I turned reality into a romantic comedy

Chapter Thirteen: Studying and Early Romance Are Always Two Sides of the Same Thing (Combined)

A student's primary responsibility is to study.

Although it sounds like a piece of nonsense that will be sung on the internet a decade or two from now, accompanied by some mysterious background music from Guangdong, in the comments or bullet screens, that's exactly how it is.

So, despite Chen Junqian's multifaceted efforts lately—taking Xu Youwei for rides on his bicycle every day, helping Gu Linguo with family issues, and handling Zhu Wenyun's unexpected situation—his life seems full of ups and downs and excitement. However, most of the time, he is just an ordinary junior high school student attending classes in a classroom.

However, this is also the key reason why Xu Youwei and Zhu Wenyun are particularly concerned that they are not assigned to the same class again. After all, apart from weekends, students' social circles and what they see and hear are limited to their own schools and classes for most of the time.

Then the problem is coming.

What is Chen Junqian's daily life like at his new school for the first month after the start of the semester?

The answer is to observe closely his only childhood friend who was officially recognized by the system as a goofy girl.

Mu Mu's English has always been a big problem, so she has been attending tutoring classes outside of school since the third grade of elementary school. However, judging from the results, the effect has been minimal. It seems that the improvement in her scores is not as good as the Hengshui style of essay writing that Chen Junqian taught her before, which is still very helpful for her to score points in essays.

Actually, the English in the first semester of seventh grade wasn't that difficult. It was more like a review of all the knowledge and content from elementary school. But their English teacher was a rather strict middle-aged woman. She loved dictation before class, interacting with students and having them answer questions during class, and often extending class time after class by assigning homework to memorize texts. She was the type who would rather sacrifice her own after-school time to make sure every student in the class passed her test.

Not to mention Mu Mu, even Zhong Yu was exhausted by her. In just over ten days, she had already come up with all sorts of tricks. Before each class dictation test, she would prepare plenty of cheat sheets in her desk drawer, on her desk, in the gaps between her textbooks, and in her hand. But one time she was caught red-handed and had to quickly go to the back of the classroom and stand there for the whole class.

Actually, if Lin Mu had the carefree, lazy attitude of Zhong Yu, it wouldn't be so bad. However, Mu Mu is the type who endures hardship head-on, so Chen Junqian can almost always hear such conversations during English class.

On the podium was the English teacher, whose accent was fairly standard, constantly urging, "Loudly, loudly, I can't hear you." Below, Mu Mu was raising her hand faster than anyone else, but when she actually spoke, she stuttered a bit.

After each get out of class, Lin Mu would pitifully run to Chen Junqian's side to practice reciting the text in advance, while complaining about how her childhood sweetheart had betrayed their friendship from a few years ago.

"Qianqian said his spoken English wasn't good, but in the end, I was the only one who really couldn't speak it."

Chen Junqian was also helpless about this, after all, he had not lied before, but unfortunately the system's "multi-talented" ability did include English speaking ability.

As for why it exists.

Then all I can say is, how could a romantic comedy not have a blonde heiress who transferred from abroad and is going to have some fanservice incidents with you on her way here?

Of course, in reality, Chen Junqian doesn't encounter any transfer students; he only has a little fool who can't even pronounce or remember the phonetic symbols correctly.

Besides the torment at school, the English teacher also gave Mu Mu a real eye-opener when it came to homework. She was handed out newspapers that were bigger than her face and full of practice questions, which truly made her realize that primary school was indeed a thing of the past.

"That's why I don't want to grow up at all. It's only the first year of junior high, the third year will definitely be more tiring, and then high school will be more tiring than junior high. Only in college can I have fun to my heart's content. It's such a long time..."

Well, this is Mumu in a period of burnout or sage mode after her initial enthusiasm has faded. After all, there are some things you just can't do, like math problems and English problems. But at least you can guess an answer for the latter.

Although in other people's eyes, whether considering Lin Mu's family conditions or family atmosphere, there was no need for her to be so persistent in pursuing academic excellence, Mu Mu herself never thought so. She simply felt that children who did well in school could make their parents feel a little bit proud.

"After all, when people talk about Qianqian, the first thing they mention is definitely not your company outside, but that you always get first place in exams. A student's job is to study. And if I don't get into Ningzhong High School, I will have to separate from Qianqian again, not to mention there will be college in the future."

Perhaps influenced by Shen Nianqiu, Lin Mu is now starting to care about university, something she had never thought about before. After all, she's not a child who believes that time will really stop because of her own will, or that it will repeat itself endlessly like in "Detective Conan".

"Look, look, we were in the same class in junior high. If we can stay in high school and then go to the same university, that would be the ultimate, perfect childhood sweetheart relationship."

