Deng Xianbing had just sent a few seasoned slackers to stand at the back of the classroom, only for his own prized student to be late as well.
A few seasoned slackers looked toward the door like they were watching a show.
Right in front of them, Deng Xianbing walked up to Bai Xiruo and asked in a quiet, caring tone, his attitude worlds apart from how he treated Duan Chenxu and the others:
“What happened? Why are you late?”
Bai Xiruo’s face was flushed red, and she lowered her head, her voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz: “I woke up late this morning.”
That answer was, at best, an honest admission of her mistake, and it still could not serve as a teacher’s excuse to protect a good student.
So Deng Xianbing made that excuse sound perfectly legitimate: “Did you study too late last night?”
“???”
“???”
“????”
Deng Xianbing: “No matter how much you study, you still need to pay attention to rest. Go on back.”
Although they did not hear exactly what Deng Xianbing said to Bai Xiruo, Duan Chenxu and the others all felt they knew anyway. While pulling out their Chinese textbooks for morning reading, they flashed Deng Xianbing an internationally friendly gesture: “Fuck!”
There was nothing they could do about it. This was Old Deng’s naked favoritism toward students with good grades.
In Old Deng’s eyes, an excellent student like Bai Xiruo, who neither caused trouble nor acted up, was of course a good kid. And if a good kid made a mistake once in a while, that was forgivable, wasn’t it?
But a student like Zhang Chen, who had terrible grades and caused trouble everywhere every day, affecting other classmates… wasn’t that just a pure illiterate hoodlum? Even if what he said was true and reasonable, people still would not want to believe him.
The few of them had nothing to say to that. It was not like their strength allowed them to do anything about it, so they could only silently flash friendly gestures in private as a form of resistance.
Watching Bai Xiruo sit back down, Zhang Chen glanced at Li Junhao standing at the back, mulling things over in his mind.
He had asked Li Junhao to keep an eye on Bai Xiruo last night. Nothing should have gone wrong, right?
For a student like Bai Xiruo, being late generally did not happen to her unless there was some kind of unavoidable factor.
In the original novel, there was indeed a description of him blocking Bai Xiruo at the school gate after his expulsion, but now that he had transmigrated here, that situation definitely no longer applied.
So either someone had taken his place and blocked Bai Xiruo at the school gate, or…
There was only one other possibility: something had happened at her home.
She was living at her uncle’s house, and the whole family treated Bai Xiruo very poorly. They did not even let her sit at the table for meals, and whenever there was anything good to eat, they would hide it and eat it secretly behind her back.
Not only that, but all the dirty and tiring chores like washing clothes and cooking were handed to Bai Xiruo. On weekends, if Bai Xiruo wanted to continue staying at their place instead of going back to the countryside, she was forced to listen to them and take part-time jobs.
If it was the second possibility, then it was very likely that her uncle had made her work late into the night again, causing her to be late for class today.
Zhang Chen frowned slightly. Thinking about how Bai Xiruo had not even reported him to Old Deng in the office yesterday, he pondered how to help her…
But after thinking it over, he shook his head.
This kind of situation was usually left for the male lead to resolve. If he stepped in, what would the male lead do?
Besides, he had no way of handling it right now anyway. Was he supposed to rescue Bai Xiruo from her uncle’s house and have her live in the same single room as him, sleeping in the same bed?
He had to be tired of living to steal a woman from the Child of Destiny…
Better to just behave himself and help out in small ways.
At least he could clear up the previous bad impression, so that when the male lead showed up to take revenge on him later, things would be better…
As for her family situation…
Better leave that to the reliable male lead?
Come to think of it, which class was the male lead in…
In fact, Zhang Chen had basically guessed the situation Bai Xiruo was facing correctly.
He just had not expected the specific reason for her punishment.
Her aunt had caught her secretly hiding two eggs… the very same food she had brought to school yesterday, the one that Zhang Chen and his group had knocked over.
If Zhang Chen had not threatened her into bringing food, and food that had to have meat in it, she would never have done such a thing.
And after something like that was discovered by her uncle and aunt, naturally there was no shortage of punishment.
In particular, they claimed that they worked from dawn to dusk just to earn a little money from selling vegetables, and here she was, a thief in their own home, secretly squandering it!
The only time they had caught her was this once… two eggs.
But the times they had not caught her… who knew how much she had secretly taken!!
It was blown completely out of proportion, to the point where the entire family’s hardship was blamed on her!
So Bai Xiruo was dragged up to sort and pick vegetables. She was woken at 4 a.m., and after toiling at the wet market, she only got the chance to go home and catch up on sleep once her aunt and the others took a break.
But just catching up on sleep had already made her almost late…
Also part of the punishment was today’s lunch.
She liked to steal, so today’s lunch would be skipped. Next time she was caught, she would skip two meals, and so on!
Bai Xiruo sat back down. In her school bag were two steamed buns she had bought while passing by a breakfast shop this morning.
She did not plan to eat them during morning self-study, because today she had no lunch. She was going to save them for noon.
The fourth class of the morning was PE.
The PE teacher had not called in sick or taken leave, so the whole class gathered on the sports field.
During the breaks between morning classes, the classmates who were on good terms with Zhang Chen all took turns mocking him about his blond delinquent hair.
But mocking aside, from the way everyone looked at him, it was clear that his newly re-dyed hairstyle definitely did not look bad.
Everyone was just joking around. After all, the blond delinquent hair used to be Zhang Chen’s “dignity.”
