Chapter Ninety-Two: Back to School Again

  Li Zhengyang said with a scowl: "Gu Nian, don't think you've got the upper hand and try to be clever, this matter is not to be mentioned again."

  Gu Nian said with a smug face: "You're not allowed to mention it, but I'm going to... I just have to mention it, Li Zhengyang lost his red envelope money to me, Li Zhengyang lost his red envelope money to me..." Li Zhengyang pretended to come over and cover Gu Nian's mouth, Ji Fengyuan laughed and said: "Alright, alright, stop making a fuss, you two are just a pair of treasures." Li Zhengyang and Gu Nian simultaneously said: "Who is a pair with him/her?"

  Ji Feng said, "You three are really something, my good friends. You're making such a ruckus in front of my new classmates, aren't you afraid of scaring them off? Look at how quiet and well-behaved they are, take a lesson from them."

  Gu Nian hastily ran to my side, grabbed my hand and said: "Xiao Xiao, weren't you scared? I and this Li Zhengyang are a bit crazy, but we don't have any malicious intentions, don't be scared, okay? You'll get used to it later."

  I shook my head and said, "It's okay, I'm actually a bit crazy sometimes, it's just that we're not familiar with each other yet, so you'll know in the future, can I call you Nian Nian?" Gu Nian nodded.

  Ji Feng said, "Nan Xiuxiu, school starts the day after tomorrow. How's your leg? I saw you walking slowly just now, is everything okay?" I looked at my knee and said, "It's fine, probably just need to take a few more days of medicine and then it'll heal naturally. Now I'm just walking a bit slow and it hurts a bit, but everything else is getting better and better. Besides, when we're in school most of the time we're sitting down, so it won't affect anything."

  Gu Niang heard that my foot wasn't too good, and asked: "Xiao Xiao, how did your foot become uncomfortable? Fortunately it's not serious, my brother once had a fracture. According to him, the days of rest were so unbearable that he wanted to go crazy." "Nian Nian, I'm not as serious as your brother, it's just a soft tissue injury, caused by standing in an incorrect posture during military training. It's also my own fault, which made me miss our class's first collective activity, the military training report performance."

  Jifeng said, "Don't think it's a pity. Actually, the military training report performance isn't that important, physical health is what matters most. I heard you suddenly fell down in pain that afternoon."

  Gu Xiang continued: "Xiao Xiao is indeed a girl with a strong sense of collective honor."

  I thought to myself: Nian Nian, you really overestimated me. Although I do value collective honor, there's something else I couldn't say out loud - I wanted to see Ji Feng Yuan wearing camouflage and marching past the presidential stage, but unfortunately missed it. However, there was still high school military training, so I shouldn't have missed it then. Was I really like this back then? At that time, I didn't think about all these things.

  After a while, I heard Lu Zhanfeng shouting for me. I stood up and looked around, and my cousin was standing there with several skewers of meat in his hand, which should be for me. He was anxiously looking for me. I called out to him: "Cousin, I'm over here!" And waved at him. After he saw me, he beckoned me to go down. I checked my watch and it wasn't early anymore. I said goodbye to Ji Fengyuan and the others, and slowly went downstairs.

  Lu Zhanfeng saw me coming down and said with a smirk: "Cousin, you scared me to death, I thought I'd lost you."

  "I'm not made of paper, I won't be blown away by the wind."

  "Who made you a road idiot, your sense of direction is so poor, I'm worried. Here, this is the roasted lamb skewer from that side, I waited for a while to get a few more, let's eat together." My cousin and I walked in the direction of home while eating.

  Li Zhengyang and Gu Nian, although they liked to bicker with each other, had a common topic of interest - food. After Nan Xiao left, they went to eat with Ji Fengyuan and Lu Zhenfei. Ji Fengyuan was still looking at the place where Nan Xiao had left, even though she was no longer in sight. Lu Zhenfei slowly said: "Fengzi, is this the girl that Jingya was talking about? Are you really going to do what Jingya said? I think you seem to like girls of that type."

  Jifeng fell silent for a while, then said: "But I owe Jingya, so I will listen to whatever she says."

  "But isn't this going a bit too far? Jingya didn't mean for you to do everything she says, you should have your own principles."

  "Fei Zi, don't worry, I have a sense of propriety, I won't harm anyone."

  A day passed by in a flash, and today is actually the time to go back to school. In the past, it was definitely my cousin and I riding our bikes to school. This time, although my feet are a bit sore, I think it's still okay for me to ride my bike to school. However, none of my family members, including my parents, uncle, and grandmother, support me. My cousin even offered to give me a ride on his bike, saying he wants to take me to school. Since he insisted so strongly, I couldn't not give him the chance. Besides, my cousin has given me rides before, and I trust his driving skills. It's great to have a cousin who treats me like a little sister! You can all be jealous now - this is something that needs to be cultivated from a young age.

