A few days later, on Saturday, with the afternoon off, Henry Jordan dragged David Bennett to play Counter-Strike again.

This time, they ran into a few players with pretty good aim, who handled B41 and B46 with ease. Even when outnumbered, David Bennett could hold his own for a while, but Henry Jordan basically got killed as soon as he showed his face, and the sense of accomplishment he’d built up over the past few days was instantly shattered.

After one victory, Henry Jordan somehow figured out how to corpse-whip on his own.

So the other side corpse-whipped him, and he corpse-whipped them back. Later on, after killing Henry Jordan, the opponents wouldn’t bother with David Bennett or anyone else—they’d just empty their clips into his corpse, then hop around stomping on it.

David Bennett noticed that Henry Jordan, sitting next to him, didn’t look so good, so he paid the bill and pulled him outside, inviting him to a nearby skewer shop for some food.

David Bennett had already made up his mind: he had to make it clear to Henry Jordan that they wouldn’t be coming to the internet café again before the college entrance exam. Lately, the two of them had been indulging a bit too much.

They’d only eaten three or four skewers when three young guys walked into the shop. The one in front was wearing a short denim jacket and had a big parted hairstyle—he clearly wasn’t a local student.

As soon as the guy in the denim jacket came in, he grabbed Henry Jordan by the collar. “CNMD, you were the one corpse-whipping just now, right?”

Henry Jordan’s face went pale. He tried to pry the guy’s hand off and said, “Let go, let me go, what are you doing?”

A skinny guy who came in behind them stepped forward and kicked over Henry Jordan’s chair. “Aren’t you NB? Weren’t you the one who started corpse-whipping? CNMD!”

David Bennett realized this was a chance to “deepen his friendship” with Henry Jordan.

Although sharing a classroom was a strong bond, he hadn’t spent much time hanging out with Henry Jordan. But if they got beaten up together, if they faced trouble together, it would be different.

“Bro, bro, don’t do this, it’s just a game, don’t get worked up, don’t use your fists, sit down and eat something, come on, I’ll treat you!”

David Bennett stood up with a fawning smile. The guy in the denim jacket glanced at David Bennett, who was a few centimeters taller than him, and rolled his eyes, thinking about how to respond.

Another guy with a buzz cut came up and gave David Bennett a hard shove, pushing him against the wall and nearly knocking him over.

Seeing this, the guy in the denim jacket relaxed.

He thought to himself, Good thing I didn’t say anything just now. They’re just two high schoolers—what’s there to be afraid of? Two pushovers. Give them a beating, and they’ll have to cough up some money before it’s over.

“Bro, bro, don’t hit us, we were wrong, don’t stoop to our level, sit down, sit down, I’ll order more skewers…”

David Bennett bent over, still smiling, and spoke as he edged toward the next table. The buzz cut guy who’d just acted up was about to come over, when suddenly David Bennett grabbed a beer bottle from the floor, smashed it against the wall with a “bang,” kicked the much shorter buzz cut guy to the ground, then took a step forward and pressed the jagged half of the beer bottle against the denim jacket guy’s shoulder.

David Bennett was still smiling: “Bro, it’s not a big deal, let’s just drop it. If I bleed and you bleed, it’s not good for anyone. I’ve got 100 here, not much, but take it as an apology, okay?”

When the denim jacket guy didn’t let go, David Bennett pressed the beer bottle against his neck.

The denim jacket guy felt a cold chill on his neck.

He didn’t know if he was bleeding or not, but he shuddered and let go of Henry Jordan.

David Bennett pulled a 100-yuan bill from his pocket and put it on the table—who knows if it was for the owner or the denim jacket guy—then dragged Henry Jordan out the door. Once they rounded the corner at the intersection, the two of them broke into a run, sprinting full speed toward the school.

They didn’t throw away the broken beer bottle until they reached the school gate.

Chapter 0006 Scott Dalton’s Intuition

The homeroom teacher of Senior 3, Class 7, Simon Brooks, had recently noticed something odd. Judging from the collected test papers, the student named David Bennett in the class had suddenly changed his handwriting—it had become very neat and attractive.

After checking with a few attentive subject teachers, this was confirmed.

At first, everyone suspected someone else was writing for him, but in the whole class, even the whole grade, no one had handwriting like that.

Mr. Brooks found an opportunity to watch David Bennett write during a classroom walk-through, and sure enough, it was his own writing. In twenty years of teaching, Simon Brooks had seen students’ handwriting change before, but never so suddenly or so drastically.

With the college entrance exam coming up, Simon Brooks suppressed his curiosity. Having better handwriting wasn’t a bad thing—at the very least, it could earn a few extra points for presentation on the exam.

Information from various channels suggested that this David Bennett had been acting a bit strange lately. He’d suddenly become good friends with Henry Jordan, and seemed to be studying hard.

“Sigh, there are only a few days left. Even if he works hard now, with his previous level, the best he could do is get into a second-tier university. If he’d started six months earlier, he might have had a shot at a top-tier one.”

Simon Brooks soon forgot about the matter.

After the incident at the skewer shop, Henry Jordan never dragged David Bennett to the internet café again, saving David Bennett a lot of breath.

As the college entrance exam drew closer, the mood in the class grew more restless.

Some were having small group dinners, some were skipping class in twos and threes, boys and girls who’d suddenly hit it off were hugging and touching in the hallway corners during evening study, and even some of the usual top students had stopped reading textbooks and switched to all kinds of novels.

David Bennett was one of the few who could still settle down and study.