A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 033 – Impulsive

Sheng Wang Suddenly Felt Especially Exhilarated.

On the way to Duxing Block, Big Mouth Xu talked their ears off. Out of the self awareness of being an ‘obedient’ student, Sheng Wang was incredibly receptive. Once in a while he would reply with a “Mn”, but in reality he did not absorb a single word.

He eyed Jiang Tian quite a few times before he couldn’t help but ask: “When exactly did you badger Big Mo- Dean Xu?”
Jiang Tian replied resolutely: “I didn’t.”
Big Mouth Xu was walking in front of them by a few metres, his hands behind his back. Logically speaking, he should not be able to catch a conversation at this decibel. However, as an expert in catching rule-breakers as well as having taught for many years, he had cultivated amazing prowess and his ears were sharp enough to catch a needle drop.

He instantly turned around and shot a glare at Jiang Tian, pointing at his own nose as he said, “You still deny it? You’re saying that I was talking rubbish?”
Jiang Tian immediately halted, his upper body leaned slightly backwards in order to avoid the saliva droplets that came exploding out of this middle age man’s mouth.

Big Mouth Xu hadn’t gotten a kick out of chewing people out yet, he said to Sheng Wang: “The school internet broke down that day, right? The computer room was waiting for him and Teacher Sun to go fiddle with it. He was so obedient, he went out of the way to bring Xiao-Sun with him to speak to me about the security cameras first. Were you holding the school internet as a hostage or?”
Jiang Tian: “???”
His expression was so entertaining that Sheng Wang suspected, if the person standing opposite him wasn’t the administration dean, he would probably ask if the person was an idiot.

He did witness the way Jiang Tian spoke with teachers before. He was truly both cold and proud, frantically asking for trouble.
Just as expected, Jiang Tian stiffly replied: “Mingli Block is in the north and computer room in the south, we have to pass through Duxing Block. We just happened to pass by, how was it out of the way?”
“You still dare to be impertinent?”
“……”

“Dean,” Sheng Wang reminded, “I think we’re the victims here.”
Big Mouth Xu’s anger doused out with a “poof”, and said in exasperation, “I know, I’m just worked up about it now, it wasn’t directed towards the both of you. I couldn’t keep a hold on my anger, that’s all.”
“Ok.” Sheng Wang dragged Jiang Tian behind him, and used himself as a shield between the other two. “Please save more of it, You can let it all out at the offender later.”
Big Mouth Xu laughed sardonically.

The doors and windows in Duxing Block’s third floor office were all tightly shut, even from a door away one could feel how tense the situation was inside.
Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian locked eyes, and followed behind Big Mouth Xu as he twisted the knob open.

There were already people in the classroom, a little more than what Sheng Wang expected—

Two young men stood by the window, one of them was in a black T-shirt and jeans, sitting casually by the windowsill. Upon seeing the door opening, he even cheerily greeted in their direction.
It was the Zhao Xi from ‘In Those Years’ BBQ store.
The other person sported an extremely short haircut, at first glance it appeared to be quite business-like if it wasn’t for his hair that was dyed ash gray. He was talking while standing next to Zhao Xi, he only turned around to look at the door when he heard it open. He gave them a simple nod.

Sheng Wang covertly poked the back of Jiang Tian’s hand. He whispered, “Who’s that even.”
“The boss of the BBQ shop.” Jiang Tian’s fingers crooked before they relaxed once more, a few words jumped out of his mouth.
“Duh, I already knew Zhao Xi.” Sheng Wang said.
“I’m talking about the other one,” Jiang Tian said, “Lin Beiting.”

Sheng Wang recalled that the BBQ shop was managed by Zhao Xi and his friend, the Lin Beiting over here should be the real boss, he supposed. Somewhere along the line, he thought that the boss should be wearing singlets and shorts, a pair of flip-flops on his feet, and smell like smoke and flames along with skewers. He absolutely did not expect this style out of all things.

Other than the two from the BBQ shop, there was also a Yang Jing quietly existing in the office.
She sat behind an office table, her slender brows tightly knitted together. She looked peeved as she stared at the three boys standing in front of the table.

All three of them wore Fuzhong uniforms, at first glance their silhouette looked nearly alike. One of them kept his head down all the way, the other two were more thick-skinned, and still had the guts to peep around.

“What are you looking at?” Big Mouth Xu immediately erupted upon entering the office. He pointed at the students peeping around: “Zhai Tao, do the math yourself. How many times has it been for this month that you are found standing here, do you even know how to reflect upon yourself?!”
To Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian, he could be said to be an old acquaintance. They were not surprised to see him in a situation like this at all.

