Chemistry

At noon, Jiang Ning took Xue Yuantong home.

They had lunch at Xue Yuantong's place. Aunt Gu was out, so the two of them cooked for themselves. After friendly negotiations, they agreed on a division of labor.

Wearing a child's apron, Xue Yuantong stood in the kitchen with her arms folded, directing operations.

"Not bad. You washed the vegetables quickly, and they're quite clean. I'll give you a 9.9."

"How do I get full marks?"

"Figure it out yourself." Xue Yuantong kept a straight face.

Jiang Ning began chopping vegetables. His knife skills were superb, his movements clean and crisp, pleasing to the eye. Xue Yuantong could only marvel inwardly as she watched.

"Done." Jiang Ning set down the knife.

The slices of meat were thin and uniform, as though each one had been meticulously measured. The vegetables were the same, neatly arranged.

"That fast?" Xue Yuantong could hardly believe it. Washing and chopping ingredients were the most troublesome and time-consuming parts of cooking.

Jiang Ning glanced at her. "You do the stir-frying."

"Got it." Xue Yuantong got to work.

With Jiang Ning's help, their cooking efficiency greatly improved, and they had finished eating before twelve-thirty.

Classes did not start until two-twenty in the afternoon. They each returned to their rooms. Xue Yuantong took a nap, while Jiang Ning went back to temper his Spiritual Sense.

Before setting out, Jiang Ning rested for twenty minutes.

At two sharp, he wheeled his bike out the door. Xue Yuantong was waiting at the entrance.

"Let's go."

The Asphalt Road along the River Dam was free of traffic and had no traffic lights.

They arrived at No.4 Middle School precisely at two-twelve and reached the classroom at two-fifteen, just five minutes before class.

After the bell rang, Guo Kunnan and several other boarding students hurriedly slipped into the back row.

Right after they entered, a female teacher walked into the classroom.

The students' eyes immediately lit up. The teacher was in her early twenties and nearly one meter seventy tall. She wore a light red T-shirt on top and wide-legged blue jeans below, which accentuated her long, straight legs.

Her features were pure and innocent, and she still retained a student's youthful air. She looked as though she had graduated only recently.

She wrote on the blackboard: "Guo Ran."

"My name is Guo Ran. From now on, I'll be Class 8's chemistry teacher."

A faint smile hung on her face as thunderous applause erupted throughout the class. The boys in particular were exceptionally excited.

Who wouldn't like a pretty female teacher?

Simply looking at her was a pleasure.

Jiang Ning looked at Guo Ran. Her student-like youthfulness, paired with a teacher's distinctive seriousness, gave her a special sort of charm.

During one's school years, there always seemed to be one or two stunning female teachers—the English teacher, the Music Teacher. Years later, even when dreaming of those days, they remained difficult to forget.

For the students of No.4 Middle School, Teacher Guo Ran, their chemistry teacher, was someone they would still remember years after graduation. Whenever they spoke to others about their school days, they would sigh over how beautiful their chemistry teacher had been.

Yet whenever Guo Ran's beauty was mentioned, there would always be a turn: but one day, she suddenly left. They heard something had happened to her outside the school.

Guo Ran taught Jiang Ning for only one semester before vanishing without explanation in the second. After that, Jiang Ning never saw her again.

Seven years after graduating high school, he returned to his alma mater with several classmates to visit their former teachers.

During their casual conversation, a classmate asked a teacher about Guo Ran. That elderly teacher told them what had happened back then.

Guo Ran had been seeing a boyfriend outside school, supposedly someone introduced by her family. They were still only trying things out.

That day, Guo Ran and her boyfriend were walking down the street when several people suddenly rushed at them and started beating them. Amid the chaos, Guo Ran's face was slashed by a knife wielded by a woman on the other side. Several of her ribs were broken from being stomped on, and an unknown amount of her hair was torn out. She was left in a miserable state.

Her boyfriend had it even worse. His leg was broken, he suffered a concussion, and several of his teeth were knocked out.

It was only after the police arrived that they learned what had happened. The boyfriend dating Guo Ran had also been involved with a girl from the vocational school. He got that girl pregnant, then dumped her.

Unable to swallow the insult, the girl's parents gathered a group of relatives and, in their fury, did such a thing.

Unfortunately, Guo Ran had been dragged into it and suffered an undeserved disaster.

Whenever the elderly teacher spoke of that incident, he sighed again and again at how cruel fate could be.

Now, Guo Ran stood on the podium, graceful and poised.

Jiang Ning thought, If I get the chance, I should stop it.

For others, such a thing would be almost a devastating calamity. In his hands, though, it would be nothing more than a few strands of Sword Qi.

If his cultivation were profound enough, he could even use his Spiritual Sense to erase others' memories and alter the facts.

