chapter 37

The results of the high jump were just as Kou Chen’ predicted. The one in first place really was aiming to break the record. That sophomore sports student was a centimeter short of breaking the record; it was estimated that next year, he really would break it.

Huo Ran placed second, breaking the promise that Kou Chen had casually made with Lao Yuan.

Huo Ran placed second, not fulfilling the promise that Kou Chen had casually made with Lao Yuan.

“After all, you aren’t a sports student,” Jiang Lei said, “And Huo Ran had a better figure than that sports student.”

“With reason. With justice.” Xu Zhifan nodded his head.

“Yes, that is indeed very reasonable,” Wei Chaoren recognized1, “On top of it, Kou Chen even broke the 1000 meters record; he left the sports student in the dust.”

“Yeah!” Everybody nodded their heads in quick succession.

A medical station was set up on the route from the field to the cafeteria with an ambulance from the hospital parked next to the field. Tao Rui and another doctor were currently disinfecting a boy that had scraped his knee, arm and chin.

“Where y’all headed?” Seeing the few of them, Tao Rui asked with a smile.

“Bathroom,” Xu Chuan replied.

“Really now?” Tao Rui looked at him. “Going to the bathroom? Then, I better not see you eating later.2”

Several people laughed, and Xu Zhifan slapped Xu Chuan on the back, “Let’s go to the cafeteria for a break.”

“You going, sis?” Kou Chen asked.

“Nah~ Are you guys stealing food?” Tao Rui asked in a low voice as she walked over. “I don’t like barbecue or anything. Just bring me and these doctors some drinks when you come back. The school brought a case of water over, but I want to drink Vita3” lemon tea.

“Sure,” Xu Zhifan nodded his head.

“I’ll give you guys some money,” Tao Rui said, “Treat yourself to some drinks on the way.”

“No need,” Xu Chuan hurriedly stopped her, “We have money. You’re just drinking a Vita and you’re thinking that we can’t afford it?”

“Oh,” Tao Rui laughed, “Then you guys buy me and the doctors some drinks.”

They agreed, and just as they were about to leave, Xu Chuan suddenly touched Xu Zhifan’s arm and gestured to the side with his chin.

They all looked over one by one.

The gym was next to the field and a man stood beneath the row of trees along the gym wall.

“Fuck——Me,” Several people exhaled in perfect synchronisation.

“Why is he here again?” Kou Chen looked at Tao Rui.

“Don’t worry about him,” Tao Rui frowned. “Even I don’t know what he’s up to.”

“Did he do anything to you?” Xu Chuan asked.

“No, he has just been following me,” Tao Rui said. “All right. You shouldn’t worry about these things. Go eat. Bring us our drinks when you’re done.”

Tao Rui stopped them. It wouldn’t be beneficial for them to get involved anyways. A few of them continued to stare over that way, and walked quite a distance before retracting their gaze.

“Is this guy fucking sick?” Jiang Lei said. “I’m not cursing, I just think there’s actually something wrong with his head4”?”

“Maybe,” Huo Ran looked back again. “If he wasn’t sick, why would he keep pursuing her?”

“Pursuing money then?” Kou Chen said.

“How much money could a school nurse have?” Hu Yi said.

“You probably don’t know this but Tao Rui’s shoes are Fragrant Grandma’s5”, and she has four pairs of the same model in different colours,” Kou Chen said, “That’s more than even my sister can lose.”

“Who’s Fragrant Grandma?” Hu Yi asked.

“……My grandma.” Kou Chen glanced over.

“The thing is, Tao Rui also doesn’t want anything to do with him and it’s been so long. Does he still not understand?” Wei Chaoren said.

“There are many people who can’t differentiate between heavy harassment and sincerely caring for someone deeply,” Xu Zhifan said, “He may have moved himself with his own feelings, so much so that at this point, he may believe Tang Rui to be the heartless and cold-blooded one.”

“He needs a teacher like Old Yuan to shove him back into a furnace,” Kou Chen stretched.

“Give Old Yuan a break, he’s still wrapped in his armor6”,” Huo Ran said.

Some who weren’t participating in events or weren’t interested in watching them sat at various tables in the cafeteria, playing cards or just chatting with friends.

“Auntie,” Kou Chen ran to the kitchen door, “We’re here.”

“Shoo. You can’t enter the back kitchen,” one of the aunties came over and pushed him out. “I’ll bring it over to you later.”

“Thanks,” Kou Chen grabbed a few drinks from the freezer, “Want to send over the lemon tea now?”

“Sure~” Xu Zhifan and Xu Chuan went over together and emptied out all the lemon tea from the freezer. The two fashioned the front of their shirts into a pocket to carry the drinks in and walked away.7”

“Kou Chen,” Jiang Lei squeezed to sit next to Kou Chen and whispered, “Are you familiar with Lu Huan?”