"...I think Mumu's most important task right now is to memorize this English text in her hand."

"Wow, Qianqian, you're disgusted with me. You laughed so hard when you heard me say that we got into the same university."

After being playfully punched twice in the chest by his childhood sweetheart, Chen Junqian simply adopted a "give up the fantasy and face reality" look, but still offered some friendly advice:

"For Mu Mu's situation, you could watch 'Fireworks.' There are many stories in it where boys deliberately do poorly on exams or fill in very low-ranking choices so that they can apply to the same school as girls. Of course, you can also watch some positive stories about striving hard and finally getting into the same university as your childhood sweetheart. But stories are just stories. If Mu Mu really wants to achieve this, she will definitely have to take it slowly."

"Moreover, even Ningzhong High School in this city has special classes that are recruited in advance, key classes and regular classes that are differentiated after the high school entrance examination."

Unlike junior high, the senior high classes at Guoning Middle School are no longer purely based on luck. So, if we're being honest, Chen Junqian thinks Zhu Wenyun has the best chance of being in the same class as him. If she can maintain her grades in junior high, they should be able to meet directly in the special admission class.

"So Mu Mu, keep it up! I'll help you with your studies too."

As they were talking, it was time for the daily long break exercise again. Many students in the class, who had already started to slack off, began to try to skip it. However, Mu Mu didn't have that intention. After all, she could eat candy and chat with Qian Qian after each run.

After all, for a child who would eat leafy greens like crazy and drink a cup of Milo every day just for that vague rumor of growing taller, such a small reward was enough for Lin Mu to keep going. Moreover, as his body gradually adapted to the intensity, although he still felt tired after each run, at least he wouldn't be able to hold his knees and pant like he did the first two times.

The candy Chen Junqian bought for her after running exercises today was soda candy in a small bottle shaped like an aluminum can. After all, his childhood sweetheart just doesn't like carbonated drinks, but she doesn't dislike this kind of sweet and sour candy. Chewing it in her mouth gives her a natural and refreshing feeling.

The two of them walked along this road back to class, sharing candies that were different every day, and talking about teachers, school, and homework.

She's not a wild horse, but her family does have a grassland. So, in many ways, Mu Mu is closer to a harmless little animal. She does seem like a female classmate without a story, with only ordinary memories accumulating in a lukewarm way.

This is just an ordinary day for the two of them.

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Since entering the third year of junior high school and facing the pressure of the high school entrance examination, Shen Nianqiu has been able to feel more and more clearly the atmosphere that is like dark clouds looming over the city.

Difficulties in learning and ranking can indeed change a student's overall atmosphere and personality from the inside out, especially for a boarding school like hers, where students spend most of their time on campus except for winter and summer vacations, and are naturally more affected by this atmosphere.

Even the lively late-night chats that used to take place in the dorm after evening self-study sessions in the past two years have disappeared. Everyone seems to be unwilling to talk after returning to the dorm, sitting silently at their desks, looking like a ball of air that has grown into a human shape.

If someone accidentally gets up and drags a chair, or makes a loud noise when opening or closing a door, they immediately have to apologize, but even after apologizing, no one will actually respond.

Fortunately, Shen Nianqiu still had her phone, so every night she would silently finish her own things, get into bed, and turn on her phone under the covers. The others did the same. If you looked down from God's perspective, the dormitory at that time was full of beds propped up by bodies, like camping tents, with the faint light inside being the screens of their phones.

But not everyone could maintain the same self-control as Shen Nianqiu at such a time. Soon, some of her roommates started to completely give up, and everyone could hear her talking to her boyfriend on the phone under the covers.

“Baby, I don’t want to study anymore, I don’t want to take the high school entrance exam. Even though I’ll be graduating in less than a year, I want to come find you.”

"Baby" is the special term she uses for her boyfriend, who is actually two years older than her. After saying it, she deliberately emphasizes the key premise of "less than a year".

Less than a year.

Just like their homeroom teacher always said, it will pass in the blink of an eye if you just persevere, even a fool knows that.

But it is precisely this emphasis on brevity and immediacy that seems to highlight the bravery and sincerity of her decision to elope for love. With this premise, her temperament is closer to that of the heroines in those youth-themed literature who are willing to risk everything for love.

Shen Nianqiu felt that her words were directed not only at her boyfriend, but also at the other students who were still in the dormitory, either doing practice problems or working on their error notebooks, because the dormitory was still quiet, and everyone could hear her clear, rustling voice.

Unfortunately, the other party did not get the agreement they wanted. To everyone's surprise, the girl actually left. According to what she said in their dormitory group chat, she had a big fight with her family and then ran away from home to stay with her boyfriend who lived in her rented apartment.

