Chapter 50: 48

During the national defence training period, it had been sunny for five days in a row. While the Class Seven students were lowering their heads busily to write their essays, the colour of the sky outside began to turn cloudy.

The handwriting on the paper couldn’t have been any more familiar to Shao Zhan. 

Because he had imitated it before.

Lin Jiang Sixth High was not a high school that particularly gravitated towards the arts—for example Li Yang Second High had about 80% of arts students every year, while their Lin Jiang Sixth High wouldn’t have been able to find a single arts student after flipping through several hundred pages of alumni.

 

 

The words Central Academy of the Fine Arts were written very casually.

If Meng Guowei were to see it, he probably would have thought this student was putting out nonsense, and would probably spit out three litres of blood on the spot. 

Dark clouds gathered from afar, completely covering the last ray of light that came through the cracks of the clouds.

 

“Did you finish sorting?” After Meng Guowei had finished getting the notice, he had returned to the office. He saw the neat pile of paper and said, “Thanks, you worked hard. The next class is English right? Go back first to do some prep work.”

Shao Zhan got up. His hands moved faster than his mind. While Meng Guowei didn’t notice, he had taken out the paper strip that said ‘Central Academy of the Fine Arts’.

“Shao Zhan.” Meng Guowei called for him again.

 

Shao Zhan’s footsteps halted.

He expressionlessly used the essay Meng Guowei had finished critiquing to press against the paper note, holding it in his hand.

Meng Guowei remembered the first time he had seen the youth’s face during the first year of high school. When he entered a room, the temperature of the air had actually dropped by a few degrees. Other than the full-score answer sheet he had turned in early, his deepest impression was the cold uncaringness between the youth’s brows. The Shao Zhan that stood in front of him right now wasn’t too different from the one before, but Meng Guowei felt like something had changed.

 

Perhaps that cold indifference had unconsciously been reduced, especially when Xu Sheng was mentioned. 

“The matter regarding Xu Sheng fighting at Green Boat Base…”

Meng Guowei had wanted to chat with Shao Zhan. He put down the notice and said, “You have always been a very illustrious student in teacher’s eyes. You were before, and you are still now. There are some things we do not have a choice in from birth…so we need to take even more advantage of the present. If you come across any difficulties, you can always come find me.”

Shao Zhan was stunned.

Meng Guowei had made his point. He didn’t like expressing his feelings,  covering his face as he coughed. He said, “You can go.” 

Shao Zhan had just walked out of the office when a student immediately followed him from behind, summoning up his courage to call to him. “Classmate Shao Zhan.”

The person who had come was that Thousand Year Second Place.

No.

After this time’s monthly exams, he had now become first place. 

Shao Zhan really did not know what the two of them could possibly chat about. “Is something up?”

Thousand Year Second Place’s face was solemn. “I know you weren’t very comfortable during the monthly exams.”

 

Shao Zhan stopped and looked at him. He didn’t know where this gust of wind had come from. “…?”

Thousand Year Second Place, “After the first exam, you even said that the topic was too easy, and wasn’t difficult at all. You could do tens of exams like this within a hundred and twenty minutes.” 

That had been bullshit Xu Sheng had spewed out.

Thousand Year Second Place continued, “Are you looking down on me?”

“…”

“You’ve changed.” Something seemed to be breaking within the depths of Thousand Year Second Place’s gaze. “I used to think of you as my strongest opponent, because you and I were the same. We respected the exam space, respected the exam, and cherished every opportunity to take a test. I thought we had the same faith in studying.” 

“…”

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.

Thousand Year Second Place finally took his exercise book, turned around, and walked straight past Shao Zhan.

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Xu Sheng unscrewed the cap of his water bottle and listened to Hou Jun share some gossip. Hou Jun suppressed his voice and said, “Sheng ge, did you know that Yang Shiwei got beat up by others afterwards?”

Xu Sheng’s hand slipped and the water in the water bottle sprayed out a little.

“Got beaten again?” Did he really have that many enemies?

“Yeah, it happened the day after we did our disciplinary reviews on stage.” 

