MNL Chapter 89

Chapter 89: Introspection – The Suspended Heart Finally Dies.

The three people walked out of the office, Qin Xin was the first to speak, “Xiao Yan, thank you for what happened today, Auntie took advantage of you just now, do you mind?”

Shen Yan shook his head.

“That kid at least knew to call his parents immediately. I was outside listening to his mother talk about it like that, and I just couldn’t stand it.”

Shen Yan hummed in agreement, “I know, thank you, Auntie.”

“I should be thanking you. But at my age, it’s the first time I’ve encountered something like this.” Qin Xin smiled helplessly, then turned to remind Xu Jing, “Remember not to tell your dad, otherwise, with his temper, he’d fly back from Australia overnight.”

Xu Jing didn’t say anything, seemingly still thinking about what happened just now.

He was originally wondering why Shen Yan would openly resort to violence at school, but when he heard the original words that idiot said, he only felt that Shen Yan hadn’t hit him hard enough. If it were him, if that person could still stand up, he would consider himself incompetent.

Qin Xin couldn’t bear to watch, ruffled Xu Jing’s hair, and said, “Alright, didn’t Xiao Yan already teach him a lesson for me? Don’t keep such a stern face either, a big guy like you looking like an old man all day. Besides, isn’t this kind of a backhanded compliment on how young and beautiful your mom is?”

Hearing this, Xu Jing’s expression softened slightly, and he finally said, “As long as you don’t mind.”

“There are so many people in the world, and everyone has a mouth. If you go and worry about all of it, you’d be exhausted to death.” Qin Xin waved her hand, nonchalantly saying, “Alright, now I really have to go see your grandpa, or I won’t make it before dark. Xiao Yan, come over to Auntie’s house later, and I’ll make you something delicious!”

Shen Yan twitched the corner of his mouth, “Okay.”

After Qin Xin left, Shen Yan glanced at Xu Jing’s expression and said, “Think I didn’t hit him hard enough?”

Xu Jing was a little speechless, and said, “Don’t guess what I’m thinking.”

Guessing correctly every time made him seem like an idiot, or more accurately, like a paramecium.

But there was no difference, they were both inferior anyway.

Shen Yan smiled, actually, he could now see Xu Jing’s inner monologue, which was definitely self-doubt.

It’s just that he had never thought that way.

His deskmate just looked cold on the outside, but was spiritually rich, with an ideal and vast utopian world in his heart, full of mountains, human emotions, and literature. How could someone like that be a rigid little old man?

As for the interesting thoughts and unknown feelings hidden deep within Xu Jing’s heart, only he could decipher them at the moment.

Xu Jing’s hesitant voice came, “The way you’re smiling now…”

Shen Yan turned his head, raising an eyebrow, “Very handsome?”

“No.” Xu Jing said, “Like a person selling insurance.”

Shen Yan: “?”

The matter of the fight spread like wildfire afterward. Some said it was because the boy had been caught talking bad about Shen Yan behind his back, some said it was because he was blocking the way, and some even said it was just because he had taken one too many glances at Shen Yan. Anyway, the rumors were varied and increasingly outrageous, describing Shen Yan as a ferocious, brainless school bully. However, Shen Yan’s beating was indeed harsh. The boy took a month’s leave of absence directly, and when he returned to school, he was still listless. Once, when he saw Shen Yan on the road, he ran away from a hundred meters away, his expression as if he had seen a living Yama. Xu Jing thought this person probably just had a facial injury, but in reality, he had a lot of internal injuries, and might really have internal bleeding and fractured ribs like someone said.

But although he resorted to violence, Shen Yan still paid the medical expenses without fail. He took a stack of thick cash and placed it in front of the woman that day, scaring the woman so much that she didn’t even eat her meal and went straight to check the money.

A good student with good grades privately insulting a special-grade teacher who came to the school to give a lecture, a provincial champion who had won news awards and had gone soft publicly beating a classmate, the school felt that this matter was too embarrassing and didn’t want to publicize it widely, so there was no punishment. But in order to make the school rules stand, they still had the two of them make a self-criticism at the flag-raising ceremony on Monday. Xu Jing had already started writing, but Shen Yan directly stopped him, saying, “Your hands are for writing love letters to me, how can they be for writing self-criticisms.” Xu Jing’s mouth twitched, thinking it was a good thing he wasn’t asked to conquer the world.

But if he didn’t have to, he didn’t have to, saving him the trouble of using his brain.

On the day of the flag-raising ceremony, everyone watched as the beaten boy walked onto the stage tremblingly, and almost knelt down on the spot when he faced Shen Yan.

That kind of fear didn’t seem like acting at all, otherwise he shouldn’t be making a self-criticism at No.1 High School now, but should be going to America to receive an Oscar statuette.

