Chapter 4: Knowing Tang Tu
Liu Man, however, was unconscious when all of that had happened. She recognized the man in front of him as Tang Tu, but she didn’t expect that the real Tang Tu would be even more handsome than the one in “her” memories. She could now see why the old Liu Man liked him so much.
“I’m fine, now. Sorry for troubling you yesterday to drop me off in the school clinic,” Liu Man already figured out what happened from the whispers around her and Tang Tu’s reaction. Li Xiaoru and Wang Nina, as two girls, couldn’t have possibly carried a fainted person to the school clinic all by themselves, so clearly, Tang Tu had helped.
Liu Man took a deep breath and didn’t feel embarrassed anymore, so she raised her head to look at Tang Tu, “ Really, thank you so much.”
“As long as you’re ok,” Tang Tu smiled. He looked at her bright and clear eyes, then heard himself say unconsciously, “You’re from the piano major?”
Liu Man answered yes.
“What’s your name?”
Before she answered, she paused for a moment, “Liu Man.”
“Liu Man…” Tang Tu repeated, “You don’t have to thank me, I just happened to be there,” He waved his hand carelessly and walked out of the classroom.
This classroom was only for sophomores, and Tang Tu was already in his senior year. He didn’t come to school often, and rumors said that he had already signed a contract with an entertainment corporation. When he graduates, he’d be able to immediately enter the entertainment circle. The classical music society was really hard to work in these days, and the young adults were too restless to focus on studying classical music, so Tang Tu’s decision of becoming an actor and musician was very smart.
The entire class went crazy after Tang Tu left. Everyone’s looks were even stranger when they looked at Liu Man now. Was Tang Tu here just to check on Liu Man?
Liu Man felt anonymous pressure. She knew that in this world, the relationships between opposite genders were very open. People didn’t need their parents’ permission to date somebody. If you liked someone, you can date them. If you argue, then break up. You don’t have to keep the relationship. But there were still basic rules, you can’t probe into other people’s relationships. People call those who probed in relationships: the third wheel.
It would be great if the people in the past had thought of this. Then maybe her mother, her aunt, Madam Xu, Beauty Yu and other women wouldn’t have had to die in such horrible ways…
This chapter upload first at NovelUsb.Com
Li Xiaoru and Wang Nina arrived at the classroom right at this moment and found their friend by following everyone else’s gaze. They jogged up to her while secretly giggling. Especially Li Xiaoru, whose eyes were almost squeezed into a single line because of her smile.
The duo sat down beside her.
“Tang Tu came to find you! Be honest with us. Did you two already know each other before?”
“I knew it! Otherwise, why else would he be so nice and drop you by the clinic?”
The two girls said, agreeing with each other. They recently came up with the theory that Liu Man had a crush on Tang Tu, for she wasn’t paying much attention when she practiced the piano and skipped class for a couple of times. She also cried for no reason and ate a lot less than usual. She lost weight and looked very feeble. It looked as if her crush had been taken.
The old Liu Man hid her secret away deep inside her heart. She was a person who had a heart of pride, but still held on to this hopeless relationship.
“Nonsense, Tang Tu already has a girlfriend,” Liu Man said with a wrinkled eyebrow.
Li Xiaoru curled her lips, “If you can steal him from his folk music goddess, then it would be a miracle.”
Tang Tu was publicly known for his handsome appearance. Either way, Li Xiaoru thought that Tang Tu was the most handsome boy she had ever met in her entire life. Who, in this school, didn’t have a crush on him? But she knew that her appearance wasn’t the best, and she was already too embarrassed just to stand next to Tang Tu because he surely wouldn’t even glance at her. And when she looked around, the only person that wouldn’t look too bad and could stand next to the handsome Tang Tu, would be Liu Man.
She still remembered when she arrived at school on the first day of freshman year. The first time she saw Liu Man, she was so beautiful even without makeup on and only wore a simple white dress. Li Xiaoru was unable to take her eyes off of Liu Man. Even after getting to know Liu Man, Li Xiaoru knew that her friend’s personality was different from her appearance. Liu Man was lazy, self-centered, and a bit arrogant. But Li Xiaoru was still willing to be friends with her.
“I don’t even like him a single bit now,” Liu Man said after carefully thinking about her words, “When I see him, I don’t even feel my heartbeat getting faster.”
Li Xiaoru and Wang Nina both thought she was joking, until they saw the sincerity in her eyes.
To be honest, with Liu Man’s appearance, she could definitely have a lot of followers and admirers over the past few years. But she paid all her attention to Tang Tu and was aloof to all the other boys. At first, some boys wanted to talk to her, but she always ignored them. After some time, the boys stopped trying to get her attention, since nobody could endure her shitty personality. So differently from all the other pretty girls, Liu Man had a very bad relationship with the opposite gender.
When she saw that her friends still didn’t believe what she said, she explained, “After I fainted last time, I thought it through. There are so many boys out there, why should I be stuck with this one person? I don’t want to make myself suffer, and I also don’t want to fight with the other fans of him. There is always a better person out there who’s just right for me.”
Even if you didn’t count the fact that she wasn’t the same old Liu Man anymore and didn’t like Tang Tu, just knowing the fact that Tang Tu already had a girlfriend, made her leave Tang Tu alone. She didn’t want to trace the steps of her mother. In the past, they were second wives. Now, they are the third wheel.
Li Xiaoru still wanted to say something when the bell rang and everyone quieted down.
The teacher was talking in front of the classroom. At first, everyone was paying all of their attention to the lecture. But after around ten minutes, Li Xiaoru and Wang Nina felt bored and played with their phones under the tables. Liu Man looked around and discovered that everyone else was doing the same thing.
Liu Man just realized that she hadn’t checked her phone until now. She took out her phone from her bag, turned it on, and saw that there was only ten percent of battery left.
“My God, did you even charge it last night?” Wang Nina nudged her. She had a bit of a battery OCD and couldn’t stand to see phones with low battery.
“I forgot to charge it.”
“You forgot? You can even forget about this? Who would go anywhere without their phone? Your phone is your life!” Wang Nina felt that it was strange.
Liu Man shrugged. She hadn’t completely gotten used to her new identity and didn’t have the time to learn what her phone could do. The memories of this body could let her quickly get the hang of modern technology devices, but that didn’t mean that she would get used to using them. Her reactions were always a second late.
She logged onto WeChat and realized that because she didn’t have a lot of friends, there weren’t a lot of messages for her, except for the classroom group chat, which had a few hundred unread messages. There was also a message from the class facilitator:
“@all Please remember to report the song you are going to perform at the end of the semester exam before tomorrow. Remember, remember, REMEMBER: Your score on the third-trimester exam must NOT be lower than 85 points.”
TL’s Note: WeChat is a Chinese social media app that’s a bit like WhatsApp or Snapchat. Different from Wei Bo though.
She flipped through the chat history and saw that Li Xiaoru and Wang Nina had already reported their songs. So she thought for a moment, and then sent Liu Man’s most recent song that she had practiced.
It wasn’t as easy as she thought to survive in this world.