Returning to Infancy with my Nemesis - Chapter 79

On Sunday, Fu Shizhao’s stomach finally felt a bit better.

But he was still kept at home all day by his grandma and Fu Yu, resting, along with Tang Mian. It wasn’t until evening that they were taken to school for evening self-study.

Before evening self-study, Tang Mian went to the studio with Fu Shizhao to retrieve the things they left there on Saturday.

With painting on Saturday and taking care of Fu Shizhao on Sunday, Tang Mian hardly touched his homework, so he had to rush to finish it during Sunday evening self-study, as it was due on Monday.

During Sunday evening self-study, Tang Mian hardly left his seat, and his pen was almost sparking from the speed of his writing.

Seeing this, Fu Jiacao couldn’t help but smile and tease, “How come you’ve written even less homework than me, who had a date this weekend?”

Although Fu Jiacao spent every weekend with Mu Zichen, they didn’t just play around; most of the time, they would study together in a study room or library after dinner.

After all, the gap between Fu Jiacao’s family background and Mu Zichen’s was too large. In order to narrow the distance, they could only rely on the college entrance examination. Mu Zichen understood his intentions and respected them.

A healthy relationship should be about mutual efforts and progress. Tang Mian bit his lip stubbornly and explained, “I spent too much time painting.”

Fu Jiacao smiled without saying anything.

Both he and Mu Zichen could see Fu Shizhao’s intentions, but Tang Mian seemed oblivious to them.

Fu Shizhao didn’t seem too anxious either, and they didn’t plan to interfere with the progress between these two people. However… Fu Shizhao did ask him for a favor last night.

During the first break of evening self-study, just as Tang Mian returned with a glass of water and was about to continue with his homework, Wei Haifan suddenly walked over with a basket of strawberries.

He distributed one or two strawberries to the classmates he passed by, disguising his ulterior motives. But his destination was very clear — Tang Mian’s seat.

Tang Mian glanced down at the strawberries handed to him.

The strawberries didn’t look very fresh, and their taste wouldn’t be great either. Tang Mian was quite picky when it came to strawberries, so he casually said, “Sorry, my stomach hasn’t been feeling well lately. I don’t really want to eat strawberries.”

It wasn’t an intentional excuse to refuse; last night, after the incident with Fu Shizhao’s stomach ache, his mom had video-called to check on Fu Shizhao’s condition and eventually brought up Tang Mian, warning him not to eat too many strawberries.

Tang Mian suspected that his mom was suspecting that he and Fu Shizhao ate too many strawberries together, causing his stomach ache.

After all, strawberries are cooling in nature, and eating too many can burden the stomach. Tang Mian could only promise with a guilty conscience.

If his mom found out that Fu Shizhao’s stomach ache was caused by the ice cream he insisted on eating, his mom would probably nag even more.

His digestive system had always been very healthy, thanks to his mom’s attention since he was young. He had never had a stomach ache before, so even if he ate a few more strawberries, it wouldn’t matter much.

But he didn’t want to eat the strawberries Wei Haifan was holding.

His taste buds were quite picky. He saw Wei Haifan carrying the basket and sharing strawberries with all the passing classmates. This gesture was not uncommon in high school classes.

In his impression, Wei Haifan was an outgoing guy who could talk to anyone, and his family was quite wealthy. He would share any good food with his classmates, very generously.

Anyway, with so many people, there would definitely be other introverted classmates who would refuse his kindness. It wouldn’t be awkward for Tang Mian not to take the strawberries. Refusal was just refusal, nothing too serious.

Wei Haifan would definitely move on to the next classmate with the basket. After refusing, Tang Mian lowered his head and resumed writing his homework.

After finishing the first class, during which he completed his best subjects, English and Chinese, Tang Mian began to work on his history and political homework in the next class. He planned to dedicate the last two classes to math, which was used to boost his grades as a liberal arts student.

Unexpectedly, Wei Haifan stopped by his seat.

“I don’t eat strawberries either.”
It wasn’t until Fu Jiacao’s voice sounded that Tang Mian noticed Wei Haifan hadn’t left.

Subconsciously, he glanced at him and coincidentally met his gaze.

Regarding this friend from his previous life, Tang Mian, although he said he would go with the flow, knew in his heart that he was avoiding him a bit.

In his previous life, Wei Haifan transferred after having a fight with Fu Shizhao.

At first, Tang Mian sent him messages asking what had happened, and he simply said there was some friction with Fu Shizhao during basketball practice. The specifics weren’t very clear.

Wei Haifan indeed often had friction with some people, especially those from outside the school. Tang Mian didn’t suspect anything. Later, when Tang Mian messaged him, he didn’t reply. So Tang Mian put all the blame on Fu Shizhao, thinking he was bullying others because of his status as the young master of the Fu family.

This time, the reason for avoiding Wei Haifan was not because of Wei Haifan himself, but simply because Tang Mian didn’t want Fu Shizhao to have contact with Wei Haifan. He always felt that these two people might not get along well.

If he became friends with Wei Haifan, it would inevitably lead to Fu Shizhao having some interactions with him.

In fact, this was also related to his own selfishness. He was afraid that if these two people were together, he would inevitably be reminded of some things from his past life.

Especially in the hospital, Fu Shizhao rudely removed the hearing aid from his right ear and whispered something that he knew would be difficult to hear.

When their eyes met, Wei Haifan flashed a very friendly smile and quickly changed the subject, saying, “I brought those three cats back last night.”

Tang Mian was momentarily surprised and instinctively replied, “Aren’t you living in the school dorm? Isn’t it inconvenient to keep cats?”

In his previous life, Wei Haifan had always lived in the school dorm, obviously for the convenience of freely going out. He didn’t have such freedom at home.

