Jiang Fu suddenly realized that this man was, at heart, a spoiled young master through and through.
If it weren’t for this inexplicable body swap, he might never have spoken to someone like this in his entire life.
Let alone end up sitting here watching airplanes together.
The atmosphere was quiet; neither of them said a word.
Just then, an attendant came over carrying a small gift box and bowed. “Mr. Quan, the A7X0-022 Fighter Jet you purchased has been registered and is ready for pickup at any time. Here is the key, please keep it safe.”
After waiting all this time, it had finally arrived. Quan Zebai couldn’t wait to stand up, hooked the key with his finger, and tossed it with perfect accuracy into Jiang Fu’s arms, breaking into a smile. “Here, it’s for you.”
Jiang Fu held the ice-cold key and asked, “Why are you giving me this?”
Quan Zebai thought for a moment and said, “Probably because we’re friends? Isn’t it normal for friends to give each other things?”
Jiang Fu stood up from his seat and walked over to Quan Zebai. “I appreciate the thought, but as for this…”
He shook the key in his hand, then gently placed it back into the gift box. “I’ll pass.”
Quan Zebai hadn’t expected him to refuse, and he froze in place.
Jiang Fu picked up his jacket from the seat and draped it over his shoulder, looking Quan Zebai straight in the eye. “If I want something, I’ll find a way to get it myself. Obtaining things through someone else’s hands that would be pretty boring.”
Then he strode off toward the door first. Seeing that Quan Zebai still hadn’t moved, he said without turning his head, “Aren’t you coming, ‘good friend’?”
There was a trace of laughter in Jiang Fu’s voice on those last three words.
Quan Zebai brushed the stray hairs from his forehead and stared at his retreating back. “…Huh?”
After leaving the airshow, the two of them had planned to take a taxi back, but the streets nearby didn’t allow taxis. With no other choice, they walked to the bus stop and decided to take the bus.
Jiang Fu asked in all sincerity, “This isn’t your first time riding one, is it?”
Quan Zebai fanned himself with his hand; the stuffy weather had made his forehead sweat. Hearing the question, he pointed at his own face. “Do I really look like some otherworldly fairy who’s never touched the mundane world?”
Jiang Fu pulled down his wrist and said flatly, “Don’t point at my nose.”
“Fine.” With that, he jabbed his finger right in front of Jiang Fu’s eyes and said, “I’m pointing at my own. Happy now?”
“Fine, but don’t use my hand.”
“…”
While they were fooling around, the bus arrived. Not long after they boarded, the sky outside began to darken.
Summer weather was always fickle. Quan Zebai had a bad premonition. “Damn, is it going to rain?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, a light drizzle began to fall outside.
Jiang Fu: “…Jinx.”
This bus didn’t go directly to their destination, they’d have to transfer halfway so the two of them headed out into the light rain and arrived once again at the familiar intersection.
“Say…” Quan Zebai was silent for a moment before speaking first. “If we run into the middle of the road right now and get hit by a car, do you think we’d swap back?”
“No idea whether we’d swap back, but it would definitely be embarrassing.”
Not only that, they’d be taken for scammers trying to fake an accident, or outright lunatics.
Their fate would be either the police station or the hospital.
Quan Zebai tilted his head back, feeling the wind stir the misty air, his voice full of world-weary resignation. “I used to be a firm materialist, but at this point, I have no choice but to embrace certain beliefs.”
Jiang Fu stared at him, his head full of question marks, not understanding what he meant.
It wasn’t until one evening during evening self-study that Quan Zebai coaxed him into skipping class, saying he wanted to show him something.
Jiang Fu, skipping class for the first time in his life, was thus lured out.
The two finally met up at the southwest corner of the school. Jiang Fu couldn’t understand why, when this could have been handled with a leave request, they had to skip class?
To this question, Quan Zebai deliberately lowered his voice and leaned in close to his ear, saying: “Because it makes it feel mysterious, dangerous and thrilling.”
Hearing that voice sounding in his ear with such a tone, Jiang Fu exploded, shoving him away without mercy and saying speechlessly: “Get lost!”
Suddenly, a head popped up sneakily between the two of them. Qian Li also lowered his voice and asked: “Where are you guys going? The internet café? Take me with you?”
“Holy crap!” This time it was Quan Zebai’s turn to explode. Seeing it was Qian Li, he went speechless: “What are you doing here?”
Qian Li told the truth: “I turned around and saw Brother Quan was gone, so I knew he was going to run, but I never expected you too, top student…”
He looked Quan Zebai up and down, letting out a surprised sigh.
Quan Zebai sighed. He had originally planned to take Jiang Fu along to deal with the body’s problem, but now that someone had shown up, the plan was ruined, and the target could only shift to the internet café.
Seeing that the two agreed to take him along, Qian Li was delighted and climbed over the wall first, with Quan Zebai following skillfully right behind.
However, before the two of them even landed, a stern voice came from outside the wall: “What are you doing, student? Which class are you from?!”
Since Qian Li was the first to act, he was the first to see the other person’s face clearly: “Damn, it’s the Director!”
Quan Zebai hadn’t expected the Dean of Discipline to be lying in wait here. He glanced down at Jiang Fu, if the two of them climbed back over now, all three of them could get caught.
