BTO CH42

Although the atmosphere wasn’t quite right, Xu Sheng still couldn’t help but think that his desk mate truly carried out his cold and aloof persona to the end.

These two words were cold and ruthless.

“Fought before.”

Shao Zhan barely managed to elaborate on those two words: “I fought him before.”

During junior high, Yang Shiwei was pretty well-known in Nanping. People at school called him “Wei-ge.” Shao Zhan wasn’t in their circle, and they weren’t close.

Back then, the school tyrant factions were divided into two groups. Yang Shiwei belonged to the group that ran rampant, caused trouble, and frantically sought attention all day. The other group was led by Shao Zhan—they didn’t have any special characteristics, except for not paying much attention in class, looking no different from regular students.

If someone like Xu Sheng counted as a school tyrant, the Shao Zhan back then was a hundred times worse than Xu Sheng; describing him as a school tyrant was an understatement.

Sitting in the back row, Shao Zhan occasionally slept, but most of the time he leaned back in his chair, playing games on his phone while looking at the notes on the blackboard. Yet there wasn’t a single mark in his textbooks, and his assignment notebooks were entirely blank. His quietness was merely a facade; a piercingly cold hostility hovered between the teenager’s brows, sharp and arrogant, his deep eyes carrying an invisible pressure whenever someone met his gaze.

On the surface, things seemed calm, but everyone knew this lord wasn’t someone to mess with.

And no one dared to provoke him.

Once, a few of Yang Shiwei’s brothers came to their class looking for trouble, assuming Shao Zhan wasn’t there. Shao Zhan ran a hand through his hair, sat up, and casually shifted his chair, and before he even said a word, those guys exchanged glances, communicating silently: Didn’t you say Shao Zhan wasn’t in class?

Someone really told me he wasn’t in class!

In the end, they didn’t even start trouble; after hesitating for two seconds, they just walked away.

To describe it in the words of his classmates back then: This is what a real boss fucking looks like—doesn’t waste words with you, and doesn’t put on airs.

Looking back at that period now, Shao Zhan felt as if everything had been empty. He didn’t even know what he was doing. Coming home, turning on the light, finding the house empty, confused, unable to find a direction. “Going bad” seemed like an extremely easy and natural thing.

The conflict with Yang Shiwei really began later during a period when Shao Zhan took a part-time job at a coffee shop near the school after classes.

His looks were striking, his height had surged past 1.8 meters, and he rarely spoke to anyone. Many girls at school secretly paid attention to him, causing the shop to be constantly full.

“The long-haired girl across from us, heard Yang Shiwei has been chasing her lately. She is pretty,” a coworker said to him after taking an order. “Though she spends all day running to our shop, her intentions are written all over her face. Do you really not have a single bit of interest in her?”

Shao Zhan had just finished a fight before coming to the shop, completely unharmed. If the coworker hadn’t seen Shao Zhan with his own eyes single-handedly tossing a guy aside like trash before stepping through the door, he would never have imagined this guy actually got into a fight before coming to work.

Hearing this, Shao Zhan didn’t even lift an eyelid: “No impression.”

The coworker clicked his tongue twice: “How is it so unfair? Other people envy you so much, but you won’t even look.”

However, the coworker quickly stopped envying him.

Because Yang Shiwei soon brought a few guys over to wreck the place: “—Shao Zhan, get out here! Fuck, what the hell do you mean?”

Usually outshone by Shao Zhan at school, the title of Nanping’s top dog belonged to Yang Shiwei on the surface, but in reality, who didn’t know Nanping’s true school tyrant’s surname was Shao? That was one thing, but even the girl he fancied favored him.

Yang Shiwei added: “How does your shop hire people? Have you investigated them? Do you know what kind of person you hired? Out of everyone you could hire, you hired the son of a murderer—”

Shao Zhan paid zero attention to Yang Shiwei’s earlier words until that last sentence, until that word came out.

Across from the coffee shop was an alley entrance.

Before stepping outside, Shao Zhan methodically un-tied the apron around his waist, hung it on the front counter, rolled up his sleeves, and counted the number of people opposite him: “Five.”

