A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 026 – Standing Up For Him

It’s Exactly This Coincidental.

The bell rang, the invigilator started collecting the scripts. When it was Sheng Wang’s turn, the invigilator intentionally stopped by his table for a few seconds more, probably wanting to see what kind of nonsense the late student came up with in his bluffing.

“You might as well pick C for all, at least a few would be correct then. If you don’t get a single one correct by blindly guessing, you’ll end up crying yourself to death.” The invigilator could not help but say this after whisking away his paper.
“Teacher, you teach English?” Sheng Wang was bad with faces, he did not know basically any of the teachers out of Class A.
“No, I teach geography.” The invigilator replied.
“Then have you seen the answer sheet for this test?”
“No?”
Sheng Wang said an “oh”, and next, “It’s fine then.”
The invigilator: “……”

The student in front snorted out loud, and made himself grave again after a piercing look from the invigilator.
The invigilator glared at Sheng Wang in annoyance, “No matter your reason, don’t be late for your next exam in any case. You have to answer for all your effort, don’t let it go down the drain just because of some poor habits.”
“I won’t anymore, thank you Teacher.” Sheng Wang said.

The other venues collected their scripts quite quickly, the bustling sound of human talk poured out like water from a dam, spilling into the corridor. Gao Tianyang improved substantially for his weekly test too, he jumped forward by 50+ places, and his exam venue shifted from Class 3 to the tail end of Class 1. He was only a wall away from Sheng Wang, the flight of stairs right next to them.

He had long since scuttled out of class, and was waiting at the stairs. However, even after Jiang Tian arrived, he still didn’t spot a single trace of Sheng Wang.
“Where’s he?” Jiang Tian went down the steps, and looked towards Class 2.
Gao Tianyang shrugged, “Dunno, their class is so freaking slow when it comes to collecting their scripts, the doors still aren’t open even now.”

Immediately after he spoke, the doors to Classroom 2 opened. The invigilator walked out hugging a stack of neatly sorted out scripts, and a huge wave of students streamed out following behind. Their exchanges and discussion buzzed non-stop, like a group of geese that got their nests bombed.
“The fuck, he even dares to skip English listening compre, it’s 20 marks, oh my god.”
“He’s OP, what can I say.”
“Didn’t he get nearly full marks for last week’s English?”
“I think so, was it 117 or 118?”
“Then he’s done for this time, going down by 20 marks straight.”
“Not for sure, what if he guessed correctly for some?”
“Didn’t you hear the invigilator mock him, saying that he should have just filled in all Cs? He probably just blindly wrote AABCD or something like that. He likely never had to guess for English before, he surely lacks experience.”
“Quit bullshitting, even if he loses 20 marks his English will still score better than mine, I want to shut down.”
……
Gao Tianyang hissed, he nudged Jiang Tian and said, “Eh, why does it sound like something’s off the more I listen.”

That group of people were chatting up a storm as they walked towards the staircase. There was someone Jiang Tian happened to know in the middle, he tapped the person’s shoulder and asked, “Who lost 20 marks straight?”
“Aiyo what the heck you scared me,” The person held his hand to his chest and said, “God Jiang, why are you here, Yang-ge!”
He greeted Gao Tianyang too.
“We’re waiting for our meal buddy.” Gao Tianyang asked, “Who were you talking about just now?”
“It’s the Sheng Wang who improved by a 100+ places from your class.” The person pointed to the classroom behind him with his thumb, “That guy there was late for his English exam, he missed out the entirety of listening compre.”

“Late?” Gao Tianyang yelled in shock, “No way! Tian-ge, you guys were late this morning?”
“No.” Jiang Tian said, “Already here by 7.”
That boy had no idea what they were talking about. He could not particularly understand why it was Sheng Wang who was late, but Jiang Tian was the one who Gao Tianyang asked instead. The other classmates started rushing him impatiently, and the boy hurriedly bade his farewell before leaving with his friends.

