Blood Neon

Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Campus

“...la~fa~sol~do, do~sol~la~fa~...”

“Alright, class dismissed.”

...

There was no “stand up, goodbye teacher” ritual. After the teacher on the podium finished packing up his books and lesson plan, he walked straight out of the classroom without so much as a backward glance.

The once-crowded classroom instantly transformed into a bustling flower-bird-fish market. The noise from chairs and desks being moved en masse in a short period, mixed with the buzzing sound of conversations, became a messy symphony of voices—rasping, jeering, clattering—rising and falling without pause.

In the middle of the chaos, a boy squeezed his way through the stream of students getting up and hopped over to Zhang Qiming’s desk, giving his shoulder a solid pat.

“Yo, Qiming’er’s finally back in class.”

“Ahem... and you? Is your cold better?”

Zhang Qiming coughed from the slap, then looked up with a smile and asked, as he casually shoved the book he had just finished using into the drawer.

“All better.”

The newcomer wiped under his nose with a horizontal swipe of his finger, then gave a sharp sniff to signal it.

“Got better yesterday. Didn’t expect you to take a day off too.”

Standing beside his desk, laughing heartily, was someone with short, dashing hair—the kind of person who, while not part of a large circle at school, was undoubtedly one of Zhang Qiming’s most solid and dependable friends and comrades: Zhou Tianming.

The two of them were somewhat well-known figures at No. 3 High School. People called them “The Two Mings of No. 3,” or “Big and Little Ming,” or even “Ming² (Ming squared).” Zhang Qiming had even heard some odd nickname floating around like “FireBrothers” or something equally unintelligible.

And “Big Ming”—a name that practically screamed power and presence—naturally referred to none other than Zhou Tianming, who stood at nearly 1.9 meters tall.

Although this height wasn’t exactly outrageous, within a group of high school students, it definitely made him stand out—like a crane among chickens. As far as personal identifying features went, it was certainly a very obvious one.

Zhang Qiming didn’t consider himself short. He barely brushed 1.8 meters, but compared to someone like Zhou Tianming who was nearly pushing 1.9, it still felt a bit like Little Ming meeting Big Ming.

He clearly wasn’t that much shorter, yet somehow this whole “Big and Little Ming” nickname had spread around. A lot of people were calling them that now, and he didn’t quite know how it had caught on.

As a result, being “Little Ming” left him a little exasperated. He wasn’t some guy studying "chicken and rabbit in the same cage" problems, nor was he just standing below doing a peace sign with his hands.

Sigh... He’d heard Zhou Tianming’s parents had an average height close to 1.8 meters. Zhang Qiming couldn’t help but sigh with emotion—so this was the power of genetics.

.

“I heard people say Wang Ze came after you again?”

Zhou Tianming got straight to the point.

Zhang Qiming recalled the brutal battle from Tuesday and couldn’t help but give a wry smile. “Yeah, and it’s all your fault for bailing without a fight.”

They joked easily with each other like that—Zhou Tianming was clearly concerned as he asked,

“You okay though?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, seriously.”

Zhang Qiming waved it off.

“Just Monday night, they called me out for a fight, and when I showed up—turns out that punk had no sense of honor, brought a whole damn group with him.”

He recounted the situation with a casual tone.

“So then? Didn’t end up fighting?”

Zhou Tianming pressed on.

“Uh... well...”

Zhang Qiming looked a little embarrassed.

A boy’s pride and dignity made it hard to say something like “I got my ass kicked” out loud—even if that was the plain, brutal truth.

“Sigh.” He let out a long breath, then shook his head with a helpless look. “If it hadn’t come to blows, would I have needed to take a day off?”

“Ah, right... true that.”

Zhou Tianming scratched his clean, cropped head and gave an awkward nod.

“So what happened after that?” he asked again.

“What do you think? I stepped in, and bam—someone clubbed me from behind.”

Honestly, the memory of that night had already gotten a bit blurry. Thinking back, the only thing he remembered clearly was getting jumped as soon as he stepped in. As for what he was hit with, it didn’t really matter. He hadn’t ended up seriously injured anyway, so he didn’t care much about the details anymore.

“Then what? Before I could react, I was already getting pounded by a whole group.”

Yeah, that was pretty much how it went. It wasn’t that he hadn’t put up a fight—it’s just that the enemy had a force of over ten people. The advantage clearly lay with them.

So Zhang Qiming could only exaggerate their shamelessness slightly in his tone while also making them sound well-equipped and powerful. It was his last shred of pride.

—Though, to be fair, it was also the truth.

After hearing all that, the tall guy across from him couldn’t help but shake his head.

“Why’d you even agree to it? You should’ve waited for me to get back.”

Zhang Qiming had no retort.

He admitted that he’d been a bit hot-blooded that day. Still, he decided to explain his reasoning with something that at least sounded sensible.

“You weren’t around that day. Then in the morning, they came around provoking me, saying some real nasty stuff. So after carefully weighing the pros and cons, I figured... I just couldn’t back down on this one.”

He didn’t really want to admit that he’d not only acted impulsively but had also lost his head a little.

“Yeah,” Zhou Tianming nodded after hearing him out. “Momentum matters. Can’t let those thugs think we’re pushovers.”

Surprisingly—or rather, as expected—Zhou Tianming accepted the explanation quite readily.

Guess birds of a feather really do flock together.

“Right~”

Zhang Qiming nodded along as well.

And just as the two were about to keep chatting, the bell rang—at the worst possible time.

Zhou Tianming hadn’t finished what he wanted to say. He glanced at the classroom door and the returning students, then turned back.

“Wait for me later, we’ll talk after class.”

“Mm.”

Zhang Qiming gave him an OK gesture.

.

With the end of the second period, it was now time for free activity.

All the students had to head to the square for exercise, but usually after that, there would be about twenty minutes of break time.

According to No. 3 High School’s schedule, there were three morning classes in total. The first started at 8:00 a.m., each lasting forty-five minutes, with fifteen-minute breaks in between.

By 9:45 a.m., after the second class, students would get thirty-five minutes of outdoor activity—usually morning exercises on the field, though it depended on the season. For example, in winter, when it was too cold, it would switch to running drills.

Then they’d return to the classroom for one more period, and at 11:20 a.m., school would break for lunch and a rest.

Lunch break lasted three and a half hours. Afternoon classes resumed promptly at 2:50 p.m., consisting of three consecutive lessons and one self-study period. The last self-study session lasted a full hour, running until 6:50 p.m., when school was officially over.

All in all, six lessons and one self-study period a day—not too hard to handle for high school students.

It was said that private schools in the city ran from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Can’t help but sigh—comparison really is the thief of joy.

...

Zhang Qiming and his good buddy—the two Mings—walked side by side in the crowd. The pairing still drew quite a few looks.

Though he didn’t really want to admit it, that bit of vanity did give him a slight sense of satisfaction.

That feeling of being “special” in the midst of an otherwise mundane and ordinary daily life—standing out from the rest.

Maybe, in some sense, he and those attention-seeking punks weren’t all that different after all?

As Zhang Qiming was drifting off in these random thoughts, he glanced at a few shady-looking students chatting in the corner by the wall. One of them happened to look up and meet his gaze—then quickly turned away in a panic, pretending not to have seen him.

He felt somewhat satisfied by that. Even the dreariness of a whole morning’s worth of classes seemed to lift a bit. He turned to the person beside him and asked,

“So what were you trying to say earlier?”

Zhou Tianming didn’t respond. He just kept looking straight ahead as he walked, his tall, muscular figure full of presence.

After a long pause, he suddenly stopped and muttered thoughtfully.

“Forgot…”