Chapter 25 - Bad Influence

“See, Yao Yao? I win!” Yushu exclaimed the moment Lin Yi appeared.

“What?” Mengyao looked at her, blinking.

“I bet on Lin Yi, remember?” A blush appeared on her face as Yushu recalled the scene from the washroom.

She may not be timid like Mengyao, but there were still things that even she would blush at.

Mengyao’s silence, on the other hand, made it clear that she hadn’t yet recovered from the experience.

Lin Yi interrupted the girls as he walked back to his seat. “I didn’t win or anything, they just went to change their clothes.”

Mengyao wasn’t the only one feeling down- Lin Yi was embarra.s.sed as well. It was more than just a body part, it was something precious to him, something he was supposed to show to his wife! Great, now some random girls saw everything.

Zhong Pinliang never appeared again the whole morning, and his lackeys were missing as well. They had to shower and get themselves a change of clothes, after all. The process took time.

The lunch bell rang at noon, and a guy with gla.s.ses sitting in front of Lin Yi turned around. “Yo, where are you eating?”

“I dunno. Is there a canteen in this school?”

Lin Yi responded with a question of his own instantly, glad that the the guy was nice enough to offer eating with him- he was troubling over where to go for lunch just moments before the bell rang.

“Yeah, I’ll take you there!” The man said as he reached out a hand. “I’m Kang Xiaobo.”

“Lin Yi. Nice to meet you.” Lin Yi said as he shook hands with Xiaobo.

Mengyao and Yushu vanished the moment the bell rang, but Lin Yi wasn’t worried about them. They were safe in the school.

Xiaobo walked shoulder to shoulder with Lin Yi as they walked out of the cla.s.sroom. He was quite friendly.

“Hey dude, which school did you come from?”

“I actually came from a mountain village.” Lin Yi replied, not trying to hide his background in the slightest. “Didn’t really go to school before. Well, there aren’t any back there- it’s a poor place.”

“Ah! I’m guessing you have really good grades?”

Kang Xiaobo looked at Lin Yi intently, aware that the student body was made of two types- those who got in with money, and those who got in with grades.

Needless to say, as long as one had enough money, entering Songshan’s First School wasn’t a problem at all.

Those with good grades were further split into more groups. There were those who got a thousand kuai a month from the scholars.h.i.+p program, not even required to pay for anything at all.

Lin Yi said that the village lacked even a proper school, and Xiaobo could also tell from his clothing that he didn’t have a strong family background. It clearly wasn’t money that got him into the school.

That only left him with good grades.

“I’m okay…” Lin Yi smiled bitterly- his situation was pretty complicated, and difficult to explain. He decided to just let Xiaobo make his own a.s.sumptions.

“You’re so humble, dude.”

Kang Xiaobo got in the school with grades as well, and had always looked down on people like Zhong Pinliang, who were only in the school because of their parents. The fact that they played around all day didn’t help, either.

It was only natural that Xiaobo would take a liking to Lin Yi, who was the same as him.

Young schoolgirls were everywhere, and Lin Yi couldn’t help but look as they made their way to the canteen.

“Ho… You seem pretty into that!” Xiaobo chuckled after seeing Lin Yi glance about. He leaned closer and whispered. “But you know, there’s really only a few gems in our school.”

“What gems?” Lin Yi did look at a couple of girls on the way, but he really was just taking in the school environment as well as the facilities.

“Heh heh, acting all innocent, are we? I’m talking about the rarities, the rare ones!!” Xiaobo teased as he patted Lin Yi’s shoulder. “We’re at that age, you know? There’s nothing unnatural about l.u.s.ting a little over pretty girls here and there, but actually going after one… You’ll only find yourself disappointed!”

Lin Yi could only smile bitterly as he listened to Xiaobo. The guy was a freaking wolf!

He looked like a gentleman, gla.s.ses and all... but he was just a pervy-a.s.s teen!

Seeing Lin Yi silent only gave Xiaobo reason to make more a.s.sumptions that Lin Yi didn’t agree with his what he said. “Hey, don’t get p.i.s.sed off or anything, but it’s true! Grades these days don’t do much, in this regard, at least. Girls only want the s.e.xy, the good looking, and most importantly… the ones with packed wallets. Dudes like you and me? Forget it.”

“Heh… That’s an interesting logic you have there.”

