Chapter 16: Strange Things Happen Every Year (2 In 1 Chapter)
Translator: Noodletown Translated Editor: Noodletown Translated
The bus came shortly. Hao Ren got on the bus, opened the window, and tried to slowly sort out the things that had happened recently while feeling the city’s wind on his face.
The current situation was that he had a fiancée that he didn’t know much about, and he got himself into a circle that he has never heard about. Moreover, he was a.s.signed to some extra work and had an extra ident.i.ty.
However, he forgot to ask Zhao Guang about their circle or anything about the cultivation techniques. He just met the other two people in Zhao Yanzi’s family as their “son-in-law”.
Zhao Yanzi’s father seemed quite cold but was probably also someone very righteous. Zhao Yanzi’s mother was a very kind and intelligent woman… that was the only impression Hao Ren had on them.
“Don’t tell me from now on I have to go to their home for dinner every day.” Hao Ren felt a bit distracted. After thinking about the situation for a while, he got off the bus three stops ahead.
At the Xinhua Bookstore, Hao Ren carefully browsed around in the middle school study guide area and finally bought some books such as [Middle School English Test Bank] and [Grade Eight English Knowledge Collection].
Walking out of the bookstore with a couple of heavy books in hand and looking back at the countless amount of study guides on the shelves, Hao Ren was already covered with sweat. He had to felt pity for the mid-schoolers who were under a lot of pressure.
Hao Ren suddenly realized that the news about him being picked up by the Lincoln Stretch Limousine at noon in front of the dorm area had to have been widely spread among his cla.s.smates by now. If he went back now, he wouldn’t be able to get away from their endless questions. He was always trying to keep a low profile and didn’t want to get too much attention from the others. Therefore, after thinking for a bit, he walked across the street and got on the bus that would take him home.
The bus was slightly b.u.mpy, and the night slowly came. Hao Ren held a bunch of English study material in his arms, still feeling lost.
Beep beep beep beep… his phone suddenly rang.
“Ren, why aren’t you back yet?!” After picking up the phone, he heard Zhao Jiayi’s yelling tone.
“I’m going home today, what’s the matter?” Hao Ren asked even though he knew why.
“Dude, had a great time today? What on earth was going on during the day? we were all shocked by you,” Zhao Jiayi asked over the phone.
“Em, nothing really. It was the relative from last time, asking me to have a meal at their home,” Hao Ren answered casually.
“Are you still lying to us? What’s with the fiancée situation?” Zhao Jiayi asked loudly on the other side of the line.
Hao Ren’s ear almost went deaf from Zhao Jiayi’s yelling. He had to move the phone away from his ear. Although Zhao Jiayi was yelling at him, it was quite touching as Hao Ren understood that the three buddies in the dorm were really worried about him and that was why they called. After all, what kind of relatives would bring two bodyguards dressed in black when they invited someone over for a meal?
“Just some minor things. I’ll tell you guys when I come back on Sunday,” Hao Ren said. He was actually speechless about what Zhao Yanzi’s family did today. They wished that he could keep their circle a secret. But on the other hand, the way they acted was so eye-catching that it drew so much attention.
“But who could ever imagine how strange their ident.i.ties are? The greatest geniuses often lie to conceal. However, by keeping too much of a low and mysterious profile, it may draw in even more attention from others,” Hao Ren continued to wonder.
“Fine, we will wait for you to come back and continue our investigation.” Zhao Jiayi hung up the phone.
Not until this second did Hao Ren notice that there were many messages from his cla.s.smates like Zhao Jiayi as well as Cla.s.s President Xie Yujia on his phone.
He sighed and then deleted all of the messages at once. He laid his head back down against the window and took a nap. It was very late at night when he got home. His grandma was surprised and glad to see her sweet grandson.
Seeing the extreme joy on his grandma’s face, Hao Ren was debating if he should tell her about the ‘future granddaughter-in-law’. However, he decided to hold back after struggling for a few minutes.
After spending the weekend peacefully with his grandma, he planned to go back to the university on Sunday evening so he could avoid the crazy gossips.
A big pile of snacks couldn’t distract the interest of Zhao Jiayi and others. Hearing Hao Ren was back, even the guys from other dorm rooms flooded over.