Yang Shiwei didn’t hear clearly: “What?”

Shao Zhan’s answer was a clean, decisive elbow strike. Yang Shiwei was violently yanked close by him, his vision instantly turning dark with zero room to react. The tearing pain in his abdomen forced an agonized scream out of him.

Actually, without Shao Zhan having to say much, Xu Sheng could guess the general picture.

The clues exposed earlier ultimately converged at one point: delinquent.

His Study God desk mate used to be a real school tyrant.

Xu Sheng was genuinely not dumb—his IQ was probably all funneled into his EQ. He had already harbored faint guesses before, and today that Yang guy’s words indirectly verified that previous speculation while pulling at another string.

Because of the wind blowing through the crack in the window, the fine strands of hair on Shao Zhan’s forehead were blown a bit messy, obscuring his eyes: “What did he say to you?”

Xu Sheng instinctively didn’t want to repeat that hooligan comment related to his dad: “Didn’t say much, just a bunch of boring nonsense.”

“Did your classmate know who my dad is,” Shao Zhan led the conversation back himself, chuckling softly as he said, “Or ‘like father, like son’—nothing beyond those few lines.”

Xu Sheng thought to himself that his guess was spot-on without missing a single detail.

After a two-second silence, Shao Zhan said: “My dad…”

Shao Zhan didn’t look at the expression on Xu Sheng’s face right now. He had long grown accustomed to the reactions of people around him regarding this matter, which caused him to freeze for a moment when he heard a voice belonging to himself, yet spoken in a completely opposite tone, echo in the corridor.

“Who your dad is has nothing to do with you. It’s not like your dad is my desk mate, and you don’t need to explain this,” Xu Sheng said. “That Yang whatever-his-name-was guy, if he kept talking back then, I would’ve let him know his daddy’s surname is Xu.”

Xu Sheng hadn’t said enough. As he spouted his tough talk, the hint of a smile in his eyes faded, and he continued: “Don’t let me see him next time.”

“He doesn’t know he dodged a bullet today. If Lord Xu Sheng himself had been standing there, the moment he uttered that first sentence, he would’ve ceased to exist.”

The wind outside the window suddenly grew warm and dry.

Shao Zhan thoroughly shook all those images out of his mind. His throat felt dry and parched. He abruptly raised his head, using the far-from-bright light in the hallway to look at Xu Sheng a few steps away.

Who was also “himself.”

Xu Sheng usually looked easygoing, slouching lazily as if boneless, possessing no real “lethality” aside from rebelliousness, but when he got serious, he was entirely different.

Xu Sheng’s thought process was somewhat different from ordinary people. After the topic of Shao Zhan’s dad was brought into the open, the problem Xu Sheng cared about most after cursing out Yang Shiwei was actually: “Why did you grab me that day? No matter how you slice it, you were once a ‘school tyrant’ yourself. Skipping class and scaling walls shouldn’t warrant snitching to the dorm manager, right?”

Shao Zhan: “…”

The more Xu Sheng thought about it, the less he understood. If Shao Zhan had really been a “model student,” that would be one thing.

Xu Sheng sighed: “We’re both thousand-year-old foxes; why are you playing ghost stories with me?”

The atmosphere was broken by this phrase “thousand-year-old foxes.” It was unclear who laughed first, but both of them unconsciously let out a laugh. Shao Zhan’s laugh was very low. After chuckling, he tilted his head back slightly, his Adam’s apple bobbing twice.

After a long while, Shao Zhan finally said, “Because it was too similar.”

“Similar to what?”

“Hard to say,” Shao Zhan said. “Maybe similar to the old me.”

Sixth High had far too many rules, so many that Shao Zhan felt as if he were far removed from that period of time.

He was surrounded entirely by model students who studied hard.

The silhouette of Xu Sheng sitting on the wall ready to jump down had violently crashed into his vision back then, allowing him to catch a glimpse of himself through layers of dust-covered chains.

He just hadn’t expected that the two of them would later swap bodies. When he woke up and opened his eyes again, he really had become “Xu Sheng.”

