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Chapter 341: Chapter 260: Are you doing it or not, are you looking or not?
April 10.
Thursday, afternoon.
Every Thursday always brings happiness to the freshmen at Fourth Middle School, knowing that after tomorrow, Friday, and one last day of school, the joyful weekend would arrive.
But Jiang Ning knew that these happy days wouldn’t last much longer.
Once promoted to sophomore year, the current two-day weekend would turn into an alternating single and double day off schedule, and by senior year, there would only be one day off per week.
Compared to others, Fourth Middle School was still considered liberal; some schools with a strict academic atmosphere only gave students one day off each week from freshman year, or in extreme cases, just two days off per month for certain high schools.
Geng Lu poked Jiang Ning in the back:
"Jiang Ning, where do you plan to go and have fun this week?"
Jiang Ning turned around, his gaze inadvertently swept over Geng Lu.
Her top was slightly tight, accentuating her full chest.
"I’m going out of town," he said.
He had asked Shao Shuangshuang for a lead on a kind of material he needed to check out in person.
That material was crucial for refining the sword embryo of a flying sword.
Despite being immersed in the mundane world, reveling in pleasures daily, Jiang Ning never neglected his cultivation.
Having spent time in the Cultivation World, he knew all too well that the underlying rule of the world was survival of the fittest.
"That’s okay then," said Geng Lu, feeling disappointed after learning this.
During the recent Qingming holiday by the river dam, the wild cookout she had with her best friend He Qingtang and Jiang Ning was too wonderful.
Especially that pot of rabbit meat; she still missed it.
She had hoped to replicate that joy this week.
It seemed she had wished for too much.
During the three years of high school, there would be only three Qingming festivals. Maybe even not as many.
In college, there would be even fewer days to gather.
Thinking about it this way, carefree times like these were incredibly rare in life.
With this thought, Geng Lu momentarily felt the transience of youthful days.
The sorrows of a young girl come quickly and leave just as fast. Soon buried deep in her heart, Geng Lu posed a new question: 𝖓𝔬𝖛𝔭𝔲𝖇.𝔠𝔬𝖒
"Jiang Ning, did you and Xue Chuchu come from the same village?"
Last time, on the little grassland, Xue Chuchu’s beauty had stunned Geng Lu; she was the epitome of a plain girl’s beauty pushed to the extreme.
Jiang Ning answered, "Her county isn’t the same as mine, let alone our village."
"Which county are she and Tongtong from, Tu County or Xinhong County?"
Yuzhou City was a combination of three counties and one urban area, with the three counties surrounding the city from different directions.
Jiang Ning came from a town under Guyang County, whereas the origins of Xue Chuchu and Xue Yuantong were unknown to Geng Lu; she had never asked.
"People from Xinhong County," said Jiang Ning.
"Uh-huh, did you know each other before?" she started to probe for information.
Jiang Ning, for his part, could see right through Geng Lu, including her ulterior motives.
Still, he slowly explained to her.
Mid-conversation, Jiang Ning’s phone vibrated twice.
Coincidentally, Geng Lu had assimilated a lot of information and was in the process of digesting it.
’So Jiang Ning and Xue Chuchu aren’t really acquainted. I thought they were childhood sweethearts; I was worried for nothing.’
Then Geng Lu was no longer worried: ’Even if they were childhood sweethearts, so what?’
’Aren’t the childhood sweethearts always the ones who lose the most in the anime!’
Jiang Ning looked at his screen; someone had sent him a message.
Shen Qing’e: "First to like my Moment, thank you!"
In the north side of the classroom, by the wall, Shen Qing’e took a deep breath, her chest rising ever so slightly.
She had only recently added Jiang Ning on WeChat, during a school anniversary event performance.
Because of some underlying feelings, she hadn’t initiated a chat with Jiang Ning, leaving him in the cold for a few days.
’It’s so difficult,’ thought Shen Qing’e.
Relationships between people are always like this; they become strangers from being familiar, and if they want to be familiar again, it becomes exceedingly difficult because there’s already a barrier between them.
It’s even more challenging than dealing with complete strangers.
This time, reaching out to Jiang Ning to chat was because she participated in an event at a new milk tea shop by the school entrance. She only needed to share the owner’s Moment and gather fifty likes to receive two free cups of milk tea.
If she won the milk tea, she decided to give one cup to Jiang Ning.
Thinking back on it, during the three years of middle school in her town, she received a lot of help from Jiang Ning but never treated him to a milk tea, which made Shen Qing’e feel somewhat guilty.
She anxiously awaited Jiang Ning’s response.
Jiang Ning entered her Moments, took a glance, and replied:
"I can’t like it."
Shen Qing’e received his reply and couldn’t help but be puzzled: ’Why can’t he like it? Does he still hold a grudge against me, not willing to give me a like?’
Had the conflicts from the past half-year still not dissipated in his heart?
Even though she had decided not to hold any grudges against Jiang Ning.
Shen Qing’e furrowed her brows, puzzled.
"You can’t like it?" she said, her heart already filled with a trace of resentment. If Jiang Ning’s response was again unsatisfactory, she swore she wouldn’t initiate conversation with him throughout high school.
She didn’t want to lower herself; she had dignity.
Jiang Ning: "You’ve blocked me from seeing your Moments."
Shen Qing’e: ...
Her face was a mix of embarrassment and discomfort. When she had just added Jiang Ning to WeChat, she had planned to tidy up her Moments before opening it up officially, wanting to show that she was doing well.
And then she forgot to unblock him.
...
After liking her post, noticing Geng Lu seemed to be lost in thought, Jiang Ning turned back around.
Jiang Ning scrolled through his WeChat Moments and QQ Zone.
Nowadays, his classmates were divided into two groups: one group used WeChat, and the other used QQ Zone.
Recently, Jiang Ning received several friend requests from classmates, and he hadn’t refused any.
In his previous life, Jiang Ning wasn’t sociable; coming close to graduation, he had added very few high-school classmates, and later on, he didn’t have much to look at in his Moments.
