Chapter 53 Photo “Arrogant” Transfer Student

Fang Chuning didn’t ask any more questions. On her way back to the classroom, she looked at the transfer student’s information and found that this person actually lived in the western district. The western district can be said to be the slum of Z city.

This was the first person to enter Xinxing purely based on grades, without relying on family background or connections.

“City champion…” Fang Chuning thought, could this person also be like Xu Muzhou, excelling in all subjects?

Lost in thought, Fang Chuning didn’t notice the person approaching from behind until her eyes were suddenly covered. A deliberately lowered voice came from behind: “Guess who I am?”

Who it was didn’t matter, she just needed to make sure it wasn’t Xu Muzhou, after all, he wouldn’t do such childish things.

Fang Chuning roughly pulled the hands away and turned around to find it was Tang Jiali, whom she hadn’t seen for days. She frowned: “What are you doing?”

Tang Jiali didn’t mind her attitude and just complained: “Senior, you’re so mean. I’ve helped you before, yet you still treat me like this.”

“Helped me? When did you ever help me?”

“That time when my mom and your mom had dinner together, I helped you out of a difficult situation.”

…What kind of help was that supposed to be?

Fang Chuning rolled her eyes impatiently, “So what do you want?”

“Nothing much, just want senior to carry me in the game. I’ve been inviting senior to come online recently, but you’ve been ignoring me.”

He sounded quite aggrieved. Fang Chuning scratched her chin, “I’ve been very busy lately. After all, I already have a boyfriend now, not as free as before.”

She laid her cards on the table, not bothering to be vague or hide anything, not minding feeding him dog food to make him back off.

But she still underestimated a man with a love-addled brain.

Tang Jiali didn’t mind at all, nor did he feel sad. He even raised the corners of his mouth, revealing cute little tiger teeth, “It’s okay, you can let him play with us too.”

Compared to Xu Muzhou’s shy beauty, the boy in front of her, though not as handsome, had the kind of sunny and lively personality that elders love, almost carefree.

“…No need, he doesn’t like playing games.”

As soon as Fang Chuning finished speaking and was about to leave, Tang Jiali said, “Then why don’t I go visit Aunt Fang and Uncle Fang at your home? Aunt Fang said last time that she likes me very much and told me to come play at the Fang house when I’m free.”

Fang Chuning’s eyelids twitched violently, her head aching. These two, one after another, couldn’t live without giving her trouble, could they?

“Alright, I’ll log into the game tonight.”

Leaving those words, she walked away without looking back.

Not until the girl’s figure disappeared in the corridor did Tang Jiali’s sunny smile instantly turn gloomy. He turned and left in the opposite direction.

Before returning to the classroom, Fang Chuning ran into Xu Muzhou, who was coming back from the office after collecting homework. He hugged her from behind, startling her. Thinking it was Tang Jiali who had followed to pester her, she pushed the person away without even looking clearly.

“Ning Ning, it’s me…” The voice sounded very aggrieved.

Only then did Fang Chuning see clearly and sighed in relief: “You suddenly hugging me like that startled me.”

Xu Muzhou tilted his head slightly, as if purely curious, “Did someone else hug you just now besides me?”

“Ah, of course not,” Fang Chuning didn’t want to tell him about what happened earlier. “Let’s quickly go back to the classroom, class is about to start.”

She walked a few steps and found he wasn’t following, so she turned back puzzled, “What’s wrong?”

Xu Muzhou pursed his lips, his beautiful eyes staring straight at her, but not saying a word.

Fang Chuning thought for a moment, then went forward and affectionately pecked him on the cheek, smiling gently: “I’m sorry for pushing you away just now, it won’t happen again.”

Obviously, the girl hadn’t understood the reason for his trouble. Xu Muzhou slightly turned his face away, remained silent for a while, but still didn’t say it out loud, “Let’s go, we’ll return to the classroom.”

Fang Chuning held his hand, whispering and joking in his ear, but there wasn’t much of a smile on the young man’s face.

Soon after the class bell rang, Teacher Song brought a girl into the classroom. Having heard about a transfer student coming to Class 1, the students curiously sized her up. The girl wore black-framed glasses, her expression calm, looking every bit the bookworm.

People quickly lost interest and started chatting among themselves.

“Quiet.” Teacher Song stood on the podium and clapped her hands. “This is our class’s new student, let’s get to know her.” Then she said to the transfer student: “Please introduce yourself.”

Lin Yuechan raised her hand to lightly push up her glasses, her tone as flat as her expression, “My name is Lin Yuechan.”

And then there was no more. Teacher Song felt a bit awkward, “Lin, don’t you have anything else you’d like to say to your soon-to-be classmates?”

Lin Yuechan looked up at her, “Rather than those unnecessary introductions, I believe we should better use the time to start the lesson. We shouldn’t waste the students’ study time.”

The classroom fell into silence. “Pfft,” someone laughed out loud, even teasingly saying “A bookworm is just a bookworm.”

Other Class 1 students also started laughing, some because of Teacher Song’s embarrassment at being rebuked, others out of disdain for the newcomer’s self-importance.

The situation became difficult to control for a moment. Fang Chuning slapped her book on the desk and raised her voice: “Quiet.”

The laughter instantly died down. Teacher Song coughed and pointed to an empty seat in the classroom, “You can sit there.”

