Those things that happened in those years

Chapter 51 The Person at My Desk Mate

At the start of the second year of junior high school, the school underwent a significant class reshuffle – merging classes and rearranging seating.

There are two main reasons behind the merging of classes and the rearrangement of seating: First, the number of students dropping out and transferring schools when transitioning from the first to the second year of junior high school was far greater than expected, resulting in a serious shortage of students in the original classes, with some classes even appearing somewhat empty; Second, the number of students repeating the second year of junior high school increased significantly, and in order to rationally allocate teaching resources and promote balanced development of classes, the school decided to reorganize all classes.

To be honest, Hong Liguo had initially been curious, wondering which mysterious person had written the love letter to Zhang Qiaoyun last semester. He thought that once the second year of junior high started, seeing who had transferred to a school in the city might reveal the answer. However, when the second year began, he discovered that almost a third of the students in his original class were missing. Now, figuring out who wrote the love letter seemed impossible, and the matter had to be temporarily put aside.

After the classes were reorganized, their class had significantly more students than before. There was no other way but for three students to squeeze onto one table.

Hong Liguo was still sitting next to Fa Zi, and Cui Zhiguo, a student who had repeated a grade from the second year of junior high, joined them.

In front of them were Zhang Qiaoyun and Zhang Yulan, and a new student, Li Haiying, who had repeated a grade from the second year of junior high, was also added to that table.

At Qiao Shuang and Wang Yuxin's table, Ji Pingping, who had been transferred from another class, joined them. Ji Pingping was an extremely beautiful girl, no less so than Zhang Qiaoyun and Qiao Shuang. As soon as she appeared, she attracted the attention of many male students, making many of them secretly marvel.

At Yi Jianping and Xu Jinku's table, Fu Zhigang, a student who had repeated a year of junior high, was also seated. Most of the other tables also had students added, with only a very few still maintaining the original arrangement of two students per table.

Actually, not all students who repeated the second year of junior high school did so because of poor grades. A large number of them wanted to study for an extra year to better prepare for the high school entrance exam. At the time, this seemed to be a trend, perhaps because the entrance exam scores for first-time students were relatively low, while repeating the exam in the third year would make them "reviewers," and their admission scores would be higher. Therefore, everyone wanted to build a more solid foundation in the second year of junior high school.

After the classes were combined, problems arose. Desks that originally seated two people now had to accommodate three, making the space cramped and leading to frequent conflicts.

Hong Liguo and Fa Zi got along fairly well with Cui Zhiguo. However, Cui Zhiguo wasn't exactly a peace-of-mind character. He was always sneaking off to play ball, and besides playing ball, he had another bad habit: he loved flirting with girls.

He often deliberately touched the female classmate in front of him, which angered Zhang Qiaoyun. Zhang Qiaoyun was no ordinary person and scolded him many times, but Cui Zhiguo seemed not to hear her and continued to do as he pleased.

Beautiful women, especially mature and sexy girls like Zhang Qiaoyun, inevitably attract some trouble.

After Zhang Qiaoyun warned Cui Zhiguo repeatedly to no avail, she told Sun Changlin about it. Sun Changlin and Yi Jianping were not going to tolerate his insolence. After a few punches, he obediently submitted and dared not do anything underhanded behind Zhang Qiaoyun's back again.

After being reprimanded by Sun Changlin, Cui Zhiguo didn't behave for even a week before reverting to his old ways. He was unaware that Fa Zi had secretly fallen for Zhang Yulan back in the first year of junior high. So, after being warned for flirting with Zhang Qiaoyun, he recklessly turned his attention to Zhang Yulan.

During class, Zhang Yulan's long, beautiful hair would fall onto their desk. Cui Zhiguo would seize the opportunity, deliberately open his pencil case, and when her hair fell down, he would slam the pencil case shut, trapping Zhang Yulan's hair. Zhang Yulan was in so much pain that she dared not move and could only cry out in agony.

At this moment, Fa Zi would quickly hold up the pencil case to ease Zhang Yulan's pain.

Sometimes, Cui Zhiguo would secretly peel off the adhesive backing paper and leave it on her stool, so that it would stick to her pants when she sat down... The arguments that resulted from this need no further explanation.

Fa Zi was furious at Cui Zhiguo's harassment of Zhang Yulan; he was utterly fed up. But in class, he couldn't openly express his anger. After all, his feelings for Zhang Yulan were still a secret crush. If he got angry now, wouldn't that be tantamount to publicly admitting his feelings? And what if Zhang Yulan didn't reciprocate? How embarrassing would that be!

During the break, Fa Zi anxiously found Hong Liguo and discussed with him how to teach Cui Zhiguo a lesson.

He frowned and asked, "It wouldn't be appropriate for the three of us to start a fight right here at the table, since we usually get along quite well."

Hong Liguo said, "That's easy. Just let Brother Jun and Hong Bo and the others step in and teach him a lesson, just like they did with Sun Changlin."

Fa Zi shook his head and said, "Everyone at school knows about Jun Ge's relationship with us. What difference does it make whether they intervene or we take action directly? I just don't want her to know that this has anything to do with us. What do you think we should do?"

Hong Liguo stroked his chin and thought for a moment, then said, "Why don't I talk to him and let him know the seriousness of this matter? If he still doesn't behave, then we can find a way to deal with him later."

After several rounds of subtle and tactful questioning from Hong Liguo, Cui Zhiguo finally understood his meaning. Cui Zhiguo's eyes widened, and he said with surprise, "I really didn't expect that you freshmen class were so cunning."

Taking the opportunity, Hong Liguo mentioned Qiao Shuang and Wang Yuxin again. In order not to arouse Cui Zhiguo's suspicion and make him realize that he had feelings for Qiao Shuang, he deliberately mentioned a few more girls' names and said in a serious tone: "These girls are basically all taken. If you want to talk to them, you have to be careful. You don't want to get beaten up one day without even knowing why."

Cui Zhiguo was well aware that back then, people at the school would often get beaten up for no reason. Sometimes it was conflicts between students from the school, sometimes it was idle people from outside coming to the school to cause trouble, and most of the time it was related to dating.

He had also heard about the Six Swordsmen, especially the disbandment of the Dragon and Tiger Brothers, which made almost everyone at the village middle school aware that Hong Liguo and Sun Changlin were... not to be trifled with. Cui Zhiguo knew in his heart that with his skinny, wiry arms and legs, anyone could easily take advantage of him.

So, although Cui Zhiguo was a little unwilling, he had to restrain himself a lot and at least dared not make any more moves on the girls that Hong Liguo had mentioned.

However, Cui Zhiguo's habit of flirting with girls never changed; he just changed his targets.

Later, he was admitted to a teachers' college, but he still didn't change his old ways. However, at least his flirting wasn't in vain. When he graduated, he flirted with a girlfriend. It's just a pity that he was still unfaithful after marriage. While teaching at the school, he still didn't forget to flirt. He secretly kept a mistress outside of marriage. Because he was in dire financial straits, he borrowed money from all over the place. After he couldn't borrow money from anyone else, he even went to Hong Liguo to borrow money. He only paid it back a few years later.

After his wife found out about his affair, they almost got divorced. Although they didn't divorce in the end, their relationship broke down, and they lived in different places. Coincidentally, his new home was in the same neighborhood as Hong Liguo's, so Hong Liguo knew everything about his affair.