Chapter 188 Qiao Yinan Everyone is Qiao Yinan

After returning to the hotel in the evening, Zhu Yingning and Shen Fei discussed changing their itinerary to look for the alternative companies they had previously listed.

According to the original plan, they should stay in Shanghai for another day tomorrow, but since they have decided not to cooperate with Xu Sirui, Zhu Yingning said that they can change their route and visit other nearby companies tomorrow.

Before going to bed, she finished her shower and sat on the bedside, composing a message for Xu Sirui, wondering how to best tell him. She wrote, revised, deleted, and cut, and after a while, Xu Sirui's phone suddenly rang.

Afraid of waking up Chen Fei, she sneaked outside the room to answer the phone.

"Hello?" Even though the voice was very low, the "Hello" still sounded very abrupt when it sounded in the empty and deserted corridor.

Xu Sirui on the other end didn't speak immediately. It wasn't clear if it was because of a bad signal or if he was planning something. After more than ten seconds, he finally said, "I want to clarify what happened today."

Zhu Yingning took a moment to realize that he was referring to the fact that he had concealed the fact that he and Shen Fei knew each other.

"Well...you say." She suppressed a smile.

Xu Sirui pondered for a moment, then suddenly lost his temper and said, "Okay, I don't have anything to clarify." Then he asked, "Are you angry?"

"So what if I'm angry?"

"If you're angry, I can come over and let you beat me up."

“…”

Is she some kind of violent person? Why does everyone want to be beaten?

"So what if I'm not angry?" she asked.

"If you're not angry, come over tomorrow."

Her thoughts were indeed led astray: "Where?"

Xu Sirui gave the address of his university.

Zhu Yingning was a little stunned and asked tentatively, "Where are we going to discuss work?"

He admitted: "Yes and no."

This answer was too vague. If it wasn't about work, then what was it? A date? If I agreed, I'd feel guilty about using my position for personal gain.

But if she didn't agree, she was afraid that he really had something important to discuss with her, and she also needed to find an opportunity to tell him that she didn't intend to continue the cooperation.

After much deliberation, Zhu Yingning finally agreed: "Okay, then I'll take Chen Fei there tomorrow."

"Chen Fei doesn't need to come, she has other tasks."

"Huh?" Zhu Yingning was stunned. She thought, "I'm her team leader, right? How come I didn't know she had other tasks?" "Aren't you taking it for granted by stepping in?"

But the reason Xu Sirui gave made it impossible for her to refute: "Chen Fei said before that she was upgrading the government website in your township and encountered a few problems. It just so happens that we have a web development expert here, and we can discuss it with her."

"oh……"

Well, then this can't be considered as taking advantage of a business trip to pursue personal interests. This is strictly official business.

After Zhu Yingning convinced herself, she went back to her room to sleep feeling uneasy.

The next day, Xu Sirui must have sent a message to Shen Fei's phone. Shen Fei really said, "Captain, I might have to go to Xu Sirui's studio today to meet a senior and ask her for advice."

She expressed her understanding: "Well, go ahead. Remember to let me know when you get there safely."

They parted at the hotel entrance. Chen Fei walked to the left, while Zhu Yingning put on her backpack and took the subway alone to the university location that Xu Sirui had sent her.

It was the middle of the week, and some students who lived off campus were rushing to attend the morning class, while others who had no classes in the morning were walking towards the school gate chatting and laughing with their friends.

Although it had only been more than half a year since he left the university campus, when he stood at the school gate again and saw the young and bright faces passing by, Zhu Yingning still felt dazed, as if his life on campus was so distant that it seemed like something from his previous life.

Xu Sirui was standing at the entrance of the South Gate, playing with his mobile phone while waiting for her. He was dressed neatly in a white cashmere sweater and sky blue jeans, with a matching long handmade necklace around his neck. He looked like a human clothes hanger, and the hair on his face was clearly visible in the morning sun. I'm afraid people would believe he was a freshman.

She walked towards him, and Xu Sirui looked up at her as if he sensed something and said, "Let's go." Then he led the way in.

"Where are we going to discuss work?" The road was shaded by trees and birds were singing. She followed his steps closely, trying to get to the point quickly.

Xu Sirui said leisurely, "No rush."

Then, like a tourist strolling around the school, he suddenly introduced the school buildings to her, such as this is the administration building, that is the swimming pool, this is the teaching building, and that is the art building.