In the following days, their dormitory group chat and QQ space were filled with photos of each other's recent activities almost every day. They were all landscape photos from their travels, just like a poor child who had finally managed to get a piece of candy and was eager to show it off to everyone.

She insisted on showing it to her roommates and classmates, pushing it right under their noses, so that those still studying and taking exams at school could see what kind of life she was living.

No exams, no studying, no classes, no teachers—complete freedom.

Shen Nianqiu would always casually comment, "So beautiful."

Then within seconds, she would receive a much longer reply, seemingly because the other person felt that her comment, written by one of the top three students in the class, was too short and did not satisfy her vanity and expectations.

After repeating this several times, Shen Nianqiu simply stopped replying. However, this was not an isolated incident. The other person's roommates, classmates, and others gradually stopped commenting and replying, and the comment section under the post suddenly went from bustling to deserted.

If this girl has made any positive contribution, it's probably that she finally gave their dorm room, which had been stagnant for a while, a common topic to talk about, just like it is now.

"Has Nianqiu ever thought about dropping out of school to find her boyfriend?"

It's not exactly a secret that she has an online boyfriend in the dorm; after all, no girl would spend so much time chatting with her family or parents after 11 p.m. every day.

"No, a student's primary responsibility is to study. Things will be better once they get to university."

"It's strange to talk about university. Before university, my parents always said not to date because it would affect my studies, but as soon as I entered university, they started encouraging it. Don't I feel like I'm having a mental breakdown?"

Shen Nianqiu neither agreed nor disagreed. Early romance is one of the phenomena that is difficult to prohibit in middle school campuses. After all, in addition to the heavy pressure of studying, many students who cannot get spiritual comfort from teachers and parents will naturally place their hopes on so-called 'love'.

Because she was, in fact, one of them.

Unlike that girl, all her rationality was still tightly bound to that thin line. Shen Nianqiu knew very well what she should do at this moment.

Even so, she still couldn't help but imagine it.

Imagine among those girls in Guoning who are now in junior high school, is there any who would do such a thing?

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Chapter Fourteen: Girls' Fantasies (Part Two)

Because they had already entered junior high school, the situation was different from about two years ago. This time, Chen Junqian and Zhu Wenyun were naturally assigned to the middle school group for the selection of this year's essay competition.

If sixth-grade students have an inherent advantage in the elementary school group, then seventh-grade students like them are undoubtedly at a complete disadvantage in the middle school group. After all, writing is indeed a process that requires reading and even life experience. A difference of two or three years is enough to create a relatively large gap between rapidly growing teenagers.

However, it wasn't a big deal for Chen Junqian and Zhu Wenyun. After easily passing the school and city-level selections, they successfully obtained tickets to the finals and officially went to Hefei, the capital city of Anhui Province, for the final competition during the National Day holiday.

Unlike his previous attempt to slack off and focus on participation, Chen Junqian undoubtedly delivered his best performance in this year's essay competition. This was mainly because the final essay topic, "Returning to My Hometown After Twenty Years," resonated deeply with him. Chen Junqian, who genuinely returned to his childhood and hometown after nearly twenty years, naturally displayed a unique writing style reminiscent of "returning to one's hometown like a stranger returning to the past." Even after writing the last word, he was still somewhat dazed.

"In any case, when we return to the places we once loved and knew most, we can never see them again, because they are not in space, but in time, because the person who revisits the old place is no longer the child or teenager who once decorated that place with his own enthusiasm."

"When the childhood and adolescence that evoke memories reappear before someone with a happy smile, it is actually saying goodbye to them in the cloak of memory. Everything from the past will never come back, leaving only a thorn that signifies its presence, like a rose."

"Of course I know that memories always erase the bad and exaggerate the good, including the parts about my hometown and the past, but I also believe that it is precisely this kind of beautification that allows me to bear all the burdens from the past, present and future twenty years later."

The bell signaling the end of the time interrupted Chen Junqian's turbulent thoughts. He realized once again that writing was indeed a mentally taxing task, and that the unfulfilled ideal from his previous life should indeed be left to Zhu Wenjun, who was sitting in front of him.

After adjusting his mindset, Chen Junqian stood up from his seat and stretched, then walked out of the lecture hall with Zhu Wenyun, who had met up with him. On the way back, they naturally started talking about the essay topic for the competition.

To be honest, this is indeed a common question. Even in school, Chen Junqian had done it at least several times from his Chinese teacher or on test papers. But even if he had done it many times, most students did not have the ability to write it in a new way. After all, the concept of 'twenty years later' is too long for students who have only lived for a little over ten years.

