CH 41

Translator: Rin    Editor: Mars    Proofreader: Ume

Jiang Li didn’t linger in front of the police station, but he turned around and went to the optical store next to it. System saw and asked curiously, “Host, do you not intend to go over and strike up a conversation?”

“Strike up a conversation?” Jiang Li raised his eyebrows and asked with interest, “Little Cutie, we’ve only experienced one world. Why are you acting like an old fox? Where did the innocent system go?”

“…”

Jiang Li’s mood was quite good after he dissed his own Little Cutie System until it was speechless. He walked to the vision test equipment and took a seat. He then let the staff test the degree of nearsightedness.

Based on his memories the original host hadn’t changed his glasses for four years, so the degree should have increased.

The original host’s eyes had been covered by bangs, causing the pupils to have a loss of focus. The astigmatism was relatively high. He started to shed tears after looking at the measuring instrument for more than half a minute, it took a lot of time to get the measurement.

After the test Jiang Li chose a pair of silver-rimmed oval frames, paid the money, and made an appointment to pick them up the next day. In addition, he bought a pair of daily use contact lenses that had almost the same degree for temporary use so that he could see the blackboard clearly the next day.

Once he came out of the optical store, Chi Fang and the other’s figures couldn’t be seen at the police station any longer.

However, Jiang Li wasn’t in a rush. Chi Fang’s class was just next door to his . If everything went well, he would definitely be able to meet him in school the next day.

…

After Chi Fang and the group of people came out of the police station, Chi Fang showed a gloomy expression as he was walking in front, obviously in a very bad mood. Feng Yu waved his hand to let the others leave, he then ran up to him. “Chi ge, wait for me, where are we going ah?”

“Anywhere.” Chi Fang put his hands in his pockets, not caring about where to go.

“Sorry, Chi ge, it’s all my fault today.” Feng Yu said, with guilt in his voice.

As they were playing basketball earlier, the big guy, also known as Zhou Kai, deliberately hit people with his elbow, knocking out one of their classmates, causing him to get a nosebleed. Feng Yu started fighting against Zhou Kai in a fit of anger. When Chi Fang was helping him to press and rub the tall guy against the floor, a granny who was passing by saw and reported it to the police.

“What kind of apology are you making?” Chi Fang glanced at him. The two of them happened to pass by a tuition center. His footsteps stopped and he looked at the name on the sign.

“Yang Fan Crash Course English Tuition Class.” Feng Yu read the name of the tuition class and spoke in astonishment, “Chi ge, don’t tell me you’re not going to take a cram class, are you?”

“No shit.” Chi Fang cursed and went on walking. The reason why he stopped was because yesterday he heard the Old Master mention the name of this tuition class and said that he wanted to enroll him to learn English.

English tuition class?

Chi Fang felt a headache just thinking about those messy letters.

“Hey, Chi ge.” Feng Yu followed beside him, “It’s almost time to choose streams, you must be enrolling in the science stream, right? I also enrolled in science; it is just as well that us brothers can still be classmates!”

Chi Fang gave him a strange look, “Who told you that I enrolled in science?”

“Could it be the Arts stream? No way, you’ve never passed English.”

“As if you had passed.” Chi Fang was so angry at him that he scoffed “I scored three more points than you, okay?”

“Hey, I’m failing, that’s why I’m going to take science.” Feng Yu scratched his head and didn’t feel ashamed at all in his heart, “Right, let’s go eat. I’m hungry.”

Chi Fang looked down at his watch, found that it was almost six o’clock and said, “The Old Master is waiting for me at home to go back for dinner, so come along if you want.”

“Nah, forget about it.” Feng Yu shook his head. Chi Fang’s grandfather was good, but he loved to nag, especially high school students. Every time he went to meet him, he would be nagged until his ears hurt.

“Then I’m leaving.” Chi Fang waved his hand, walked forward two steps, and then suddenly stopped. He reached out and touched his pockets and turned them inside-out.

Seeing this, Feng Yu followed him over and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I dropped my lighter.” Chi Fang frowned and explained that after saving someone from the river in the afternoon, he had rushed over to play in the basketball match and completely didn’t notice when the lighter fell and where it had fallen.

