Perhaps because his English and Chinese scores were barely passing, his overall score dropped a bit. Zhang Lei's math score was only average. Although he humiliated the class representatives in other subjects, his total score was only 35th in the grade.
The school cafeteria has meal cards, which cost a little over two yuan on average. The food is decent, so many students stay at school to eat, including Zhang Lei.
During the meal, two people sat down across from Zhang Lei. He recognized them immediately; they were classmates. One of them was Liu Chu, one of the strongmen. As for the other, although he was also a classmate and looked familiar, Zhang Lei couldn't quite place his name.
"Zhang Lei, how did you do on the exam?" Liu Chu asked first. "What was your ranking?"
He was quite direct; you could tell from the longing in his eyes that he wanted Zhang Lei to be ranked below him. However, Zhang Lei remembered that he wasn't among the students in the class with higher scores than him.
"Thirty-five!" Zhang Lei fiddled with the rice in his hand. The food was really not to his liking. He wasn't used to Shanghai cuisine to begin with, and the school cafeteria was notoriously bad. He really couldn't eat it.
"Damn it, if you don't want to talk, fine, but why lie to people!" Liu Chu's face showed a disdainful expression.
"Damn, why would I lie to you about this? I'm 35. If you don't believe me, we'll go check the list together later!" The school, for some unknown reason, perhaps to motivate students to compare themselves, posts such a list after each exam's results are tallied.
"Stop talking nonsense. I know I'm the 35th in our class. You've just run into a victim while you're lying, you know?" Liu Chu's face showed a smug look. "Tell the truth, what's your actual number?"
"Oh, I see. The 35th I mentioned was for the grade level; I'm fifth in my class!" Zhang Lei stirred his rice; he had to eat it whether it tasted good or not.
"Damn it, he's thirty-five in his grade, Zhao Chuan, he's not even in the same league as us!" Liu Chu's face changed instantly, going from smug to frustrated in a very short time.
Zhang Lei then remembered that the other person sitting in the first row was named Wang Zhaochuan. He wasn't a local Shanghai resident; he had a blue-stamp household registration, and his family seemed quite wealthy. Looking closer, he was refined and scholarly, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, and his face was exceptionally handsome. Without the glasses, he was a classic heartthrob. It was just a pity that he was so short; sitting in the first row like Zhang Lei, how tall could he possibly be?
Every change of environment is an opportunity to change oneself, especially when there is no one familiar with him around. So Zhang Lei decided to make a big change for himself.
Although Zhang Lei gradually became tougher at his old school, his image as a victim of bullying was still deeply ingrained in people's minds, and he was often ridiculed for it. But Zhang Lei couldn't possibly retaliate every time it was a half-joking incident.
Things are different now, so it's important to cultivate a good image from the very beginning.
Zhang Lei is currently boasting to his deskmate about the situation in Northeast China, trying to portray himself as a brave and skilled warrior.
"Where we live, nobody cares if someone fights. We fight almost every day. Once, ￥&￥..." Zhang Lei said excitedly, not caring whether his deskmate believed him or not, since he certainly couldn't expose him. Besides, at least three-tenths of what Zhang Lei said was true.
"Tch, you think there aren't any in Shanghai? Let me tell you, there are way more wild kids in Shanghai than where you are. Do you even have any of those backwaters where you are?" Wang Ze said with a look of disdain. His deskmate was exaggerating.
“Ao Fen? What does Ao Fen mean?” Zhang Lei didn’t quite understand this Shanghai dialect.
"You don't know what 'ao fen' means? It's Shanghainese. It sounds a bit like robbery, but it doesn't involve much money. It's usually called 'ao fen' among students."
"Oh, that? We have that too! Last time a few of us from our class went to Yanji, we ran into those 'stubborn guys'!" Zhang Lei tried his best to pronounce the word "stubborn guys" correctly. "Five of us tried to block three of them, but we ended up chasing them away. Our class is really good at fighting!"
"That's because the professional level of the teachers in your area is not good enough. You'll know when you encounter them in Shanghai. Zhang Zheng encountered one last time, from Hongzhen Old Street. You know Hongzhen Old Street, right?" Wang Ze tried his best to speak Mandarin to Zhang Lei, but whether it was intentional or not, he mixed in a lot of Shanghainese slang. Fortunately, even if Zhang Lei wasn't used to it, he could at least understand it.
Zhang Lei shook his head blankly. Although he was speaking Mandarin, Zhang Lei still felt a little uncomfortable, as if they were talking at cross purposes.
"You don't even know Hongzhen Old Street? Hongzhen Old Street is very famous around here. What you guys do in the Northeast is nothing special, it's nothing in Hongzhen Old Street. Last time Zhang Zheng and his friends ran into two thugs, they just said they were from Hongzhen Old Street, and Zhang Zheng and his friends didn't dare to say a word, they just handed over their money!" Wang Ze realized he had completely suppressed Zhang Lei's arrogance, and felt even more smug. "Don't believe me? Ask Zhang Zheng. Wait, you don't not know who Zhang Zheng is, do you?"
Even though Zhang Lei had recently been trying to toughen up his skin, he couldn't help but blush. "Is it that strange that I don't know? Actually, I know Zhang Zheng is definitely in our class, but I just couldn't match him with any specific person."
