Chapter 54: A Single Thought Between God and Demon

Jiang Nian patted her on the head. "There, there, stop crying."

"It's not like your piggy bank was smashed to pieces, boo-hoo-hoo!" Song Xiyun was crying partly out of heartache for her little ceramic pig and partly because the money had actually been returned to her.

No one could understand the deep sense of shame poverty brought her—it felt like carefully offering someone the finest square-shaped steamed pastry from one's home, only to realize that was the exact kind used for Qingming ancestral offerings. It was the kind of food so humble it wouldn't even be used to prop up a wobbly table leg, and thus it had been politely returned to her. That gentle act of returning the money felt like it was covered in thorns.

Four hundred yuan in small change must have been completely insignificant to him.

"You make a fair point, baby. Shall I go home and talk to my piggy bank then?" Jiang Nian waved at her. "Well, bye-bye."

Song Xiyun cried even harder. "Are you a man-eating monster or what?"

"Isn't eating people illegal?" Jiang Nian hesitated for a moment before suggesting, "I actually prefer the fried pancakes from outside the school gate. Why don't you treat me to one right now?"

"What?" Song Xiyun instantly stopped crying.

Outside the school gate, Jiang Nian held a ten-yuan bill as he squeezed into the crowd and shouted, "Auntie, get me four shrimp pancakes!"

Four small oil-paper bags. Jiang Nian handed one to Song Xiyun and kept three for himself. He conveniently used her money to buy a bottle of Sprite and a bottle of Pulpy Orange.

He was practically selling someone else's ancestral land without a care in the world.

Never mind, this gave him a ready-made excuse to treat her back next time.

When Jiang Nian was returning her money, Song Xiyun had been violently mourning her pink piggy bank, but now that Jiang Nian was spending her money, she didn't feel any heartache at all.

Clutching the edges of the oil-paper bag with both hands like a hamster, she nom-nom-nommed away!

Jiang Nian was nom-nom-nomming away too!

Before they even reached the school gates, the two of them had finished their shrimp pancakes. Stepping onto campus, they synchronously unscrewed their bottle caps, let out a satisfying hiss, and chugged down the drinks. Gulp, gulp, gulp.

Tightening the cap back on, Jiang Nian said, "I'll get you a new piggy bank in a few days."

"No need, I'll buy one myself," Song Xiyun said, lowering her head with a muffled voice.

She planned to go back and find a suitable box to store her money, or perhaps pick a favorite book. Inside the pages of that book, she would tuck away bills of ten and twenty yuan.

"Ha, feeling so proud and stubborn, are we?" Jiang Nian laughed. "Aren't friends supposed to give and take? You treated me to a pancake, and now you won't accept my gift—what kind of logic is that?"

Song Xiyun muttered, "I can't be friends with someone like you. I only have four hundred yuan."

He had originally wanted to say, I'm friends with your mom, which makes me friends with you too—we're all bros here. But fearing Song Xiyun might completely snap, he thought better of it.

"When I make friends, I never look at money. Besides, nobody is richer than me anyway!" Feeling quite pleased with himself, Jiang Nian loved nothing more than acting superior in front of Song Xiyun.

"Hmph, I'll definitely be richer than you someday!" Song Xiyun stubbornly retorted.

"Yes, yes. Anyway, just keep a low profile and build up your strength for now. Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river," Jiang Nian scratched his face. "How does that saying go again?"

"Never bully a young girl into poverty!" Song Xiyun couldn't help chiming in. "And there's more: tears soaking the chicken leg rice, vowing to earn a million nice."

"Oh, right, now that you mention it, I remember," he said with a sudden look of realization. "The deceased are the most important!"

"You..." Song Xiyun was hopping mad.

Yet, after parting ways at the third-floor corridor, Song Xiyun suddenly stopped being angry. She had shattered the symbol of her dignity with her own hands, but Jiang Nian had patched it back together for her.

Over on the fourth-floor corridor, Jiang Nian walked forward holding his bottle of Sprite. With an air of breezy detachment on his face, he was actually quite touched inside—Song Xiyun really did hand over the money when she had it.

If it had just been four hundred yuan, that would be one thing, but it just had to be four hundred and twenty-five.

