Transmigrated as the School Hunk's Arch-Nemesis [Book Transmigration] - Chapter 2 

Jiang Baiyi didn’t notice the boy’s reaction, asking in a lukewarm tone, “Ruan Ming, why are you here?”

Shen Yixing, about to turn off the faucet, paused.

Ruan Ming was the protagonist ‘shou’ of this novel, the one the original Shen Yixing had bullied so relentlessly that Jiang Baiyi had him beaten and forced to drop out.

The Ruan Ming described in the book was gentle and fragile, but he was a piano genius who had won countless grand prizes in piano competitions since he was a child. Comparing him to the person in front of him, he did indeed match the character setting in the novel. It was just this face, though… Shen Yixing felt like he had seen it somewhere before.

Perhaps it was because he had accidentally projected someone else’s face onto the character while reading the novel.

Shen Yixing smiled friendly at Ruan Ming, wisely leaving the conversational space to the two protagonists. After all, he was currently a minor cannon fodder character whose grades and morals were so bad that people were disgusted by him. If he wanted to clear the original owner’s name and make a comeback, it was better to stay far away from the main plot and these two protagonists.

To avoid awkwardness, Shen Yixing washed his hands again. The conversation between the two people behind him drifted into his ears.

Ruan Ming stared at Shen Yixing for a while before withdrawing his gaze. He smiled and walked closer to Jiang Baiyi, “I heard you were called to the office by Teacher Jin again, so I was a bit worried and came over to check on you.”

Jiang Baiyi moved a step to the side, distancing himself from Ruan Ming. “What is there to worry about?”

Ruan Ming saw the distance Jiang Baiyi was putting between them, but he acted as if he didn’t care. “Are you going to eat dinner now?”

“Mm, you reminded me.” Jiang Baiyi frowned, walking past Ruan Ming. “I’m heading out, talk later.”

Ruan Ming called out to him softly, but he didn’t wait for Jiang Baiyi to turn back. After hesitating for a moment, he followed him.

After they left, Shen Yixing slowly turned off the faucet.

Listening to their conversation, Shen Yixing couldn’t feel anything sweet about it. They sounded like ordinary acquaintances, or perhaps not even friends at all. It was puzzling how such a cold relationship could eventually turn into a romance.

There was a dull pain in his arm. Shen Yixing lifted his torn sleeve, revealing a pale red scratch on his fair skin. Fortunately, Sha Xiaohou’s knife was dull. After tearing his clothes, it only grazed the epidermis. It wasn’t bleeding, and the small wound would probably heal in a couple of days.

Shen Yixing sighed and left the bathroom.

During the evening study hall, there was no teacher on duty in the Class 1, Grade 12 classroom. Whispers and chatter drowned out the sound of flipping pages and doing problems.

In the second to last row of the third group, Shen Yixing was frantically writing his apology letter for the fight on his composition paper.

The evening study hall consisted of three sessions, with two breaks in between. It was already the last session, and Shen Yixing had written less than four thousand words.

The classmate in front of Shen Yixing suddenly switched seats with someone else. A girl with slightly curly hair sat down facing him.

Qiao Meng straightened her curls, coughed softly, and placed a form on the table next to Shen Yixing.

“Student Shen Yixing, this is the sign-up sheet for our class performance. You can fill it out when you have time.”

Seeing that Shen Yixing didn’t react, Qiao Meng thought he hadn’t heard her. She pushed the form forward a bit and emphasized, “Student Shen Yixing, this is an opportunity the class worked very hard to secure. There are only eight spots for the entire school performance.”

Shen Yixing didn’t look up. He glanced casually at the sign-up sheet beside him. He wasn’t interested in the so-called performance.

“If this spot is so hard to come by, why don’t you participate yourself?”

“I…” Qiao Meng’s eyes widened, not expecting Shen Yixing to say that. Of course, she wanted to participate in the performance, but she lacked the musical talent. Going up there would only be embarrassing.

