Chapter Fourteen: Low-key Explanation

  The old bird captain had tofu on the edge of his mouth, but ultimately couldn't get it in. Everyone lost their appetite due to Meng Wei and Yang Tao's antics, so the old bird captain could only regretfully gaze at the remaining dishes on the table and reluctantly paid the bill.

  Three people returned to the dormitory not long after, another member of the dormitory, Xiao Pang, also ended his day hanging out in the internet cafe and returned to the dormitory. At this time, he was sitting on a stool, looking suspiciously at Meng Wei and Yang Tao, from the moment he returned to the dormitory, these two people took turns occupying the bathroom, which directly led to Xiao Pang not being able to complete his daily foot washing work until now.

  Xiao Pang's nickname is based on his physique, and he also has a full name called Chen Jingjing.

  "What's wrong with them?" Xiaopang asked puzzled, sitting in front of the table, deep in thought Chen Chufan.

  "I don't know, it's been like this since dinner last night. I asked them if they ate something unclean. They won't say!" Chen Chufan replied with a bite of his pen, as he was writing the self-criticism to be handed over to Old Xiao.

  Yang Tao walked out of the toilet with a worried and bitter face under Meng Wei's urging. From his expression, it seemed that he still hadn't emptied his stomach completely.

  "Yang Tao, did you and Meng Wei sneak out to Da Dong Men to eat seafood today without telling us!" Xiao Pang asked the person involved after not getting an answer from Chen Chufan.

  "Seafood didn't eat, lake food is eaten a lot. How about it? Are you interested, tomorrow I'll take you together to eat!" Yang Tao replied weakly.

  “Fox spirit?” Little fatty's face showed a vigilant expression. It is said that little fatty has always been particularly sensitive to the two words "fox spirit" because his grandfather used to scare him with them when he was young. Every time little fatty didn't listen, his grandfather would say, "You'd better behave, or the fox spirit will come and take you away." This directly gave little fatty a psychological shadow over the two words "fox spirit". So after hearing Yang Tao mention the two words, he immediately tensed up.

  It was Chen Chufan who understood Yang Tao's meaning, put down the pen in his hand, turned his head and looked at Yang Tao with suspicion.

  "By the way, you two came back so late in the afternoon, did you go to Nanhu?" Chen Chufan's inquiring gaze made Yang Tao feel embarrassed as if he had said something wrong.

  "Oh no, here we go again! I need to use the restroom!" Yang Tao said as he stood up and rushed to the bathroom door, urging Meng Wei to hurry up.

  Xiao Pang stood up and said, "I'll go to the neighboring dormitory for a while and wash my feet." Then he rushed out of the dormitory.

  "What's going on with you two?" Seeing Xiao Pang walk out of the dormitory, Chen Chufan hastily rushed to the door of the bathroom and asked.

  Just then Meng Wei came out of the toilet and heard Chen Chufan's question, his dark face suddenly turned a little red.

  "Nothing, I just like playing with it!" Meng Wei said coolly and walked back to the dormitory, bypassing Chen Chufan.

  "Boss, I admire you! I look up to you! You can even make yourself look fake while having fun! You're ruthless!" Chen Chufan followed Meng Wei back to the dormitory, saying with a mixture of laughter and tears behind his back.

  Actually, Chen Chufan had already made some guesses in his heart. He suspected that Meng Wei and Yang Tao were because of their own performance today, ran to Nanhu to do something that led to a constant diarrhea, but still needed verification. However, nothing valuable could be obtained from Meng Wei's mouth, so Chen Chufan sat quietly on his stool again, waiting for Yang Tao to come out.

  Before long, Yang Tao covered his stomach and returned to the dormitory with a pale face.

  "Yang Tao, you and Lao Da didn't go back to the dormitory directly this afternoon. You two aren't going swimming together at Nanhu Lake, are you?" Chen Chufan asked casually.

  "Swim with your sister! You're not unaware that Lao Da is a land duck, we just each drank a bottle of Nanhu water! It's the kind of mineral water bottle they gave out at today's basketball game!" Yang Tao replied without thinking.

  "My god, you were just saying this morning that the water in Nanhu is so smelly that even if a fish accidentally takes a sip, it would turn its eyes white, and yet you dare to drink an entire bottle of it?!" Chen Chufan said with a mixture of laughter and tears.

  Yang Tao's answer proved Chen Chufan's speculation and left him speechless. He thought that the two might have done something in Nanhu, but he never expected that they would dare to drink a bottle of water from Nanhu each! He knew that he was different now, just like the strange encounters in the martial arts novels he read as a child, but what kind of strange encounter was this? What state was he in now? Was it good or bad, he himself didn't dare to confirm. So he started thinking quickly, trying to make all his abnormalities seem normal to Meng Wei and Yang Tao. Otherwise, how could he interact with them? How could he explain all this? Just like this time, the two of them actually imitated him and drank water from Nanhu, what a huge courage that was!

  "It's all because of you!" Yang Tao gazed at Chen Chufan with a hint of resentment, continuing, "We only went to drink because we saw you jump into the lake and become even more powerful than a Super Saiyan!"

  "Don't mention us, it was you who persuaded me to drink!" Meng Wei retorted back at Yang Tao.

  Yang Tao was anxious when he heard Meng Wei's words, and hastily said: "It was obvious that we went drinking together, what do you mean I instigated you to drink?! Old big brother, you're too heartless!"

