I Can’t Keep Being a Scumbag Anymore—What Should I Do? [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 11.1

When Li Zhu returned from filling the water bottle, he noticed the shift in the back row from a distance.

The two responsible for this change were facing off like a pair of fighting roosters, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife.

To be precise, it was only Ran Muqiu whose face was flushed with anger. If it weren’t for Qin Wei and “Slim Monkey” standing by his side to pacify him, he looked ready to lunge forward and take a bite out of Feng Qin.

He looked exactly like a cat with its fur standing on end.

Feng Qin, on the other hand, still wore that same irritating expression—a lazy smirk playing on his lips and an eyebrow arched. He looked remarkably animated, but in a way that immediately brought to mind a bratty elementary school boy who had just pulled a girl’s pigtails to make her cry.

There was a sense of smug triumph beneath his amusement.

Li Zhu paused for a heartbeat, then walked over with the water bottle, positioning himself between the two and effectively blocking Feng Qin’s line of sight.

Feng Qin’s smile faltered as he looked up and swept his gaze over the newcomer.

Li Zhu spared Feng Qin a seemingly indifferent glance before placing the full bottle on the top left corner of the desk. He moved to sit on the chair to Ran Muqiu’s left.

Before he could sit, a soft hand caught his arm.

Ran Muqiu was huffing with indignation. “You’re not allowed to sit next to him!”

Li Zhu: “?”

Without further explanation, Ran Muqiu forcibly shoved him into the inner seat.

Ran Muqiu wasn’t particularly strong; his hand against Li Zhu’s back felt almost soft. Li Zhu stumbled back a few steps and didn’t resist, allowing himself to be pushed into the seat before asking in a low voice, “What happened?”

Ran Muqiu glared at him but didn’t answer, his cheeks still puffed out in annoyance.

He actually had the nerve to ask!

Did these two think he was blind?

They’d dared to exchange secret glances right in front of him! If he let them sit next to each other, wouldn’t they be making eyes at each other all day long?

Feng Qin was a shameless rogue who insisted on pestering them, and there was little he could do about that. But Li Zhu was still taking his money! Without his permission, he wouldn’t allow Li Zhu to start a romance with the Protagonist Gong so soon.

If the protagonists fell in love at first sight just like in the original script, he would have no room left to operate. He’d probably have to pack his bags and crawl back to the Great World in disgrace by tomorrow!

That would make him feel like an utter failure as a task-taker—completely useless!

Li Zhu didn’t get an answer, but he didn’t turn away. He kept his head tilted slightly, watching Ran Muqiu with patient, quiet tenderness in his amber eyes.

Ran Muqiu was originally quite angry, but being looked at like that made him daze for a moment, and his tone softened despite himself.

Carefully choosing his words, Ran Muqiu whispered, “When I’m not around, you’re not allowed to talk to Feng Qin.”

“Hmm?” Li Zhu blinked, seemingly confused. “Why?”

Ran Muqiu couldn’t exactly say, Because he’s your future husband and I’m afraid you’ll be seduced if you look at him once, could he?

Unable to find a suitable reason on the spot, he chose to be intentionally unreasonable. “I just said you’re not allowed.”

Li Zhu paused and fell silent. Just as Ran Muqiu was starting to feel guilty and about to backtrack, Li Zhu nodded. “Understood.”

Ran Muqiu felt a surge of joy, but before he could speak, Li Zhu added, “And you?”

“Huh?”

“I’m not familiar with the new student; there’s no need for me to speak to him,” Li Zhu’s voice was low and deliberate, sounding inexplicably like he was coaxing a child. “But what about you?”

Ran Muqiu’s head spun a little; he didn’t quite understand how the topic had circled back to him.

Yet Li Zhu looked so earnest, as if he truly cared about the answer. Ran Muqiu was speechless for a while, eventually turning to the system for help: 【233, what does the Protagonist Shou mean?】

233 analyzed: 【Perhaps he is worried about you becoming his love rival.】

【Is that so?】 Ran Muqiu was puzzled. 【But isn’t his worry backwards? I’m the Cannon Fodder Gong?】

233 suggested: 【Maybe try farming some Heartbreak Value?】

【Oh, right.】

Ran Muqiu quickly slipped back into character. He spared Li Zhu a sidelong glance and snapped, “Since when is it your business what I do?”

Li Zhu seemingly hadn’t expected such a reply. His eyelashes fluttered, and he gave Ran Muqiu a deep, searching look before turning back to his work, his thin lips pressed firmly together.

Ran Muqiu instantly felt energized.

It was rare to see Li Zhu like this!

It seemed the Protagonist Gong was indeed a special existence to him. There was hope!

With eyes shining, Ran Muqiu stared at Li Zhu and nudged his arm.

