Rebirth: Slice-of-life Cultivation-Chapter 74 - : Classroom

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Classroom

“Jiang Ning, someone sent you an email.”

Xue Yuantong said as a new email notification had just popped up on the screen.

It was probably a work-related email from Shao Shuangshuang. Jiang Ning wasn’t in a hurry to reply and said,

“No worries, you keep playing.”

At that moment, a few more people walked in.

Ma Shicheng was leading the way, followed by Dan Kaiquan and Guo Kunnan.

“Hey, Jiang Ning, you’re here too,” Ma Shicheng said surprisingly, since it was the first time he had seen Jiang Ning outside of school during lunch break.

“It started raining, it’s not good to go back,” he said.

After hearing this, Ma Shicheng and a few classmates sat at the table next to Jiang Ning’s. There were six of them, with two sitting in the aisle, but they managed to fit.

As the Boss Lady came over to take their order, Ma Shicheng asked the others, discussed briefly, and then decided on the dishes—six people, five dishes.

Ma Shicheng used to eat lunch alone due to limited funds, only ordering one dish and never feeling satisfied.

Here at the restaurant, even a simple stir-fried shredded potato cost eight to ten yuan, and many boarding students, with a daily budget of about twenty-five yuan, couldn’t afford ordering two dishes at once.

So, he organized a few classmates to have lunch together, getting more variety in dishes and saving a yuan or two.

Being high schoolers starved all morning, Ma Shicheng was extremely hungry, absentmindedly holding his phone and scrolling through internet forums, waiting impatiently for the dishes.

His dishes hadn’t arrived yet, but Jiang Ning’s were ready. The Boss Lady brought over his dishes along with sweet potato congee and pancakes, filling the air with a delicious aroma.

Ma Shicheng glanced at the dishes Jiang Ning had ordered, drooling with envy. They had ordered dishes costing slightly over ten yuan each like green pepper with shredded potatoes, duck blood with tofu, and tomato with scrambled eggs—six people together, still cheaper than what Jiang Ning ordered for two.

He knew Jiang Ning had some money. It wasn’t usually apparent, but it became obvious when they went out to eat.

“Stop playing, let’s eat,” Jiang Ning told Xue Yuantong.

“Hold on, let me finish this round.”

As soon as he said that, his game character fell into a pit. Xue Yuantong returned his phone despondently, deciding to download the game later when he got home.

Xue Yuantong tasted the dishes and found them alright, but not up to his own cooking skills, so he just settled.

He thought to himself, ‘Turns out, my cooking is even better than some chefs’ now~’

When they were almost done, Jiang Ning went to the kitchen to settle the bill with the Boss Lady and greeted Ma Shicheng’s group on his way out.

Ma Shicheng’s group was still eating. After finishing, he mentally calculated how much their meal cost and pulled out the cash to pay.

The Boss Lady said, “That’ll be sixty-three yuan. The gentleman who just left paid for yours as well.”

Ma Shicheng was stunned, “Paid already?”

“Yes, he paid for you,” the Boss Lady confirmed.

“Alright, let’s go,” he said.

As they left, Guo Kunnan exclaimed,

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“Jiang Ning is really a nice guy, easy to get along with.”

Dan Kaiquan agreed, “Yes, I didn’t expect him to pay for ours too. This meal wasn’t cheap.”

The other classmates also praised Jiang Ning.

Everyone saved ten yuan, which made them somewhat happy.

Ma Shicheng wanted to suggest going to the classroom to give Jiang Ning the money back, but seeing everyone’s mood, he didn’t speak up. Besides, Jiang Ning might not even accept it.

Before entering the school, Ma Shicheng specifically went to Yucai Supermarket and spent four yuan on a big bag of sunflower seeds.

He also connected to the Wi-Fi, waited until some more customers arrived, then opened a bandwidth monitoring app to kick off others leeching on the network.

He then stayed at the door for a while, watching as students who were kicked off the network came out of the dark room inside, visibly annoyed.