“The sign-up sheet is right here. If you don’t go, I will tell Jiang Baiyi what you said about him behind his back last time!”

The tip of the pen in his hand paused. Shen Yixing looked up. He had to avoid anything involving Jiang Baiyi, otherwise, he didn’t know what kind of bad luck he would run into next.

Watching Shen Yixing accept the sign-up sheet, Qiao Meng asked, “Are you sure you’re signing up?”

“Mm.”

“That’s more like it!”

Qiao Meng was very happy to get Shen Yixing’s response and happily returned to her seat.

After Qiao Meng had been gone for a while, his deskmate, Zhao Ci, leaned in close to Shen Yixing and whispered, “Why are you not thinking straight and agreeing to participate in the performance for Qiao Meng?”

Shen Yixing tilted his head and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Do you even have to ask? Participating in this is just going to make a fool of yourself!”

Zhao Ci took the sign-up sheet and pointed at the instruments listed, explaining, “Look. Class 2 has some ‘Piano Prince,’ Class 7 has some ‘Violin Princess,’ and then there are all the top students from Class 3 and Class 4. You don’t know how to play anything, so what’s the point of signing up?”

“Let me tell you…” Zhao Ci cautiously glanced at Qiao Meng’s seat and said in a low voice, “This is a hot potato. No one in our class wants to sign up. I bet Qiao Meng just wants you to go and fill a spot so she can watch you make a fool of yourself later.”

Hearing this, Shen Yixing looked toward Qiao Meng. Several girls were gathered around her, all of them glancing at him with strange expressions.

Zhao Ci felt the sign-up sheet was scorching hot. He was terrified that Shen Yixing would force him to sign up next, so he returned the sheet to its owner immediately after explaining.

“Deskmate, you can withdraw from this sign-up!”

“Oh? What sign-up?”

“Sigh, it’s just…” Zhao Ci turned his head, ready to explain to the other person, but closed his mouth immediately after seeing Jiang Baiyi’s impatient face.

Jiang Baiyi had just returned to the classroom and saw Zhao Ci jabbering non-stop at Shen Yixing. These two were a perfect match as deskmates, one with too much nonsense to say, the other with too much nonsense going on.

There was a sudden bump against his chair from behind. Shen Yixing looked back with displeasure, and Jiang Baiyi was sitting in the seat behind him, looking leisurely.

“Brother Yi, why did you just get here!” Tang Yuan had been bored for almost the entire study session. After waiting and looking forward to it, he finally waited for his deskmate to return. He quickly pulled him over to report the news he had just heard, “I heard Sha Xiaohou got a serious disciplinary record for this fight, and he’s already been sent home to reflect!”

Jiang Baiyi listened and let out an indifferent ‘mm.’ Suddenly, Zhao Ci in front of him began to shout.

“Wow, deskmate!”

“How did you hurt your hand?”

“Did you get into a fight with someone again?”

“That’s a huge wound, does it hurt?”

Hearing this, Jiang Baiyi rested his chin on his hand, his eyes drifting involuntarily toward Shen Yixing.

The torn sleeve was rolled up halfway, and there was a red scratch on his fair skin, looking like a crack deliberately carved into jade. It was very striking. Because the skin was broken, the entire wound was slightly red and swollen.

Shen Yixing had blocked a knife for him. Jiang Baiyi hadn’t even asked if Shen Yixing was hurt yet. If Zhao Ci hadn’t shouted just now, he would have forgotten about it entirely.

No matter how much he disliked him, owing someone a favor was never good. Jiang Baiyi suddenly felt a bit guilty.

He leaned forward slightly and said, “Hey, Shen Yixing, about you getting hurt today, I think…” I’m a bit sorry.

He had only said half a sentence when he heard Shen Yixing say to Zhao Ci, “Bad luck today, just an unprovoked disaster.”

Bad luck? Unprovoked disaster?

