TSIFB Chapter 4

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穿成校草被迫营业 / Transmigrated into a School Idol and Forced to Do Business
Hand caught by a red thread

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He Yan looked at the person in front of him who wore a gentle expression, different from that in the past.

Suddenly, the back of his hand was grabbed gently from his sides, and there was a jade pendant in his palm that was cooler than the other boy’s fingertips.

The calm eyes rippled with an unknown emotion.

Yu Baizhou handed the jade pendant into the hands of its owner and was about to walk back when he felt something tighten around a finger.

Turning back, he realised that sometime during the exchange, his ring finger had been caught by the red thread hanging from the jade pendant. His eyes curved up and he smiled in an embarrassed manner at He Yan, then unravelled the red thread from his ring finger and returned it to He Yan.

He Yan rubbed the red thread that Yu Baizhou had given him between his fingers. The darkness in his brown eyes deepened.

Yu Baizhou turned around and looked at Sun Tianshuo, who had been restrained by Tu Gaoming.

Sun Tianshuo faced Yu Baizhou with empty eyes, and spoke in an agitated tone. “Yu-shao, you*… What is going on?”

[T/N: “您”: polite form of you]

Yu Baizhou slid his hands into his pockets. “Nothing’s going on. Your* side was too noisy and affected our classmates who came here to eat.”

[T/N: “你”: casual form of you]

Noticing how Sun Tianshuo didn’t reply for a long time, Tu Gaoming tightened his grip on the other’s shoulders. “Are you looking for death? Hurry up and apologise to our boss!” 

Although Sun Tianshuo was a person who wanted to save face, in front of Yu Baizhou, a real tyrant, he knew that he amounted to nothing in the other’s eyes and did not dare to yell at Yu Baizhou.

The boy knew to quit while ahead* and quickly took the initiative to beg for pardon before Tu Gaoming even had the chance to make a move. After the apology, he rushed to take himself from the scene.

[T/N: “好汉不吃眼前亏”: idiom; meaning ‘a wise man knows better than to fight when the odds are against him’]

Yu Baizhou made a gesture at Tu Gaoming, who stepped forward to prevent Sun Tianshuo from walking away. He said fiercely, “Why are you leaving? Did our boss agree to let you go?”

Sun Tianshuo heard his words and faced Yu Baizhou, sweat beading on his face. “Yu-shao…”

Yu Baizhou’s voice was icy. “Apologize.”

Sun Tianshuo once again said sorry to Yu Baizhou.

“Wrong.” Yu Baizhou pointed in He Yan’s direction. “Not to me. To him.”

Hearing this, Tu Gaoming, along with everyone else, was startled.

Yu Baizhou and He Yan were very hostile to each other, this was a fact known to the entire school. However, this time Yu Baizhou had protected He Yan, which was truly abnormal.

Confronted with such dumbfounded expressions, Yu Baizhou, unaware of the situation, was somewhat baffled.

Not thinking too much about it, he pointed to the plate that had been shattered into pieces on the ground, and said to Sun Tianshuo, “Didn’t you knock the plate off his hands? So, apologise.”

Sun Tianshuo didn’t dare to ask anymore. Saving his face was no longer his most important priority. He sputtered out an apology to He Yan, then, under the orders of Yu Baizhou, cleaned up the broken dish and scattered food on the ground before finally receiving permission to leave. Afraid to be in their sight for a second longer, he hurriedly gathered his little brothers and scuttled away like a hamster.

After Sun Tianshuo left, Che Cong had the lively students disperse in an orderly manner, and the cafeteria soon returned to normal.

Tu Gaoming and the girl walked towards Yu Baizhou.

Yu Baizhou looked back at He Yan and thought about how he was just a high school student, only 17 or 18 years old. To be caught in such an unfortunate situation, he would definitely feel aggrieved even if he had a hardened heart. “That, just now…”

He only spoke until that point when He Yan pushed back from the wall. Tightly squeezing the pendant in his hand, he brushed past Yu Baizhou and left.

Apart from the soft wind that blew across the side of the face, and what seemed to be a fragrance lingering in the air, the boy withdrew without leaving a word.

As Yu Baizhou watched He Yan’s broad back walk farther and farther away, the spectators were still unable to return to reality.

Tu Gaoming looked at He Yan, cursing at him in anger. “Fuck! That dumbass guy is just a dog who bites the hand of the person feeding him! Others went out of their way to help but he still left without any thanks!”

The girl hugged her arm, watching He Yan in silence, then said softly to Yu Baizhou, “Yu-shao, don’t bother interacting with that freak.”

Tu Gaoming was still fuming and asked for Yu Baizhou’s opinion. “Boss, do you need me to catch up to give him a lesson?”