The boy wrote a full two pages of self-criticism. He himself also felt that this matter was embarrassing, and his voice was as soft as a mosquito when he read it. No one even heard a punctuation mark clearly. But they weren’t curious about what he said anyway, because the main event today was Shen Yan. Their academic god appeared on stage every now and then, either receiving an award or speaking as a student representative. It was the first time he was violating school rules and making a self-criticism like today, so everyone craned their necks and looked up, their necks almost stretched two miles long.

But they found that Shen Yan didn’t have anything in his hands.

Cha Fei’ang was greatly shocked, “Damn, he’s delivering it off-script too, as expected of our God Yan.”

Liang Ge asked doubtfully, “Is he going to make it up on the spot? Or has he already memorized it?”

Xu Jing thought, with Shen Yan’s personality, he would rather sleep than spend that time. He was probably improvising. This person was skilled with words. At this moment, he was a little curious about what earth-shattering remarks Shen Yan could make.

“Regarding the incident on Wednesday, I have two points to say.”

Shen Yan’s clear and cold voice fell.

Everyone: “?”

“Is this a new opening line for self-criticisms?”

“Why does it sound like we’re the ones who should be making a self-criticism?”

“What do you know? This is called creating suspense, introducing the following text, and attracting the audience’s attention.”

“Damn, as expected of an academic god, even his self-criticism is as awesome as a perfect essay.”

Xu Jing: “…”

A bunch of idiots.

“First, it was indeed wrong to fight this time. I will take this as a warning and ensure that I will not resort to violence in public again next time. Second, the person who was beaten should also deeply reflect on their own problems, so as not to be beaten again next time. That concludes my self-criticism.”

“…………”

The whole place was silent for at least three minutes.

Not even a bird dared to fly over.

Is this called a self-criticism?

It sounds like a provocation.

The boy turned black and almost fainted after hearing it. The director of the grade stomped on the floor loudly when he went on stage, and finally, annoyed and helpless, glared at Shen Yan and told him to go down quickly.

After returning to the classroom, the boys swarmed up and surrounded Shen Yan, saying that his self-criticism was too damn good.

Shen Yan waved his hand.

After everyone left, Shen Yan asked his deskmate again, “Give me a review?”

The person who could come up with a two-thousand-word essay at will couldn’t think of a suitable adjective for a long time. Xu Jing was tired of thinking, and gave a one-word review, “Awesome.”

Shen Yan looked humble, “Keep a low profile.”

Xu Jing: “.”

Liang Yin walked into the classroom, put a stack of A4 paper on Gu Qianqian’s desk, and raised her hand to signal everyone to be quiet. “I just received a notice that in order to improve the comprehensive quality of primary and secondary school students, the higher-ups have launched a social practice activity. The time is set for this weekend. I’ll have the class monitor distribute the social practice forms to you later. Remember, everyone must participate.”

It was finally a weekend to sleep in, but they had to go and be volunteers, wasn’t this purely looking for trouble? The class instantly collapsed, and after Liang Yin left, scolding rose one after another.

Cha Fei’ang had already made an appointment with his buddy to play games together this week. Looking at the shitty social practice form in front of him, he roared to the sky, “Damn it, is there any humanity left? We’re high school students, not animals! If my dad was the director of the Education Bureau…”

Xu Jing laughed after hearing this.

Cha Fei’ang finished venting and turned to look at his motionless deskmate, assuming that Liang Ge also had something ruined, and immediately felt a sense of shared misery.

But before he could say anything to comfort him, he saw Liang Ge propping his head up, showing an infatuated smile to Gu Qianqian’s back, making Cha Fei’ang want to stuff the practice form into his mouth.

Cha Fei’ang: “Brother Jing, I can’t take it anymore. When are you going to take care of Liang Ge on the spot?”

Xu Jing raised his head after hearing the movement, thinking it was a good thing he was still normal when he was with Shen Yan at the time. If he was really like this, let alone Cha Fei’ang, even a blind person could tell that something was wrong.

Once adrenaline was secreted, the IQ of people before and after falling in love was negative.

Xu Jing patted Cha Fei’ang on the shoulder and said, “He’s seriously ill, let him be.”

After school, Xu Jing originally planned to take a bath and go to bed, but then Shen Yan stepped forward and asked him if he was hungry.

Xu Jing used to rarely eat late-night snacks. He was too lazy to bother himself, and Qin Xin’s cooking was terrible. Sometimes he would just casually deal with regular meals. But after meeting Shen Yan, he found that many times Shen Yan didn’t really want to eat late-night snacks, but was deliberately creating a warm atmosphere. Someone could accompany him to eat, talk to him, as if this could make that empty room look less deserted and more like a home.

These thoughts were stubborn and morbid, Xu Jing knew it clearly, but never thought of changing or exposing it. He would only agree every time, and then force himself to eat.

