Beautiful Life

"How have things been going with those two girls lately? I heard the three of you skipped class together and got publicly criticized?" Faint sounds of reading drifted through the air as the grown-up girl pretending to be mature and the little boy pretending to be young sat side by side on the swings beside the field, watching the distant sunset.

"You really are well-informed, sis. You can even hear about such trivial stuff while you're at Noble Academy... You're not a teacher, are you? You work for the FBI?"

"Heh." Yahan could not help laughing. "I saw the bulletin board when I came in. Your names are still hanging on the blacklist. By the way, has Huang Haoyun been giving you trouble at home lately?"

"Mm, I'm usually not home. Even if he wants to find me, he can't..."

"If he gives you trouble again, tell me."

In truth, Jiaming and Yahan had kept in touch ever since that camping trip. Jiaming had wanted to shake off this nuisance, but Zhang Yahan went to the Ye Family Martial Arts School to work out, so they ran into each other from time to time. Occasionally, when the mood struck her, Yahan would even go wait for him at the Huang Family villa, causing all kinds of chaos.

Whenever Zhang Yahan appeared at the Huang Family villa, Huang Haoyun would inevitably be there, chirping away as he tried to win her favor. Unfortunately, Yahan had not been interested in Young Master Huang from the start, and Huang Haoyun's cowardly performance during the camping trip had disgusted Zhang Yahan even more. The two had nothing to talk about. Yet Yahan openly treated Jiaming as a friend, which brought disaster upon him. Although Huang Haoyun was already over twenty, his emotional intelligence was below that of a twelve-year-old. Since gentler methods could not attract a girl's attention, he desperately picked on Jiaming every day, hoping to draw Yahan's notice that way.

Fortunately, Jiaming was not childish enough to take it seriously, treating it all as a farce. Otherwise, being harassed without reason at home day after day would probably have made him want to kill someone. Still, no matter how helpless he looked or how coldly he laughed inside, being targeted by Huang Haoyun for so long inevitably left him annoyed. He had already been avoiding Zhang Yahan somewhat, and during that period he avoided her even more. Not long after, Zhang Yahan discovered what Huang Haoyun had been doing. Around the end of 1994, she took the opportunity of paying New Year visits to give Huang Haoyun a thorough scolding, making it clear that they would no longer be friends. After that, she never went to the Huang Family again, and Huang Haoyun gradually stopped bothering Jiaming as much.

As for how Yahan felt about Jiaming, she probably regarded him as some kind of precocious prodigy. They had also been through life and death together, so she naturally came to see him as a friend. Since his rebirth, Jiaming had always been around two childish little girls. It was rare for him to meet a friend he could speak with from an adult's perspective. Once he understood that, he stopped resisting Yahan's company. When they met at the martial arts school or elsewhere, they would trade barbs for a few sentences. It was a pretty good friendship. Still, this was the first time they had met at school.

Hearing Yahan mention Huang Haoyun again, Jiaming snorted with laughter. "Give me a break. If he already hates the sight of me, wouldn't you going over there just make him hate me more... Of course, if you were willing to sacrifice yourself and sleep with him, that might solve everything once and for all..."

Yahan blushed. "How can you say that, you child..."

"I want milk from Grandma..." Upon hearing her call him a child, Jiaming jumped off the swing and threw himself toward Yahan's chest in a childish voice. Then, with a thud, a bottle of milk landed in his arms. Yahan's face was red, and she looked both annoyed and amused. "Every time I call you a child, you pull this trick..."

"Hehe..." After taking two sips of milk, Jiaming reached out and removed the plain glasses from Yahan's nose. He examined them so closely that Yahan's cheeks began to burn. Only when her gaze turned fierce did he smile. "That's more like it. You look pretty this way. These glasses are mine now."

"Stop making trouble for me." Yahan tried several times to snatch them back, but Jiaming refused to give them up, so she had no choice but to let it go. Jiaming put the glasses on. His appearance was ordinary to begin with, and now he looked like an honest, dull bookworm. Yahan laughed again. "Always showing off..."

"Do you wear those glasses so you won't attract so much attention?" Jiaming asked curiously. "Hey, tell me honestly. How many of those male teachers are pursuing you? Is that handsome guy who came over to talk to you just now one of them?"

"What does it have to do with you? You just love stirring things up." Yahan smiled, recalling how, when the two of them had greeted each other earlier, Jiaming—the little brat who was far too clever and utterly shameless—had run over and taken advantage of her. Then one of her coworkers had kindly asked, "Yahan, is this your little brother? How come you've never mentioned him before?"

"No, Yahan is my child bride." He had wrapped an arm around Yahan's waist as though they were a couple. Although Yahan immediately pushed him away with a red face, the man's instantly stunned expression had truly been hilarious. Remembering it now, Yahan could not help laughing again. She looked in the direction Jiaming indicated. Those teachers were indeed still wandering around the field, secretly glancing over. When their eyes met Yahan's, they hurriedly turned away and started pointing at random things.

"Don't underestimate him. That male teacher is named Xu Mo. He graduated from Peking University, and his family is currently in ocean shipping. It's just that his older brother, Xu Ran, runs the business, so he never got involved. Their scale may not compare to your Huang Family or our Zhang Family, but they're still not to be underestimated."

"He definitely told you something about not wanting to rely on his family's power and wanting to carve out his own path, right?"

Yahan froze slightly, her beautiful eyes widening. "How did you know?"

