you can score over 600 after two months of hard work, but I still won't be able to flick-shot after two months of hard work."

Chen Nuo smiled and was about to comfort him, but before he could say anything, the head teacher Wang Aiping entered the classroom.

Wang Aiping was sticking out his big belly, looking quite happy. He walked onto the podium and smiled: "Students, quiet down. Taking advantage of the morning study time, I want to announce some good news. The results of the county-wide unified exam are out, and two students from our class have achieved excellent results in this county-wide unified exam! They are Chen Nuo and Zhang Mo, let's applaud them!"

Thunderous applause immediately broke out, and the students looked over one after another.

Chen Nuo was happy.

Sure enough, heaven rewards diligence. His hard study finally paid off. This feeling was like chasing a girl for a long time and finally having her nod and agree to date you, making one suddenly feel that life had hope.

For Chen Nuo, he didn't want to chase girls or make money now. He didn't want anything; he just wanted to get into college, fulfill his undergraduate dream from his previous life, and make up for his mother's regret.

He looked at Wang Aiping with full anticipation, waiting for him to continue.

The applause died down, and Wang Aiping smiled and spoke again: "Zhang Mo, first in the grade, 393 points. Chen Nuo, 351 points, fifth in the grade. They both achieved high scores of over 300. I won't announce the scores of the other students. If you want to know, you can come to me after class to check. Alright, everyone continue with morning study."

Chen Nuo was stunned.

After a long while, he turned his head and asked Wang Jia: "What score did Old Wang say I got?"

"351. Brother Nuo, awesome. You're handsome and your grades are so good, no wonder so many girls love you, really flashy!"

"Flashy your mother! How is that possible?" Chen Nuo was both shocked and angry.

He had worked so hard for these few months, and in the end, he only scored 351?

Damn it, is there any justice!

Although he felt it really didn't go well after the exam that day, but... dropping from over 600 to over 300, directly cut by nearly half? Is this trading A-shares?

What's the use of 300 points? It's not as good as scoring 250, at least you could laugh about it!

"I also think it's impossible." Wang Jia sighed, "When will I be able to score over 300 and bring honor to my ancestors like you?"

"Can you shut up?"

Chen Nuo was very panicked now, and also very doubtful about life.

"Wang Laoshi!"

After morning study, Chen Nuo immediately chased after Wang Aiping: "Wang Laoshi, let me ask, 351, really? Did I really score 351?"

Wang Aiping said with a smile: "Yes, 351. Great progress, you should be happy. In the previous batch, there wasn't even one person in my class who scored 300. Two appeared in your batch, I am very gratified."

Which eye of yours saw me happy? Chen Nuo's heart surged, and he gritted his teeth: "But, Wang Laoshi, didn't I score over 600 in the last monthly exam? Why……"

Wang Aiping patted his forehead and said: "Ah, the test questions for the monthly exams are usually written by us teachers, haha, a bit simple... Keep it up, there's still more than half a year. Work hard, according to your current level, push a little more. It's possible to get into a junior college."

Push your big head! I'm working my life away just to go to a junior college, and it's only "possible"?

"Dad, I want to transfer schools."

Chen Nuo found that his college plan after rebirth had encountered a huge crisis. Only one day later, he took out his Nokia 3100 and called his father, Chen Bi.

"Transfer schools? You're already in your third year of high school and you want to transfer?" Chen Bi asked inexplicably, "Did you cause trouble again? Didn't you... what again?"

"What again? No, I just feel there's no future in this school. I want to take the art exam!"

"Art exam?"

"Yes, I want to go to BJ, I want to take the exam for the Film Academy."

PS:

The pace of the first few chapters is a bit slow, please bear with me. It will get better later.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 2 =====