novelraw Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Chapter 24 Inappropriate ContactWen Yufeng’s routine of arriving at school on time lasted less than a week, but it was enough to make him a topic of conversation throughout the entire second-year grade. Even though he would disappear shortly after arriving, rumors about him “turning over a new leaf” spread like wildfire.
Aside from the first day, Li Xiang and Zhao Zirui had been following Wen Yufeng’s instructions by waiting for him every morning at the school bus stop.
As soon as Wen Yufeng got off the bus, the two would immediately catch up to him, and the three of them would trail behind Qin Qing from a distance.
If anyone had paid close attention, they might have thought that Qin Qing had three “bodyguards” accompanying her to school every day.
Because of this arrangement, despite the rampant rumors about Wen Yufeng, no one associated them with Qin Qing.
Of all the people involved, Li Xiang was the most baffled by Wen Yufeng’s behavior.
He held back for a week, but when he heard the latest rumor that “Wen the school tyrant’s family had gone bankrupt, so he couldn’t act as recklessly anymore,” he could no longer keep quiet.
“Yu Ge, I really don’t get it,” Li Xiang said as he wiped sweat from his face with a towel after playing basketball. “Why don’t you just show up with the new classmate? After a week of this, I guarantee the whole school would know why you’re arriving early.”
“…”
Sitting at the top of the tall stone steps, Wen Yufeng held a can of energy drink, his sharp necklines visible as his Adam’s apple moved. After a few swallows, he casually dropped the can beside him, leaned forward, and propped his elbows on his knees.
Sitting on the stone steps, which were more than a meter above the ground, Wen Yufeng squinted slightly in the light, his smile lazy and condescending as he looked down at Li Xiang. “What do you think my reason is?”
“…”
Li Xiang was at a loss for words.
Wen Yufeng’s eyes were so sharp, like the edge of a cold blade pressed against his throat, that he could almost feel the sting of the cold light if he lowered his head.
Wen Yufeng didn’t push him too hard, though. After a couple of seconds, he averted his gaze.
“It was you who said earlier that the gap between her and me was too big, wasn’t it?”
Li Xiang paused. “But since you’ve already decided to do something about it, that gap shouldn’t matter anymore, right?”
“…Doesn’t matter?”
The boy on the steps let out a light laugh, his eyes half-lidded as he lazily stood up and walked down the tall stone steps.
He stopped in front of Li Xiang. “It doesn’t matter to me, but if it really got to the point where the whole school knew—could she just brush it off too?”
Li Xiang fell silent.
Of course not.
By then, both Old Fu and the disciplinary officer Sun Xing would definitely call in the girl’s parents, making her life miserable.
Thinking about it this way, it seemed that the poor girl was indeed rather unfortunate to have caught their Yu Ge’s attention…
As Li Xiang pondered this, a cold look flashed in his direction.
“…”
Li Xiang shivered and looked up with an innocent expression.
Sure enough, Wen Yufeng was looking at him with a half-smile.
“What are you thinking about?”
Li Xiang: “…”
Ever since their Yu Ge got “spring fever,” had he developed mind-reading abilities too?
Terrifying.
As Li Xiang wrestled with finding an excuse to escape the situation, the low, clean voice of Wen Yufeng sounded in his ear again.
“So, keep an eye on the big mouths in the class. If anyone goes outside the class or says something they shouldn’t to the teachers…”
Wen Yufeng paused here, then let out a cold laugh, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“Then we’ll have a ‘chat after school.'”
His tone was casual and lazy, but as he finished speaking, the can in his hand was crushed into a crumpled metal ball with one hand, which he then accurately tossed into a nearby trash bin.
After completing this series of actions, Wen Yufeng stuffed his hands into his pockets and began walking away.
Li Xiang, standing still, glanced at the barely recognizable metal object in the trash bin and silently followed behind him.
…
Starting from the second year of high school, Yishi Middle School implemented a bi-weekly system where one weekend was for regular classes and the other was for self-study. Previously, Wen Yufeng never showed up for the self-study weekends, so this was his first time spending such a weekend at school.
It was break time when Wen Yufeng and Li Xiang returned to the classroom after changing clothes at the basketball court. Before they even entered the room, they could hear the noisy chatter inside. However, as soon as they stepped through the front door, the lively atmosphere noticeably quieted.
Wen Yufeng paid no mind to this and instinctively looked towards a particular seat in the front row. Then, he stopped in his tracks.
—She’s not here?
His sharp brows furrowed as Wen Yufeng strode forward.
Fang Xiaojing, who had been chatting with the student behind her, felt a chill down her spine as a shadow loomed over her. She stiffened and slowly turned her head.
“…Yu Ge?”
Ever since she heard that Wen Yufeng had helped Qin Qing wipe the blackboard during that class, Fang Xiaojing had been on edge, fearing the day he might come after her. So when she saw the not-so-friendly expression in his eyes, her voice trembled slightly.
But Wen Yufeng wasn’t in the mood to pay attention to such trivialities. His dark eyes fell on the empty seat where Qin Qing usually sat, and in a low, slightly hoarse voice, still rough from exercise, he asked, “Where is she?”
Fang Xiaojing breathed a sigh of relief. “…She went to study.”
Seeing that Wen Yufeng’s cold gaze turned towards her again, Fang Xiaojing hurriedly added, “She went to the reading room for self-study.”
