NOVPUB
Chapter 359: Chapter 268: I Want to Make a Move (5200 words)_2
Bicycles were not allowed to be ridden on campus, but today was Friday, a school holiday, so some students were bold enough to ride their bikes on school grounds.
Jiang Ning pushed his bike to the school’s outer intersection, where Xue Yuantong jumped on the back seat, clutching the corners of his clothing with both hands.
Under normal circumstances, when it’s not raining, not windy, and one isn’t speeding, Xue Yuantong usually wouldn’t be hugging Jiang Ning.
Otherwise, riding on a bicycle and still hugging out of fear would make her, Xue Yuantong, seem cowardly, wouldn’t it?
Jiang Ning’s mountain bike hadn’t gone two hundred meters before stopping.
On the side of the road, a large expanse of empty concrete, a crowd of people gathered to watch, with intermittent pointing, gasping, and sighing from within.
Chen Siyu, arm in arm with her sister Chen Siqing, stood beside Bai Yuxia with a white backpack, and they greeted Jiang Ning.
Xue Yuantong, on the back seat, pointed to the crowd and shouted,
"Jiang Ning, Jiang Ning, it looks like so much fun over there!"
From Jiang Ning’s years of experience, he knew that people around him loved a spectacle, including himself at the moment.
Jiang Ning parked the bike without locking it and approached the crowd with Xue Yuantong.
Before, this open space often had two stalls, one selling fruit from a tricycle cart, and one for mobile phone screen protectors, occasionally with other stalls.
However, today, there were additional stalls selling fried skewers and rolled-up noodles.
Of course, the stall with the most people was the one in the center, the ’game’ stall.
Xue Yuantong read aloud: "Basketball toss into the sand jar."
Chen Siyu said, "Yeah, yeah, it’s quite difficult."
Chen Siqing added, "The basketball clearly hit the jar, but the jar didn’t fall over at all."
Jiang Ning looked over and saw ten Red Bull cans stacked on the ground.
The cans were arranged in a pyramid shape, with four at the bottom, three above that, and then two and one at the very top.
At that moment, a boy spent ten yuan for the opportunity to toss the cans.
"Don’t waste your hard-earned money on this, Shen Xu!"
Some people around laughed.
Shen Xu earned his money by selling small items.
"It doesn’t matter if I lose money; I’m mainly looking for some fun," he said. 𝖓𝔬𝔳𝖕𝖚𝖇.𝖈𝔬𝔪
The grizzled stall owner called out:
"Knock down ten cans, and you win 500 yuan! Don’t miss out, only ten yuan for a try!"
Shen Xu, holding the basketball, stood outside the line.
He bent over, gestured with the basketball, swaying back and forth twice, then suddenly threw it with force.
The basketball rolled forward swiftly, accurately hitting the pyramid of cans.
With a series of "bang, clang" sounds, the neatly arranged cans were knocked down, and the basketball hit the backdrop behind them.
Shen Xu clapped his hands and blurted out,
"Darn it!"
The middle-aged man announced, "You’ve knocked down six cans, no prize!"
The round-faced middle-aged woman went up to reset the cans.
Onlookers shouted,
"What a joke, anyone who plays is being scammed!"
Bai Yuxia said to Jiang Ning and the others,
"The game’s rules are very tricky, with four to seven knocked-down cans, there’s no prize, cleverly avoiding the most likely number of cans to fall."
Chen Siyu saw through the stall owner and said,
"The bottom four cans must be filled with sand, making them too hard to knock over! Winning 500 yuan is impossible."
Chen Siqing explained, "Knocking over one, two, three, or eight, nine, ten cans also gives prizes, but they’re all difficult, except for ten and nine, the other prizes are very little."
Bai Yuxia analyzed, "Look carefully at the distance of the four cans at the bottom, it’s about forty centimeters, and the diameter of the basketball is about twenty-four centimeters."
"Even if you aim at the very center, the bottom will have two cans that can’t be reached."
Bai Yuxia concluded, "That means, theoretically, you can only knock down a maximum of eight cans."
Xue Yuantong had just noted down the prize rules:
"But knocking down eight cans only wins you ten yuan."
Bai Yuxia: "Basically you don’t earn anything."
Upon hearing Bai Yuxia’s analysis, the Chen sisters looked at her with amazement and said,
"Yuxia, you’re so smart and impressive!"
Bai Yuxia modestly responded, "I’m just good at analysis."
They had already figured out how to play the game, but those willing to pay to play continued to come; ten yuan turning into five hundred, a fifty-fold grand prize, was too much for many to resist.
Bai Yuxia and the others watched for a while as seven or eight customers came, all knocking down cans within the four to seven range.
Despite such small odds, customers still played.
Bai Yuxia said helplessly, "The only lesson humanity learns from history is that humanity doesn’t learn from history."
The bustling atmosphere drew even more onlookers.
Some from Fourth Middle School’s Experimental Class 1, including Lin Zida, Zhuang Jianhui, Ding Shuyan, and Li Shi, happened to pass by.
Lin Zida loved joining in on the action; he immediately led the others over upon seeing the crowd.
Ding Shuyan glanced over with a smile on her lips; she noticed Jiang Ning was also there.
Li Shi said, "Lin Xiaopang, don’t just join in the crowd for no reason; Shuyan is planning to study early today."
"No worries," Ding Shuyan replied softly.
After going all out on this month’s exam, she had thought she could be among the top three in the entire school, only to find, once the results were announced, that she had underestimated Fourth Middle School’s students.
To be exact, she underestimated the ’exam warrior’ personally invited by the principal—Du Chuan.
Du Chuan still held the third spot in the entire school with absolute superiority.
’I’ll try again next time,’ Ding Shuyan wasn’t one to give up easily.
In the meantime, Chen Siyu suddenly glanced and saw Li Shi among the newcomers.
"Sis, look, that girl is so tall."
Chen Siqing looked over and immediately noticed the tall figure:
"She’s not only tall, but her body shape is equally good, so slim."
"She’s almost ten centimeters taller than me," Chen Siqing said with envy.