  It feels great not to ride a bike, I'm sitting in the back of my brother's car, my feet occasionally swinging back and forth, it's really cool. It reminds me of two Korean dramas that I loved watching the most in my previous life. One is "Winter Sonata" where the male and female leads, Kang Joon-sang and Jung Yu-jin, rode a bike together on an autumn day, with the autumn wind blowing and leaves falling, so romantic. The other one is "Stairway to Heaven" where the male and female leads, Cha Song-ju and Han Chae-rin, rode a bike together when they were young, both stretching their hands out straight, as if they wanted to fly, coming down from a small downhill path, so thrilling, so in sync.

  I still remember when I was watching it, I was very envious and hoped that in the future, I would also have someone to accompany me like that. However, primary school and high school passed by quickly, and even as university is about to end, that person has not appeared yet. I really don't know if that person will only appear when I'm old and can no longer ride a bike.

  As I thought of this, I suddenly had a strange idea. Even if we're not lovers, I can still experience it on my brother's bicycle, so I made bigger movements. Not long after, my brother's cycling skills were quite good, and he loudly said: "Sister, what are you doing in the back? The bike doesn't even listen to me, don't move around, or else you'll fall off and hit your head!"

  Ugh, no way, isn't it supposed to be autumn after summer? Isn't school about to start? I just had a slight crush, all because of seeing Ji Feng Yuan's excitement. My inner universe is not calm anymore! No, no, I need to calm down, I'm Calm Sister, otherwise what's the difference between me and those girls who follow Ji Feng Yuan around? Or else I'll be looked down on by Ji Feng Yuan.

  After arriving at the tenth classroom, I finally found a place to put down my bag and sit down. Just as I was about to say a few words, our head teacher arrived. So, it's true that Sister Mei is punctual. The head teacher came up and said: "Classmates, before the military training last time, I had already introduced myself. However, there is one classmate who did not participate in the military training due to physical reasons. Now, let me introduce myself again. My name is Sun Rui'an, and I am your math teacher as well as your head teacher. Classmates, the student who did not attend the military training is Hou Jingya. I hope you all will take care of her and communicate with her more often. Don't exclude her just because she didn't participate in the military training. Okay, now let's start by handing over the deposit slips for the registration fee to me, one group at a time, don't rush."

  Group by group, we quickly finished. There are only forty-five of us in the class. After the head teacher had sorted out the deposit slips, she said: "Next, we're going to get new books and notebooks. I hope everyone can play their part, don't push and shove, take as many books as you can carry, don't say he took fewer, I'll follow suit and take fewer too. Alright, line up and follow me to the library to collect your books."

  After we arrived at the library, we found that many people were there to borrow books. It seemed like several classes of students were there. The class teacher and staff negotiated for a while and then told us: "Classmates, since there are so many students borrowing books, let's all wait outside the library. We'll go in after one class has finished borrowing."

  Students are like this, even getting textbooks requires queuing up in order. Since there were many new books, it took a while for the class to come out of the library. As the sun got higher and higher, we felt hotter and hotter standing outside, and some classmates were getting impatient. Fortunately, before everyone became completely impatient, we finally entered the library to get our books. Some girls were in charge of counting how many books there were, and after confirming that everything was correct, the boys moved them away. It's really a case of "men and women working together is not tiring".

  After arriving at the classroom, our head teacher let us rest for a while before starting to distribute textbooks. He counted how many kinds of textbooks there were and then called on several male students to go up and distribute them, saying that boys have more strength, so girls can just take a break. As a result, one boy in our class said in the space where our head teacher went to the office: "Boys, our head teacher still favors girls! I heard that both our Chinese teacher and English teacher are male teachers. If all male teachers favor female students, what will happen to us poor boys? We've become Yang Bailao, and they're all Huang Shiren!"

  Another boy chimed in, "Yeah, yeah, I've heard that too. The girls in our class are rare animals, so we need to protect them. We're thick-skinned and strong, what's the point of not doing hard labor?"

  Gan Lingling suddenly stood out and said: "Ding Yiliu, what are you talking about? What do you mean we're rare animals, you're the animal. And what's with Yang Bailao Huang Shiren, where's that white-haired girl? Honestly, you think a class with more girls is good? I heard from my cousin that a class with more girls means the girls act like boys, and the boys... are treated like beasts."