Love Makes You Blind

After a brief silence, a tsunami of hoots and whistles broke over the auditorium, with whispers spreading through the crowd like a rising tide:

"What the hell? Aren't Zheng Pingqing and Lin Qian sworn enemies?"

"Oh no, we've lost another one. The Gaokao ruins lives!"

"Hmm. My brow is furrowed. There's more to this than meets the eye!"

"What do I do? I actually think this is kind of cute. Am I sick?" Someone just had to smart off: "Yes."

"I honestly can't tell whether Zheng Pingqing is a fan or a hater..."

"That stance of Zheng Pingqing's... Could this be the legendary underling paying his respects to the local boss?"

"More like an underling kissing ass. Did Lin Qian's dashing performance just win him over?"

"Not gonna lie, Lin Qian won me over too!"

...

Xu Yao and the others, who had already stood up to sprint over and stop Zheng Pingqing, dropped straight back into their seats.

The school administrators and teachers, who had been bitterly regretting their choice of student representative, were dumbstruck. Ke Caizhu in particular, who had been thoroughly enjoying her tirade, still had her mouth wide open, but not a word came out. She looked blankly at Zheng Pingqing, then turned her gaze toward Huo Yerui.

Huo Yerui's face had twisted completely out of shape.

The principal's heart had been in his throat. Who could have predicted such a reversal? The sheer roller-coaster ride nearly gave him a heart attack on the spot. Reaching for the back of his chair, he gave Huo Pingchuan a dubious look. "This is how the Class 8 students were going to target Lin Qian?"

Huo Pingchuan was every bit as stunned. Faced with that question, all he could do was give an awkward smile and mumble his way through it. "Perhaps the message got garbled."

The principal gave him a long look. "School is a relatively straightforward environment. We shouldn't be spreading hearsay."

What could Huo Pingchuan do? He could only force a laugh and agree. "Quite right, Principal."

If Huo Yerui hadn't been his own flesh and blood, he would have been tempted to beat him to death.

Horrified, Dong Mingen tugged frantically at the hem of Zheng Pingqing's shirt, not even caring that his phone had fallen to the floor. "Boss, you got the line wrong," he said, his voice trembling. "Wrong..."

Zheng Pingqing paid no attention to anything around him. He kept that big, tacky gray megaphone raised, his gaze cutting straight across the sea of people to settle on Lin Qian.

At that moment, Jiang Tingjun's words were replaying in Lin Qian's head: "If someone confessed to me like that, I'd rather stay single for the rest of my life!"

Zheng Pingqing wasn't exactly confessing, but round it off and this more or less amounted to public humiliation.

Could he possibly have done anything cornier?!

As it turned out, yes.

Just as Lin Qian was rendered speechless by the sheer corniness of it all, a booming, accented voice suddenly blared from Zheng Pingqing's megaphone: "Fresh northern radishes, just in! Seventy fen a jin—two yuan for three jin!"

Lin Qian: "..."

Zheng Pingqing: "..."

Every student and teacher in the room: "Pfft—"

"Hahahahahahaha..."

"Holy shit, the little prince of the produce market!"

"Mystery solved. Zheng Pingqing must be trying to sell Lin Qian white radishes... No, sorry, northern radishes."

"Ooh, I want some!"

...

A chill ran down Dong Mingen's back. He had been in charge of borrowing the equipment, and now he could feel death looming over him. Trembling, he released Zheng Pingqing's shirt, wanting to cry but finding no tears. "Boss, I didn't know there was a recording on it..."

Zheng Pingqing ignored him. Without a word, he switched off the megaphone's playback function and went back to looking at Lin Qian.

All his earlier uncertainty and misery, all the sorrow of having to start over as a lonely single guy, had vanished after Lin Qian's speech. Lin Qian had actually been reborn along with him.

Inwardly, Zheng Pingqing cursed Dong Mingen for being useless. Since he'd borrowed a megaphone with a recording on it, why couldn't he have recorded some firecrackers and fireworks too?

Then he could have turned it up to full volume and celebrated right here and now: he didn't have to go back to being single!!

Faced with Zheng Pingqing's burning gaze, Lin Qian was practically choking up.

Who would have thought that Zheng Pingqing, who had cared so desperately about saving face back then, would actually be willing to do something this corny in front of so many people, all because of one thing he'd said?

Love really did make people blind.

Even blinder was the look in Zheng Pingqing's eyes right now. Across that sea of people, Lin Qian could still translate it with perfect accuracy: I did what I promised you. Now we can get down to being properly in love.

Being that love-addled was no good.

Lin Qian felt he had a duty to shoulder responsibility for both their futures. With everyone watching, he calmly cleared his throat and smiled. "Thank you for your support, Student Zheng. From now on, please join me in studying hard."

Zheng Pingqing raised the megaphone again, composed and resolute. "All right."

Then he smacked Dong Mingen on the head. "What are you standing there for? Clap."

Dong Mingen's brain was mush. Almost unconsciously, he began to applaud. With him taking the lead, the crowd of alternative kids from Class 8 gathered around him and Zheng Pingqing joined in, bewildered but no less enthusiastic.

