Chapter 4 The Squareness Beneath the Rounded Exterior
One egg wasn't enough for Jiang Meng, so before morning reading, she hid in the stairwell behind the classroom and ate a pancake.
Zhao Yuanting asked her about the book model application.
"It was super cool, right? I stood under that lighting panel, a bunch of photographers were snapping pictures of me, and I was striking all sorts of poses. Then the wind machine was there and blew my hair out in one direction. Wow, I felt like I was Song Hye-kyo shooting an OPPO commercial!"
Zhao Yuanting stared in disbelief: "Really?"
Jiang Meng smiled, "Of course it's fake."
"..."
"Anyone standing there will be dumbfounded, I'm telling you."
Just then, the homeroom teacher, Lin Fei, came up from downstairs with a book in his hand.
The two awkwardly hid the pancake.
Lin Fei didn't blame them, but he looked extremely annoyed. "Hurry up and eat, then go inside and study. It's so early in the morning, why are you dawdling and chattering so much? You two little girls talk so much."
The two of them said in unison, "Okay, okay."
After everyone left.
Jiang Meng watched him leave cautiously: "Old Lin's mouth, why does it smell just like my dad's face?"
Zhao Yuanting laughed: "Is Dr. Jiang still as aloof as ever?"
Jiang Meng rolled her eyes: "Stop talking. I get annoyed just seeing him. If it weren't for the money, I would never want him to come home. Of course, he must be annoyed just seeing me too."
Zhao Yuanting: "He didn't want to see you first, so you didn't want to see him either."
Jiang Meng: "What's the difference?"
"The difference is that no one is born disliking their parents, but the reverse is true."
Jiang Meng pondered these words for a moment, then stared at her and raised her voice: "Zhao Yuanting, when did you become so profound?"
Lin Fei came over again with his hands behind his back, looked at the two of them, and hissed for a long time.
The two slipped away as fast as they could.
Back at her seat, Jiang Meng carefully clipped the Chinese language journals she had received into their folders. A girl came over after collecting all the homework from their group, but didn't leave immediately. She waited until Jiang Meng finished counting each group before gently asking, "Jiang Meng, did you come to school with Xie Zhuo today?"
“Yes.” Jiang Meng glanced at the other person’s refined and delicate face. It was Chi Yu’en, someone she didn’t interact with much.
Although Jiang Meng and Xie Zhuo were good friends, she didn't want to be looked at differently by others just because she was friends with such an influential person: "Don't get me wrong, I hired his car for three thousand a month. It was a rip-off. I don't recommend it at all."
As soon as she finished speaking, an exquisite glass jar filled with origami stars was placed on her table.
Chi Yu'en said, "Could you give this to Chen Jizhou for me?"
...What a clever feint!
Jiang Meng was taken aback.
She looked up again and examined her carefully.
There was a light blue envelope under the jar. When Chi Yu'en saw Jiang Meng pick out the envelope, she blushed and said, "It's not a love letter, it's...it's a thank-you note."
What should I thank?
Jiang Meng didn't ask, but simply said, "Why didn't you give it to yourself?"
Chi Yu'en hesitated for a moment, then looked ahead and saw the teacher entering the classroom. She lowered her voice and said, "The teacher is here. I'll talk to you when I have time."
Jiang Meng looked at the things in her hand with a sense of frustration.
It's unclear when exactly, but Chen Jizhou suddenly gained many followers.
But she rarely encounters such a thing.
In Zhao Yuanting's words, "I guess those girls who like him have all seen the same anime plot, where a beautiful girl delivers a love letter to her childhood sweetheart, and the owner of the love letter always ends up as a cannon fodder supporting character, so who would be stupid enough to let you pass it on?"
Jiang Meng stroked her chin: "Wait a minute, you be the judge first. That childish brat who talks nonsense, loves to play pranks, and is super narcissistic, can he really be that charming?"
After careful consideration, Zhao Yuanting said, "To be honest, she's quite charming. Please put aside your prejudice."
