Chapter 20, First Story (18)
The group was all in the boys' dormitory, and although they learned of this "shocking bad news," Qin Chu couldn't do anything about it.
Qin Chu didn't sleep much that night. When he got up early the next morning, he said to Noah, "I'm going to ask Zhou Sisi."
Noah jumped in fright and immediately grabbed General Qin, who was always incredibly direct: "Ask? What do you want to ask? Do you mean to ask if you've fallen for someone else?"
Upon hearing this, Qin Chu realized that the question was indeed strange.
Zhao Yuan woke up quite early today. He didn't get out of bed immediately, but watched Qin Chu wash up, clearly somewhat absentmindedly.
Zhao Yuan sensed something was amiss. Logically, his deskmate would never have agreed to Wang Peng's request last night. But Qin Chu not only agreed, but also directly asked a lot of questions about Zhou Sisi.
Lying in bed, Zhao Yuan raised his hand and brushed his bangs aside.
How come he didn't realize that his deskmate had become so interested in Zhou Sisi?
As soon as Zhao Yuan got out of bed, he received a message from Yang Ge.
Never-setting Sun: Hey bro, wanna come out and play after school today?
"Never Sets Under the Sun": We're having a team-building activity, and we'll chat about what's going on outside.
Zhao Yuan was always in a bad mood when he woke up in the morning, his eyes glazed over with a hint of resentment.
Today, I was in an especially bad mood, so I immediately replied to Yang Ge: Get lost, I'm not going.
Yang was so frightened that he dared not speak.
Zhao Yuan put his phone away, thinking to himself, "My deskmate is going to run off with someone else, what's the point of going out for team building?"
In the past few days, Qin Chu has once again personally experienced how difficult the missions in this world are for him.
He needed to understand the girl's emotional state, but he couldn't ask directly; even indirect questioning was dangerous. Qin Chu could kill a star beast with his bare hands without a problem, but getting him to do this was a death sentence.
While secretly observing Zhou Sisi, Qin Chu asked Noah, "Does Zhou Sisi still like Meng Bo this time?"
Noah said, "Based on the recent subtle changes in the world's basic data and the phenomenon of the mission progress bar regressing, Zhou Sisi should still like Meng Bo."
After they finished speaking, both the human and the AI were silent for a while, unable to understand what was so appealing about that long-faced monster.
"Can you calculate how much Zhou Sisi currently likes something, and how that will affect subsequent tasks?"
Noah's response took a bit longer this time, probably because he was taking the time to organize the data: "The progress bar has only dropped to 40% so far, which means that Zhou Sisi has not completely fallen for Meng Bo, but she should have developed some feelings for him. The danger level of the mission will increase in the future."
Qin Chu felt slightly relieved.
Although he couldn't figure out girls' thoughts and had no knowledge of these matters of the heart, Qin Chu knew that for two people to fall in love, they needed to at least have some contact.
Meng Bo couldn't possibly get into the school.
Zhou Sisi's parents personally pick her up and drop her off at school, so there's no chance of them bumping into her along the way.
Qin Chu is very good at keeping an eye on people, but he has one oversight that he can't make up for: weekends.
To prevent Zhou Sisi and Meng Bo from contacting each other again, he had to put in extra effort over the weekend.
As Friday approached, Qin Chu finally finalized a suitable plan.
Before the last class, he rummaged through his desk for a while, stuffed in the English test paper with an 80-point score, took out the one with a 58-point score, and went straight to Zhou Sisi's seat.
"Ah! Sisi! He's coming!"
A familiar voice rang in Zhou Sisi's ears; it was her deskmate's voice.
When Qin Chu came to the class representative to "demand" the invitation letter before, her deskmate said the exact same thing, but the tone was completely different. Then it was nervousness, now it was excitement.
Zhou Sisi couldn't help but sigh inwardly, thinking to herself, "Humans are so fickle."
However, as the class monitor, she was happy to see this change.
"Hey, Brother Cheng, here to hand in your homework?"
"Just throw it to me, and I'll pay it for you, okay?"
Before Qin Chu could even speak to Zhou Sisi, two boys next to him greeted him familiarly.
Qin Chu nodded to them, then looked at Zhou Sisi and handed her his test paper.
Zhou Sisi took the English test paper, and before she could even begin to understand what was going on, the appalling red crosses on it made her mouth twitch.
She looked up: "This is..."
Qin Chu's face remained expressionless, which meant that even if he lied, no one could tell.
"My English is really bad, and the teacher told me to find a classmate who is good at English to help me. Class monitor, do you have time to tutor me this weekend?"
Zhou Sisi's deskmate initially suspected something was going on and was about to scream, but when she turned around and saw Qin Chu's English test paper, she immediately realized that his desire for tutoring was far too sincere.
“This…” Zhou Sisi looked at the test paper, speechless. “I remember your English wasn’t this bad before…”
After she finished speaking, she realized she had touched a nerve and immediately shut her mouth in embarrassment.
After thinking for a while, she looked up at Qin Chu and said, "It's possible, but do you really want to come to me? It's not convenient for me to come to school on weekends. If you need to make up the lessons, I might have to trouble you to come to my house."
As she spoke, she turned to look at Zhao Yuan, but unexpectedly, Zhao Yuan was not in the classroom at that moment.
