High school clique

Chen Rongrong had always presented a playful, adorable image in public.

Zhou Yuwen thought nothing more of it and turned to leave the classroom.

Behind him, some classmates began talking. Why did Zhou Yuwen seem different from before?

"He seems more handsome than before."

"Could he have changed because of Chen Rongrong?"

"It's possible!"

The whispers behind her reached Chen Rongrong's ears. She felt pleased with herself, but still put on a shy face, blushing as she said, "What nonsense are you all talking about? I've always thought Zhou Yuwen was pretty handsome~ We're all classmates~"

"Oh, come on. Just because we're classmates doesn't mean he'd lend me four hundred yuan."

Hearing that, another classmate joined in teasing her.

Chen Rongrong rather enjoyed being talked about like this. She had never paid Zhou Yuwen any attention before, not until he lent her four hundred yuan. Then, when she saw him today, she thought he looked quite fresh and clean-cut.

Of course, that only meant the two of them could be a little closer than ordinary classmates.

As for whether it was love or not...

That was the sort of thing people thought after reading too many novels.

People in their senior year of high school were already quite mature, and Chen Rongrong was an orphan on top of that. Her choice of partner had to be not only handsome, but also rich. As for being a big-boobed, brainless airhead, that was just the persona she put on in front of others.

Zhou Yuwen went to the office, and when Hu Jie saw the change in him, she only looked at him suspiciously for a moment.

To be honest, with the college entrance exam approaching, Hu Jie didn't want her students putting too much energy into their appearance.

But it was too late to say anything now.

Hu Jie handed Zhou Yuwen his exam admission ticket and asked, as usual, how his studying at home had gone over the past few days.

Zhou Yuwen said he'd barely managed.

Hu Jie thought for a moment and said, "If it really doesn't work out, find a decent vocational college and learn a trade."

"Mm." Zhou Yuwen nodded.

If Zhou Yuwen had asked Hu Jie to recommend a school, she probably would have drawn on her own experience and talked it over with him a little more. But he was the type who could barely squeeze out a sentence even after ages.

Hu Jie could only give up and say, "You can go. You won't be a high school student anymore after this."

"Mm."

Zhou Yuwen nodded, then turned and left.

Perhaps because their exchange had felt so bland, Hu Jie kept feeling that something was missing, though she couldn't quite say what. Thinking back on the three years she'd been Zhou Yuwen's homeroom teacher, her mind was even more of a blank.

Zhou Yuwen was probably just as ordinary a student as any she'd ever taught.

If not for the changes in this life, Zhou Yuwen and his homeroom teacher Hu Jie wouldn't even have had this last exchange.

Looking back on his high school days, Zhou Yuwen had been just that sort of person, with no friends and no female classmate he secretly liked. If Chen Rongrong hadn't insisted that he come back, he figured he would have gone straight home after picking up his admission ticket.

When he returned to the classroom, he found Chen Rongrong over there taking photos with a few girls.

Seeing Zhou Yuwen approach, Chen Rongrong was delighted and quickly waved him over.

She took Zhou Yuwen by the arm. "Come on, take a picture of us."

"Huh?" Shen Ding, who had brought his DSLR camera specifically to take pictures of Chen Rongrong, stared in disbelief. "Wait, you specifically asked him to come back just to take a picture with him?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"We're about to graduate, so of course we have to take a picture to remember it by!"

Shen Ding felt that Chen Rongrong was a little too close to Zhou Yuwen, and he was unhappy about it. After all, he had spent three years as her licking dog.

If he'd known Chen Rongrong didn't have any money with her that day, he would have brought five hundred yuan with him, even if he'd had to steal it from home.

"Are you taking it or not? Hurry up," Chen Rongrong urged.

"Got it."

And so, under Chen Rongrong's urging, Shen Ding reluctantly took a photo of her and Zhou Yuwen by the window. Chen Rongrong really was photogenic. Besides her big boobs, she also knew how to pose with a V sign and act cute.

As she held Zhou Yuwen's arm for the photo, her chest brushed against it.

The soft, tingling sensation was wonderful.

Perhaps because his young body was full of vigor, a single touch was enough to make him react at that very moment.

Looking at Chen Rongrong, he saw no expression on her face at all.

All right, I'll just take it as interest on the four hundred yuan I lent her.

"Wow, that came out great! Zhou Yuwen, you're so photogenic!" Chen Rongrong tilted her head to look at the finished shot on Shen Ding's camera.

Shen Ding said, "What do you mean, he's photogenic? It's because my photography skills are good!"

"Yes, yes, yes! Your photography skills are the best. Take another one of us!"

"Another one?"

Shen Ding looked unhappy, but he still had to do as Chen Rongrong said.

"Don't just take pictures of the two of you. We want some too," said two other girls who also belonged to Chen Rongrong's clique.

In high school, Zhou Yuwen hadn't belonged to any clique, but after lending Chen Rongrong the money, he had managed to establish a tenuous connection with this one.

After picking up his admission ticket, he could have gone straight home.

He had wasted a little time accompanying Chen Rongrong and the others while they took pictures.

When it was time to leave school, the clique decided to go to the rice noodle shop by the school gate for a bowl of rice noodles, and they brought Zhou Yuwen along.

There were five of them. Chen Rongrong's persona in the group was that of a lively, talkative, carefree fool of a beauty.

Shen Ding, meanwhile, was the beauty's backup, slightly chubby and from a family with a bit of money.

Zhou Yuwen's generosity had caught Chen Rongrong's attention. She wanted to build a good relationship with him and bring him into the clique.

Their classmates had joked before that Zhou Yuwen liked Chen Rongrong.

Chen Rongrong might well have thought so too. As far as she was concerned, having one more tool person wouldn't be a bad thing.

Besides, Zhou Yuwen's character model was far superior to Shen Ding's.

Because of her family circumstances, Chen Rongrong was much more mature than others her age.

She had no one to rely on, so she could only use her good looks to obtain some benefits.

She liked people like Zhou Yuwen, who were thin-skinned, clearly liked her but were unwilling to say so, and spent time with her as friends.

Chen Rongrong liked friends like that.

Doing her best to maintain her adorable image, she asked Zhou Yuwen where he wanted to go to college.

Zhou Yuwen said he would probably go to Nanjing.

"Hey, that's great! We're all going to Nanjing too, so we can look after each other!" Chen Rongrong was even happier to hear that.

"You're going to Nanjing too? You're not going there because of Chen Rongrong, are you?" Shen Ding asked with a look of disdain.

Chen Rongrong was speechless. "Do you even know how to talk to people? Aren't your rice noodles good?"

"Tch!"

Chen Rongrong rolled her eyes at Shen Ding and said to Zhou Yuwen, "Ignore him. He's always like this."

Besides them, there were two other girls in the clique.

To be precise, the clique had originally consisted of only the three girls, and Shen Ding had insisted on joining.

As for what Shen Ding was thinking, the other two girls both knew.

But it was clear that Chen Rongrong now wanted to recruit a new licking dog.