Chapter 45: Don't Die Next to Me in a Zombie Apocalypse, I'm Scared of Level Two Zombies

Zhang Ningzhi felt as though she had lost all her face for the entire day. "Okay... thank you, I'll transfer the money to you via my phone."

"Mhm." Jiang Nian nodded.

Even a lord's household had no surplus grain; a portion of the money in his hands was reserved for the next system task, such as the double-reward task for gym attendance and purchasing fitness courses.

The other portion was intended for home use. Buying a house was out of the question for now, but he could consider improving their quality of life by upgrading and replacing some household appliances and furniture.

Compared to spending money just to show off, he preferred spending it on the old folks at home.

Jiang Nian carried the two water cups out of the classroom, retrieved his umbrella hanging from the corridor windowsill, and strolled leisurely toward the other end of the corridor. The phone in his pocket buzzed.

He took it out and glanced at it. Lemon Branch had sent a regular red packet.

He tapped it open: fifty yuan.

Huh?

That was a bit too much. Jiang Nian suspected that had he not brought white congee, the amount he collected would likely have been a hundred. True to being the young miss of Nanjiang Bay, her spending was certainly lavish.

Usually, when joking around, people said, "Venmo me 50," but she was actually playing for real?

Jiang Nian placed the water cup on top of the water dispenser, turned around to head downstairs, and typed out a reply, "The original price of the white congee is two yuan and fifty cents, but the cafeteria auntie usually sells it to me for two."

He wasn't deliberately emphasizing that good looks could get you a discount—even though his pride was only worth fifty cents, at least the discount rate was almost rivaling Alipay's face-scanning red packets.

Lemon Branch: "Your face is actually worth fifty cents?!"

Huh?

Such cautious punctuation, actually adding an exclamation mark right after a question mark. And she hadn't added any emojis to indicate she meant no mockery at all.

Fifty cents! Even fifty cents was love.

His heart was as cold as concrete.

Jiang Nian replied with a sticker of the Longtu meme and tucked his phone back into his pocket. He glanced at the curtain of rain, opened his umbrella, and stepped into it. His freeloading skills were becoming increasingly practiced.

Still, fifty yuan came with fifty-yuan-level service; he passed by the cafeteria without stopping.

I'm sorry, Auntie, she gave too much!

Stepping out of the school's west gate was Red Flag Road, while the front entrance opened onto a short street. Next to it was a pedestrian street housing a small supermarket, where everything from food to clothing and daily necessities could be found.

He picked and chose to buy a packaged block of old brown sugar, then stopped by a roadside congee shop to buy a piping hot box of white congee, causing the price to instantly soar to four yuan and fifty cents.

Regrettably, there was no fifty-cent discount for scanning his face.

He didn't forget to buy himself a bottle of Sprite either—the big 1.25-liter fat bottle of Sprite. Treating those rascals to drinks directly would put psychological pressure on them.

But if he just bought one big bottle, needless to say, they would help themselves.

Having finished everything, he held his umbrella and returned to the senior high school building. Actually, the senior building had a name; it used to be called Diligence Building, but by Jiang Nian's grade, it had been renamed Virtue Reflection Building.

The school leadership certainly understood passive-aggressiveness: they didn't ask for diligence, just a lack of depravity.

Jiang Nian walked upstairs, flicked the water droplets off his umbrella, the liquid forming a straight line onto the stairs before instantly vanishing. As he reached the gap on the third floor, a muffled roll of thunder echoed through the clouds.

A flash of lightning illuminated the hallway, and on the third floor, he caught sight of a familiar figure—Zhou Haifei with her black-framed glasses. Their gazes met for just a second before they hurriedly looked away.

"Here."

"Thank you."

Zhang Ningzhi accepted the still-scalding congee and immediately knew this wasn't from the cafeteria. There was a congee shop outside the school, but in such heavy rain just now...

She sipped the congee in small mouthfuls while Jiang Nian had already left.

In the afternoon.

The first period was physics, and Jiang Nian snapped his eyes wide open. He had no idea when he had fallen asleep; it was only upon waking up that he realized he had just dozed off.

Damn it, and here he thought he was listening to the lecture.

Chinese school youth didn't have JK pure romance, only pure classroom drowsiness.