Speaking of this Yang Shiwei, it was already strange enough that Xu Sheng hadn’t gone to teach him a lesson after pointing him out on stage. Hou Jun knew a few former classmates at Hong Hai. After the disciplinary review, quite a few students had proactively sought him out to chat. The topic of their conversations had been very direct, they had pointed directly towards their class’s two campus beaus: Hou zi, I’m here to ask if they have significant others (*/ω*)

Hou Jun: Our class’s Study God or our class’s School Tyrant, which one are you asking about?

His former classmates frantically clarified: I’m okay with either!

Hou Jun: …Your appetite is quite big. 

But Hou Jun could only silently say to himself, friend, it’s not very possible, because they might have significant others, but I’m not completely sure. Anyways, these two are already a CP together. I’ll have to trouble you to go out the door and take a tour of Lin Jiang Sixth High’s online forum to see how high the support is.

But none of this affected Hou Jun’s ability to eat melons.

 

Former classmate: He got beaten up again. Apparently they ganged up on him near the lodgings at night. We don’t know much about what happened.

Exactly what had happened was something they could only ask Yang Shiwei himself. 

From the start Yang Shiwei had not actually wanted to let Xu Sheng off so lightly. He had already thought of how he was going to get back at him in a natural way that didn’t seem suspicious, but after the evening exercises had just finished, on the way back to his lodging, a silhouette walked out of the alleyway entrance nearby.

This silhouette was very familiar.

Especially since he had just showered, and was wearing a thin T-shirt instead of Lin Jiang Sixth High’s blue uniform. He overlapped with that person in his memories.

Yang Shiwei didn’t even have time to react. The next second, his back was already affectionately close with the asphalt on the grounds of Green Boat Base. Immediately afterwards, an explosive pain burst through his ribs— 

The youth’s tone was cold and frightening. His usually oppressed fierceness and sharpness swept over him. He hadn’t fought anyone in a very long time. “I didn’t come looking for you because you were speaking nonsense.

“Which hand did you use to hit him.” The youth’s voice lowered. “Speak.”

“…”

Xu Sheng was halfway done with eating melons when he realised that Hou Jun also didn’t know what had happened. He tilted his head back to drink a sip of water, and laughed. “Can you eat it clearly before coming back.” 

Xu Sheng saw Shao Zhan enter from the classroom door, screwed the cap back on, and shouted, “—Deskmate.”

Shao Zhan didn’t have a temper anymore, and was too lazy to settle his old accounts with him regarding that past monthly exam.

The bell for the start of class sounded.

Hou Jun and the others scattered. Shao Zhan pulled out his seat. “What were you chatting about.” 

Xu Sheng said, “Talking about someone who isn’t very important. Hou zi said Yang Shiwei got beat up again. He really has a lot of enemies. Although I don’t know who did it, I approve of the beating.”

Shao Zhan didn’t say anything.

Xu Sheng turned around and stared at Shao Zhan for a while. He looked at the school uniform jacket Shao Zhan had finally stopped buttoning all the way up to the top. An idea popped up in his head; perhaps it was intuition. He asked, “The night of the disciplinary review, you weren’t in the lodging, right.”

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Shao Zhan, “Suspecting me?” 

His usage of suspecting inexplicably sounded like it had some other meaning.

Xu Sheng, “…Not really.”

 

Shao Zhan changed the subject and reminded him, “It’s class time.”

The entire morning, the sky remained overcast. 

Xu Sheng was very nervous during class, so nervous that he couldn’t fall asleep when he sprawled over his desk, and he couldn’t focus like before when he had played his games. He went offline halfway through.

This ghastly weather.

In a bit, would they suddenly hear the sound of thunder?

Xu Sheng was truly frightened of that otherworldly hellish thunder. 

He couldn’t fall asleep. He sprawled on the table and used his pen to poke at Shao Zhan. “Hey.”

The last class of the morning was biology. The biology teacher had left a question on the blackboard for them to solve in their exercise books.

Shao Zhan solved problems very quickly. While the others were still copying down the questions, he had already used his pen to write out the answer. “Speak.”

Xu Sheng, “What do we do if there’s thunder in a while.” 