Li Zhu ignored him, so Ran Muqiu poked and scratched at him several more times.

It seemed the tickling was genuinely making it impossible for him to take notes. Finally, Li Zhu turned his head with a look of resignation. “What is it?”

Ran Muqiu looked at him expectantly. “Are you angry?”

Li Zhu’s pen paused. “Do you care if I’m angry?”

Ran Muqiu: “Mm.”

More than just angry. Sadness, grief, despair, in short, I care about every painful emotion imaginable.

Li Zhu watched him quietly, not missing a single fleeting expression on his face.

And yet, Ran Muqiu was smiling.

His eyelashes were curved, and the corners of his mouth were turned up in a heartless, beautiful grin. His lips were full and plump—he looked stunning when he laughed.

He was always like this; every word seemed effortless, sometimes intentional and sometimes not, as if he had no concern for the storm his words might stir in someone else’s heart.

Li Zhu watched him for a while. His grip on the pen tightened and then relaxed as he said slowly, “I’m not angry right now.”

As for later, who knows.

With that, he turned away and truly stopped paying him any attention.

Ran Muqiu blinked.

Huh?

That didn’t go how I imagined.

He waited in a daze for a while, but no system notification arrived.

Li Zhu really didn’t look at him again, scribbling his notes with a neat and beautiful hand.

Wait, is the Protagonist Shou’s emotional control really this strong?

Deeply discouraged, Ran Muqiu pouted and flopped onto the desk. He stared at Li Zhu’s profile with lingering hope, desperate to see even a tiny hint of heartbreak in his expression.

On the other side.

From Feng Qin’s perspective, he couldn’t hear a word they were saying.

He could only see the two of them huddling together in an incredibly intimate posture. Finally, after some unknown exchange, the guy named Li had turned away and given him the cold shoulder, yet Ran Muqiu was still gazing at him longingly.

What is so damn good to look at?

With a dark expression, Feng Qin nearly snapped the pencil in his hand.

The bell rang, and within minutes, the classroom was empty.

Feng Qin was the last to leave. Clutching a set of keys, he went to the bike shed to retrieve his mountain bike, which had just had its tires replaced, and pedaled out of the school gates.

The weather was turning cold and the sky darkened early, making the road ahead look a bit blurred and indistinct. But Feng Qin had sharp eyes; from a distance, he spotted two familiar figures beneath the trees near the school entrance.

They were both on shared rental bikes. They looked ready to leave, but the shorter one suddenly reached out and grabbed the other’s hem, signaling him to stop.

The tall one actually complied, braking sharply and turning his head. After listening to the other boy, he swung a long leg over the bike, dismounted, and reached down to lower the seat cushion slightly.

Only then did the shorter one finally seem satisfied.

Feng Qin: “…”

The two pedaled side-by-side toward the right.

Feng Qin stared at their retreating backs for a moment, gritted his teeth, and followed them on a whim.

Further to the right lay an old-fashioned residential area, where the scent of street food stalls was thick in the air.

This place wasn’t unfamiliar to Feng Qin.

Before transferring to Nancheng High, he’d played a game of basketball with some friends. All their usual courts were full, and the others were either too remote or too dilapidated. After searching around, they’d found one in the Southern District. Afterward, they’d had a barbecue dinner here.

It was also here that he’d seen Ran Muqiu for the first time.

Ran Muqiu had a kind of non-threatening beauty that was incredibly magnetic.

Anyone glancing into a crowd would involuntarily find their gaze lingering on him for a few extra seconds.

But he didn’t seem to know it.

The lights that day had been just as dim and yellowish as they were now. The air had been filled with the smell of smoke and cheap artificial fragrances. When Feng Qin had turned and seen him, his gaze had frozen instantly.

He knew he must have looked incredibly stupid. But the boy had been staring back at him, his pupils dark and soul-piercing, his lips a vivid red. That pure face looked remarkably striking amidst the swirling smoke—unlike any man or woman he’d ever seen.

Feng Qin hadn’t been able to help turning his head away.

He hadn’t counted how many seconds he’d stared like an idiot; he only knew that a stray ember from his cigarette had burned a hole in his shorts. They were thin basketball shorts, and the ash had stung the skin beneath.

A friend had been shouting in his ear, repeatedly asking, “Isn’t he fine?” “Isn’t he fair?” “How does he compare to the one in that video we saw last time?”

The friend had been drinking, and the topic was turning crude. Feng Qin felt an inexplicable surge of irritation. He stopped looking at the friend, stubbed out his cigarette, and cursed him out with a casual laugh.

In the time it took to lower and lift his head again, the boy was gone.

Feng Qin put the half-stubbed cigarette back in his mouth and stared at the hole in his pants for a few seconds. Then, he squinted at the dark alley entrance and suddenly burst into laughter.