As for the one standing next to him, Sheng Wang only felt that he was a little familiar-looking. He couldn’t recall precisely where he saw him from before though.
He poked Jiang Tian again, whispering, “Who’s that in the middle, do you know him?”

Before Jiang Tian could open his mouth, Big Mouth Xu dragged his hand across his face and said, completely fed up, “It’s him! The one who told you that Teacher Xiao-Yang got you to go take the practice papers! Are you really the victim?”
Sheng Wang did not dare to accept that praise, he hurriedly waved as he said: “Sorry, I didn’t remember the face.”
Zhao Xi let a sound of amusement escape him by the window, that student’s face turned even more sour.

In an attempt to cover up his impropriety, Zhao Xi cleared his throat as he walked over from the window. “I see Xiao-Sheng is quite lost, Dean Xu, didn’t you tell him what’s going on?”
“Not yet, do you want me to let the whole school know if I just fill them in right there and then on the road?” Big Mouth Xu said, irked.
“Oh, then let me give a simple explanation.” Zhao Xi pointed at Lin Beiting as he said, “That day in the shop, Lin Beiting and I caught the two hooligans who were stirring trouble, this you do know, right?”

Sheng Wang gave Jiang Tian a quick glance, and nodded. “Yeah, saw the pictures too. Thanks, Xi-ge.”
“Ay, no big deal.” Zhao Xi said: “My dad has security cameras over there in any case, those two hooligans climbed over the walls from the residential block into the school 7.10 in the morning, and laid an ambush right there at Magpie Bridge——”
Big Mouth Xu turned purple: “Mag what pie again?!”
Zhao Xi immediately changed his wording. “No, Garden of Conduct. They waited to ambush him in the Garden of Conduct. Slightly before 8.20am, they came tumbling out with mud all over and blood dripping out of their noses. What they did were pretty obvious, in any case they were quite clear in their explanations in the police station. They said that their little brother was humiliated in Fuzhong, they refused to sit there and just take it, therefore they came to ambush Sheng Wang for the sake of their pride.”

He pointed at Zhai Tao. “There—the little brother of a different surname who was humiliated.”

Zhai Tao’s surname was Zhai, the crew cut who kneeled after a knee from Sheng Wang had the surname of Wu, the other blonde who could fight had the surname of Lu. The older and younger ‘brothers’ all knew each other from the corners of the streets and the depths of dark alleys.

Boys at this age were in the ‘golden period’ of teenage rebellion, they were always on the fight for some attention and clout. Zhai Tao wanted some respect but got none, wanted some importance and got none too. He was nowhere near outstanding in all areas at all, yet he was especially vain. He could only rely on a bunch of older and younger brothers and sisters of the same feather to make him look good, and somehow forced himself to become the ‘gang leader’ of Fuzhong year twos.

Still, his title of ‘leader’ wasn’t something worth boasting about as quite a number of people in the level turned up their noses at him. Those people cared more about grades, and in that field, Jiang Tian was number one.

He wasn’t able to build much resentment between Jiang Tian and him, and he still wanted to recover his pride. Upon much pondering, he set his eyes on Sheng Wang alone as he was a transfer student.
No one would stand up for the transfer student, this was a basic fact.
Every school would have the same situation, no reason why it would change in particular for Sheng Wang.

The day he was sent to sweep Road #3 as a punishment by Big Mouth Xu, he knew that Yang Jing wanted Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian to participate in the Olympiads. Zhai Tao had never participated in any Olympiad before, but he knew the routines of the teachers like the back of his hand. There could be nothing else rather than solving questions, solving questions, and solving more questions. Every couple of days they would have to go take new practice papers.

He knew that Sheng Wang was on good terms with Jiang Tian and Gao Tianyang. But Sheng Wang was only here for a few days, no matter how good their relations were, how close can they be? At any rate, there has to be a time where he was left alone.
Therefore, he thought of a scheme that he personally felt was brilliant. He planned to pick the day Sheng Wang was alone, and use the English Olympiad as an excuse to get Sheng Wang to go to the garden. There weren’t any cameras there, and there wouldn’t be any revealing information if he got people to beat him up there.

Zhai Tao often heard people of Class A joke around that Sheng Wang was utterly weak, along with his refined and fair looks, the aura of a young master emanating off him, he deduced that the other person didn’t know how to fight. He would probably cry after like two punches. As such, he didn’t bother calling for more people. He only got two ‘older brothers’ he knew from outside the school, and figured that it was more than enough.

