Chapter 61 Changing Seats

At twelve-fifteen noon, Jiang Nian returned from the cafeteria like a victorious general.
We’ve got food again, brothers!
Jiang Nian made a detour to the neighboring small store and picked up a large bottle of iced black tea. Drinking sugary beverages every day wasn’t great for his health, but there was a certain probability his drinks would undergo quality inspection by Li Hua and Ma Guojun.
Even if he accidentally drank urine one day, Jiang Nian wouldn't say a word. If we die, we die together.
Under the shade of a tree, Jiang Nian didn't touch his lips to the bottle, taking a sip of the iced black tea from a distance.
How self-aware of him; he had already become Quality Inspector Number One.
The moment he lowered his head, he caught sight of Zhou Haifei fluttering past. She was holding a book and seemed to be heading toward the tree-lined path. Who knew if she had eaten yet.
Jiang Nian was stunned, wondering why such a thought had popped into his head.
Utterly ridiculous.
He went upstairs, passing the classroom of Class 4 on the third floor, only to find it empty. He had no idea where Xu Qianqian and Song Xiyun had run off to.
Come to think of it, some of the express packages he ordered yesterday should be arriving today with next-day delivery.
Xu Qianqian’s phone was an order from His Father, a purely instrumental substitute purchase.
Song Xiyun’s piggy bank, to be honest, looked quite pretty; he would have to give it to her when it arrived another day.
By the way, he had also bought a small hair clip for Zhang Ningzhi.
Damn it... How promiscuous.
Actually, it wasn't like that at all; it was merely human relations and social etiquette.
A purely romantic campus, where he hadn’t even touched a little hand. Because he had rather few friends, he paid quite a bit of attention to interpersonal etiquette. Only with reciprocity could a relationship last long.
Eating soft rice was just a joke; good friends simply needed to be properly maintained.
He carried the half-bottle of iced black tea upstairs into the classroom, placing it in a conspicuous spot on his desk. It felt too awkward for a guy to give gifts directly—it leaned a bit toward being a bromance—so... self-service iced black tea.
Inside the classroom, he took out his math review workbook and began to slack off.
Jiang Nian had made a study plan. Since the mock exam paper was relatively simple, if converted to the real gaokao scoring scale, his score should be around 510.
There were still seven months left until the gaokao. With some hard work, boosting his score by sixty or seventy points shouldn't be much of a problem.
He turned his head to glance into the desk box of the adjacent table at the watch Li Hua had left behind: twelve-thirty.
There were very few people in the classroom, which was enveloped in deep silence, with large swaths of sunlight filtering through the windows.
The hot breeze was slightly dry, carrying the sporadic sounds of page-turning and coughing.
Regardless of the season, someone in the class was always catching a cold.
Near the window in the front row, a figure was slumped over the desk reading a novel on a smartphone with the brightness turned down to the minimum.
The seating arrangement of the few of them was roughly like this.
In Jiang Nian’s row, he sat in the middle, flanked by a quiet girl named Huang Fang on his left and Li Hua on his right. In the front row, Zhang Ningzhi sat ahead of Li Hua, with two boys to her left.
The middle seat in the front row belonged to Wu Jungu, a commuter student who was neat and clean as a whistle.
It wasn't that this guy was exceptionally good-looking, but everything from his desk to his clothes was genuinely pristine. He was quite honest and didn't talk much, except when occasionally asking questions. His daily routine consisted of studying and walking home with his little girlfriend from the neighboring class after evening self-study.
The person sitting in the innermost seat by the window reading novels was named Zeng You, a boarding student who remained blissfully detached from worldly affairs, reading novels and playing games.
During regular exams, he hovered around the lower-middle to middle tier of the class, occasionally rising to upper-middle—possessing the aura of a supreme emperor.
These six individuals together formed the class's Sixth Group. Seats were swapped once a week, with the entire group shifting forward.
Within the group, seats could be exchanged freely as long as it wasn't too outrageous.
