The next day, when Song Mufang arrived at the classroom, several students were already there, all of whom lived on campus.
Song Mufang sat down at his desk and glanced at the schedule pasted on it.
The morning reading session was physics.
Song Mufang frowned, his fair little face scrunching up, as he pulled out his physics book from the desk.
He was weak in some subjects: of the three sciences, biology and chemistry were fine, but he really couldn’t get into physics. Whenever he saw terms like electric fields and circuits, his eyes would glaze over, and he would feel drowsy.
After memorizing just a few lines, Song Mufang felt sleepy, his vision blurring.
He yawned, tears welling up at the corners of his eyes.
No, no, I can’t fall asleep.
Song Mufang shook his head and slapped his cheeks to shake off the drowsiness.
Briefly awake, he widened his eyes, trying to focus on the physics textbook in front of him.
“Coulomb’s law, the interaction force between two stationary point charges in a vacuum…”
Before long, his eyes began to droop again, his head nodding forward, nearly hitting the desk several times.
Just as he was about to close his eyes again, a warning from the System sounded in his mind.
[Beep, the male lead has entered within 20 meters of the host]
The drowsy Song Mufang was startled awake by the alert.
He rubbed his eyes, wiped away the tears at the corners, and glanced at the time on his phone. It was only 7:20.
Jing Zhao had arrived much earlier than the day before.
Song Mufang smoothed out the creases on his textbook that had formed while he was dozing.
Sure enough, Jing Zhao soon walked into the classroom.
Song Mufang couldn’t focus on the physics textbook but didn’t want to waste time just sitting there.
He guessed that Jing Zhao might be napping on his desk again, oblivious to his actions, so he turned around, thinking he was being discreet, to steal a glance.
To his surprise, Jing Zhao wasn’t napping this time. He was resting his chin on one hand, looking out the window with his usual indifferent expression.
Song Mufang took a couple of quick glances and then turned back around, sitting up straight, as he remembered an important question. He asked the System in his mind: [1111, how many life points do I have left?]
1111 reminded him: [You’ll have one left after noon.]
Song Mufang immediately became serious.
Unable to concentrate on the physics book, he decided to spend the morning figuring out how to earn life points from Jing Zhao.
Song Mufang was quick to act. Once he had an idea, he immediately set it in motion.
He pulled out a notebook and began to think seriously.
Even as a villain, he wanted to be creative. He had previously mentioned Jing Zhao’s grades and not turning in homework, but those points couldn’t be brought up again so soon. So what new angle could he use to provoke Jing Zhao?
Appearance?
Song Mufang looked back at Jing Zhao, his hand quickly jotting down notes to critique Jing Zhao’s looks.
Eyes: Jing Zhao’s eyes were perfectly shaped; eyelashes: long and curled; nose: straight and prominent; lips: a bit thin, but still attractive.
After carefully observing Jing Zhao’s appearance, Song Mufang reviewed what he had written.
Eyes: perfect.
Eyelashes: perfect.
Nose: perfect.
Lips: seemingly perfect too.
With a list of “perfect” traits, Song Mufang couldn’t bring himself to lie and say Jing Zhao wasn’t good-looking.
He silently ruled out appearance as an option and considered the next aspect: personality.
As for personality, Jing Zhao was quite aloof, not just quite, but extremely aloof.
He didn’t have many friends in class, rarely spoke, and every time Song Mufang saw him, he was alone, like a lone wolf.
Hey! Looking at it this way, Jing Zhao’s personality was really cool!
Song Mufang quietly wrote a large “cool” next to “Jing Zhao’s personality.”
The System couldn’t hold back and jumped in, its voice stern: [Host, remember your role as a villain. You’re supposed to be picking on the male lead, not praising him!]
Song Mufang snapped back to reality and quickly acknowledged it.
But what other aspects could he use to provoke Jing Zhao?
Song Mufang was extremely troubled, biting his pen and furrowing his brow in deep thought.
Perhaps because there wasn’t a suitable opportunity at the moment, Song Mufang’s mind was blank, unable to come up with anything.
He couldn’t help but turn his head again, planning to take another look at Jing Zhao to find inspiration.
Unexpectedly, Jing Zhao wasn’t looking out the window this time. Instead, he was resting his chin on his fist, looking in Song Mufang’s direction with deep eyes, as if he had been watching for a while.
Song Mufang awkwardly twisted his neck and then silently turned his head back, pretending to be engrossed in his book.
Meanwhile, he urgently called out to the System in his mind: [1111! What’s going on? Was Jing Zhao staring at me just now?]
Even though he knew he was playing the role of a villain constantly being humiliated by the male lead, Song Mufang was still very anxious at such moments.
Influenced by the novel’s plot, Song Mufang always had the illusion that the male lead would kill him in the next second, and he wasn’t ready to have his legs broken just yet.
[What are you thinking? Jing Zhao couldn’t have been staring at you the whole time.] It was only two or three minutes.
The System omitted the last part to avoid alarming Song Mufang.
Unaware of this, Song Mufang felt reassured, thought for a moment, and wrote “very fierce” in his notebook.
His deskmate, Lu Si, had already entered the classroom. Song Mufang stopped writing and quickly tossed the notebook into his desk.
*
In the corner, Jing Zhao watched Song Mufang stiffly turn his head back and lowered his own eyelashes as well.
For the past two days, Jing Zhao had felt as if a gaze was following him, on and off.
The day before yesterday, he had suspected it was just his imagination.
But just now, Jing Zhao confirmed that it wasn’t an illusion: the new transfer student was indeed always sneaking glances at him.
Jing Zhao’s brow furrowed slightly.
He had made eye contact with many people, and those who thought they were hiding it well often revealed emotions like disgust, hatred, or fear in their eyes.
Thinking of the brief eye contact with Song Mufang, Jing Zhao pressed his lips together.
In Song Mufang’s eyes, he didn’t see any dislike or aversion, but he was sure the transfer student was afraid of him.
But this only puzzled Jing Zhao more. If the transfer student was afraid of him, why did he keep sneaking glances?
Jing Zhao couldn’t figure out the transfer student’s intentions.
Besides the glances, the transfer student also said strange things to him.
Even now, thinking about Song Mufang’s behavior at noon the day before, Jing Zhao still found it amusing.
The transfer student was clearly afraid, yet kept approaching him. The behavior was truly contradictory, but he seemed to enjoy it, doing it repeatedly.
The bell for morning study soon rang.
The physics teacher entered the classroom and didn’t let the students study on their own. Instead, he handed out the homework from the day before and began explaining the most common mistakes.
Jing Zhao glanced at the problems and then went back to pondering Song Mufang’s puzzling behavior.
However, he couldn’t figure out the issue by the end of the morning study session.
But he didn’t want to be troubled by it for too long.
After the physics teacher left, Jing Zhao walked straight toward Song Mufang, intending to ask the source of his confusion directly.
Song Mufang was lying on his side, asleep on the desk, his fair cheek exposed, lips slightly parted. As Jing Zhao approached, he even smacked his lips, sleeping soundly.
Jing Zhao was about to wake him when his eyes fell on the notebook carelessly spread out on the desk.
Two seconds later, Jing Zhao turned around and returned to his seat.
He ran a hand through his hair.
Thinking of the words he had just seen, he was unusually at a loss.