Chapter 60 Surrounded by Wolves in High School

At the sound, everyone fell silent.

Chen Yunyun, Wang Yuhe, and Sun Zhicheng all stared at Lin Dong in shock, and the rest of the class turned their eyes toward the source of the voice, including Jiang Nian.

Realizing he had spoken out of turn, Lin Dong awkwardly tried to cover it up.

"Who the hell can survive a three-thousand-meter run!"

As his words fell, the tense atmosphere instantly eased.

Lin Dong narrowly managed to swallow back a curse word; he had no intention of locking horns with Jiang Nian.

It wasn't that he was scared, but rather that he didn't want to make Jiang Nian lose face. After all, Jiang Nian was going to represent the class in the three-thousand-meter race, and making him look too bad would be detrimental to class unity.

Oh, well, well, you little punk, you've chosen a narrow path.

Instead of appealing to class unity, you didn't even mention that you're a member of the Communist Youth League, meaning your future Youth Study sessions are going to be doubled.

Most people were just adopting a spectator's attitude for the sake of entertainment. After all, senior year of high school could hardly be called colorful—it was downright boring, and everyone had the mindset of a pure thrill-seeker.

Fight, fight! They loved seeing bloodshed!

Seeing there was no show left to watch, they stopped paying attention.

Jiang Nian didn't pay much attention to Lin Dong either. The boarding area on the north side was like an unexplored new map to him, and since moving up a grade, he hadn't interacted much with the boarders in his class.

He only knew that Lin Dong was the mathematics class representative, always surrounded by a few people. When he spoke, he usually had a faint aura of pretentiousness, as if he had swallowed Chen Beixuan whole.

From afar, Jiang Nian glanced at Lin Dong. Without lowering his voice, he turned to the sports committee member, Liu Yang.

"Just sign me up for that bullshit three-thousand-meter race. Forget about the rest, gotta leave some breathing room for everyone else."

At these words, the formation of students jogging for morning exercise burst into laughter.

Lin Dong felt even more awkward, but unwilling to lose face, he forced himself to glare back.

Just as he turned his head, however, he found Jiang Nian staring right back at him, seemingly expecting him to say something.

Forget it, forget it, morning exercise was about to start, so he'd let him off the hook this once. But just you remember, Jiang Nian, I'm your classmate, not a horse herder!

"Come on, don't be like that, sign up for the long jump too. We don't have enough people," Liu Yang said, changing the subject. "Most people get weeded out in the preliminary rounds, so we need to fill all the slots to have a chance of making the finals."

Jiang Nian choosing the three-thousand-meter event had him absolutely thrilled.

He had been racking his brains over how to trick someone into running the three-thousand-meter race, an event almost no one was willing to touch. It was exhausting, humiliating, and if you ran out of steam halfway through, you'd make a complete fool of yourself.

Every year, someone would start way too fast and end up completely depleted of energy after just two or three laps. They would either give up midway or end up violently vomiting right at the finish line.

Liu Yang himself wasn't willing to run it—it was pure self-torture.

Jiang Nian didn't mind. Since he was going to act cool, he might as well carry it through to the end.

A sharp whistle blew, and the morning exercise run officially began.

***

The third class of the morning was English.

Teacher Xi carried her lesson plans and hurried into the classroom, but after taking just a few steps, her legs nearly gave out, and she almost collapsed right by the podium.

"What on earth is this smell in your class?!"

The boys hooted, "The scent of men!"

"Open the windows, open the windows!" Teacher Xi covered her nose. "Going to work is like becoming a monk; standing in the mire yet holding a lotus flower. I never thought I'd one day associate my job with a work-related injury."

With a rattle, all the windows in the classroom were flung open.

Resting his chin in his hand, Jiang Nian heard Teacher Xi's voice and instinctively let out a yawn. Before he could even finish it, Teacher Xi caught him red-handed from the podium and called his name.

"Come on up here and explain the cloze test."

"Huh?" Jiang Nian's jaw dropped. He dragged his feet as he stood up and said, "Teacher, Li Hua did that one too. Call on him instead."

His seatmate, Li Hua, slowly formed a question mark in his mind. Was he really so eager to let his brother suffer for even a single second?

