Amid the pitch-black darkness, Jiang Wen’s lips pressed tightly together, his brain still stuck offline.
Feng Ning jabbed a finger at him, scolding, “You never really know a person, do you.”
“I really—” The words caught in his throat; he stopped, embarrassed, and turned his face away. “It really was an accident…”
“Explaining yourself is just covering it up, and covering it up just proves it’s true.” Feng Ning wasn’t about to let it drop. “If I hadn’t caught you, you’d probably have just pretended nothing happened!”
“…”
Feng Ning pressed on, righteously furious. “I never expected you to be this kind of person—a hypocrite hiding behind a righteous face!”
Faced with this relentless barrage, Jiang Wen had no way to defend himself. “Fine, I’m sorry, okay.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it.”
“So what do you want, then.”
Feng Ning threatened viciously, “I don’t care, you’d better think of a solution right now, or I’m going to tell everyone you snuck a look at my nude photo and ruin your reputation.”
“?”
She looked at him, completely deadpan. “Here’s what we’ll do—you send me a nude photo of yourself too, and we’ll call it even.”
Jiang Wen was stunned. He said, with difficulty, “I don’t have a photo like that.”
“Then take one right now.” Feng Ning ordered him. “Take your clothes off! Right now, hurry up.”
“…” “Not taking your clothes off, huh? Fine.” Feng Ning made as if to grab her phone. “Then I’m posting about this on the forum right now.”
Jiang Wen quickly seized her hand to stop her, saying frantically that she’d lost her mind. He looked up, only to find himself meeting her mischievous grin.
She held it in for a while longer before finally bursting into laughter, one hand clutching her stomach, shoulders shaking, nearly doubling over onto the ground. “Hahahahaha, Jiang Wen, why’s your face so red? Don’t tell me you’ve never even seen anything explicit before?”
Her earlier frustration vanished completely. She smugly admired her own bath photo again, gloating.
Her back had been sore last night, so after her shower she’d had Meng Taoyu help take a photo. It wasn’t even anything restricted—not a single thing exposed that shouldn’t be—so what exactly was he so flustered about?
Feng Ning kept laughing, not the slightest bit guilty about having played him.
Watching her carry on like this, Jiang Wen felt a wave of dizziness, his face turning pale. He turned and walked away.
In his entire life, he’d never met a woman as ruthlessly shameless as Feng Ning.
New Year came early this year; the moment the calendar flipped over, Qide immediately launched into final exams. Exam room assignments were based on the previous grade rankings, and since a few of the school buildings were undergoing renovation, the top hundred students were all gathered together to test in a small auditorium on the west side of campus.
Feng Ning was ranked 001, seated in the leftmost column, first row. The morning exam was Chinese; she found it thoroughly uninteresting and had only brought a single pen.
Once she sat down at her seat, she propped her chin in her hand and let her mind wander out the window for a while, only to discover the pen she’d chosen was nearly out of ink.
She looked around. Her classmate Wan Yang hadn’t arrived at the exam room yet.
As for everyone else…
The morning’s first rays of sunlight slanted in through the window, falling across the tiled floor. Jiang Wen sat properly upright in the second column, first row.
She leaned over ingratiatingly. “Classmate Jiang, could I borrow a pen from you?”
He was still holding a grudge and ignored her completely, indifferent, continuing to copy out classical poetry from memory on his scratch paper.
Feng Ning’s skin was thick enough that she felt no self-consciousness about being ignored, having also conveniently forgotten her own earlier scheming against him. She leaned in and watched him finish writing out a poem, even chiming in with a comment. “Nice handwriting.”
Jiang Wen kept his face like a stone slab, treating her like air, and moved on to the next poem.
“Classmate Jiang, lend me a pen.” Feng Ning shamelessly repeated herself. “Just the one in your hand, it looks like it writes well.”
“No.” Jiang Wen showed no expression whatsoever, eyes fixed on the paper, steadily writing out Qu Yuan’s “Li Sao.”
Guess he was still holding a grudge.
After half a minute’s standoff, Feng Ning stared at Jiang Wen’s hand holding the pen. He wore a black watch on his wrist; his fingers were slender, the knuckles not overly pronounced, well-proportioned overall.
She took a moment to appreciate this, then spoke up admiringly, “Classmate Jiang, your hands are really nice-looking!”