My impression of Chen Jizhou's handsomeness started in junior high school. During that early adolescence when everyone was a mess, he had an incomparably handsome face, lively and playful. A slight smile from him could make half of the girls in the class fall head over heels for him, while the other group of girls hadn't yet developed feelings for each other and were still infatuated with their two-dimensional male gods.
Jiang Meng is the one who is obsessed with anime/manga male gods.
She herself is outstanding in terms of personal qualities, but boys don't like writing love letters, so Jiang Meng is more likely to receive flowers.
Besides, although she's beautiful, she doesn't actually have as many suitors as people imagine. Perhaps her stunning looks and figure make her seem unapproachable and uncontrollable to boys. A goddess is different from a girlfriend; she's best admired from afar. After all, in a southern campus, there probably aren't enough boys taller than her to fill two classrooms.
Of course, there were also brave boys who were just over 1.6 meters tall who pursued her, which made Jiang Meng very depressed: They really don't understand what they like about me. Do they like that when they are sad and wronged, they can lean on my shoulder and cry?
Zhao Yuanting and her friends are still laughing about this.
As soon as get out of class ended, Jiang Meng took out her phone and opened her friend A's chat window.
Jiang Meng: "Are you there?"
A: "1"
They replied instantly.
Jiang Meng: "You're up so early! Going to work?"
A: Going to school
Jiang Meng: "Oh, you're quite young?"
A: "Do you imagine me to be very old?"
In her imagination?
The other person should be a successful man, probably working as a comic convention planner or something similar.
Jiang Meng: "It's not important, I have something to tell you."
Jiang Meng: "Remember my childhood friend from last time? He was incredibly handsome and had an amazing way of attracting the opposite sex."
A: "So handsome!"
Jiang Meng thought for a moment: "One of the school's most handsome guys"
A: "One of them?"
Jiang Meng thought for a moment and said, "There are a few guys in our school who are about the same good-looking, but in my opinion, he's the most handsome."
A: "Yes"
Jiang Meng: "About what?"
A: "...Wrong number."
A: "What's wrong? You like him because he's handsome?"
Jiang Meng: "What a joke!"
Jiang Meng: "Even if mountains crumble and the heavens and earth unite, I could never like him; even if I were childless, I could never like him; and I could never like him in the next life. The only time I could like him would probably be in his dreams."
A: "
The screen was just blank for a while.
Jiang Meng organized her thoughts and told him, "A classmate of mine likes him and asked me to give him a gift. But based on my understanding of my childhood friend, he won't like a roundabout way, so my chances of success are even lower. But I'm also afraid that my classmate will think I'm heartless."
A: "Is it difficult for you to say no to others?"
A: "I said I didn't want to."
Those four very serious words severed all possibility of her hesitation and entanglement.
Jiang Meng suddenly didn't know what to say. She put away her phone and absentmindedly took out the books she needed for the next class.
-
Chi Yu'en found Jiang Meng again after school.
When she arrived, Jiang Meng was sitting alone on a seat on the platform, waiting for her train. A group of people had just left, leaving an empty seat.
Chi Yu'en asked, "May I sit down?"
Jiang Meng nodded quickly, "Of course."
Chi Yu'en lowered her face and after a long while, she said, "I'm just too timid. I was prepared, but I backed down when the time came."
Jiang Meng: "Are you afraid of being rejected?"
Chi Yu'en: "Yes, I'm afraid he won't even accept my gift and will return it to me in front of me. I might cry. If he says anything nasty, please don't tell me. I'm a little sensitive."
Jiang Meng reassured her that it wouldn't happen.
A gentle breeze swept by, and they remained silent for a long time.
Jiang Meng asked, "Why do you like him?"
She was making conversation out of boredom, but she genuinely wanted to know the answer.
Chi Yu'en said, "I was in the same class as him in the first year of high school, and he helped me out of a difficult situation."
"About Teacher Qian?"
