Chapter 42: This was the reason for pretending to be a poor student?

Once Ning Yi spoke, the entire classroom instantly became silent.

“Pff…” Yan Ziyun was the first to laugh out loud. She covered her mouth. Soon the others nearby who heard also started laughing.

In just a moment, it seemed like everyone heard a very funny joke. Amongst the sounds of laughter, there was also the sound of rather rude remarks, but Ning Yi supported herself with her hand on the desk, unmoved.

“What are you laughing at!” Ju Meng angrily slammed her fist on the desk, “Who said that those who had bad grades before can’t counterattack?”

Duan Beilei who had yielded her seat to the reporter for the school newspaper and was standing on the side was the most outrageous. Her tone was lightly stained with contempt as she talked to the person beside her, but the volume of her voice was purposely raised and especially loud so that half the classroom could all hear her.

“Really so damn funny, shouldn’t you think before you brag? Even if you don’t remember your own test scores, other people still have an impression, okay? Last in the entire school and you don’t have a damn grain of awareness, she really has the guts to say just anything!”

“You’re rattling on and on over here, were we talking to you? Yan Ziyun doesn’t have a mouth or what? She needs you to help her talk? I really gotta hand it to you, is Yan Ziyun your dad or your mom? I see you worshiping the ground she walks on every day like she’s your ancestor! Which random green onion with no name and no status are you to dare be waving your hands around her? I’m usually too lazy to care about you, so you really think I have no temper, right? The suck-up is used to opening her mouth so she wants to bite people? Why don’t you try asking your master first if she herself dares to really offend me?”

Ju Meng didn’t even stop to breathe, attacking back verbally in a single breath.

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Nevermind other people, hearing the always gentle Mu Wanqing suddenly “speak self-importantly”, she was initially taken aback. She wanted to stop Mu Wanqing and tell her not to make such a big statement to avoid being slapped in the face in the future, but under everyone’s gaze, this was obviously feeding others’ ambition and extinguishing your own authority. Wouldn’t that be making a fool of yourself?

She took a deep breath, forcibly pretending to be calm as she raised her voice in agreement, “Precisely! A scholar who has been away for three days must be looked at with new eyes ¹ 士别三日，当刮目相待: idiom, one must look at someone they haven’t seen in a long time with a fresh set of eyes for they are no longer the same as they were before (Baidu), have you never heard?”

If Ning Yi’s declaration before was a joke of overestimating oneself in everyone’s ears, the weight of Mu Wanqing’s words, however, could not be viewed the same way.

Although Mu Wanqing was regarded as part of the background before, because she had always been quiet, looked and dressed inconspicuously, those that have been in the same class with her for over a year had never heard her speak loudly aside from answering questions in class, but her grades were obvious to all. Wasn’t first place still first place no matter how low-key?

Now, the people who laughed at Ning Yi before were a little hesitant.

“Speaking of which, I also saw Ning Yi doing Mathematical Olympiad problems…”

“No way? Really a mediocre student rising up against all odds? Even novels don’t dare to be written like this, no?”

“I sit right behind her, I have seen her doing problems every day recently.”

“Anyway, I don’t believe it. If she’s really that good, how come we don’t see her on Quiz King? She’s just trying to look like all that ²打肿脸充胖子: swell one’s face up by slapping it to look imposing; seek to impress by feigning more than one’s abilities, right?”

…

Seeing that everyone’s attention had shifted to Ning Yi, Yan Ziyun immediately felt unhappy. She lightly coughed twice, regained the audience’s attention, and said, “I still remember that whenever I told you to study more, Yiyi, you were always impatient. Now that you suddenly have such passion and spirit, it’s also a good thing. Then we can just compete a bit. But we must lay it out first, if your grades don’t meet expectations in the end, I hope you won’t feel too bad. After all, studying isn’t something you can succeed at overnight, it’s not as easy as saying you can, just do better next time.”

Ning Yi restrained her temper as she listened to her white lotus speech, thinking to herself that even the original host’s white lotus level was not so high.

She looked at the other person with her eyelids slightly lowered, and spoke indifferently, “It’s better to save these words for when grades come out, hm… If you still have the chance by then that is.”

Yan Ziyun met Ning Yi’s gaze and inexplicably panicked for a moment. That gaze was calm and clear, as if it could see through her secret.

However, Ning Yi quickly retracted her gaze, raised her hand, and patted the shoulders of the two girls beside her. “Let’s go, I’m thirsty, let’s go buy drinks.”

All the way to the small garden downstairs and only after seeing that there was no one around did Ju Meng’s shoulders collapse and the breath that she was holding before disappear.

She hugged her head, extremely flustered. “Oh god, what did we say just now? What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I hold you two back? I’ve gone crazy, crazy!”

“You guys aren’t worried at all?” Ju Meng raised her head to look at the two calm and composed people in front of her, complaining very worriedly, “Even if Yan Ziyun isn’t pleasing to the eye, there’s no need to bet on grades with her, no? We’ve made such an incredible boast, it feels good now, saying all that feels really good right now. But once the exam scores come out, won’t we be mocked to death? This is too impetuous!”

Ning blinked her eyes and looked at Mu Wanqing. The latter gave her a “you actually haven’t told Ju Meng?” look.

Ju Meng hadn’t noticed the silent communication between the two people in front of her, still deeply trapped in her worries.

“And you too, Mu Mu. I always thought you were steady. How can you let it get to your head with Yiyi? Or do you really have a way to help her improve her grades? Ah, what Arabian Nights fairy tales am I thinking about? Do I not know what kind of ability Yiyi has? I must really be crazy to have this thought…”

Ning Yi watched her good sister over there pounding her aching head, and cautiously interrupted her, “Um, Mengmeng…actually…”

“Don’t speak yet, let me think of a way first…” Ju Meng raised her hand in a stop position, still chattering on to herself, “Although there’s probably not enough time, it’s better late than never. I’ll study with you these couple of days, okay? We’ll try our best to raise your score, it shouldn’t look so bad at that time…”

Ning Yi put her hands on Ju Meng’s shoulders and shook her, saying, “Stop worrying, Mengmeng, Yan Ziyun can’t beat me.”