Teacher Xi shot him a sideways glance. "You've got way too much to say. Get up here!"

For the entire forty-five-minute class, Jiang Nian lectured for twenty-five minutes. Teacher Xi spent five minutes laughing and chatting, five minutes summarizing the lesson, and ten minutes focusing on essay writing.

As soon as the class ended, she dragged Jiang Nian along to the office.

In the sun-drenched corridor, this scene was a literal repeat of history.

The last time he had been hauled off to the office was because of a minor scuffle between Jiang Nian and Yu Tongjie. This time, it was because of his lecturing, though Teacher Xi claimed she was just going to give him some small snacks.

"Teacher, at my age, I've already outgrown snacks."

Hearing this, Teacher Xi, who was walking ahead, turned around in surprise.

"Really? People my age still love them."

You're already a mother, and you're still grouping yourself in? Damn it, making an expression that cute—I really worry about your husband. High school... is surrounded by a pack of wolves!

"Ah, never mind then, Teacher. You're probably... still underage." Jiang Nian went against his conscience to utter those last four words.

Teacher Xi's reaction was predictably dramatic; she covered her mouth and laughed.

"Nonsense, how could I be that young? Teacher is already the mother of a child several years old, you know."

Jiang Nian suspected that Teacher Xi had hauled him out alone just to hear a few flattery lines and play the role of a cyber imperial concubine.

Or perhaps it was for good luck—forever eighteen years old.

Damn it, your daddy here is actually eighteen years old; are you treating me like a cyber blessing tablet or what?

The English office was right next to the comprehensive science office. As Jiang Nian flashed past the doorway, he noticed the biology teacher, Zhong Qing, raise her head and fix her eyes right on him.

It felt a bit strange—the kind of look that said... *just you wait and see how I'm going to handle you, kid.*

***

In the office, the break lasted a total of ten minutes.

Teacher Xi got straight to the point, pulling several packets of small snacks out of her drawer and pushing them toward Jiang Nian. Seeing that he remained unmoved and continued staring at the half-open drawer, her expression instantly changed, and she threw herself over the drawer to protect it with her life.

"These are mine!"

Jiang Nian was speechless. How on earth had this silly woman managed to become a teacher? During her certification interview, had she sung a baby nursery rhyme to the judges?

"Teacher, I don't care for snacks. I was just curious why you like sucking-gelly fruit snacks so much?"

"Huh? You saw wrong, there's no such thing." Teacher Xi swiftly retrieved a few bags of hush-money, slammed the drawer shut, and lowered her voice. "Don't go talking nonsense outside!"

Jiang Nian: "......."

"By the way, did you sign up for the sports meeting?" Teacher Xi changed the subject as if nothing had happened, resuming her bribery. "How about Teacher cheers you on?"

"The three-thousand-meter run, I guess," he said.

*Rring-ring-ring,* the warning bell for the fourth period rang.

All of Teacher Xi's emotions were written plainly on her face, turning instantly joyful. "Go to class then, and do a good job."

"Alright." Jiang Nian stood up, picked a few easy-to-carry snack packets from the table, and walked away, not forgetting to put up a defensive shield first. "I really don't like snacks, it's not like I didn't want to take all of them, haha."

She gave too many; taking them all felt a bit impolite, but leaving them behind would be a loss.

A man who must remain undefeated in all things.

After Jiang Nian left, Teacher Xi leaned back in her chair in the English office and tore open a packet of sucking-gelly fruit jelly. As she hummed a tune while packing her things to leave work, a thought suddenly crossed her mind.

"What did that kid Jiang Nian say he signed up for again?...... Oh well, I'll ask him another day."

As soon as he returned to the classroom, his snacks were promptly divided up among Li Hua, Ma Guojun, and Yao Beibei. He hadn't taken many to begin with—only five items in total.

Lifting his head, he saw Zhang Ningzhi looking completely unfazed, bent over her desk writing homework.

You really do have an endless amount of homework, baby Zhizhi.

Taking advantage of the fact that the teacher hadn't arrived yet, he poked Zhang Ningzhi's back and passed the snacks forward.

Zhang Ningzhi simply turned her head, pressed her lips together as she glanced at the snacks, shook her head, and quickly turned back around.

Huh? So demure?