“What?”

Songyuan Bu came jogging out through the school gates. At a glance, he spotted the striking Siyuan Liangxiang—and the equally striking Lin Cun'an. “Oh, Xiao Lin, you’re already out! I thought you’d gone to the bathroom and were still inside.”

“Waiting?”

“Didn’t we say we’d walk home together?”

“...” We never actually agreed to that, did we?

“It seems like we’re headed the same way, so let’s walk together for a bit,” Siyuan Liangxiang explained. “Besides, after what happened earlier... they might come after you. If we stay together, I can protect you better.”

“Liangxiang’s amazing!” Songyuan Bu said with a smile.

Lin Cun'an: ...

How should he put it?

It wasn’t that he doubted Siyuan Liangxiang’s ability to fight. It was just that seeing Songyuan Bu instinctively rely on her all the time left Lin Cun'an feeling a little unimpressed.

Still, if they were headed the same way, there was no harm in walking together for a while.

“Xiao Lin, I heard you got into a fight with Anshi today?” Songyuan Bu asked. He’d gone to buy drinks at the time, and only heard the rumors after he got back to class.

“Yeah.” Lin Cun'an nodded.

“Why?” Liangxiang asked at once.

Lin Cun'an was so thin and bony that he looked like an easy target. Her childhood friend had always been like that, so Liangxiang was especially sensitive about it.

“It’s nothing. We were just messing around,” Lin Cun'an said. He couldn’t exactly tell her that Anshi had said something lewd about her.

If he did, that guy would probably die of embarrassment. Anshi Zhengzhi had only made a minor mistake, and Lin Cun'an had already set him straight with his own “Personality Correction Fist,” so Lin Cun'an decided to at least save him some face.

Liangxiang studied Lin Cun'an’s face carefully. There was indeed a bit of redness on his cheek, as if someone had slapped him.

“If anyone gives you a hard time, tell me,” Liangxiang said earnestly.

Lin Cun'an smiled. “What are you, some big sister from out of nowhere? Big Sis Liangxiang?”

Liangxiang’s face turned bright red. “N-no... It’s just... be careful, okay?”

“Mm...” Lin Cun'an gave no real answer.

“I didn’t know you were so good at math, Xiao Lin,” Songyuan Bu said. “I thought the answer to that problem in class was ‘1’ too... It was so misleading.”

“I just got lucky,” Lin Cun'an said.

【But that was Ai-chan’s...】

The system suddenly tried to join the conversation. Luckily, Lin Cun'an’s thoughts were quick enough to suppress her in an instant.

“And during break, I saw you reading a book that was all kanji! I couldn’t understand a thing in a book like that!” Songyuan Bu had turned into a full-on praise machine.

Siyuan Liangxiang could guess which math problem with an answer of ‘0’ Songyuan Bu meant. The math teachers for their two classes were the same, after all, and she still remembered how deceptive that problem was. It had fooled her too... But it was still within the scope of the textbook. As long as you were careful, you could get the right answer.

A book written entirely in kanji...

What ordinary high school student would read something like that? It was way too difficult! Besides, young people were using katakana more and more these days...

“Can you read it?” Siyuan Liangxiang asked, taking care to keep her tone gentle.

She didn’t want to make it sound like she was interrogating him.

“I can.”

Lin Cun'an didn’t hide it.

For him, knowing kanji was a skill etched into his bones. He didn’t want to hide it—in fact, there was a hint of pride in his voice.

“That’s impressive,” Siyuan Liangxiang said without a hint of doubt. “There are so many characters I don’t even know how to read.”

“Kanji in Japanese isn’t too bad, but traditional Chinese characters are the hard ones.”

Songyuan Bu spoke with great confidence. “I once saw a show that said people in China coyly say ‘fangbian’—literally, ‘convenient’—when they mean going to the bathroom. But if someone says, ‘I hope you’ll come by when it’s convenient for me,’ they’re definitely not saying, ‘I hope you’ll come while I’m on the toilet.’”

