Blood Neon

Chapter 58

Chapter 58

Dismissal

“6451~”

A pleasant melody rang out from the large tower at the center of the school, announcing the end of today's classes—and indeed, the end of the entire school week.

Correspondingly, the classroom's small broadcast speaker also sounded right on time with the dismissal announcement:

“Students~ school is over~ please do not remain on campus...”

Zhang Qiming straightened his back and stretched lazily, then immediately slumped forward and collapsed onto his desk.

“It's finally over...”

The way this week had gone made him feel as though he had already triggered half a normal person's lifetime worth of plot events.

There was no need to even mention what had happened over the previous few days. Just since he had returned to class yesterday, one thing after another had kept happening without pause.

During the morning exercises, he had been provoked by Wang Ze. After losing his temper and slapping him, he was blocked at the school gate after classes in the afternoon and challenged to a fight. On top of that, there had also been today's minor conflict in the corridor with a thug from the neighboring class.

It was one of those situations where nothing happened for ages, but when it did, everything came at once.

And after going through all that trouble, he had finally reached this glorious moment worthy of universal celebration—the arrival of the two-day weekend.

This was a sacred and inviolable human right.

And it meant that Zhang Qiming—

Finally!

Could!

Go home!

And rest~.

He let out a long breath.

Although he had only been back at school for two days, that did not stop him from celebrating the arrival of Friday's end.

“Heading out, Qiming'er↗?”

Da Ming got up from his seat, walked over to the row of desks by the window, and patted Zhang Qiming on the back.

“Yeah, wait a sec. I'll be ready soon.”

With his face buried in his arms, Zhang Qiming replied in a muffled voice.

This was practically the standard routine between the two of them.

Seeing that his friend was still suffering from the aftereffects of Classroom Syndrome and needed a little more time to recover, Zhou Tianming did not urge him further. Instead, he turned around and went to talk to other people first.

Although the two of them were the unique and all-powerful “FireBrothers,” that did not mean they were friendless loners at school with no lives of their own—muscle-headed gorilla tough guys who did nothing but fight every day.

After all, they still had school to attend, and this ultimately was not some hot-blooded all-boys delinquent academy like Suzuran.

For example, people like Wang Ze became delinquents to enjoy the satisfaction of being above others and to gain certain material benefits.

The two Mings, on the other hand, picked fights with delinquents because of a sense of justice and mission. Of course, if one insisted, it also served as a way to spice up school life.

As for purpose, that was simply each side's own purpose.

And when everyone acted with a purpose, things became easier to understand. Naturally, the delinquents also had their own matters to deal with. They were not so idle that they would wage endless war against the two of them for no reason.

The other side certainly did not think of themselves as some kind of “ultimate campus villains,” nor did they regard the Two Mings as “heroes who must be eliminated” and target them accordingly.

In the eyes of those delinquents, the Two Mings Group was probably just another “faction” within the school, fundamentally no different from themselves.

And because everyone belonged to the same “kind of people,” certain underworld rules naturally applied to all of them.

That was also why, up to now, neither they nor Wang Ze's various delinquent groups had completely torn off all pretenses and openly fallen out with each other.

...Though over the past few days, the two sides really had started giving off the feeling that they might fight to the bitter end.

Ahem.

Back to the topic.

So while some students at school might be wary of becoming collateral targets of retaliation and therefore avoided getting too close to them,

for the vast majority of students, maintaining a normal and friendly relationship with them was not a problem.

In fact, because they dared to protect students who were being bullied, and because of the positive image that sense of justice gave them, most people maintained good relations with Zhang Qiming and his friends.

Apart from ordinary people who were timid by nature, avoided trouble, and never caused any,

this group also included, but was not limited to, independent oddballs with punchable personalities, people whose appearances were unpopular, gloomy chuunibyou types, and those who looked mentally unwell and would occasionally run in front of the school building just to shout at the top of their lungs, among others.

At this moment, Zhou Tianming strode to the back of the classroom, where a bespectacled boy was packing up his schoolbag with his head lowered, and directly asked him:

“Xiaohu, are you getting grilled gluten later?”

The bespectacled boy—well, not "Four-Eyes" in a mocking sense, but a boy who wore glasses and was called Xiaohu—looked up at him. After thinking for a few seconds, he answered:

“If you're paying, I'll eat.”

“If it's just one skewer, that's fine.” Zhou Tianming waved his hand, indicating he could afford it.

Calling him Four-Eyes genuinely was not meant as ridicule.

It was just that... how should one put it? He really looked exactly like the stereotypical bespectacled nerd who would appear in school comics from the early 2000s.

His severe nearsightedness, combined with years of wearing glasses, had caused significant deformation of his eye lenses, making his eyes appear slightly more protruded than those of ordinary people when viewed from the side.

As a result, whenever people looked at him face-to-face, they often had to endure the sensation that he was glaring fiercely at them with an expression that made it seem as though they owed him a great deal of money.

In reality, he was not remotely the sort of person who had the courage to glare fiercely at anyone. His fierce-looking eyes were simply the result of poor eyesight and a face that was not handsome enough.

There was no helping it. When a handsome guy did something like that, it was called having character. When an ordinary person did it, they only generated hostility. Humans were the kind of creatures whose values followed their senses.

Anyone who knew him understood this. But for strangers meeting him for the first time, their first impression of him was probably doomed from the start.

Combined with certain issues in his personality—put simply, he had a talent for saying things that made people want to hit him—Xiaohu had successfully become someone who "owed" people money during his first year of high school.

It was only later, after the Two Mings stepped in, that those people who kept "borrowing" money from him were driven away.

Upon hearing the conversation between the two, several others quickly gathered around.

“What's Shovel Tiger eating?”

“Did I just hear someone say they're treating?”

With both hands braced against the edge of Xiaohu's desk behind him, Zhou Tianming shrugged.

“Yeah, grilled gluten. During study hall I caught the smell drifting over and suddenly really wanted some.”

He patted his stomach.

“Sounds good. I suddenly got a craving for it back then too.”

“Let's go, let's go, let's eat, let's eat.”

The two newcomers immediately joined the group.

These people were all classmates who got along fairly well with them. It was not as though they had gone through life-and-death experiences together, but occasionally hanging out after school was perfectly normal.

—As long as they did not get intercepted by delinquents too many times, this sort of relationship tended to remain stable.

And actually...

Not just these few. There had once been others who were even closer to them, some of whom had fought alongside them as combatants.

But as time passed and after enduring various petty retaliatory tactics from the other side, they gradually withdrew from the front lines.

Perhaps because it felt like "deserting the battlefield," they themselves found it awkward. As the years passed, their relationships naturally became less close than before. Both Zhou Tianming and Zhang Qiming found that rather regrettable.

。

Seeing that enough people had gathered, Da Ming turned toward Zhang Qiming, who was still lying on his desk, and shouted dramatically:

“Qiming, are you ready yet? If you don't get moving, we're leaving without you~”

Hearing this, Zhang Qiming merely weakly raised one hand and waved it behind him.

“No. I've suddenly contracted a terminal illness where I can't get up unless someone treats me to grilled gluten.”

“Oh, give it a rest. If you don't get up now, there really won't be any grilled gluten left for you.”

“Alrighty, coming.”

He suddenly sprang to his feet, grabbed the shoulder bag hanging beside his desk, and packed up in just a few quick motions. There was not a trace of his previous exhaustion left.

“Let's go, let's go~.”

As he spoke, he quickly walked out of the classroom.

“So this is the highest realm of freeloading grilled gluten. Impressive, impressive.”

“As expected of...”

“...”

...