A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 009 – Dine and Dash

Come and Pay Ransom for That Dine and Dasher Boy of Yours.

The classes in the morning flew by.
When Beckon Money got to the last model essay, Gao Tianyang suddenly reclined. His back touched Sheng Wang’s desk as he whispered: “Beckon Money never drags her lessons.”

“Hm?” Sheng Wang leaned forward, and asked in confusion: “Class ends on top, so what?”
“Then we can head to the canteen on the dot,” Gao Tianyang stated, “Friendly reminder, you should identify the general direction to the canteen, and sprint the moment the bell rings. This is how you can still get a hold of the edible stuff in the canteen.”

A question mark slowly appeared on Sheng Wang’s face, “Why do I need to run? Didn’t we only need to walk just yesterday?”
“Like you said, that was yesterday,” Gao Tianyang sighed, “From today onwards, our good days are over, because the year ones finally entered school. Now there’s twice the number of people fighting for food.”

Gao Tianyang wagged his finger, “Life is full of hardships, after experiencing this just once, you would know that that bunch of year one monsters can run faster than dogs.”
Before Sheng Wang could reply, Beckon Money suddenly thumped her desk, “Gao Tianyang!”
Sheng Wang touched his nose as he sat up straight, the person ahead of him already standing up in embarrassment.

“Try to vy for attention with me, aren’t you?” Beckon Money asked curtly,“What are you blah-blahing about? You even had to drag Sheng Wang in.”
Gao Tianyang scratched his head: “Nothing much really.”
“You think you’re coaxing a ghost?” Beckon Money jerked her head as she propped against the desk, “The time is almost up anyways, come, share with us what you said just now.”
Gao Tianyang moved his lips, the spitting image of a mosquito’s whine.

“You got a toothache?” Beckon Money said, “Repeat it three times! We end class whenever you are done, if not, we’ll just wait this out.”

Forty plus heads whipped around, Gao Tianyang boomed, “I said, that bunch of year one monsters can run faster than dogs!”
Beckon Money: “……”
Sheng Wang internally thought that this punishment was quite something.

Beckon Money pointed at Gao Tianyang, “Shut up and sit down. Copy the three model essays today once, and hand it in during night self study. And then—lesson’s over!”
After she spoke, the slightly round female teacher deftly sidestepped and opened up a path.
Only the chorus of chairs scraping against the floor could be heard. The classroom was basically empty before Sheng Wang even stood up.

The scholars of Class A shot towards the stairs like avalanche and tsunami. Around more than half way through, the school bell rang, and more people joined the group, a majestic sight as they all madly ran for the canteen.
What legendary level of starving wolves is this?
Sheng Wang was left gaping, and that was when he heard Beckon Money raise her voice: “Eh? Why aren’t the two of you running?”

“The…two of us?” Sheng Wang only noticed the “two” behind him when he turned around.
Not only did Jiang Tian not rocket off, he was even doing a practice paper.

Beckon Money could not help but feel moved when she saw a corner of the script, “Yo, did the sun come out from the west today? You’re really doing your corrections so seriously? Let me see, which question are you stuck on that it’s taking you so long. Is there anything you don’t know?”
“Nope,” Jiang Tian crooked his left index finger and touched his nose, yet the pen in his right hand did not stop, the speed of writing even increased.

According to relevant experts, touching your nose is a sign of guilty conscience.
Sheng Wang snuck a look, heh, it’s a physics paper.

Beckon Money stepped down from the teaching platform, Jiang Tian at the very same moment also substituted in and simplified the final equation. His pen marked the final statement with a full stop, and swiftly stuffed the paper into his desk. He stood up before Beckon Money reached him, and said,“I’m going to eat now, teacher.”
After he spoke, he immediately left the classroom.

Sheng Wang let out an “Um”, and also waved at Beckon Money, “I’ll be heading downstairs too, teacher.”
“Oh sure, go ahead,” Beckon Money was baffled by both of them, and in the blink of an eye, the two teens exited one after another.

“Did they see a ghost or something, why were they leaving so fast?” She mumbled. She walked to Jiang Tian’s table and peered. A corner of the paper was sticking out from the bottom of the desk, Jiang Tian’s concluding statement was written on it: We can thus tell that the ball received equal force, and was travelling at a constant velocity of Vt on a straight line.
Beckon Money: “……”

She dashed to the backdoor with a bow-and-arrow-step, and roared, “Jiang Tian! Show yourself at my office for a face to face chat during night self study!”
The spacious uniform of teens briefly flashed at the corner of the stairs, and soon vanished.