Wei Haifan’s heartbeat couldn’t help but accelerate upon hearing this, and the fingertips holding the strawberry basket turned slightly white due to exertion.

Tang Mian actually knew he lived in the school dorm! They had hardly interacted before, and he didn’t understand Tang Mian’s situation. Tang Mian should not have known his situation either.

But Tang Mian actually noticed his living situation, which was a pleasant surprise.

Wei Haifan’s mood brightened instantly upon being rejected for strawberries. He replied, “I can go back home too, it’s just that I find it annoying to deal with family nagging. It’s troublesome. But we have a nanny at home who can take care of the cats.”

Tang Mian nodded, and as the topic turned to cats, he couldn’t help but say a few more words, educating, “Kittens still need a lot of companionship. Remember to take them to the pet hospital for baths, deworming, and vaccinations.”

“Okay, I’ll spend more time with them recently,” Wei Haifan’s heartbeat quickened even further.

Tang Mian was being quite proactive with him.

Satisfied, Tang Mian murmured in agreement. It was a good thing for the three little cats to be adopted and taken care of.

“Can I have your contact information? I’ll send you their pictures when I get back home, and if I have any questions, I’ll ask you for advice,” Wei Haifan asked smoothly.

Although Tang Mian was slightly surprised by the sudden change of topic, he didn’t refuse. He opened his sticky note and handed it over.

Wei Haifan quickly wrote down his contact information and left contentedly.

It was a very good start.

Tang Mian got along with him as well as expected. The only question was whether he should pursue him.

He needed to “handle” his current relationship quickly. Quietly observing all of this, Fu Jiacao leaned on his chin with one hand, saying nothing.

The bell for class soon rang.

As Tang Mian focused on his homework, Fu Jiacao suddenly tapped his arm lightly and whispered, “Can I borrow your sticky note? I need to write a note to Zichen, I’ve run out of mine.”

Tang Mian generously handed over the sticky note.

Passing notes was one of the popular activities in high school. Even if they weren’t lovers, friends would often exchange notes. Since phones weren’t allowed in school, and Fu Jiacao and Mu Zichen were so far apart, they could only communicate and strengthen their relationship through written notes.

For this reason, Fu Jiacao’s sticky notes were always used up quickly, and Tang Mian was used to it.

However, this time, Fu Jiacao’s body leaned slightly to the side, subtly avoiding Tang Mian, and he sneakily tore off a blank sticky note along with the one that Wei Haifan had used to write down his contact information.

The first few pages of Tang Mian’s sticky notes were filled with doodles he occasionally drew during class when he was slacking off. He was reluctant to tear them off and had kept them all this time, tearing from the end or the middle whenever he needed one.

The sticky note with Wei Haifan’s contact information was in the middle, so even if it was torn off, Tang Mian wouldn’t notice it immediately.

Tang Mian didn’t notice his “unusual” reaction and continued to focus on his homework.

This time, Fu Jiacao wrote the note exceptionally slowly, filling up an entire sheet of paper.

After finishing writing, he carefully folded the sticky note together with the one containing Wei Haifan’s contact information, tore off several more blank sticky notes to wrap them up, sealed them carefully with tape, and put them into his pencil case.

After completing all this, Fu Jiacao casually handed the sticky note back to Tang Mian.

Tang Mian didn’t even glance at the sticky note for a second, completely unaware of what had just happened.

When the bell for the end of class rang, Fu Jiacao took Tang Mian downstairs and handed the wrapped-up sticky note to Mu Zichen in front of Tang Mian, winking at him and saying with hidden meaning,

“There’s a surprise for you, it’s been packaged for a long time, take your time to unwrap it.”

Tang Mian naturally noticed the sticky note, now wrapped like a dumpling, and thought to himself that young couples really knew how to play. Fu Shizhao stood aside, his gaze also falling on the note in Mu Zichen’s hand.

After the two left, Fu Shizhao took the initiative to bring a utility knife and handed it to Mu Zichen, saying, “Open it and tell me what’s inside after you’re done.”

Mu Zichen gave him a helpless look, took the utility knife, and muttered softly, “Using my wife as a spy, huh? Remember to treat us to dinner later.”

Both of them could probably guess that this matter might be related to Tang Mian.

Mu Zichen had a wide social circle and had heard a bit about Wei Haifan.

Fu Shizhao directly sent Mu Zichen and Fu Jiacao some of the things he had found out about Wei Haifan from his junior high school days. It could be said that he had a dubious past.

He had also sent a copy of these things to the girl Wei Haifan was currently dating, but she had still blocked him. He really didn’t know what to say.

Perhaps she thought these were all things of the past, and he had already turned over a new leaf, but Fu Shizhao knew that it wasn’t the case at all.

Perhaps one has to personally experience setbacks in order to learn a lesson. No matter how much others advise, it’s useless, especially since he was a “stranger,” intentionally sabotaging others’ relationships as a stranger.

After reading the contents of the small note, Mu Zichen frowned and pushed one side of it containing information about Wei Haifan in front of Fu Shizhao, reminding him, “You can only look at this side, the other side isn’t for you to see, no peeking.”

Fu Shizhao nonchalantly acknowledged, making a light noise of agreement, and began reading the contents about Wei Haifan on the note.

The more he read, the uglier Fu Shizhao’s expression became.

“Here, this is the contact information note,” Mu Zichen handed the other note to him. Fu Shizhao took it and glanced down.

“Ugh, the handwriting is terrible.”

Tang Mian wouldn’t like someone like this.

Immediately, Fu Shizhao unceremoniously tore the small sticky note into pieces. “Let’s go, accompany me for the evening self-study,” Fu Shizhao suddenly said.

“Why?” Mu Zichen looked puzzled.

Fu Shizhao had already picked up the keys to the electric scooter. “Go buy me a basket of fresh strawberries for my ge.”