Chapter 62: Parachuting Class, the Window-Jumping Kind

During the homeroom meeting, Head Teacher Old Liu delivered a hearty bowl of emotional chicken soup right from the podium.

Down in the audience, Li Hua secretly curled his lips into a Nike swoosh, a look of utter disdain plastered across his face.

He stealthily turned his head to look at Jiang Nian, the sandwich-filling deskmate sitting right in the middle, and lowered his voice.

"This is an absolute lie. Going to college practically guarantees staying single; date anyone and you'll instantly get straightened out."

Jiang Nian lacked any enthusiasm. October was still sweltering.

He adjusted his position beneath the desk. Damn this dogmatic weather; his underwear was practically about to become a thong.

The afternoon was exceptionally muggy, and the old ceiling fan whined loudly while spinning sluggishly.

He had no choice but to pull a Biology Book 2 out from his desk belly, swapping out the Chemistry Compulsory 3 that he was using as a cushion for his backside. As for why it was Chemistry Compulsory 3, it was purely because of organic chemistry.

"Hey, Jiang Nian, do you believe me or Old Liu?" Li Hua felt confident again. He seemed immensely interested in the topic of romance, his urge to share practically bursting at the seams.

Whether he had found a newly fabricated story on Zhihu or listened to a few virgins in a NSFW group chat talk endlessly about their romantic exploits to glean some precious experience from them, one couldn't tell.

"So many people already believe you; you're more than enough without me," Jiang Nian murmured, having no heart to fight for the position of romance spokesperson. "Hua, it is so damn hot."

"Huh? What's hot about you?" Li Hua raised an eyebrow.

Some people had complicated compositions and filthy minds; you could casually mention the household registry or the swift passage of time, and their thoughts would still drift into the gutter.

Jiang Nian didn't have the energy to drive any metaphorical cars right now; he just gave a low chuckle and lowered his head to look at a math problem.

"Find the derivative..."

He was dead tired while the head teacher up front kept talking endlessly. He had spent his noon break grinding problems. His eyelids felt heavy, just as a natural breeze drifted in through the window.

And so...

When he regained consciousness ten times out of ten minutes later, Jiang Nian's head was bobbing up and down, the back of his skull throbbing slightly. His gaze slowly focused as he looked down at his textbook.

The derivative problem was only half-written, featuring nothing more than a curved character for "Find".

Up on the stage, Old Liu was delivering his concluding remarks.

It was the usual rhetoric about working hard to change one's fate, how cruel society was, how many rules existed, and that if you wanted to stand out as a leader among them, you had to study hard and stay one step ahead of the others.

Jiang Nian felt equally lost about the future, knowing almost nothing about what was happening outside the school gates.

Peeking at the sky from a corner of the ivory tower, all he could see was the blazing sun.

Sigh, so lost.

Ding!

What the fuck, I forgot to turn off the cheat code. This one's on me, it completely ruins the atmosphere.

Gomen nasai, Old Liu.

***

You have your sweat, and I have my Deep Blue.

The system panel popped up: [At thirty-eight years old, you returned to Yangcheng, the city where you once lived with Zhang Ningzhi. In a daze, your memory is pulled back ten years to the sweltering midsummer...

Task: Complete a pleasant date with Zhang Ningzhi. Reward: Fishing Mastery (Skill).]

Jiang Nian had originally been resting his chin in his hand, lazily stroking the back of his neck. He had grown quite accustomed to these tasks and had already guessed it would be a dating task.

Oh~! Brother, why are you like this~ you little trash fish trash fish~ System, it's thirty thousand bucks again, right? You little perverted system, can't you pop out anything else? Absolutely useless, utter nonsense!

Jiang Nian glanced over, but the moment he saw the reward, his entire body instantly sat up straight.

He rubbed his eyes. Fishing?

Holy crap, this is awesome! Isn't this way better than thirty thousand yuan?

Truth be told, it wasn't just middle-aged men who loved this stuff; he had loved it since he was a kid. Giving him thirty thousand might not make him bow his head, but giving him Fishing Mastery would genuinely make him call the system his baby.

The ultimate peak of the King of Men is fishing; even if you attain emperorship, you must still sit with your back to the masses inside an emperor's coffin and fish alone through the ages.

Before he had even received the reward, the corners of Jiang Nian's mouth were already curling upward.