"……Um."
Jiang Meng and Chen Jizhou were never in the same class, but she heard about it.
Their class was assigned a newly graduated English teacher named Qian Mingyuan. He was extremely serious. When the monthly exam results came out and the class ranking was not high enough, Qian Mingyuan entered the classroom with a ruler in hand and spread a stack of test papers on the podium.
"I see that there are actually a few students who failed. I don't know how they got such low scores. From now on, my rule is that for every point you're off the passing mark, you get a beating. Don't say that corporal punishment is outdated. I think some of you have no shame at all. I'll help you learn your lesson."
As he spoke, he tossed the first test paper out, "Chi Yu'en."
The girl blushed as she took the test paper, and as she was about to leave, the man behind her called out, "Did I say you could leave?"
Chi Yu'en stood there, at a loss.
Qian Mingyuan: "You can tell me how many points you're short yourself."
After an awkward silence of about half a minute, Chi Yu'en uttered two very soft syllables: "Three points."
Qian Mingyuan said coldly, "Speak louder."
In the extremely serious atmosphere, overlapping with his voice was the clear and calm voice of the boy in the back seat—"There are only girls in the class, do you have to be so fierce?"
Qian Mingyuan looked down to see who had said it, and his gaze quickly settled on the boy in the back row: "Is this ruthless? Then you take the hit for them."
Chen Jizhou replied without hesitation, "Sure."
Qian Mingyuan raised an eyebrow at him: "Are you sure?"
He sat there in the light, looking quite dashing: "Come on, I'm tough."
A boy in front shouted, "Chen Jizhou, you're so handsome! You stole the spotlight from the hero who saved the damsel in distress!"
Chen Jizhou smiled faintly: "You flatter me."
Qian Mingyuan hadn't originally intended to do anything to him, but this frivolous attitude only made him angrier.
He came down with the ruler in his hand, and Chen Jizhou received three solid whacks.
"How about a few more hits on the right side?"
Chen Jizhou calmly and unhurriedly pushed up his right sleeve: "I was just wondering how to avoid writing compositions in Chinese class. The excuse of being honorably wounded is acceptable."
He leaned against the back of the table, a nonchalant smile on his face: "But let's make this clear first, you can't hit them after you're done beating me, I can't let this limelight go to waste."
Someone nearby burst into laughter.
Qian Mingyuan was so angry that he threw the ruler down.
During a casual chat in the office after class, Qian Mingyuan brought up the matter. The teachers exchanged glances, and he then learned that Chen Jizhou's mother was a leader in the Education Bureau. Having offended a real rich kid, Qian Mingyuan was quite frightened. He immediately invited Chen Jizhou to his office after school and said, "Sit down."
Chen Jizhou wasn't that rebellious; he knew the rules. This place was full of teachers' chairs; where could he possibly sit?
He stood there without moving, neither humble nor arrogant: "Please speak frankly about what you want to say."
Then Qian Mingyuan also stood up and said, "If you still hold a grudge about what happened in class, I'll apologize to you, either in class or not. But there are some things we should talk about behind closed doors."
Chen Jizhou's eyes remained calm. After he finished speaking, he understood the unspoken meaning: "This little thing is not worth me complaining about. You are a teacher, so you can educate me however you want. You do what you think is right, and I will do what I think is right. That's all."
He didn't seem to intend to have a deeper conversation.
Qian Mingyuan sat back down, his legs feeling a little weak: "Okay, it's good that you didn't take it to heart."
Chi Yu'en was about to knock on the door to hand in her homework when she heard Chen Jizhou and the teacher talking. She stood at the door for a while, rehearsing her lines. As soon as Chen Jizhou came out, she quickly followed him: "Thank you for today... Are you in pain?"
"It's nothing," Chen Jizhou said casually, not taking it seriously at all. He was in a hurry to get to the court and went downstairs as soon as he left the office. "I've been beaten since I was a child. My mother didn't like me. She wore out a lot of clothes hangers at home. I have calluses all over my body. I'm indestructible now."
