Who Dares Be More Miserable Than Me (Please Vote!)

Who Dares Be More Miserable Than Me (Please Vote!)

New Jersey.

Bergen County High School.

Ding!

At the sound of the system notification, Adam's smile bloomed to its fullest.

Juno, Little Sheldon, and Paige had provided Wisdom Points before, but only Leonard had provided Strength Points.

Clearly, Leonard was the truly decent one.

His Wisdom Points had smoothly surpassed 140, promoting him to a genuine genius.

At that moment, Adam felt as if his soul had been elevated. An unprecedented joy flooded his body and mind. Memories that had grown blurrier with each passing year seemed like mist on glass being wiped away by a cloth, appearing in his mind as clearly as a mirror.

Time began to rewind.

1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988.

Those were the five years since his transmigration.

1987, 1986... all the way back to 1974.

This was the first half of PJ's life.

Just when Adam thought it was over, the scene changed.

Su'e: Chang'e is an official title. You actually want them all? That's disgusting.

Second Senior Brother: When I was young, I learned a technique for prolonged lovemaking. I'll serve them one by one and make them happy. Watch my magnificent dance moves.

These were clearly memories from his previous life in 2020.

Just as Adam hoped for more clear memories to return, the cloth vanished. His memories from before 2020 remained obscured by clouds and fog, vague and indistinct, while the feeling of spiritual elevation from becoming a genius gradually faded as well.

"Hiss."

Those memories flashed through Adam's mind like lightning. As he regretted the end of that joy, a miserable face entered his field of vision, making him suck in a sharp breath.

Inside the cramped locker, someone was curled up in a ball, gazing at him pitifully.

His forehead was red and swollen, as if he had struck something. A few strands of black hair still clung to the corners of his split lips, and every breath carried the smell of a drink mixed with something fishy, making Adam instinctively hold his breath.

"Come out."

Adam frowned and reached out to help Leonard, but he was wedged in too tightly to get out easily.

"You should just pull me."

Leonard smiled wryly. "It'll be easier that way. Jimmy does it like this every time."

"Then bear with it."

Adam had no choice but to pull. After a great deal of effort, he finally got Leonard out.

He wore a neutral-colored track jacket, brown pants, and a physics-themed T-shirt. Thick glasses sat on his face, and he stood in an extremely unnatural posture.

"Are you okay?"

Adam could not help asking.

Like Sheldon, Leonard could be considered an "old friend" of his. Compared to Sheldon, Leonard's way of dealing with people was far more in line with a normal person's values.

"I'm fine."

Leonard grinned. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Adam smiled. "I told you already, we're friends, right?"

"Yes, we're friends." Leonard nodded hard. "We should get out of here first. I'm afraid Jimmy will bring people back to beat you up."

"Sure."

Adam nodded.

Though it seemed he really could keep fighting all day, and the spots Jimmy had hit were recovering quickly, he had already achieved his goal. There was no need to keep clashing with trash like Jimmy.

"This way."

Leonard led Adam toward the exit.

"What happened to your leg?"

Seeing Leonard limp along as though he were in tremendous pain, Adam asked.

"Uh..."

Leonard's "old face that had grown up too fast" reddened, but under Adam's concerned gaze, he could not bring himself to lie. Embarrassed, he said, "It was Jimmy. He... he yanked my underwear up hard and dislocated... that area. He said he wanted to see whether it could, like the traditional New Year's Eve program in New York Times Square, drop a ball at the same time as the midnight countdown."

"..."

Adam stared at him in stunned silence before blurting out, "And you could endure that?"

"That's nothing." Leonard mocked himself. "Yesterday, he used a stapler on the one that was left. That was the real pain."

"WTF?!"

Adam was stunned yet again.

"Actually, that wasn't even the worst part." Leonard had loosened up somewhat and added, "What I couldn't stand the most was Jimmy forcing laxatives into my mouth, then having a whole group of football players surround me so I couldn't go to the bathroom..."

Adam's mouth twitched as he kept sucking in breaths.

Was that any kind of life for a person to live?

If he were Leonard, suffering such horrific bullying with such a high IQ, he would have definitely turned evil and tortured every one of them to death.

Yet Leonard, who had survived all that, had somehow grown into a warm-hearted nerd. It was simply unbelievable.

"The injury on your forehead, and the hair at the corner of your mouth—were those his doing too?"

Adam looked at him sympathetically.

"Oh, not those."

Leonard hurriedly wiped away the hair and rubbed the wound on his forehead. "That was someone else. He wanted to eat walnuts but couldn't find anything to smash them with."

"Everyone bullies you?"

Adam was speechless.

"Not everyone."

Leonard became too embarrassed to continue.

Some forms of bullying were things he truly could not bring himself to say.

For example, someone had added urine to his Hawaiian Punch.

His clothes had been stripped off, and he had been thrown into the girls' locker room.

A parrot had even lived in his underwear once.

There had been far too many bizarre things like that.

"Why not tell your parents, or just transfer schools?"

Adam could not help asking.

"It would be useless even if I told them. As long as I still have to go to school, it'll be the same wherever I go." Leonard spoke in an exceptionally mature tone. "As for telling my parents, heh! Haven't you read the book my mother wrote? Do you think she cares about me?"

"Uh..."

Adam was at a loss for words. "What about your father?"

"He can barely take care of himself." Leonard smiled bitterly. "Who do you think I inherited this from? My mother has always been extremely harsh toward both me and my father. I don't even know what a mother's love feels like. I even built a Hug Machine to replace my mother's hugs, but my father often borrowed it to use."

"Ah."

Adam had nothing to say. He could only pat Leonard on the shoulder, thinking, Poor kid. If you knew all this was because of Sheldon, would you rush to the University of Texas at Austin right now and take out Little Sheldon to avoid the suffering of the second half of your life?

Leonard's mother could be called a "female version of Sheldon." From the moment Leonard was born, she had used him as an experiment, forcing him to adapt to a life ordinary people could not endure and thoroughly reshaping his values on a psychological level.

Campus bullies like Jimmy had thoroughly reshaped Leonard on a physical level, pushing his ability to endure what ordinary people could not endure to an even greater height.

And who was Jimmy?

He had the same face as Sheldon's Dad!

It could be said that, without Leonard knowing it, he had already become inextricably connected to Sheldon. The first half of his life had been "ruined" by Sheldon, and after the values and tolerance forged by those experiences enabled him to successfully become Sheldon's roommate, the second half of his life also fell into Sheldon's hands.

So much so that when Sheldon and Amy moved out of their apartment to live together and treated him just a little better, he became crazily unable to adapt.

When Sheldon reverted to his old ways and freely ordered him around, Leonard actually smiled in relief.

Tell me, who dared claim to be more miserable than him?

PS: Thanks to I'm Destined to Be a Luck Emperor and Joney for the tips!