Disbelief was written all over Gao Tianyang’s face. “This subject is English, Sheng-ge has the greatest advantage in this one, why would he be stupidly reckless enough to be late?”
Jiang Tian looked past him. into Class 2. Most students had already left, and the classroom was empty enough such that his view was unobscured. From this angle, he could see a partial side view of Sheng Wang’s face. He was stuffing his school jacket into his bag, his eyes lowered, the look on his face indiscernible.

Jiang Tian gripped Gao Tianyang’s shoulders, and gave him a push towards Class 2.
“What?” Gao Tianyang trudged forward by two steps.
“Go ask.” Jiang Tian said.
“……”
Is there double-sided tape on Your mouth? Gao Tianyang wanted to ask this childhood friend. Still, he didn’t have the guts to in the end, and entered the classroom without any protest.

“Sheng-ge!” Gao Tianyang was a walking loudspeaker, he had no idea how to control his volume. With this cry, all the ‘left behind youths’ who were munching on their rations in class all turned to them.

Sheng Wang was attempting to fold the dirty side of the jacket inwards in order to prevent it from staining the bag. When he saw Gao Tianyang and Jiang Tian entering one after another, he gave up on wrestling with it. He messily stuffed the jacket in, pulled the zip up, and called it a day.

Just as he was about to say “Let’s go eat”, he heard Gao Tianyang declare with the tone of an eunuch reading the imperial decree, “Tian-ge has delegated a question for me to ask, did something happen to you this morning?”

Jiang Tian was behind him by a few steps when he entered the class, and was going past some tables and chairs towards them. Upon hearing that, he immediately came to a halt and stared at the back of Gao Tianyang’s head.
If the gaze could become tangible, Gao Tianyang would already be a corpse.

Sheng Wang looked at him.
“He’s making things up.” Jiang Tian denied with zero hesitation.
Yet a few seconds later, he looked down and gave his nose a light pinch, and completely gave up. “Fine.”

When this sort of reaction was carried out by him, it was sort of amusing. Sheng Wang couldn’t hold it back and a laugh escaped him, the anger simmering in him for the entirety of the morning instantly vanishing.

“Let’s go already.” He swung the bag behind his shoulders, and pushed them towards the door. “I’m gonna die from starvation. We’ll talk about it later, I don’t want to host a news conference.”
They made a late arrival, most students had already settled down in the canteen and started eating. One look all over and there were only a few seats scattered here and there in the sea of dark heads, there were basically no seats for a table for four.
Just as they were looking around, someone waved at them, “Old Gao — Over here!”

The one who waved was Song Sirui, beside him was Qi Jiahao, Small Mouth Xu and co. The five of them occupied a table for eight, there were still just nice three spots left empty.
Gao Tianyang picked the window with the quickest moving queue with ample experience, and soon enough they collected their food.

Sheng Wang sat down at an empty seat when he heard Song Sirui ask, “Sheng-ge, I’ve heard that you didn’t make it for listening compre this morning? What happened?”
Gao Tianyang let out an audible sigh, and gulped down a few mouthfuls of the ice cola he just opened before saying, “We were just asking him, so what exactly happened?”

“Got sabotaged.” Sheng Wang was grumbling about being hungry the whole journey here, but didn’t rush to eat when he got his food. Instead, he was slowly picking out the julienned carrots strip by strip.
“What do you mean?” Gao Tianyang stopped munching on his ribs, his eyes nearly popping out of the sockets as he waited for Sheng Wang to speak.
“Someone told me to go get Jing-jie’s Olympiad practice papers, so I just went.” Sheng Wang pushed the pile of carrots to the corner of the stainless steel divider plate, and started picking out the green pepper slices. “In the end I got ambushed when I got to the Garden of Conduct.”

“The fuck? Ambush? Who?”
“Don’t know. Not from this school, probably some hooligan loafing around on some random street corner.”

“There’s a fight?” Small Mouth Xu asked.
“If not what else, they’re here to greet me happy new year?” Sheng Wang said. “Either ways I was delayed by them for quite a while, by the time I went inside listening compre was a goner.”

