Just Start Swinging

Once the three-day break was over, Jiang Nian had to start her high school life.

She glanced at the class schedule and waited listlessly for Monday's first lesson.

Click, click, click.

The sound of high heels came from outside the door, and a female teacher of about thirty walked in, dressed in an immaculate business suit.

She was hardly old, but her hair was swept into a neat bun on top of her head, and her brows remained slightly furrowed even when she was relaxed, giving her expression the stern air of a governess.

She stopped at the front of the classroom and dropped her textbooks and teaching materials onto the desk with a bang.

After sweeping an expressionless gaze over the class, she adjusted her glasses and said coldly, "My name is Li Qing. I'll be your math teacher from now on."

"Let me make this clear: I have rules in my classroom. If you don't follow them, get the hell out."

Hearing that voice, Jiang Nian pursed her lips.

The old hag is here.

She hadn't liked this math teacher when she read the novel.

In the original novel, this teacher was actually portrayed as a relatively positive character, because she treated the academically outstanding Fu Zhenzhen very well.

But the same couldn't necessarily be said for students with mediocre grades.

Grades seemed to be her sole measure of a person's worth.

She applied blatant double standards to high-achieving students. Fu Zhenzhen lived quite comfortably under her care, while the students used as foils for Fu Zhenzhen suffered every single day.

Liu Chaoshu, the boy whose crush on Gao Wen indirectly led to Liu Fan bullying her in the original novel, was a prime example.

Liu Chaoshu had also earned admission to Pluto as an exceptional student. His father was a gambling addict who refused to support his high school education and demanded that he start working to earn money as soon as he finished middle school.

To have any chance of continuing his education, Liu Chaoshu had no choice but to push himself to get into Pluto, which offered subsidies, benefits, and completely free tuition.

He studied day and night and finally managed to secure an acceptance letter from Pluto. He'd thought he could attend high school in peace, only for his father to go gambling again.

To repay the debts, he had to work odd jobs to help support his family. His grades kept slipping as a result, and Li Qing humiliated him day after day, tearing him down to make Fu Zhenzhen look better.

Thinking about this, Jiang Nian stole a glance at Liu Chaoshu, who sat in a corner of the classroom.

He sat properly in his seat, his back ramrod straight. His pale skin lent him a cool air, and his demeanor was somewhat similar to Wen Jincheng's, though without quite as much aloofness.

Good-looking, and basically the male version of a resilient, innocent heroine. No wonder Liu Fan played dirty when she saw he liked someone else.

Put this in a different genre, and wouldn't it be a forced-love story?

Jiang Nian turned back around to find that Li Qing had finished laying down her rules and briskly started the lesson.

She listened attentively. She had to admit that, despite Li Qing's poor character, she taught well. Otherwise, Pluto wouldn't have hired her.

During a break in their afternoon English class, Tan Xuguang turned around from the seat in front of her, a potato chip still between his teeth, and held out an open can of chips to Jiang Nian.

"Want some?"

Jiang Nian nodded, took it, and ate a few. "I was just getting a little hungry."

She hadn't noticed it much when she was at home, but as soon as school started, she seemed to get hungry all the time.

Studying really did burn through food.

Song Jici, beside her, also put down his pen and came over to claim a few chips, making idle conversation. "There's a club recruitment event after classes this afternoon. Are you going to take a look?"

The club recruitment event was also known as the Battle of a Hundred Clubs.

School clubs generally promoted themselves and recruited members when new students arrived, injecting fresh blood into their ranks.

After all, the more members a club had, the more funding the school might approve for it.

That was why, at this time every year, every club went all out to snatch up new members-hence the Battle of a Hundred Clubs.

But Jiang Nian didn't have any particular club in mind yet.

"I haven't decided whether to join one. I'll drag Chu He along later and see if anything catches my interest."

Tan Xuguang had made his decision long ago. "I'm going to the Basketball Club, obviously. How can you go through high school without playing basketball? Ji Ci, want to join me?"

Song Jici didn't have a preferred club either. "Nothing interests me at the moment. I'll look around later before deciding."

Unwilling to give up after failing to recruit someone to go with him, Tan Xuguang asked Wen Jincheng and Shen Hui, who sat behind Jiang Nian:

"What about you two? Come play basketball with me."

Wen Jincheng had already made his choice. He simply shook his head at Tan Xuguang. "I'm joining the Student Council."

Shen Hui twirled his pen between his long fingers in a series of flashy flourishes. Propping up his chin, he said casually, "Why join a club? I could organize several get-togethers in that time."

Tan Xuguang pouted.

"Tch. You're no fun."

As Jiang Nian ate her chips, she sized up the four male leads with their vastly different personalities and silently commented to the system:

88, how do you think these four male leads stayed such good friends for so many years when their personalities are so different?

The four boys who heard her thoughts looked up, exchanged glances, and smiled at one another.

Exactly. With such wildly different personalities, how had they kept hanging out together for so many years?

That's what makes them such good buddies, I guess. Even their taste in girls is exactly the same. When they eventually discovered they'd all fallen for the same person, they didn't even fight. Instead, Fu Zhenzhen took them all into her harem.

The four boys who had just been smiling at each other could no longer smile.

Wait, no. Shen Hui, that poor sucker, didn't make it into Fu Zhenzhen's harem.

The playboy turned over a new leaf and still couldn't even get into the female lead's harem. That's what he gets for having such a long track record, hahahahahaha!

A hint of a smile returned to the other three boys' lips. At least they weren't the worst off.

A comparison really did put things into perspective.

A world where only Shen Hui got hurt had been achieved.

Shen Hui gritted his teeth as he stared at Jiang Nian, who sat in front of him, mercilessly mocking him in her head. He went hard.

His fists, that was.

This brat was really asking for a beating.

Once school finally let out, Jiang Nian grabbed Tong Chuhe, Gao Wen, and the others and hurried off to check out the recruitment event in the plaza.

As soon as they entered, they saw that dozens of tents of all sizes had gone up in the usually empty plaza, with crowds of people enthusiastically handing out flyers around them.

Jiang Nian wandered from place to place, admiring the Chinese Painting Club's ink paintings, sampling the Pastry Club's little cakes, and even watching the Jazz Dance Club's entire performance, which had the crowd going wild.

After making a full circuit, Jiang Nian still hadn't decided which club to join.

She asked the girls beside her, "Have you decided which club you want to join?"

Tong Chuhe had something in mind.

"I want to join the Taekwondo Club."

Jiang Nian had expected something like that, but was still a little puzzled. "Why taekwondo?"

She'd guessed that Tong Chuhe might choose a club unrelated to dance to unwind, but she hadn't expected her to choose taekwondo.

She'd glanced at the Taekwondo Club's promotional display earlier. It looked powerful and cool, and she'd been a little tempted herself. But considering her pathetic stamina, she'd decided to forget it.

"Hmm..."

Tong Chuhe rubbed her chin. "Maybe everything that's happened lately has made me feel that force is a better way to solve things."

First bullying, then jail.

Why bother with all that convoluted nonsense? Just start swinging.