“No,” Kou chen replied decisively.

Jiang Lei stared at him.

“If you want to tell her something, tell her yourself,” Kou Chen said.

“… How did you know I wanted to talk to her?” Jiang Lei froze.

“Look at that eager face of yours,” Kou Chen said.

“We added a fun competition at the end of this year, a three-legged race,” Jiang Lei said, “You can pair up with anyone. I want to do it with her.”

“Isn’t it a bit late for that?” Huo Ran asked, “There’s quite a few people pursuing her. The competition is tomorrow and you still haven’t asked her?”

“So am I out of luck?” Jiang Lei was suddenly very sad.

“Well, you shouldn’t beat around the bush and have someone tell her either, “Kou Chen said, “Go find her now and ask her directly if she wants to compete with you.”

“What if she already has a partner?” Jiang Lei asked.

“Hey,” Kou Chen looked annoyed, “If she already has a partner, just say that you’ll go cheer her on in the afternoon. If she doesn’t want to participate, ask her to cheer for you then. Let… Chaoren8” participate with you.”

“Fuck,” Jiang Lei stood up, “You know a lot.”

“Bring a few drinks,” Kou Chen pushed a few bottles of iced tea in front of him, “Give her one. You two can still stand there and drink while chatting. If her friends are also there, give one to each of them and then leave.”

“Why?” Jiang Lei was confused, “Shouldn’t I strike up a conversation with them?”

“Give them some time to talk about you; if you don’t leave, how can she talk to her friends you dumb fuck?” Kou Chen shooed him off with a wave of his hand, “Quickly, fuck off.”

“Thanks,” Jiang Lei ran out of the cafeteria with a few drinks.

Huo Ran looked at Kou Chen, a bit shocked.

“What’s up?” Kou Chen looked at him.

“And you still say you’ve never chased a girl?” Huo Ran glared at him.

“I’ve really never chased a girl,” Kou Chen’s mouth quirked up and said in a low voice, “If I have someone I like, just standing there and brushing their face is enough.”

“Where did you get a face?” Huo Ran said. “People like you will never get a face…”9”

“Beep,” Kou Chen suddenly tapped the tip of Huo Ran’s nose with two fingers, “Handsome-swipe10”.”

Huo Ran stared at him.

“Beep. The balance is three hundred million,” Kou Chen said.

Across the table, Wei Chaoren laughed so hard that he slumped onto the table. He moved his hand towards Hu Yi, who was playing with his phone, to pat his head, “Beep.”

“IQ insufficient. Please recharge it immediately.” Hu Yi immediately answered.

“Fuck,” Wei Chaoren froze.

Several people burst into laughter.

Huo Ran looked at Kou Chen who was laughing maniacally behind him.

Kou Chen was indeed a handsome card11”, but his looks wasn’t the only reason he was attractive. On top of his face, he had a personality that blurred the lines between prideful arrogance and compelling self confidence that no doubt added to his overall charm.

Otherwise, it’d be impossible for him to go from despising Kou Chen to yelling together with others to cheer him on, and it’d be impossible to get so excited when he crossed the finish line that his hairs stood up.

He cheered for Kou Chen with the same sincerity as those who shouted “Big sis loves you”.

Kou Chen suddenly turned to look at him mid-laugh.

“…Hm?” Huo Ran quickly retrieved his thoughts and looked back at him.

Kou Chen didn’t say anything, only winking at him with his left eye.

Huo Ran froze for a few seconds and laughed, “Don’t pretend to be cute.”

“I’m not pretending to be cute, I was only throwing a wink,” Kou Chen said, “It’s you who thinks I’m cute.”

Huo Ran looked at him for a long time before nodding, “Fine.”

The barbecue that Jiang Lei’s mom brought was a lot, but for some reason, no matter how much they ate, it still wasn’t filling enough. The cafeteria ladies refused their offers of food yet they still didn’t have enough to share12”. Jiang Lei was gone and never to return13”, so his share was gone but it still wasn’t enough. They ate through one half of it all but in order to ensure they’d still have enough energy to have fun and enjoy the afternoon events, they had to bite the bullet and not let their aunts help them prepare the other half.

“It’s good to not eat too much,” Xu Chuan rubbed his stomach, “You guys still have to compete this afternoon, right? There’s the 100 and 400 meter dash finals, and Kou Chen has the triple jump.”

“I want to sleep,” Kou Chen said, “After I eat, I want to sleep.”

“So you’re going back to the dorm to sleep?” Xu Zhifan asked.

“I’m going to sleep under the sun,” Kou Chen tilted his head and looked up at the sky. “The sun is so nice today.”

Huo Ran just sat down on the bleachers, but Kou Chen had already laid down, using his lap as a pillow, “Don’t move~”

Huo Ran didn’t say anything and began to frantically shake his leg.