“Hey man, you made such a big scene! Getting picked up by a Lincoln Stretch Limousine? I heard that even the super rich guy Chen Ke from the advanced cla.s.s didn’t get such a treatment,” while continuously tapping Hao Ren’s shoulder, Huang Jianfeng from the dorm room across the hall said with envy and jealousy.
“We heard about the fiancée. Tell us the truth,” Yu Rong from the dorm room at the corner across also yelled.
“Even the girls were talking about you. They were saying that your family is actually very rich. Hehe, w.a.n.g Jia, the girl who used to look down on you, was even talking about you too.”
“Don’t tell me that you hired some people to put on a show in order to cause a sensation?”
“Oh, that little girl was cute, what’s her name?”
“Dude, you seem quiet at the university, but you actually have lots of girls outside, don’t you?”
They were starting to stretch the situation too far, Hao Ren could only remain speechless and helpless.
“Alright alright, stop making things up. It was a joke set up by one of my friends. It actually freaked me out too on Friday. I shouldn’t have made such a big scene, How about we all go out to eat? I will pay!” He stood up trying to shut their mouths.
Those guys wouldn’t refuse a free meal. They all rushed out of the dorm building while dragging Hao Ren with them.
Although most of them had eaten dinner already, they couldn’t resist the kind invitation for hot pot from Hao Ren. Hao Ren had no choice but to spend some money to apologize to them for the drama in order to end it all.
After endless gluttony, Hao Ren roughly took care of them. What he heard from those close friends was that his behavior also drew the attention of some guys and girls in upper-years. Not only people in the second-year but also those from other years and majors had opinions about Hao Ren because of that.
Tall trees always catch a lot of wind. Hao Ren didn’t expect that he would catch the attention of the influential students and also annoyed them. It was true that whoever showed off would get punished
Having dined and wined to satiety, all those close buddies from Hao Ren’s dorm room and close dorm rooms went back while wrapping their arms around each other’s shoulders.
They ran into the vice-princ.i.p.al Lu Qing and some other officials of the university who were inspecting the dorms.
Seeing the vice-princ.i.p.al coming, all the guys who were burping and singing songs instantly restrained themselves as it wasn’t proper to go out and have drinks at night.
To everyone’s surprise, Vice-Princ.i.p.al Lu Qing only smiled and waved at them even though he saw that they were all drunk.
Lu Qing walked by them with the other officials, leaving all the guys looked at each other in speechless despair.
“Did I just see the vice-princ.i.p.al wave at us?” Zhou Liren asked Zhao Jiayi in confusion after sobering up.
The other guys had no idea either about what had just happened.
They thought the vice-princ.i.p.al would scold them after knowing that they went out for drinks or at least came to ask which major and cla.s.s they were from. As they were all too shocked to see the vice-princ.i.p.al and struggled to come up with an excuse, the vice-princ.i.p.al only kindly waved at them and then walked by like nothing happened.
“Strange things happen every year, but there are a lot more this year,” releasing a sigh of relief, Zhou Liren uttered.
What Hao Ren knew was that Lu Qing was actually saying hi to him. Lu Qing knew about his visit to Zhao Yanzi’s home. Without a doubt, Hao Ren believed that Lu Qing acted that way to encourage him.
That little girl had been tremendously sought after and loved; no wonder her temper was quite overbearing.
However, Hao Ren wouldn’t share those things with his buddies as who knew what they would think of if they found out that the vice-princ.i.p.al had Hao Ren covered.
They went back to the dorm noisily. Some started playing cards while some went on their computers. Not until the lights shut off at midnight did they unwillingly went back to their own dorm rooms.
Hao Ren got up furtively after the other three in the room fell asleep. He went to the balcony to practice what was called “Spirit Concentration Scroll”.
The moonlight shone on the entire dorm. Hao Ren felt a weak airstream circulate in his body, then he slowly threw all the distracting thoughts away and entered a dimly discernible realm.
He realized it was four o’clock in the morning when he finished practicing. There were only a few hours left before cla.s.s started. He looked back and found the other three were still sound asleep, so he rushed back inside quietly and went to bed to catch some sleep.
He was in full spirit and energy even though he had just practiced the Spirit Concentration Scroll. He recalled the scriptures in his mind and reviewed it a few more times since he wasn’t exhausted at all.
