"To repay evil with kindness or to kick someone when they're down?"
Before Ying Yunsheng could figure out how to answer, the other person asked again, "Or perhaps you've come to inspect the fruits of your labor?"
His face remained motionless, but his fingers, hanging at his sides, froze.
"Don't be so nervous," Ji Li said gently. "I don't have my phone with me right now, so I can't record anything."
Ying Yunsheng didn't answer, but directly changed the subject: "Why are you here?"
Ji Li: "I take my PE classes here."
Ying Yunsheng frowned.
“I’m just curious.” Ji Li’s tone was a little puzzled. “When he called people to surround you back then, you didn’t seem to hate him that much. Why do you suddenly want something to happen to him now?”
Ying Yunsheng thought of the box of pastries that had been thrown on the ground, pursed his lips, and remained silent.
After waiting for half a minute without receiving a reply, Ji Li changed the question: "Back to the classroom?"
"What?"
"The next class should be starting soon," Ji Li said. "Shall we go back to the classroom together?"
On the way back, I passed a cake shop. The window wasn't open yet, but the blurry figures of the shop assistants behind the frosted glass were busy at work, and the sweet aroma of freshly baked cream wafted out.
Ying Yunsheng glanced over there unconsciously.
Ji Li noticed his gaze: "By the way, did you like the daifuku I gave you last time?"
Ying Yunsheng paused slightly: "Hmm."
What's your favorite flavor?
"What?"
Ji Li thought he hadn't heard her clearly, so she repeated, "What's your favorite flavor of daifuku?"
"chocolate."
Ji Li chuckled lightly: "I'll try it next time I have the chance."
.
"You didn't see it because you didn't go to PE class," Ye Ruhui described with embellishment. "Such a big bottle of pepper spray, as red as paint, it was poured on every drop. I felt like my eyes were going to go blind just looking at it."
Ji Li wrote down one option on the exam paper: "Sprinkling pepper spray into the eyes generally will not cause blindness."
What's the principle behind this?
"Have you ever seen anyone go blind after being sprayed with pepper spray?"
This incident caused such a huge uproar that by the time school leaders received the news and rushed over to handle it, the matter had already spread throughout the entire school as if it had sprouted wings.
Because of the highly informative conversation between the two during their conflict, the love-hate relationship between Shen Huai, Cun Tou, and the girl Cun Tou mentioned was completely imagined by everyone, from the cause to the result. Four or five versions were dug up in just one afternoon, which became a topic of great interest to everyone.
However, no matter how much noise there is outside, it has nothing to do with the key classes of the grade.
Especially during the last Chinese class in the afternoon, Mao Xianzhi would slam his textbook on the podium and announce: "Everyone, take out your draft paper and prepare to recite 'Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng' in five minutes."
One sentence pulled everyone's souls back from gossip.
Mao Xianzhi added: "If you make one mistake, copy the original text once; if you make two mistakes, copy it twice; the maximum is five times. Anyone who thinks they can't remember it can start copying now."
Ye Ruhui was shocked: "Do you want us to die?"
Mao Xianzhi pulled off a pen cap and threw it at him: "If you make more than five mistakes, you'll be standing during next week's Chinese class."
Qiaozhong is a key municipal high school, and its learning progress has never changed according to the students' grade level. Specifically, when they were just starting their second year of high school, their Chinese textbook had already reached the fifth compulsory course.
Mao Xianzhi did not follow the syllabus for his lessons, but instead selected the classical Chinese texts to explain first.
With five minutes to prepare before the dictation, Ye Ruhui flipped through the textbook noisily while complaining, "I've never seen such differential treatment."
Jian Mingyuan sat at the desk behind him, staring at the classical Chinese text in his textbook—a text as long as a college entrance exam essay—for a full three seconds. He then turned to his deskmate and asked, "Genius, have you finished memorizing it?"
Ji Li picked up a blank sheet of draft paper, tearing it off as he recited: "Yuzhang, the old prefecture, Hongdu, the new capital, its stars align with the constellations of Wing and Chariot, its land borders Heng and Lu, it embraces the three rivers and girdles the five lakes, controlling the barbarian lands of Jing and leading to the lands of Ou and Yue..."
Jian Mingyuan listened intently, his jaw dropping wider and wider until the teacher read, "Ruan Ji was arrogant, how could he imitate the cry of a cornered road?" Suddenly, the teacher on the podium announced, "Time's up, put your books away." As he stared blankly at his draft paper, he realized that he finally understood what "the cry of a cornered road" meant.
After a dictation class ended, he lay on the table, feeling as if he had lost his soul and was just an empty shell.
Ye Ruhui had just turned around when he saw the man's expression of utter disbelief: "What's wrong with you?"
Jian Mingyuan said with a sense of vicissitude, "I'm reflecting on the differences between people."
Ye Ruhui: "So, do you want to drink milk tea?"
Jian Mingyuan immediately sat up from the table: "Drink!"
