PSWHNC CH20

Chapter 20 A Clear Conscience Fears No Rumor

Class 1-3 erupted in noise. A few curses like ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ rang out, and someone even blurted something out in their dialect in their panic.

Luo Zhiyu: “?”

Xiao Yan: “……”

“What’s going on?” Luo Zhiyu was good at reading the room. He immediately sensed that something was off in the chaos. “Everyone’s this excited just because the campus heartthrob showed up?”

Luo Zhiyu thought for a moment. “I don’t think I look any worse than you.”

When Xiao Yan finally left Class 1-3, Luo Zhiyu further noticed that his classmates’ gazes towards him had shifted from admiration to sympathy.

Luo Zhiyu: “?”

On the campus forum, students who secretly played with their phones during evening self-study sessions had already built two discussion threads, with both threads focusing on Luo Zhiyu and Xiao Yan.

One thread firmly believed that there was nothing between Luo Zhiyu and Xiao Yan. With a pheromone compatibility of 0%, the only concern was whether they’d end up fighting.

The other thread just as firmly believed there was something going on, and that Xiao Yan might actually be a scumbag.

111L (Not Zhile): ? He’s not a scumbag.

112L: Now that sounds like denial.

113L (Not Zhile): ? Are you all out of your minds?

114L (Gunpowder Smoke Fills the Air): Forget it, forget it. wiping sweat.jpg

115L (Gunpowder Smoke Fills the Air): A clear conscience fears no rumor.

The bell for the end of evening self-study rang, and the students who had packed up their bags surged toward the stairwell.

“Come on, Yan-ge, are you just giving up on clearing your name like that?” Tang Yuan still felt their dorm’s reputation had a chance to be salvaged.

Fan Yue, an onlooker from day one, considered himself well-informed. He sighed regretfully. “Right now, if he bullies Luo Zhiyu, our class will think he’s a scumbag. If he’s nice to Luo Zhiyu, Class 1-3 downstairs will think he’s a scumbag trying to redeem himself. Either way, he can’t win.”

“That’s rough,” Zhang Shu agreed.

Xiao Yan himself didn’t seem to care. As he moved with the crowd down the stairs, he spotted someone ahead of him. He pulled a stack of sticky notes and a pen from the side pocket of his backpack.

“I told you not to mess with him in the first place,” Fan Yue said, unable to hold back his gloating. “Now it’s come back to bite you.”

But instead of regret, what Fan Yue saw was his roommate drawing a pig face with slanted eyes and a smirk on a sticky note. Xiao Yan walked forward a few steps and smacked it onto Luo Zhiyu’s back.

Fan Yue: “……”

“What are you doing?!” Luo Zhiyu hobbled downstairs, leaning on Jing Ximing’s arm, completely unaware of the sticker on his back. “When did we get so familiar?”

“Can you walk?” Xiao Yan asked, looking genuinely concerned.

“It doesn’t hurt as much as when I first fell.” The sudden change in Xiao Yan’s attitude threw Luo Zhiyu off a little. “Don’t bother me. Just don’t forget about the weekend.”

The temperature outside wasn’t high, but the students coming out of the academic building still shivered as they headed toward the dorms. For some reason, Luo Zhiyu felt like everyone passing by was looking at him. Some were even openly laughing.

“What are they laughing at?” Luo Zhiyu asked, confused. “Have they never seen someone fall before?”

The students on the edge of the sports field split into three groups, each heading to their respective dorms. Luo Zhiyu stopped and watched Xiao Yan and his three roommates walk directly from the other end of the field.

“What are you looking at?” Jing Ximing noticed him stop. “That’s the way to the alpha dorms, isn’t it? Didn’t you get punished and made to stand over there once?”

“You can get to their dorms through the field?” Luo Zhiyu remembered that the night before, he and Xiao Yan had walked straight across the field. There had even been people playing soccer nearby.

“Yes, but it’s a longer way around. You’d be going in a circle from the omega dorms. No one usually walks that way,” Jing Ximing said, giving him a curious look. “Zhiyu, you’re still as bad with directions as ever.”

Luo Zhiyu had taken a fall, and his hand wasn’t in great shape, so it was Jing Ximing who opened the door to their dorm. Luo Zhiyu took on the task of turning on the light.

“Wait a second.” Jing Ximing tugged at him. “There’s something on your back.”

Jing Ximing peeled a sticky note off Luo Zhiyu’s back.

Luo Zhiyu: “……”

Xiao Yan, that bastard.

[Not Zhile]: [photo] Come out and confess.

[Excellent Second-Year Student Representative]: He says he’s not here.

[Not Zhile]: ??? Get lost.

[Not Zhile]: You really had the nerve to stick something that ugly on me?

[Excellent Second-Year Student Representative]: Yes, obviously, it’s not as good as your artwork.

As he said that, he even changed his profile picture, to the very mandarin Luo Zhiyu had thrown at him earlier that evening, complete with the melon-eating emoji Luo Zhiyu had drawn on it.

[Not Zhile]: You ate the mandarin and then used its memorial photo as your profile pic?

[Excellent Second-Year Student Representative]: ……

[Excellent Second-Year Student Representative]: frowning fairy.jpg

Luo Zhiyu’s phone rang, cutting off his chat with Xiao Yan. “Hello? Mom?”