He was able to feel the so-called “Qi” by practicing the scroll for a few days. If this scroll were ever revealed to the world, it would definitely shock the entire traditional Qigong world. Hao Ren’s imagination ran wild while he was trying to figure out the various meanings in the scroll.
What he forgot was that there was a unique Internal Core in his body which was worth three hundred years of cultivation for a normal person.
Unknowingly, dawn arrived. Zhou Liren shouted to wake everyone up with full vim and vigor. The first cla.s.s on Monday was Advanced Mathematics. The teacher of the cla.s.s was an extremely strict old man. Thus they didn’t dare to skip the cla.s.s. Apparently, those who had skipped his cla.s.s before all received fails for their final grades without exception.
The four of them rushed to the cafeteria and then went bustlingly to cla.s.s.
Hao Ren felt quite complicated to see all his cla.s.smates again after a weekend. Many of the cla.s.smates looked back and pointed at Hao Ren. It seemed that him getting picked up by the Lincoln Stretch Limousine on Friday had left a deep impression.
Hao Ren spent ten minutes copying his homework and then handed it to the Cla.s.s President Xie Yujia.
“What happened on Friday?” Xie Yujia asked as she took Hao Ren’s work. She usually turned a blind eye to Hao Ren’s copied homework as long as he could pa.s.s the exams.
“I was invited by a relative for lunch,” Hao Ren said.
“I heard someone mentioned fiancée.” Xie Yujia kept asking.
“That was just a joke,” Hao Ren answered calmly, indicating that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
Xie Yujia stopped asking. She turned around to collect the homework from the back row.
Seeing that, Zhou Liren who sat beside Hao Ren b.u.mped Hao Ren with his elbow and said happily, “She seems interested in you.”
“She will ask you too if you got picked up by a limousine,” Hao Ren cast a glance at him and said.
Zhou Liren laughed even more brightly. No one knew what that was about.
The cla.s.s was extremely boring. Formulas for calculus might be difficult for girls, but it wasn’t hard to understand at all for people like Hao Ren who was the top student of his science cla.s.s in high school.
Among all the courses, his weakest one was English.
Hao Ren took a three-hundred-page English test bank out of his backpack and started working on it.
Zhou Liren who also had no interest in the cla.s.s moved closer to Hao Ren with curiosity. “Practicing English questions?” He was even more shocked when he noticed it was an English test bank. “Questions for middle school? What do you want? Go back to middle school?”
“Just to kill time,” Hao Ren responded.
Zhou Liren didn’t buy it. “Be honest with me, are you flirting with some girls in middle school?”
Hearing their conversation, Cao Ronghua and Zhao Jiayi got closer too. “Ren, what are you doing?”
“Alright alright.” Hao Ren had enough of them. “I’m going to be tutoring a girl.”
“A girl? Is she pretty?” Zhou Liren’s eyes lit up.
“Is it the one who looked for you at the university last time?” Thinking for a while, Zhao Jiayi asked.
Hao Ren sighed and said, “It is her.”
“No wonder she made a tremendous uproar last time, she is the one you are tutoring.” Zhao Jiayi realized suddenly.
“Then it was her who asked someone to pick you up last Friday?” Cao Ronghua asked.
Hao Ren nodded.
“Dude! You are hooking up with a pretty little rich girl now.” Zhou Liren put his arm around Hao Ren’s neck and expressed his jealousy.
“Hey, you! What are you guys talking about back there!” The old man stopped lecturing and stare angrily at the four of them.
They lowered their heads down immediately, pretending they were listening carefully.
“Go stand in the corner if you guys don’t want to listen to this cla.s.s!” The old man kept lecturing after letting off one more time.
Xie Yujia looked back at Hao Ren, shaking her head helplessly.
Zhou Liren mumbled, lowering his voice, “That little girl is a bit wild, but she is very pretty. How about asking her to come here next time.”
“No way!” Hao Ren responded in a low voice. Zhou Liren thought Zhao Yanzi was just an innocent little girl, but Hao Ren knew that she wasn’t someone easy to deal with.
Moreover, if anything annoyed or p.i.s.sed off Zhao Yanzi and she told Lu Qing on him, then Zhou Liren would have more trouble than he could handle.
