Chapter 29

When He Nuo was pushed forward, he knocked into Shi Yan’s back. Shi Yan thought it was someone who was trying to stop the fight so he didn’t even turn his head to look as he elbowed the person behind him. He Nuo stifled a pained moan as he stepped back.

“He Nuo.” w.a.n.g Feng supported him.

When Shi Yan heard him he quickly turned around, saw the w.a.n.g Feng who supported He Nuo and reproached, “You brought him here? What did you bring him here for?”

Shi Yan extended his hand to support He Nuo, but He Nuo avoided it. “Avoided” was a nice way to put it, his hand was actually flung off.

Shi Yan’s face looked livid, and his gaze turned gloomy. The crowd who was surrounding them, and even Shi Yan’s friends, had become nervous. But He Nuo, seemingly oblivious, walked over to the two unlucky guys and helped one of them up.

“Sorry for framing you, we will explain everything to the teacher, please let us go.” The guy whose eyes had turned into a slit was still summoning all his strength to utter apologies and beg for mercy. The guy at his side was also saying muddled “sorry”s.

He Nuo looked at their sorry figures and terrible faces, looked up and coldly asked Shi Yan, “Are you done?”

Their surroundings instantaneously turned eerily quiet, the crowd was agasp, and it was only after asphyxiation started to creep in that indistinct intakes of breaths were heard.

Shi Yan clenched his fists and his gaze landed upon that delicate neck, he was using all of his self-control to stop himself from running up to that neck and strangling it. He Nuo stubbornly welcomed his icy gaze, he was inexplicably angry. Shi Yan released the collar he was holding and left, the crowd automatically parted to make a path for his exit.

With this one fight, Shi Yan and He Nuo became famous overnight. Shi Yan originally already had a good reputation, but with this it was taken a notch higher. The usually confident, easy-going and elegant Shi Yan actually started a fight, and even spouted such unsophisticated vulgarities – he had greeted the other party’s mother1. The funny thing was that this incident that had made the crowd trip over their toes also made them admire Shi Yan’s arrogance and domineering att.i.tude, and how he had loyally protected his own people. His att.i.tude and actions were perfectly in line with the heroes and idols found in the romantic dreams of teenage boys and girls. For a long while after this incident, students would still happily discuss the battle that had occurred that day, and the lucky ones who had witnessed the scene described Shi Yan as someone who had “rushed to the crown in a fit of anger”2.

He Nuo wasn’t one of the protagonists involved in the fight, but his limelight was brighter than any one of them. Many were curious about how two people who were as different as light and day like Shi Yan and He Nuo could form a brotherly bond under everyone’s noses. The He Nuo who had made Shi Yan do so much for him became the center of attention, and also the object of everyone’s envy.

But what about the two whose fame had shaken the earth? He Nuo, who had been reduced to being students’ after school gossip fodder, only thought that Shi Yan’s actions were a disgrace and harboured a belly full of gloom. Now, wherever he went, people would pay attention to his every gesture and their peeping gazes followed him relentlessly. Also, Shi Yan’s buddies actually started to say “h.e.l.lo” when they met him, which made him very uncomfortable. If it wasn’t because he has had a forbearing personality ever since he was a child, he would have exploded in anger a long time ago. Luckily, he only needed to bear with all this for a few more days before the start of summer holidays. He Nuo looked forward to the holiday when his life would regain its peace.

Today was the day they had to hand in their forms for the division of cla.s.ses. The Shi Yan who had not spared He Nuo a single glance ever since the day of the fight walked over, “What did you choose?”

He Nuo unconsciously placed his hand on his form and saw that in Shi Yan’s hand was his filled-out form with his parents’ signature. He Nuo guessed that someone like Shi Yan would choose science, so he answered, “Science.”

Shi Yan took the pen on He Nuo’s table and wrote the big word “Science” in the “Choice” column, flicked his own form, took a few steps with his signature duck step 3 before turning around, “You actually chose science? I thought I’d have to fall to the point where I’d need to memorize oracle bone inscriptions4.”

He Nuo wanted to choose arts, because he had superb memory. But his brothers who attended university had all chosen science, and his parents stubbornly believed in the phrase “learn your math and sciences well, and you can walk all over the world”, so they asked him to choose science. If there wasn’t such a chance encounter with Shi Yan, He Nuo would have probably accepted it. But now, he looked at the form in his hand with a hesitant look. Eventually, he took out his eraser, carefully erased the word “science” and wrote down his own choice.

Three days later, the students went to school to see which cla.s.s they had been allocated. At the same time, it meant that their summer holidays had officially began. He Nuo wasn’t worried about his family finding out at all, because no one would know which cla.s.s he was in, much less that he was in the arts cla.s.s. The source of his secret worry was Shi Yan; from his att.i.tude it seemed like Shi Yan wanted to be in the same cla.s.s as him, which is coincidentally an outcome that He Nuo was avoiding like the plague. Even though his heart remembers what Shi Yan had done for him, He Nuo also believed that the two of them who walked different paths could not make plans together.

If Shi Yan knew that he had lied to him, he didn’t know what he should do. But when he looked at it from another perspective, even if both of them had registered for the science cla.s.ses, it wasn’t possible for them to be in the same cla.s.s. The sorting of cla.s.ses depended on results, and Shi Yan’s results couldn’t be considered good at all. He Nuo’s innocence once again made him forget that rules in this world were only absolute to commoners and the general public; when it came to people from the privileged social cla.s.ses, rules were always relative, flexible. Shi Yan had already told his family long ago that he wanted to be in cla.s.s two after he took He Nuo’s grades into account.

Shi Yan had complete confidence in the allocation of cla.s.ses, so he didn’t go to school to look at the results. Firstly, someone had already called his parents to inform them of the cla.s.s allocation results; secondly, his father was going on a business trip, so he brought Shi Yan along on a holiday at public expense. So, He Nuo’s worry was all for naught, he didn’t know that Shi Yan didn’t go to school to look at the cla.s.s allocation results, he just thought that he was oversensitive and had misunderstood Shi Yan.

1. In the previous chapter, when Shi Yan said “f.u.c.k you” to the guy he actually said “f.u.c.k your mother”… and insulting one’s kin is considered very rude in Chinese culture. But f.u.c.k your mother sounded strange to me ;-;↩

2. This phrase actually means getting extremely angry…for a beautiful woman LOL but the phrase cut out the beautiful woman part. Author’s note: I won’t go into detail about what had actually happened that year, but I will say this: what actually happened then was that Shi Yan arranged for people to guard the stairs at every floor, kicked open the doors of every cla.s.sroom (including the ones with teachers in it) and nabbed the two unlucky idiots. He then dragged them out of the teaching building and taught them a lesson. –> Author is talking about what the lucky ones had witnessed and why people are so amazed at how much Shi Yan had done for He Nuo LOL….. and why He Nuo seemed like the damsel Shi Yan was saving I a.s.sume?↩

3. Author’s note: Won’t describe it, but Shi Yan’s gait is different from other people, and one would be able to notice it even within a crowd filled with tens of thousands of people. Apparently his gait is quite similar to Xu Fei of Super Girl. (T/N: Super Girl is a Chinese Singing contest……….idk how she walks)↩

4. Oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文) was the form of Chinese characters used on oracle bones—animal bones or turtle plastrons used in pyromantic divination—in the late 2nd millennium BCE, and is the earliest known form of Chinese writing. T/N: Shi Yan is basically saying that he thought He Nuo would choose arts = he would choose arts = he would need to memorise a ton of…stuff like the average arts student would need to↩