Chapter 3

As Song Haowen heard the voice, he explained, “Teacher Dong, you came just in time. Class 3’s Zhu Yuanyuan stole two yuan worth of my vegetable tickets.”

Zhu Yuanyuan immediately protested, “I didn’t. Song Haowen slandered me. I’ll sue you for tarnishing my reputation.”

Believing that Song Haowen could not slander Zhu yuanyuan for no reason, Mr. Dong Xing ignored Zhu Yuanyuan and asked Song Haowen, “Do you have any proof for saying that?”

Song Haowen smiled faintly and said, “Of course. At the back of my vegetable tickets, I have written something on them with a pen: Big letter ‘XT.’ Everyone will know at a glance.”

He took advantage of Zhu Yuan Yuan’s dazed moment, grabbed his hands, and took the vegetable tickets. In front of the teacher and all the students, the two letters were displayed.

Zhu Yuanyuan was immediately dumbfounded and suddenly speechless.

The classmate next to him called out, “Zhu Yuanyuan, you have to call Song Haowen a father!”

Zhu Yuanyuan immediately became irritated and yelled at the classmate who spoke, “Shut up!”

Teacher Dong Xing was furious and said to Zhu Yuanyuan, “Come with me to the principal’s office immediately and explain to Principal Li. Song Haowen, you go and prove it. The other students should stop talking and go to the classroom for self-study.”

Looking at Zhu Yuanyuan, who was wilting behind Teacher Dong Xing, Song Haowen was secretly happy; he was now 100% convinced that the sock was deliberately put there by the other party.

He thought that maybe he was young (16 years old) and honest, so he was deliberately making fun of him; otherwise, why would he do that? Why did he tease him like this? He would not know it from his previous life. But it is not the same as it was in his previous life. He has more experience now.

After all, Zhu Yuanyuan is only 18 years old and has a birthday in ten days, so he is a minor.

He arrived at the principal’s office, initially with a hard mouth, after being named Principal Li (Song Haowen had been reborn before; Principal Li was chosen because of good school governance and outstanding achievements; he later was promoted to the county school board director position) and after a stinging criticism from principal. Zhu yuanyuan could not stand it and confessed; tears and snot are all over the place.

The socks were really the work of Zhu Yuanyuan. At first, he just felt fun; he did stuff the stinky socks at night to Song Haowen, Zhou Lei, and other students under the pillow of their beds, and then quietly took them back during the day.

Seeing that people did not notice, he had the opportunity to do this immoral thing and enjoy himself. Last night, on a whim, he stole socks from a few students and put them in Song Haowen’s place. In the morning, when Song Haowen went out, he wanted to retrieve the socks and return them to their owner. But the socks disappeared, but he saw the vegetable tickets, and in a moment of greed, he stole them.

After Song Haowen knew all this, he was so angry that he gritted his teeth and wanted to kick the Zhu Yuanyuan a few times to relieve his anger. Principal Li considered that Zhu Yuanyuan’s graduation is imminent, the attitude of admitting mistakes is okay, and it is a first offense, and did not record treatment on him but only a severe criticism of him, asking him to hand in a check and apologize to Song Haowen, accompanied by courtesy.

Song Haowen got back his own vegetable tickets, listened to the persuasion of Teacher Dong Xing, and immediately said he no longer cared about the matter.

After this incident, Zhu Yuanyuan felt that he was humiliated in front of his classmates, could not hold up his head, and hated Song Haowen in his heart. He’s going to look for opportunities to take revenge. He wants to cripple the other party so that it cannot participate in the college entrance exams to get relief from this humiliation.

A week later, Zhu Yuanyuan finally caught the opportunity.

On Sunday, the film “Liu Sanjie” was screened in the commune hall. This film had caused quite a sensation in its previous life. Nearly everyone in the audience would hum a few lines from the soloist and duet in the play.

Even though there were only 20 days left before the college entrance examination, a handful of students still dared to evade their teachers and secretly watch it for a moment of relaxation. Song Haowen had watched it in his past life, and upon returning to his dormitory, he felt an adrenaline rush.

His mind buzzed with the melody of Liu Sanjie’s singing, making it difficult for him to sleep that night. The next day, he struggled to stay awake during self-study class, feeling dizzy and drowsy.

As a passerby, Song Haowen also yearned to relive the excitement of that year. After the film ended, the audience poured out of the hall, quickly enveloping several of Song Haowen’s classmates. Strangely, this scene triggered Song Haowen’s memory of a line from the Soviet movie “Lenin in 1918”: “Please let Comrade Lenin go first.” Startled, he scanned his surroundings and noticed several street thugs seemingly heading his way.

Although Song Haowen wasn’t sure of their intentions, he thought it wise to distance himself from trouble, especially with the college entrance examination looming. Soon, he evaded the crowd and took a shortcut through a quiet alley.