So he shut his eyes and steeled his heart.
“Sorry about this, Lili.”
With that, he grabbed Qian Li’s calf and, with force, pushed him down. The wall wasn’t high, so falling wouldn’t hurt but he fell right under the Director’s nose.
Then Quan Zebai bent over, quietly climbed down from the wall, grabbed Jiang Fu’s hand, and bolted.
The night wind blew against his face, and Jiang Fu couldn’t help but laugh.
They ran to the corner of the laboratory building, where Quan Zebai sat down on the ground, gasping for breath. Even he thought what happened tonight was too ridiculous, and he couldn’t hold back his laughter.
Jiang Fu: “You just sold out Lili like that?”
Quan Zebai wiped the sweat off his neck and said: “Well, what else?”
“So why did you call me out tonight?”
After all that fuss, nothing got done, and they’d almost been caught.
Quan Zebai pulled out his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, and handed it over for him to see.
Jiang Fu took it and looked, a booking with a tarot card reader.
Scrolling down, there were all sorts of introductions and bookings for fortune-telling, talismans, Buddhism, Taoism, and theology.
“…”
Jiang Fu handed the phone back and sat down next to Quan Zebai: “Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
He didn’t.
But the fact that they’d really been swapped back by relying on these things was just too bizarre though, of course, things were already absurd enough as they were.
Jiang Fu had nothing to say. It seemed that, right now, there really was no other way besides these.
The next day, Qian Li was publicly criticized school-wide and earned himself a ten-thousand-word self-reflection.
After coming back from the Dean of Discipline’s office, Qian Li loudly denounced the shameless behavior of last night’s “Jiang Fu” in the classroom.
He wanted to proclaim it to the whole world.
The class monitor and the rest of the class listened and roared with laughter.
And Jiang Fu, as last night’s “accomplice” and witness, also got scolded.
Seeing that the person was tired, Jiang Fu asked, “Where is he?”
Qian Li took a sip of water to moisten his smoke-dry throat and said, “Who? Jiang Fu? Oh, he just got called to the director’s office too. Don’t know what for…”
Jiang Fu frowned. Could the director have seen his face last night?
Quan Zebai, standing in the office, couldn’t help wondering the same thing.
But he had been standing there for nearly half an hour, and the director across from him said nothing.
The director typed leisurely on the computer, occasionally sipping water from an iron cup, completely ignoring his existence.
Finally, after typing the last word, the director lifted his eyelids and glanced at Quan Zebai standing in front of him.
“Jiang Fu…”
Quan Zebai had long since grown impatient inside, but he didn’t show it, keeping a normal expression. “I’m here, Director.”
Yang Liang looked at the student before him and said in a subtle tone, “The financial aid has come through, right?”
Quan Zebai didn’t understand why he was bringing this up. He didn’t know whether it had come through, and there was no time to ask Jiang Fu now, so he could only answer vaguely, “I haven’t confirmed yet.”
Hearing this, Yang Liang clicked his tongue, took another sip of water, and put on an air of importance. “You know, this thing is very hard to get approved. Since the school, ah, has given you, eh this opportunity, you should seize it yourself. Do you understand?”
Without waiting for Quan Zebai to respond, Yang Liang tapped his fingers on the rosewood desk, his tone sounding almost like encouragement. “Your family’s circumstances aren’t like other people’s, let alone like Student Quan’s family, which used the family as a foundation to lift him up. So you yourself have to work even harder.”
Quan Zebai stood with his hands in his pockets, looking relaxed, indifferent. At these words, he straightened up, his slightly furrowed brow betraying his mood.
He heard himself speak in Jiang Fu’s voice: “…I understand, Director.”
Yang Liang shifted his gaze away from him again, back to the computer, and casually pointed at the messy pile of documents and test papers in the corner. “Tidy that up first.”
Quan Zebai walked over, crouched down, and silently began organizing.
It was as if he were meeting this director for the first time today.
Though Father Quan and Mother Quan were dissatisfied with him in every way, they were still very protective of him in public. After he had a big fight with his family and secretly transferred schools, when they found out, they nearly severed the father-son relationship, but the very next day, they still came personally to smooth things over here.
Back then, Yang Liang had warmly put an arm around his shoulder and promised Father Quan and Mother Quan that the school would educate him well.
For this, the Quan family donated the cost of an entire building to the school.
Yang Liang had originally intended to place Quan Zebai in the experimental class, but Quan Zebai knew his own abilities his “ugly” grades were nowhere near enough to get in so he went to the neighboring class instead.
Quan Zebai’s impression of Yang Liang had remained frozen at that time, and now, thinking of what he had said to Jiang Fu, he couldn’t help but sneer.
Money was very important to Jiang Fu, so he would surely endure it. He had lost count of how many times he’d heard words like that.
And now he had appeared in Jiang Fu’s world in this form.
Only after Quan Zebai finished organizing everything did Yang Liang let him return to class.
Quan Zebai stood in the corridor. The glow of the setting sun stretched the shadow of the teaching building long across the ground, while on the sports field, student athletes were doing running drills.
He watched for a while, feeling inexplicably irritable.
After a moment’s thought, he couldn’t hold back any longer and pulled out his phone to send a message to the people on the Quan family’s side.