“You~~little~~motherfucker~~” Kou Chen could barely sound out his words through all the shaking so he sat up and stared at him. “Looking for trouble?”

“Come,” Huo Ran said.

Without thinking about it, Kou Chen moved forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Ah… ” Huo Ran felt like he was going insane. Their class and the girls from Class 2 next door instantly flipped their phones towards them. He looked down and scratched his head twice, “Are you tired of living?”

“Then use my leg as a pillow,” Kou Chen patted his leg, “Did you always think that I was taking advantage of you~?”

“Can’t you just…” Huo Ran wanted to say can’t you just doze off like a normal person, but after turning to look at his friends, he saw Jiang Lei sitting with his legs crossed on the top row of bleachers and Wei Chaoren directly between his legs on the row below him, using his crotch as a pillow with eyes already closed and sleeping. “Shit.”

Kou Chen looked back too and laughed so hard he started to cough. Crossing his legs like Jiang Lei, he asked, “You want to do this too?”

Huo Ran looked at his crotch.

“Hey!” Kou Chen froze for a moment before quickly crossing his hands over his crotch and viciously saying “You better think thrice14” before you act. You want to….”

Huo Ran sighed, leaned back and closed his eyes.

Kou Chen also didn’t continue to speak, immediately15” plopping askew onto his legs to use them as a pillow.

There weren’t any events at noon, but there were still a lot of people on the field. Everyone treated the sports festival as a school-wide party, eating, drinking and chatting away. Many people were playing basketball on the courts over there.

Huo Ran slept for a bit but couldn’t stay asleep as he didn’t have the habit of napping. Kou Chen was still sleeping though so he could only continue to sit still. He took his phone out and slowly took pictures of people on the playground.

Ever since he was a kid, he found school life quite boring and relied on his friends to keep him motivated and going.

However, sometimes he also thought that the classes that he didn’t want to take, the headache-inducing exams, the teachers he both liked and disliked, the classmates whose names he either forgot or remembered and the faces he both remembered and didn’t remember, was all actually a bit interesting in the end; after all, these were their final memories in school as teenagers before becoming adults.

The two female students on the left had their heads together, looking at their phones and laughing and whispering together. A few male students were on the right playing cards. Down on the field, a bunch of students were causing a ruckus beneath a tree,with at least two couples squeezed in there, smiles brighter than the sun, and behind… were men sleeping in another’s crotch.

And there was Kou Chen, who was resting on his lap.

Huo Ran took a picture of Kou Chen’s face and pointed his phone back up to the playground, slowly sweeping across the field.

He paused as he swept past the medical area.

When they had come back from eating barbecue, the ex-boyfriend was still under the tree, but right now, the doctors and Tao Rui were on lunch break and the ex-boyfriend was nowhere in sight.

He left?

Or did he follow Tao Rui?

Huo Ran was zooming in with his camera to get a closer look when he saw that the two doctors had returned, but he didn’t see Tao Rui. He immediately felt a bit unsettled.

“Zhifan,” He nudged Xu Zhifan who was straddling next to him, “Send a message to Tao Rui and ask her where she is.”

“What’s wrong?” Xu Zhifan opened his eyes and sat up while pulling out his phone. “When I got her a drink she said she was going to have sushi for lunch.”

“Neither she nor that man are there,” Huo Ran said.

Xu Zhifan dialed her number while getting up and jumped off the bleachers in a few quick steps.

Huo Ran woke up the ones that were sleeping, and everybody ran over there together.

After running a few steps, Xu Zhifan said, “She picked up… Hello? Sis?”

“What is it?” Xu Chuan asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Hello?” Xu ZHifan looked at the phone screen, took it to his ear and said hello a few more times. He frowned, “Nobody is talking… Wait!”

“What?” Several people crowded around him.

Xu Zhifan pressed the speakerphone and turned the sound up to the maximum volume. A noise voice came from the receiver, and a faint voice could be heard.

“This…” Wei Chaoren was a little confused.

“Go over to the sushi shop and check it out,” Kou Chen said immediately, “It feels like she secretly picked up the call…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a slightly clearer voice came from the receiver, and they could hear that it was Tao Rui,“Let’s go to that cafe by the corner in the front of the school. If you want to talk, we can talk there….”

“The corner,” Xu Chuan said, “Scale the wall towards the ghost building to get there faster.

Several people turned around and ran back.

There were four cafes around the school. There was a cafe located in a corner of a small street just over ten meters past the fence of the ghost building. It should be the one that Tao Rui was talking about. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t so specifically describe the store’s geographic surroundings.

There was only a couple standing under a tree listening to music together near the ghost building, and they didn’t even turn their heads when they ran past.