"I remember Zhao Yuan's English is also quite good. Haven't you considered asking him for help?"
That is indeed a good question.
Qin Chu thought for a moment and said, "He's a bit timid, I'm afraid I'll scare him."
That's a complete lie. Although Zhao Yuan is a coward outside, he's incredibly audacious in front of me.
Zhou Sisi: "..."
It seems this student is quite aware of their own icy aura.
"Okay, okay... come with me after school on Friday, let's make some study plans today."
Hearing Zhou Sisi's words, Qin Chu finally felt relieved.
Zhao Yuan was unaware of what his classmate had done; he was squatting in the toilet answering a phone call.
"Tell me, what's the matter that made you call me without fear of death?" Zhao Yuan asked lazily, leaning against the cubicle.
He hasn't been in a good mood these past two days. When others are down, it's as if they're about to die, but when he's down, it's as if he's sending someone else off to their funeral.
But when he saw the call from Yang Ge, he still answered it.
Firstly, I knew this call wouldn't be about anything trivial; secondly, I wanted to stir up some trouble to vent my frustration.
Yang Ge's voice on the other end of the phone was slightly out of breath: "Boss! Guess who we found? Meng Bo!"
Upon hearing this, Zhao Yuan's eyes immediately lit up. He chuckled softly, "Interesting. Where is it? I'll be right there."
Yang was practically yelling at the top of his lungs: "It's right behind No. 1 Middle School! Right behind that tallest wall!"
Zhao Yuan smirked, hung up the phone, and decided not to teach the last class.
He grabbed a classmate in the hallway: "Go to Class 1 and tell Cheng Cheng that I'm not feeling well and have asked for leave to go home first."
After saying that, he walked out of the teaching building empty-handed and headed towards the tallest wall that Yang Ge had mentioned.
The walls surrounding the No. 1 Middle School are all the same height, but the neighborhood is old and dilapidated. The low wall that Zhao Yuan and Qin Chu climbed together was actually half collapsed.
The wall adjacent to the dormitory area has been reinforced and is still very high.
Zhao Yuan skillfully bypassed the patrolling teachers and arrived at the high wall.
He, who once clung to Qin Chu's leg and dared not even climb a low wall, leaped lightly and grabbed the top of the wall. He lightly tapped his toes on the smooth surface of the wall twice and then flipped over.
He, who had been squatting on the high wall and kept telling Qin Chu that he was afraid of heights, jumped down without even looking.
Yang Ge and his underlings were running away at full speed.
As he ran, he encouraged those around him: "Brothers, hang in there! Once we turn that corner, those bastards behind us are doomed!"
A large group of more than a dozen people were chasing after them, led by a young man who had just come of age, with a few slightly older people following behind.
Upon hearing Yang Ge's shout, the leader immediately laughed: "What? Is your hometown just around the corner?"
As soon as he finished speaking, a tall, thin figure emerged from the corner that Brother Yang had pointed to.
The man held a long wooden stick in his hand and chuckled from afar: "I don't know if it's his hometown, but your father is here."
The school bell rang on Friday.
Qin Chu lowered his eyes and tidied his desk, then turned his head and saw the empty seat next to him. He had received a message from Zhao Yuan through someone, and he was still a little unaccustomed to not having this troublesome kid sitting next to him in the last class.
Zhou Sisi had already packed her schoolbag and was standing at the back door of the classroom waiting for Qin Chu.
For some reason, she was surrounded by several girls with bright, sparkling eyes.
Qin Chu quickly packed his schoolbag and walked towards the school gate with Zhou Sisi.
Having already walked out of the school gate, Qin Chu suddenly remembered something, stopped, and said to Zhou Sisi, "Sorry, I forgot something and need to go back."
Zhou Sisi didn't mind and said, "It's okay. School ended early today, so my dad's car might not be here yet. We'll wait for you at our usual parking spot."
Qin Chu nodded, turned around and walked back to the school, heading towards the classroom.
The classroom door wasn't closed yet. He quickly walked back to his seat, tidied up Zhao Yuan's desk, and then took out a copy of the weekend's homework from his desk drawer and stuffed it into his own schoolbag.
He planned to go to Zhao Yuan's house after returning from Zhou Sisi's house that evening to return the homework.
After leaving the classroom, Qin Chu did not head towards the school gate.
The parking spot Zhou Sisi mentioned was quite a distance from the school gate, requiring a long detour. Since there were practically no people left at school except for the students on duty, Qin Chu quickly determined the direction and decided to climb over the wall to take a shortcut.
"Big brother, we were the ones being chased and beaten by Meng Bo, so why did you call the boss and tell him that we found Meng Bo?"
One of the younger brothers asked Brother Yang a question while slacking off.
"Does it even matter?" Yang glared at him, thinking to himself, this is a strategy!
It's no wonder they slack off.
In the past, they would have had a chance to join in and kick things out during these brawls, but today, for some reason, Zhao Yuan was exceptionally ruthless, knocking down a whole bunch of them with a single blow, leaving them with virtually no opportunity to fight back.
Seeing that all the enemy forces had been beaten to a pulp, Zhao Yuan was also a little out of breath this time.
He brushed his sweaty bangs back, revealing a pair of smiling eyes, but for some reason, the smile looked eerie.
Zhao Yuan walked around among the group of thugs who were lying dead.