Faced with the class's enthusiastic response, Guo Ran was somewhat at a loss.

She had only been officially transferred to No.4 Middle School this semester, and she was teaching two classes at once. Class 8 was one of them.

She adjusted her mindset and said to the students, "Since this is our first class, let me tell everyone about my story with chemistry."

As she began speaking, the applause gradually died down.

Although Guo Ran did not have much experience, she had rehearsed this first lesson several times beforehand.

She told them many things in class: why she had become a chemistry teacher, and about her own student days.

Though she did not speak very smoothly, she was the one teaching. The boys were highly supportive, often chiming in unexpectedly, and the classroom atmosphere was very harmonious.

Even after class ended and Guo Ran left, Ma Shicheng and the others were still visibly excited.

Jiang Ning opened up his five senses and listened for a while. Discussions about Guo Ran could be heard from several corners of the classroom.

Geng Lu turned around, propped her elbow on the front of Jiang Ning's desk, and blinked as she asked him:

"Jiang Ning, the chemistry teacher is a great beauty. Are you happy?"

"Of course I am," Jiang Ning said.

Geng Lu pursed her lips, feeling a sourness in her heart.

Jiang Ning sensed her emotions. It was like when a handsome male teacher joined the class and the girls' eyes were glued to him—the boys probably would not feel too good about it either.

He understood, but he could not be bothered to comfort her. Besides, this sort of thing was hard to comfort. Was he supposed to say, Actually, Teacher Guo Ran is pretty ordinary?

Something so hypocritical? Jiang Ning's Spiritual Sense circled Geng Lu's body twice. Still, she did indeed have something more prominent than Teacher Guo Ran.

Jiang Ning thought back, trying to recall something about Geng Lu, but his memories were fragmentary. The two of them had barely interacted. He only knew that in her second year of high school, she had chosen to become an art exam student and studied fine arts. Later, she got into a Tier 2 College in Hui Province.

Jiang Ning was not in the mood to chat, so he took out his phone and planned to search for information on medicinal herbs to get an idea of the current market.

Seeing this, Geng Lu said, "Jiang Ning, you haven't added me on QQ yet, have you?"

She gave him her QQ number and had him add her.

Jiang Ning logged into QQ.

"Give it to me, give it to me. I'll log into QQ and approve your request." Geng Lu placed her phone on the desk and tapped away with one finger, logging into her own QQ account and carefully assigning him to the classmates group.

When Ma Shicheng saw the two adding each other, he thought Geng Lu was fairly pretty and had a good figure. Although she had been a little hostile toward him before, he was not such a petty man.

"Geng Lu, I'll add you on QQ!" Ma Shicheng grinned.

Geng Lu shot him a glance. "Sorry, my QQ friend list is full."

Ma Shicheng's smile froze, and his expression shifted. "Fine if you won't add me. Like I care?"

Ma Shicheng felt utterly humiliated. Was that necessary? He had only argued with Geng Lu a little a few days ago, and now she would not even add his QQ? Hell, with looks like his, did he lack a girl's QQ?

Ma Shicheng did not even look at Geng Lu. He took out his phone and started playing a round of Protect the Carrot.

Guo Kunnan craned his neck to look at the screen. It had an absurd amount of gold coins and diamonds.

He exclaimed, "Ma Ge, where did you find a cracked version?"

Ma Shicheng spoke with superiority. "It's not cracked. This is the official version."

"You're so rich that you topped up that much?"

"You don't understand, do you?" He glanced at Geng Lu from the corner of his eye, raised his voice slightly, and casually said:

"You can get gold coins and diamonds in Protect the Carrot. It depends on whether your methods are good enough. This game charges by sending a text message to the official provider.

"My phone has root access, and I also installed Cheetah Security Master. I disabled Protect the Carrot's permission to send text messages.

"That way, when you top up in the game, Cheetah Security Master blocks Protect the Carrot from sending a text to the carrier. Your phone won't be charged, but the game will glitch and show that the payment was successful. Then the gold coins and diamonds are yours—however many you want."

Ma Shicheng carried himself with an air of knowledge as he spoke eloquently. He felt incomparably elegant at that moment.

"Any game that uses text-message payments can be cracked with this trick."

Guo Kunnan was stunned. "You can do that?"

"What's so difficult about that? If there's anything you don't understand about Android Phones, just ask me." Ma Shicheng said smugly. He figured Geng Lu must regret refusing to add him now.

Geng Lu did not feel that way at all. She only thought Ma Shicheng was putting on airs. "At the end of the day, aren't you still playing a pirated game?"

Ma Shicheng was baffled.

"What do you know? This is called making reasonable use of the rules!"

Geng Lu did not understand, but did a girl need a reason to dislike someone?

No, she did not.