“No way. The Lio custom-made lighter?” Feng Yu widened his eyes. The lighter was sent from B City last month, it was Chi Fang ‘s seventeenth birthday gift, a Lio-exclusive custom-made. There was no identical model in the market, and Chi Fang’s name was also engraved on it. It was worth tens of thousands of dollars.

“Was it dropped when we were playing basketball?” Feng Yu also became anxious, “Let’s go back and look for it. This thing is so expensive, how painful would it be to lose it!”

Chi Fang nodded, he wasn’t feeling distressed about how much it cost, but the lighter was  custom-made that the Old Master had asked someone to make for him. It was really meaningful to him. 

The two returned to the basketball court to look around but didn’t find the lighter. Feng Yu anxiously jumped, “Don’t tell me it’s picked up by someone?”

Chi Fang thought for a while and thought that it was likely dropped in the river or by the river bank while he was rescuing that person, so he called the Old Master who was at home and said that he would go back later. He then hung up the phone and took a taxi over.

Although Feng Yu didn’t know where he was going, he also followed along and got into the car.

The car stopped on the side of the road next to the river. Chi Fang immediately got out of the car and, using one hand to hold the roadside railing, jumped over. He slid along the lawn to the riverbank below and then looked for it carefully along the path that he had taken earlier. 

He looked back and forth a few times and still found nothing. Finally, he had no choice but to return home disappointed.

…

Jiang Li first went to the market to buy ingredients before going back. When he returned to the snack store downstairs the boss sitting on the rocking chair at the door saw him and asked, “Young man, who are you looking for?”

The residents of the old town area were residents who have lived for decades. Except for a few oddballs like Father Jiang, the neighbors got along very well. They would greet and ask whenever they saw unfamiliar people coming in, in order to prevent bad guys from entering.

Jiang Li had changed his hairstyle, he wasn’t wearing the pair of large-framed glasses that were worn previously, and he wasn’t bending his back like a coward as before, so the boss didn’t recognize him at all.

Jiang Li smiled at him with shyness and formality, so it wouldn’t have too much of a difference from the original host. “Uncle Chen, I’m Jiang Li.”

“Jiang Li?!” Boss Chen heard and took off his presbyopic glasses. He then looked at him unbelievably, “You’re Jiang Li, the child of the debt-dodger Jiang?”

Debt-dodger Jiang was Jiang’s father’s nickname. Most people in the old town area called him that. From the name, one could know how unpopular he was.

Jiang Li nodded, not angry at his glaring eyes, and asked politely, “It’s me, have you eaten yet?”

“Yes, I have eaten.” Boss Chen nodded. He sized up Jiang Li and saw what he really looked like for the first time. He tsk-ed and said, “I didn’t expect you to look so neat and tidy. It’s so much better than your shameless father.”

In the original host’s memories, Jiang Li learned that the old town area’s residents had no good impression of Father Jiang. As they were gossiping, once they mentioned Father Jiang everyone would be disgusted. So, Jiang Li also could understand the attitude of Boss Chen. He nodded to the boss and went upstairs.

After eating, Jiang Li cleaned up the house.

Jiang’s house was a two-room, one living room layout. The area was very small. Jiang Li’s room could only fit a one-meter-two bed and a small desk. Even a wardrobe couldn’t be placed. His clothes were stuffed in the wooden box under the bed.

However, the original host didn’t have many clothes. Other than two sets of school uniforms there were only three sets of summer clothes. They were washed many times. The cuffs of the clothes had already faded. 

Father Jiang usually didn’t care about the original host. Let alone buying him new clothes, the original host would even be scolded by him when he asked him for money to pay the school materials fee.

Since junior high school, the original host would go to the lumber factory, gun factory, plastic factory, and other small factories that didn’t have education requirements and age limit in order to do odd jobs on the weekends. Although the money earned was not much, it made him feel more secure than asking Jiang’s father for money.

During the third year of junior year school, after Father Jiang knew that he was doing odd jobs, he not only didn’t stop him, but he even asked him to hand over the money he had earned. The original host resisted but was severely beaten and forced to turn in a large part of the money, but he secretly kept a little for himself.

