Chapter 42: Li Qingrong

At noon, during the first break, the class monitor, Li Qingrong, suddenly approached Zhang Ningzhi and Jiang Nian.

"Come over and pick out your lockers."

"Sure." Jiang Nian, acting unusually normal, pulled back his chair, stood up, and tapped Zhang Ningzhi, who sat in front of him, on the shoulder. "Hey, the monitor is calling us to pick our lockers."

Zhang Ningzhi shrank her neck and gave a dazed, "Oh."

The senior high building had a unique feature: wall-mounted cabinets. Simply put, they were rows of iron lockers embedded into the concrete and the mottled walls near the classroom doors. The gray, dull lockers opened to reveal a rectangular space, roughly enough to hold half a desk's worth of books.

"Although you moved up here before National Day, the previous students' things hadn't been cleared out," Li Qingrong explained, her nature inherently cold as she stood to one side. "They were only cleared out yesterday. There are three spots in total, and you two can choose first."

There were three lockers in total, and he and Zhang Ningzhi were to choose first. The implication was clear: Li Qingrong hadn't informed Yu Tongjie, intending to wait until the two of them had made their choice before telling him.

No one brought up what happened that day, but it wasn't without impact. Yu Tongjie’s only real asset was his father, who worked in the County Committee Office. They were one of the "Three Great Families" of the Zhennan County hierarchy, though that had nothing to do with Jiang Nian. Children of such families, unless their grades were truly embarrassing, were usually sent to key high schools to further their studies; they were never just left to their own devices.

County relations were tangled and complex. Every local native had some wealthy relative, so one had to play the game regardless. Besides, if you couldn't compete with someone by having a better father, couldn't you compete by having a better father-in-law? Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west; don't bully the young for being poor. Marrying a Nalan Yanran could crush the entire Jialie clan.

Ah, the topic had come back around. If your grades were bad, you couldn't even eat soft rice.

Jiang Nian took a quick look. One locker was on the top tier, one was at the very bottom, and only one was in the middle. He made a decision for Zhang Ningzhi immediately. "You take the middle one, I'll use the top one."

Zhang Ningzhi let out an "Ah" sound. "Won't it be inconvenient for you to reach your things?"

Jiang Nian thought for a moment and said with a serious face, "It will. How about we squeeze into one locker together?"

Hearing this, Zhang Ningzhi’s face turned bright red, and she lowered her head, staying silent. She obediently went to her seat, moved her books into the locker, and fished a small padlock out of her desk.

Li Qingrong watched the whole process from the side before turning around with an indifferent expression to notify Yu Tongjie. As for whether he wanted the bottom locker, that wasn't something Li Qingrong needed to worry about. For someone who spread rumors about his classmates, having a locker at all was enough—what else did he expect?

Jiang Nian rested his chin on his hand and looked toward the first row. Yu Tongjie seemed to know Li Qingrong. He whispered something to her, causing her to blush and warm up time and time again. Jiang Nian couldn't help but laugh, silently cursing him as a "son of a bitch."

***

The afternoon consisted of three classes: math, physics, and chemistry—a schedule that sounded suffocating just by its name. After the midday nap, the class was listless; the road ahead was hell.

Jiang Nian’s math grades were average, just as mediocre as his science scores. However, the science subjects emphasized the construction of a knowledge network—in plain terms, understanding and memorization. He had already completed the memorization, and the remaining bits, tied together through a systematic approach and analysis of exam questions, had indirectly strengthened his science scores.

But math was truly impossible to BS your way through. Even if you memorized the formulas, what you couldn't do, you just couldn't do. When people are pushed into a corner, they can do anything, except math. After working hard for ages during an exam, only to conclude that Little Ming’s age was -3.6 years old, you’d want to stand up and slap yourself a few times.

His desk-mate, Li Hua, looked like a total zombie from sleepiness, yet he scored 145 in math. Ma Guojun was incredibly sleazy, yet his math score was 120+. Yao Beibei spent all day spewing profanities, yet her math score was 130+. Even Zhang Ningzhi scored 120+. In their little group, Jiang Nian was the worst at math. Being bad at math meant he was destined to slack off in college.

During a moment when he could zone out in math class, Jiang Nian looked out the window. It was the most authentic Chinese "dream-core" of a county high school: a sultry afternoon, sunlight so piercing one couldn't open their eyes, and the red flag waving in the distance. Day after day of struggle, with no end in sight.

Jiang Nian suddenly thought of the system and what his future would actually look like. Many things had already changed; after getting into a decent university, would the future still end in divorce? Maybe he should just stay single, or chase Xu Qianqian? But being with the "I'll beat you to death" Xu Qianqian would surely lead to arguments too; his outcome would probably be even more miserable.

His ex-girlfriend, Zhizhi Baby, wasn't bad either—beautiful, kind-hearted, and smart. But he didn't take it seriously. What did the thirty-eight-year-old Jiang Nian have to do with him? If the system told him one day that he had a sixty-year-old girlfriend, would he have to find an old baby in advance?

He was a pragmatic person who only valued what he could hold in his hands and useful information. There was no need to get tangled up over an ethereal system. What he had now was 57,000 in his bank account, a family that wasn't exactly wealthy, a childhood sweetheart, a group of normal friends, and a mountain of books and sea of exams. That was all.

After an autumn and a summer, youth gradually drifted away.

He still had to keep his feet on the ground.

As the math class was coming to a close, the teacher walked over to Li Hua. The exchange between the two was like a meeting of minds; the entire conversation consisted of only a few interjections.

Li Hua: "Huh?"
Math Teacher: "Hmm?"
Li Hua: "Uh..."

Afterward, Jiang Nian watched as the math teacher pointed to a specific step in the solution.

"This one."
"Oh, got it."

Wait, buddy, what exactly did you "get"? Jiang Nian had been watching the whole time. He looked at the problem and then at the solution steps for the third part of the big question, and he was completely baffled.

Where have you brought me? Is this still the country? When did Chinese become such a niche language?

The math teacher looked at the bewildered Jiang Nian. "Did you understand?"

Jiang Nian feigned depth and nodded. "I don't understand at all."

Upon hearing this, the whole class burst into laughter.

Ring, ring, ring. The bell for the end of class rang right on time, and the math teacher didn't have time to say much. He left behind a "ask your desk-mate" and hurried off with his lesson plan.

So sleepy. As soon as the teacher left, the whole class slumped over. Jiang Nian and Li Hua both collapsed onto their desks simultaneously. Zhang Ningzhi, sitting in front, wasn't much better. She put down her pen, rubbed her eyes, and quietly slumped onto her desk, falling asleep in seconds.

No one made a sound, because the next class was physics.

During the second break, it was discovered that Zhang Ningzhi had managed to "disprove" Newton's Third Law of Motion while solving a problem. Seeing her embarrassed expression, Jiang Nian couldn't help but laugh uncharitably.

"Impressive, truly impressive."

Chemistry was the "little literature" of the sciences, with a massive amount of equations and various fragmented bits of knowledge. At first glance, it was actually quite interesting, but once they hit reaction principles, the students became humble again.

During the last self-study session in the afternoon, Jiang Nian noticed his desk-mate, Li Hua, was constantly squinting one eye, so he asked, "Aiming at something?"

Li Hua shook his head. "No, this is the Demon Eye. If I open it, the world will be plunged into chaos."

Ma Guojun, who happened to be passing by after handing in his homework, couldn't hold it in. In the classroom bathed in the sunset, the chubby guy’s smile was extremely lewd as he slapped Li Hua on the shoulder.

"You idiot, that’s just a lazy eye."