Not only did she introduce herself, but when she saw male students swimming in the swimming pool, she also made sarcastic comments on other people's figures, saying one of them "looks like boiled chicken, nothing to look at", and the next she said that another "does excessive fitness to attract the same sex, nothing to look at either".

“…”

Zhu Yingning was completely certain that there was no point in talking about a job. This guy just wanted her to visit his school and release his hormones.

Will she turn around and leave, or turn around and leave, or turn around and leave?

As if he had read her mind, Xu Sirui quickly tried to make amends: "Let's just go shopping this morning, and then we'll talk about work."

She looked at him suspiciously: "Do you swear?"

"I swear we'll get the last row when we get in later."

"What?"

Before Zhu Yingning could understand what was happening, he was pulled by the wrist and taken to the teaching building closest to them.

A dozen or so people were already sitting in the classroom at the very end of the first floor, waiting for class to begin. Xu Sirui led her inside, completely unconcerned about being an outsider, and naturally found two seats in the last row of the classroom.

Everyone in the small class was familiar with each other. When they saw two strangers walk in, some people looked at them in surprise, but they quickly thought they were substitute students and turned their eyes away.

Since the classroom was occupied and very quiet, Zhu Yingning couldn't speak loudly. She could only lower her voice and grit her teeth in his ear: "Why did you suddenly enter someone else's classroom? Do you know the teacher of this course?"

He was not justified but confident: "I definitely don't know him."

"You came in here even though you don't know me?!" She looked at the increasing number of students in the classroom and said worriedly, "We've taken up the seats in the last row. Those students who come late are going to hate us."

"Hate it if you want."

She started to worry about something else: "What if someone has no place to sit because of us? We should just leave."

"Come on, 90% of the classes in college are not full."

“But we don’t have textbooks.”

He ignored her.

"If the teacher suddenly calls on us to answer a question during class..."

Xu Sirui narrowed his eyes, turning them into narrow, fox-like ones. He was both angry and amused. "You have an anxious personality, Zhu Yingning? How can you come up with so many ideas for such a trivial matter?" He purred her fur as he spoke. "Alright, you came here with your schoolbag, didn't you? Just find some notebooks and pens and put them on the table. As long as you don't actively look the teacher in the eye when he asks a question, why would he call on you to answer it?"

She slapped his hand away from her head, thought about it carefully, and felt that it made sense. She lowered her head to look for a pen in her backpack. Halfway through, she suddenly realized that something was wrong. Why did she have to stay here? Wouldn't everything be fine if she left? So she immediately grabbed her backpack and prepared to stand up.

At the same time, the bell rang sadly, and a large number of students rushed into the classroom, which had been a little empty. The teacher also walked in from the front door with textbooks and lesson plans, saying to them, "Come on, class has started. Sit down!"

Zhu Yingning could only sit back silently.

The teacher inserted the USB drive, and the name of the course, "Literary Theory", soon appeared on the projection screen on the podium.

Seeing the title, she breathed a sigh of relief. Although she had never been exposed to this course, she was quite confident in her literary accumulation because she had read a lot of books since she was a child. Even if the teacher asked her to answer questions, she should be able to name some famous works and not be speechless.

But she soon realized her excitement was premature, because the teacher's first words went beyond her understanding: "Come, let's review before class. Last class we talked about the call structure of literature. Which student can briefly describe the basic meaning of the call structure?"

“…”

Mistake, big mistake.

She silently followed Xu Sirui's instructions and lowered her eyes to avoid the teacher's gaze.

Out of the corner of her eye, Xu Sirui also lowered his eyes, took the paper and pen she had placed on the desk, and wrote and drew on the notebook with a busy and serious look. Those who didn't know would have thought he was taking notes seriously, but when she glanced sideways - he was actually drawing a turtle on her notebook!

Because they avoided the teacher's sight in time, they all escaped by luck. The teacher called on a student sitting in the front row to answer.

After the student finished speaking proudly, the teacher nodded with satisfaction, asked her to sit down, clicked on the second page of the PPT, and began to introduce today's lesson.

Zhu Yingning breathed a sigh of relief.

In the following classes, she felt like a mouse hiding in the dark, sitting upright, afraid that the teacher would see her. She tried her best to reduce large movements and eye contact to avoid being noticed.

Xu Sirui was in a good mood and drew turtles one after another on her notebook.

Ten minutes into the class, just as they and their classmates had relaxed a bit, the teacher suddenly put down the laser pointer and picked up the folder on the podium: "Okay, let's take a roll call to wake them up."

The class suddenly started to murmur, and Zhu Yingning heard the student sitting in the row in front of them say, "It's over. Should we send a message to the group to inform them?"