Qi Jiahao asked, “How did you come back? You beat them up?”
“Nope,” Sheng Wang pointed at the scrape on the side of his face and started putting on a pitiful act, “how would I even manage to defeat them, look at how I’m injured here. Got a bunch of mud on my school jacket and had to stuff it into my bag, the only reason I made it back is because of how quick I ran.”

“Pause!” Song Sirui stated, “You’re gonna say you don’t have the strength to even truss a chicken, go ask the Zhai Tao from last time and see if he agrees.”
Sheng Wang said, “Even if he doesn’t agree I still don’t have the strength to truss a chicken, it’s all because of the bag. See, I didn’t have my bag this morning, that’s why I failed.”

“Speaking of Zhai Tao, that idiot —” Gao Tianyang thought, and said, “Did you start a feud with the hooligans outside of school? Probably not, then why did they hurry into school just to pick a fight with you? This doesn’t make any sense, right? Therefore it definitely has to be the work of Zhai Tao, that grandson.”
Other people felt that this was quite probable too, Small Mouth Xu was the only one who injected, “I’ll go find my dad later, see if you can take a make-up for your listening compre.”

“Will your dad be willing?” Qi Jiahao said, a little worried, “I think it’s not very likely, how about we all go?”
“Don’t, my dad hates power in numbers the most, I’ll go ask just in case.” Small Mouth Xu said.

Sheng Wang was startled.
Usually, whenever Small Mouth saw his dad it was like a rat meeting a cat, getting him to go to talk to his dad about something was like asking him to die, he didn’t expect him to really take the initiative to help him out like this today.

“Much appreciated.” Sheng Wang jokingly cupped his fist at him, “But you shouldn’t go find him. Firstly, he would ask about the process, then I’ll be involved in a fight again. I’m still in a sensitive period, it’s probably better if I behave myself. Secondly, there’s no security cameras in the Garden of Conduct, how am I supposed to prove that I was ambushed?”

“That’s true, there’s a magpie bridge there and all, if there’s cameras there the couples would have long since flown away.”
Small Mouth Xu wavered, and in the end he compromised. “Sure, I’m not letting my dad know first then, we’ll see according to the situation.”
Everyone was a little sullen.

They soon sunk into a round of passionately ‘paying respects’ towards Zhai Tao, Sheng Wang was constantly amused as he listened. Just as he pushed aside the last pile of garlic bits, he suddenly heard Jiang Tian, who was sitting opposite of him, ask, “What do the hooligans look like?”

His voice wasn’t loud, Gao Tianyang and the rest who were running high on excitement didn’t notice him. Only Sheng Wang heard him.
“There’s a crew cut, and there’s a blondie with short hair.” Sheng Wang tried to recall to the best of his ability, but could only remember these two features. “I have facial blindness, I don’t remember what they look like the moment I look away.”
After hearing this, Jiang Tian thought for a bit, and said, “Ok.”

Sheng Wang’s hand, who was picking apart the vegetables, paused. He looked at him in suspicion and asked, “What are you planning?”
Jiang Tian glanced up and questioned back, “What plan?”

Sheng Wang wanted to say “Don’t tell me you want to get back at them for me”, but if he said it it made him look like he was thinking too highly of himself. A person who loves to keep his face like him, certainly wouldn’t land himself in an awkward situation on purpose.
Besides, logically speaking, can a crew cut and a blondie even count as information? There are plenty of crew cuts and blondies in the world, with these two features alone, how would he even find the right person. Furthermore, Jiang Tian appeared to not plan to ask anymore questions, he probably really did ask on a whim.

“Nothing much, I’m gonna eat.” Sheng Wang said.
Most people were done with over half of their meals when he finally deigned himself to eat the first mouthful. Thus, it could be seen that Boss Zhao of Xi Le was already merciful with his words.

