Chapter 17: 17

Xu Sheng was just about to win this round. Everyone was holding their breaths, gazes fixed, especially the one who was in the same team as Xu Sheng. He especially held his breath as he held his phone, not even daring to exhale.

“There’s one more…” 

“Is he opposite?”

“This Game of Kings is being played like it’s in bronze rank, it doesn’t look difficult at all. Why don’t we just jump into the next arena.”

 

 

“Wait a moment.” There were too many people around. Xu Sheng leaned back. “I’ll throw a grenade.”

As he said that, he started to test the distance. The parabola arc that he had talked bullshit about previously shone with a red light, and the next second, something was pressed against his forehead. He only realised a second later that it was Shao Zhan’s hand. 

Shao Zhan hooked his index finger, his prominent joint bones pressed against his forehead, and bounced it on his forehead, not harshly but not lightly.

 

“Get up.”

The youth’s voice was cold.

Xu Sheng raised his head, and saw “himself” standing beside the classroom table. His face was even a few degrees colder than his voice. He tested the waters and said, “I’m right about to win. Wait for me to finish this round?”

 

The other party’s face didn’t look very good.

Xu Sheng added, “If not, let’s play together the next round?”

They couldn’t break their characters. The oath they had made earlier had long since been tossed beyond the clouds by Xu Sheng.

 

Usually, Xu Sheng never suppressed himself, and did whatever he wanted to do. For him to manage to remember who he was had already been a difficult achievement. His energy for the “role playing game” was gone. Every day, he opened his eyes to realise that he was still Shao Zhan. After helplessly accepting it, exposing his real personality was only a matter of time. 

He and Shao Zhan had extremely different temperaments. Even if they were brothers by blood, they might not even be able to act well as each other, let alone them not even knowing each other well before this.

Since he was going to break character, then both of them would break character.

Xu Sheng saw Shao Zhan retract his hand and say, “I won’t play. I want to study. After you finish this round, come and explain the thinking questions assigned in today’s class.”

… 

Fuck.

Was this the fucking ‘mutual assured destruction’ of legend?

The grenade that had been thrown out of Xu Sheng’s hand missed, and exposed his game character’s location. In addition, Shao Zhan had tapped his forehead, and he forgot about the game in his hand. In the end, the game was turned around.

Battle result: 2/100th place. 

But no one cared about the battle result. Compared to the battle result, this “Xu Sheng” saying the four words “I want to study” was even more shocking.

Hou Jun didn’t dare to talk to “Xu Sheng”, so he just patted their “Shao Zhan”’s shoulder. “Zhan ge? What’s going on?”

 

Xu Sheng returned the phone to Hou Jun. He had no choice but to help Shao Zhan clean up this mess. He rubbed his nose and said, “He… Lately, he’s been asking for my help. He’s realised the importance of studying, and decided to study well and turn over a new leaf.”

There was no consequence to saying that. Shao Zhan did indeed need to solve questions, and after solving them he had to pass them to Xu Sheng. 

Although he had spoken up to here, Xu Sheng added on another couple of sentences, “Actually, he’s different from what you think. This person is very peaceful, and has never bullied classmates. He likes to show facts and reasons, and doesn’t raise his hand easily.”

“You all might have misunderstood him.”

“… I-Is that so?”

“He also really wants to hang out with you guys.” Before he got up, Xu Sheng pat Hou Jun on the shoulder. “I’m going over to explain the questions now.” 

Hou Jun’s open mouth had never closed once.

Hou Jun hadn’t been unanimously voted as class president for no reason. He was very attentive to the harmony of the class, and also took care of every classmate’s emotions. When he heard this, he turned his head to look at the already seated “Xu Sheng”, and only saw his expression which was as cold as ice.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Did this mean there was endless tenderness hiding underneath this iceberg?

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Lin Jiang Sixth High’s second year Class Seven really had someone like this? Why did they sound so unfamiliar? 

They couldn’t even figure it out.

Speak of Gu Yangwang, and Gu Yanwang would arrive.

Gu Yanwang had eaten and drank his fill, and wanted to visit the students in the high school before he ended work. He walked along the corridor from Class One to Class Seven, and stopped outside the door to Class Seven. He coughed loudly. “What are you all doing—— Hou Jun! What kind of class president are you, do you even care about the class discipline anymore!”

The few of them immediately returned to their respective seats, and quietly went about their night study. 