The air condition was especially strong in the classroom. Sheng Wang only realised that he ran away too quickly, and forgot to even take off the school jacket by the time he dilly-dallied his way to the first floor. The person doing a physics paper in the middle of language class wasn’t even him, who exactly was he following after and what for.

He did not really feel it yet after he just went down, but the moment the sun reared its ugly head, sweat belatedly started steaming from him. Sheng Wang could not stand it a second longer, he took off the jacket and grabbed it instead.

Jiang Tian was a few steps ahead of him.
It was as if this person could not sweat or anything, he did not even take off the uniform, he merely rolled his sleeves till the elbow. A student frequently bent over their desk would easily end up with a hunchback if they were not careful, and yet there was not a single thing wrong with him. He stood tall and straight, like a walking stick of ice-cream under the sun.

Good looking guys always attract attention no matter where they go, not to mention it was two of them this time round.
Quite the number of groups of girls all turned to look at them when they walked past, and jostled each other with stifled giggles. A couple of them were not careful, and were almost pushed into Sheng Wang by their friends who were teasing them.

Sheng Wang sidestepped, and smiled at them amidst non-stop apologies of “I’m sorry”, and then caught up with Jiang Tian in two steps.
“Oi, any tissue?” He asked as he wiped at the sweat gathering on his forehead.

The fountain at the school parade square was not switched on. Jiang Tian descended along the steps of the fountain, and turned a deaf ear.
“I’m talking to you,” he said again.

Jiang Tian remained selectively deaf.
Sheng Wang “tsked”, and peeved: “I only ran down with you because I was implicated by you, why won’t you even spare me a piece of tissue?”

Jiang Tian finally responded this time round, he said: “Learn how to address someone properly first before you come asking me for tissues.”
Sheng Wang stared at the back of his head in annoyance, his mouth wordlessly moved, before he unwillingly dragged his voice: “Student Jiang Tian, can you please lend me a piece of tissue, polite enough yet?”
It was only then Jiang Tian finally dug out a packet of tissues from his school uniform’s pocket and tossed it to him. Sheng Wang reached out to catch it, and took a piece to wipe his sweat.

“Can we still make it in time with our speed?” Sheng Wang looked all around him, as compared to the hurrying crowd, the two of them were truly a whole other sight altogether.

In all honesty he did not want to eat with Jiang Tian at all. It was clear with the naked eye alone that Jiang Tian did not want him to tag along either, just imagining that scenario was awkward enough to the point of suffocation. Yet the competitive spirit of boys was ever present for some mysterious reason, in a situation like this, it seemed like whoever backed out first lost. Sheng Wang did not want to be the one who chickened out, and so he forced himself to walk shoulders to shoulders with Jiang Tian……

Two minutes later, he realised that he was getting further and further away from the canteen.
“Hold on, the canteen’s over there, are you not going to eat?” Sheng Wang asked.
“You can eat the plates if you go to the canteen at this time,” Jiang Tian shot a glance at him, “If you want to you can go there yourself.”
Sheng Wang certainly did not want to eat plates. He followed Jiang Tian bypassing the basketball court and a small half of the ‘Garden of Conduct’, and entered a convenience store at the side of the school’s west gate.

There were three convenience stores located within Fuzhong’s campus, one was close to the canteen, the other next to the dormitories, and the one right here.
The shop’s name was ‘Xi Le’, from the colour scheme of the area above the entrance it appeared to be copying ‘C-Store’, everything about it screamed that it was about to get a crack down by the 315 for being a knock-off.
This shop was in the direct opposite direction of the canteen, and it could barely be counted as near to the teaching blocks, so there were hardly any students around at noon.

The boss’ name was Zhao Su, he was a tall and thin middle-aged man, his eyes were slightly bugged out like a praying mantis. When he peered over the top of his thick glasses, he was the image of shrewdness.
“No more food in the canteen?” Boss Zhao asked.
Sheng Wang nodded, “We’re too late.”

“There—” He pointed at the side of the counter with his lips, “we have cooked food and dimsum and oden and all, pick what you want, my hands aren’t free at the moment.”
A giant basket with washed cucumbers sat on the table, at the side was a stack of newly opened disposable paper boxes, and also a roll of cling wrap.