“…”
“Better looking than my back, even.”
Sure enough, the character “å…®” on his scratch paper trembled slightly. He couldn’t take it anymore. “What exactly are you trying to do.”
Feng Ning said innocently, “Borrowing a pen.”
Jiang Wen’s face darkened, and he slapped the pen down in front of her with some force.
Having achieved her goal, she felt thoroughly satisfied. As she left, Feng Ning even remarked, “Good thing we’re sitting next to each other.”
She tilted her head to look at him, her face full of feigned concern. “Otherwise, if you were sitting behind me, you’d have my back in your face the whole time—how would you ever concentrate on the exam?”
Jiang Wen, who’d been sitting perfectly upright, instantly twisted his expression at that remark.
Watching him look about ready to lose it entirely, Feng Ning switched back to a normal expression. “Oh, right, friendly reminder—you wrote a character wrong in the line about being scolded in the morning and cast aside by evening. Better flip open the textbook and check before the teacher gets here.”
At eight o’clock, four proctors walked in carrying exam bags. A female teacher took her position at the podium and called out to the room, “Everyone, get ready, the exam’s about to start. Put away your reference materials and books.”
Jiang Wen propped his head on his hand and took a moment to steady himself. He believed her nonsense, pulled his Chinese textbook out of his bag, and flipped to the “Li Sao” chapter.
His eyes scanned over the lines, and after cross-checking against his scratch paper, he hadn’t made any mistake at all.
Still suspicious, he was about to say something when laughter suddenly sounded beside him. He glanced over—Feng Ning was eating bread. She flashed a row of neat white teeth, looking utterly adorable, and said something infuriating enough to make him want to scream. “You didn’t get it wrong—I was just joking earlier.”
Every time she messed with him, her methods were laughably simple-minded, and yet somehow he always fell for it.
Jiang Wen suddenly felt like a complete fool.
If fury had physical form, the top of his head would’ve been shooting flames ten feet high.
Chest tight, breath short, he wanted nothing more than to hurl the Chinese textbook at her face like a shot put. But being played wasn’t even the most infuriating part—the most infuriating part was that the fill-in-the-blank poetry question on the exam actually included that exact line.
Harboring some vague sense of spite against no one in particular, Jiang Wen deliberately left that question blank.
When the exam ended, Feng Ning came over to return the pen.
Jiang Wen didn’t give her a good look, zipping up his bag on his own. “Just keep it.”
“Why?”
He kept his head slightly lowered, saying with exaggerated primness, “It’s been used by someone else. Don’t want it anymore.”
“Okay then.” Feng Ning obligingly pocketed the pen and complimented him. “What a pure, untouchable classmate Jiang.”
Long ago, one careless remark from Feng Ning—calling him “eternal runner-up”—had lodged itself like a thorn deep in Jiang Wen’s fragile heart.
Throughout final exam season, he’d thrown himself into studying with everything he had, working harder than even during his high school entrance exam prep. His sleep quality had been mediocre the past couple of nights; working through problems, Jiang Wen started to feel drowsy. He checked the time and set a thirty-minute alarm on his phone before slumping forward onto the desk.
Half-asleep, a dim golden glow appeared before his eyes, and within it, someone with a bare back. Somewhere between dreaming and waking, an image suddenly flashed through his mind—a pale white back, a narrow waist, overlapping with what was in front of him now.
Jiang Wen jolted awake instantly.
His heart was still pounding hard. Once his eyes focused and he realized it was Zhao Binlin, Jiang Wen threw something at him and cursed, “Are you out of your mind?”
Hit by the flying object, Zhao Binlin turned around with a baffled look on his face. He’d been in the middle of taking off his pants. “What did I do this time?”
“Why aren’t you wearing clothes?”
“I’m about to take a shower, obviously.” Zhao Binlin sounded aggrieved and utterly confused.
Jiang Wen’s brow twitched; he realized he’d overreacted. He sat up straight, rubbing his forehead in frustration. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”
Not understanding at all what had set him off, Zhao Binlin asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
Jiang Wen’s lips moved, and after a long pause, he finally spat out: “Didn’t sleep well.”
Meanwhile, back in the dorm, Feng Ning was watching an animated show with great interest.
Right as the episode ended and the credits rolled, Shuang Yao suddenly messaged her on WeChat: Girl, what’s going on with you?
