Chapter 22 — Someone Wants a Word With Us
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Wei Zhao read the note and dismissed it with a smile. He hardly believed Shen Yushu was trying to warn him out of kindness—this girl thrived on chaos. Her only aim in telling him was to make sure he kept on putting Zhong Yongliang and his lot in their place; she was probably fed up with Zhong Yongliang herself.
The physics teacher was a man in his fifties, but his scholarship was solid. Though Wei Zhao had already studied on his own everything the man taught, he still listened with relish.
"Naipao, what's the matter with you?" Zhong Yongliang glared at Zhang Naipao in irritation. "Didn't I tell you to give him a proper welcome? What were you even doing?"
"Don't even bring it up, Liang." Zhang Naipao's face was a picture of misery. "I'd just stuck my foot out to trip the bastard flat on his back, and the next thing I know he's brought his heel down on the back of my foot. Son of a bitch—hurt like hell. Still hurts."
"Did he catch you at it?" Zhong Yongliang frowned. He'd taken a kick from Wei Zhao just yesterday, so he knew exactly how much force the fellow packed. No doubt Zhang Naipao was hurting badly.
"Shouldn't have. He never even looked down." Zhang Naipao was rather perplexed about that himself.
"Damn. Can't believe we keep getting taken down by some country bumpkin, one after another. During the break, we'll corner him in the toilets—I want to teach him the difference between piss and beer." Zhong Yongliang spoke with venom. Ever since he'd enrolled, he'd been ranked one of the school's Four Great Young Villains, and he'd never once eaten this kind of humiliation.
"And let him learn the difference between shit and cake too," Gao Xiaofu added.
As the three were still talking, a man in black came toward them, a cigarette dangling from his lip. "So, Liang, what's all this? Holding a meeting or what?"
"Brother Ming!" Zhong Yongliang looked up and saw Zou Ruoming, second in rank among the school's Four Great Young Villains. The deeds this one had done were worse than his own, if anything. Rumor had it that back in middle school he'd dragged a girl from his own class into a grove and had his way with her by force.
Zou Ruoming nodded, thoroughly enjoying the "Brother Ming." His family background wasn't as good as Zhong Yongliang's, after all—it was just that he was more ruthless, and he had a big brother out in the real world who ran with the gangs. That was why he did so well for himself at school.
"Anything you need Brother Ming's help with?" Zou Ruoming asked.
"Nothing much. Just a country bumpkin of a transfer student. In a bit I'll show him who runs things around this school." Zhong Yongliang, naturally unwilling to lose face before Zou Ruoming, spoke as though it were nothing.
"You're holding a solemn meeting over a single country bumpkin?" Zou Ruoming lost interest the moment he heard it—he'd assumed there was something fun going on. He shook his head and left.
These past few days he'd had his eye on a girl in Senior Three, Class Nine, and was turning over how to make his move. The problem was that the cold beauty was rather aloof, so Zou Ruoming was wondering whether to simply take her by force.
The reason he called her a girl was that Zou Ruoming was enrolled in the college entrance exam prep class—the so-called "Grade Four." These were students who had failed to get into university. Zou Ruoming could have bought his way into a university whenever he liked; staying on in high school had actually been his own idea. This life, where every day a wave of his hand brought a crowd running, was something he savored deeply. He also understood that once he left for a university in another city, all of this would be gone.
University students and high school students saw the world in utterly different terms. And away from home, stripped of his family's sphere of influence, if he carried on as brazenly as he did now, he would die a miserable death.