Chapter 21 Dazzling, Warm, and Refreshing

In the days that followed, everyone gradually got along well with this new classmate from out of town.

With Ning Yanzhao's intentional or unintentional encouragement, He Shenmo revealed his true situation, such as that he just liked collecting landscape photos and printing them out to make bookmarks, that his art skills were actually very average and could not be compared with those of his classmates, and that his parents' jobs were not as prestigious as he had imagined.

Most things are better explained clearly from the beginning to avoid future problems.

During this period, Ning Yanzhao would often take advantage of her free time to visit the place where she knew He Shenmo had been killed.

However, Ning Yanzhao is currently a minor here, so she cannot enter the internet cafe for the time being. Therefore, she can only start by dealing with He Shenmo and the area outside the internet cafe. Fortunately, she is a day student, which gives her more freedom compared to other boarding students.

If Ning Yanzhao chooses to take a different route home, this street near the internet cafe could become her only way home, giving her more opportunities to observe the area each day.

Actually, it's a bit dangerous for a girl to be "wandering" outside alone after 9 pm after evening self-study. But she's the only one here who knows what's going to happen in the future, so she has to fight this battle alone.

Ning Yanzhao was more confident after successfully helping Xu Yongqing last time, because Xu Yongqing really was taken abroad by her biological mother to embrace a new life, just as Jing Yiran had said.

She doesn't yet know why she traveled back nine years, giving Ning Yanzhao the opportunity to help others and change their fates. But since she's here, and doesn't know when she might suddenly travel back, she has to do what she can within the limited time she has, so that her future self won't regret it. She hopes that this time she can at least change some of He Shenmo's fate.

After observing for the past few days, Ning Yanzhao found that the environment around the internet cafe street was pretty much as she had imagined, and she couldn't see anything strange about it for the time being.

In fact, the most fundamental way to solve a problem is to start from the source and cut off the path of its development.

In this incident, the source is to prevent the "rumors" that could affect He Shenmo from arising. However, since Ning Yanzhao does not know who started them, the best approach is to suppress the potential spread of these "rumors."

In the second year of high school, although Class 1 and Class 2 had physical education classes at the same time, because the two physical education teachers had different preferred positions, Ning Yanzhao could only secretly keep an eye on the position of Class 1 when running around the playground.

But for some reason today, as Ning Yanzhao watched An Nianyu's class approach and get closer, she simply looked at An Nianyu indifferently. Was it because no one would notice her anyway, or because she had already grown out of the process of what was called unrequited love?

However, Ning Yanzhao's Class 2 and An Nianyu's Class 1 were having their physical education class in the same area at the same time, which seemed to have never happened before.

However, ever since Ning Yanzhao began to have experience with time travel, she has started to get used to this kind of life with subtle differences.

After their eyes met briefly, the physical education class officially began.

"Alright, alright, students, gather together. Today, the PE teacher for Class 1 is absent due to some matters, so I will be teaching PE for both classes. Since this is a rare opportunity, let's play a water bottle snatching game together."

"Ugh, isn't this a really old game?" Not long after the PE teacher announced the schedule for today's class, a student was quietly "complaining" because he felt it was very unoriginal.

"It's not as simple as you imagine, where everyone does the same thing at the same time, and then suddenly the order is changed to grab water bottles and test everyone's reaction ability."

Unexpectedly, the PE teacher had excellent hearing and heard the student's voice. However, the PE teacher was not angry. The student scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly, and the other students who were about to complain also shut up.

"The rules of the game are as follows: place water bottles with the names of classmates written on them in the big circle in the middle, which will be represented by a hula hoop. Each class will send four people to participate in each round, and each class will also send one person as a referee. That means there are ten students participating in each round. I did a simple calculation of the number of students in the two classes. Since there are quite a few students in the two classes, the game can be divided into about ten rounds. If there is more time, we can have more rounds, so as to give every student a chance to participate."

"The specific method for grabbing the water bottles is also a bit different from usual. I asked everyone to dribble the basketball while grabbing the water bottles, and you can only take one water bottle at a time. Finally, here's the important part: you can't just grab any water bottle; you have to retrieve the water bottle with your classmate's name on it. To encourage everyone to participate actively, the PE teacher specially bought drinks for everyone at his own expense today. The names have already been written by the PE representatives of the two classes and pasted on the bottles. After the game, everyone can take the drinks back to the classroom to drink."

"The class that wins the most bottles gets to have free time for the entire next PE class, instead of running laps around the track. Isn't that awesome?"

Then, with the physical education teacher's command, the competition officially began.

Normally, what everyone hates most is running exercises, because it's unavoidable for the whole school to run together in the morning. Now, everyone is more enthusiastic than expected because they can avoid running as many times as possible during physical education class.

While ensuring the basketball doesn't slip from their hands, they also have to find the names of their classmates among a pile of beverage bottles and return them to their class's designated area. For many students, achieving both speed and accuracy is quite challenging.

