Pampered by the School Bully-Chapter 199 - 193. Next monthly exam, you must rank within the top 250!

Chapter 199: 193. Next monthly exam, you must rank within the top 250!

Speaking of which, there are always a few special holidays each year that are particularly worth looking forward to.

In addition to the official national holidays when we can take a proper break, other minor holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Qixi Festival, April Fool’s Day, Singles’ Day, Christmas Eve, and Christmas... are becoming increasingly important to the public in recent years.

This year had already officially entered December, and the upcoming holidays were Christmas Eve and Christmas.

For students, these two holidays were still ones that they could make a fuss about.

I believe ordinary couples wouldn’t miss out on these two days...

And surely the schemers wouldn’t either.

Zhu Dandan and Wen Miao guessed that Huo Feng wouldn’t let these two holidays pass uneventfully, and Pu Sangzhi would definitely receive a gift then.

Pu Sangzhi dared not hold such expectations, nor did she count on Huo Feng giving her a gift, and in fact, she didn’t even want him to give her one.

If he gave her a gift, she would have to give one in return.

Pu Sangzhi had no money to buy gifts, nor the energy to spend time making them.

In short, this was a troublesome matter that Pu Sangzhi hoped to avoid!

...

Monday came with a torrential downpour, and the cold air also struck with full force.

Even though most students were ready for the cold, the temperature drop was so fierce that it felt like an abrupt leap from autumn to winter, as if even thick coats couldn’t fend off the chill and only down jackets were adequate for the cold.

Fortunately, in this harsh season, Huo Feng had a love-filled scarf that Pu Sangzhi had knitted for him, which was enough to make his world as warm as spring.

Early in the morning, Huo Feng and his "sons" sat in the school dining hall for breakfast, each enjoying a bowl of steaming hot soup noodles.

A bowl of soup noodles on a winter morning was very warming to the stomach and very comforting.

In the early morning, the school dining hall wasn’t crowded since many students would fail at the task of getting up, thus skipping breakfast.

Huo Feng and his brothers had also belonged to that group, usually skipping breakfast and waiting until after morning study to buy some snacks at the corner store.

However, today, under Huo Feng’s early summons, ten underlings were woken up by Huo Feng at 6:30 and forcefully brought to the school dining hall for breakfast.

And the only reason Huo Feng purposefully called them for breakfast was... he woke up early himself!

Excited about receiving the scarf yesterday, Huo Feng didn’t sleep well all night, and this excitement continued until this morning, so he decided to get up early and have breakfast in the dining hall... he might even bump into Pu Sangzhi!

Sure enough, when he and his brothers arrived at the canteen, they ran into Pu Sangzhi, Zhu Dandan, and Wen Miao, who were already eating breakfast.

Huo Feng and his entourage consciously carried their soup noodles over to the same row of tables as the Pu Sangzhi threesome, with Huo Feng shamelessly taking a seat directly at Pu Sangzhi’s table.

The other ten brothers grouped around at other tables...

Pu Sangzhi’s breakfast was very simple, just porridge with a salted duck egg, nothing else.

Such a breakfast was cheap, and the key was that it filled her up, so she usually ate like this.

Previously, Huo Feng didn’t know that this was her usual fare, but seeing it today, he couldn’t tolerate her eating so poorly and miserably.

Therefore, Huo Feng moved all the small ribs from his bowl of noodles onto Pu Sangzhi’s plain porridge and said, "Come on, eat more meat, it’s good for your growth."

This act of his made Pu Sangzhi somewhat embarrassed.

She tried to move the ribs back, but he preempted her by saying, "Hey, don’t move them back, they’re dirty now."

When he said they were dirty, he didn’t mean to imply any disgust for Pu Sangzhi’s saliva.

Rather, these small ribs, after being placed in the porridge and sticking with the gooey white paste, did indeed look "dirty".

With that, Pu Sangzhi felt too embarrassed to give them back, so she could only lower her head and say, "Thank you."

Seeing her readily accept, Huo Feng smiled with a hooked lip, "Sangzhi, is it cold today? Are you wearing enough clothes?"

Pu Sangzhi nodded, "Yes."

Huo Feng stirred his soup noodles a couple of times, then added, "I’m wearing warm clothes too. Especially your scarf, it’s super warm. It’s perfect for this cold weather, thank you."

Pu Sangzhi replied, "It’s nothing."

After Huo Feng finished, Zhu Dandan and Wen Miao looked slightly surprised, with Zhu Dandan unable to resist asking, "Sangzhi, did you finish the scarf that quickly?"

