Chapter 8: The Cold School Beauty’s Fierce Love
“Hmph, decided to come back?”
Tao Ning had just taken out her book when a soft snort came from beside her. It was Lü Xinxi, sitting next to her, looking at her resentfully.
Across another row, Jin Yue also glared at her disapprovingly.
Surrounded by two pairs of accusing eyes, Tao Ning: “…”
Before Nangong Yunfei transferred, the traffic light trio were the champions of skipping class in Class A, and they never missed class individually.
Heaven knew how strange the teacher’s surprised look had been during the first three periods when she looked at the two of them, and how even more surprised she became after asking about Xu Qiuyi’s whereabouts. It gave Jin Yue and Lü Xinxi a subtle feeling of being abandoned.
Tao Ning smiled sheepishly: “You were asleep, so I didn’t wake you.”
Lü Xinxi: “As if! You’re just feeling guilty. Which time haven’t you shaken me awake to welcome Her Ladyship’s arrival?”
Tao Ning: “…”
Lü Xinxi tapped her finger: “I don’t have a temper when I wake up.”
“I do, my bad,” Tao Ning said. “Next time, I’ll definitely call you… and Jin Yue.”
“That’s more like it.” Lü Xinxi was satisfied, then remembered something else. “You weren’t close to Xu Qiuyi before, why are you being so nice to her? Oh, do you want to know your enemy, to crush your love rival from the inside?”
Tao Ning felt that some things needed to be clarified, especially with her close friends. Otherwise, everything she did would be misinterpreted as being for Nangong Yunfei, which wouldn’t be conducive to breaking their fated connection.
So she said, “What love rival? I’m not boy-crazy, I reject that persona. I’m not interested in Nangong Yunfei anymore.”
Those words…
Lü Xinxi straightened up with a jolt: “Her Ladyship, experiencing first love, even moved to the same neighborhood for him, and now you’re not interested anymore?”
Tao Ning affirmed: “Yes, not interested anymore. The infatuation only lasted a short while. I realized we’re not the same kind of people.”
Lü Xinxi stared at her for a long moment, then leaned back: “You’ve finally come to your senses. I’ll tell my parents tonight not to get involved in the Nangong family’s affairs. They’re all illegitimate children, they’re really not presentable.”
The current head of the Nangong family was a philanderer. This term needed to be understood separately: promiscuous and a prolific sower of seeds.
He lived a carefree life as a young man, a mafia king in the eyes of the public, a lifelong bachelor, but his lovers and children could form two basketball teams for a match.
Nangong Yunfei was one of the few children bearing the Nangong surname. His mother was a once-famous actress, and he was favored for his resemblance to the head of the family in both appearance and temperament.
Although wealthy families didn’t care much about private lives, people still cared about their reputation. The Nangong family was the only one so audacious and messy.
In fact, when local elites mentioned the Nangong family, the word that followed was “messy.” They generally avoided marrying into the family.
Moreover, the Nangong family’s business… on the surface, it was clean, but everyone knew their underground business was still thriving, like adding fuel to the fire.
When Tao Ning had said she was interested in Nangong Yunfei, Lü Xinxi and Jin Yue’s first reaction was that Tao Ning was blind. The men of the Nangong family were repulsive.
Tao Ning secretly breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the matter was over.
Having recovered, Lü Xinxi launched another attack: “By the way, you still haven’t said why you’re helping Xu Qiuyi. Is there something special about her?”
Tao Ning had to repeat the story she told Xu Qiuyi.
It wasn’t entirely a lie. The nanny did exist, and Lü Xinxi, who had grown up with Tao Ning, also knew the woman.
Lü Xinxi was initially skeptical, but seeing Tao Ning’s serious expression, she immediately realized: “As if! If you want to be friends with her, fine, but Jin Yue and I must always be your best friends.”
Tao Ning opened her mouth to speak, but the bell rang. She quickly urged Lü Xinxi, “Class is starting, hurry up and go back to your seat.”
Lü Xinxi reluctantly moved her chair back, then glanced at the schedule and cried out, “Oh no, I forgot to warn Tao Ning to run! It’s Old Chen’s class.”
But it was too late. The physics teacher had already walked in, wearing his signature leopard-print glasses, and spotted Tao Ning.
Old Chen was unyielding, a typical old scholar.
