Chapter 104: Chapter 104: The Merits of a Huang Mao

The last class before the holiday break.

Just as class started, the English teacher took a phone call and left, telling the students to preview next week’s material.

But with a short holiday right around the corner, none of the students were in the mood to study. The classroom had already dissolved into chaos.

"Quiet down! What if the teacher comes back?" Guo Qingqing, as the class monitor, tried to maintain order from the podium.

"Don’t worry, class monitor. The teacher even took her lesson plan. She’s definitely not coming back."

Someone said with a grin, turning to whisper to the student behind them.

"I bet she’s in love. She had that look in her eyes," Xue Rui said.

"Xue Rui, you be quiet!" Guo Qingqing shouted.

In reality, Guo Qingqing’s voice was the loudest in the entire classroom, leaving the other students speechless.

A female classmate carried her stool over to Xue Rui’s desk. "I’m not giving up. Let’s go again."

"Has the swelling in your hand gone down?" Xue Rui teased.

During the previous class, Xue Rui had noticed the girls playing a hand-slapping game and had joined in.

Simply put, it was a little game of reflexes. Two people faced each other, palms up. One person would try to slap the back of the other’s hands. As long as they made contact, they could keep slapping. Once they missed, they would switch roles.

These kinds of simple games could often get surprisingly heated.

The girl in front of him had her hands slapped red by Xue Rui last class. The way she was looking at him was a little off; it was clear she’d been stewing over it for a while.

Now, she was here to get her "revenge" on Xue Rui.

"I’ll go first!" The girl bared her small, sharp teeth, threatening Xue Rui to let her start.

"Alright," Xue Rui readily agreed.

Boys naturally had faster reflexes and stronger hands than girls, putting the girls at a disadvantage in this game. However, the girls who played didn’t seem to mind this issue.

The girl looked into Xue Rui’s eyes with a smug smile. She deliberately feinted with her hand but didn’t actually slap down, trying to lower his guard.

Xue Rui thought, ’Such a simple trick. It’s so childish.’

The girl gathered all her strength and seized the opportunity to slap down hard.

Xue Rui instantly snatched his hands away.

"Huh?" The girl slapped nothing but air.

Her small hands froze in mid-air. She could already predict the punishment that was coming.

"Put ’em up," Xue Rui said with a grin, holding out his hands.

The girl squeezed her eyes shut and tentatively placed her hands over his.

SLAP!

Xue Rui’s palm struck the back of the girl’s hand hard.

The girl winced in pain, but she still followed the rules and put her hands back in place.

SLAP!

Another one. The back of the girl’s hands was clearly starting to turn red again.

Xue Rui gave the girl a wicked smile. He copied her earlier feint, deliberately twitching his palms, which scared her into repeatedly pulling her hands back.

"Please, stop scaring me." The girl was so startled she was on the verge of tears.

In the end, Xue Rui deliberately missed slightly, only hitting her pinky. Then he frowned and said, "That counts."

"No, it doesn’t!" the girl said with a grin, grabbing her stool and making a run for it.

Qiu Mengze watched from the side, completely stunned. He thought, ’Is this girl crazy?’

She just avoided one slap, but she was as happy as if it were New Year’s.

"Xue Rui, you’re ruthless. If you keep this up, no one will want to play with you," Qiu Mengze said, his face full of admiration.

"Oh? Then how come no one is playing with you? Did you get that backward?" Xue Rui retorted.

"I..." Qiu Mengze was choked up by Xue Rui’s words because Xue Rui was right.

Last class, Xue Rui had dragged Qiu Mengze along to play, but after just a little while, all the girls had started to gather around Xue Rui, completely ignoring him.

Qiu Mengze felt indignant just thinking about it. Xue Rui was only a little taller than him, and he didn’t think Xue Rui was that much more handsome.

Besides, Xue Rui had never revealed his identity as a rich heir, so it wasn’t about money.

He just couldn’t figure it out. What was the difference between him and Xue Rui?

The truth was, when Qiu Mengze played the hand-slapping game with the girls, he always felt he should be a gentleman and go easy on them.

As a result, his slaps were always light and gentle.

When Qiu Mengze played like that, the girls felt too embarrassed to really slap him back.

But the girls who were willing to join this game were the ones who could take it.

Girls who were afraid of the pain wouldn’t play this game in the first place. It was a self-selecting process.

Therefore, Qiu Mengze’s behavior actually made the girls find him boring.

And what about Xue Rui? He wasn’t going all out, but he was using seventy or eighty percent of his strength.

This caused many girls to yelp in pain, but it wasn’t so much that they couldn’t handle it.

The more the girls lost, the more pent-up frustration they felt, making them determined to get a hit back on Xue Rui.

At times like this, Xue Rui would purposefully go easy, allowing the game to continue.

In reality, they were bad at the game but loved to play.

"Mengze, you’ve seen those gangster-like Huang Maos on the street, right?"

"Have you ever noticed? They have to pool their money just to buy a fucking bowl of malatang, so why are they never short of girlfriends?" Xue Rui asked.

Qiu Mengze froze. What Xue Rui said seemed to be true. Those Huang Maos were never short of girls.

Qiu Mengze thought for a moment. "Those girls are stupid. They get tricked by them."

"Where in the world would they find so many stupid girls to trick?" Xue Rui shook his head.

"It’s not that those Huang Maos are completely without their good points..." Xue Rui patiently explained to Qiu Mengze.