Other than Kou Chen, the rest didn’t scale the wall that often, but at this moment it seemed like they scaled the wall every day, stepping on the wall and climbing over with a few scuffles16”.

After landing and running just a few steps, they saw Tao Rui walking with her ex-boyfriend in front of them.

“Don’t shout17”,” Xu Zhifan whispered.

As they rushed towards Tao Rui, the ex-boyfriend heard their footsteps, turned his head and immediately made a move to pull Tao Rui back when he saw them.

However, Xu Chuan was one step ahead of him, and grabbed Tao Rui’s arm, pulling her to the side.

Xu Zhifan went straight over to confront the ex-boyfriend and pushed him hard enough in the chest to stagger him back a few steps.

“Stop following me,” Tao Rui pointed at him, “I haven’t called the police because I want to save face for auntie and uncle. I didn’t want them to know that you’ve done all these psychotic things! If you continue to act like this, I’ll actually call the police!”

“What did I do?” The ex-boyfriend slowly walked over, his face looking quite pained. “I just couldn’t let you go and wanted you to calm down and reconsider your decision! What did I do to hurt you? What did you say to the police? That I followed you?”

“You didn’t do anything? You’re fucking harassing her, do you understand? Did you just hurdle over your 9 years of compulsory education? You fucking r*tard?” Huo Ran was shocked speechless.

“Let’s go back to school first,” Xu Zhifan said, “Don’t talk to him, it won’t get through.”

As they escorted Tao Rui back, the ex-boyfriend yelled, “Tao Rui! Think it over!”

“I’ve thought it through very clearly!” Tao Rui said, annoyed, “I’ll call the police if you pull this again!”

The ex-boyfriend didn’t say anything and suddenly rushed over.

Huo Ran was walking at the end of the group, with Kou Chen in front of him to his left. Further ahead were the rest of the gang encircling Tao Rui. The ex-boyfriend directly charged towards Tao Rui’s direction.

“Kou Chen!” Huo Ran shouted. His original intention was to warn Kou Chen, but with Kou Chen’s physical prowess, he wasn’t afraid of that level of attack.

However, the next second he saw a small metal contraption flash in the ex-boyfriend’s hand.

He felt as if he lunged over with lightning-fast speed to block Kou Chen.

Call me the Flash18”.

His appearance was so sudden that the ex-boyfriend didn’t have time to brake and crashed right into him, his hand brushing right past his side.

Kou Chen turned around to support Huo Ran when he heard him say, “He’s got something in his hand!”

“Go die for Laozi19”!” Kou Chen pulled Huo Ran backwards with one hand and kicked the ex-boyfriend in the chest.

The ex-boyfriend fell to the ground and dropped the thing that he was holding in his hand.

Surprisingly, it was a nail file.

Just as everyone was thinking, “He’s got something in his hand!”, the thing was revealed, and it left everyone slightly dumbfounded. The ex-boyfriend covered his chest, jumped up and turned around to run away.

“You’re alright, right?” Kou Chen turned his face around and roared at Huo Ran, throat straining.

”

”

“… Shit,” Huo Ran was taken aback by his sudden roar. He touched his waist and found a small hole torn in his t-shirt. He lifted the shirt and saw a bloodstain on his waist.

His skin was probably cut open.

Nail files were actually capable of doing this kind of damage.

“Holy fuck!” Kou Chen saw the blood at a glance, seized his arm to lift him up, “Are you fucking crazy, blocking my ass!”

Huo Ran was so taken aback that he didn’t react when he was lifted up and only returned to his senses when Kou Chen had already dashed around 10 meters forwards.

“Hey!” He shouted, “Kou Chen! Put me down! I’m not hurt!”

“It’s bleeding!” Kou Chen said as he ran.

“No, the skin just broke a little!” Huo Ran patted him on the shoulder, and looked back at Tao Rui and the gang who were running behind him. “Fuck, don’t embarass me. Quickly put me down!”

“Let me take a look at the wound first!” Tao Rui shouted. “I’ll take a look first and see if it needs to be taken care of!”

Kou Chen finally stopped. Huo Ran jumped off his back, lifted up his shirt and showed everybody, “Look, the skin just broke a little. You can barely see it even now; it’ll scar in a while.”

Tao Rui bent down to take a look and let out a long sigh of relief, “Scared me to death. Really scared me to death. Just a bit of broken skin, thank god. Only needs a little disinfection on the wound… You should’ve told the other teachers after I said the location. How can you just come running? Next time don’t do that. Really scared me to death. Ah my legs are weak. Thank god it’s just some broken skin…”

“Really?” Kou Chen also let out a sigh of relief. He bent over for half a day to inspect it and still didn’t straighten20” up.

“Huo Ran,” Xu Chuan reached out and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, “You did good.”

Kou Chen straightened up and stared at him. After a few seconds, he engulfed him in a hug.