Lin Yi smiled, disagreeing with Xiaobo’s perspective. Girls like Chu Mengyao, or Chen Yushu? Money held no meaning at all to the rich of that calibre. Why else would someone like Zhong Pinliang get put off all the time, if it really was money rich girls were after?

“Of course, though logic won’t be getting us anywhere either. Those rare ones in our school have their gazes set high, I tell you!” Kang Xiaobo replied, shaking his head.

“Who are the rare ones?”

Lin Yi decided to gossip a bit with his new friend, since there wasn’t much to do anyway. Having someone close to talk to at school wasn’t bad at all.

“Dude, you serious? Did you not see the girls in our cla.s.s? We have two of these gems in there!” Xiaobo started getting excited.

It was the same in any school- it didn’t matter if the girls had nothing to do with you- simply having them in your cla.s.s was enough for the others to get envious.

“You’re not talking about Chu Mengyao and Chen Yushu, are you?”

Lin Yi only knew two names from his cla.s.s, and he’d learned from Mengyao’s details that she was the school beauty. Her best friend, at the same time, happened to be Yushu. It was as good a guess as any.

“s.h.i.+t, one morning’s enough for you to get your hands on their names?” Xiaobo’s jaws dropped with shock as he stared at Lin Yi.

Xiaobo’s surprise meant only one thing, and Lin Yi wasn’t about to waste time explaining the weird sort of relations.h.i.+p he had with Chu Mengyao. He didn’t want to be labelled a pervert hasty enough to get himself the school beauty’s name, but he admitted to the accusation with silence- there really wasn’t much he could do about it.

“Haha, you don’t have to look like that. To tell you the truth, I bet eighty percent of the boys in our cla.s.s have a crush on either of the two.” Xiaobo smiled at Lin Yi’s expression, pus.h.i.+ng his golden spectacles up, its colors faded from being worn out. “Zhong Pinliang’s the only one who’s actually going after her, though.”

“Right, that guy. He’s pretty rich, isn’t he?”

As troublesome as it was, it remained a fact that Lin Yi was now Zhong Pinliang’s enemy. As long as he was tasked with Mengyao’s protection, a clash with the guy was inevitable unless Pinliang suddenly decided to stop going after her.

Lin Yi thought he’d scout the opponent from Xiaobo a little bit.

“Oh, you don’t know?” Xiaobo smiled as he explained. “Right. You’re from a mountain, I forgot. Zhong Pinliang’s family isn’t just normal rich. His dad Zhong Sanguo is the boss of Kaidi Hotels, and even big scale businesses like Echo KTV and Kaka Pub.”

Chapter 26 - Commoner Beauty

Lin Yi nodded. Entertainment business, huh?

People managing businesses like KTVs or pubs, for most part, had more or less some sort of underworld connections. It wasn’t surprising at all, considering how places like these were subject to the most troublemakers. It wasn’t easy to survive without a strong enough background.

“Quite a big shot in the city, then.”

The information didn’t shake Lin Yi in the least. To him, no chairman or mafia boss matched up to the likes of that old guy back home.

There’d be nothing stopping Old Lin from doing whatever he pleased should Lin Yi somehow p.i.s.s the old man off. He could flip Lin Yi over his legs and spank him, and he wouldn’t be able to fight back at all.

“Well, his family isn’t much compared to Chu Mengyao’s.” Xiaobo said with some disdain. Lin Yi could see that Zhong Pinliang didn’t rank very high in his likeability list. “Zhong Pinliang’s family only has a couple of local entertainment outlets, while the Chus have a real company, its branches spreading far and wide throughout the entire country!”

Lin Yi had his own share of info regarding Chu Pengzhan’s strength. If Pengzhan Industries was described as an aircraft carrier, then the businesses of the Zhong household could only be a mere couple of boats.

It was only natural, then, that Zhong Pinliang’s antics did nothing more than annoy Mengyao.

“You know a lot, don’t you!” Lin Yi smiled.

Xiaobo’s face reddened a little from the compliment. “Well, it’s Chu Mengyao, after all. Most of the boys here know at least that much about her. Chen Yushu’s a little more of a mystery.”

“How so?” Lin Yi was curious- he hadn’t met Yushu’s family before.

He thought Yushu was kinda following Mengyao around because of how powerful her family was, going home in Mengyao’s car and even eating at her home. Xiaobo’s words suggested otherwise, however.

