Chapter 6: The School Beauty’s Affection

The so-called “old spot” was actually a commercial street in the small city’s business district.

It was located on the edge of the district, and from the outside, it looked like an enlarged vegetable greenhouse.

But its hustle and bustle gave it a certain “grandeur” like a commercial street in a big city.

This was the favorite place for young people to hang out.

The covered commercial street was very narrow, only about four or five meters wide in total.

Small shops lined both sides, and people came and went.

Often, it was difficult even for a bicycle to ride through, and as for the delivery tricycles, they could only shout loudly to clear a path.

“Hey, hey~! Clear the way in front!”

An Jing snapped back from his daze, quickly moved aside, and watched the tricycle, laden with cases of drinks, slowly pass by.

There was, of course, a reason why young people loved this place.

—It had all sorts of snacks, and they were all the most popular kinds of the moment.

Besides that, there were also various shops full of trending elements.

For example, CD stores specializing in popular music, arcades with all kinds of new game consoles, mini-shops where you could play PS2 and PS3 games, anime shops selling various figures and merchandise…

Especially that anime shop, even if you couldn’t afford the expensive items inside, just going in to browse and feast your eyes was good.

You see, it was the only anime shop in the small city, and it was filled with a dazzling array of goods, everything you could imagine.

Even Fang Qiang, big and rough as he was, often liked to browse in there.

Of course, he liked popular anime like One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, and Slam Dunk.

But An Jing was different; he preferred more niche, otaku-oriented anime.

Like K-On! which just came out this year, and Toradora! which came out late last year…

It seemed he was the only one in his class who watched this kind of anime, so he usually never revealed his true interests.

Only his best friends knew about them.

In this “indoor” commercial street, there was a corner with a few benches specifically for people to rest, and that was where An Jing and Fang Qiang met.

“What’s up? You little punk didn’t call me out just to play basketball again, did you?” Fang Qiang, with a buzz cut, suddenly popped out from the stream of people. He plopped down beside An Jing, unceremoniously grabbing a string of fried stinky tofu from a paper box. “I haven’t settled accounts with you for yesterday’s incident yet, damn it.”

“You son of a bitch, you’re really ungrateful!”

An Jing shot him an annoyed glance.

“I was creating opportunities for you, got it?”

“Damn it, you don’t know how awkward that scene was. It made me not even want to watch the movie yesterday!”

“How could you still be thinking about watching a movie at a time like that?”

“What else?”

“The middle seats were empty, you should have moved over and sat next to her, then leaned in to chat during the movie. Wouldn’t that have brought you closer?!”

“That would have been even more awkward, okay?”

“You’re her deskmate, you sit next to her every day. You’re not awkward during class, so why are you awkward now?”

“It’s different during class and watching a movie! Can eating in the cafeteria be the same as eating in the toilet?”

“Can you stop using such disgusting analogies…”

An Jing bit off a piece of golden-brown stinky tofu with a “crunch.”

“Forget it, let’s not talk about that. I have something else to ask you.”

“Alright, spit it out,” Fang Qiang nodded.

“Do you feel like I’m particularly different today?”

“I was just about to say something.”

A hint of joy appeared on An Jing’s face: “How so?”

“I just feel like you’ve suddenly become much fairer and more delicate. You were still a bit gloomy yesterday.”

An Jing had no time to argue with Fang Qiang about the adjective “gloomy.”

He grabbed the first half of the sentence and asked, “Right? I felt strange when I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror too.”

“But it’s fine, you probably just didn’t wash your face properly before—aren’t those still your features?”

“…Do you think simply washing my face clean could have this effect?”

“You never know.”

An Jing was somewhat helpless with this thick-headed guy, but at least he noticed something, unlike his own sisters who felt nothing at all: “So, do you feel like I’ve gotten shorter?”

“Did you?”

“Yes!”

An Jing stood up with a “swish.”

“Look, am I shorter now?”

Fang Qiang laughed dryly: “I was just joking with you yesterday, you took it seriously?”

“No, I really am shorter. I measured my height today, and I’m only one meter sixty-five.”

“Huh?”

Fang Qiang feigned surprise.

“Weren’t you one meter fifty-something? How did you grow so tall?”

“You bastard, stop talking nonsense!”

“Hahaha… Weren’t you always one meter sixty-five?”

“Who are you trying to fool?”

“Well, I don’t remember. Why would I bother remembering your height?”

An Jing’s face instantly crumpled.

He sat back down on the bench, sulking and saying nothing.

“But you really do seem a bit…”

“What?”

“You’ve become more…”

Fang Qiang swallowed the word “girly” in his throat. “…more effeminate.”

“That’s the problem…”

An Jing scratched his hair.

“You feel it too, right?”

“Yeah, a little. Your skin’s gotten whiter, your face seems to have more flesh, and you have less muscle. Is it because you haven’t been exercising much?”

“It wouldn’t be that exaggerated…”

“Holy cow.”

