After Cannon Fodder A Accidentally Marked the Cold Film Queen - Chapter 68

The campus in the afternoon looked as if its colors had been brightened by the sun. Heat shimmered off the red rubber track, and the shadows of plane trees spread across the ground in varying shades of deep and light green.

The wind swept through the gaps between the school buildings, catching the low ponytail hanging behind Zhu Songning and lifting it in a graceful arc.

She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Luo Chuanhe in front of the newly posted monthly exam rankings.

Luo Chuanhe, out of habit, started scanning the names from the bottom up. Sure enough, she found herself at 101st place from the back and let out a long sigh of relief.

“Thank God! My mom said if I was in the bottom 100 again, she was going to smash my guitar!”

Luo Chuanhe gestured exaggeratedly as she described her mother’s threats, her voice making the scene incredibly vivid.

She rambled on for a good while before finally snapping out of it. Resting her elbow on Zhu Songning’s shoulder, she gave her a nudge. “Hey, how about you? Still the ‘Eternal Number Two’?”

Zhu Songning remained silent.

However, her silence seemed to speak for itself. She stared fixedly at the top-left corner of the ranking list, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

Luo Chuanhe followed her gaze.

Senior Year 3rd Monthly Exam Results:

1. Shen Qingyu — 686 points
2. Zhu Songning — 679 points

Seeing Zhu Songning’s expression grow increasingly grim, Luo Chuanhe reflexively shut her motor-mouth.

Uh-oh. She had accidentally stepped on Zhu Songning’s Achilles’ heel.

The two of them had grown up together, attending the same primary and middle schools all the way through high school. Luo Chuanhe had never seen Zhu Songning’s grades drop from the number one spot in the grade—until the eleventh grade.

That was when Shen Qingyu suddenly transferred from North City to Su City. As a transfer student, she had immediately shattered Zhu Songning’s “Grade One Myth.”

Since then, Zhu Songning had become the immovable “Permanent Number Two,” consistently suppressed by Shen Qingyu.

Though Zhu Songning never said it out loud, Luo Chuanhe knew her friend’s temperament well. She knew a fire of frustration had been burning inside her all this time.

While the two stood in silence, a sudden scent wafted past Zhu Songning’s nose. Before the person even appeared, that overwhelming, powerful fragrance aggressively claimed her sense of smell.

Then came the breeze stirred by long, flowing hair brushing past her.

It was Shen Qingyu.

Beside her was her older sister, Shen Qingmu. They shared about seventy to eighty percent of the same facial features, but their academic performances were worlds apart. Shen Qingmu should have graduated long ago, but because her grades were so poor, her family had forced her to repeat a year.

“Yo, Yuyu, you’re so amazing! First place again? And second place is that unlucky girl named Zhu? How many times is this that you’ve scored higher than her?”

Shen Qingmu hadn’t noticed Zhu Songning and Luo Chuanhe standing in the corner and spoke with blatant schadenfreude.

Hearing this, Luo Chuanhe was about to charge forward to defend her friend, but Zhu Songning promptly held her back.

Shen Qingyu’s gaze slowly moved away from the rankings. She caught a glimpse of Zhu Songning out of the corner of her eye, her gaze lingering briefly on Luo Chuanhe’s hand resting on Zhu’s shoulder, before she gave Shen Qingmu a warning: “Watch your words.”

Though the sentence lacked any obvious emotional color, Zhu Songning felt it was strangely provocative.

It was as if she were saying: Be careful, the “unlucky girl” you’re talking about is right next to you.

Only then did Shen Qingmu notice the two of them.

She first saw the furious Luo Chuanhe, and then she saw Zhu Songning, who was half a head taller than her.

Having been caught talking behind someone’s back, Shen Qingmu’s face instantly flushed with embarrassment. She stammered out a few “sorrys” and hurriedly dragged her sister away.

Luo Chuanhe, still being held back by Zhu Songning, could only settle for aggressively giving the Shen sisters’ backs a giant middle finger as they walked away.

But the sisters didn’t even turn their heads. The lethality of Luo Chuanhe’s gesture was essentially zero.

Luo Chuanhe fumed, “Screw that! That Shen Qingmu—she’s 99th from the bottom! How does she have the nerve to mock you?!”

Seeing Zhu Songning staring blankly at Shen Qingyu’s retreating figure, she tugged on her sleeve. “Hey, you haven’t been driven crazy by anger, have you? Snap out of it!”

“She doesn’t even see me as a competitor,” Zhu Songning said, turning back. Her eyes fell once more on the score sheet.

The three characters of “Shen Qingyu” were incredibly bold. They stung her eyes.

“Do you think there’s any way I can pull her down from that number one spot?”

“Huh?” Luo Chuanhe was stunned for a moment.

Zhu Songning didn’t think of herself as someone with a competitive streak, yet for some reason, she was fixated on Shen Qingyu.

Perhaps it was because that girl was too aloof, too annoying. Whether it was her constant absence from morning self-study, or her hair that was never tied up according to school rules, but left flowing over her shoulders.

And that light fragrance on her. And those obsidian-like beautiful eyes that never looked at her directly.

Luo Chuanhe, proving herself to be a true best friend, immediately started brainstorming.

She frowned, thinking deeply for a long time, before her eyes suddenly lit up.

“I’ve got it, Ningning! I have a brilliant idea!”

Zhu Songning: “What?”