“The reading room?”
One of Wen Yufeng’s brows arched slightly.
—After being at Yishi Middle School for several years, he really didn’t know where the reading room was.
When this was brought up, a hint of resentment flashed in Fang Xiaojing’s eyes. She forced a smile and said, “Yes, but not everyone can study in the reading room… It’s all because Teacher Fu favors Qin Qing. If other students asked, they’d definitely be turned down. But as soon as Qin Qing applied, Teacher Fu agreed right away.”
Wen Yufeng didn’t care about Fang Xiaojing’s tone. “How do I get to the reading room?”
“Oh, I know this!” Li Xiang, who had been eavesdropping, proudly puffed out his chest. “Yu Ge, I’ll take you there!”
“…”
Wen Yufeng shot him a glance. “Just tell me the location; I’ll go on my own.”
“…Oh.”
Li Xiang deflated and returned to his seat, bored.
—With Zhao Zirui being dragged off by the teacher to do some “grunt work” and Yu Ge going off to find his “little classmate,” Li Xiang was left all alone, bored out of his mind.
After mulling it over for a bit, Li Xiang’s eyes lit up. He remembered that he still had a few issues of Playboy stashed with Yu Ge. Li Xiang cheerfully ran over to retrieve his magazines—after all, there wasn’t much else on Wen Yufeng’s desk, so finding them was quite easy.
The almost-nude, seductive woman on the cover smiled coquettishly at the camera. Li Xiang had just opened the magazine when the student in front turned around, his eyes lighting up as he stared at the magazine in Li Xiang’s hands.
“Xiang Ge, how could you keep something this good all to yourself? That’s not very brotherly!”
Suddenly reminded of how Wen Yufeng took the blame when Qi Lulu came looking for him, Li Xiang waved the guy over. “I’ll share, but give me the cover and spine of your math book, and I’ll let you read it.”
The other student hesitated for just a moment before nodding eagerly.
A few minutes later, Li Xiang, holding his now “disguised” magazine with a transparent cover that clearly said “Math” on it, grinned in satisfaction.
“What are you grinning about?”
A voice suddenly sounded beside him, startling Li Xiang. He looked up to see Zhao Zirui returning to his seat.
Just as Li Xiang was about to show off his handiwork, Zhao Zirui asked, “Where did Yu Ge go?”
Li Xiang sighed. “Where else could he go? Of course, he went to the reading room to find his little classmate.”
“Phfffft—”
The water Zhao Zirui had just sipped ended up all over the desk.
Li Xiang hurriedly picked up the magazine and looked at Zhao Zirui in disgust before placing the magazine back on Wen Yufeng’s desk and turning around to wipe the desk with a tissue.
But Zhao Zirui grabbed his arm after finishing his coughing fit.
“Yu Ge went to the reading room too?!”
There was something telling in Zhao Zirui’s tone, making Li Xiang pause and ask, “Who else went there?”
Zhao Zirui’s expression twisted. “I just came from there… and I was going to tell Yu Ge that the pretty boy from Class 3 seems to be pestering the new classmate in the reading room, asking her questions…”
“…”
No further explanation was needed—Li Xiang’s expression twisted in sync with Zhao Zirui’s.
The two of them were silent for three seconds before exchanging a glance, then they both cursed under their breath.
Moments later, the entire class witnessed the two of them bolting out of the classroom as if being chased by wild boars.
……
When Wen Yufeng saw the two figures sitting side by side in the empty reading room, he felt as if all his cautious efforts over the past week had been utterly wasted.
—How had he not considered that his little classmate, so adorable and captivating, would inevitably attract attention from those daring enough to pursue her?
Sure enough, it hadn’t been long since she transferred, and already someone had followed her to the reading room.
“…”
Even from a distance, Wen Yufeng narrowed his eyes slightly, his expression darkening as he stared at the two of them.
One of them was, of course, his little classmate, her expression focused as she seemed to be explaining a problem to the person next to her.
The other… he recognized.
He remembered that when he first transferred to Yishi Middle School, some bored students had started a thread on the school forum analyzing who was the real “school heartthrob”—him or this guy named Yu Wen.
But after he gained notoriety for several brawls that made headlines both inside and outside the school, earning him the title of “school tyrant,” the original poster had stopped updating the thread after he sent a few of his attackers from Third High School to the hospital.
So the title of “school heartthrob” remained with Yu Wen, while he became known as “the school tyrant who’s even more handsome than the heartthrob.”
Wen Yufeng had never cared much about such things, and Li Xiang and Zhao Zirui, knowing this, never brought it up in front of him.
But today, as he looked at Yu Wen sitting next to Qin Qing, Wen Yufeng felt for the first time—
That one day, because of someone, he might actually start to care about things he once scoffed at.
One minute later.
Qin Qing was sitting at a long table in the reading room, earnestly explaining a problem to the person beside her when a shadow suddenly fell over her. Before she could look up, she felt a tight grip on her wrist and was abruptly pulled upward.
When she regained her balance and looked around, she realized that she had been pulled behind someone standing next to the table.
At the same time, a low, slightly raspy voice sounded in front of her—
“Little classmate, haven’t you heard? Boys and girls should keep a proper distance… you didn’t know that?”