Chapter 29: Just Kidding

(1)

An Jing’s heart skipped a beat.

Her small face instantly flushed crimson, then turned incredibly pale.

Immediately after, she saw the picture accompanying the post.

—It was a photo of a paragraph from a book, and the photographer had drawn a wavy red line, “I find everything you think about interesting.”

It was almost identical to the sentence Zhu Ying had posted.

“Phew…”

She immediately let out a sigh of relief.

“It’s just a coincidence…”

“Beep beep beep.”

Just then, the QQ icon in the bottom right taskbar suddenly started flashing with a rapid sound.

It wasn’t Zhu Ying, nor was it her familiar brothers.

It was… Zhang Qiqi.

She had added the class president’s QQ but had barely spoken to her.

If it weren’t for the need to be added to the Class 3, Grade 5 group, she wouldn’t have wanted to add her at all.

Actually, this class president had only been the sanitation monitor in the first and second years of junior high.

Although she was quite pretty, her personality truly made people keep their distance.

“Group notification, The school needs photos for data entry. All students please send a photo to me. I will forward it to the homeroom teacher.”

An Jing, with the QQ nickname “Carnival,” replied, “What data is it for?”

“I don’t know, the teacher just needs it.”

The other party’s reply was also quick and seemed devoid of any personal emotion.

She was probably busy replying to other people’s messages at the moment.

An Jing scratched her head, feeling a bit troubled.

She actually didn’t have a habit of taking photos of herself, so she couldn’t find any old photos on her computer.

That meant she had to take a new one.

“Hmm… then I’ll take a photo and upload it to the computer…”

An Jing scratched her cheek, her gaze falling on the red and white phone on the table.

In 2009, a time of old and new intertwined, various mobile phones flooded the market.

She heard that the latest iPhone had completely abandoned all keypads, but most people were still more accustomed to phones with keypads.

She even felt that she would never use a phone without a keypad in her life.

Without a keypad, wouldn’t it be terribly inconvenient to operate?

Tapping the screen offered no tactile feedback and was prone to accidental touches.

This 3250 was a phone released in 2006, but even by 2009, it wasn’t outdated.

In fact, most phones’ functions were similar to it, not much more advanced.

At most, the screen got a bit bigger, and the camera took clearer pictures.

An Jing still really liked this phone that her father gave her for her birthday.

And its most groundbreaking feature was—it not only had a camera but could also be used for selfies.

She reached out and picked up the phone, whose frame was slightly worn.

She gripped its lower half and twisted it to the right.

The camera, originally positioned on the side, immediately rotated to the front.

A somewhat blurry image appeared on the small screen.

Don’t let its humble appearance fool you; when transferred to a computer, it was actually quite clear.

Of course, the prerequisite was sufficient light.

Most phones of this era couldn’t take clear photos in dim environments.

“Uh-oh… how should I pose…”

An Jing felt a bit awkward facing the camera, as if someone inside the phone was staring at her.

She tried several poses, but none looked natural.

The expression on her face was also very stiff.

“Lighting… hmm… move over here, it’s clearer, then…”

An Jing tugged at her denim jacket, still not wearing it, just wanting it to drape more smoothly.

Lacking experience, her mind kept replaying the selfies of Zhu Ying she had seen in her QQ space.

Her phone didn’t have a front-facing camera, so most of her photos were taken in front of a mirror.

Some were taken with a digital camera with a rotatable screen, and those types of photos could be used as a reference.

“Click.”

A photo was taken. After waiting a few seconds, the phone finished saving it.

An Jing quickly opened ‘Multimedia’ and found the newly taken photo.

In the picture, a short-haired girl was puffing out her cheeks, looking troubled by something, her small hands clenched into fists at her mouth.

The tear moles under each of her eyes made her look faintly melancholic…

“No, no, no, this is wrong, wrong, wrong!”

An Jing hastily went back to the camera interface.

“Posing like Zhu Ying would make it look like I’m trying to be cute. Girls can do that, but I can’t, or it would be too… too disgusting!”

So this time, she changed her pose and turned the phone upside down.

This way, the camera, which was originally at the bottom, was now at the top, making the shooting angle a little more natural.

“Hmm… just normal will do.”

“Click.”

She pressed the button in the middle of the phone again.

Her current appearance was captured. An Jing eagerly flipped back to look.

The photo showed a girl with an expressionless face, perhaps because her pupils were too unfocused, making her look a bit dull, as if pinching her cheek wouldn’t elicit any reaction.

“My body is a girl’s… no matter what, I can’t project a masculine feeling…”

An Jing took a deep breath, this time striking what she thought was a very cool pose, taking a photo she believed was somewhat cool.

As for exporting the photos, at least her phone was convenient.

Her father had bought the full set at the time, complete with all cables, including the data cable.

The data cable and headphones used the same port.