All the way through finishing every class this morning except PE, Zhang Chen had not paid attention to a single one. Instead, he was organizing his messy desk and drawers.
As far as he was concerned, these questions whose answers he could figure out with his toes would only make him doze off if he actually tried to listen.
He might as well use this time to see where the current study progress was, so he could report to Nan Xingwan in the evening.
However, while organizing, he dug out quite a few extracurricular books and comics.
So the original body spent every day reading this stuff.
Although the date written was the latest, April 2025, the style of the comics and the content of the extracurricular books all leaned more toward the 2010s.
In the original novel, the world’s setting was only at roughly a 2010s level of technology. The author had just used 2025 because it was easier to remember and went with it…
Including Nan Xingwan’s phone last night, which was just a clunky smartphone that looked like it could only play Match-3 games.
Moreover, in the originally established worldview, this world did not have the series of culture from the original world. The protagonist had gotten his start by plagiarizing works.
If he could, he could actually go to an internet café every night and publish the book written by a certain Potato on a certain website ahead of time, writing that classic line about thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river.
Typing in an internet café, the 2010s, a high school boy… in this world, were not all the buffs perfectly stacked?
Zhang Chen temporarily shelved these thoughts and headed to the sports field with his classmates.
Even though it was only April, the weather was already getting hot. Zhang Chen, for instance, had already taken off his jacket and was wearing short sleeves.
Following standard procedure, the PE teacher led everyone through warm-ups first, then announced that this class would be doing physical fitness testing.
Everyone suddenly understood why the PE teacher had not called in sick or taken leave this class.
“Split into two groups, boys and girls. Boys run 1000 meters, girls run 800 meters.”
Everyone groaned in misery…
“Those who finish testing can rest for the rest of this class.”
“Me!!!”
“Me!!”
“We’ll go first!”
Everyone suddenly became eager again…
“Sister Yu, let us test first. Have Zhang Chen and the boys wait a bit.”
Seeing that the boys’ reactions were stronger, the PE teacher glanced over and had the boys prepare, while a few girls pulled Su Yu aside, wanting her to persuade them.
“Yeah, Little Yu, let Zhang Chen take the boys to play basketball first. What if it’s our turn to test and class ends before we’re done?”
“Exactly, exactly. If lunch ends up with a huge crowd again, we’ll have to line up for ages!”
The last PE class of the morning often let them get to the cafeteria one step ahead of the students in the teaching building, which meant they could avoid the lunch-rush queue when school got out.
Su Yu, after hearing this, also felt it made a lot of sense, but she did not want to talk to Zhang Chen right now.
Ever since last night, Zhang Chen had not come over to say a single word to her!
That was not just the simple, obvious matter of him leaving last night without saying goodbye and not bringing her breakfast this morning.
He was deliberately trying to draw her attention!
He was trying to use sudden coldness to make her uncomfortable!
The more this happened, the less she could show weakness. Instead, she had to act calm and at ease!
Even if she wanted to be tested first, she would not admit it.
“I can’t. I’m scared. Let the boys test first.”
“Ah…”
“There’s nothing to be scared of, Xiaoyu. The cafeteria will have a long line later. Aren’t you worried about that?”
“Exactly, exactly. After eating, I still want to go back to the dorm and wash my hair…”
“It’s fine. They’ll finish testing very quickly. Just wait.” Su Yu did not mention Zhang Chen at all, while sitting cross-legged on the ground.
A few girls saw that and knew Su Yu would not agree.
And soon, Zhang Chen, as the first group’s boy, finished testing and started playing basketball on the sports field.
It had to be said, this body’s toughness was much stronger than his original body’s, to the point that he could even dunk!
As expected of a body that had been fighting all year long… it was much sturdier than a bookworm’s.
The girls could only watch as the boys in their group were free to move around, their eyes full of envy.
Then came the second group and the third group. Time passed little by little, and half the class slipped by before the boys had finally finished testing.
Seeing that, a few girls beside Su Yu finally stood up and hurried over to the PE teacher to fight for the first group’s position.
As for Su Yu, in order to make her previous words sound consistent, she stayed sitting on the ground and did not move, saying they should go test first because she was still a little nervous.
The few girls exchanged glances and said nothing more, just went off to test on their own.
After the girls left, Su Yu looked toward a figure in the center of the basketball court and could not help frowning.
She had not eaten breakfast this morning. Originally, she had wanted to accept Zhang Chen’s breakfast as payment for him helping her get revenge, but she had not expected Zhang Chen to not bring it today.
It was fine that he had not brought breakfast, but he had not even given her an explanation. All morning long, he had not said a single word to her!
Now it was almost noon, and she was very hungry. She did not know whether running later would be affected, and if she got low blood sugar…
She did not want Zhang Chen to use this chance to take her to the infirmary!
Was he not playing hard to get with her? Fine, she would play along!
At worst, he would never come talk to her again from now on!
Just as she was thinking that if she got low blood sugar later, Zhang Chen would definitely not be able to resist taking her to the infirmary, then apologizing and explaining everything, and that she still would not forgive him…
Someone suddenly fainted on the track.
Then she heard several classmates around them say, “What’s going on?”
“Looks like Bai Xiruo?”
“Bai Xiruo fainted?”
The crowd slowly moved toward where Bai Xiruo had collapsed.
Then they saw Zhang Chen say a couple of words to the PE teacher, before carrying Bai Xiruo on his back and running toward the building with the infirmary.
As he passed by Su Yu, Su Yu’s entire body froze.
And Zhang Chen did not even look at her once…