Whether you were a celebrity or the chairman’s daughter, if you didn’t finish your homework, you would be punished. Even the principal himself was Old Chen’s former student, and even he would have to stand for a lecture.
Because of his excellent teaching quality and his impartial treatment of students regardless of their background, the students’ awe of him outweighed their dislike.
The school also valued this strict teacher. Not all teachers could manage Class A so effectively while maintaining their average scores in the top three.
Caught red-handed, Tao Ning had no choice but to stand for the entire class with her book.
This surprised the Class A students, not because Tao Ning was actually willing to stand for a whole class, but because she had skipped three classes, why would she come back for the fourth and walk right into a trap?
That was Old Chen, the one even Nangong Yunfei avoided.
Tao Ning didn’t know what her classmates were thinking. Holding a book cleaner than her face, she felt troubled.
520, taking advantage of the teacher assigning practice problems, asked: [Host, do you understand?]
Tao, the barely-passing, Ning: “That’s a bit of a loaded question.”
520 gave her a pitying look, kindly reminding her: [You’ll have exams soon, and countless more after that.]
Tao Ning closed her eyes heavily.
She had envisioned this scenario during her practical training, but she hadn’t expected the high school level in this small world to be so difficult.
What a pain, she had to start learning from scratch.
After class, Tao Ning couldn’t escape Old Chen’s second tribulation. She was called to the office.
Five minutes later, Xu Qiuyi saw Tao Ning return with a sullen face, her slender fingers clutching a blank test paper.
“What’s this?” Jin Yue gave her a sympathetic look and said that the questions were too difficult, she couldn’t solve them either.
Tao Ning: “…” She could only float back to her seat like a ghost.
Lü Xinxi was angry: “You asked Jin Yue, why didn’t you ask me?!”
A glimmer of hope ignited in Tao Ning’s dead eyes, and she tremblingly held out the test paper: “Can you do it?”
Lü Xinxi only glanced at the first line and blurted out, “Is this even Chinese?”
“Wasting my feelings.” Tao Ning swiftly retracted the test paper. She knew Little Green hadn’t even understood the questions.
Lü Xinxi burst into laughter: “Hahahahaha!”
Tao Ning’s ears were assaulted by the noise, and she stared resentfully at Lü Xinxi, looking as troubled as a farmer unsure where to plant his radishes.
Lü Xinxi was slumped over her desk, with a head of Polaris-green curls and fair skin.
Xu Qiuyi, witnessing everything: “…”
Tao Ning shooed away the laughing Lü Xinxi, flicked the paper with her fingertip, and thought, “Fine, might as well make the best of it.”
520, which had been worried for the host and was preparing to activate its cheating assistance – of course, cheating on official exams was impossible – became curious.
As a system with professional ethics, a fair and just system, 520 wouldn’t do anything that broke the rules.
It asked: [What are you planning to do?]
Tao Ning tucked the test paper into her physics book: “I have a plan.”
A day passed, and after school, Tao Ning, who insisted she was simply staying in character and not actually a bad student, stopped Xu Qiuyi.
Tao Ning had only blinked, and Xu Qiuyi had vanished from the classroom. Finally spotting her, she quickly shouted, “Xu Qiuyi, wait!”
Xu Qiuyi, struggling to push her bicycle, turned around: “Huh?”
At that moment, the school gate was full of students preparing to get into their cars. Hearing Xu Qiuyi’s name, they all stopped, thinking someone was about to confess to the school beauty in public.
This wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened. According to the forum, when Xu Qiuyi was still in her second year, she calmly rejected a boy’s passionate confession and rode past him on her bicycle.
Later, because the young master was embarrassed and angered by the rejection, he ordered his driver to hit Xu Qiuyi. The driver, unwilling to do so, grabbed the steering wheel, resulting in a crash into the principal’s new car. The principal suffered a hypertensive episode on the spot, and the security guards screamed while calling for an ambulance.
The student was subsequently expelled.
Thus, Ming Rui High School’s rules clearly stated: Students are not allowed to confess in public.
Now, turning around, they saw it was Tao Ning. Oh no, this was even more exciting.
Everyone knew that Miss Tao was interested in Nangong Yunfei. Besides cheering him on during basketball games and handing him water and towels at school, it was said that Tao Yan, the head of the Tao Corporation, had praised Nangong Yunfei’s unlimited potential at a banquet, putting him in the spotlight.