Zhu Yigang looked up from his book and saw the screen that Zhu Yigang had secretly turned on in the drawer. He stared blankly for several seconds: "Wasn't your phone confiscated?"
"They handed in Nokia phones, but kept Apple products. Hard to understand?" Ye Ruhui asked casually. "Would you like a drink?"
Zhu Yi hesitated for a moment, then declined: "No need."
Ye Ruhui didn't ask any further questions. He passed the phone around in Jian Mingyuan's hand before finally handing it to Ji Li: "What would you like to drink?"
Ji Li shook her head: "Thank you, but I don't drink milk tea."
Ye Ruhui: "What about the juice?"
"No need."
"Fermented rice coffee?"
Ji Li smiled apologetically: "I don't drink beverages."
"Then you're truly a rare green leaf amidst a sea of flowers." Ye Ruhui retrieved his phone and placed an order. "I'll pick it up right after I finish eating."
Zhu Yi was writing a line of text when he suddenly became lost in thought.
Even though the answers were all rejections, why was Ji Li still being questioned so many times, while he was ignored by everyone?
.
After the last class, students rushed to the cafeteria to grab dinner, and the corridors were packed with people.
Ji Li declined the others' suggestion to leave together, and instead worked on two challenging math problems at his seat. Only when he saw that most of the people outside had left did he put down his pen and get up.
As I walked into the middle building of the teaching building, someone suddenly appeared in my field of vision.
The other person was clearly a student's parent, with a bag slung over their arm and wearing high heels that were inconvenient for walking on the podium. They walked past him like a gust of wind and quickly went up the stairs.
Ji Li recognized this face.
Those were Shen Huai's parents.
In the evening, the school's public address system was turned on, broadcasting a notice: "Given that Shen Huai, a student from Class 14 of the second year of senior high school (science stream), has seriously violated school rules, the Academic Affairs Office has decided, after deliberation, to expel him from the school. This is hereby notified, and everyone is asked to take this as a warning."
The campus, which had finally quieted down after an afternoon of classes, erupted into chaos once again.
"Holy crap, dropping out of school?"
"What heinous thing did Shen Huai do to deserve being expelled from school?"
"Could it be that he really became a mistress, agreeing to help someone pursue a girl on the surface, but then sabotaging them behind their back?"
"Stop early dating? Schools can't possibly manage that. Besides, he was the one who got splashed in the eyes this afternoon, and the one who threw pepper spray was an outsider. How blind does the school have to be to help outsiders punish their own students?"
"The broadcast said he seriously violated school rules, so which rule did he violate? Murder, arson? Robbery, or fighting?"
“Uh…” Ying Yunsheng was standing in front of the cafeteria window when he heard the announcement.
The cafeteria lady, holding a plate in one hand and a metal spoon in the other, shook her head repeatedly as she listened: "What a mess! She was expelled from high school."
Ying Yunsheng pretended not to hear.
Shen Huai was still able to loiter around the school during the opening ceremony, but now he has been expelled. It is evident that the crew-cut guy who was detained during this period probably revealed a lot of Shen Huai's past glorious deeds. The crimes piled up, which is why the school made up its mind in such a short time to decisively remove this unstable source of trouble.
A stainless steel plate was handed over through the window. Ying Yunsheng took out his campus card, accepted it with both hands, and said, "Thank you, Auntie."
With a "beep," the machine displayed a charge of five yuan.
At this time, the cafeteria windows are almost empty, mostly offering leftovers from other people's choices. To say they taste like cardboard is an understatement. Most people would rather pay someone to bring them takeout than settle for this kind of low-quality dinner.
Ying Yunsheng had deliberately delayed coming until this time of the past year because only at this time of year was the food no longer charged by portion size; he could order as much as he wanted for just five yuan.
The lady serving the food also had a son about the same age as him, who was going through a rebellious adolescence and had a domineering, arrogant vibe. In contrast, the boy in front of her was well-behaved, clean-dressed, and frugal.
Why.
As expected, comparisons can be hurtful.
Her eyes were full of kindness: "You're welcome."
After the announcement was read aloud, the students' voices switched to reading the evening news.
Ying Yunsheng finished his meal while listening to the background noise of the broadcast, put the plate in the recycling area, and on his way back, he passed by the cake shop in the corner, where the shelves had already begun to display the items to be sold that evening.
The baker had just finished arranging the pastries when he looked up and saw a boy standing outside the transparent window. He opened the window a crack and said, "Young man, we're not selling anything now. Come back tonight."
Ying Yunsheng snapped out of his daze, paused for two seconds, and suddenly asked, "Is there any Dafu here?"
Baker: Yes.
Do you have chocolate flavor?
"No."
"Huh?" The baker looked at his expression. "We've never sold chocolate-flavored daifuku here, only strawberry and matcha."
After saying that, he added, "We also have the original flavor."
Ying Yunsheng's mind went blank for two seconds.
What was his answer to that question this afternoon?
What's your favorite flavor of daifuku?
--chocolate.
"Well……"
Chapter 7
Chapter 7