Sheng Wang initially thought that the food in the canteen was passable, but ever since he ate Old Man Ding’s food, he could barely make himself swallow the food on the giant metal plate.
The taste of garlic in the water spinach was way too heavy, the knife used to cut the watermelon slice definitely sliced an onion before that, the beef was too old, the trotters were too tough. Young master’s journey of eating his food was extremely strenuous, but in the end barely any food entered his stomach.

They returned the plates and went back to Mingli Block. When they went past the fountain square, Jiang Tian pointed in the direction of the sports field and said, “I’m making a trip to Xi Le.”
Sheng Wang immediately looked up and stared at him. Gao Tianyang asked, “Why are you going to Xi Le at this time?”
“Buying a bottle of ice water,” Jiang Tian waved his phone, “and taking something along the way.”

Sheng Wang recalled the message Boss Zhao sent to Jiang Tian from before, he did ask him to go take a watermelon or something. However, Sheng Wang never did see him bring it back before, he probably took it to Old Man Ding’s house.

The two subjects in the afternoon were physics and chemistry, Jiang Tian couldn’t lose marks even if he tried, therefore no such thing as hugging the Buddha’s legs at the last minute. Therefore everyone bade him farewell, and entered the exam venues on their own.

Noon was when the school was the emptiest, there was not a single person to be found on Road #3. Jiang Tian cut through the Garden of Conduct, checking left and right as he walked, and entered Xi Le Convenience Store after going around the sports field.
The doorbell chimed with a ‘ding dong’, Boss Zhao looked up after taking off his presbyopic glasses from behind the counter. “Aren’t you having your exams? Why are you here at noon?”
“Buying water.”
Jiang Tian went directly to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of ice water, and casually took a box of bandaids from the point-of-sale display rack at the side when he paid at the counter.

“Uncle Zhao, are the cameras in the shop still in use?” he asked.
“In use? Of course they are, a tiny business like mine still gets thieves all the time, who could even stand it.” Boss Zhao said.
“How about the two outside the door?” Jiang Tian pointed at the entrance while carrying the bottle, “The one facing Garden of Conduct, and the one facing the school walls.”
“Also in use! Thieves love to come in from there especially much.”
Jiang Tian said, “Can I look at the footage between six to eight this morning?”
“Huh? Why?”
“Looking for people.”

*
The exam began at two in the afternoon. When Sheng Wang arrived in the classroom it was barely 12pm. He spent half an hour looking through the physics notes once over, when he realised that it was still early, he sprawled on the table and prepared to catch up on his sleep.

Most people usually sleep lightly in class, a light commotion and one would be startled awake.
Sheng Wang felt like he just dozed off when he heard the light sound of the window opening next to him. He scratched his head, squinting as he looked up from the crook of his arm. Jiang Tian was standing outside the window, the sleeves of the blue and white uniform rolled up to his elbows. Jiang Tian’s back was facing the blazing midday sun, burning so bright that his eyes hurt from looking.

Sheng Wang turned around to look at the wall clock subconsciously, there was still more than half an hour until 2pm. Most of the people in the classroom had slumped over and gave in to sleep, those who weren’t sleeping were burying themselves in their notes instead.
The entire Mingli Block was quiet, the type of quiet could only be found in the noon breaks in schools.

“Hm?” He was still trapped in drowsiness, his hoarse voice forming a lazy question.
Jiang Tian’s slender fingers reached in, and settled a box of bandaids on the window ledge.
“Got it along the way.” After he said that, he cut through the corridor, a bottle of ice water in hand, disappearing around the corner of the stairs.

That night, Sheng Wang heard a piece of gossip from between Song Sirui and Gao Tianyang, saying that Zhao Xi’s BBQ shop caught two hooligans who were stirring trouble, and received a beating after being held down by several people. They were then strong-armed into the police station with purple and black bruises on their faces.

The gossip also mentioned that those two hooligans trespassed into Fuzhong that morning, and were caught by the security cameras belonging to Xi Le Convenience Store.

TO BE CONTINUED.