Pu Sangzhi replied, "Yes."

Zhu Dandan’s eyes widened in amazement, "That was so fast, I thought you would take at least another week."

Beside them, Huo Feng chimed in unexpectedly, "That’s because Sangzhi was worried I’d get cold, so she stayed up two nights to finish knitting it for me. She’s always so concerned about me!"

Pu Sangzhi glared at Huo Feng, "Shut up and eat."

Huo Feng wasn’t intimidated by her glare, instead, he chuckled, "No problem, I understand you. You’re just a tough-talker with a soft heart, a woman whose words don’t match her feelings."

Pu Sangzhi took a breath, held back her temper, and didn’t respond to his remark.

Seeing her silent, which seemed like tacit approval, Huo Feng’s heart grew even happier.

He cracked a silly smile and then lowered his head to eat his noodles.

But after only a few bites, something else came to his mind, and he looked up to say, "Sangzhi, it’s another monthly exam in two weeks. Do you have any specific goals for me?"

Pu Sangzhi scooped up a spoonful of rice porridge, paused for a moment, and then said, "Top 250."

"2..."

Huo Feng was so taken aback that he inhaled sharply!

At that moment, he deeply regretted asking that question. Regretted it because he had worked so hard on the midterm to barely make it to rank 400... precisely at rank 400.

It was quite challenging to climb from over 600 to 400.

And to go from 400 to 250, the gap in scores became increasingly narrow, and it was not a question of simply gaining an extra ten points to overtake dozens of people.

This was going to be really tough!

"Come on, aren’t you putting too much faith in me?"

Huo Feng widened his eyes, somewhat unable to cope, and asked, "Don’t forget, I was ranked 400 last time."

Pu Sangzhi fiddled with the scalding rice porridge with her spoon, blowing on it while stirring, and while blowing, she said, "Top 250 isn’t difficult. I’ve almost taught you everything you need during this time. If you can’t achieve it, it means you haven’t been studying earnestly."

Huo Feng was so shocked by her words that his eyebrows screwed up into a ’川’ character. "This is too hard, how about a bit lower? Top 300?"

Pu Sangzhi didn’t haggle with him, "You are aiming for Tsinghua. Top 250 might not even guarantee entry to the top tier universities."

"Wait..."

Huo Feng tried to stop her, "It’s only our first year in high school... shouldn’t we take it step by step, gradually?"

Pu Sangzhi replied without lifting her eyes, "You take it slow then, and we’ll see if you can make it into Tsinghua."

"Wow, that was a bit harsh..."

Huo Feng suddenly felt his whole being deflate, "Are you serious? Top 250?"

Pu Sangzhi took a sip of the hot porridge and affirmed, "Mhm."

Actually, when Pu Sangzhi mentioned top 250, the glances of the surrounding students all started to drift in her direction.

Huo Feng’s ten hypothetical sons were scared stiff, Pan Bo’s fish ball dropped back into the soup...

Zhu Dandan and Wen Miao also looked equally startled.

Everyone’s expression seemed to convey the same fact—her goal was set too high! For Huo Feng, it was truly too high!

To jump directly from rank 400 to within top 250 was like leaping from the lower ranks straight through the middle to the upper-middle ranks...

The leap was so substantial it was akin to a miracle.

At least for Huo Feng, it was a great miracle, a tremendous challenge!

Huo Feng heard Pu Sangzhi laying it out like this and knew he would be too cowardly if he didn’t accept the challenge.

So, he clenched his teeth, steeled his heart, and agreed in one breath, "Alright! I’ll try for top 250!"

After committing, he took the opportunity to request, "Sangzhi, if I make it, can you give me some sort of reward?"

Pu Sangzhi glanced at him, and before she could speak, Huo Feng quickly added, "Don’t worry, I won’t ask for any gifts from you! No gifts at all! And I won’t ever ask for gifts from you again!"

Pu Sangzhi didn’t know why he was so resolute, but she went on to ask, "So what reward do you want?"

Huo Feng’s lips curved into a mischievous smirk, "How about something like... granting me the honor of a date, having dinner together, watching a movie, strolling through a park, or maybe spending Christmas Eve or Christmas together..."

As expected, he brought up those two festivals that made Pu Sangzhi panicky.

Last night, Zhu Dandan and Wen Miao were teasing her about those very holidays.

Pu Sangzhi had hoped that Huo Feng wouldn’t focus on this.

But, Huo Feng was quick on his feet... even using his exam results as a bargaining chip?!