“I heard that her brother’s a special ops soldier, the type you see in novels. He’s seriously pretty bada.s.s! There was this guy that couldn’t get Chen Yushu to be his girlfriend two years ago, and he tried to do something out of spite. Yushu’s brother found out a while later, and he beat the guy up so bad that he spent the next half year in the hospital! The thing here is how his parents kept quiet about the whole thing, even visiting the Chen house for an apology!”

Xiaobo continued explaining as he leaned in, his tone mysterious. “Just that alone proves how big a deal the Chen family is! Chen Yushu doesn’t go around causing trouble, though, so she’s still really popular. Tons of guys have a crush on her- it’s just that no one has the b.a.l.l.s to try.”

Doesn’t go around causing trouble my a.s.s. Lin Yi thought to himself, remembering the things Yushu had done to him.

She was always looking to have him fight Zhong Pinliang, and there was that secret she always threatened him with, too. Then there’s the washroom incident earlier! She even saw his thing… How did this qualify as not causing trouble?

Just thinking about it gave Lin Yi a headache. He wasn’t worried about Yushu’s brother coming after him, Yushu wasn’t an a.s.shole that she’d just tell on him like that, he knew that much. She was way more open minded than Mengyao, after all, and she wouldn’t make a fuss over it. Mengyao, on the other hand……

She probably loathed him even more. Sometimes Lin Yi felt that he’d rather be Yushu’s study companion instead of Mengyao’s- the Miss was a handful to deal with.

“Lin Yi, you’re not planning on going after them, are you?”

Xiaobo patted Lin Yi on the shoulder again when he went silent again.

Lin Yi shook his head, smiling bitterly. “Nah, I’m not.” She was his Miss, after all. It’d be like a servant in ancient times, running away with the lady.

“Heh heh, lemme say this: there’s still one geml in this school that isn’t out of our reach!” Xiaobo whispered.

“Who?”

Lin Yi wasn’t particularly interested in who the girl was, but he did want to learn more about the school.

“Cla.s.s nine’s Tang Yin.” Xiaobo answered, clearing his throat. “She’s the school’s commoner beauty. Really pretty, but she’s the same like us in terms of family background, always going to school in her uniform, doesn’t use any makeup… Yet even so, her natural beauty s.h.i.+nes through.”

“Tang Yin?” Lin Yi liked the name, but wasn’t sure if she really was as amazing as Xiaobo described her to be.

“She’s not that special if we put her next to princesses like Chu Mengyao and Chen Yushu, though.” Lin Yi noticed the excitement in Xiaobo’s tone. “But well, she’s a little more within our reach.”

Songshan’s First was split into two parts- the rich and the poor. The rich always stuck together, chasing after pretty girls as they played their days away. Heaps of money would then be used after graduation to get them in their ideal colleges. Some even went overseas.

The poor always put their focus on their studies, working hard, aiming for their ideal colleges through sheer effort.

The poor, for the most part, didn’t bother with how the rich spent their schooldays, and the rich didn’t bother with how the poor spent their time buried in books.

The split wasn’t absolute, however- there were rich kids who studied, and there were poor kids who got in fights and even involved themselves with gangs.

But the same people stuck together. Zhong Pinliang’s lackeys, for example, had rich families just like him.

As a result, Kang Xiaobo believed Chu Mengyao and Chen Yushu to be leagues above their level- an unreachable dream.

The commoner beauty of the school, at least, was a realistic target.

Xiaobo’s smile had a hint of longing and expectation, and Lin Yi sighed softly.

Schools weren’t as straightforward and honest as he imagined them to be.

“You like her?” Lin Yi asked with a laugh.

“Hey, it’s not something I’m embarra.s.sed about! I guarantee that many of the boys in our school have Tang Yin in their sights, too.” Xiaobo said with certainty. “You’ll see for yourself when you see her.”

Going after the commoner beauty? The notion was an interesting one… but Lin Yi shook it off. He was a study companion a.s.signed to the Miss, he couldn’t just abandon her and go chasing after a girl.

Even if Chu Pengzhan didn’t say anything about it, the old man would.

Lin Yi wasn’t even sure what the deal with the chairman was, as well. It did seem like he wanted to get Lin Yi together with Mengyao, as things stood.

Indeed, that was as real a possibility as it got… He wasn’t related to the Miss at all, what other way was there to ‘give her some love’? It wasn’t far-fetched that he’d get fired if he went after some commoner beauty.

Three thousand per month wasn’t something Lin Yi was willing to risk losing!