Ma Shicheng was thrilled inside:

‘That’ll teach you to steal my internet, a bunch of losers!’

Ma Shicheng finally had a breakthrough; then he closed his killer app and lingered a bit before leaving.

That way, it looked less suspicious. Ma Shicheng wasn’t a fool; he considered himself rather clever.

Once he arrived at class, Ma Shicheng said to Jiang Ning,

“Thanks for lunch. Let me treat you to some sunflower seeds.” He pulled out two pieces of paper, laid them on the desk, and poured a generous handful for Jiang Ning.

Geng Lu had her wrist resting on Jiang Ning’s desk while playing a game.

Jiang Ning pointed at the sunflower seeds. “Want some?”

“I’ll have some right away.” Geng Lu had initially planned to have lunch with Jiang Ning, but a friend from another class came looking for her, so she had no choice but to go with her friend.

If she had insisted on eating with Jiang Ning, her friends would have accused her of favoring love over friendship. Right now, Geng Lu didn’t want to make her feelings obvious.

Ma Shicheng, holding his phone, went to find Wang Longlong. Recently, whether playing games or watching animations, he liked to do it with Wang Longlong, who was a great audience.

Now, playing games without Wang Longlong watching just didn’t feel right.

Before the afternoon classes started, Jiang Ning hadn’t finished the sunflower seeds. Geng Lu would crack a few slowly from time to time.

After coming back from playing games, Ma Shicheng poured another pile of sunflower seeds on the paper.

Jiang Ning reminded him, “The first class is Chinese language; you guys better hide the sunflower seeds so the Chinese teacher doesn’t see them.”

“Why?” asked Geng Lu.

“The Chinese teacher can’t stand seeing others eat sunflower seeds,” Jiang Ning explained.

Upon hearing this, Ma Shicheng suddenly remembered the last time he was punished by the Chinese teacher to stand, and old and new grievances piled up.

He got angry and declared, “Not only will I not hide them, but I’ll also eat them during his class to see what he can do to me.”

Jiang Ning replied, “Alright then.”

The Chinese teacher, Dai Yongquan, arrived with his textbook.

“Today, we’re going to learn a new classical Chinese text, ‘The Peacock Flies Southeast.'”

As usual, he picked a student to stand up and read.

Dan Kaiquan was the unlucky one chosen, and he stammered through it.

Listening made Dai Yongquan shake his head; he tossed his textbook aside and spontaneously demonstrated what recitation should sound like.

From the moment Dai Yongquan started reciting, Ma Shicheng began cracking sunflower seeds below.

His actions were rather covert, and Dai Yongquan didn’t notice at first. He explained the classical Chinese text word by word, but then his gaze shifted and landed right on Ma Shicheng’s sunflower seeds, his expression instantly changing.

Dai Yongquan threw the textbook down on the lecturer’s desk again, silencing the class.

Dai Yongquan lamented, “Some students, I really don’t know what they come to school for. They don’t listen to the class, they don’t read their books. What’s the point of coming to school like this?”

Although he didn’t specifically name anyone, Ma Shicheng knew very well that he was talking about him.

“The way you eat those seeds sure smells nice,” Dai Yongquan said coldly.

“Do you guys know what kind of people eat sunflower seeds?”

“What kind of people in ancient times ate sunflower seeds?”

“Let me tell you, in ancient times, only those women who loitered by the door engaging in frivolous acts held sunflower seeds, cracking one after another.”

“What are they? They are women of ill-repute! Do you understand?”

“Only women of ill-repute would eat sunflower seeds.”

The Chinese teacher, Dai Yongquan, was so emotional that his words completely lost their logic,

As if he had some unspeakable past with sunflower seeds.

After the Chinese class ended,

Geng Lu took out the remaining sunflower seeds ready to taste them, but suddenly remembering what the teacher said about the women of ill-repute, her face soured, and she lost her appetite.

She felt like she could never eat sunflower seeds again without recalling this particular Chinese class.