He took out his phone, opened Taobao, and started searching for piggy banks. After thirty seconds of browsing, he added a hundred-and-ten-yuan piggy bank to his cart.

Night fell, and during evening self-study, everyone was full of energy.

The sky outside gradually darkened while the classroom blazed with bright lights. Before the self-study session officially began, there was a twenty-minute window for biology reading, and the class representative stepped onto the podium to mark out the assigned sections for memorization.

Taking advantage of the murmuring voices of students reciting, Li Hua slipped in a song of his own, "Dad, with your lifelong strong facade, what can I do for you~"

"Help me copy my English homework, my dear good son." The chubby Ma Guojun stood by Li Hua's desk with a lecherous grin, adjusting his glasses. "How about it?"

"Get lost! Tomorrow is a whole day off, and I'm not even doing mine," Li Hua shook his head. "Tomorrow I'm getting up early to hit the internet cafe for League of Legends, and I'll play until the afternoon before going home to sleep."

"Boring." Ma Guojun didn't play League of Legends; his favorite pastime was playing Clash of Clans on his Apple phone.

Unfortunately, ever since that damn game was bought by the grandfathers over at Qidian, upgrading had become harder and harder. Originally capped at Town Hall Level 9, they had pushed the limit all the way up to Town Hall 13.

Between various microtransactions and skin purchases, the damn game was practically ruined.

"Whatever, I'll just play Genshin Impact this weekend," Ma Guojun said, uttering a statement perfectly matching his weight class. "Go home after school, take a shower, have a midnight snack, and play Genshin in bed."

Jiang Nian raised his head, rubbed his chin, and uttered a statement perfectly matching his mental state.

"If I play Genshin Impact while beating my meat, do the good and evil cancel each other out?"

Instantly, the two of them fell silent, struggling to process that.

"Bro, are you playing *Legend of Immortals and Demons* right here?"

"Seriously, do you not even treat us like outsiders anymore?"

"I'm just making a hypothetical assumption, I didn't say I was actually going to do it," Jiang Nian said nonchalantly. As long as you don't take it seriously, others will find it hard to take seriously too.

As the saying goes: wealth makes one indulgent, poverty shifts one's loyalties, Cao Cao makes one yield, and wives make one claim them.

"Count me in, count me in! What are you guys talking about?" Yao Beibei squeezed her way over, intending to join the conversation, only to fall into deep contemplation herself once she got a brief rundown.

Li Hua: "You guys are all so perverted, it makes me feel completely out of place."

Yao Beibei looked up. "I think Jiang Nian's suggestion deserves a deduction of merit points."

"Who asked you to give the answer! And how did you even arrive at that conclusion?" Ma Guojun complained, pushing up his glasses. "At least show us your chain of reasoning."

Sitting in the front row, Zhang Ningzhi listened to their brazen and unfiltered talk while trembling slightly—she felt small and helpless, yet she was part of their little circle.

Jiang Nian even joined in with detailed descriptions. "Imagine you're playing Genshin, drifting off to sleep in bed, and the next day your relatives come over to visit... and your dad knocks on the door."

"Alright bro, stop talking. The mental image is just too vivid," Li Hua conceded, utterly defeated and bowing to his superiority.

During a break in the evening self-study, Jiang Nian suddenly remembered Zhang Ningzhi in the front row and poked her in the back with his finger. When she turned around, he asked casually,

"What are you planning to do with your day off tomorrow?"

"Um... do my homework, then scroll through Douyin, or maybe Xiaohongshu." Zhang Ningzhi let out a sudden gasp of surprise. "Oh right! I haven't added Beibei on Xiaohongshu yet!"

"You'd better not add her," Jiang Nian advised.

"Why?" Little Zhi-zhi asked with a face full of confusion.

"Well... you can ask Li Hua about that. He knows Yao Beibei's Xiaohongshu handle," Jiang Nian directly passed the buck to Li Hua beside him, whose face instantly turned horrified.

"What the f*ck, don't talk nonsense, I have no idea!"

Jiang Nian thought for a moment, opened his Xiaohongshu following list, found Yao Beibei's personal page, and handed his phone to Zhang Ningzhi.

[Why do you want a drink, 1, why are you taking off my pants]