“How’s school?” came a voice from the other end. The signal wasn’t great, and her voice sounded slightly distorted. “Are you studying well?”

“Yeah.” Luo Zhiyu, who hadn’t done any homework that night because of his injured hand, made something up on the spot. “My grades are getting better and better. Every time the teacher sees me, they praise me. I’ve never caused any trouble, and I’ve made lots of friends.”

“That’s good. Are you getting used to living in the dorms? I saw you brought your art supplies to school again?”

“Huh? Hello?” Luo Zhiyu pretended not to hear, holding the phone slightly away. “Mom, your signal’s really bad right now.”

“You’re in high school now. Focus on your studies, okay? Don’t get distracted by other things.”

“Okay!” Luo Zhiyu readily agreed. “Well, we high schoolers need to seize every moment to do our homework, so I’ll hang up now if there’s nothing else..”

“You’re quite good at handling your mom,” Jing Ximing said from his seat after hearing Luo Zhiyu spin the entire story. “With your grades, she probably doesn’t need to worry that much.”

“It’s exactly because of my grades that she’s worried I’ll go the art exam route,” Luo Zhiyu said, marking answers on his English test paper. “I’ll take things one step at a time. No point overthinking it.”

The first few days of school always felt long, but once the rhythm set in and the routines became familiar, time seemed to speed up. Each day felt like a cycle, repeating with slight variations. The weekend marked the placement exams for second and third-year students. These students, after a week of preparation, walked into the exam halls with dark circles under their eyes. Meanwhile, the first-year students in red-and-white uniforms seemed to have taken over the dorm areas and sports field.

Teenagers weren’t afraid of the future or tomorrow. Somehow, the freshmen found a sense of triumph in their easy weekend and wandered around the exam buildings, watching the second and third-year students take their tests.

“What are you so proud of?” said a third-year student who had handed in their paper early. “Your time will come. No one escapes the placement exams.”

Luo Zhiyu had just joined the student council and managed to land a gig as an assistant proctor. He brought a chair and sat in the first second-year exam room. One day he did homework, the next he sketched. The proctoring teacher, seeing how busy he looked, didn’t interrupt.

On Sunday afternoon, the last subject for the second-year placement exams was English. While the teacher graded previous subjects’ papers, Luo Zhiyu tilted his head and listened to the entire audio section. Bored, he started sketching on his paper. Xiao Yan was sitting slightly in front of him to the side, working on the test.

From one glance, Luo Zhiyu could tell that Xiao Yan answered based on instinct, not grammar. He didn’t break down the structure of the questions, just skimmed them and quickly chose his answers. He flipped to the back of the paper in no time. The student behind him got flustered by the sound of the turning page, blushed furiously, and randomly filled in a few answers, trying to keep up.

Amused, Luo Zhiyu began sketching Xiao Yan’s profile in his sketchbook.

A test paper was quietly handed to him.

Luo Zhiyu: “?”

“There’s still nearly an hour until the exam ends,” the proctoring teacher reminded quietly.

“I’ll hand mine in early,” Xiao Yan said in a low voice as he helped Luo Zhiyu gather his scattered notebooks and pens. “Teacher, I’m borrowing your assistant proctor for a bit. We need to go to the hospital.”

“Why are you handing it in early?” Luo Zhiyu asked, hugging his backpack as he followed him out of the classroom. “It’s not urgent. They already scheduled us a number in advance.”

“When you’re done, you submit,” Xiao Yan replied as they walked toward the school gate. As a second-year student, he took the chance to share some exam advice. “Don’t you think, when you finish and go back to change the answers you’re unsure about, they almost always turn out wrong?”

Hesitation leads to failure.

“I’ve noticed that,” Luo Zhiyu nodded. “That’s why I usually don’t check. I just sit there flipping my paper back and forth a few dozen times. It helps the people around me really feel the pressure of time flying by.”

Xiao Yan: “……” Heartless.

The city hospital was packed on weekends, but since they had booked in advance, Luo Zhiyu and Xiao Yan skipped registration and went straight to line up in the testing room.

“They didn’t take blood last time,” Luo Zhiyu muttered as he flipped through the test form. “Why do they need it this time? I get a little dizzy at the sight of blood. Maybe it’s the needle too.”

When he was a kid, a nurse once missed the vein during a blood draw. Ever since then, Luo Zhiyu had felt uneasy about it. Now, staring at the words “Blood Collection” in front of him, his expression turned even more pale.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be quick,” Xiao Yan said without looking up, still focused on the mobile game he was playing with Fan Yue and the others. Their team was about to push the crystal. “The hospital says blood tests are more accurate. Usually you don’t need a blood draw for pheromone compatibility. They only draw blood for premarital check-ups because pheromone compatibility will be written on the marriage certificate.”

“What the hell? Premarital check-ups?” Luo Zhiyu’s voice shot up several notches.

Only then did he realize the people in the waiting area were all in pairs.

The only ones in school uniforms were the two of them, one absorbed in a game, the other fighting an internal battle, with a chair separating them.

And those waiting for their premarital check-ups, whose attention was drawn by his outburst, saw their school uniforms and began to whisper.

Xiao Yan felt a chill down his back. His hands slipped, and he accidentally struck a teammate in the game.