Some strange looking person was curled up opposite his table. That person looked like he was in his fifties, was scrawny looking, and his upper back stooped like a prawn. He appeared to be a hunchback.
He wore a white singlet, and there were two moth-bitten holes at the back. Below was a pair of greyish blue cotton shorts, the needle-thin legs that stuck out were tanned bronze. He was all bones.

As if he was ashamed of how he looked, when Sheng Wang entered, he retreated behind the shelves. Maybe he was afraid of scaring people. Yet, when he saw Jiang Tian, he grinned. Meaningless noise came out of his mouth, and gesticulated with his hands.
Sheng Wang let out a light ‘ah’ internally. The man was mute.
Jiang Tian nodded at the mute, he was not very warm either. Still, the mute was rather happy, and gesticulated at Boss Zhao again.
His gestures were clearly not proper sign language, he was purely running on instincts. In any case Sheng Wang understood none of that. However, Boss Zhao did.

He said: “Yeah yeah yeah, he really is quite tall, nowadays kids shoot up like it’s nothing. Don’t gesture anymore, wear your gloves first. I’ve already been waiting for half the day.”
The mute instantly behaved, and earnestly wore his gloves. Boss Zhao placed the cucumber into the box after some selection, and he would help him wrap it up in cling wrap. He was not a particularly nimble helper, but he was a helper nonetheless.

After observing a round, Sheng Wang felt that either Jiang Tian was a frequent visitor, or he knew Boss Zhao and the mute at the start.

As he zoned out, Jiang Tian suddenly said to him: “You can eat here first, I’ll be leaving.”
“Wh….you’re not eating?” Before Sheng Wang knew it, the convenience store’s glass door chimed with a ding-dong, and Jiang Tian’s figure had already disappeared beyond the door.

“He doesn’t eat here,” Boss Zhao casually pointed behind, “he eats outside of school.”
Sheng Wang was more confused than before. Fuzhong required a permission slip to leave campus in the day. He did not see any teacher signing Jiang Tian’s slip at all.

“Outside of school where?” he asked.
“In the family zone,” Boss Zhao spoke with the harshness of a senior speaking down, “What, you can’t eat by yourself? Why do you bother about him? You don’t have long for noon break, quickly go back to class after you eat.”

Sheng Wang recalled the stack of papers he had to do, and stopped talking. He got two dishes and sat down with a dining plate. The sparrow may be small, but all the vital organs are there. Even though this shop looked like a knock-off, it had everything a convenience store ought to have, most importantly the food was surprisingly good too.

Sheng Wang was not picky with his food for once, and ate it all without complaints. He placed the dining plate back at the return area, and slightly revised his opinion on Jiang Tian. At least, he brought Sheng Wang to this shop, he did not have to squeeze with people, nor did he have to starve.

“You’re done?” Boss Zhao removed his gloves and asked, “How’s the taste, is it better than the canteen?”
Sheng Wang was very generous when it comes to praises, he flattered: “It’s even comparable to my home’s.”

Boss Zhao laughed out loud, he was very pleased by the sweet talk. When the laughter stopped, he stuck out his hand and said to Sheng Wang, “Money.”

“Oh right, I almost forgot.” Sheng Wang’s smile hung on his face as he felt around in his pocket, and as he smiled his face eventually turned pale.
Boss Zhao asked perceptively, “Anything wrong?”
Sheng Wang gave an empty laugh, “I forgot my money.”
He did not have cash, his phone was also stuffed in the bag inside his desk, he was penniless.

Boss Zhao grabbed his hand on the spot, “That won’t do, you can’t leave if you can’t pay.”
“How about you put it on my tab first, I’ll pay you back together with tomorrow’s lunch?” Sheng Wang suggested.
“No way,” Boss Zhao rejected.
“Then I’ll quickly go back to class and get it?”
Boss Zhao said once more, “No way.”
“Be a little flexible with me.”
“No.”

“Why are you so stingy!”
As noon break was about to end right before his very eyes, Sheng Wang who was trapped felt like breaking down.

The boss thought for a bit, “It’s urgent? Sure then.”
He dug out his phone and called someone after finding a certain number, he then placed it on the table with speaker mode turned on.

The dialing tone rang for a good while before the phone was finally picked up, Jiang Tian’s voice rang out from the phone, “Is there anything you need, Zhao-shu?”
Boss Zhao said, “Yes, bring money here for a bit, and pay ransom for that little dine and dasher boy of yours.”
Jiang Tian went silent momentarily. Next thing, he hung up with a click.

TO BE CONTINUED.