It is precisely because of this that most students will naturally focus their exploration on their beautiful visions and fantasies about the future, just like the children's literature work "Little Smarty's Journey to the Future" that Chen Junqian and Zhu Wenyun both read, which will focus on describing the changes in science and technology and people's livelihoods twenty years from now.

"However, I personally lean more towards humanistic thinking, combined with the recently advocated low-carbon living and environmental protection concepts. What about Junqian?"

"I don't know if this counts as going off-topic, but I wrote it in a way that felt like things had changed and people were no longer the same, or that youthful days were over."

"This direction seems quite challenging, but Junqian should be fine."

Like a bot that gives absolute affirmation, Zhu Wenyun spoke up as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Chen Junqian, on the other hand, seemed to have suddenly remembered something and couldn't help but chuckle as he brought up a funny story from his elementary school days.

"Actually, we wrote an essay with a very similar title in the first half of this year. Zhong Yu submitted one, and it was read aloud by the Chinese teacher in class."

"Hmm? Is it because he writes very well?"

"No, no, no, it's because it was written so badly. But it's not just badly written; it's more accurate to say it was interesting. It was his own ultimate fantasy. The whole essay was about his own story of becoming successful and wealthy twenty years later and returning home in glory. There was even a passage where our teacher praised him, saying, 'Hey, when I was teaching you, I knew you would definitely achieve great things.' That's why it was deliberately picked out and read aloud."

After listening to Chen Junqian's story, Zhu Wenyun's lips also curled into a slight upward curve, but she quickly turned her head back to look at the scenery outside the window.

In some ways, she and Zhong Yu are not that different. Even at the essay competition, Zhu Wenyun still subtly added a little bit of her own ideas to her essay.

Twenty years later, I returned to my hometown.

Twenty years from now... that's something that easily inspires imagination and fantasy.

By that time, she must have already finished dating, gotten married, and even had children.

Just like the boy in front of me.

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November arrived in the blink of an eye.

Although Chen Junqian had no intention of having Gu Yong come to thank him, it was a life-saving favor after all. So, after Gu Yong recovered and was discharged from the hospital, Chen Junqian still chose to bring gifts and knock on his door. Gu Lingguo naturally followed.

After letting the two adults exchange pleasantries in the living room, Gu Lingguo went into Chen Junqian's room, closed the door, sat upright in the chair at the desk, and asked him with a smile:

"So, how are your club plans going, brother?"

"Well, there shouldn't be any problem. I just received my award certificate for my essay yesterday, and I plan to go to school next week to find out the school's attitude."

Chen Junqian didn't seem to care at all about Gu Lingguo's enthusiasm for the club, since it was she who had initially encouraged him to get involved. So, he casually pointed to the certificate on the bookshelf with the words "First Prize" printed in gold, and continued his answer:

"The main thing is that we want a proper classroom for club activities. It's not a good idea for everyone to squeeze into my room after school. We're already overcrowded. And you and Xixi will be joining next year, right?"

It can only be said that when Chen Junqian first moved into his new home, he was quite satisfied with the overall size of his room. However, since it was essentially a single bedroom, the usable space in the room was limited. If it weren't for Mu Mu's childhood friend-like behavior, where she would always land directly on the bed whenever she came over, there wouldn't have been enough room for three girls to sit in his room, let alone the two that followed.

"Indeed, then good luck, brother."

Perhaps because the family atmosphere has eased a bit in the last two months, Gu Linguo seems to be in a good mood now as well:

"Around the end of next year's Chinese New Year, our family will officially move in and become neighbors with my brother."

"So soon? I thought you would move in next summer."

"The main reason is that only we kids get a summer vacation. My parents are more free during the Lunar New Year, so this was the decision. My dad also agrees. He really likes you now and has even asked me a lot about you. So, all things considered, our whole family really likes you, even though everyone sees things differently and likes you for different reasons."

As he said this, Chen Junqian felt that the girl's smile carried a complicated emotion, but it quickly vanished because she had already bent down and skillfully pulled out the cardboard box containing his anime and manga collection that he had hidden under the bed.

"elder brother."

Hmm, she sounds a bit like Xixi. Usually, when someone suddenly addresses a girl so seriously, it's followed by some kind of request. However, unlike his sister who can act cute so naturally, this girl's tone is serious, almost like a statement.

"This club was originally founded by the two of us, right?"

"Correct."

"Could I set a short-term, phased goal for our new club?"

"You said."

Holding the two magazines, one reporting on the C81 Comic Market and the other on the left, Gu Lingguo nodded to Chen Junqian:

"How about we hold a comic convention in Guoning later?"

Knowing full well the abilities of the boy in front of her, Gu Lingguo simply skipped attending the comic convention and set her sights on organizing it.