The movie was an hour and a half long, so they couldn’t be absent for the entire duration. They had to be back before the lights in the screening hall came on. Xu Sheng reached out a hand to the person sitting on the windowsill: “Going or not?”

Halfway through the movie, Hou Jun heard another stir beside him. Turning his head, he saw the Study God and the School Tyrant, who had been missing for half the movie, return together.

Hou Jun shook his head and continued watching the movie, thinking to himself that he really knew way too much.

These two were truly… way too blatantly obvious!

After the movie ended, the instructors led their respective classes back to the residential area.

Old Meng carried a bag the whole time, watching from the side. Instructor Wang gave instructions regarding the precautions for tomorrow morning’s march: “First, when you hear the broadcast tomorrow morning, I will only give you fifteen minutes to assemble here fully dressed. Anyone who hasn’t come down after fifteen minutes can test whether you can handle the consequences. Second, instructors will go to your dorms to check sanitation. Quilts, washbasins, all of these must be placed according to the rules…”

The dorm had an individual bathroom. Lüzhou Base was too large, so wherever a public bathroom was located, it was inconvenient to walk there.

Hou Jun asked: “Who washes first? Rock-paper-scissors?”

The result of rock-paper-scissors: Shao Zhan washed first.

Xu Sheng hadn’t paid attention to the fact that there was showering involved. Luckily it wasn’t a public bathroom; otherwise, showering facing Shao Zhan—no matter how you thought about it—would be weird.

However, the current situation clearly wasn’t much better. After all, Shao Zhan was currently using his body. When they weren’t in the same dorm, out of sight meant out of mind, but now directly facing Shao Zhan using his body to shower… Sitting on the bed listening to the sound of the bathroom door locking, Xu Sheng couldn’t continue playing the game in his hand.

Gaming friend Zhang Feng: ?

S: Not playing anymore.

Zhang Feng: Big bro, what’s your deal? We had such a huge early-game advantage this round…

Xu Sheng pressed the screen off. Hearing the faint sound of water from the bathroom, his mind uncontrollably drifted into aimless thoughts: Did he take off his clothes?

Eyes open or closed?

Where are his hands placed?

Where did he touch…

Fuck.

“Zhan-ge, why are your ears so red?”

Hou Jun was pulling his pajamas out from his backpack. Turning his head, he saw the “Study God” sitting on the opposite bottom bunk, the Study God’s ears flushed red, extending almost all the way from his earlobes down to his neck.

Xu Sheng abruptly stood up, pulled open the sliding door, and went out to the balcony to get some air: “Nothing, just a bit warm.”

At night, Hou Jun and the others kicked off the boys’ dorm night-chat mode.

Xu Sheng washed last. By the time he came out, the lights were already off, leaving only a bit of light from the phone screen in Shao Zhan’s hand; otherwise, coming out of the bathroom would have been pitch-black for him.

Hou Jun: “Sheng-ge, still playing games?”

Shao Zhan didn’t respond.

Only after Xu Sheng got into bed did the phone screen go dark.

Xu Sheng finally fell asleep groggily amidst the chatter of the dorm night talk until he heard the “broadcast” mentioned by Instructor Wang. The broadcast was a song, singing resoundingly: “Unity is strength; this strength is iron; this strength is steel!”

“What the hell—” Hou Jun, one of the main forces of the dorm night talk, turned over and plugged his ears. “Why are they playing music?”

When Xu Sheng heard the broadcast, his consciousness wasn’t very clear yet. Rather, it was Hou Jun’s voice that brought his awareness back quite a bit.

Because the sound location was wrong.

Hou Jun clearly slept on the bunk opposite him. How come when he turned over, even the bed board under him vibrated?

Xu Sheng thought to himself, the morning sunlight so bright it was hard to open his eyes. When he tried to raise his hand to scratch his hair, everything in front of him was blurry. His vision slowly focused, finally locking onto his hand paused in mid-air, this was his own hand.

Xu Sheng was a bit dazed.

The first time lasted all the way until the monthly exams ended.

He had prepared himself to struggle for another month.

As a result, the second swap returned to normal in less than twenty-four hours?