After the night study period was over, perhaps because the friendship they had forged from the game just now was too deep, Hou Jun and the others enthusiastically invited Zhan ge to go back to the dorm together.

“Zhan ge, which floor do you stay on?”

 

“Third floor.” Xu Sheng had just collected the homework assignments that “Shao Zhan” had just written. “Go together?”

Hou Jun immediately said, “Okay. The sports rep and I stay on your floor. Then let’s go back together.” 

Shao Zhan put the cap back on his pen. Although he didn’t stop Xu Sheng from interacting with the others, he also had no intention of joining this group of people.

However, just as he stood up, Hou Jun seemed to hesitate for a long time before finally mustering up his courage and saying to him, “Classmate Xu Sheng, please hold on!”

During the whole evening study period, Hou Jun had recalled what “Shao Zhan” had said, to the point that he couldn’t even finish his assignments.

When he thought about it in detail, Xu Sheng really hadn’t done anything harmful in class, and was very far from the “bullying and humiliating” image of a school tyrant. Although he wasn’t clear on the reason for what happened outside of school, he couldn’t make his judgement on a classmate just because of these things! 

It was too arbitrary!

Additionally, this student now seemed to want to right his wrongs, and even said himself that he wanted to study.

Of course, these weren’t actually important. The most important thing was those words that had come out from the study god’s mouth.

Who would doubt the study god, the study god that was like the existence of a deity in Lin Jiang Sixth! 

Shao Zhan pushed his chair in, and raised his gaze to look at Hou Jun.

Hou Jun awkwardly scratched at his hair. “That, um, why not, come with us too?”

Shao Zhan suspected he was hearing things wrong.

Shao Zhan sighed. “Speaking of which, as a class president, I really have been incompetent, I didn’t even see that you wanted to join everyone else…” 

I really didn’t want to join at all, Shao Zhan thought.

Unexpectedly, as Hou Jun kept talking, he became emotional, and said with gusto, “Our Class Seven is one big family. Every student in Class Seven welcomes you greatly, as long as you right your wrongs, you will be able to be like this in the future, keeping your mind on studies——”

Xu Sheng packed his things. When he heard Hou Jun say “one big family”, he pushed his chair in. He stood for barely ten seconds before feeling tired, and just sat down on his desk. He even applauded after listening to the end.

Tan Kai, “Good! Well said!” 

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“Very well said!”

Shao Zhan, “…”

 

Shao Zhan was silent for a few seconds, his gaze falling onto the one who was leading the applause. His silence added even more coldness to his expression. He was used to going about by himself, isolated and unsociable, and as he stood there he exuded an aura that said in big letters “keep away”.

Xu Sheng stopped clapping. 

Shao Zhan’s gaze rested on himy for two seconds before he simply walked offt.

Hou Jun and the others scratched their heads in confusion. Xu Sheng hurriedly tried to patch things up. “He’s shy and didn’t mean anything else. He’s really shy.”

Tan Kai, “Is the school tyrant this pure?”

Xu Sheng had no other methods and could only catch onto this mentioned “pure”. “…I guess…  you could understand it like that.” 

Hou Jun waved at the silhouette of Shao Zhan’s back. The others grabbed their backpacks and followed him. “Wait a moment, don’t walk so fast, don’t make him feel shy.”

It was very noisy on the way back to the dorm. The boys gathered together as if they still had endless things to say. Of course, this kind of interaction wasn’t very deep, but Shao Zhan rarely had these kinds of sounds surrounding him.

They only separated on the third floor.

Xu Sheng had had a rather interesting time during this self-study session. He didn’t need to pass his days by in boredom, and didn’t need to pretend to think about problems. It was just that when Hou Jun and the others enthusiastically invited him to join the class group chat, he realised he couldn’t take his phone out and could only pretend he didn’t have any battery. 

After going back to the dorm, he lay on his bed for a while.

He was too lazy to move for the moment and was about to take a nap when his phone screen lit up.

Two messages, one from Zhang Feng, the other from his withdrawn seatmate.

He didn’t even need to open up the message from his seatmate because there were only two words. 

Shao Zhan: Practice handwriting.

Practice handwriting, copybook, twenty pages.

Thinking of these keywords made Xu Sheng’s head hurt.

He didn’t reply and temporarily escaped, tapping on his next message. 

He was worried Zhang Feng would ask him about the studying and was thinking of how to respond when he discovered after opening up the message that Zhang Feng had sent him something completely unrelated to studying. He had sent a series of very long links that looked like a string of random numbers.