The applause spread like a tide from that flamboyantly dressed cluster of boys with their startling hair colors, gradually sweeping through the entire auditorium. It was thunderous, inspiring.

The principal watched with his heart swelling, nodding again and again. "In all my years at No. 12 High School, I've never seen such a successful pledge rally. Even the underperforming class is joining in so willingly. Lin Qian really is remarkable!"

Huo Pingchuan: "..." He was puffed up with rage like a blowfish!

Hong Keyi and the other teachers who taught the grade gave Ke Caizhu a long, meaningful look.

Ke Caizhu: "..." This was unbearable. She wanted to crawl into a crack in the floor.

...

...

The moment the pledge rally ended, Xu Yao and the others crowded around Lin Qian.

Every one of them was pale. They had been every bit as shaken as Dong Mingen and his friends.

Most of the students and teachers present took this as a sign that the boys were growing up, and were deeply moved by their newfound mutual appreciation. But Xu Yao and the others were veterans of the front lines against Zheng Pingqing. They weren't going to be taken in so easily.

This had to be a scheme!

"Zheng Pingqing is so devious! How did he come up with something this vicious?" Fu Yifei demanded indignantly.

Lin Qian was baffled. "What's devious about it?"

Fu Yifei: "..."

At a loss for words, Fu Yifei finally said in frustration, "I haven't figured that out yet. But Zheng Pingqing being devious is an established fact. It doesn't need proving."

Lin Qian: "..." He would dearly like to see Fu Yifei try putting that on an exam paper.

To his surprise, Jiang Tingjun actually agreed with Fu Yifei. "Zheng Pingqing, that despicable bastard... No, he's not even human!"

"But he said I was handsome," Lin Qian reminded them, unwilling to let this go.

Xu Yao slapped his thigh. "I've got it! He's trying to bewitch us! He wants us to let our guard down so he can stab us in the back when we least expect it..."

The more he talked, the more sense it made to him. Suddenly bursting with pride in his own brilliance, he gripped Lin Qian's shoulder. "A-Qian, Zheng Pingqing must be lurking in the shadows right now, waiting for us to slip up. We absolutely cannot fall for it!"

"That makes sense." Jiang Tingjun looked thoughtful. "Maybe he wants us to go soft on him so he can push his luck during the negotiations later and put us on the back foot."

"Does he think we're idiots?" Fu Yifei scoffed. "We can't give an inch in those negotiations. We'll show him we're not that easy to fool."

Pan Qibo: "Mm."

Stunned by his friends' flights of imagination, Lin Qian choked out, "...I think you're overthinking this."

The truth was, love had simply gone to Zheng Pingqing's head.

"A-Qian," Xu Yao said earnestly, "you've never been out in the real world. You don't know how treacherous people can be."

Lin Qian: "..." In his previous life, he'd spent more than a decade out in the real world. Xu Yao, on the other hand, had yet to set so much as a foot beyond the school gates. His entire notion of society probably came from watching palace intrigue dramas.

Convinced they had uncovered Zheng Pingqing's earth-shattering conspiracy, Xu Yao and the others launched into another round of abuse. Only after they had finally vented their fill did Jiang Tingjun say, "We need to plan how we're going to teach Zheng Pingqing and his gang a lesson at the negotiations."

Looking at their expressions, all straight out of a palace intrigue drama, Lin Qian sank into thought.

Over the years, he had occasionally thought back on his youth, but those memories had always come softened by the filter of time. He'd never had to confront teenage idiocy quite so directly. Some things really were better in memory than in person.

Especially the incident that had led to these negotiations with the Class 8 gang. Facing it again in person now that his timeline had restarted, Lin Qian's entire emotional response was: ...............

It had all started over summer break. Hoping for one last fling before senior year, Xu Yao had created a character in a wildly popular online game that had just launched. Dong Mingen happened to spot him playing it at the same internet café. A seasoned gamer, Dong Mingen used his superior skills to kill Xu Yao so relentlessly that he couldn't even leave the starter village, infuriating him to the point of nearly abandoning his account.

As it happened, Lin Qian's older sister, Shao Sijia, was home from college for summer break. When she heard what had happened, she took matters into her own hands. She logged into Xu Yao's account, spent a few days grinding like mad, then turned around and slaughtered Dong Mingen all the way back to the starter village.

Not content with that, Shao Sijia also founded a guild in the game and led its members in killing Dong Mingen's guild so thoroughly that it disbanded.

Naturally, Dong Mingen wasn't about to let that go. He hounded Xu Yao for revenge. But Shao Sijia had left when summer break ended, and without her help, Xu Yao didn't dare log in. For the sake of his own dignity and that of their little group, he couldn't possibly tell Dong Mingen that someone else had been the one killing him.

Dong Mingen was beside himself with rage. Unable to get at Xu Yao online, he repeatedly harassed him offline, trying to force him to log in.

Eventually, Xu Yao couldn't take any more and agreed to meet him in person to work things out. Worried that Xu Yao would get the worst of it, Lin Qian and the others naturally had to go along. The same went for Dong Mingen's side: in the end, he called in Zheng Pingqing and several others.

In short—

This shitty game is ruining my youth!