Chapter 27

"How could it be you?"

Author's note: This is the first update after going VIP. Leave lots of comments, everyone!

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Chapter 27: First Clash

Chapter 27

How could it be you?

How could it be you?

How could it possibly be you?

Those familiar brows and eyes, that restlessness blazing openly in his gaze, that disdain and indignation etched at the corner of his lips—even if he were burned to ashes, Qin Yi would recognize at a glance the man who had stolen his wife and taken his life—

Nie Haotian!

How, could, it, possibly, be, you!

"You know me?" Nie Haotian watched the shock and disgust exposed on that unfamiliar face, a sharp glint flashing through his eyes.

"How could I possibly—"

"Cough!" The cold, dry cough from Qin Rong cut through the rage filling Qin Yi's chest. His mind immediately cleared, and though unwilling, he said to Nie Haotian, "Of course I know you. One day in S City, when I was picking my brother up from school, I happened to see you getting beaten up by a group of people."

Even if I can't take revenge, I'll at least make things unpleasant for you first!

"Oh, really?" Nie Haotian asked blandly, then said no more. Turning to Zhang Fengguo, he said, "Sorry, Teacher Zhang. I'm late."

"It's Haotian!" Zhang Fengguo said with a beaming smile. "Remember to be on time next time. Go back to your seat!"

"Yes." Nie Haotian nodded. He hesitantly glanced at Qin Yi, then walked silently to his seat.

Naturally, he did not believe Qin Yi's incoherent nonsense. Still, this was not the right time to get to the bottom of things. Besides, there was a young lion standing beside that idiot.

As Nie Haotian reached his seat, he casually glanced at Qin Rong, who stood behind Qin Yi. Their gazes met at once, then both looked away.

"Qin Yi, Qin Rong, the two of you can sit behind Nie Haotian! Nie Haotian is our class monitor. If anything comes up, just ask him directly," Zhang Fengguo told them. Then his gaze landed on the primly seated Nie Haotian. "Haotian, as class monitor, you must take good care of the new students, understand?"

"Don't worry, Teacher Zhang." Nie Haotian answered with a smile, then said pointedly, "I'll definitely take good care of our two new classmates."

Tch, who would be "taking care" of whom was still uncertain! Qin Yi pursed his lips in defiance. He and Qin Rong went one after the other to the window seats in the fourth row from the back. As he passed Nie Haotian, Qin Yi deliberately shot him a contemptuous look. Nie Haotian merely smiled without speaking.

Next came morning self-study. Yet clearly, no one was in the mood to preview or review their lessons. Every so often, someone would turn around to secretly glance at the strange atmosphere around Qin Yi and the other two, occasionally whispering among themselves. Gradually, the classroom's buzzing grew louder.

The girl in the group beside Qin Yi was the first to lose patience. She lightly poked his arm with her ballpoint pen, then tossed him a crumpled note.

Qin Yi raised his brows in confusion. Seeing the girl's exaggerated expression, he pressed his lips together and unfolded the note—

"Did you know Nie Haotian before?"

Qin Yi curled his lips and wrote on the note, "No." Then he casually tossed it back.

Before long, the note came back again. Qin Yi opened it—

"Then why did you say you saw him getting beaten up?"

"I'm not sure either. His face just looked familiar. And those people really did call out the name Nie Haotian back then." Qin Yi spared no effort in smearing Nie Haotian's name. You little brat, the hatred of stealing my wife and taking my life is irreconcilable. I'll at least throw some dirt on you first.

"How is that possible? Class Monitor Nie is famous at our school for being able to fight. During military training, he even PKed an instructor! The instructor lost to him too!!!"

Three exclamation marks, really? Qin Yi pouted indignantly and began scribbling furiously on the wrinkled note.

"No matter how high your martial arts are, you still fear a kitchen knife. Besides, maybe the instructor went easy on him! And he's just a middle school student, yet he's so good at fighting. Could he be in the mafia?"

When it came to smearing Nie Haotian, Qin Yi had always spared no effort.

"That's possible too. There are rumors at school that some of the upperclassmen delinquents really respect Nie Haotian. Maybe he really is!"

"So what?" Qin Yi wrote sourly. "Even if he is, he's just a sinful gangster bottom!"

"Eh!" The girl beside Qin Yi opened the crumpled note and immediately widened her eyes in astonishment. She excitedly wrote something on it and tossed it back. But in her excitement, she misjudged the force and threw it straight onto Nie Haotian's desk—

How embarrassing!

The girl's mouth twitched miserably a few times. Then she looked at Qin Yi with the solemn composure of a martyr heading to execution.

Up front, Nie Haotian calmly opened the note and read the entire exchange. His gaze settled on the final two lines—

"Even if he is, he's just a sinful gangster bottom!"

"Eh? You know that term too? Are you also... Then are you a top or a bottom? But I always thought Class Monitor Nie had the aura of a bottom. Great minds really do think alike! He's a tsundere, scheming bottom, awoo!"

Unhurriedly smoothing out the wrinkled note, Nie Haotian turned around with perfect composure. His gaze swept over the guilt-ridden girl and Qin Yi, who was gleefully enjoying the spectacle. The corner of his lips lifted as he said lightly—

"Qin Yi, you're the bottom. Your whole family is bottoms. You're a bottom for all eternity."

Hiss.

Stunned by Nie Haotian's bizarre aura, Qin Yi sucked in a chilling breath. His bewildered gaze swept over Qin Rong's calm face, and he did not know what to do.

