Chapter 64: Jiang Jiang, You Have to Take Responsibility!

Returning home.

The house was empty.

Jiang Ning grabbed a simple meal, took a shower, and went back to her room.

Lying on her bed, she thought about everything that had happened today.

She let out a small breath of relief.

Things with Li Mingwei should be more or less settled now.

Judging by his state today, even if he still had lingering thoughts, he wouldn’t dare to go too far.

Although her words were quite a blow to him, wasn’t this also a form of release for him?

After all, the only thing more painful than an ending is dragging things out indefinitely.

Jiang Ning wasn’t the type to toy with people.

This was fine.

No more worries.

Except… she still owed Xiao Li two favors, which was a bit tricky.

Forget it.

She’d deal with it later.

After curling up under her blanket, Jiang Ning exchanged some updates about the store with Tian Wenhao via phone before getting ready to sleep.

Just then—

A text message popped up, catching her off guard.

【Thanks for today. I’ll treat you to a drink sometime.】—Li Mingyu.

A drink?

Jiang Ning chuckled silently.

It had been a while since she last drank, and she did miss the taste a little.

But—

【Sis, do you know that minors aren’t allowed to drink? But we can have coffee instead.】—Jiang Ning.

【Deal.】—Li Mingyu.

———

The news about Qi Wen’s dance eventually spread through the students who had attended the performance that day.

Nicknames like “Traditional Dance Diva,” “Second Coming of Diao Chan,” and “Fairy Qi” began circulating between classes.

Qi Wen quickly became a campus beauty, her popularity even rivaling—or surpassing—Jiang Ning’s.

When Sun Qian relayed this to Jiang Ning, the latter was buried in a pile of Olympiad math problems.

This was all thanks to Old Man Ma Hongwei, the math teacher, who had learned that she was entering the Olympiad selection.

No one knew where he dug up these problems from, but he dumped them on her and demanded that she finish them by the end of the week.

When Jiang Ning first saw the five thick books, each nearly the size of a Chinese-English dictionary, her head spun.

She tried to negotiate for a smaller workload, but the old man merely said, “I believe in your ability,” before floating away like some enigmatic martial arts master.

And so, for the past few days, Jiang Ning had been grinding through these problems relentlessly—

In class, after class, even during evening self-study.

She was so immersed in numbers and formulas that she was completely unaware of what was happening in the outside world.

“ Jiang Ning, Qi Wen got another confession!”

“Huh?” Jiang Ning lifted her head in a daze at Luo Shanshan’s words.

At that moment, Luo Shanshan looked no different from a bunch of mathematical functions in Jiang Ning’s eyes.

She blinked blankly for a while until Luo Shanshan reached out and pinched her face. Only then did she snap back to reality.

“Huh? What did you just say?” Jiang Ning swatted away the offending hand and asked, confused.

“Qi Wen got another confession!”

“Why the ‘another’?”

Luo Shanshan gave her a baffled look.

“Did those math problems fry your brain?”

“This morning, Huang Xing from Class Six sent her a love letter.”

“You don’t remember?”

This morning?

Huang Xing?

Did that happen?

Jiang Ning was utterly confused, her mind once again filled with floating function symbols.

Seeing her clueless expression, Luo Shanshan rolled her eyes.

“Forget it, I’m going to ask Wenwen about it myself.”

With that, she got up and jogged to the classroom door, where Qi Wen had just entered.

At this moment, the whole class was just as nosy as Luo Shanshan.

All eyes were on Qi Wen.

And when they saw the finely wrapped letter in her hands, everyone started exclaiming—

“Wow! Wenwen, this envelope smells so nice!”

“Wanna open it and see what’s inside?”

“You guys read it if you want.” Qi Wen didn’t mind at all and even looked a bit resigned as she handed the letter to Luo Shanshan.

A group of students—including two boys—immediately crowded together to open it.

As for Qi Wen herself, she bypassed them and walked straight to the second row of the fourth group, where Jiang Ning was still deep in her math problems.

She sat down in Luo Shanshan’s seat, turned to Jiang Ning, and, in an aggrieved tone, said—

“Jiang Jiang, you have to take responsibility.”

“Huh?”

Jiang Ning once again lifted her head in confusion.

This time, she didn’t see function symbols when she looked at Qi Wen.

Blinking a few times to focus, she asked, puzzled, “What’s wrong, my little Wenwen? Did someone bully you?”

“Bully?” Qi Wen huffed twice in displeasure.

“You’re the one bullying me!”

“Huh? Me?” Jiang Ning pointed at herself in surprise.

“That’s right! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have performed on stage.”

“If I hadn’t danced, I wouldn’t have attracted so much attention.”

“Jiang Jiang! Do you know how many love letters I’ve received in the past few days? Seven!”

Listening to Qi Wen’s grievances, Jiang Ning finally understood what was going on.

She stifled a laugh.

But then she realized—she hadn’t received a single love letter herself these past few days.

And she immediately burst out laughing.

The misfortune had been transferred!

Qi Wen caught the laughter and grew even more upset.

She pounded her fists twice against Jiang Ning’s shoulder.

“You’re still laughing!”

“I’m about to be driven crazy!”

“What’s there to be annoyed about? Getting pursued means you’re popular.”

Sun Qian, still focused on her problems, casually interjected.

Zhu Hui nodded in agreement.

“I’ve never received a love letter in my life.”

“Some people really don’t know how lucky they are.”

Hearing that, Qi Wen grew even more frustrated.

“Xiao Zhu Hui! You’ve turned bad too!”

She lunged forward, playfully wrestling with Zhu Hui.

After a bit of roughhousing—

Qi Wen suddenly remembered something and turned back to Jiang Ning, who was still zoning out.

“Oh right, Jiang Jiang! Mr. Du asked me what the name of the song we danced to was. He wants to make a copy of the cassette for his collection.”

“What do you think?”

Hearing her name, Jiang Ning snapped out of her thoughts and recalled the message Liao Liao had sent her a few days ago.

She waved a hand and said, “Tell Mr. Du he doesn’t need to copy it. He can just buy it at the record store on November 1st.”

“You mean…” Qi Wen trailed off, not wanting to say it outright since she had promised to keep the song’s origin a secret.

Just then, Luo Shanshan returned after reading the love letter.

She tossed it on the desk and scoffed, “Wenwen, this guy’s writing skills are weak. Not even close to the one from Class Eleven who wrote to Jiang Jiang.”

“That one—he practically described Jiang Jiang like some heavenly fairy.”

Hearing that, everyone burst into laughter.

Once the laughter died down, Sun Qian suddenly remembered something.

“Hey, girls! Chen Yu’s new song officially releases on November 1st.”

“Wanna go buy a couple of cassettes together?”

“I listened to the preview—it’s amazing!”

———