I Lied to You

The boy who suddenly walked over was about 1.75 meters tall and lean. His face was covered in the marks left by acne, and his eyes carried the cocky, streetwise air of someone who thought highly of himself.

He ignored Ling Yun beside her and fixed his gaze on Jiang Yingqing's face. Grinning, he revealed a set of somewhat crooked teeth. "Hey, beautiful, wanna be friends? Add me on QQ? My name's Zhang Yang. I'm a track-and-field student." His tone carried a familiarity that left no room for refusal.

"Zhang Yang?"

At the sound of that name, Ling Yun's heart jolted. Fragments of his past-life memories surged up at once—he had indeed heard that name before.

On Ning City No. 1 High School's infamous "List of Deities"! The electronic display that recorded only serious offenders who had been expelled, yet never stated the reasons.

Later, the truth had been pieced together through countless students' whispered gossip: he was a scumbag expelled for extremely vile dormitory bullying!

He had forced his fair-skinned roommate, Su Chenyang... to "serve" him, even becoming addicted to it. In the end, the other roommates could take it no longer and reported him anonymously.

The matter was suppressed. Su Chenyang left school in dejection, while Zhang Yang was merely expelled. He had even avoided detention because of Su Chenyang's shame and cowardice.

All that remained on campus was a disgusting rumor.

A wave of intense revulsion seized Ling Yun in an instant. A piece of trash like this was filthy enough to look at for even one more second!

The smile had long since vanished from Jiang Yingqing's face, replaced by a coldness that kept people a thousand miles away.

She even took half a step back and said clearly and distantly, "Sorry, my QQ friends are all family. I don't add strangers."

Her refusal was crisp and decisive, leaving not the slightest room for negotiation.

The smile on Zhang Yang's face stiffened, but he soon put on an even thicker layer of shamelessness and stepped forward half a pace. "Hey, everything has a first time! The more friends you have, the more paths you have. Just add me. It's not like you'll lose a piece of flesh."

He ignored Jiang Yingqing's resistance, even adopting a faintly coercive tone.

Jiang Yingqing's delicate brows drew tightly together. She found his pestering both troublesome and disgusting.

She instinctively looked toward Ling Yun, a hint of appeal in her eyes.

Receiving Jiang Yingqing's signal, Ling Yun did not hesitate for even a moment.

He strode forward and stood in front of Jiang Yingqing like a solid barrier, completely blocking Zhang Yang's uncomfortable gaze.

A blatant sneer curled at the corner of his lips. His voice was not loud, but every word was clear, like an ice-tempered needle:

"Hey, you so-called 'specialty' student, are you so pent-up your brain's developed a hole? So desperate for love? Go home and find your mom! Stop disgusting people here!"

Ling Yun unleashed a barrage of insults at Zhang Yang.

"What the hell did you say?!"

Zhang Yang's face instantly turned liver-red, his embarrassment and anger transforming into fury!

He pointed at Ling Yun's nose, his voice suddenly rising into a sharp, grating shriek. "You dare meddle in my business? Are you fucking looking to die?!"

The sudden clash between the two was like a magnet, instantly drawing the attention of every remaining student on the field.

The crowd surged over, forming a semicircle of spectators filled with curiosity, tension, and the excitement of watching a spectacle.

Under the gaze of so many people, Zhang Yang's vanity and humiliation-fueled rage swelled to their peak.

He suddenly stepped forward and pointed at Ling Yun's nose, raising his voice even higher with a swaggering arrogance that was clearly meant to intimidate. "You little bastard! Don't you love showing off and playing the hero? Fine! Today, I'll make you lose face in front of the entire school! I'll teach you why flowers are so red!"

Before his voice had even faded, he swung his fist without warning and smashed it viciously toward Ling Yun's face, the blow cutting through the air!

The punch was fast and ruthless. Clearly relying on his athletic build, he intended to establish his dominance with a single strike!

Yet in Ling Yun's eyes, the movement was as slow as a crawling snail!

Just as the fist was about to touch the tip of his nose—

A blur flashed past!

The onlookers did not even see how Ling Yun moved. Their vision merely blurred!

The next second, everyone's eyes widened in shock!

The Zhang Yang who had been so aggressive a moment ago was now floating off the ground, both feet hanging in the air!

He looked like a chick being held by the scruff of its neck. Ling Yun had clutched the front of his shirt with one right hand and lifted him at least twenty centimeters off the ground!

The rage on Zhang Yang's face instantly froze, then was replaced by overwhelming terror!

The weightlessness of his dangling feet and the suffocating pressure around his neck left his mind completely blank!

He stared in terror at Ling Yun's icy, utterly emotionless eyes from close range, as though he were looking at some primordial beast!

"Ugh... b-brother! It's a misunderstanding! It's all a misunderstanding!"

His fierce desire to survive made him change faces instantly. He forced out a smile uglier than crying, his voice trembling. "I-I was joking! Just fooling around! D-don't take it seriously! Put me down... put me down!"

Ling Yun looked coldly at the fearfully "clear" eyes before him, and the sneer at the corner of his mouth deepened.

He swung his arm seemingly casually—

"Get lost! If you dare harass her again, every time I see you, I'll beat you until even your mother doesn't recognize you!"

Whoosh—bang!

Zhang Yang was flung away by an unstoppable force like a torn sack!

He tumbled miserably four or five times across the dusty ground before barely coming to a stop. His entire body was covered in dirt, and he grimaced in pain.