Fuck!

Then there’s no need to feel guilty anymore!

He kicked the crossbar under the table hard to vent his anger.

When the bell for the end of the evening study hall rang, Shen Yixing had just finished his apology letter.

The path back to the dormitory was packed with people. He didn’t know who kept bumping into him, and the worst time, they almost stepped his heel off.

Shen Yixing wasn’t sure which dorm the original owner lived in, so he guessed based on the classroom layout and followed Zhao Ci all the way to the dorm.

Zhao Ci walked into the dorm, turned around to close the door, and was startled. He asked Shen Yixing blankly, “Deskmate, why did you run to my place? Changing dorms will result in points being deducted!”

At the door of the next dorm, Jiang Baiyi looked at him with great contempt. “If you’re not going back to your dorm, I’m locking the door.”

The hallway was bustling with students returning to their rooms. Shen Yixing took his foot off the threshold and said calmly to Zhao Ci, “Let’s have breakfast together tomorrow morning. I’ll come find you.”

Zhao Ci was stunned for a moment, his tone rising sharply as he let out a long ‘Ah.’

Zhao Ci and Shen Yixing had been deskmates for nearly half a year, but because Shen Yixing always skipped class, they spent very little time together. Furthermore, Zhao Ci didn’t have any particularly close friends in the class and had always been a loner. Now, Shen Yixing’s breakfast invitation genuinely caught him off guard.

By the time he poked his head out, Shen Yixing was long gone from the hallway.

In the dorm, Shen Yixing made a cup of milk and sat on the edge of his bed to get used to the environment. Two short beds and matching desks were placed against the wall, and the instrument cabinet and wardrobe were for two people.

The facilities were well-equipped. If he could just get rid of this roommate, it would be a pretty nice place to stay.

After getting familiar with the dorm, he got familiar with the original owner’s things. Shen Yixing opened the cabinet, where data cables, underwear, and socks were all mixed together. Even the school uniform jacket he pulled out hadn’t been washed for days, smelling of sweat.

When he looked into the instrument cabinet, Shen Yixing stepped back quietly.

The music scores in the instrument cabinet were as wrinkled as toilet paper. An electric guitar was lying horizontally in the cabinet with several cracks on the body. Because it hadn’t been taken care of for a long time, all the strings had snapped, and it was basically scrap metal.

Shen Yixing closed the cabinet and checked the original owner’s phone without much hope.

The phone was cleaner than the cabinet. Except for a few games, he hadn’t even downloaded regular social apps. There were no text messages or call logs, though there was a contact number saved as ‘Uncle.’

After familiarizing himself with his things, Shen Yixing sat back on his bed. Looking at his figure vaguely reflected on the bathroom glass, he really couldn’t understand why the original owner and Jiang Baiyi lived in the same dorm.

Two people who didn’t get along living in the same room, seeing each other every single day, weren’t the school administrators afraid they would fight when they assigned the dorms?

The glass door of the bathroom was suddenly pulled open, and a white figure entered Shen Yixing’s view.

Jiang Baiyi was wearing a white bathrobe, with water droplets sliding down his wet hair to his collar. His thick, sword-like eyebrows were furrowed, and his high nose bridge and perfect chin outlined an impeccable profile.

Jiang Baiyi dropped the basin of dirty laundry he needed to wash with a ‘thud.’ He leaned against the sink and raised an eyebrow at Shen Yixing. “I don’t like owing people favors. Regarding you blocking a knife for me today, tell me, what do you want?”

The expression on Jiang Baiyi’s face didn’t look like he was repaying a favor, but rather like a Bodhisattva coming down to save all living beings.

“I don’t want anything.”

If he hadn’t gotten involved in Jiang Baiyi and Sha Xiaohou’s fight, maybe he wouldn’t have been injured either.

Shen Yixing didn’t want to chat with him. Just as he climbed onto the bed, ready to sleep, the dorm door was suddenly kicked open.