How many young people could earn such praise from Tao Yan? Tao Ning’s future business acumen was uncertain, but her mother, Tao Yan, was undeniably capable, and her judgment of character had never been wrong.
However, Nangong Yunfei was aloof and indifferent to everyone, even to Tao Ning, showing only a bit of gentleness towards Xu Qiuyi.
The onlookers wouldn’t actually believe that Nangong Yunfei noticed Xu Qiuyi just because she spilled something on his uniform on the first day of school. Someone had tried to imitate Xu Qiuyi, but after only slightly wetting Nangong Yunfei’s pants, they were pressured by the Nangong family to withdraw from school.
It was this incident that made everyone certain that Nangong Yunfei’s leniency was solely for Xu Qiuyi.
So, were the school’s two most prominent figures finally going to clash today?
The gossip in their eyes burned fiercely, and with this expectation, they all unconsciously slowed down.
If someone had wandered into the scene, they would have seen a group of people moving as slow as snails, opening car doors and walking in slow motion, as if it were a movie set, the director using slow motion to achieve a bullet-time effect due to budget constraints.
Tao Ning gave a strange look at the person who had cricked their neck from turning too quickly. Even then, the person didn’t look away. She quickly walked up to Xu Qiuyi: “I need something from you.”
Xu Qiuyi glanced at her bicycle and said, “But I need to go fix my bike.”
Tao Ning waved her hand dismissively: “No worries, just tell Uncle Liu the address later, and he’ll take you.”
Without waiting for Xu Qiuyi’s reply, she cupped her hand around her mouth and shouted, “Uncle Liu—”
A chauffeur in a suit emerged from a Bentley not far away: “Miss.”
Tao Ning pointed at the old-fashioned bicycle: “Take this away, put it in the trunk.”
“…” Uncle Liu looked at the large bicycle, its size considerable even when laid flat, and said with difficulty, “Miss, it won’t fit.”
Tao Ning’s words were astonishing: “If it doesn’t fit in the trunk, tie it to the roof. Just take it away!”
Under the shocked and speechless gazes of the crowd, Uncle Liu actually rolled up his sleeves and prepared to hoist the bicycle onto the car roof.
Without another word, Tao Ning pushed the bewildered Xu Qiuyi into the car, closed the door, and, under her puzzled gaze, took out a thin test paper.
Spreading the test paper on Xu Qiuyi’s textbook, holding a pen and smoothing out the creases, Tao Ning said, “I didn’t want to ask for help, but reality has forced my hand. Now I’m begging you, save me.”
Xu Qiuyi: “…”
Tao Ning lifted her slightly flushed face. She had run over in a hurry, her lips red and full: “You don’t mean to say you can’t solve Old Chen’s questions, do you?”
Xu Qiuyi: “I can, let me see the questions first.”
Tao Ning handed her the test paper and a spare pen: “What are you smiling about?”
Xu Qiuyi’s smile widened, but she said, “I’m not smiling, you’re mistaken.”
520, having witnessed this smooth maneuver, gave Tao Ning a virtual thumbs-up: [You little newbie are a genius!]
Looking at the battered bicycle on the Bentley’s roof, the crowd: “…”
The diligent Uncle Liu secured the bicycle, patted his white-gloved hands, then, after a moment of thought, took off his gloves, threw them in the trash, and put on a new pair before getting into the car.
The epitome of a professional chauffeur.
Watching the car drive away, the Ming Rui students left behind felt a mix of emotions.
Someone said, “Is this considered kidnapping?”
Another replied, “Who kidnaps someone and also takes away their worthless scrap bicycle? Even Tao Ning wouldn’t have such unique taste.”
That evening, a video titled “Why did the Tao heiress kidnap the school beauty in public?” became a hot topic on the school forum, attracting many Ming Rui students looking for after-dinner entertainment.
1st post: Clickbait, reported.
2nd post: I came here excitedly, and this is what you show me?
5th post: Thanks, I’m shipping them.
7th post: Reply to the 3rd post, what are you shipping? Aren’t they sworn enemies?
11th post: You uncultured swine, you’ll never understand. Yuri is justice! (resounding voice)
30th post: I’m from another school, borrowing a friend’s account to eat melon. They’re enemies? Damn, that makes it even better…
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