After Transmigrating for the Third Time, the Real Young Master Decides to Slouch - Chapter 18

Jiang Zao carried two servings of plum blossom cake up to the rooftop.

Jiayin strictly forbade anyone from entering the rooftop, and it was even locked. Jiang Zao twisted open the door handle and walked in.

The rooftop was full of green plants and flowers everywhere, lush and verdant like a garden in the sky. A small path led into some unknown place deeper inside. Jiang Zao followed the path for a while, and the view before him suddenly opened up.

Under a sun umbrella was a white round table, matched with a pair of white-backed chairs. Clearly, it was for people to rest and enjoy the scenery. But right now, the place was empty. Aside from Jiang Zao, there was no one there.

Very light footsteps came from behind him. The next second, Jiang Zao was hugged from behind.

“Xiao Zao, I was wrong. Don’t ignore me, okay?” Unlike the man’s slightly cold body temperature, the hot breath of his words spilled over Jiang Zao’s neck.

Jiang Zao turned his head and met Rong Jingcheng’s eyes. The man, who had always been so high-spirited and brilliant, was now nuzzling against his neck, looking aggrieved like a big dog abandoned by its owner.

Jiang Zao sighed softly. “You’re heavy.”

Rong Jingcheng blinked his beautiful brows and eyes. “Have I gained weight? Then I’ll eat less from now on.”

Jiang Zao sighed again in his heart and asked, “Have you eaten?”

When Rong Jingcheng shook his head, his hair brushed Jiang Zao’s neck until it itched. “No. Because Xiao Zao wouldn’t answer my calls. I was so sad.”

“Is that my fault?” Jiang Zao asked.

Rong Jingcheng obediently admitted his mistake. “My fault.”

“Let go first,” Jiang Zao said. After Rong Jingcheng released him, Jiang Zao walked to the round table and put down the things he had brought. “Come eat.”

Rong Jingcheng walked over and saw what was inside the bag. “Plum blossom cake. I remember Xiao Zao likes this very much.”

“I happened to see it being sold in the cafeteria.” As Jiang Zao spoke, he glanced at him. Rong Jingcheng’s smile remained as usual, flawless without the slightest crack.

“What a coincidence,” he said.

The plum blossom cakes sold at the school were the luxury, fully loaded version. One bite brought together the taste of all sorts of sweet ingredients in the mouth, so sweet and rich that it reached the peak of cloying.

“So sweet.” Rong Jingcheng looked as if he had been overwhelmed by it. “Xiao Zao really does like sweets.”

“If you don’t like it, don’t eat it.” Jiang Zao glanced at him.

Rong Jingcheng shook his head wildly. “No, I like it. If Xiao Zao likes it, of course I’ll like it.”

Jiang Zao did not speak and focused on eating the plum blossom cake. It tasted exactly as he remembered. Very sweet and very delicious. Probably because he had spent years in a state of overusing his brain, his acceptance of sweets was very high. Foods other people found so sweet they became cloying were all things he liked very much.

Rong Jingcheng was clearly less interested in the food than in Jiang Zao. After eating a few symbolic bites, he put his attention on Jiang Zao. “Seeing you wear the clothes I gave you makes me very happy.”

Jiang Zao lowered his head and looked once, then said faintly, “If you could give me clothes that weren’t so flashy, I’d also be very happy.”

The “flashy” he spoke of did not mean that those clothes were strange or bizarre, but that they were far too un-low-key. Even a random button was made of an expensive gemstone. This morning, he had searched through them for a long time before barely finding an outfit that was relatively ordinary.

Rong Jingcheng disagreed. “But those clothes were all custom-made for you by me. They suit you very well.”

Jiang Zao was silent. That, he could not deny. While they had been chatting in the morning, Xia Wei had complimented his fashion taste and even asked where he had bought the clothes, saying she wanted to buy one for a family member too. Jiang Zao had thought for a moment, then answered that they had been custom-made. Xia Wei had expressed understanding and asked no more.

Knowing that there was no getting through to him, Jiang Zao did not waste his effort. He swept a glance around and asked, “Was this place renovated?”