The two bikes ahead vanished from sight.

Feng Qin stared at the fork in the road, hesitated for two seconds, and chose the right path. After pedaling a few steps, he bumped into someone at the corner.

It was a tall guy with messy hair and a flushed face, reeking of alcohol and clearly in a daze.

Feng Qin braked, planting one long leg on the ground. He arched an eyebrow, recognizing the person.

Qin Wei, stinking of booze, sized Feng Qin up. His gaze lingered for a moment on Feng Qin’s limited-edition sneakers before he recognized him too. “Oh, it’s the School Beauty?”

As expected of Ran Muqiu’s number one lackey, even with a brain clouded by alcohol, he didn’t forget to mock Feng Qin.

The title of “School Beauty” had been bestowed upon Feng Qin by the school’s girls a week after his transfer.

But Qin Wei thought they were blind. This guy from the East High was a pretentious, irritating jerk who wasn’t even a fraction as good-looking as Brother Qiu—how the hell was he the School Beauty?

He’d even gone to ask a girl from a liberal arts class who had decided the ranking and why Brother Qiu wasn’t the winner.

The girl had simply replied, “They’re in different leagues,” and refused to elaborate, leaving Qin Wei fuming and disliking Feng Qin even more.

Feng Qin lowered his eyelids, not giving him a second look. “Move.”

“What’s the rush?” Qin Wei reached out and grabbed the back of the mountain bike, preventing him from leaving. “Let’s, let’s talk.”

Feng Qin couldn’t be bothered to waste words. He kicked off the ground, intending to pedal away.

“School Beauty.” Qin Wei simply plopped down onto the bike’s rear rack. His weight—over a hundred and fifty pounds—prevented the bike from moving. He let out a boozy hiccup and asked with a grin, “I’ve been wanting to ask why the hell, hic, are you always, always picking on our Brother Qiu?”

Qin Wei had been observing for days.

Although Brother Qiu was a school bully, his temper wasn’t actually that bad—if you didn’t provoke him, nothing would happen.

But this newcomer from East High was constantly pestering him, using tactics that reminded Qin Wei of an elementary school boy bullying a girl he liked.

Qin Wei didn’t even know how to help Ran Muqiu fight back.

Feng Qin hadn’t expected such a direct question; he froze, an uncharacteristic flicker of awkwardness crossing his face for a split second.

Qin Wei stared at his expression with a strange intensity before suddenly slapping him on the back. The slaps landed with a series of loud thwacks as he slurred, “School Beauty, let me ask you, you wouldn’t happen to like our Brother Qiu too, would you?”

Feng Qin’s movements came to a dead halt.

Qin Wei tilted his head, staring at Feng Qin’s stiff back for a long time. Suddenly, he threw his head back and hollered a loud “Fuck!” at the sky. In a state of utter collapse, he groaned, “I knew it the second I saw that look on your face!

You’ve only been here a few days, and your damn eyes are already glued to him!”

It took a good while before Feng Qin finally turned around to look at him with an expressionless face.

Qin Wei was truly wasted. His face was flushed crimson as he alternated between kicking the wall and cursing the heavens, spitting out every foul word in his vocabulary. He seemed more than a few degrees crazier than usual.

After a while, he looked like he’d exhausted himself from the shouting. He slid down against the base of the wall, his head lolling to the side as if he were ready to sleep right there.

Feng Qin: “…”

He parked his bike, squatted down next to Qin Wei, and patted his cheek. “Hey.”

Qin Wei cracked an eyelid open and tried to shoo him away impatiently. “What?”

“I want to ask you something.” Feng Qin tilted his head slightly, asking as if it were of no consequence, “You just said ‘too’? Who else?”

Qin Wei stared blearily at the boy’s handsome face for a moment and let out a snort. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself.”

Feng Qin neither confirmed nor denied it, countering with a question instead: “Does that include you?”

Qin Wei: “…” Qin Wei’s mouth fell open. He froze for a second, clearly caught off guard by the counterattack. It took him ages to process it before he slowly broke into a stupid grin. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m a straight man.

Straight. Man. Do you even know what that means?”

“A straight man can’t like guys.”

Feng Qin: “…”

Forget it. He shouldn’t have expected anything coherent from a drunkard.

Seeing that Qin Wei was getting so anxious he was about to grab a twig to demonstrate how to write the words “straight man” on the ground, Feng Qin finally couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up to leave.

He was grabbed again.

“But I’m telling you, you, all of you, can’t compete with that little brat Li Zhu,” Qin Wei muttered, his speech slurring heavily. “That little prick acts pathetic all day. Damn it, our Brother Qiu, soft-hearted so easy to fool, goddamn it.”