Yu Baizhou thought about it for a moment and said generously, “Forget it.”

Tu Gaoming always knew that his boss couldn’t tolerate He Yan, so even after thinking hard about it, he really didn’t understand why his boss helped He Yan.

He wasn’t a person who kept his questions locked up inside, so he straightforwardly asked, “Boss, just now, why did you help out He Yan, that bastard?”

Yu Baizhou was stunned.

Back when Yu Baizhou had just finished junior high and entered high school, due to his poor family conditions as well as having an introverted personality, he had been bullied relentlessly. At that time, with no friends to confide in, he had no other options but to bury his head in schoolwork, and later achieved results that were amongst the best. He originally thought the situation would become better, but the fact was, if a bully wanted to target someone, they could always find a variety of reasons. After living through the ordeal, Yu Baizhou became a scholarly student who carefully minded the poor students that were going through the same experiences as he once had.

Yu Baizhou had originally wanted to avoid causing trouble, but the more he observed He Yan, the more he felt like he was seeing a shadow of himself, so he couldn’t help but intervene.

Of course, Yu Baizhou couldn’t talk to Tu Gaoming about this matter, so he absentmindedly threw out an excuse. “That group was too spirited, wasn’t it noisy? I wanted to have a quiet meal, so don’t think too much about it. Just consider it as a random act of kindness.” 

Tu Gaoming voiced his disagreement. “A random act of kindness is still an act of kindness! Not to mention, that stupid He Yan had no trace of gratitude. He has pissed off this laozi!”

Before he lent a hand, Yu Baizhou did not think that He Yan was such a character. But, helping was just helping.

Bullying once, helping once, it all balanced out.

In the future they will not have any relationship.

Yu Baizhou took his hand out of his pocket and patted Tu Gaoming’s shoulder, comforting him, “Don’t be angry, let’s go. I’ll invite you to drink Coke.”

Tu Gaoming walked while he spoke. “I don’t wanna drink Coke, I want Sprite.”

Yu Baizhou smiled. “Sure.”

Yu Baizhou found that although Tu Gaoming was a member of the school hegemony, his heart did not seem to be too bad. At least, unlike those of the people he had known before, his character was honest, so in his heart he gave Tu Gaoming a nickname—Tie Hanhan*.

[T/N: “铁憨憨”: 铁 means iron, 憨憨 means silly. Because TGM’s stubbornness is unshakable and hard like iron, he will speak his words truthfully, while the silly is just for his personality; YBZ’s nickname is basically calling poor TGM ‘stupid and stubborn’]

Evening self-study was Chinese. The teacher who taught the subject was a kind old person who had a very good relationship with their students. There was really nothing to do in Chinese besides reading and memorising. Therefore, how time was spent during Chinese evening self-study was up to the students themselves, with the ones partial to studying able to work on other subjects.

He Yan entered the classroom and sat diagonally behind Yu Baizhou in the desk on the last row of the fourth group against the corridor. Halfway through the evening self-study, He Yan was called out by Cheng Jiahui.

Yu Baizhou was concentrating too intensively on literary articles. He didn’t know about He Yan’s leave until Tu Gaoming brought over a high school composition book with him, carrying a gust of wind that blew on his ears.

“Cheng Jiahui usually likes good students, but when she called He Yan out, her expression wasn’t good at all. I guess it was because He Yan skipped class yesterday afternoon. The time for that poisonous tongue to settle the bill with He Yan has arrived, he definitely won’t be scolded lightly. “

Yu Baizhou noticed that Tu Gaoming always seemed to be overly eager when it came to He Yan’s matters. He wanted to ask for the reason, but suppressed the words within a few seconds.

Since he was still currently unfamiliar with the plot, he could not be in a rush when seeking answers. If he accidentally asked the wrong questions, it might make Tu Gaoming suspicious, and he would have to think up excuses to explain, which was too troublesome.

He said, “Xiao-Tu*, don’t worry about other people’s business. Take a good look at your books and try to pass Chinese next time.”

[T/N: “小”/xiao: means ‘little’, putting it before someone’s name means the speaker is addressing them in an affectionate way]

Tu Gaoming’s fiery passion for gossip was ruthlessly extinguished.

Remembering something, Tu Gaoming said, “Oh, right, yesterday, Li-ge* wanted me to ask if you are going out this weekend. If you are, he will push back the feast at his house.”

[T/N: “黎哥”/Li-ge: means older brother Li; again, brother can be used for both friends and blood-related (I will be using ‘(name)-ge’ so it won’t be too much of a mouthful, same goes for some other titles]

Yu Baizhou did not know who this ‘Li-ge’ was and shook his head while replying, “Not going, help me pass on the message.”