The one who was responsible for guiding Sheng Wang to go there was Ding Xiu, he was also a transfer student. He was slightly better off than Sheng Wang in that he wasn’t from a different province. When he transferred over it was year 1, second semester, and entered the physics-biology class without a change in level.
The days of being a transfer student weren’t easy. An unfamiliar pacing along with falling behind in all sorts of areas, he was left flustered and helpless all by himself. It wouldn’t be hard for anyone in that position to have a mental breakdown.
Ding Xiu was a classic example.

After staying for one semester in Fuzhong, his grades took a rock dive to the bottom few of the level, his exam venue was nailed to Class 12. That was why he found someone to boost his confidence——that person was Zhai Tao.
He became one of the many ‘brothers’ Zhai Tao had.

When Zhai Tao approached Ding Xiu about this matter, he was actually fearful, and yet, he agreed in the end. On one hand, he was scared of making Zhai Tao unhappy, on the other……it was because he himself was resentful.
They were both transfer students, why the huge difference.

A few days ago, Big Mouth Xu managed to suss all these out from the clues provided by the hooligans and the security camera in the corridor. He thought that that was the entire story. However, just as he was prepared to take disciplinary action on Zhai Tao and Ding Xiu when he called them into the office, Zhai Tao sold another person out, and pushed all the blame onto that one person.

“I only planned to scare him a little at first, I didn’t mean to make things this bad.” Zhai Tao said, “Just ask if you don’t believe me! Ask Ding Xiu! Ask Wu Cheng and Lu Yuanliang! I was the one who said there’s no need to beat him up if he’s scared, right? Just go and ask! It was all because of that guy’s idea, he’s the one who said that this monthly exam was especially important for Sheng Wang that fu- for Sheng Wang. If he messed that up he would be beyond disgusted, way more useful than just scaring him.”

Dean Xu was angry to the point of nearly smashing his teacup into pieces. He got people to summon the “that guy” in Zhai Tao’s words to the office.
When Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian entered the office, Dean Xu just confronted all three of them again. Until now, they still hadn’t reached a consensus.

Zhai Tao and Ding Xiu were cornered rats, they refused to concede and admit to their own fault in this fiasco, as if they were the righteous ones, the others were the real idiots. As for the third student, no matter what the other people around him said or did, he kept his head hung low all the way.

There appeared to be two hair whorls on the top of his head, but classmates close to him would know that one was a true whorl, the other one was a scar that resulted from being hit by a hard object. Sheng Wang does not remember people by faces, nevertheless, he had deep impressions of that scar.

His brows furrowed before relaxing. He moved around to that boy’s front, stared at him unblinkingly for a while before he softly said: “It really was you, Old Qi.”
The other person didn’t lift his head.

From Sheng Wang’s angle, he could only see that the corners of his pursed up lips violently twitched, as if he was slapped by someone, both unsightly and embarrassing. Not long ago, he was even cheerily saying on the stage, hand tugging on his sleeve, “Thank you! Thank you everyone for showing me so much face!”

Perhaps it was because Sheng Wang lingered in front of him for too long, after several decades of him pinching the cuff on his school uniform, he suddenly spoke. “It’s not me, it has nothing to do with me at all! I barely even spoke to them! They themselves did a bunch of fucking stupid things, now that they are facing the music they’re blaming it all on me!”

Zhai Tao was the image of an old fox. “The hell! What do you mean barely spoke? When you were in Class 5 you played plenty of basketball with me! Not even recognising me now that you’re in Class A? Do your classmates know how self-interested you are? Besides, there’re so many people in the level, why the hell would I push it all on you in particular?!”

“WHY THE FUCK WOULD I KNOW WHY?!” Qi Jiahao roared back, his neck already red. “WHAT HAS IT GOT ANYTHING TO DO WITH ENTERING CLASS A? I FINALLY SAW YOUR TRUE COLOURS AND DIDN’T WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU ANYMORE, ALRIGHT?!”

“THE FUCK WITH SEEING ME!” Zhai Tao cursed, “WHEN YOU’RE BEATEN UP INTO BLOODY MUSH WHO’S THE ONE WHO TREATED YOU NICELY? YOU GOT AMNESIA AFTER GOING TO A BETTER CLASS? MOTHERFUCKING IDIOT. JUST TELL ME—”

He pointed at Sheng Wang: “WAS IT YOU WHO TOLD ME THAT THE MONTHLY EXAM IS IMPORTANT TO HIM?!”
“I DIDN’T!” Qi Jiahao said.
“THE FUCK?”