"It's too late to send it out."

The teacher looked at the students discussing with satisfaction: "Didn't you expect me to call the roll? I've said before that I'm rather random when it comes to calling the roll, with no pattern to speak of. If you want to get good grades, you still have to rely on self-discipline. Okay, without further ado, first place, Lin Weixin."

"arrive."

"Zhou Chengze."

"arrive."

The students were called one by one.

As members who had intruded, Zhu Yingning and Xu Sirui were quite relaxed in the face of this situation, and watched other students secretly sending messages under their desks to inform their friends who had not come, without any psychological pressure.

They were supposed to just stand by and watch until the roll call was over, but when the teacher on the podium read out a name, Zhu Yingning was stunned.

She heard the teacher read: "Qiao Yinan."

No one in the class answered.

The teacher brought the attendance book closer and, with narrowed eyes, repeated, "Qiao Yinan? Is Qiao Yinan here?"

The class was still silent.

"Qiao Yinan—! You're not here, are you? If you're not here, I'll mark you as absent, okay?"

The two girls in front discussed in a faint voice:

"Did Yi Nan forget to find a substitute teacher?"

"It should be... Well, how about you pinch your throat and imitate her voice?"

"Help me! How can I imitate that? If I want to imitate you, imitate me."

"I can't do that either, sister. Someone will definitely find out."

It’s hard to explain why, but Zhu Yingning didn’t even know this girl named Qiao Yinan.

She thought it might be because of the other person's name.

Just as Zhu Zhiwei had suffered from the harm of male chauvinism since childhood and could not feel at ease to give up the female fetus in her belly, she could not sit idly by and watch the girl with this name.

The influence of favoring boys over girls is like a birthmark branded on her and Zhu Zhiwei's backs. Most of the time, they are not aware of it, but - very occasionally, it will burn hot scars in corners that others cannot see.

The scar on her back ached faintly. With an impulse she couldn't quite explain, she stood up from her seat and weakly replied, "Here." for this girl she had never met.

The teacher had already picked up her pen and was about to record the absence in the attendance book, but when she heard this, she raised her eyelids, and the action made several deep wrinkles on her forehead. The classmates also turned around to look at her in surprise. The teacher looked at Zhu Yingning, then glanced at the roster, and said uncertainly, "...Are you Qiao Yinan?"

Although he had no confidence, Zhu Yingning nodded slowly.

"Are you sure you're Qiao Yinan? You look different from what I remember..." the teacher said, trying to organize his words.

She guessed that the "difference" might be because she was darker, so she bravely replied: "Yes, teacher, I have gotten a little tanned recently."

The other students in the class chuckled when they heard this.

"Tanned?" the teacher repeated her words word by word, pushing his glasses up. Suddenly, he closed the attendance book and said with a stern face, "I don't think it's just a tan. Come on, tell me, when did your gender change, Qiao Yinan?"

The giggling students finally couldn't hold it back and burst into laughter. Some slid under their seats, some punched their deskmates in the thighs, some staggered, some lay flat on the table. The laughter was like waves, threatening to blow the roof off.

Amidst the laughter, Zhu Yingning gradually came to understand what was going on from her stunned state.

This Qiao Yinan turned out to be a man...?!

She was so embarrassed she wanted to find a crack to crawl into and bury herself. What was even more terrifying was that the teacher still firmly believed that she was Qiao Yinan's substitute teacher. He looked amused and disappointed with her: "You are a substitute teacher, right? What's wrong with students nowadays? Don't they even look for substitutes of the same gender? Huh? It's bad enough that you don't have a spirit of research in academics, but how come you don't even have a spirit of research in your substitute teachers?"

"Teacher, I..." She had a sad face and was unable to defend herself.

If she said now that she wasn't a substitute teacher but a visitor from outside, would she be beaten out by the teacher? No, beating her out would be considered a good thing. If someone called the security guard for disrupting the class, that would be truly humiliating.

She racked her brains urgently, trying to think of some way to remedy the situation, but her right hand hanging by her side was suddenly gently grasped by someone.

His fingertips were slightly cold because he was not used to wearing gloves, but his palms were warm and dry.

Using the strength of their handshake, Xu Sirui gently pulled her back to her seat, then stood up and said calmly, "Teacher, my friend was just joking with me. I'm Qiao Yinan."

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The author has something to say: I worked overtime again today, I give up [burst crying] The second update will probably be released very late, I suggest you come back at midnight or the next day [please]