Chapter 15: Standing Up for Ji Feng
Huang Jihai's question was met with total silence.
Naturally, everyone was in the final sprint toward the college entrance exam, not to mention they were afraid of Ji Feng.
Offending him could easily result in getting punched twice and hospitalized, ruining studies and exams, and leading to lifelong regret.
The closer it got to the exams, the more any student with a brain would avoid provoking Ji Feng.
This was no longer a question of fear; the risk was simply too high, and there was no point.
Besides, Li Long, the class monitor... was in a hard-to-read position.
The air pressure in the classroom was chillingly low.
Old Huang swept his gaze around the room, and seeing no one answer, his anger flared instantly. He pointed at a student at random and demanded:
"Mou Yingyang, you tell me what happened."
"I have no idea, Teacher. I, I just went to take a dump and just got back."
Huang Jihai frowned, pointed at someone else, and snapped:
"Jiao Yuqiao, you tell me."
"I don't know, I just got back too."
After questioning two people in a row with zero results, Huang Jihai was instantly seeing red.
"None of you are going to talk, right? Fine! Then we wait. We wait until someone speaks up. I've got all day.
I refuse to believe No. 1 High School has to harbor a cancer like this."
Huang Jihai's words were already carrying heavy implications.
Ji Feng sighed inwardly. When you make a mistake, you own up to it; when you take a beating, you stand straight. At a time like this, he certainly couldn't play the coward and let the whole class take the fall with him.
Just as he was about to stand up and confess, Wunnuan, who had been quietly staring at him the entire time, suddenly stood up.
"Teacher Huang, Li Long fell by himself. I saw it with my own eyes."
Huang Jihai: ?
Ji Feng: ?
Everyone else: ???
The feeling of being watched by everyone was far from pleasant, but Wunnuan was acting a bit strange today.
"Wunnuan, what are you saying?"
Under Huang Jihai's incredulous gaze, she said coldly:
"Surely Teacher Huang doesn't even believe me?"
"Fine, Wunnuan, you're doing great..."
After all, the person speaking was Wunnuan!
Wunnuan was the top student in the entire school.
The only reason he had called Wunnuan's parent in the first place was to get her mother to pressure Wunnuan into focusing on her studies and not letting herself be influenced by a bad student like Ji Feng.
With Wunnuan pulling this stunt, Huang Jihai was left with no way to step down gracefully, and in the end, he could only flick his sleeve and storm out.
Back in the office, Huang Jihai was seething with resentment.
He was convinced that Wunnuan was only acting this way because of Ji Feng's harassment.
Wunnuan used to be such a good kid, yet she had been ruined by a punk like Ji Feng.
"That Wunnuan, we're in the final sprint stage, and she's acting wild, getting into early puppy love. When her mother comes on Monday, I really need to have a serious talk with her.
Such a promising candidate for Tsinghua and Peking University, she can't just throw her future away like this."
Back in the classroom, most people wore very strange expressions.
This group even included Ji Feng himself.
"Wunnuan was actually standing up for him just now?"
"When she talked back to Old Huang, it felt like she welded the doors shut."
"So fierce!"
Ji Feng didn't go look for Wunnuan during evening self-study that night. Instead, he just sat at his desk drawing circles in his exercise book—drawing circle after circle.
This brain-dead behavior was deeply despised by himself.
And then, right after despising himself, he continued drawing circles.
Until evening self-study ended, not another word was exchanged.
...
When people are focused on something, time always flies.
Playing video games is like that, and studying is too.
Before he knew it, the weekend had arrived.
On Sunday morning, Ji Feng was jogging in the park, and to his surprise, he didn't run into Wunnuan.
Even though they still hadn't spoken over the past few days, he had already grown somewhat used to bumping into each other during their runs.
Coming over this morning, he had originally planned to say thank you to Wunnuan.
"Too bad."
Walking over to that familiar steamed bun shop nearby, Ji Feng ordered his food, sat down, and hesitated for a long time.
