The Midterm Results Announcement and the First Time Playing Football Part I

The next morning, Bai Zhe woke up early to practice his qi before walking to school. There was one thing that surprised him when he arrived at his classroom.

“Hey, Bai Zhe. Are you free at lunch? Let’s go play football.”

A boy with red hair and red eyes invited him to play football. If Bai Zhe was not mistaken, this boy’s name was Mu Si Cheng.

According to the original Bai Zhe’s memory, the boy was the leader of a group of boys who loved to play sports during the lunch break. They did not have a problem with the original Bai Zhe, unlike Yi Han’s group.

Bai Zhe swiftly searched through the body’s memories. He found the rules for football as well as how to play it in the memories not long after that. Unfortunately, the original body only had a surface-level knowledge of the sport.

‘This boy’s group is as big as Da Tong’s. If I could join their group, it might help reduce the clashes with Da Tong’s gang.’ After he had this idea, Bai Zhe immediately agreed.

“Sure thing.” The boy smiled.

“Eh? Bai Zhe is going to play football? I want to watch,” said one of the female classmates. Then, the other girls started to talk about watching Bai Zhe play football during the lunch break.

Especially the group of girls that had almost compromised Bai Zhe the other day, the warm liquid could be felt streaming down their noses.

There was also the recent event where Bai Zhe fought Mr. Jang. Every single classmate had heard that the teacher still felt pain in the area that had been hit by Bai Zhe. In his class, currently, the students were the ones who demonstrated sports. Mr. Jang would only explain the theories and the rules.

The head girl entered the classroom a moment after that.

She stood in front of the class and then clapped her hands to make everyone stop and listen to her.

“Everyone, I just saw the administrative teacher putting up the midterm results. Instead of going to watch the boys play sports, you should give greater importance to the test results,” said the head girl.

“Hey, why do you have to bring that up? I could barely do the test.” A boy brought his hands up to clutch at his head.

“My mom told me to send a picture of the results to her. I am doomed. This is clearly an execution day,” another boy started to grumble.

“Why are you grumbling? Even Bai Zhe who left the test room before everyone for almost all of the subjects doesn’t appear to be stressed out.” A boy pointed at Bai Zhe.

“That’s right. Bai Zhe, don’t your parents worry about your test scores and your grade?” asked the head girl. Lately, actually, she had not worried much about Bai Zhe, because whenever the teachers asked Bai Zhe questions, he could give the correct answers and give explanations to help his classmates understand, too.

“I came well-prepared this time. And my parents will not scold me because they know I have to work. I barely have time to rest, and I sleep like a baby when I get home. Lately, I have found a much easier job, so I have energy left to study,” explained Bai Zhe. (Lying through his teeth.)

“We still have time left. Shall we go take a look?” one girl suggested. Everyone decided to go.

“Wait. Should I go? Could a male friend with a smartphone come with me?” said Bai Zhe.

“That’s right. We just need one person to take all the pictures and send them into the class’s group chat, so we don’t have to waste time shoving at each other to try to see the test results.” The head girl immediately understood what Bai Zhe was planning to do. Why had she not thought of it in the first place?

“Great. I will go with Bai Zhe,” Mu Si Cheng slung his arm around Bai Zhe‘s neck. His other hand held up a smartphone.

‘Is this guy too friendly?’ thought Bai Zhe, glancing at Mu Si Cheng.

“We’ll leave it to you,” all the classmates said together.

While they were walking down to the announcement boards on the first floor, Mu Si Cheng said something that made Bai Zhe pause his steps.

“Bai Zhe, I saw you with 10 girls from our class doing that thing behind the building. You are so cool, man.” Mu Si Cheng was talking about the scene that he had witnessed the other day. It was when Bai Zhe had been trying to put his shirt and his pants back on after the girls had taken them off, and the girls were lying unconscious around him.

“Oh, they came to ask me about me shaking hands with Xi Mo and someone took our picture. But then, they started to smell my hand and do more than that. So, I struggled, trying to free myself from them. That’s why my shirt was off—because I was struggling too hard. Then, I pushed them. They lost their balance and their heads hit the ground and they lost consciousness,” Bai Zhe said, breaking into a sweat. Who would say that the girls had been about to take advantage of him? It would be embarrassing.