Jiaming took a sip of milk. "Silly girl, haven't you read novels? That's what playboys always say when they're chasing girls... Mm, that guy's my romantic rival."

"Go to hell!" Yahan laughed and smacked Jiaming on the shoulder. In truth, she knew her own circumstances best. She had always been quite confident in her beauty and family background. She understood exactly how many boys those two things would attract, and what kind of intentions those boys harbored. Because of that, she had always kept a low profile. Though she treated others gently and politely, she unconsciously kept everyone at a distance. Such an attitude was destined to make it difficult for her to find many close friends.

But Jiaming was different. He was a child. Though he was a bit too mature, a bit too sharp-tongued, occasionally a bit too cunning, and somewhat lecherous, he was unquestionably a good friend. Leaving everything else aside, during that camping trip, he had willingly offered to become a hostage in exchange for her. How many people in the world could do that? And at critical moments, he showed the responsibility of a man. That time, when he secretly untied the ropes, seized a gun, and faced Scarface head-on—without him, this girl named Zhang Yahan would likely have been raped and then killed as a hostage long ago.

Thinking of that, she could not help feeling happy that she had found such an interesting friend. Even if he occasionally took advantage of her, it did not matter...

"Ah, right. When I came up earlier, I saw that fatty bring several people to surround you. They weren't planning to beat you up, were they?" Thinking of this, Yahan could not help asking. "His father brought him here a few days ago, hoping to transfer him into the academy. Just say the word, and I'll immediately—" She made a slicing gesture across her throat and smiled. "—take him out."

"Yeah, we've got a little history." Jiaming nodded. Seeing Yahan's eyes light up, he hurriedly said, "Stop causing trouble. I'd love nothing more than for him to die far away from me. Hurry up and get him out of this school, so he won't come looking for trouble again."

"Mm, leave it to me!" Yahan smiled and patted her chest. Seeing Jiaming staring at her with vacant eyes, she immediately spat lightly. "Don't get any dirty ideas again."

"Ahem, I won't, I won't..." Jiaming checked his watch. "Class is almost over. I need to use the bathroom. You go do your thing. Later, I still need to find Lingjing and Shasha so we can leave school together."

"Mm, I drove here today, and I was planning to visit the martial arts school too. Oh, right..." Yahan walked up to Jiaming. "Give me back my glasses."

"In your dreams. Have you ever seen something that got into someone's mouth get spat back out?"

"Hurry up."

"Kill me if you can."

"You think I wouldn't dare? Give them back, or I'll fight you to the death."

"Kill me if you can."

"You think I wouldn't dare? If you don't give them back, I'm really going to do it!"

"Rape me if you can."

"You think I wouldn't dare? I... Ah—"

The two struggled over the glasses. With too much force, Jiaming, who was sitting on the swing, suddenly toppled backward onto the grass. Yahan's entire body fell down with him, pinning Jiaming beneath her.

"Mm... mm... Help... I'm going to die..."

Their heights were mismatched, and when they fell, Yahan's chest happened to press over Jiaming's face. Smothered between those two soft mounds, Jiaming immediately had trouble breathing. Yahan cried out and hurriedly scrambled off him, her face crimson and burning. Yet she still remembered to snatch her glasses back along the way.

"Hehe... Sis, if you wanted to kill me... you didn't have to do it like that... Hahaha..." Jiaming lay on the ground laughing. A conspicuous red mark from one of Yahan's buttons was still visible on his forehead. Yahan was so embarrassed that she punched him aside. "Go die!"

After getting up, putting on her glasses, and straightening her hair, clothes, and skirt, she walked a few steps before turning back. "Hey, I'm going to find Lingjing and Shasha later too. If you don't see them, wait at the school gate. You know my car."

"Okay, got it. Are you my child bride or my mom?"

"You're so young and already so bad..." Yahan spat lightly. Blushing, she finally turned and left. Only after she had gone far away did Jiaming climb up with a smile and take several deep breaths.

"After spending so long with little kids, getting a taste of a big-breasted girl once in a while... Life really is wonderful... Thank you, you turkey..."

After leaving the bathroom, the group of five led by the fatty appeared again. Since school was about to end, this was the quietest time on campus. Jiaming helplessly dropped his smile. "What do you want now?"

"What do we want? There aren't any teachers coming now, and nobody's around. I'm going to beat you until even your mother can't recognize you!"

"Whether you beat me or not, my mother wouldn't recognize me anyway, and I don't know my mother either. But..." A smile curved across his lips. "There really is nobody around."

He clenched his right hand into a fist and flexed his wrist nimbly several times in the air. Seeing his movements, the fatty charged first. "You fucking dare fight back!?"

The fatty stood a head taller than Jiaming, and in terms of weight, he outweighed him by more than two to one. How could he possibly be afraid? Using the momentum of his charge, he shoved both hands fiercely toward Jiaming, and then... missed.

In that instant, Jiaming stepped back like lightning. His right fist followed the motion of his body, tracing a perfect arc through the air.

Bang—

With that punch, the fatty's entire body flew into the air. After spinning twice, he flew nearly two meters before crashing down in front of the other four. Blood and teeth poured from his mouth, and his body could no longer move an inch.

Under the stunned gazes of the other four, Jiaming calmly slipped his hands into his pockets and walked over.

"Thirty percent strength. That was for Shasha. Don't let me see you again."

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