“Yes.” Rong Jingcheng nodded.

He smiled and continued on his own, as if claiming credit. “After all, this place carries so many memories of me and Xiao Zao. So even though we graduated a long time ago, I occasionally come here to sit and remember the beautiful times we spent together.”

“It was only one year, and only during lunch breaks every day.” Jiang Zao was not led astray by his nostalgic tone and pointed it out calmly.

Rong Jingcheng shook his head, his expression saying that Jiang Zao truly did not understand romance. “Xiao Zao, if you act like this, you’ll be single for life.”

“Oh, really?” Jiang Zao yawned. “I’ve already eaten with you. I’m going back to rest.”

He got up to leave, but Rong Jingcheng reached out and pulled him, so Jiang Zao fell back down again.

Rong Jingcheng propped himself against the table and looked at him with a smile. “Since we’re already revisiting an old place, why not relive the old routine too? Rest here.”

Jiang Zao refused without even thinking. “No. I have a place to rest, so why would I stay here?”

Rong Jingcheng acted spoiled. “Xiao Zao is so cruel. You have somewhere, but I don’t. Can you really bear to leave me here all alone and pitiful? Come on, come on, Xiao Zao.”

The sweetness and cloyingness of this coquettish act were high enough to make one’s teeth ache. Jiang Zao was disgusted. Rong Jingcheng was really lying through his teeth. As the dignified School Director Rong, if he wanted to find a place to rest at school, would he be worried there was nowhere?

But in the end, he could not bear to ignore the grievance shown on that man’s face. Jiang Zao nodded helplessly. “Fine.”

Rong Jingcheng hooked his hand around Jiang Zao’s and led him up, walking to the bench on the other side.

There was no sun umbrella here, but the shade cast by the tall greenery formed a natural cover. Sunlight spilled warmly through the gaps in the plants, and lingering fragrance surrounded the tip of his nose. Jiang Zao suddenly felt a little dazed. Looking at the man lying on his lap with his eyes closed, Jiang Zao raised his hand to shield the area above Rong Jingcheng’s eyes, and speckles of light fell onto the back of his hand.

Jiang Zao smiled. How many years had it been since he last did something so childish?

His palm suddenly felt itchy. Jiang Zao was very familiar with this feeling. It was the sensation of thick eyelashes brushing across his skin. He moved his hand away and met those smiling eyes.

Rong Jingcheng slid his fingers between Jiang Zao’s. “How did Xiao Zao know I was here?”

“I came to try my luck.” Jiang Zao answered casually. “If I couldn’t find you, I would’ve gone back.”

Rong Jingcheng breathed a sigh of relief, tightened his grip on Jiang Zao’s hand, and said with a smile, “Good thing I kept waiting here.”

Jiang Zao had no classes in the afternoon. After all, he only taught one class, Grade 11 Class 19, so his teaching pressure was not as heavy as other teachers who taught several classes. But that did not mean he was very free.

He was still Class 19’s homeroom teacher. Perhaps the slackness brought by the beginning of school had passed, because Class 19’s active troublemakers began causing trouble.

The homeroom teachers of several classes came to complain. Jiang Zao’s brain buzzed from their overlapping voices, and he could not even get a word in. After finally waiting until they paused a little, he immediately seized the chance to speak. “Teachers, can you speak one at a time?”

The teachers began talking over each other again.

“Stop!” Jiang Zao raised his voice and suppressed theirs, but he did not often do this. After shouting, his throat hurt so much that he coughed several times, but he still endured it and said, “One at a time. Starting with you.”

The person he pointed at was a refined male teacher in his thirties. “Teacher Jiang, aren’t the students in your class too overbearing? As soon as class ended, they occupied the restroom on this floor and declared that only people from Class 19 could use it. The other students could only be forced to go to other floors!”

Next was a stern middle-aged female teacher. “The students in our class only stopped for a moment outside Class 19’s classroom, yet they were actually grabbed and thrown out. What, has Class 19 declared independence now? Its territory cannot be violated by outsiders?”