“Really not going?”

“En.”

Tu Gaoming paused to think for a while, then said, “Okay.”

Hopefully Li-ge won’t get angry.

Yu Baizhou continued to read the article. After a while, the girl sitting at the table in front of him turned around while holding a paper to ask him about a math question.

Yu Baizhou glanced at the subject and found it was a function question. It was very simple. Out of habit, he picked up the pen to begin teaching.

But, just as the pen tip was about to fall on the test paper, Yu Baizhou halted and put down the pen, smiling at the girl apologetically. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

The original owner had a design of a poor student. Although the problem was not difficult, there was still a certain depth of understanding required to solve it. According to the original’s academic performance, this type of problem was absolutely impossible for the original to pull off.

Hearing this, the girl and Tu Gaoming were both shocked.

Tu Gaoming was the first to question him. “Boss, yesterday, the super-level questions that Cheng Jiahui told you to do to make things difficult for you, weren’t you able to solve them? You can’t do this one? You aren’t lying to me, right? Right now, everyone in class is assuming you are a hidden partial genius.”

Yu Baizhou realized that it was because of yesterday’s actions that had other people misunderstand him. He hesitated, pondering over whether he should admit that he was a partial genius, or deny it.

He felt it would be a bit narcissistic if he admitted it.

After weighing it in his mind for a while, he still decided to deny. “Ah, yesterday’s question was just a mistake. Wasn’t it a university entrance exam simulation question in X city? I accidentally came across it before and flipped through it a little. Unexpectedly, I ran into it again yesterday. Just a coincidence, these are all nothing but coincidences.”

Yu Baizhou was well aware that honestly following the plot was definitely the best way to carry on living. He was currently not very familiar with the plot. If he accidentally changed his personal settings then some issues will occur sooner or later. If something happened that went beyond the original plot, then things will become irksome and tricky to work around.

This was why he decided to avoid acting out of character and continue maintaining the original owner’s design as much as possible.

Tu Gaoming didn’t care much about this. Whatever Yu Baizhou said, he believed it. The girl still hesitated for a moment, but eventually nodded and left to ask someone else.

Yu Baizhou knocked at 008 in his head and asked when the plot would be fully introduced.

Being unfamiliar with the story really made it difficult to walk.

008 replied, “To answer host: the information is coming soon, and should take at most two to three days.”

Two to three days was not too long.

He just has to hold on for a few more days, Yu Baizhou thought in his heart.

Hopefully these days will pass peacefully.

At the end of the evening self-study, Yu Baizhou returned home. His two dads were looking at some design sketched on the computer, saying that they were designing his future marriage room*.

[T/N: “婚房”: bedroom for newlyweds, also known as the bridal room]

With a red face, he said good night to his dads, then dutifully returned to his bedroom. After washing up, he went to bed and fell asleep.

It didn’t take long for the school’s forum* to become lively as usual for every night.

[T/N: “贴吧”: think of Baidu, but for school]

【Heard it or not: School Idol Yu has been modified. This time, instead of bullying He Yan, he protected him?】

【Real or fake? Rumor!】

【It must be fake, who doesn’t know how much School Idol Yu hates He Yan!】

【He Yan, that gloomy study tyrant?】

【Absolutely true, someone saw it!】

【A friend of mine also saw it and said that the two were talking and laughing!】

【He Yan, isn’t that guy who never shows his face!】

【Yes yes yes, I have a guess that he’s too ugly he doesn’t dare to show his face haha.】

【The ones who dare not show their faces are always ugly!】

【It doesn’t matter if you look ugly, this person is a ‘straight-A student’, it’s already awesome~~】

【Straight-A, what about it? This person is so ugly, how could our Yu-shao protect him, hehe.】

In a humble rental home, the sound of water stopped. The bathroom door was opened, and He Yan came out with his hair still dripping wet.

He had a height of 190cm, exposed arm muscles with well-defined lines, wide shoulders but a narrow waist, and a pair of long legs that grew to the sky.

The bangs that clung to his skin from water vapour was swept back, revealing a face sculpted like a masterpiece of heavenly craftsmanship. The face was so perfect that there would be no trace of flaws even if someone looked carefully.

He Yan walked to the table and picked up the jade pendant that appeared that day. Yu Baizhou’s face appeared to be floating in front of his eyes again.

Yu Baizhou…

He shook out a cigarette from the box, skillfully biting it between his teeth, and ignited.

The haze from the smoke quickly masked the emotion in his eyes.

At eighteen, He Yan did not smoke.

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The author has something to say:

A poor-at-studies study tyrant Yu
A very ugly male god

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