His eyes held a detached composure, as if he felt it was all unnecessary from beginning to end, and that any aspect being magnified was particularly pointless.
He doesn't need apologies or thanks.
Chi Yu'en hadn't planned to go downstairs, but she was a little confused and didn't know if he was joking to comfort her or if he really meant it. She hesitated for a moment, then took two steps after him, "Really?"
Chen Jizhou remained noncommittal. As he walked past the corner of the stairs, his voice faded into the distance, but the empty stairwell still carried clearly: "A new broom sweeps clean, and everyone thinks they have a way to cure the students. He's taking himself too seriously. He didn't mean to embarrass anyone, so don't take it to heart."
He might have seen her crying in her seat, frightened by Qian Mingyuan.
Whether or not I get beaten is secondary; being punished in public is the most damaging to my self-esteem.
God gave him the ability to empathize with people; he could always see the subtle sensitivities, sufferings, or hardships that others faced.
After listening, Jiang Meng was silent for a while before telling her, "He was indeed raised with beatings, so he's not easily intimidated by the teacher's two blows. So you don't need to worry about him; he has an incredibly strong self-healing ability."
To be precise, he wouldn't get hurt at all.
Chen Jizhou was too mischievous; he'd be climbing on the roof and tearing off tiles if he wasn't disciplined for three days. Especially when he was eight or nine years old practicing the piano, Wang Qi wanted nothing more than to nail him to the piano bench. The little guy would raise his head and shout defiantly, "I just don't like playing the piano!" which almost got him slapped flat on the ground. However, after realizing that "family discipline" couldn't cure his spoiled habits, his mother became too lazy to punish him.
He practiced Taekwondo as a child and genuinely earned a black belt. A younger boy asked, "What's it like to spar with a black belt?"
Chen Jizhou said with his eyes closed, "I haven't tried it in actual combat, but I have an advantage: long legs."
The other party bluntly stated, "I understand, I understand, the height difference is overwhelming!"
He chuckled: "Do you really know anything or not? If you have long legs, you can run faster than others when you get beaten up."
As he spoke, he tapped the other person's forehead and said earnestly, "Grow taller, you'd better grow taller."
Honestly, people who know to run away after being beaten are generally more mentally resilient than those who cover their mouths and cry after being beaten. So he never complained about how much psychological trauma such treatment had caused him. He rarely talked about these things. Only once, when he was asked about it while sneaking out to play snooker with others, he smiled casually as he swung his cue and hit the ball: "My mother thought she could raise good talents, but giving birth to Chen Jizhou was a misstep for her."
He can naturally adapt to many things, such as people's different temperaments and ways of behaving, and thus he can move flexibly and adaptably in this world.
Jiang Meng felt more envy than admiration for him, and also had a learning attitude towards him.
For example, how can I gain a lot of favorability points without any effort?
How to retain the principle of a square shape within a rounded appearance?
It's difficult to navigate social situations, and she's still clumsily trying to gain other people's trust by "not refusing."
Jiang Meng held the gift in her hand, tapped her toes on the ground, and her thoughts drifted far away.
Until someone next to me called out, "Jiang Meng?"
She looked at Chi Yu'en, still curious: "Why did you ask me to give it to him?"
Chi Yu'en pursed her lips, as if hesitating for a moment before speaking, her voice soft as she said, "Because I've observed him for quite a while, and he never accepts things from girls, but I've noticed—"
"Um?"
"He seems to listen to you a lot, and only to you."
"..."
Jiang Meng almost couldn't catch her breath.
This is a very delicate matter.
If she didn't explain, she was afraid of getting involved in a romantic dispute, so she smiled, her eyes curving into a beautiful arc that would make her easily forgiven: "He doesn't like me, he's just been oppressed by me since he was a child and doesn't dare to resist."
Chi Yu'en nodded, then smiled and said, "Okay."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com