Ying Chi always felt that arguing with Qu Qingyu lowered his status, though he couldn’t win an argument against him anyway.
Ying Chi prided himself on growing up in the Ying family since childhood, and he had never learned such street-level vulgarities.
Qu Qingyu was different. If he really started cursing, even the aunties at the vegetable market probably wouldn’t be able to out-argue him, except that under normal circumstances, Qu Qingyu couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to others.
“Ying Chi, what are you doing?” Lin Yu pulled away the furiously angry Ying Chi.
“Classmate Qu, I really want to thank you for helping me out of that difficult situation. How about I treat you to a meal?”
Hearing that Lin Yu wanted to treat Qu Qingyu to a meal, Ying Chi said impatiently, “It was just a single sentence, why are you so eager to suck up to him?”
Qu Qingyu didn’t feel like he had done anything all that noble.
It was just that because Lin Yu was working part-time at a café and was being picked on by customers, he was at a loss when he happened to run into Qu Qingyu and his friends. Lin Yu glanced at Qu Qingyu, and before he could even speak, one of Qu Qingyu’s friends asked if they were classmates.
Qu Qingyu replied, “Mn.”
The other party seemed to recognize Qu Qingyu and stopped making things difficult for Lin Yu. Qu Qingyu didn’t understand why, just because of a single word, Lin Yu was being so eager to thank him.
“Unnecessary.” Having said that, without giving Lin Yu another chance to speak, he walked out of the classroom.
As soon as Zhu Xing returned home, he saw Ying Chi’s parents sitting opposite Zhu Dad, Zhu Mom, and his older brother Zhu Yao. Their expressions did not look very good.
“Xingxing, you’re back from school.” Bai Ling, who was Ying Chi’s mother, greeted Zhu Xing warmly, as if the engagement banquet incident from two days ago had never happened.
“Mn, Auntie Bai, Uncle Ying, hello.” After finishing his greetings, Zhu Xing sat down beside Zhu Yao.
The Ying couple exchanged a glance, and Bai Ling spoke again, “Xingxing, what happened that day was indeed Ah Chi’s fault, and we’ve already disciplined him. But he was also bewitched by that classmate at school, won’t you forgive him?” In the past, Zhu Xing had hung on Bai Ling’s every word, trying to cozy up to her in order to get close to Ying Chi.
After Bai Ling finished speaking, Zhu Xing ignored her. The room fell into a dead silence, plunging into quietness.
Bai Ling wanted to say more, but Zhu Xing interrupted her. “Auntie Bai, whether I forgive him or not, he hasn’t even apologized. Besides, he’s such a grown man, doesn’t he know what he’s doing?”
As soon as Zhu Xing finished speaking, Zhu Mom let out a cold snort. “Bai Ling, don’t blame me for speaking harshly, but to pull a stunt like that at Xingxing’s birthday banquet, if he had any respect for my Zhu family at all, he wouldn’t have dragged our dignity through the dirt.”
After Zhu Mom finished speaking, Ying Chi’s parents looked rather ugly and didn’t dare to try persuading Zhu Xing any further. “Ying Chi is immature. Another day, I’ll have him come over to apologize in person.”
With that, the two of them left. Zhu Xing didn’t care whether Ying Chi apologized or not; he wasn’t the original owner and had zero interest in clinging to a man who acted as someone else’s loyal lapdog.
A few days later, another new plot point arrived: the school’s mathematics competition. Lin Yu wanted to place in the rankings to win the prize money, while Zhu Xing was going to stir up trouble again. He originally intended to make Lin Yu unable to participate in this competition, but Ying Chi intervened and he failed. Taking the next best option, Zhu Xing demanded to participate alongside Lin Yu, and in the end, he suffered a resounding slap in the face.
Lin Yu took first place, while dead last was Zhu Xing.
[What kind of brain-dead plot is this? The Zhu Xing in the book isn’t good at studying either. Compared to Lin Yu, isn’t this just asking to be humiliated?]
[Oh my, host, don’t forget that this world has money power. The original Zhu Xing bribed the test-maker to get the answers, but the answers turned out to be completely wrong, which is why he ended up dead last.]
He spent money only to end up dead last; he was the ultimate sucker.
Sitting in his seat, he conscientiously finished filling out the registration form and handed it in.
“Can hands that pick locks also write out the correct answers to math problems?” Qu Qingyu looked at Zhu Xing’s actions in astonishment. It was truly unbelievable that someone who failed math would actually sign up for a math competition.