Lin Yuechan glanced in Fang Chuning’s direction, walked down from the podium and sat in that empty seat.

Fang Chuning never expected the transfer student to be someone familiar. Wasn’t this the girl who had said she and Gao Qiong weren’t all that great before?

Gao Qiong also recognized her. As soon as class was over, she ran over, “Did you see that girl!”

Before she could finish, Fang Chuning interrupted her, “I know, we’re all classmates now, there’s no need to dwell on that one comment.”

Gao Qiong was still very unhappy, so she went to find people to play basketball to distract herself.

After school, when Fang Chuning returned home, she played with the dog in the yard for a while before entering the villa. There she saw Su Qi standing in the living room, his eyes red and slightly sobbing.

“What’s wrong with you?”

The boy’s eyes were full of tears. He glanced towards the second floor, his choked voice sounding helpless, “Sister Ning Ning… I, I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?”

He stopped talking and just stood there crying.

“Bang!” The door on the second floor was violently opened. Fang Tianli came out with a gloomy face, “What are you still standing there for, come up quickly!”

His voice was completely unlike the naive and fearless tone he usually used when speaking to him. Su Qi looked towards Fang Chuning somewhat fearfully. Fang Chuning was puzzled, “Did you two have a fight?”

Fang Tianli seemed unable to hold back anymore. He ran down from the second floor, then grabbed the boy’s thin arm and dragged him towards the second floor.

That posture was as if he wanted to silence him forever.

What were these two little brats up to? Fang Chuning kindly stepped forward to help the boy who was crying like a fountain, “Let’s talk this out calmly, we can’t use violence.”

Freed from restraint, Su Qi hid behind her back, as if wishing he could shrink his figure to the smallest possible size so that no one could see him.

“Qi Qi!” Fang Tianli was like an angry cat with its fur standing on end.

This contrast between strong and weak easily made people think that Fang Tianli had bullied the other to tears.

The boy hiding behind her was as pitiful as a small animal. Fang Chuning rarely softened her heart, “I’ll have Liu Yi send you home. You two calm down for a night and talk about whatever it is tomorrow.”

A hand grasped her school uniform. Su Qi’s watery eyes met hers, “Sister Ning Ning, I have something I want to tell you…”

Fang Chuning didn’t refuse. The two moved to the garden. “What do you want to say?”

Su Qi lowered his head, his fingers tightly gripping the fabric of his trousers.

Fang Chuning was very patient and didn’t rush him. The workers responsible for the garden hadn’t left work yet and were trimming plants in the distance. She watched for a while until the person in front of her spoke.

“Sister Ning Ning.”

“Hm?”

Su Qi looked up, “I truly like Sister Ning Ning.” From the first glance, he had already liked her.

Fang Chuning looked at him for a while, then nodded, “I see.”

Su Qi’s eyes were full of hope, “Can you hug me?”

Fang Chuning refused. She didn’t want to give him even a bit of hope that he might think possible. For this boy who was about the same age as her brother, she felt more pity, unwilling to let his painting ability potentially go undeveloped due to poverty.

However, more than that, she just hoped to find a playmate for Fang Tianli.

She had Liu Yi drive him home, then returned to the second floor of the villa and knocked on Fang Tianli’s door. Opening the door, she saw a lump on the bed. She walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, “Weren’t you two always getting along well before? What happened today?”

The lump under the covers didn’t react at all.

“Could it be that he discovered your painting talent is too terrible and you made him cry?”

Provocation always works without fail. The next second, the covers were kicked off. Fang Tianli lay on the bed glaring at her, “Of course not! Don’t make wild guesses when you don’t know anything!”

“Then tell me what it’s about?”

After talking with him for a long time, he reluctantly handed his phone to her, disappointment evident between his brows, “I originally thought, if he liked you, I could help him. But it turns out it was all lies. I was so good to him, yet he still deceived me and used me.”

Fang Chuning looked through the photos in the messages, frowning: “Who sent these to you?”

Fang Tianli shook his head, indicating he didn’t know either.

In every photo was an image of Su Qi embracing different girls, some even seemed to be screenshots from surveillance cameras. The person sending the photos was clearly maliciously targeting him.

At night, Fang Chuning, who had just finished showering, was having her daily video call with Xu Muzhou. The computer chat window kept popping up with notifications of someone poking her. There was no need to guess who it was.

On the video, Xu Muzhou was reading a book. Even if they had nothing to say, he didn’t end the video chat.

Fang Chuning turned off the game sound and lowered her head to play the game at an angle where he couldn’t see. After being engrossed in a game for twenty minutes, she raised her head to look at the computer screen and found that he was no longer reading, his expression a bit cold: “What are you doing?”

“Uh,” Fang Chuning felt a bit guilty, but still told the truth: “I saw you were reading and didn’t want to disturb you, so I played a game.”

As she spoke, she waved her phone screen at him.

“You played by yourself?”

“No, I played with Gao Qiong.”

Fang Chuning felt she had never been this honest even with her parents.

Xu Muzhou looked at her for a while, then averted his gaze, “Then you guys play, I’m going to sleep first.”

“So early?” It was only 9:30.

“Mm.”

Then the video call was cut off. Fang Chuning felt a bit disappointed. Tonight they had only video chatted for about an hour, setting a new low record recently.