Crossing this two- or three-hundred-meter-long lane and then navigating two intersections would lead him back to the school gate. Unexpectedly, as Song Haowen emerged from the alley, the gangsters he had spotted earlier rushed over and blocked the intersection.

Around twenty years old, each wielding a stick, the six gangsters confronted Song Haowen. Despite being surprised, Song Haowen remained unafraid. In his previous life, he had secretly learned some kung fu, which, combined with decades of practice, gave him confidence in handling himself.

Remaining calm, Song Haowen asked, “What do you guys want?”

“I’m going to beat you to death!” bellowed a burly gangster with yellow hair, apparently their leader.

Perplexed, Song Haowen asked, “Do we have any grudges? It seems we don’t know each other well.”

Growing impatient, Yellow Hair retorted, “Kneel down obediently and beg for mercy. I might go easy on you.”

Song Haowen smirked, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll beat you instead? Just so you know, I can’t control my strength.”

The gangsters laughed at the thought of a thin, sixteen-year-old student challenging them. Ignoring the laughter, Song Haowen took action. Kicking two gangsters in the chest, he sent them flying, incapacitated. The others were left dumbfounded.

Approaching them, Song Haowen patted their faces, revealing their fear. He grabbed the guy with long yellow hair and asked, “Who ordered you to harm me?”

Huang Mao was still hesitating about telling the truth, but another gangster couldn’t help but admit the truth. After listening to his confession, Song Haowen understood the whole story.

It turns out that Huang Mao is Zhu Yuanyuan’s cousin, who lives on the street and has a gang and underlings under his command.

When he heard that his cousin had been humiliated at school and was intent on taking revenge, he volunteered to take revenge for him.

Today, Song Haowen came out to watch the film, and Zhu Yuanyuan knew it. He secretly identified Song Haowen to Huang Mao, and then he hid to watch.

Song Haowen didn’t find Zhu Yuanyuan; otherwise, he would have beat him already.

Song Haowen did not need to beat Huang Mao and his underlings, and there was no need for him to be angry with these thugs. Zhu yuanyuan was the one he should deal with.

After driving them away, he went back to find Zhu Yuanyuan to settle accounts. When he arrived at the dormitory, he found that the other party had not returned. He waited for a long time until all his classmates from the last night’s self-study had returned and found no trace of him. Song Haowen couldn’t help but sneer. Zhu Yuanyuan seems to be acting like a thief with a guilty conscience, afraid of retaliation after being exposed and too scared to come back.

He thought, “It might be for the best to avoid heated confrontation since Examination is ahead of us “

The next day, Zhu Yuanyuan still didn’t show up.

Song Haowen inquired with his classmates in Class 3 of Section Two and learned that Zhu Yuanyuan had taken sick leave and did not know when he would return to school. Upon receiving this news, Song Haowen secretly cursed the other party; he deserved it anyway.

Another week passed in a flash. The college entrance examination entered the countdown stage.

In the first class of the morning, the school issued another set of quiz papers. Before that, three sets had been issued, the last of which was the college entrance examination. Therefore, the students took it seriously.

Song Haowen glanced through the examination paper and found it uninteresting and too simple.

He abandoned it and ignored it. He took out the Soviet novel “Brave” and browsed it. This novel has a much larger length and a much more complex plot than the book “How Steel Was Tempered.”

In his previous life, Song Haowen spent more than a month in the first semester of his senior year of high school secretly reading it without his teacher’s knowledge.

Now, he is mainly reviewing out of boredom. Perhaps Song Haowen was too focused on it, and the head teacher, Dong Xing, stood beside him for a full minute, but he didn’t even notice.

Finally, it was Teacher Dong Xing who gave a slight cough before he realized that someone stood beside him. He smiled apologetically at Dong Xing’s teacher and hurriedly put down his novel, replacing it with an exam paper. Dong Xing’s teacher also smiled at him; perhaps considering that he would graduate in a few days and take the college entrance examination, he didn’t criticize him but said softly, “You are so brave to still have time to be leisurely now.”

No matter how thick his face is, Song Haowen can’t help but take the exam. He immediately concentrated on answering the questions carefully, and by the end of the fourth class in the morning, he had completed all five exams in mathematics, physics, chemistry, language, and politics.

At that time, foreign language college entrance examination scores were only useful when they entered the first batch of admission lines and only counted as 10%.

That is to say, if a 100% test paper had a full score, it could only count as 10%. Therefore, except for the top five candidates in the grade, other students simply gave up English.

However, after his rebirth, Song Haowen had ambitions and could not give up on learning foreign languages. Therefore, in the afternoon self-study class, he basically spent all his time on English.