Feng Ning: What do you mean?
Shuang Yao threw a link at her, adding: You’re now officially, publicly known for throwing yourself at Jiang Wen!
She clicked the link—it was a forum post. The post included a set of photos: Feng Ning that morning at the exam, leaning close to Jiang Wen, saying something to him.
They’d been taken secretly from behind, the resolution shockingly clear, almost professional-camera quality.
Her face wore a thoroughly fawning, sycophantic expression, while Jiang Wen looked completely unmoved. From the pen-borrowing to the pen-returning, the entire exchange was captured, and the poster had described it this way: The grade’s top student, seriously? Seriously? Shameless flattery at its finest.
The comments were piling up fast.
Reply 1: LOL LOL LOL, wow, this girl’s really pretty~ does anyone know who she is?
Reply 2: Jiang Wen!! Is this guy Jiang Wen?!
Reply 3: Is Jiang Wen a misogynist or something, seriously, I feel like he’s especially cold toward girls…
Reply 4: To the person above, this girl’s name is Feng Ning, our grade’s famous top student.
Reply 5: Even though this guy’s only showing a bit of his side profile, I can still feel how devastatingly handsome he is. Anyone have contact info~~~ [excited]
Reply 6: A link to a fan-page thread was posted: For reply 5’s benefit, a bit of background—Qide currently has three good-looking guys with dedicated fan threads in the top forum section, and Jiang Wen’s one of them. If you don’t know about him, go check it out.
The general tone stayed fairly normal at first, since it wasn’t exactly news that girls threw themselves at Jiang Wen. Passersby mostly commented on how well-matched their looks were. Some also lamented how cold and unapproachable Jiang Wen was—how could he stay so unmoved in front of someone like Feng Ning, who had both looks and brains?
As the discussion carried on, the original poster resurfaced with more “gossip,” dripping with malice: This girl comes from a poor family background, probably has her eye on the Jiang family’s money (ps: what do I mean by poor? I mean she works as a bar hostess pouring drinks~). Also, back when Jiang Wen was dating our grade’s number one beauty, Cheng Jiajia, this girl apparently got between them~~~ a real professional homewrecker.
The terms “bar hostess” and “homewrecker” were explosive enough that people in the thread started demanding the poster provide proof, while others simply enjoyed the drama—either way, the discussion grew even more heated.
A little past eleven at night, Jiang Wen finished reading the thread. He went out to the balcony and, using Zhao Binlin’s phone, called Yi Qiao, one of Jiang Yuyun’s close friends.
“Sister Qiao, it’s Jiang Wen, can I ask you a favor?”
It was noisy on the other end; after a moment it quieted down, and Yi Qiao asked, surprised, “Hm? What favor, go ahead.”
“I left my phone in the exam room.”
Yi Qiao was equally baffled. “So just buy a new one?”
“There’s exam material on that phone, it’s important.” Jiang Wen’s voice was calm. “Could you help me get permission to check the exam hall’s security footage, see who picked it up?”
Yi Qiao agreed readily.
As the thread kept climbing, Shuang Yao messaged Feng Ning anxiously: I’ve already reported it for removal, want me to make a burner account and clear things up for you? Or curse out the original poster a bit?
Feng Ning closed out of the forum tab and typed back rapid-fire: “Slightly annoyed, but I can handle it.”
Shuang Yao: ……
Feng Ning: But there is one small issue
Shuang Yao: ?
Mid-conversation, Qi Lan suddenly called. Feng Ning picked up and chatted with her mom for a while.
After hanging up, she absentmindedly opened WeChat, eyes fixed on the underside of the bunk above her, and sent an irritated voice message to Shuang Yao complaining: “I’m genuinely baffled, you know, it’s just so ridiculous—since when did they decide on a ‘number one beauty’ for our grade, and how was it not me?? As the one and only Feng Ning, I officially declare my strong objection! I suggest everyone on that forum go get their eyes checked and start a new voting thread.”
A while passed, and Shuang Yao still hadn’t responded.
Feng Ning went back to watching her show. After a bit, she opened WeChat again and found dozens of new messages in the class group chat.
She scrolled up, eyes widening, and sat bolt upright, cursing out loud—
—She’d sent the voice message meant for Shuang Yao straight into the class group chat instead!!!!!!!