“Really? That’s disappointing. I wanted you to teach me how to flirt with girls. I can call you my teacher if you like,” said Mu Si Cheng.

“What is your name? I don’t even know your name,” asked Bai Zhe, trying to bring up a new topic.

“Oh, right. My name is Mu Si Cheng. Nice to meet you,” Mu Si Cheng introduced himself.

“I will call you Si Cheng, then,” said Bai Zhe.

“Great, so we can be closer.” Mu Si Cheng did not speak idly; he wrapped his arm around Bai Zhe’s neck as if Bai Zhe was his best friend.

“Hmm?” Mu Si Cheng started sniffling.

“Si Cheng, what’s going on? I didn’t step on dog poop,” asked Bai Zhe.

“Nothing.” Si Cheng started sniffing. His face was getting closer to Bai Zhe, making the boy freeze and recall what the girls had done to him.

“Bai Zhe, what cologne…ummm…brand of soap you are using? Why does it smell so nice?” asked Mu Si Cheng. He was about to ask after the brand of cologne but remembered that Bai Zhe’s family was poor. Bai Zhe might not have had an extravagant thing like cologne.

“Just normal soap. But my body odor is just like this,” answered Bai Zhe. Before Mu Si Cheng could ask anything more, the two arrived at the announcement board with the midterm results, where there was a crowd of students looking at their results.

“Is your camera still clear when zooming?” asked Bai Zhe.

“Of course. This is the latest model. I might look like this, but I’m rich, man. The reason why I study here is because this school is a whole other province away from my house. That way, I could ask my family to live alone,” Mu Si Cheng said while he was trying to raise his smartphone and take a picture of the results. Still, he was not pleased with the pictures he got.

“Come here.” Bai Zhe squatted down and turned to look at Mu Si Cheng.

“What is it?” Mu Si Cheng was still confused.

“Get on my shoulders. Nobody will block us from a high angle. So, you can see whether the camera focuses on the place that you want or not,” said Bai Zhe.

“That’s great. Pardon me, comrade.” Mu Si Cheng jumped onto Bai Zhe's back immediately. He started to zoom in on the results board that belonged to his year, then took pictures and checked them for clarity and accuracy.

“All done,” Mu Si Cheng leaned down to tell Bai Zhe. The boy stooped down to let Mu Si Cheng get off.

“Let’s go. We have pretty much all day to look at the results,” said Bai Zhe, leading Mu Si Cheng.

“Hey! Wait for me,” said Mu Si Cheng. The two went quiet again.

“Bai Zhe, you are so strong. You can really carry me easily?” asked Mu Si Cheng, trying to break the silence between him and Bai Zhe.

“You are ridiculously light. With just those muscles, you’re not heavy at all. The cement and sand that I carry when I do my job are heavier,” answered Bai Zhe.

“Bai Zhe, you only just glanced at me, and you are already telling me that you have seen all my muscles?” Mu Si Cheng’s hands covered himself like a girl trying to hide herself when she was being leered at.

“Yes. Because I roughly guessed your weight. If you were overweight, I would have used you as the base,” said Bai Zhe.

“You speak so darn brutally,” said Mu Si Cheng. After that, the two of them burst out laughing.

The classroom

When they arrived at the classroom, Mu Si Cheng sent the pictures to their group chat. Everyone opened the group chat to look at the pictures immediately, then they showed different facial expressions.

“I’m doomed. Mum will kill me.”

“What should I do? Dad will scold me. Even though I went to tutorials, my midterm scores are worse than last semester.”

“Hahaha, awesome. I got triple zeroes. You lost to me because you got zeroes in only two subjects. You have to buy me food to comfort me, buddy.”

“Hey, that’s cheating. You meant to do this, didn’t you?”

Then the voices of many girls sounded. Their eyes were fixed on their smartphone screens, which showed Bai Zhe’s midterm scores.

“Wow, Bai Zhe. This is excellent. Bai Zhe’s scored first place in our year.”