A classic Chinese joke.

Lin Cun'an smiled faintly. He hadn’t expected to hear a joke like that in this country.

More, more.

But Songyuan Bu didn’t tell another one.

A dark voice sounded behind him:

“We meet again!!”

The voice brushed past their earlobes like a gust of wind.

Songyuan Bu jumped with a start, yelped, “Wah!” and practically leaped behind Siyuan Liangxiang at once.

Aiyuan Dahe.

The bespectacled guy who’d fled after Lin Cun'an caught him off guard had returned.

This time, there wasn’t a trace of his fake, sunny demeanor. His expression was full of malice. Behind him stood the same gang of delinquents, led by the blond guy.

And there were even more of them than before.

The familiar lineup. The familiar location...

Still on this same street.

For some reason, nobody ever seemed to pass through this street.

There were only Lin Cun'an’s group and Aiyuan Dahe’s group.

Calling them two “groups” was a stretch. Lin Cun'an and the other two were vastly outnumbered by Aiyuan Dahe’s side.

“Bu...”

Siyuan Liangxiang stepped in front of Songyuan Bu, then said to Lin Cun'an, “Xiao Lin-kun, you should hide too...”

But Kobayashi Muran stepped forward, putting himself in front of Siyuan Liangxiang instead.

“You’re back again?” Lin Cun'an’s voice was calm—not just calmer than the trembling Songyuan Bu, but even calmer than Siyuan Liangxiang. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll call the police again?” he asked.

Aiyuan Dahe stuck out his tongue and said:

“Call the police? Maybe you could’ve gotten away with that earlier, but you won’t get the chance now...”

“It’s never too late to call the police. You can’t actually kill me.” Lin Cun'an rolled his neck. “As long as I’m alive, I can report you afterward and get you arrested. The more badly I’m hurt, the harsher your sentences will be.”

“About that...” Aiyuan Dahe gave him a shadowy smile. “I’ve thought about it too. So we’ll take Liangxiang, then take some ‘beautiful pictures’ of her. If you dare call the police... Liangxiang would be socially ruined, wouldn’t she? Do you really want to see that happen?”

“Beautiful pictures”...

Though he’d dressed it up in euphemisms, Siyuan Liangxiang knew at once he meant something filthy. She snapped, “You shameless creeps!!”

“Heh-heh. What can I say? You made enemies of me—and us,” Aiyuan Dahe said with a grin. “We should’ve settled this last time, but this guy ruined everything...”

“Hold on.”

Lin Cun'an raised a hand. “Mr. Aiyuan, let’s get one thing straight.”

“...What?”

“Even if I don’t call the police, you’re not just going to let us go, are you?”

“Looks like you know your place...”

“So the sequence is: you don’t let us go → you take pictures → we don’t call the police → you keep using the pictures to threaten us → and maybe you take even more pictures...” Lin Cun'an counted it off on his fingers. “The other option is: you don’t let us go → you take pictures → we call the police → you can’t use the pictures to threaten us. Do we really need to think about which one to choose?”

Lin Cun'an’s “logical thinking” nearly made Aiyuan Dahe curse. “You don’t care about Siyuan Liangxiang’s chastity at all?!”

“After what you’re planning to do to her, what chastity is there left to protect?” Lin Cun'an tilted his head. “Besides, there are so many of you. Everyone gets a share, right? You’ll all have to pay compensation. Each family will probably have to pay several million, won’t they? I doubt any of you are rich, so that’ll put a serious strain on your families. Liangxiang and I could take that money and go wherever we wanted. Why stay in Japan and live with the social fallout? My Chinese is pretty good, and it’s the modern age—if you have money, you can immigrate. Meanwhile, you’ll be locked up for ten years or more. Your families will spend a fortune, and your parents will be left questioning their whole lives because their son committed a crime. It’ll be hard for them to keep the family afloat... Then when you get out, everyone will brand you a rapist. I’d like to see who ends up socially ruined.”

...

...