That’s right, it wasn’t a simple round hole, but a row of connectors occupying a third of the right side.

After connecting the data cable and copying the photo, which had been set to the highest resolution when taken, to the computer, the task was complete.

Carnival, “Is this okay?”

Do You Understand My Tears, “Yes, it is.”

As for the remaining two photos, An Jing didn’t want to waste them.

After propping her chin and thinking for a while, she simply created a locked folder and put them in her own space.

The ‘beep beep beep’ message notification sounded again.

This time, it was a message from Zhou Chao.

Superman, “Game time!”

“You’re full of energy. How are things with your girlfriend?”

“Broke up!”

An Jing wanted to offer him some words of advice, but her soft fingers hovered over the keyboard, unable to press down.

In the end, she only sent a short message:

“What game?”

***

(2)

The long headphone cable trailed from the computer case, making the desktop look a bit messy.

“A-side one, A, A! Damn it, why do you always go to B!”

“Ahem…”

“Why aren’t you talking today?”

“My sister isn’t up yet, can’t be too loud…”

An Jing said in a low voice. 

To Zhou Chao, it sounded like a whisper in his ear.

“Huh? What? Oh, your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“My dear old Bro Grey Wolf is back!”

“Who’s that?” 

Zhou Chao yelled into the YY channel.

“Me.”

“A-Wei?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re up too…”

“Are you guys playing CF?”

“Bombing mission, coming or not?”

“What’s the fun in bombing? Let’s play Biochemical!”

“Next round!”

The channel for the three people became even livelier.

Originally, only Zhou Chao was shouting; now Sun Wei had joined in.

An Jing, wearing headphones, suddenly felt not only her ears hurting but her head too…

“You two… can you be a little quieter?”

She mumbled feebly.

“Hey, hello? An Jing, your voice is so low!”

“I can’t talk loudly…”

“It feels like when you’re on voice chat online, your voice sounds even more like a girl’s.

How about next time you pretend to be a little sister and let Brother take you, and then we’ll follow you…”

“Idiot.” 

An Jing rolled her eyes hard and then mumbled a curse.

Headshot.

“Headshotted by an M60, An Jing, are you even trying?!”

“Is it really intense here?”

“Who is that? Damn it, static mic, turn it off, turn it off!” 

Zhou Chao immediately yelled.

An Jing just took off her headphones.

If she kept them on, she felt she might go temporarily deaf.

“Hello, hello? Is it better now?”

“It’s fine now—An Jing! Look at me, look at me! Three kills! The last one!”

“Are you really going to clear them all?”

“Watch your big brother here! Holy crap! How did that even get a headshot?!”

“Probably cheating,” Yang Lingfei said.

“Haha, what goes around comes around!” 

Sun Wei teased.

“What are you guys playing?”

“CF! Come on, Biochemical, Biochemical!”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

An Jing put her headphones back on, let out a long breath, habitually refreshed her desktop, and looked at the QQ panel hidden in the corner, “By the way, did you guys turn them in?”

“Turn in what?”

“Didn’t it say we had to turn in photos? The homeroom teacher required it for some kind of data. I’ve already sent mine to Zhang Qiqi.”

“…What photos?”

“Didn’t get a message about it.”

“Me neither.”

“That’s not right, wasn’t it a group message?”

“She lied to you?”

“She tricked you?”

“She was messing with you?”

“Damn you!”

***
(3)

By noon, the sky was still gloomy.


Her friends had all gone offline for lunch.

An Jing also took off her headphones, feeling no fatigue as she opened her most frequently visited QQ group.

Just as she was about to join the group chat, she suddenly paused, then opened Zhang Qiqi’s QQ, sent her several vibrations, and then a whole string of question marks and exclamation marks.

“What do you want?” 

The other party showed no guilt, even appearing impatient.

“What’s going on? Others said there were no photos to turn in!!”

“Oh, that.” 

Zhang Qiqi sent a shy emoji. 

“I lied to you.”

“Damn it, you should be honest! Why did you only lie to me?!”

“I was getting it for another girl.”

An Jing was stunned, then sent another series of question marks.

“It’s okay to tell you, it was Wang Xinru. She asked me for your photo.”

“Since when are you two so close?”

“Don’t you know pretty girls have a network?”

“You call yourself pretty?” 

An Jing sent a disdainful emoji. 

Although she was indeed considered pretty, at a time like this, admitting it would mean losing.

“I’m going to puke.”

“How about it? Xiao Ru might like you. Want to consider it?”

An Jing rolled her eyes hard, not planning to tell the other party about what happened in elementary school, “Go away and play! I’m warning you, don’t just send my photo around, or I’ll really get angry.”

However, the other party’s response was just a smiling emoji.

This made An Jing immediately want to crawl into the computer and tear her face apart…

What a terrible woman!