“Enough!” Dean Xu smacked his table with much force. He pointed at them: “Did I call all of you here to perform street insults?”
Qi Jiahao still wanted to defend himself, until he heard Yang Jing, who had been gravely silent for a long time, open her mouth.

She said: “Class rep.”
All fight left Qi Jiahao at once, his head hung low again. Out of the whole office, the person he was the most terrified of looking at was Yang Jing.

“When Old Xu said that Sheng Wang could only qualify for Tri-Quality by improving 50 places in the monthly exam, there was only me, him, Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian in the office.” Yang Jing said, “Although I’m not the homeroom teacher, I also know who’s on good terms with each other, and who couldn’t stand each other. Not even Gao Tianyang knew about this, and I reckon that Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian didn’t bring it up to anyone else either. It could only be you.”

“The time when I looked for you to print some practices, I casually mentioned it when I was chatting with you.” Yang Jing had her eyes on him as she said, “You’re the only one who knew, after all. If you didn’t bring it up, where else would Zhai Tao and the rest get their info from?”

She was overbearing when she chided people on an ordinary basis. For this, however, her tone wasn’t fierce at all. There was only disappointment.
For students like Qi Jiahao, what they couldn’t bear to face the most was disappointment.

He struggled for a bit: “I really didn’t……”
Thus he never spoke again.

The office fell into silence. A while later, Dean Xu rubbed his face: “The whole situation is roughly something like this. Some things we won’t get a clear answer just by asking around. Only the few of you will know what happened deep down inside. No matter what was your intention, the final result was that you caused a student to miss his listening compre. You may think, oh, the monthly exam isn’t a big deal, if he couldn’t make it this time round there’s still next time. But what if we didn’t get to the bottom of this? He would lose his chance at Tri-Quality, and then because of this missed opportunity he didn’t manage to meet the qualifications of the advanced admission most suitable for him, and then what?”

Dean Xu asked with his hands behind his back, word by word, sentence by sentence: “Even though gaokao isn’t the finish line, it still affects a certain part of your life. You messed up a portion of another person’s life, what can you even do to make up for it?”

He looked at Qi Jiahao as he said, “You yourself spent so much effort on fighting for Tri-Quality, you know how important it is. You destroyed other people’s efforts just like that? You think this is deserving of the title Tri-Quality Student?”

Qi Jiahao clenched his jaws, the joint at the side of his face twitched.
Dean Xu straightened up. “Either way, I do not think you’re worthy.”

He turned to ask Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian: “Did you class only settle on him for the name list for Tri-Quality?”
Sheng Wang didn’t speak, Dean Xu didn’t count on them to open their mouths either. He said, “Your Teacher He can hold another election, remove Qi Jiahao’s nomination from the list. Zhai Tao, Ding Xiu and Qi Jiahao will get demerit points.”

After dealing with the three of them, he turned to Sheng Wang: “As for your Tri-Quality nomination, your improvement throughout the past two exams is indeed the largest in the entire level. I’ve also asked Teacher Xiao-Yang, if you managed to fully listen to your exam, it’s very unlikely for you to lose any marks. Along with those missing marks, improving 50 places is no problem at all. Therefore……how about this, forget everything about my previous condition, and the nomination for Tri-Quality still goes to you, how does that sound?”

Sheng Wang did not reply right away.
He did not care much for the Tri-Quality nomination, truthful speaking. What he truly cared about was if his results were proportionate against the effort he put in.
Before, this nomination logically should have gone to him, yet it was gone on a whim. Now that he already silently acknowledged not wanting it, there came someone who insisted on forcing that nomination upon him.
For what reason? Does it look like I need this?

Sheng Wang gave it some contemplation, and said to Dean Xu, “I don’t want it anymore.”

Big Mouth Xu’s eyes instantly threatened to pop out of his sockets. Even Zhai Tao, Ding Xiu and Qi Jiahao all whipped their heads around. Only Jiang Tian by his side snorted, full of pride in the exact same way.

Sheng Wang suddenly felt especially exhilarated.
He said, “I honour my words, I still didn’t meet the condition of improving 50 places. The nomination for Tri-Quality? I don’t want it anymore.”

Did it feel fantastic? Feeling fantastic alone was enough.

TO BE CONTINUED.