Ju Meng lifted her hand and placed it on Ning Yi’s forehead, her eyes filled with worry. “You don’t have a fever, why are you speaking nonsense?”

 Ning Yi: “…I don’t have a fever nor am I joking. I am Number 1 God, Yan Ziyun is pretending to be me.”

Then she took out her phone, opened the Quiz King app, and showed her her user homepage.

Ju Meng was stupefied on the spot and looked like her brain had a CPU overload. She asked, “What is this?”

Mu Wanqing on the side laughed, “It’s Quiz King’s interface, do you see it? Y_N0.1, Yiyi is precisely the Number 1 God, so don’t worry, Mengmeng! When the time comes, the ones slapped in the face won’t be us!”

???

!!!

Ju Meng finally collected her thoughts after crashing. She burst out into a shriek that “startled the world and moved the gods.” “What?!!!”

Her gaze swept across the faces of her two good friends, confirming that they weren’t joking, and then went to the phone to look at the username on the homepage and the record trophies below back and forth several times. Finally, shock turned into ecstasy.

“Holy shit!! It’s actually you! Damn, isn’t Yan Ziyun too shameless? What kind of person, really… Showing off her prestige in front of the real master, hahahaha, it’s really damn funny! God, I’m not dreaming, right?”

Mu Wanqing reached out and pinched her cheek in rare mischief. Ju Meng hissed lightly and jumped, holding her face, “Hahaha, it hurts! It’s real! My gosh! You’re really Number 1 God! Hahahahaha–“

Ning Yi was also infected by her and laughed with her.

“Wait.”

Ju Meng suddenly stopped laughing.

She frowned as she looked at Ning Yi, then at Mu Wanqing. Belatedly realizing some things, she began to settle accounts. “Yiyi, I was the one who helped you register on Quiz King! You two actually didn’t tell me?! Also, Mu Mu, you already knew about this! You guys actually kept it from me for so long?!!”

Mu Wanqing immediately put her hands in the air and stepped back, removing herself. “I found out by accident, really! I thought Yiyi definitely told you already.”

Ning Yi: “…”

You’re adding fuel to the fire like this, sister!

Mu Wanqing spread her hands and shrugged, indicating that her hands were tied.

Ju Meng narrowed her eyes. Crossing her arms in front of her chest and raising her eyebrows at Ning Yi, she silently expressed: You better give me a good explanation.

Ning Yi licked her lips: “This…”

How to put this? She can’t say she wasn’t the original Ning Yi, right? She scratched her chin, a little distressed, and said, “Mu Mu accidentally discovered this secret, I didn’t plan on telling anyone. Even my parents and my brother still don’t know about this. Really, I swear.”

Ju Meng pouted, barely satisfied with this response. She bumped Ning Yi’s shoulder and asked, puzzled, “Why don’t you nicely be your top student and instead pretend to be a bad student? Were you not crushed ruthlessly enough by Yan Ziyun in the past two years? Look at how great she is… tsk.”

Hearing this, Mu Wanqing also looked at Ning Yi curiously.

Ning Yi thought, that really wasn’t me pretending, it was the original host that was really a bad student quq

“This…” Her mind raced, thinking about what reason she could find.

Unexpectedly, Ju Meng went “damn” first, and tentatively asked, “It won’t be because of God Lu, right? Because of that truth or dare that year?”

Ah? What are you talking about?

Ning Yi’s head was full of question marks, but she cautiously remained silent.

Ju Meng, however, thought she was silent because the matter buried in her heart had been exposed. “God, it’s really so! I don’t even know what to say, God Lu obviously said that on purpose at the time! How come your little head becomes stupid when it comes to him?”

Mu Wanqing curiously asked, “What’s going on?”

“During our junior high school graduation trip, we were all bored so we played truth or dare. Lu Xu Nan was chosen and someone asked him what type of girl he liked. He thought about it and said he didn’t know. Everyone was definitely dissatisfied and questioned him, then what type do you not like? Lu Xu Nan then was probably annoyed by the questioning. He looked at everyone and said he didn’t like ones that had better grades than him. At the time, all the girls present scored better than him on the high school entrance exam. So you could tell immediately that he said that on purpose. Only Yiyi was silly and actually took it for real…”

After speaking, Ju Meng sighed.

This can work too?

Ning Yi was just worrying about how to explain and Ju Meng’s words were like handing her a pillow just as she was sleepy. She immediately agreed, held her face, and pretended to be shamefully angry, “It might not be fake though! Ahhh, let’s not talk about this! Go go go, I’m thirsty, I want to drink milk tea!”

She left after speaking, and the other two could only glance at each other helplessly and follow.

“Brother Nan? Weren’t you in a hurry to return to the classroom? Why are you standing here?”

Fang Ci, sweating, ran over from a small path on the side hugging a basketball. Seeing Lu Xu Nan who was standing in a daze under a tree, he almost didn’t dare recognize him. Only after looking clearly did he go over and pat him on the shoulder.

Lu Xu Nan turned his head to look at him, but his gaze was unfocused, muttering to himself: “Turns out it was because of that time…”

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[1] 士别三日，当刮目相待: idiom, one must look at someone they haven’t seen in a long time with a fresh set of eyes for they are no longer the same as they were before (Baidu)

[2]打肿脸充胖子: swell one’s face up by slapping it to look imposing; seek to impress by feigning more than one’s abilities