Now that was aggressive

Zhuang Wenqian wasn't exactly young anymore. She was twenty-eight.

She had stood at this little podium since her college internship, going from a junior college student to a married woman. Class after class had passed through her hands. What hadn't she seen?

She had seen every little scheme a high school boy could cook up, no matter how bizarre.

If someone judged science-track boys solely by their general impression of the group, then concluded that all of them were straightforward creatures with uncomplicated relationships...

That was nothing but stereotyping.

All you could really say was that most science-track boys were naturally oblivious, easygoing, and fairly easy to get along with. But wherever there were people, there was drama.

If science student = no ulterior motives held true, then student who said, "Miss, I'm a student. Could you let me copy your answers?" = innocent ought to hold true too.

How was that any different from the bullshit excuse, "He's just a kid"?

Zhuang Wenqian remained unflappable. She had taught at Zhen Nan Middle School for six years now, and her conscience had dwindled to match her paycheck.

A rookie teacher would probably have taken the bait and made Jiang Nian translate on the spot. Once he got stuck, she would put on a stern face and give him a lecture.

And then she'd be screwed.

Make one of the class's top English students resent you, and you could count on him fighting you from his seat every day. If he happened to be the ringleader of the rebels, you were doubly screwed.

"Is that so?"

"Then Jiang Nian, please translate for us. I was just about to go through this reading passage in detail." Zhuang Wenqian's voice was sweet, but she suddenly turned toward Yu Tongjie.

"You can come up and translate too. We'll compare your versions sentence by sentence as we go."

Yu Tongjie froze.

Wait, I wasn't the one who left his test blank. Why was the English teacher making me translate? I only understood about a third of this passage, and even that was half guessing.

At the podium, Zhuang Wenqian saw that Yu Tongjie hadn't moved and knitted her brows.

"You, the new student. Would you please come up to the podium?"

Qianbao, whose principles were eminently flexible, put on a stern expression. She knew perfectly well that scowling at a shameless student like Jiang Nian was useless. He responded to gentleness, not force.

But against this plain-looking, average-performing, meek student whose name she couldn't remember, that trick worked every time. This was precisely when she needed to wield her authority as a teacher!

Sure enough, after that sharp look, Yu Tongjie rose with his face deathly pale. Clutching his test paper, he left his seat and walked up to the podium with his head down.

The class took one look. Well, well. The instigator and his target were about to compete on the same stage.

Jiang Nian stood to Qianbao's right, near the windows beside the third group of desks. He turned toward the visibly nervous Yu Tongjie and thought, Qianbao really knew how to play this!

If he couldn't translate it, he would lose a little face at most. But Yu Tongjie wouldn't fare much better. With both of them getting the same treatment, he wouldn't hold it against her.

If he could translate it, though, that bastard Yu Tongjie would be humiliated.

Jiang Nian had always been quick-witted. With the knowledge of six subjects absorbed through the Memory Bread, he had effortlessly built the kind of memory palace other people needed extensive training to construct.

Once he filled the gaps in his vocabulary, reading an English test was as easy as drinking water.

Expressionless, he glanced down at his unanswered test paper. It was no different from reading an elementary school composition. As his eyes passed over the words, his brain automatically translated them into sentences.

Fuck you, Yu Tongjie. You wanted to come after me?

I'd fucking wreck you this time!

"All right, everyone, look at the first sentence." Zhuang Wenqian read it aloud, then turned toward the two boys flanking her. "Who wants to go first?"

"Ooooh!" The class instantly got fired up. Everyone could tell that Yu Tongjie's instigation involved a personal grudge. "I want to see blood!"

Holy shit, an actual head-to-head showdown. Qianbao really knew how to put on a show.

"Let him translate first," Jiang Nian said mildly. "He can't stand that I scored 140, so he's been telling everyone I cheated. If he gets anything wrong, I'll correct him right here."

"Holy shit!"

"Holy shit! That's fucking awesome!"

"That's savage! He's going straight for the throat!"

As soon as Jiang Nian finished speaking, the class erupted with unprecedented enthusiasm. Watching drama was human nature, and a public showdown was the undisputed king of entertainment!

Usually, there were always a few students who tuned out the world and buried themselves in their own work. Even they looked up now, their faces instantly flushing.

That tendency to feel embarrassed for other people really was...

Even Qianbao was caught off guard. He had actually launched a direct attack to the boy's face!

Chinese people tended to be reserved. No matter how serious a conflict was, they were accustomed to resolving it privately. A simple "Everyone's watching" could make someone who was about to start swearing back down.

They valued face and feared humiliation. They didn't want to embarrass themselves, and they didn't want to embarrass the other person in public either.

According to the standard Chinese school-drama script...

The proper sequence would have been for Jiang Nian to know about the conflict all along but keep it to himself. Instead, he would prove through his actual ability that he hadn't cheated.

Then he would give Yu Tongjie a disdainful smile, leaving the latter to grit his teeth and admit defeat. The teacher would clear Jiang Nian's name, while the classmates whispered about Yu Tongjie.

Afterward, surrounded by his friends, Jiang Nian would casually remark,

"It was merely a little wind and frost."

His classmates and friends would all give him a thumbs-up. Brother Nian was so capable, so cool. In ancient times, he would surely have been a scholar-general. One ferocious scholar-general!

But now, who could have expected Jiang Nian to throw out the script?

He had gone straight for an open confrontation.

That single sentence was packed with information, and his classmates received several clear messages: Yu Tongjie was jealous, he had been spreading rumors, and that was why he had stirred things up just now.

Made sense. Made perfect sense.

Jiang Nian's response was just as hard-hitting: Yu Tongjie would translate a sentence, and he would correct it. Wasn't that as good as saying Yu Tongjie was incompetent? It reinforced everything he had just revealed. His aggression was off the charts.

Holy shit.

When had the high achievers in the Olympiad Class ever seen someone this ruthless? An open confrontation like this was every bit as entertaining as watching a foreign paternity-test show.

Their English teacher, Qianbao, was now the judge.

Truth and lies would be exposed in an instant.

Anticipation peaked. Everyone in the class had flushed cheeks and was practically buzzing with excitement. Some stood up; others slapped their desks.

Li Hua climbed straight onto his stool. "Brother Nian! Fucking awesome!"

How could their circle of friends not know whether Jiang Nian was good at English? Sometimes even Zhang Ningzhi would turn straight to him when she forgot a word.

Holy fuck! Eighteen years alive, and this was the first time they had witnessed a wish-fulfillment novel in real life!

The class's resident ladies' man, Fatty Da-

Jun stood up too, his face blazing red with excitement, almost as fiery as Uzi's. He adjusted his glasses three times in a row and shouted,

"Brother Nian, you're fucking awesome!"

Who the hell could have imagined this? In his place, they would never have had the guts. They couldn't pull off something like this in a lifetime!

Yao Beibei joined the cheering too. Who the fuck was Yu Tongjie? Jiang Nian was the only one she backed!

Sitting at her desk, Zhang Ningzhi's eyes misted with involuntary tears. Her old habit of feeling embarrassed for other people had flared up again. She thought that if she put herself in either boy's shoes, she would definitely have burst into tears by now.

(End of chapter)