S: What’s this.

 

Zhang Feng responded very quickly: A post.

S: Can you please say everything in one go. What post, why did you send it to me. 

Zhang Feng: The school beau competition is about to start. As one of the most popular candidates, I must vy for votes for myself. Please choose Zhang Feng after clicking on this and send me a precious vote. Pick me. Thank you to our school-wide producers who choose me.

Xu Sheng’s mind reacted slowly and circled around these two messages before somewhat forcibly managing to remember what the school beau competition was.

Lin Jiang Sixth High had an extremely strict system and students usually followed the rules, but they were all 16-17 year old youths. These students had many hobbies in places the teachers could not see. The school beau competition was one of them.

The school forum was outside of the school’s monitoring. It had become a small community for making friends and also a forum for various campus businesses, such as catfights, confessions, finding people, etc. 

Common post formats were: Does anyone know xx class’s xxx, looking for a contact method ~( ω )

Zhang Feng was fairly decent looking and usually good at attracting the bees and butterflies. Along with the fact that he hung out with Xu Sheng, he had a strong presence.

He scrolled down the list of candidates and found Zhang Feng at the bottom.

Xu Sheng spent a long time scrolling, almost losing his patience before finding the two characters “Zhang Feng”. 

S: Your ranking is about to fall out. This also counts as one of the most popular candidates?

Zhang Feng was stabbed in the chest.

Zhang Feng: Do you have to roast your bro like this?

After a while, Zhang Feng sent another message. 

Zhang Feng: Boss, speaking of which, you and study god are on the list of candidates. Are you going to pull votes for yourself?

Xu Sheng thought to himself, I’m going crazy, they’re doing this because they have nothing else to do. Is it because twenty pages of a copybook isn’t enough or because games aren’t fun enough?

S: Not interested.

The school beau competition had started only because of a nonsense post arguing over the handsomeness of someone from Class One versus someone from Class Two. After it was spread, it had become a large-scale competition campaign. 

The competition happened once every three years. It had become a strong tradition at Lin Jiang Sixth High School.

Although Xu Sheng had a bad reputation, his face was still there. This kind of school tyrant who was rebellious and unruly still had many girls who liked him— they only dared think about it online. Anyways, the school tyrant couldn’t materialise out of the internet and beat people up.

 

He didn’t look too closely at what rank he was and just went to take a shower before sitting in front of his desk to finish his daily responsibility: practicing handwriting.

The three characters Liu Qing Chun had left a deep impression in his high school life and became an indelible stigma. 

Practicing handwriting was always a dull and boring time.

Xu Sheng flipped open the copybook only to realise that he had unknowingly already finished an entire book. He took another copybook out of the bag and flipped it open with a heavy sense of burden.

When he was done, it was just in time for the dorm lights to go out.

He lay on his bed, not knowing why he was still thinking of Zhang Feng’s “speaking of which, you and study god are on the list of candidates.” 

He and Shao Zhan were both on the list of candidates.

Zhang Feng had sent him a few messages later on. Xu Sheng had ignored them all.

Zhang Feng: Are you really not going to take a look?

Zhang Feng: Really not interested? 

Zhang Feng: Then you might as well vote for me, did you help vote for me?

What Zhang Feng didn’t know was that the person who said he was “not interested”, after lying around restlessly, still reached a hand out from the quilts that protected him from the air conditioning to grab the cell phone on the desk by his bed.

Lin Jiang Sixth High’s Forum.

Third school beau competition, voting has started [Hot][Hot][Hot] 

Host: My school’s traditional competition has begun again. According to the last round of votes, we have chosen 100 contestants with the highest appeal. If you like them then please vote for them. At this moment, everyone is a school-wide producer! Then, school-wide producers, who is the school beau in your heart?

Below the host’s post was a long list of voting ranks.

Shao Zhan [4085 votes] Xu Sheng [3806 votes]

…

He usually didn’t care about these rubbish things, but there was something inexplicable about a person’s desire to win. Especially when the other party had caused a lot of trouble for you. 

Was the twenty pages of copywriting not enough, or was the video game not fun enough?

As Xu Sheng thought about this, he pressed on the vote button for the second contestant Xu Sheng.

 

master grim reaper: grim reaper joins produce 101 and becomes an idol

bto: the school hosts a produce 101 competition for flower boys 

translators: …seems familiar

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