Chapter 241: Gossip
During PE class, Lin Muqing kept secretly glancing at her good buddy, trying to see if there was anything unusual in his expression.
But after watching for quite a while, she found nothing. He looked exactly the same as usual, as if nothing had happened earlier. Could it be that she was overthinking it? Then what was that strange, heart-pounding feeling she had just now? Lin Muqing couldn’t figure it out.
“Muqing, I heard you jumped 2.3 meters in the standing long jump!”
While Lin Muqing was still lost in thought, class monitor Zhang Xiaoling suddenly appeared in front of her, looking like she was bringing good news.
“Uh… not that far, about 2.2 meters,” Lin Muqing replied.
Raising her eyebrows slightly, Lin Muqing felt a bit surprised to see the class monitor looking so happy.
Strictly speaking, her result wasn’t even 2.2 meters, when recording PE test results, the teacher would sometimes round up a little. Even if the teacher noticed, they would just let it slide as long as it wasn’t too much.
“That’s amazing~”
Hearing the result, Zhang Xiaoling immediately spoke in an admiring tone, placing her hands together in front of her chest and giving a light clap.
“Huh? Amazing?”
Being praised so suddenly, Lin Muqing widened her eyes in surprise and asked in disbelief.
“Of course. That’s already a full score. I only got 1.7 meters.”
Zhang Xiaoling nodded seriously as she said this, then looked a little down when she mentioned her own result.
“Wait a second… You mean full score for the girls’ standard, right?”
At first, Lin Muqing felt quite proud when she heard that she had a full score.
But after thinking about it, she quickly realized something was off. She frowned slightly and asked with a subtle look in her eyes.
“Yep,” Zhang Xiaoling nodded again seriously, not seeing anything wrong.
But Lin Muqing did think there was something wrong, and a big problem at that. The class monitor was seriously comparing her score with the girls’ standard? How was that reasonable?
While they were chatting, their class was moving toward the last PE test station, pull-ups. There were still other classes ahead of them waiting to finish, so everyone gathered around the testing area, creating quite a lively scene.
Just as Lin Muqing was about to wrap up her talk with the class monitor and step forward to get ready at the bar, a mocking voice suddenly came from the side.
“Well, if it isn’t the sissy who almost fainted after running just a thousand meters.”
“Oh, isn’t that the one people say often dresses like a girl?”
The voices came so suddenly that Lin Muqing didn’t react at first and completely ignored them.
It wasn’t until a few boys from another class came right up to her and clearly directed their words at her that she realized they were talking about her.
“What are you guys talking about?”
Seeing the boys from the other class come over just to stir trouble, Zhang Xiaoling, as the class monitor, couldn’t hold back. She stepped in front of Lin Muqing and confronted them.
“Uh? You’re talking about me?”
Lin Muqing gave the boys a quick look and pretended to be puzzled.
She noticed that while they were talking, their eyes were mostly fixed on Zhang Xiaoling. It didn’t take long for her to figure out why they were really here.
“We’re talking about the sissy who only knows how to hide behind girls.”
The thin and small boy also lost his nerve. When he saw Zhang Xiaoling standing in front of them, he didn’t dare say what he wanted to directly, afraid of offending the school beauty.
“Oh, so by your logic, doing fifteen pull-ups makes someone a sissy?”
Before Zhang Xiaoling could fire back at them, Lin Muqing quickly pulled her back and, with a sly smile, deliberately said this in a loud voice.
As soon as she said it, a lot of people nearby turned to look at them. The crowd of onlookers suddenly grew. You could see the thin boy’s face change after hearing her words, he looked a little panicked.
After giving him a challenging look, Lin Muqing turned around and headed to the testing area to do her pull-ups. It was just her turn, so she didn’t need to wait in line.
“Fifteen… sixteen! Good!”
With several of her male classmates helping to count, they shouted “sixteen” before Lin Muqing finally let go of the bar and landed back on the ground.
“That’s amazing,” Zhang Xiaoling said as soon as she saw her land. She quickly stepped forward and took out a tissue to wipe Lin Muqing’s sweat.
“Uh… I can do it myself.”
Catching her breath a little, Lin Muqing accepted the tissue with a hint of embarrassment and wiped her own sweat.
But when she finished wiping and was about to go find those troublemakers from earlier, she suddenly noticed they were gone. Then she thought of going to talk to her good buddy. But to her surprise, he was gone too.
It seemed like Lin Wenbin, the “Flower Thief,” and a few boys who could talk with Ye Ziming were also missing.
“Where did they go?” Lin Muqing asked in confusion after looking around.
“No idea,” Zhang Xiaoling replied, shaking her head.
Since she couldn’t find anyone and had nothing else to do, Lin Muqing continued chatting and interacting with Zhang Xiaoling, being looked after in all sorts of ways.
While they talked, the boys from other classes and those passing by looked on with some jealousy. After all, Zhang Xiaoling was the school beauty.
But when they thought about the boys who had just been dragged away, the onlookers felt a chill down their backs and chose to stay quiet.
Meanwhile, in a shaded path on the other side of the school where few people passed by—
“Brother Ye, what should we do about this?”
After taking care of arranging the few boys, Meng Wenwu clapped his hands and walked up to Ye Ziming, speaking like he was reporting to his Big Bro.
“She’s your cousin, so you handle this,” Ye Ziming said, arms crossed, glancing at the boys from the other class lying on the ground. His face was expressionless.
It was only just now that he learned not only were people in school spreading rumors about him and Lin Muqing being a couple, but there were also some nasty, insulting ones. For this kind of malicious, clearly humiliating talk, there was no way he would just let it spread.
So at this key moment, Ye Ziming decided to find someone to act for him, that someone being the “tool” now standing in front of him, Meng Wenwu.
“Uh…”
Meng Wenwu was clearly surprised. How did he suddenly become the errand boy?
“If you don’t handle this well, you know the consequences,” Ye Ziming said coldly after checking the time. Then he turned and walked toward the track field.
He didn’t need to hear Meng Wenwu’s answer, because he wasn’t asking for an opinion. He was simply giving an order.
“Sigh…”
Watching Ye Ziming’s figure grow smaller in the distance, Meng Wenwu couldn’t help but sigh, his feelings mixed.
He had realized something, the Ye Ziming who was around his cousin, and the Ye Ziming who wasn’t around her, were two completely different people, and the difference was huge. This was the conclusion Meng Wenwu came to after talking with Ye Ziming alone a few times.