Luo Chuanhe said triumphantly, “Go date her.”

Her tone was so certain, her voice so resonant, that even Zhu Songning’s usually sharp brain couldn’t quite keep up with the sudden leap in logic.

“How is that a good idea?”

“Master Strategist” Luo stroked her chin. “Do you remember that senior from the last class who was expected to get into North City University? She fell for another girl at the most critical moment. As a result, she neglected her studies, and when that girl broke up with her, she couldn’t handle the blow and her grades plummeted…”

The more Luo Chuanhe thought about it, the more she felt her idea was absolute genius.

“Of course, you don’t have to take it to such an extreme; doing that in senior year is a bit too cruel. As long as you play your cards right, once you start dating her and get her to fall for you even just a little, you can take advantage of her distraction to surpass her.”

Zhu Songning: “……”

Zhu Songning thought about it seriously: “What you’re saying isn’t entirely without merit.”

A plan quickly unfolded in her mind. She turned around, ready to leave.

Luo Chuanhe pulled her back. “Hey, where are you going?”

A look of tragic resolve and martyrdom appeared on Zhu Songning’s face. “I’m going to confess to her.”

Luo Chuanhe: “?”

???

Bestie, are you for real?

Zhu Songning and Shen Qingyu were in the same class. To be precise, the top thirty students in the grade were all in one class.

Their school employed a rotation system. Class 1 consisted of the top thirty students; if a student dropped out of the top thirty for two consecutive exams, they would be kicked out of the class and replaced by someone from below.

After the bell rang for the end of evening self-study, Zhu Songning didn’t pack her bag with her usual lightning speed to head straight for the dormitory study room.

She was very patient today. The simple act of putting a physics workbook into her bag took her nearly five minutes.

Her movements were sluggish, but her gaze was fixed unblinkingly on Shen Qingyu at the other end of the classroom.

She knew Shen Qingyu was always the last one to leave.

Zhu Songning watched as she unhurriedly and patiently placed her textbooks, test papers, water bottle, mirror, comb, lipstick, and hand cream into her bag one by one.

By the time she finished packing, they were the only two people left in the room.

Seeing Shen Qingyu about to stand up and shoulder her bag, Zhu Songning finally couldn’t sit still any longer.

She bolted upright. Her chair slid back with a sharp, piercing screech.

Shen Qingyu seemed startled by the noise, and her movements stiffened.

Taking advantage of that pause, Zhu Songning moved with practiced agility and slammed the classroom door shut.

Another loud thud.

Shen Qingyu was finally forced to turn her attention to the girl responsible for this series of events.

Her eyes were like the rest of her—cold, making her look unapproachable and not someone to be trifled with. Her sharp, aggressive beauty carried a faint sense of pressure.

Even Zhu Songning, who disliked her, had to admit that while Shen Qingyu was arrogant, she was undeniably blessed with a stunning appearance.

Shen Qingyu set down the bag she had just picked up.

“Classmate, is something wrong?”

Before Zhu Songning could even open her mouth, her face flushed red. It wasn’t out of shyness, but out of sheer humiliation.

Shen Qingyu found it bizarre. Seeing that the other girl refused to speak, she decided not to waste any more time and picked up her bag once again.

However, the bag was only halfway onto her shoulder before Zhu Songning lunged forward and pressed it back down.

As if she had reached a final resolution, Zhu Songning gripped the hem of her own shirt tightly, looking down, not daring to meet her eyes.

A stiff, rigid voice rang out in Shen Qingyu’s ear.

“Classmate Shen, I like you. Will you go out with me?”

“……”

The classroom windows were half-open. The night breeze, carrying the coolness of grass and dew, slipped in quietly, brushing over the desks and flipping the pages of an open workbook in the corner. The wind carried the last scattered sounds of laughter from the distant playground and the rustling of leaves touched by nocturnal insects.

Suddenly, a laugh came from above Zhu Songning’s head.

A short “ha” escaped Shen Qingyu’s throat—it sounded as though she had been driven to exasperation by the absurdity of it.

Shen Qingyu stopped trying to leave. She tossed her bag aside and sat down right on the edge of the desk.

She was wearing the school uniform skirt, but even such an ordinary piece looked stylish on her. Her long, straight legs happened to fall right into Zhu Songning’s lowered field of vision, ending in a pair of exquisite small black leather boots.

“Sure.”

Zhu Songning’s head snapped up.

Shen Qingyu arched an eyebrow slightly. Looking at Zhu Songning’s long, well-proportioned fingers, she let out an ambiguous smile.

She tucked a hotel room card into the breast pocket of Zhu Songning’s school jacket. The hard edges pressed against her skin through the thin summer fabric, carrying the unique fragrance of Shen Qingyu.

As Shen Qingyu leaned in, a few strands of her hair fell into Zhu Songning’s collar, lingering against her collarbone and making her skin itch.

“Tomorrow is Saturday. Come find me at 8:00 PM.”

“Then… I’ll give you my answer.”

She had intended to tease her, but seeing Zhu Songning’s horrified and helpless expression, she found it a bit hard to say the rest.

She had even more wicked words she wanted to say to her.

Can’t handle this already?

The words she left out… if Zhu Songning actually showed up tomorrow night, she’d say them then. This room card should be enough to scare her off; perhaps she wouldn’t even need to bother rejecting her tomorrow night.

What she had actually intended to say was—

“I’ll say yes once you make me wet.”

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