Some students were initially quite relaxed, but seeing how fast their competitors were moving, they soon had no choice but to get involved in the competition.

Time always flies when you're focused; half an hour passed in no time.

During the game, Ning Yanzhao, who was not in the same group as An Nianyu, became too engrossed in the game and didn't realize that her basketball skills might shock others.

He Shenmo doesn't seem to be very good at sports, and he completed the task in a mediocre way overall.

During our school years, it seems that people preferred approachable classmates to aloof, high-achieving goddesses.

During a break when the game was about to end, Ning Yanzhao and Jing Yiran, who had already finished their round, started chatting.

"Oh my god, this is going to kill me. I haven't played basketball in ages. Today I have to bend over and look for drink bottles with our classmates' names on them. I can't take this every day."

"Yeah, yeah, you guys are lucky, you can even play basketball. But I'm suffering, I can't play basketball, and I can't even see clearly."

"Haha, it's okay, it's okay. Playing basketball is just a passing thing, just forget about it." Jing Yiran remembered that Ning Yanzhao really couldn't play basketball, so she had a very difficult time in the game just now. Moreover, today's game seemed to be targeting her weaknesses. In addition to playing basketball, she also has mild nearsightedness. She thought that today's PE class would just be like before, running around, but she didn't expect that she would have to find bottles. She didn't wear her glasses at all.

"Ugh, let's not talk about basketball anymore. I have something else that's making me angry. Tell me, what did that person mean by that? I didn't do anything, so why did that girl from Class 1 roll her eyes at me?"

Do you have a grudge against her?

"How is that possible? I don't know her at all, and I didn't even touch her just now."

"Then there's another possibility. Based on my observations and my experience watching TV dramas, it's possible that you were helped up by the sports representative of her class out of kindness, and she might have a bit of a crush on that sports representative, so she rolled her eyes at you in a fit of pique."

"No way? That's it?"

"Well, that's it. Now that I think about it, something suddenly came to mind. That sports committee member from Class 1 seems to treat you differently. Do you remember the last sports meet? You were running the 3000 meters. Besides me, the other person who was running alongside you on the sidelines was him. At the time, I thought he was accompanying a girl from his class because he was giving you water while also giving water to that girl from his class. So I thought it was just pure friendship and ignored his incredibly blushing face when he gave you water. Now that I think about it, I realize it was full of flaws."

"I often saw their class's sports representative loitering outside our classroom. I thought it was strange and assumed he was there to hang out with one of the boys in our class. But it turns out he had ulterior motives."

“Hey, you know what…” Ning Yanzhao didn’t know why, but even though so many years had passed, she still remembered all sorts of little details so clearly. So, she couldn’t stop herself and started telling Jing Yiran her opinions one by one.

Teenage girls are always easily embarrassed, especially when their closest friends talk about their so-called "crush". Jing Yiran's face slowly turned an unnatural red. "Stop talking, ahhhhh..." Jing Yiran seemed to have been touched on a sore spot, and then pretended to tighten her grip on Ning Yanzhao's neck.

Ning Yanzhao, of course, was not going to sit idly by and wait for her doom, so the two of them started a childish chase.

Since it was a physical education class, a time for students to exercise and play freely, no one stopped the two from chasing and playing around. The physical education teachers on the playground exclaimed, "It's so good to be young!"

The two of them didn't exercise often except when they were fighting for the cafeteria, so they got tired after chasing and playing for more than ten minutes. Seeing that the other class had already disbanded, they simply gave up and leaned against the basketball hoop to rest, since no one was playing basketball at the moment anyway.

"Jing Yiran, come here quickly, your parents are here to bring you something." Just a few minutes after the two had rested, they heard the gatekeeper calling Jing Yiran from afar. Because Jing Yiran is usually very polite and gets along well with everyone, she has even gotten along well with the security guard. The security guard knows her name and often chats with her when she leaves the school.

"Okay, I'm coming, security guard."

"Yan Zhao, I'm going there."

"Okay, go quickly."

Although it's winter, everyone felt hot after exercising under the blazing sun, especially Ning Yanzhao, who had just been exercising intensely.

Just as Ning Yanzhao was wondering whether she should go to the school store to buy ice cream with Jing Yiran, she saw An Nianyu walking over. He was holding a bottle of drink in his hand. For some reason, Ning Yanzhao had a feeling that the bottle he was holding was the one with her name on it.

It was an iced drink that the PE teacher had given everyone during the competition between the two classes. It was also used as a game prop. To distinguish them, the PE teacher had even labeled each person's drink with their name. She had just forgotten about it while playing.

"Yours, you forgot to take it."

Ning Yanzhao took the chilled drink from An Nianyu while in a daze. Even though it had been out of the refrigerator for a while, water kept dripping from the bottle into her palm.

Ning Yanzhao wondered how to describe this feeling. It was probably like driving with the car window open under the setting sun, feeling the evening breeze blowing from all sides, giving a warm and refreshing feeling.