Turning his head to look at Li Hua, that scoundrel was already preparing to take out his Wind-Oil-Balm. Was he planning to smell it... No, he actually licked it! He drank a bit of the Wind-Oil-Balm directly!

Holy crap!

This sight instantly jolted Jiang Nian wide awake, and he gave Li Hua a shove.

"You're really out of your mind with hunger, aren't you!"

Li Hua didn't keep good things to himself, "Brother, give it a taste."

"No need, bro, you enjoy it all by yourself." Jiang Nian waved his hands repeatedly. The Wind-Oil-Balm really worked; the moment he saw Li Hua lick it, he wasn't sleepy anymore.

"Xuezi, hook me up with a sip." Li Hua was a habitual beggar.

"What kind of vulgar slang is that?"

"If not Xuezi, should I call it Bizhi?" Li Hua had his eyes on the fat Sprite sitting on Jiang Nian's desk. "Whatever it is, hurry up and give me a sip, my mouth is full of that taste."

Jiang Nian handed the Sprite over to him. Li Hua stealthily unscrewed the cap to release the pressure, and taking advantage of the physics teacher turning around to write on the blackboard, he quickly poured a mouthful into his mouth from a distance.

In an instant, that sour and refreshing sensation—Jiang Nian saw Li Hua's eyes turn red and couldn't help giving him a thumbs-up.

Awesome! No wonder science prodigies were different from ordinary people!

Bro, when the resident evil apocalypse hits, please don't die next to me. At eighteen years old, I'm terrified of secondary mutation zombies.

Zhang Ningzhi in the front row was also feeling somewhat sleepy, and her lower abdomen was aching faintly. Although it had felt much better after she drank a few sips of hot congee at noon, she reached down and picked her thermos up from the floor.

The reason she didn't place it on the desk was out of fear that during a class or self-study session, it might accidentally fall off. A loud thud attracting everyone's gaze was an extreme social death experience for her.

The hot water had been filled by Jiang Nian. At this thought, the tip of Zhang Ningzhi's heart felt a slight, tender ache.

She unscrewed the cap, and steam curled upward.

She sniffed. This sweet and rich scent didn't seem like plain boiled water. It had a reddish tint. Zhang Ningzhi froze and instinctively glanced up at the physics teacher, who was still writing on the blackboard.

She took a cautious sip, and sure enough, it was brown sugar water.

Jiang Nian was far too attentive.

Jiang Nian: "???" Spreading rumors, are we?!

Fifty-yuan service naturally came with fifty-yuan quality; every industry was locked in a rat race, driving people to their limits.

Finally, the class ended, and the entire class slumped over their desks.

During the second recess, the big guy Ma Guojun automatically spawned next to Li Hua's desk. Reaching out toward Jiang Nian, he took a large, contactless gulp of the Sprite.

"Thanks, Brother Nian."

Having said that, Ma Guojun suddenly felt something was amiss and asked Jiang Nian, who was resting his head on his hand while working on math problems, "Jiang Nian, you used to go to Number Two High, right?"

"Mhm."

"Do you know how to play basketball?"

"Yeah, learned it back when I was a trainee in the TF Family," Jiang Nian answered lazily and randomly. "Later on, my trainee status was revoked because I assaulted the judges."

"You knew him back at Number Two High?" Li Hua asked curiously.

Zhang Ningzhi in the front row was memorizing vocabulary words, but she also quietly pricked up her ears.

"No, I remember there was an asshole at Number Two High who was also named something-Nian, and he got into a brawl with three or four guys over a basketball game," Ma Guojun scratched his head. "After winning the fight, in the heat of the moment, he threw those guys' shoes into the restroom."

Jiang Nian turned his head away nonchalantly, "That really sounds like an asshole."

Ma Guojun looked puzzled, "Could that have been you?"

"Huh?" Jiang Nian wore an exaggerated expression of disbelief. "How could that be? I didn't like playing basketball in middle school. In fact, I only started learning in high school. Stop slandering me out of nowhere."

"True, I'll go ask someone about it another day," Ma Guojun nodded.

"Hey ~ You..." Jiang Nian pointed at him, smiling very reluctantly. "There's no need for that, right? What if that person has already gone abroad to study? Why are you so gossipy?"

Hearing this, even Zhang Ningzhi in the front row turned around, and a group of people looked at him with weird expressions.