Shao Zhan’s pen stilled.

Xu Sheng continued to supplement this horrible conjecture. “Although the last two times it wasn’t thunder due to rain, and the others also couldn’t hear the thunder, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that we’ll switch under normal thunder too…”

Outside, after the dreary weather had brewed for a long time, the clouds rushed in, lightning flashed, and torrential rain began pouring down.

“Fuck.” 

Xu Sheng became even more panicked.

He, Xu Sheng, had literally almost never been afraid of anything in his life.

Horror crime films were one.

Now there was another, thunder. 

Xu Sheng had worn a hoodie today. He sprawled over lazily, until only half of the curve of his jaw was visible, along with the tip of his nose and the bangs covering his eyes.

Shao Zhan raised his hand after he had finished writing his answers. Using the hand holding his pen, he pulled the hoodie forward to cover the remaining part of his face. “What nonsense are you thinking of.”

 

The biology teacher stood behind the lecture podium and saw the small movements under the podium very clearly.

The teacher had always been biased towards those with good grades. Xu Sheng usually caused a lot of trouble, in addition to that, Xu Sheng had been the one who first sought Shao Zhan out to chat. She said loudly, “Xu Sheng, stand.” 

Xu Sheng pushed his hood off, and stood up.

The biology teacher was very angry. Her high heels clipped against the flooring as she took a few steps. “What were you doing just now? I’ll give you an opportunity to admit your mistakes yourself.”

Xu Sheng, “I was harassing my seatmate?”

Shao Zhan, “…” 

The biology teacher who didn’t think Xu Sheng would be so direct, “…”

The other students underneath the podium, “…”

Hou Jun, “No wonder it’s Sheng ge, the word harassing was used with such spirit.”

Although there was a very little accident during class, the rain was getting heavier and heavier outside the window. The roaring of thunder sounded from afar, like a ceaselessly roaring engine, unable to stop. 

After class, Xu Sheng swiped open his phone lockscreen.

The weather report.

Rain, temperature 34 degrees Celsius.

Although this storm seemed to merely be a natural weather phenomenon, it reminded Xu Sheng. 

If he and Shao Zhan could suddenly switch for the second time at Green Boat Base, then there could also be a third time, a fourth time…

After evening study, the rain had subsided. Xu Sheng could not fall asleep for a long time, carrying an entire day’s worth of nervousness.

He lay in bed, pondering for a while before tapping on Shao Zhan’s profile picture.

S: I thought about it. 

Shao Zhan: Thought about what.

S: We have to think of a way.

 

S: To strike first at the thunder.

S: We can’t just sit here and wait for death. 

Xu Sheng sometimes had to really admire his own intelligence.

He originally wanted to look for Shao Zhan to discuss countermeasures, but after sending out a few messages, his brain automatically popped out a brilliant idea.

Xu Sheng exited Wechat and opened his Taobao app.

He typed out three words into the search bar. The internet speed in the dorm was rather poor, and the page only loaded after a few seconds. 

There was a line of lightning effects on the page surrounding a picture!

The picture was labeled with ‘stainless steel quality lightning rod’.

Xu Sheng pondered over these photos for two seconds, remembering that the school should already have lightning rods installed, so this wouldn’t be very useful. He needed something that was more effective.

Another brilliant idea appeared in Xu Sheng’s mind. 

He typed again into the search box: high voltage insulation suit.

A yellow raincoat-like full insulation suit loaded very quickly!

Two layers of inflammable material, insulating fabric.

Resists voltages of 1KV/3KV/5KV for a minute. 

Three layers of EVA, magic adhesive fastenings, suspender pants.

This insulating suit covered everything from gloves to boots.

The detailed introduction page was marked with a line of bold and accentuated yellow characters of the same model as a roadside advertisement. At first glance, it looked like “20% discount on two pieces”, but the hidden yellow characters in the line said:

Safely durable, thunder and lightning protection. 

High quality workmanship and durability—a set of insulating clothing to keep you safe, specially designed for lightning protection.

We promise protection against thunder!

 

No thunder protection, unconditional refund!

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