Zhu Xing wondered when this matter would ever be put to rest. Fortunately, a full week had passed since he picked the lock, and he hadn’t heard any strange rumors.
“Qu Qingyu, sooner or later I’m going to find something to stuff that mouth of yours with.”
“Oh, but are you sure you aren’t going to enter the lock-picking competition instead?”
Unable to help himself, Zhu Xing picked up a leftover steamed bun from his desk and shoved it toward Qu Qingyu’s mouth to shut him up.
Unfortunately, his strength was too weak and the sneak attack failed. Qu Qingyu’s eyes carried a hint of a smile as he stared for a few seconds at the unfaded fingerprint still lingering on Zhu Xing’s wrist, his expression unreadable.
Zhu Xing pulled up his sleeve to cover the mark. The force Ying Chi had used was simply too great; even though several days had passed, the mark still looked quite frightening.
A few days later, in the examination room.
Lin Yu, seated in the same exam room, looked at Zhu Xing in the front row. From the very start of the test, Zhu Xing hadn’t sat properly once. One moment he was spinning his pen out of boredom, and the next he was doodling who knows what on his scratch paper.
Every few questions, Lin Yu couldn’t help himself from glancing over at him. The prize money for first place in this competition was extremely important to him. Yet why was Zhu Xing trying to make things difficult for him?
Lin Yu knew that if Zhu Xing wanted to get first place, someone would definitely help him cheat.
Lin Yu gripped his pen tightly. The math problems in this competition were somewhat more difficult than in previous years, presenting a huge challenge for him as well, yet right now, it was hard to calm his mind.
After the exam ended, Lin Yu watched as Zhu Xing, looking completely at ease and happy, walked out. He noticed that Zhu Xing had taken the scratch paper from the test room with him.
[These two and a half hours were agonizing. And you wouldn’t even let me do the problems.]
The math competition questions were absolute child’s play to Zhu Xing. After all, this was already his tenth campus small world; if he still couldn’t learn a single thing, his intelligence might genuinely be in question.
[Host, I know your abilities are formidable, but if you actually did the problems, where would the protagonist Shou have the chance to slap you across the face? This plot point has to happen!]
[I know, I know.] Zhu Xing looked at the scratch paper he had smuggled out. Actually, competition rules strictly forbade taking any materials out of the room.
Yet Zhu Xing hadn’t written a single word of math; he had only filled in his name and spent the entire time constantly drawing little pig heads on the scratch paper, all labeled with the exact same name, Qu Qingyu.
After the exam was over, he felt that this magnum opus of his simply had to be delivered to Qu Qingyu.
When Zhu Xing returned to the classroom, there weren’t many people left since school had already let out for the day, but Qu Qingyu’s belongings were still sitting on his desk.
Stealthily, Zhu Xing slipped the scratch paper right into Qu Qingyu’s textbook.
Zhu Xing didn’t notice Lin Yu watching his actions from a dark corner.
After Zhu Xing left, Lin Yu walked over, intending to flip open Qu Qingyu’s book.
“What are you doing?” A cold voice abruptly cut short Lin Yu’s movement.
“Nothing, I saw your book fell on the floor, so I was helping you pick it up.”
Qu Qingyu paid no attention to Lin Yu’s words. He picked the book up off the desk, shoved it into his backpack, and walked right past Lin Yu as if he were invisible.
The results wouldn’t be released until the following afternoon, but some of the high scores had already started leaking out early. First thing in the morning when he arrived at school, Lin Yu sought out his supervising competition teacher and asked with some urgency, “Teacher, are my scores out?”
The bespectacled teacher recalled for a moment, nodded, and said, “They’re out. But did you happen to be careless this time? There are quite a few people scoring above you.” Lin Yu glossed over the part about multiple people being ahead of him. Knowing only that he had lost first place, he tightened his grip on the books in his hands and replied with a slightly pale expression, “Ah, yes. I’m sorry, Teacher, my condition might not have been very good that day.”
Hearing that his results were less than ideal, Lin Yu walked back to the classroom in a daze.
Knowing he was definitely dead last, Zhu Xing couldn’t even be bothered to go check the list.
“So confident. Looks like you easily secured first place in the competition.” Ignoring Qu Qingyu’s remark, Zhu Xing noticed that Qu Qingyu’s expression looked no different than usual, perhaps because he hadn’t seen that piece of paper covered in pig heads yet.
Zhu Xing lifted his chin and answered with feigned confidence, “Well, obviously. Is getting first place really that hard?”
After all, wasn’t dead last still a kind of first place from the bottom?