He struggled to get up, not even daring to look back. Scrambling on all fours, he fled madly toward the edge of the field without turning his head!

What revenge? What getting his dignity back? The terror of being dominated by absolute strength in that instant had completely shattered all his courage!

Seven or eight people? In the face of that kind of strength, they would be nothing more than a few extra human tumbleweeds!

"Holy shit!!!"

"Brother Yun, you're awesome!!"

"You lifted someone off the ground with one hand?!! What the fuck, are you Superman?!"

The crowd erupted in thunderous exclamations and cheers! Their eyes filled with shock and admiration as they looked at Ling Yun!

Jiang Yingqing hurried over to Ling Yun. Under the glow of the setting sun, a captivating blush colored her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled with gratitude and lingering fear. "Ling Yun... thank you! Just now... you... you were really handsome!"

Her voice carried a faint, almost imperceptible tremble.

Ling Yun raised his brows, deliberately moving a little closer. With a mischievous grin, he asked, "Oh? I was only handsome just now? So I'm not handsome usually?" He was in an excellent mood. That move had indeed felt incredibly satisfying.

"N-not at all!" Jiang Yingqing's face flushed even deeper, like a ripe apple. She lowered her head slightly, her voice as soft as a mosquito's buzz yet exceptionally clear as she added, "You're handsome usually too... but just now, you were... unbelievably handsome!"

Boom! A huge sense of satisfaction and a strange flutter instantly struck Ling Yun's heart.

To be praised so directly as "handsome"—and "unbelievably handsome"—in public by such a beautiful girl felt a hundred times better than getting a Pentakill in a game in his previous life!

He felt the corners of his mouth stretching toward his ears.

However, he soon remembered what Jiang Yingqing had said when rejecting Zhang Yang and asked curiously, "By the way, you said you only have family on QQ? Really?" He felt that had probably just been an excuse.

"Of course it's fake!"

Jiang Yingqing immediately raised her head to refute him, speaking very quickly.

"Who'd be so bored as to add only their family?"

After saying that, she seemed to realize that her reaction had been a little too intense. Her eyes flickered rapidly, and she instinctively avoided Ling Yun's probing gaze. Her petite earlobes also quietly turned red.

"Haha, I knew it!" Ling Yun felt there was no reason for Jiang Yingqing to lie to him. With an expression that said "just as I thought," he laughed heartily.

At that moment, Drill Instructor Cheng Yuanzhou returned to the field with the boarding students who had learned how to fold their blankets into "tofu blocks."

Before long, the glorious feat of "Ling Yun lifting track-and-field student Zhang Yang off the ground with one hand" spread through the entire assembly formation as if it had grown wings.

The girls looked at Ling Yun with undisguised admiration and sparkling eyes, while the boys were caught between envy, jealousy, and resentment, wishing they could be just as fierce.

"Brother Yun! You showed off again!" Zhou Da squeezed over and bumped Ling Yun with his shoulder, his tone sour enough to have been soaked in lemon juice. "I seriously suspect you're the protagonist of this world! Tell me, did you bind some kind of 'Show-Off-and-Slap-the-Face System'? Get one for me too!"

"Pfft!"

Ling Yun nearly choked on his own saliva, and his heart skipped a beat! How had this idiot accidentally hit the nail on the head?!

He forcibly suppressed his momentary shock and quickly switched to the expression one used when looking at an idiot. He slapped Zhou Da on the back of the head without holding back. "You've gone crazy from reading too many novels, haven't you? Is your brain broken? A system? Why don't you say I'm Ultraman while you're at it?"

Rubbing the back of his head, Zhou Da gave two foolish chuckles. He also felt that he had let his imagination run a little too wild and awkwardly scratched his head.

"Fall in!" Cheng Yuanzhou's booming voice pressed down on the commotion. "Training ends here for today! Same time tomorrow, assemble here! Dismissed!"

The crowd surged toward the cafeteria like floodwaters released from a dam. Ling Yun and Jiang Yingqing, meanwhile, walked side by side toward the school gate as they had the day before.

The setting sun stretched their shadows long. As they neared the school gate, Jiang Yingqing's steps suddenly slowed.

She lowered her head, unconsciously twisting the corner of her camouflage uniform. The blush that had yet to fade from her cheeks looked especially lovely in the setting sun.

"Ling Yun..." Her voice was soft, carrying the awkwardness of someone who had finally made up her mind.

"Hmm?" Ling Yun turned his head toward her.

"Back on the field... I lied to you."

Jiang Yingqing took a deep breath and raised her head. Her clear eyes met Ling Yun's directly, filled with unprecedented seriousness and a faint, barely noticeable shyness.

"I lied when I said I had lots of QQ friends... There's really only... you, besides my family, on my QQ friends list."

After saying those words, as if she had used up every bit of her courage, she did not dare look at Ling Yun's reaction. Turning around like a startled fawn, she quickly ran toward the black Maybach that had already been waiting at the school gate, opened the door, and hurried inside.

The Maybach silently slipped into the traffic, leaving Ling Yun standing alone at the school gate as the evening breeze brushed his hair.

His heart was pounding irregularly and forcefully in his chest.

A complex mixture of immense pride, intense fluttering, and a trace of bewilderment swept over him like a tide and submerged him.

In two lifetimes, this was the first time a girl had so clearly cast a stone named "special" into his heart, sending ripples through it again and again.