The fashionably dressed young female teacher had a gentle voice, but she could not hide her anger. “The boys in your class whistled at me. Even if adolescent boys are easily attracted to the opposite sex, isn’t this behavior still inappropriate? Do they have even the most basic respect for women?”

The thin, tall, sickly-looking middle-aged male teacher seemed to have no strength to be angry. He said weakly, “The students in your class took your class’s start-of-term exam ranking chart and pasted it on the notice boards outside other classes everywhere. What kind of behavior is that?”

Jiang Zao could not hold back and laughed.

He waved his hand. “Sorry, sorry, my apologies!” He looked at the last person. “And this teacher, what complaint do you have?”

The last teacher had a baby face and felt a little awkward being stared at by everyone. He said, “I’m not here to complain. I wanted to ask Teacher Jiang for a copy of your start-of-term test paper so I can take it back and let my class practice with it.”

His words reminded the others, so the number of people asking for the test paper increased. “Give me a copy too. I want to see what kind of paper it is that all of them could score full marks.”

Meng Qiuyu stood nearby watching with a thermos in hand. He heard someone quietly mutter, “A paper even they could get full marks on. Taking it back for the students should boost their confidence a bit.” He thought to himself that it probably would not boost anything. After all, those scores had all been randomly given by those kids themselves. Didn’t they see that even the first-place student in the grade had not gotten full marks and was ranked third from the bottom?

Afterward, he had carefully studied that test paper. The difficulty range of the entire paper was very large. About eighty points’ worth of questions could be obtained by ordinary students working through them normally, but that was about it. The remaining questions were so difficult that even teachers of the corresponding subjects would have to think for a while before finding an approach. Getting above ninety would already make someone an excellent student. Someone like Lu She, who scored 98, was absolutely worthy of being first in the grade.

But the person Meng Qiuyu admired most was still Jiang Zao. Although the paper was not written by him, Meng Qiuyu had personally witnessed how Teacher Jiang selected this one paper from among a dazzling number of test papers in under ten minutes. If it was not a blind cat running into a dead mouse by chance, then it could only mean that whether in terms of knowledge reserves or judgment ability, this person was first-rate. Clearly, Meng Qiuyu believed Jiang Zao was the latter.

The other teachers in the office who knew the inside story had the same reaction. But they had no kind intention of reminding anyone. Instead, they struggled to hold back their laughter. After teaching Class 19 for so long, even if they had no feelings for the students, they were still their students. Whether this was a misunderstanding or not, ranking higher than other classes still reflected well on them. Of course, cheating on exams was absolutely unacceptable.

Only Jiang Zao looked completely normal as he found the test paper, photocopied several copies, and handed them out one by one to the homeroom teachers. He also courteously guaranteed that he would discipline the students, then sent them away.

Once the outsiders were gone, the other teachers could speak more easily.

“Teacher Jiang, don’t take it to heart. These students have always been like this. You’ll get used to it.”

“They didn’t really come expecting you to solve anything. They just came to complain and vent. After all, you’re the homeroom teacher.”

“Actually, the earlier things are all routine operations. But I really didn’t expect them to paste the ranking chart everywhere. You have to take half the blame for that one, haha!”

The last sentence was obviously a joke. Jiang Zao smiled along and did not take it to heart. But what he was thinking was that school had already been going for several days. These mischievous incidents had not happened before, yet by such perfect coincidence, they all broke out collectively after the open class. If anyone said this had not been caused by the stimulation from this morning, he would not believe it.

Whether they had been stimulated or not was none of his concern, but these actions still had to be stopped. Otherwise, every day he would have no need to do anything else and could just sit in the office waiting for other classes to come complain.

Just then, the class dismissal bell rang. Jiang Zao stood up. Seeing this, Xia Wei asked, “Is Teacher Jiang going out?”

“To the restroom,” Jiang Zao said, then left.

The others looked at one another. If it was the restroom, there was one in the office. Going outside could only mean the restroom on the classroom floor.

This Teacher Jiang—when something happened, he really did handle it.