Those young guys with dyed hair, if they have five yuan in their pocket, they’ll spend five yuan on their girl. If they have ten, they’ll spend ten.

In short, they spend whatever they have, making them seem generous and carefree.

And they certainly don’t worry about whether they’re being gentlemen or not.

So when they play games and stuff, they play for real. Compared to an honest guy like Qiu Mengze, they have a certain kind of sincerity and fun.

This is especially true for rebellious teenage girls, who feel like no one around them understands them.

Then, someone like that just happens to appear in their lives. The attraction is just too powerful for them.

"But I still think boys should let girls win and take care of them," Qiu Mengze muttered.

The corner of Xue Rui’s eye twitched. He had already explained it so clearly.

But Qiu Mengze’s earnestness made Xue Rui feel a little hopeless. He said seriously,

"The principle of ’no conflict, no friendship’ applies to girls too. Contradictions and conflicts are opportunities to understand each other. There has to be a back-and-forth for things to continue."

"Is that really how it is?" Qiu Mengze wasn’t sure if Xue Rui was messing with him.

But he suddenly remembered how Xue Rui used to bully Gu Muxue all the time.

Gu Muxue would get really angry, but she was still willing to play with Xue Rui.

Meanwhile, those polite and well-mannered boys were often rejected before they even had a chance to speak.

"You’ve never been in a relationship either, so how do you know so much?" Qiu Mengze asked, confused.

Xue Rui frowned. "Haven’t you heard the saying? Those who haven’t been in a relationship are the ones coaching others on how to date."

"I already sent the note. Just don’t lead me astray," Qiu Mengze sighed.

He felt that Xue Rui wasn’t very reliable, but he himself was completely clueless.

Following Xue Rui’s advice, he had written a small note to Qin Tong, found a student from Class 6 to deliver it, and asked her to meet after school.

Xue Rui had told him not to write a love letter, saying the more mysterious, the better. That way, it would pique her curiosity.

If it were a blatant confession of love, there was no way she would show up.

"So what did you write?" Xue Rui asked, his face full of curiosity.

"Oh... I just asked her to meet in the small grove of trees outside the school," Qiu Mengze said, scratching his head.

"Hm?" Xue Rui frowned.

When Qiu Mengze was writing the note, he had hidden it from him, not letting him see.

And this is what he wrote?

The grove was a place for couples. How could Qiu Mengze pick a place like that?

"I meant you should find a place with few people, not a place with no people," Xue Rui said, speechless.

His original intention was for Qiu Mengze to just get her contact information. Who would have thought the kid would write something like this?

"Didn’t you say to be mysterious? Isn’t the grove mysterious enough?" Qiu Mengze’s eyes widened.

Xue Rui thought for a moment. "I’d say there’s an eighty-percent chance she won’t come."

What girl wouldn’t be scared after seeing a note like that?

"So should I still go or not?" Qiu Mengze asked, looking at the clock at the back of the classroom, his anxiety growing.

"Up to you. I just don’t want you to act like a bitter old woman about it later," Xue Rui said.

Qiu Mengze’s foundation was too weak. He didn’t actually expect Qiu Mengze to successfully woo a girl like Qin Tong; he just didn’t want his childhood friend to have any regrets.

In his past life, whenever Qiu Mengze got drunk, he would cry his eyes out. When talking about their high school days, he always regretted not being more proactive.

"You can agonize over it. I’m leaving."

As usual, Xue Rui snuck out early during the second half of the last class before a holiday.

"Wait, don’t," Qiu Mengze said, suddenly getting nervous.

In the end, Qiu Mengze followed Xue Rui out of the classroom.

"I just embarrassed myself in front of her yesterday," Qiu Mengze stammered.

He was really conflicted. If Qin Tong actually went, he wouldn’t have the courage to go alone.

But he also didn’t want Xue Rui to see him make a fool of himself...

"..." Xue Rui was speechless.

Hadn’t Qiu Mengze embarrassed himself enough? Just hopping back and forth at the bathroom entrance was idiotic enough.

What more could he do to embarrass himself?

"I bet she doesn’t even know who you are," Xue Rui muttered.

Qiu Mengze had the kind of mentality where he thought everyone would remember every little thing he did.

But in reality, there were so many people in the world, and human memory was limited. Unless you did something particularly noteworthy, no one paid attention to what anyone else was doing.

Fortunately, Qiu Mengze wasn’t the only idiot hopping back and forth in front of the bathroom door.

Qin Tong was in the liberal arts track, on a different floor, so she probably didn’t know about it.

Chen Shen, as always, was posted by the dog-hole entrance.

But today, Chen Shen seemed to have run into an acquaintance. He was chatting with someone else and just gave Xue Rui a smiling nod.

Xue Rui smiled and nodded back.

Qiu Mengze was impressed. His childhood friend was amazing; he even knew a police officer.

Xue Rui saw what Qiu Mengze was thinking. "That’s Chen Tingting’s dad. He’s pretty badass."

"He didn’t arrest you?"

"Why would he arrest me?"

...

The two chatted idly as they walked toward the small grove.

"She really came!" Qiu Mengze saw Qin Tong’s figure in the distance and immediately tried to pretend he was just passing by and turn back.

"Can you fucking grow a spine?" Xue Rui wrapped an arm around Qiu Mengze’s neck in a headlock.

Xue Rui was surprised. The girl had actually arrived earlier than them.

The key point was, she hadn’t come alone. She was with several young men on motorcycles.