When Jiang Li thought of what Father Jiang did in the original host’s memories, he couldn’t help but scold him a scum, thinking that fortunately Father Jiang wasn’t at home at the moment, otherwise he might not be able to resist beating him up.

“Lord Host, with your current physique you aren’t able to beat the other party. I advise you to calm down.” System warmly reminded.

“That’s true.” Jiang Li nodded. The original host’s body was too frail. He had a 1.73-meter height, but he was only 51.5 kg. It was obvious that he was malnourished. He must exercise from now on. 

There were still classes the next day, so Jiang Li went back to his room and slept after watching TV in the living room for a while. 

He didn’t sleep very well; he spent the night half asleep and half awake.

The summer day dawned early. The early morning light shone in through the windowsill. The alarm clock on the desktop rang rapidly, the sharp bell seemed unusually loud in the small room.

“Wu …”

Jiang Li rolled over and covered his head with the blanket and unconsciously said, “Jiang Zhan, your phone is so noisy, quickly silence …”

The hand that was pulling the blanket suddenly stopped. Jiang Li stuck his head out of the blanket, inclined his head to the left-hand side of the position, and looked over. It was empty, there was no Jiang Zhan.

For a moment, Jiang Li felt empty in his heart.

He stared at it for a while, as if he could see the familiar figure from the empty spot. After a long time, he withdrew his gaze, slowly got up from the bed, whispered a “good morning” to the empty room, and then got up to wash up and get ready for school.

The old town area was a bit far from the school, so Jiang Li got up early. He bought two meat buns and a cup of soy milk at the bun store at the end of the alley, then walked to the junction and took a bus to the school.

Class (5) of the first year of high school was at the end of the corridor on the third floor. So, when Jiang Li went to class he had to pass by class (6), which was Chi Fang’s classroom.

The class hadn’t started yet and there were a lot of people standing in the corridor outside each class, chatting or playing in groups.

As soon as Jiang Li went upstairs, he saw Chi Fang leaning against the corridor railing. In the group of people, he was the most outstanding one in terms of looks and temperament.

Jiang Li saw him holding a blade of grass in his mouth, lazily half-leaning against the railing. Other than the guy who was at the police station yesterday, there was a beautiful girl with white skin standing next to him. The girl was talking to him about something, he responded half-heartedly and somehow looked a little inattentive. It seemed like he wasn’t paying attention to the conversation.

Jiang Li fished out the lighter from his pocket. He held it in his hand, walked up to Chi Fang, and gathered the courage to say to him, “Hi, Chi Fang tongxue.”

His words interrupted the trio’s conversation. Chi Fang heard and raised his eyes to look at Jiang Li. “Hm?”

“I’m Jiang Li from Class 5.” Jiang Li’s tone was tense, his fingers clenched tightly. Chi Fang was too tall, he needed to slightly raise his head to meet his eyes. “Yesterday… yesterday thanks for saving me, in the river on the western outskirts. If it wasn’t for you, I would have been dead.”

As soon as he finished saying his name, Feng Yu next to him stared in awe, and even the other girl looked at him in surprise.

“Oh, it’s you…” Chi Fang was a little surprised. He rushed to play basketball yesterday and didn’t pay attention to what the drowning person looked like, so he didn’t expect that it would be a student of the same grade. 

“You’re welcome. I was just passing by.” Chi Fang said unconcernedly.

“I picked this up by the river.” Jiang Li raised his hand in front of him and spread it out, inside was a silver lighter, “I think you dropped this.”

Chi Fang saw the lighter he thought he had lost suddenly appeared in front of him. He couldn’t help but be stunned and subconsciously reached for it. His fingers inadvertently rubbed over Jiang Li’s palm and found that it was actually covered with sweat, showing how nervous the person in front of him was.

“You…”

“Thank you for saving me, you’re a good person!” Jiang Li suddenly interrupted him, bent towards him, and bowed. He then turned around and flew through the corridor, going back to his classroom.

Chi Fang: “…”

Where did this weak chicken come from, simply giving Lao Zi a good person card?1 

Good person card is mostly used by people who want to reject someone, for example, you are a good person but…