Suddenly, he stood up, leaving the buns and egg drop soup untouched on the table, and headed straight back home.
He washed up, changed his clothes, fired up his ghost motorcycle, and sped off toward the urban village.
Well, he had promised to tutor her.
He was a man of his word; he couldn't break a promise.
Ji Feng rode rather fast. When he reached the alley where he had escorted Wunnuan home last time, he realized he had no idea where she actually lived.
He hadn't walked her all the way to her door that night.
Wunnuan didn't have a cell phone either, and she had never given him her home phone number.
Standing at the entrance of the alley now, he looked like an absolute fool.
"A miscalculation..."
There are always many coincidences in the world, and some coincidences are actually bound to happen.
Just as Ji Feng felt that today's tutoring session was likely going to fall through, Wunnuan's voice sounded from behind him.
"Why are you here?"
"Huh? Oh, I'm here, I came to tutor you..."
As Ji Feng said this, he felt a slight guilty pang, losing his usual sharpness.
He looked at Wunnuan and realized she was carrying a lot of things in large and small bags.
Lots of vegetables, a small amount of meat, big and small boxes of medicine, along with some daily necessities.
"You went out grocery shopping? Let me carry that for you."
Wunnuan glanced at Ji Feng, her expression and tone returning to that icy state from before.
"No need."
Ji Feng stood awkwardly in place. By the time Wunnuan had walked quite a distance away, she suddenly turned her head:
"Didn't you come to tutor me? Why are you still standing there?"
"Ah, coming."
Ji Feng hurried to catch up, though Wunnuan still wouldn't let him carry anything.
Standing over six feet tall and following behind empty-handed really looked quite ridiculous.
Following Wunnuan all the way through the winding alley, they stopped in front of a rusty iron door wrapped in red and green woven plastic bags.
Clutching the items in her arms with one hand, Wunnuan skillfully took out her keys and opened the door.
Behind the iron door was a wooden door. After both doors emitted a teeth-grating groan, Ji Feng finally saw the interior of the room.
The place was tiny; the bathroom faced the door directly.
To the right were a desk, a bookshelf, and a liquefied gas stove setup.
To the left was a large bed, where Wunnuan's mother was lying down, resting.
The room smelled faintly of medicine—both traditional Chinese herbal medicine and the scent of Western disinfectant.
Hearing the commotion, Wang Yaqin slowly woke up and propped herself up against the headboard.
"You are that... classmate Ji Feng from the other night?"
Wang Yaqin's expression seemed somewhat surprised as she looked at Ji Feng, but her voice was very gentle.
Ji Feng quickly smiled and replied:
"Yes, Auntie. I came today because Classmate Wunnuan is going to tutor me."
"Ah, I know. The other night..."
"Mom, it's time for your medicine."
Wunnuan walked over holding a cup of water, measured out some medicine using a small plastic bottle cap, and handed it to her mother Wang Yaqin, cutting off the conversation between her and Ji Feng.
"Oh, right, let me take my medicine first."
Ji Feng silently watched Wang Yaqin take her medicine. The room was so small that, aside from Wunnuan's desk and the bed, there wasn't even a place to sit.
Ji Feng had mentally prepared himself before coming.
Even so, he hadn't expected Wunnuan's living conditions to be this abysmal.
After taking her medicine, Wang Yaqin looked at Ji Feng with an apologetic expression:
"I'm so sorry, Ji Feng. The house is too small, a bit crowded."
"It's fine, Auntie."
"You guys..."
"Mom, I'm going to tutor Ji Feng with his studies in a bit. Staying here is rather inconvenient and will disturb your rest. We're going to head out for a while, is that okay?"
It was rare to hear Wunnuan say so many words, not even during last night on the school rooftop.
Yet Ji Feng still felt something was off.
It wasn't anything specific, just the dynamic between Wunnuan and her mother... it felt strange.