To be honest, Jiang Nian had been in the new class for almost two weeks, and he still hadn't managed to recognize everyone. He knew everyone in his group, though, and had pretty decent relationships with the people sitting in front of and behind him.
Though he was curious about what kind of novels Zeng You was reading, he felt too shy to disturb him since they weren't very close.
Some people were simply born with good brains; even while playing games and reading novels, they could still easily score over five hundred points. In an ordinary class, they would be absolute big shots, insanely formidable.
Zeng You, sitting by the curtains, seemed to sense something. He turned around and flashed Jiang Nian an honest, beaming smile.
"Jiang Nian, you'll be happy by this afternoon."
"What?" Jiang Nian was left slightly bewildered by his remark, spinning his pen unconsciously as he asked curiously, "Are we getting the afternoon off?"
Zeng You had a low threshold for amusement; he was so tickled by the question that he let out a muffled chuckle for half a minute.
"Today is Monday. After the class meeting this afternoon, we’re switching seats."
Will the riddle-makers please get out of the Sixth Group? If you dare drop another "those who know, know" line, I'm going to turn red with anger.
Jiang Nian thought for a moment and fired back a magic spell.
"So what?"
Around lunchtime, there were only five or six people in the classroom. In Jiang Nian’s third group, there were only him and Zeng You, while someone was huddled in the very back of the room doing homework.
Zeng You was left feeling rather stifled by his retort, as if a punch of "riddle power" had landed on a cotton ball.
"I heard Zhang Ningzhi and Huang Fang discussing switching seats last week... Didn't they tell you?"
Seeing Zeng You’s ambiguous smile, it looked as though he was about to start gossiping.
"So what?"
Zeng You’s smile froze, and his enthusiasm instantly waned as he turned back around. He had originally wanted to witness Jiang Nian’s flustered state, only to receive a mere echo.
Still... "So what?" That phrase was quite useful; adding it to favorites.
In the afternoon, the first period was the class meeting.
Before Zhang Ningzhi arrived at the classroom, Jiang Nian purposely looked up to size her up. Today’s ration of lemonade was gone; she hadn’t bought one for herself, so she had no reason to bring him one either.
That gaze landing upon her naturally did not escape Zhang Ningzhi’s notice. She sat down nervously, opened her book, and began to recite silently, pretending not to notice.
A natural cover for anomalies, concealing all emotions that had nothing to do with studying.
Jiang Nian yawned, propping up his head to leisurely resume solving math problems. He was simply a bit curious about the seat-swapping affair—were he and Zhang Ningzhi going to become desk mates?
Why hadn't anyone told him? Furious and trembling, do a boy's opinions not matter?
Never mind, as long as Zhang Ningzhi hadn't petitioned Lord Guan for permission, it would be fine.
The class meeting was slightly tedious. Their head teacher, Liu Liangsong, strode into the classroom with his sparse hair atop his head. It was the same old tune, repeatedly emphasizing strict prohibitions: no bringing cell phones.
No dating, no playing with fire, water, or electricity.
"In our class, there are relatively few people dating, being a science class after all," Liu Liangsong said, pressing both hands on the podium as he scanned the room. "Here, I want to emphasize this once again."
"The third year of high school is the hardest year of high school! I believe all of you have experienced this. Ah, however, please cherish it well, as this might be the most precious period of your lives."
"When you graduate next year, you will realize—hey, you will never again find a time when an entire class shares the exact same goal and pursues it together."
"Once you get to university, you'll have plenty of time to date; no one will care even if you date seven or eight at once. Don't waste the most precious time of your life on romantic trivialities."
"At your most difficult moments, I hope none of you fall behind. Clench your teeth, hold on, study hard, and catch up as soon as possible to the version of yourselves that your parents, family, teachers, and friends have placed such high hopes on."
Teacher Liu truly lived up to his reputation as a Chinese teacher; his words had real substance.
Zhang Ningzhi, sitting in the front row, kept her head lowered, her face burning hot as if her innermost thoughts were being exposed and baked under the blazing sun.