"Oh my god!" Wang Ze slapped his forehead. "We've been classmates for so long, and you still don't know who Zhang Zheng is? Look at that one, in the second row, he's the one who always walks home with me!" Wang Ze pointed Zhang Zheng to Zhang Lei, raising his voice. Zhang Zheng looked up in confusion.
"Zhang Zheng, Zhang Lei, you still don't know your name after all this time!" Wang Ze shouted.
"Hmph, I don't necessarily know his name either!" Zhang Zheng turned his head, clearly unhappy.
Zhang Lei actually felt he had gone a bit too far. It had been almost a month since he started military training with his classmates, and he still didn't know their names, even though they were people he saw frequently. But since they all called him by his nickname "Xiao Kai," and he always heard them call him that and would nod when they met, it was normal that Zhang Lei hadn't learned or remembered their real names.
However, Zhang Lei was certainly not foolish enough to actually ask Zhang Zheng, but judging from Wang Ze's demeanor, it was probably true.
Although kids in Northeast China are wild and fights happen every day, they rarely involve money. Think about it, even Lei Xiaofeng has to use some tricks to swindle money from others, so Zhang Lei really felt a sense of awe when he heard about the dispute. He certainly wouldn't dare to do such a thing.
"Hongzhen Old Street is full of hooligans. Fighting? It's commonplace for them. If there are more than a hundred people in your area, that's considered a gang fight. Try whistling in Hongzhen Old Street and dozens of people will come out to beat you up. Outsiders, don't even talk about whistling there. Even walking with a slightly arrogant posture can get you beaten up!" Wang Ze pressed his advantage, determined to completely crush his country classmate's arrogance.
However, a large part of what he said was true; at most, some parts were slightly exaggerated. The great sage Wei Xiaobao once said that a lie must be at least 90% true, with only the 10% being false, and even then, the 10% is unverifiable. Only then will others believe it. A lie that no one believes is not a qualified revolutionary lie; on the contrary, it is backward, rejected, boring, and low-class.
Zhang Lei was genuinely frightened. Shanghai was indeed a place where hidden talents resided. It seemed that even if he had mastered his qigong, he would still have to be careful.
The next day, Zhang Lei arrived very early. There weren't many people in the classroom yet, but Wang Ze was already there. Zhang Lei knew he would arrive early; it had been like this since the start of the semester.
Zhang Lei patted Wang Ze on the shoulder, "Ze, I whistled all the way home yesterday, how come I'm fine?"
Wang Ze looked at him strangely, as if he were an idiot. "What does it have to do with me if you go home and whistle? If whistling is a crime, then I would have been beaten to death long ago!"
"But didn't you say yesterday that as long as I whistled in Hongzhen Old Street, a lot of people would rush out and beat me up? But I whistled not only on the street, but also at home, and no one came out to beat me up."
Zhang Lei looked at his somewhat confused eyes and said, "I live not far from Hongzhen Old Street now, and I don't find those people scary at all!"
Wang Ze stared straight at Zhang Lei, and Zhang Lei clearly saw a hint of fear in his eyes. "Oh, it's nothing, I was just teasing you yesterday!"
After asking his grandmother, Zhang Lei realized that while Wang Ze's words might have been exaggerated, they weren't necessarily untrue. The environment here was indeed very complicated; few of the neighbors were good people—robbers, drug addicts, drug dealers, people with prison records, and people who had been incarcerated were commonplace. Moreover, the kids here did look like petty thugs, and it wasn't impossible for them to rob someone.
Zhang Lei didn't encounter any trouble, perhaps because they also had the mentality of "not daring to mess with the grass near their own burrow"?
Episode 2, Metropolis, Chapter 20: The Lolita Voyeur
(1)
Besides the major exams organized by the school, teachers will also give students some smaller exams to help them relax and have some fun.
Now that Zhang Lei understood where his math problems lay, he naturally wouldn't repeat them. His math scores kept rising in succession, firmly securing his position as the top math student. Although the difficulty of the questions was a factor, Zhang Lei's own carelessness was the main reason, as well as the differences in how the questions were expressed in the two regions. He rarely got full marks, which made Wu Ping look at him with new respect.
Her attitude towards him also improved a lot, and she often came to check on Zhang Lei. She probably already had a reason for Zhang Lei's previous reluctance to work.
Teachers are generally like this: a good student is a good student. As long as Zhang Lei doesn't show any obvious bad behavior in front of her, it won't have any negative impact on Zhang Lei's image.
This is already a good teacher. A bad teacher, once they form a first impression, will stick with you no matter how you change. Frankly, such a teacher doesn't even deserve to be called a teacher. Teachers are human too; they can also scheme and fight among themselves for bonuses, salaries, and awards. But as a teacher, they absolutely have no right to be prejudiced against a student.
Ever since Zhang Lei mocked Wang Ze with the whistles of Hongzhen Old Street, there seems to have been a slight rift between them. However, they haven't fallen out and their relationship is still quite good. It's just that their best friends are no longer their deskmates.
Wang Ze was hanging out with that young tycoon, who was supposedly the son of the deputy director of a food factory. The food factory was near the school, and they planned to eat at the factory's staff canteen, where the food was much better than at the school canteen.