Qin Rong was also somewhat slowed by Nie Haotian's bizarre counterattack. The main reason was that he did not quite understand what "bottom" meant. Still, it probably was not a nice word. After a brief pause, Qin Rong collected his thoughts and said calmly, "A Buddhist saying goes: what I think is what I see. Broadly speaking, what you hold in your heart is what you see before your eyes. Now Class Monitor Nie sees nothing but 'bottoms,' so presumably, you yourself are the eternal all-purpose..."

Qin Rong deliberately drew out the syllable, his gaze sweeping over the crowd attracted by their argument. Satisfied, he smiled and gently uttered the final word—

"Bottom!"

"Ring—"

"Crack"—"

The ballpoint pen in Nie Haotian's hand let out a struggling sound along with the bell, then shattered. Anger flashed through Nie Haotian's eyes. Just as he was about to flare up, his gaze passed over the classmates watching the show, and he immediately suppressed it. Taking several deep breaths, he said as though nothing had happened, "Class is over. Get ready, everyone. First period is Chinese. The math teacher has something to do, so she switched periods with the Chinese teacher."

With that, he walked out of the classroom without looking back.

First round, a complete victory!

Excitedly, Qin Yi raised both hands in V-signs and waved them back and forth.

"You're amazing! This is the first time I've seen someone make Nie Haotian so angry he couldn't speak!" The girl who had spent half the class passing notes with Qin Yi looked at Qin Rong with admiration, her eyes nearly turning into hearts.

"It was nothing." Qin Rong's lips lifted slightly at her words, and he gave a reserved smile.

"My name is Yang Mingmi." The girl perceptively extended her hand and said to the two of them, "Nice to meet you."

"I'm Qin Rong."

"I'm Qin Yi."

Friendship in one's youth was exceedingly simple. A single note could forge a revolutionary friendship—pure and transparent.

Chinese, English, math, physical education.

The morning classes passed easily. At noon, Qin Rong and Qin Yi treated Yang Mingmi to three bowls of rice noodles, plus a huge pile of vegetable skewers and meat skewers at a small restaurant outside the school. The three ate until their mouths were glistening with oil. Having eaten her fill, Yang Mingmi sprawled contentedly in her chair and rubbed her swollen stomach.

"By the way, what kind of person is Nie Haotian?" Qin Yi had never let go of the death from his previous life. Now that he had another chance to meet Nie Haotian, of course he had to make some plans.

By now, he knew that the course of this life was completely different from his last. But no matter how the world changed, what had happened had already happened. Even if the current Nie Haotian was innocent, he could not simply let it go.

"You really do seem interested in him!" Yang Mingmi took a sip of cola and looked at Qin Yi in confusion. "Could it be that you really are..."

One of those?

Meeting Qin Yi's puzzled gaze, Yang Mingmi nodded as if they shared an unspoken understanding. Her half-lidded, lecherous expression left Qin Yi baffled. Only after a long while did he finally understand—

"Of course not! Even if I were, I wouldn't choose him!" Qin Yi suddenly realized what she meant, then said angrily.

"That's true." Yang Mingmi gave Qin Rong, who had not spoken much, a thoughtful glance. A healing, doting type was so much better! Who had nothing better to do than love and kill each other? It wasn't like they were writing a novel!

"But how do you know about tops and bottoms?" Qin Yi suddenly remembered something and asked with a puzzled expression. As far as he knew, this only became popular in China after 2000 in his previous life. Could Yang Mingmi have been remade in the furnace too? She was so ahead of her time.

"My older sister studies abroad in Japan. She often brings me Japanese manga." As Yang Mingmi spoke, she suddenly leaned forward, lowered her voice, and said with a knowing look, "Like Desperate Love, for example!"

I see!

Qin Yi nodded to show that he understood. He had indeed heard of that work. In his previous life, one of his girlfriends had been a fujoshi and often chattered to him about such things.

Beside them, Qin Rong, who had been silent for a long time, listened to their conversation—which sounded like either heavenly scripture or coded signals exchanged by underground operatives—and secretly made a decision—

When he got home that night, he absolutely had to learn about this subject. Learning truly had no end. Even Qin Yi, whom he had always considered ignorant and incompetent, possessed specialized knowledge in one area. As the ancients said: one must not judge a person by appearance, nor measure the sea with a gourd. It was indeed true.

After three days apart, one really had to look at someone with new eyes!

Outside the window, the sky stretched clear for miles and the weather was pleasant. A crow perched on an electric pole flapped its wings. Its black-bean eyes gleamed brightly as it watched the bustling pedestrians below. Tilting its head, it elegantly groomed its feathers with its beak. Just when it had finally smoothed them out, a breeze ruffled them again. Helpless, it could only let out a series of caws...

The afternoon sun blazed like fire, its flowing light like gold. It slowly filtered through gaps between the branches, falling onto the ground or dancing across the walls, doing everything it could to erase every possible shadow. This was the youth we had all once possessed—

Simple, pure, sunny, beautiful... with love and hate sharply defined...

Author's note: This is the second update after going VIP.

Keep leaving comments, everyone!

Awoo~~~~~

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

School ended at five-thirty in the evening. The dark mass of students surged out of school like prisoners released after serving their sentences, impatient to plunge into the unfathomable life outside. Qin Yi and Qin Rong were swept along in the crowd, strolling carelessly toward the school gates amid the shoulder-to-shoulder stream of people. The moment they exited the gates, they saw Qin Dingbang's black BMW waiting across the street.