The morning Advanced Mathematics cla.s.s ended. As everyone was about to be dismissed and go for lunch, the Cla.s.s President Xie Yujia stood up. “Please stay everybody, I have something to announce!”
Hao Ren was unconsciously shocked. He thought it was going to be about him. Instead, he saw Xie Yujia walking up to the dais. “The Athletic Games is coming up next week, the university required that at least six people from each cla.s.s would need to attend. Now I have to make the headcount.” (Athletic Games is where selected students from each cla.s.s competed in different events.)
Xie Yujia was dressed in a cool t-s.h.i.+rt and shorts. A regular cartoon t-s.h.i.+rt matching light-washed jean shorts made her very pretty.
The guys who were about to leave all stopped as they saw Xie Yujia.
She stood on her tipping toes and raised her arms trying to get the attention of everyone in the cla.s.s. However, moving while standing on the dais made her look as if she was striking a pose.
Having a slim and colorful belt that showed off her gorgeous slim waist was what made her casual outfit stand out more.
“She is indeed the Cla.s.s President and the most popular girl in the cla.s.s,” Zhou Liren mumbled.
Seeing the crowd had stopped walking and went quiet, Xie Yujia finally gave a sigh of relief and continued, “I have reserved some spots, you can apply for the rest.”
“First, Yu Rong, shot put.”
Second, Cai Junjie, high jump.”
“Third, Chen Han, 400-meter relay race.”
“Fourth, Hao Ren! 1500-meter race!”
Her voice seemed especially loud when Hao Ren was up.
“No way…” Whoever was called by name appeared extremely helpless.
Zhao Jiayi and others looked at Hao Ren, feeling excited about his misfortune.
“Everyone be quiet for a second.” Xie Yujia raised her hands again. “The four I just mentioned are just on the reservation. It is up to the school whether they will be chosen or not. However, we should at least show our positive att.i.tude.”
Receiving no response, she asked again, “There are still two empty spots. Who would like to apply? Most of the events are for men, and we only have a few girls in this cla.s.s. Can you guys be more involved?”
Although she said that, who would like to show his face in public for the Athletic Games? It was known that there were numerous athletes in the university. In terms of the guys in the cla.s.s, they were all geeks who were excellent at dealing with computers but had no talent in sports. Who would be willing to embarra.s.s himself in public?
Xie Yujia gritted her teeth when she saw all the guys hesitate. “Fine. Then Zhao Jiayi and Zhou Liren! You two are up for the 100-meter race!”
Zhao Jiayi and Zhou Liren who were just very happy about the other’s misfortune started whining instantly.
“Em, that’s all! Everybody can go have lunch!” Xie Yujia bent down to write the names on a notebook and then announced the dismissal.
Zhou Liren helplessly watched as Xie Yujia walked out of the cla.s.sroom through the front door. He then suddenly turn around to look at Hao Ren and said, “She seems to have something against our dorm room!”
“How would I know!” Hao Ren left his words and then strode out of the cla.s.sroom through the back door.
The afternoon cla.s.ses were the same; boring and insipid. Zhou Liren who sat beside Hao Ren complained endlessly about how Xie Yujia applied for him without his agreement. Would his “ill.u.s.trious reputation” be swept down to the ground if he was the last one in the race?
“Stop worrying so much, it will never be your turn. There are countless athletes in the university, how could you be chosen?” Hao Ren couldn’t bear it anymore. He stopped writing and glared at him.
“That isn’t for sure. What if no one applies and they make me go?” Zhou Liren asked.
“Then you can throw yourself on the ground, then all the beautiful girls would remember your cute face and you can successfully complete your girlfriend-searching mission,” Hao Ren said.
“It’s always easy to say! Em, what a shame…” Zhou Liren covered his face and tried to put on an act,
Hao Ren didn’t bother to respond. He continued doing his middle school level English test bank. Tonight would be his first time tutoring someone.
Beep beep, beep beep……
The phone Hao Ren put on the desk suddenly vibrated.
He picked up the phone saw a message from Xie Yujia. “The university has decided to not pick the other five people. You will be the one attending the 1500-meter race. I know you are good at running. You can do it.
Hao Ren was stunned.