Chapter 112: The School’s Public Enemy

Before noon, the matter of Lin Le’s bet with He Ruolan had already spread all over Haizhou No. 1 High School.

Of course it wasn’t because Lin Le had blurted it out, and it had nothing to do with He Ruolan’s doing. It was simply that while they were talking upstairs, a teacher happened to pass through the corridor below and overheard them.

Fortunately, that teacher had only heard about their wager and the promised dinner afterward. Whatever they had discussed about “Perfume” afterward either never reached him, or if it did, he lacked the wit to catch its meaning.

No one had any hope that Lin Le could win the bet and rise into the top five of the monthly exam rankings. They all thought this “Great Lin” had finally gone too far, boasting so wildly that he didn’t just fling a satellite—this time he was launching an entire galaxy.

With his current grades, let alone entering the top five, he could barely have kept himself out of the bottom five. That alone would have been remarkable.

Even so, it didn’t stop him from almost becoming the male enemy of the entire school.

No one believed Lin Le could actually pull it off. But because of that monthly-exam wager, he had become the center of gossip, linked to the object of desire of every male student and even male staff—from teachers to gardeners to janitors. That alone was enough to make everyone burn with envy.

And as if that weren’t enough, the terms of the bet were that if he won, He Ruolan would treat him to a meal.

In their eyes, it was a desecration of their goddess.

So when Lin Le walked through the campus, he met with hostile stares from nearly every boy along the way.

It felt exactly like he had slept with all their girlfriends.

“Dumb kid as you are, you think He Teacher is going to invite you to dinner? Go eat dirt!” they jeered.

They were all impatient to see him fail the next month’s exam and be forced out of Haizhou No. 1 High School.

The good reputation Lin Le had earned by punching Zhao Hu and stomping the Fighting Maiden was completely destroyed by this one bet.

Even his seatmate, Lu Hongzhe, couldn’t help smirking when he heard about it.

“Le-ge, I’m telling you,” Lu said, “whoever you choose to pick on, pick anyone. Why did you have to pick Teacher He? She is my dream girl.”

“As if every attractive girl in Haizhou No. 1 High School isn’t your dream girl,” Lin Le replied flatly.

These resentful reactions didn’t bother him at all. But through them, he truly saw how much charm He Ruolan had.
She really did have the kind of influence that made every male beast on campus heart-throb.
Being called a goddess among teachers was no exaggeration.

Lin Le had proposed the bet only to prove himself to He Ruolan. But now his mindset had shifted.

You boys hate me because of He Ruolan, don’t you? Then I’ll make you hate me all the way through.

This time, I’ll win once, make your delicate glass hearts shatter into dust. I’ll see if they can stay whole.

With that resolve, he set to studying at once.

To be honest, even setting aside the three years he lost to military service, his grades before this were already a wreck because of his frivolous, playboy habits.

What made him bold enough to boast in front of He Ruolan was his confidence in his current level of cultivation. Since building a firm foundation in his cultivation, not only had his body strengthened, but his mind had changed profoundly.

His psychology, intelligence, logic, observational ability—everything had transformed, already far beyond the average person.

It was because of that realization that he had dared to make such a bet.

All right then—if all of you think I’m just an ignorant fool with trash grades, I’ll show you what smart looks like.
This time, I’m going to taste what it means to be an academic star.

Once he decided, Lin Le moved into his study plan.

“Lu Hongzhe, listen carefully. Tomorrow when you come to school, bring me all your first- and second-year senior high textbooks.”

“Uh... and your junior high ones too. Never mind, bring your primary school books too,” he added, suddenly less certain.

Damn, I’m embarrassed, he thought. Maybe I should have gone back and started from first grade.

“Le-ge, I even still have my kindergarten and kindergarten-literacy textbooks. Want me to bring those too?” Lu asked with mock seriousness.

“No, those aren’t necessary for now...” he began, then suddenly realized: the kid was clearly mocking him.

“Stop the chatter. If I asked for them, just bring them.”

“Le-ge, even cramming at the last minute isn’t done like this. If we can’t do it, we might as well give up,” Lu muttered with a defeated tone.

“Click-click...” Lin Le’s fingers snapped together. Lu immediately gave in.

“Fine. I’ll bring all my textbooks from junior high and primary school tomorrow. I know you can do it,” Lu said in fake confidence.

At noon, when classes were over, Xu Xier had already been waiting by the door of Grade Three, Class Eight.

After a month away, she seemed even more beautiful, brimming with the energy of a lively young girl.

“Lin Le, brother, you came back and didn’t even tell Xuer,” Xu said, pouting in mild annoyance.

“Sorry. I had planned to come find you after school,” he replied quickly.

“By the way, Xuer—have your strange episodes come back?” he asked after they found a spot in the school cafeteria.

That had been his deepest worry these past days.

“Those things usually come only every few months. Since the last time, it hasn’t happened again,” she said, her rosy mouth and pouty expression making her look adorably pouty as she ate.

“Good. I’ll start looking into it more seriously as well. But about what I told you before—talk it over with your mother. I hope she agrees.” He was referring, naturally, to using deep telepathic probing to examine the Buddha-heart inside her.

“All right... I’ll tell my mother again,” Xu Xier said, a little hesitant.

In fact, she had already brought it up before with her mother, Zhu Mengyan. Zhu had flatly refused and had also told her to stop talking about the Buddha-heart in her body with Lin Le as much as possible from then on.

At that moment, as Lin Le was speaking, a voice suddenly came from behind them.

“‘Talk to your mother first’? Are you meeting parents? Master, and Big-Beauty Xu—are you two planning to get married?”

Lin Le had just taken a bite of food and nearly choked.

Ji Xiaorui’s loud voice drew everyone’s eyes in the cafeteria toward Lin Le at once.
The room had been noisy one second before; the moment she blurted that he was going to marry the campus beauty, it fell utterly still—so still one could have heard a needle drop.

“Uh...” Ji Xiaorui finally realized she'd spoken too loudly and stood there awkwardly, flustered.

“Ha-ha, maybe I misheard—you two didn’t say you’re getting married, of course you didn’t,” she said, sheepishly explaining to the gathered students.

Lin Le exhaled and pressed a hand to his forehead.
Little niece, do you know some people only make things worse the more they explain?

At that moment, he felt almost ready for righteous revenge. He had just become the school’s male enemy for He Ruolan that morning, and now he was suddenly revealed as allegedly engaged to marry Xu, the school’s top beauty.

With this troublemaking girl around, Lin Le thought, one day if he were to be run down by a car on the street and lie in pieces across the pavement, he wouldn’t be too surprised.