  "You drink first, then tell me which water is sweeter and I'll drink it!" Meng Wei said with a straight face.

  "Big brother, you believe me when I say the water is a bit sweet? I also said that we might have a better effect if we swim around the lake, why didn't you swim?" Yang Tao argued loudly in anger.

  Chen Chufan saw that the two were arguing and hastily intervened: "By the way, isn't the water of Nanhu Lake a bit sweet?"

  "You think it's Farmer's Mountain Spring? Of course, it stinks! Where would it be a little sweet? Besides, you were the first to taste it, why are you still asking us?" Yang Tao said with a sullen face.

  Before Chen Chufan could even explain, he had already fainted before entering the water and hadn't tasted it at all. Meng Wei spoke again, unusually talkative today.

  "You said it was sweet at the time!" Meng Wei continued to lift the rod!

  "I didn't say that at the time, would you like to drink with me? Besides, you've already drunk it and still don't know if Nanhu Lake water is sweet or stinky! I think you're just angry because Chen Chufan found out that we two went to drink Nanhu Lake water!" Yang Tao said bluntly.

  As the two of them were talking, Chen Chufan also thought of an excuse. In order not to let the two brothers think that he had become abnormal after jumping into the lake, he could only bluff his way through it! So Chen Chufan opened his mouth and said: "I'm saying you two wouldn't go drown in Nanhu Lake just because of my dunk shot this afternoon, would you? Your imagination is too rich! It's fine that your imagination is rich, but didn't you guys waste your time studying Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought? Drinking a mouthful of dirty water can make you a superhero, are you guys filming a movie or something?"

  "How did you suddenly become able to dunk?" Yang Tao asked after hearing Chen Chufan's words.

  Chen Chufan shamelessly said: "Actually I could dunk in high school!"

  "What, you could dunk in high school?" Yang Tao's face was full of disbelief. "You could dunk in high school, why didn't you dunk one when we went to sign up for the basketball team together? At that time, if you had dunked a few times, it would have shocked the old captain and made him think you were a god! You definitely could have mixed with the main players! And you'd still be a substitute with me!"

  Although Meng Wei didn't say anything, Chen Chufan could see that he was also puzzled. So Chen Chufan hastily explained: "Of course there's a reason! Firstly, although I can dunk, it's not like I succeed every time, okay? When my condition is good, if I try ten times and succeed once or twice, that's already pretty good. This afternoon, I felt my condition was super good, so good that the universe was about to explode, so I tried once and unexpectedly succeeded! Secondly, the only thing I'm good at in basketball is jumping high, occasionally succeeding in dunking, but passing and shooting are not my strong points. Even if I were to become a main player by relying on dunking, during matches, if I couldn't dunk, wouldn't that immediately expose my weaknesses? The position of main player can't be kept like that!"

  After listening to Chen Chufan's explanation, the two of them nodded secretly, seeming to make some sense. But Yang Tao was obviously not so easily fooled and continued to ask: "Then how come we've never seen you try to shoot a three-pointer before!"

  "You all know that I'm a low-key person, and slam dunks are too showy. Of course, I only try them out occasionally when I'm alone!" Chen Chufan sighed and continued to explain.

  Although Chen Chufan's reason was far-fetched, Meng Wei and Yang Tao really believed it. Because all along, Chen Chufan has been a very low-key person. For example, Chen Chufan's grades have always been good, and Old Xiao wanted Chen Chufan to be a class cadre or something! As a result, Chen Chufan refused to do so, even refusing to take on the idle role of a life committee member!

  For example, when Chen Chufan received the first-class scholarship from school in his freshman year. Other kids who got scholarships would show off everywhere, afraid that others wouldn't know. But Chen Chufan never mentioned this to anyone, and Yang Tao and Meng Wei only found out by chance from Old Xiao's mouth.

  Not only that, but soon after the scholarship was issued, a child from the neighboring dormitory didn't understand the situation. He took a third-class scholarship of 600 yuan and showed it off everywhere in the dormitory, even running to their dormitory. It just so happened that only Chen Chufan and Meng Wei were in the dormitory that day, and the child boasted non-stop for over 10 minutes in the dormitory. Chen Chufan didn't say a word, not mentioning at all that he had received a first-class scholarship of 2,000 yuan. Meng Wei was studying chess at the time and ignored the child. Finally, after the child finished showing off and was about to leave the dormitory, he said with a smile: "You guys should also work hard, study well, and one day you'll be able to get a scholarship too."

  This sentence was just heard by Yang Tao, who had just walked to the dormitory door. Unaware of the situation, Yang Tao asked in surprise: "Do we have to wait until someday to get a scholarship? Didn't Chen Chufan from our dormitory already get a first-class scholarship?"

  The child was left speechless by what I said and slunk back to his dormitory with his tail between his legs.

  Yang Tao walked in inexplicably and heard Meng Wei roughly recount the events, at which point he added a comment: "Our family's Chen Chufan is great in every way, it's just that he's really too low-key to the point of being infuriating!"

  It's precisely because of this that the two of them believed Chen Chufan when he said that he didn't want to show off, so he never dunked in front of them.

  "Why didn't you just keep a low profile? And when you were being high-profile, couldn't you have at least informed us first? I'm so stupid for going to drink a bellyful of Nanhu water! How unjust is this!" After hearing Chen Chufan's explanation, Yang Tao was on the verge of tears.