He turned to look at Li Hua beside him, and the corners of his mouth split even wider as he began daydreaming about a satisfying web novel scenario.

The fishing rod arrives tomorrow; for now, a bamboo stick will have to do.

Aiya aiya.

The shock-absorbing toolman Li Hua was still sitting with his fingers interlocked and propped on the desk, looking coldly at the head teacher on stage. Every time Old Liu uttered a sentence, Li Hua would mutter a cold snort in response.

The mature brother was at it again, channeling his inner maturity.

At this moment, he still hadn't realized that this unremarkable afternoon would mark the beginning of his descent into becoming an eternal "big-mouth" of the King of Men, leaving his WeChat Moments with only one recurring phrase in the future:

"Bro~, where did you catch that? Bro~ have a smoke, a Huaizi cigarette, bro~! Give me the spot, won't you? Bro~ tell me where it is. (Running around) Bro!~ I won't tell anyone else~ Bro! (Running back and forth)"

As the first homeroom class of the afternoon ended, the entire class began rearranging their seats.

The specific operation was quite simple: the desks were pushed forward, swapping the back row with the front row. Anyone who couldn't see the blackboard due to the angle was free to coordinate seat changes within their group.

Instantly, the classroom was filled with the sound of desk legs scraping against floor tiles. Jiang Nian also stood up in due course to carry his desk forward.

In the midst of moving his desk, he cast a glance at Zhang Ningzhi.

She didn't seem to have any intention of changing her seat; she was carefully moving her desk forward, not daring to look back.

Whether she changed seats or not, they were still in the same group anyway.

At the start of the semester, Jiang Nian and Zhang Ningzhi had just advanced a grade, and their original seats were in the back half of the third group.

Two weeks later, pushing forward again meant landing in the first or second row.

Just as Jiang Nian was about to sit down, he suddenly heard Huang Fang on his left speak up.

***

"Zhizhi, could you swap seats with me? This spot is against the wall, so it's a bit inconvenient to go outside."

Zhang Ningzhi looked slightly flustered as she clumsily replied,

"Oh oh, okay."

Li Hua looked bewildered and turned to Huang Fang.

"If you need convenience to go outside, wouldn't it make more sense to swap with me? Come to think of it, I've always quite liked being against the wall, but I was too shy to mention it to you."

Huang Fang gave him a side-eye. "Zhizhi is in the front row and can't see the blackboard clearly."

"Oh oh, my bad, my bad." Li Hua scratched his head, looking a bit awkward. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something more.

Huang Fang was afraid he would proactively offer to swap front-and-back positions with Zhang Ningzhi—though doing that would be no different from swapping with her, sitting right beside them as a third-wheel lightbulb was still rather awkward, you know?

So she decisively spoke up first to interrupt his casting.

"What are you up to? I've already agreed with Zhizhi. Group leader, if you want to take care of your group members, swap with Zeng You; his seat makes looking at the blackboard feel like getting hit with a flashbang."

Li Hua excelled in science subjects and served as the leader of Group Six.

Before he could respond, the gaming king Zeng You refused to comply. He loved positions against the wall because they offered strong concealment for playing games and reading novels, and even sleeping there wasn't overly conspicuous.

"I'm not swapping!"

Li Hua was left stranded in awkwardness, so he could only grab the iced red tea on Jiang Nian's desk and take a sip from a distance to calm his nerves.

Jiang Nian: "???"

With a rustle, Huang Fang and Zhang Ningzhi didn't actually swap desks; instead, they simply moved their books.

They directly exchanged spots with each other, so by the second period, in the second row of the third group... Zhang Ningzhi sat by the window, with Jiang Nian on her right side, and Li Hua furthest to the right.

Jiang Nian asked casually, "What class is this?"

He had always asked Huang Fang that way out of pure habit.

Even if Huang Fang told him it was skydiving today, he would still walk right out the window and head downstairs. The level of trust among group members was maxed out—warm and utterly considerate.

Suddenly, a faint, timid voice reached his ears.

"Bi.....biology."

Jiang Nian realized that his neighbor had been replaced by Zhang Ningzhi. He gave an "oh oh" and suddenly felt a bit strange. It wasn't until a metallic rust taste spread across the tip of his tongue that he realized just a moment ago...

Had his heart skipped a beat?