“Brother Yi! Emergency!”

Tang Yuan was wearing half his pajamas, his hair was as messy as a bird’s nest, and he had lost a slipper on his foot somewhere. It looked ridiculous.

Jiang Baiyi frowned. “What kind of outfit is this?”

“Brother Yi, don’t ask so much for now. You’re the only one who can help with this right now.” Tang Yuan grabbed Jiang Baiyi’s hand with a flustered expression, “Come with me quickly!”

Jiang Baiyi was dragged away by Tang Yuan, who was rushing in a flurry. Before leaving, he glared at Shen Yixing, as if wanting to say he didn’t know what was good for him.

The dorm door slammed shut, and Shen Yixing curled up under the covers. The empty dorm instantly went quiet.

A quiet environment always makes it easy to enter meditation. Shen Yixing stared at the ceiling, trying to recall what happened before he fell down the stairs.

At that time, he was suddenly exposed by the media for bribing judges to win the grand prize in a music competition. Those musicians who used to call him a ‘music genius’ overnight released statements to distance themselves from him. Overnight, all kinds of rumors and fake news flooded the entire music circle, and even the high school forum he attended was filled with gossip.

Later, to avoid the annoying media, Shen Yixing had to choose to mix into the crowd to leave the school.

Maybe he was too anxious when he was walking down the stairs. He didn’t know whose foot he hooked, and unfortunately, he fell down the stairs. He hadn’t even had the chance to clarify those rumors before he transmigrated into this world.

For a long time, Shen Yixing sighed, closed his eyes, and forced himself to stop thinking about it.

Jiang Baiyi returned to the dorm with a cold face the whole way. The ’emergency’ Tang Yuan mentioned was actually just to kill a cockroach. At first, he thought he was targeted by an enemy and someone came to the dorm to seek revenge.

“Tang Yuan and Zhao Ci are two grown men, and they’re afraid of a cockroach the size of a thumb. I’m speechless.”

Jiang Baiyi pushed open the door and saw Shen Yixing curled up in the corner of the bed wrapped in a quilt at first glance.

Jiang Baiyi was a little confused. This person usually had ‘The moon doesn’t sleep, I don’t sleep’ on his lips. How did he crawl into the quilt so early today?

He walked up to Shen Yixing’s bed and knocked on the headboard. “Hey, don’t play dead.”

“While I’m still in a good mood, tell me your conditions, and I can satisfy you. Otherwise, it will expire.”

Half a minute passed, and still, there was no response.

“Are you kidney-deficient, sleeping this early?”

The person on the bed suddenly rolled over, wrapped in the quilt. Jiang Baiyi crouched down to check if Shen Yixing was faking sleep.

Jiang Baiyi could be said to be guarding against this roommate day and night, even while sleeping. He didn’t know when he would suddenly get up and scratch him twice if he let his guard down.

Shen Yixing wasn’t good at fighting, but his scratching hurt a lot. His dog claws hadn’t been trimmed for a thousand years, and Jiang Baiyi had suffered many losses from this.

He lifted a corner of the quilt. The light from the ceiling fell on Shen Yixing’s face, illuminating his face even more clearly. Shen Yixing’s hands were pressed together against his chin. The eyelashes on his closed eyes trembled slightly, and his red lips were slightly open, his breathing very steady. He looked like he was fast asleep.

Jiang Baiyi had never looked at Shen Yixing from such a close distance. On such a clean face in front of him, there wasn’t even a single pimple, and his skin seemed to be surprisingly good.

He stretched out his finger, ready to touch Shen Yixing’s face, when the lights-out time arrived. The light from the ceiling suddenly went out, and the dorm went pitch black, so dark he couldn’t see his own fingers.

The darkness woke Jiang Baiyi, who had been immersed in the quality of someone else’s skin. He returned to his own bed, muttering to himself, “Was Shen Yixing… always this good-looking before?”

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