Fang Qiang, who was pinching An Jing’s arm, suddenly let out a strange cry.

“How did you lose all your muscle, kid? Your arm is so thin.”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

“But there’s not much time for exercise in junior high, right? Maybe you have a body type that doesn’t gain weight easily, so your muscles atrophied. I’m the type that gains weight easily; I’ve already gained ten or twenty jin.”

“Oh, I get it.”

Fang Qiang put his arm around An Jing’s shoulder.


“It must be the haircut! Look at your hair, it’s almost touching your ears, it’s too long! Get a buzz cut like mine, and your masculinity will come right back!”

“Just get lost, damn it…”

Fang Qiang rubbed his chin, scrutinizing An Jing for a long time, then suddenly slapped his palm with his fist: “Heh heh, I know… You little punk, have you been doing it too frequently lately?”

“Ah… ah? N-no!”

An Jing’s eyes darted around, looking flustered.

“Young man, you need to exercise restraint!”

Fang Qiang slapped him hard on the back.

“Do you know that if your ‘yang energy’ leaks too fast, you’ll become effeminate?”

“Really?”

***

“Otherwise, look at those playboys; it’s because they mess around with too many women that they look so frail. Now look at the monks at Shaolin Temple—they never touch women their whole lives, and they’re clearly much more masculine.”

“Those are extreme examples…”

“The perverted guy in our class, once a day, even twice a day, look at him—he’s all sallow and gaunt, with a perverted look…”

“But I haven’t turned perverted.”

“You’re in the initial stage now; if you keep going, you’ll become perverted.”

Fang Qiang said earnestly, like a seasoned expert, “Practice restraint, restraint!”

“Cough…”

An Jing subconsciously nodded, then suddenly realized his action was a complete admission.

He immediately cried out in exasperation, “Restraint, my foot! I’m not that frequent!”

“Right, right, I believe you. You’re definitely not that frequent.”

He said that, but Fang Qiang’s eyes showed absolutely no sign of “belief.”

“Oh, what a coincidence.”

Just as the two were bickering, a familiar voice rang out.

Fang Qiang and An Jing looked up simultaneously and saw Zhu Ying, wearing black stockings and a short skirt, smiling and standing in front of them.

Fang Qiang, who had just been so eloquent, suddenly stammered: “Ah, ah… Zhu, Zhu Ying!”

“Uh… are you shopping alone?”

An Jing’s gaze couldn’t help but linger on Zhu Ying’s well-proportioned legs for a couple of seconds, then he hastily turned his head away.

“I came to buy Jay Chou’s album.”

Zhu Ying intentionally or unintentionally leaned towards An Jing, as if afraid he wouldn’t hear her, and brought her small face closer.

At such close proximity, he could even smell her faint fragrance…

He couldn’t quite pinpoint the scent, but it smelled good nonetheless.

“Ah… we, we just came to… the arcade, right, came to the arcade to play…”

An Jing immediately became a second Fang Qiang.

“The arcade, huh? So you must have just finished playing?”

“Ah—right!”

“I want to keep Browse this afternoon. I was just thinking of going to lunch.”

“Uh—”

Fang Qiang tried hard to say something, but the words seemed stuck in his throat, unable to be squeezed out.

However, somewhat surprisingly, this time Zhu Ying actually spoke up first: “If you two are going to keep playing here this afternoon, do you want to have lunch together?”

“Yes!”

An Jing nodded incredibly fast.

Even if it wasn’t to set her up with Fang Qiang, an invitation from such a petite and lovely school beauty was absolutely impossible to refuse.

But An Jing was also a little puzzled.

This school beauty, who usually didn’t interact much with him, seemed inexplicably more intimate with him today than she usually was at school.

Perhaps it was unintentional…

An Jing thought with great certainty.

After all, he was well aware of his own appearance and clearly wasn’t the type attractive to girls.

But then he suddenly froze, remembered his changes today, and the corners of his mouth couldn’t help but turn up.

“Could this be the benefit of becoming handsome? Then that small price seems acceptable after all…”

“What?”

The surrounding environment was too noisy, and Zhu Ying didn’t quite hear what An Jing was mumbling.

“Ah, ah… it’s nothing, nothing. Let’s go eat, eat, eat! What should we eat? Fang Qiang?”

“I’m fine with anything!”

Fang Qiang immediately replied, seeming overly eager compared to his previous silence.

“Let’s see what you want to eat? Or buy some snacks from different places and eat as we walk, that’s good too.”

“Alright, let’s do that!”

Fang Qiang continued to use his loud voice.

“Oh right, why were you suddenly called back home for dinner by your sister yesterday?”

“Ah… well, it happened suddenly. If I didn’t go back, I’d get beaten, so I went back, ha, haha…”

An Jing chuckled awkwardly, while simultaneously winking at Fang Qiang, signaling him to quickly change the subject.

However, the latter was staring blankly at Zhu Ying’s smiling face.

This guy was beyond help.