Today it was sour soup dumplings, a full twenty of them. Xu Jing couldn’t even sit still after eating them. Shen Yan cleared the dishes and walked out of the kitchen, looking amused when he saw Xu Jing standing by the sofa in a daze.

Shen Yan was taking off his clothes to go to the bathroom to take a shower. The loose school pants were lazily hanging around his waist, revealing his strong upper body. Xu Jing glanced at it and immediately felt unbalanced. This person was eating late-night snacks every day just like him, so how could his figure stay so in shape?

Shen Yan noticed the seemingly casual gaze and said directly, “Look if you want.”

Xu Jing withdrew his gaze and said, “Stop being narcissistic.”

As if he didn’t have one too.

Although his abs were mainly the result of being thin, not as beautiful as Shen Yan’s, they were at least defined, solid and smooth. Yan Zhe and Lin Jiayu even wanted to touch them before, but were severely punished and never dared to have such thoughts again.

“Your eyes are almost glued to my body.” Shen Yan’s tone was a bit cocky, and said, “Satiety breeds lust, it’s human nature.”

Xu Jing lowered his head and looked at the raised area, sneering, “Passing the buck.”

Shen Yan readily admitted, “Yeah.”

Xu Jing: “…”

“Sleepy.”

“It’s easy to get indigestion if you sleep right after eating.”

Xu Jing took a step back, “Then what do you think I should do?”

Shen Yan took two steps closer, “Do some two-person exercise to promote digestion.”

Xu Jing turned and left.

Shen Yan chuckled behind him.

Later, he went back to his room to take a shower as well. However, when he entered the bathroom, Xu Jing’s gaze lingered on the mirror for a moment, a little stunned, not daring to believe the abnormality he had discovered. Then he closed his eyes and calmed down. When he opened them again, the suspended heart was completely dead.

His face seemed to have really gotten rounder.

Although it wasn’t very obvious, and couldn’t be seen at all unless you looked closely, why did he look inexplicably approachable and kind now?

“Damn.”

Xu Jing took a shower in a mess, and even looked down for a while in the middle, finding that his abs were indeed not as obvious as before.

He absolutely couldn’t continue like this, otherwise he wouldn’t even have to go out in two months, he should just go straight to the pen.

After taking a shower, Xu Jing specially searched the internet, but the results were either irrelevant answers or pornographic websites that he couldn’t exit after clicking in for a long time, useless.

Helpless, Xu Jing registered a small account and asked for help on the forum.

【xxxx】: My boyfriend likes to cook very much, how can I euphemistically remind him that I don’t want to eat?

Maybe it was just stuck at a peak traffic period, and there were more than twenty replies in less than ten minutes after this post was sent out.

【Parisian Mother Mary on the Run】: Cooking? What kind of cooking? Is it what I’m thinking? (Slurp slurp)

【Nightmare of Nine Hundred Million Young Boys】: Is the poster bragging? Don’t be unappreciative. (Smile)

【My id is a girl】: Some are dying of drought, others are dying of flood. I want this blessing.

【Excited Great Female Monkey】: Suggest taking the initiative, ravaging him! Playing with him!! Draining him!!!

…

What are these people talking about, is it Chinese?

Xu Jing studied it for a long time and understood.

Then he was silent.

Later, this post directly became popular in the dating forum. The commenters were divided into two categories, one was middle-aged women who were sexually frustrated and sharing their miserable sex lives, and the other was female college students who were about to take their final exams and were frantically eating melons online. They all messaged Xu Jing privately not to delete the post, saying that they had found their bedtime reading for tonight.

Xu Jing was speechless and wanted to go next door to beat someone up.

He originally wanted to find a high-EQ answer, but there was a screen full of flirtatious talk, not even a normal comment. Xu Jing thought it would be better to go to the gym and work out for a few hours.

At this time, a slightly different private message appeared in the dialog box.

【tan90°】: Hello.

Blank profile picture, id of an idiot.

Non-mainstream confirmed.

Xu Jing was too lazy to reply and was about to exit, but the other party seemed to have guessed it and sent another message.

【tan90°】: Regarding your question, I think you can tell him directly.

But this person seemed to be giving him advice.

Compared to the explosive level of other private messages, at least this non-mainstream person seemed more polite. Xu Jing thought for a while and replied.

【xxxx】: Afraid he’ll be sad.

【tan90°】: Does he like you very much?

【xxxx】: Probably right now.

After waiting for a long time, he didn’t receive a reply. Xu Jing thought he was really a little desperate and actually thought that these people who were surfing the internet late at night could come up with some useful advice. He turned off his phone and was about to go to the bedroom to sleep when that person replied again at this moment.

Xu Jing looked at the screen and suddenly froze a little.

【tan90°】: Then don’t be afraid.

【tan90°】: Because he also knows that you like him very much.

Xu Jing: “?”

Something seemed wrong.