He’s So Sweet After Class

Due to Yang Sheng’s words, Mo Lingqiu suddenly became interested in University A’s forum, but he didn’t know the URL. He thought about Fan Nian who always talked about the school forum, so he sent him a message. 

Qiu: Send me the URL to the school forum. 

My aim is 300 million: ???

My aim is 300 million: You wanna surf the school forum?

Qiu: En. 

My aim is 300 million: [Link]

My aim is 300 million: It’s filled with posts about you and Jiang Chenming.

Qiu: .

Fan Nian saw the full stop and knew he couldn’t continue the conversation. 

My aim is 300 million: Okay, okay. Take a look at it. Remember to sign up using your teacher’s work account. 

My aim is 300 million: Oh it’s fine. There  are real name areas and anonymous areas. All kinds of posts are in the anonymous areas, but in the real name areas, they  only discuss studies.

Qiu: Okay. 

After replying, Mo LIngqiu copied the link into the browser and opened it when he went into his car. 

The user interface of University A’s forum was not bad; it used black and white tones, and users could change it to green, for eye protection, or to other colours. Users could easily differentiate between the separated columns for the real name areas and the anonymous areas.

Mo Lingqiu scrolled through the homepage for the real name areas. All of them were indeed posts about studies. He even saw someone asking questions related to Chinese. He tapped the link by reflex, but the system asked him to sign up first. 

Mo Lingqiu only then remembered the registration that Fan Nian had mentioned. 

He rarely used social media, so it took some time for him to register successfully. He refreshed the page and found out that the Chinese post had disappeared. 

Mo Lingqiu turned dazed for a few seconds and moved to the anonymous area. 

The top post in the area listed the rules and regulations. There were nine posts below that had the ‘hot’ sign and six of them were about him and Jiang Chenming. He really didn’t expect that so many people would be discussing them. 

He tapped open the post that had the most activity with curiosity and astonishment. There were two photos in the original post. One of them was a specially taken photo of Jiang Chenming on the basketball court, and the other one was a photo of Mo Lingqiu giving a speech in the main hall. 

The two photos were not related to each other at all, but, in the threads that followed, there were countless photoshopped pictures that edited them together. There were even pictures that changed the background. The edits shocked Mo Lingqiu since he hadn’t had any exposure to Photoshop before.  

He was surprised at first because of everyone’s talent and creativity and then  he couldn’t understand why everyone would think that the two of them were in that kind of relationship. His shock increased the more he scrolled down and saw that the post with the highest amount of likes was a kissing picture. Although it didn’t include the pictures provided in the original post, the photoshopped photo looked real enough. 

If Mo Lingqiu wasn’t one of the people involved, he might have believed it. 

Mo Lingqiu tapped the laptop’s touchpad and continued scrolling down. After seeing more edits, he chose to leave the post and decided to enter another trending post. 

The title of the post was ‘Counting the details of the relationship between Mo and Jiang’. The uploader listed out the details of them having a relationship which included couple clothes, bracelets, glasses with the same brand, and the way they looked at each other. The one point that many others agreed with was the fact that they had gone out to eat skewers together. Other than those details, there were weird points that Mo Lingqiu had never seen before.

Couple clothes? They were really the same. The post said that Jiang Chenming had worn the white shirt to participate in the school’s debate competition, but didn’t everyone have a white shirt? 

Bracelets? They looked the same as well. The one on his wrist was from City A’s temple, but he had gone during the school’s group outing, so a lot of other people had also gotten it. 

Glasses with the same brand? That was really a coincidence. Mo Lingqiu took off his glasses and looked at the glasses that Jiang Chenming was wearing in the picture. They were indeed the same brand. 

Looking at each other… Had they really met each other so many times in the school cafeteria? But he hadn’t seen Jiang Chenming at all. How did they get the wrong impression that they were looking at each other? 

Mo Lingqiu read more posts and found out that most of them were simply nonsense. He sighed helplessly. University life was really filled with various things. Anything could be a topic and the imaginations of the students were plenty rich. But it didn’t suit him, so he decided to exit the forum and continue working. 

After finishing work, Mo Lingqiu locked the office door, took his car keys and phone, and then walked towards the basement parking lot. 

Along the way, many students walked past him and something was weird in the way they looked at him. 

Mo Lingqiu felt something was wrong as he drove towards the North Campus. 

Jiang Chenming didn’t have training those days, but he would still go to the field to take a look at the juniors. Coincidentally, Mo Lingqiu’s session had finished early, so he could drive Jiang Chenming back. Otherwise, he would need to go back by bus. 

Mo Lingqiu parked at a parking spot near the basketball court and started reading a book inside the car. He didn’t realize that the people around were gossiping at the sight of his car. 

Jiang Chenming’s junior from the basketball team was carrying a bag of mineral water and was initially relaxingly playing with his phone. When he saw Mo Lingqiu’s car, he quickly ran towards Jiang Chenming who was dribbling on the court. 

“Brother… Brother Jiang!” The junior panted heavily. 

Jiang Chenming stopped dribbling. “What happened?” 

“Your… Teacher Mo is here.” The junior threw the water onto the floor and pointed at the metallic car outside of the field. 

Jiang Chenming paused. He realized that the training session was going to end. He threw the ball into the junior’s hands. “I’ll leave first.” 

The basketball team was surprised. One of the players who was sitting beside him resting asked, “Brother Jiang, don’t tell me that you and Teacher Mo are for real?” 

“What?” It was October. The weather was neither hot nor cold, but wearing short sleeves and pants would still make a person cold. However, Jiang Chenming had a good physique, so he wasn’t scared of the cold. He lifted his bag and turned his head to look at the juniors that had asked him the question. The bandage on his knee was really eye-catching. 

“The school forum said it. Teacher Mo liked the pictures of both of you kissing. Are you guys… really dating?” 

Jiang Chenming froze. He walked over and took a look at their phones. 

A new post had been uploaded on the school forum and the number of replies had reached four digits. The original post was a screenshot of the Like notification. The user who had pressed Like was ‘Mo Lingqiu’ while the liked content was a kissing picture photoshopped by one of the students. 

Jiang Chenming didn’t understand. Based on Mo Lingqiu’s personality, it was impossible that he had done that. His finger had most likely slipped. But Jiang Chenming remembered Mo Lingqiu asking him to hide the truth, so he decided to not explain. He threw them a See you tomorrow’ and dashed towards Mo Lingqiu’s car. 

The passenger side door opened and closed. Jiang Chenming got into the car. 

Mo Lingqiu glanced at him. “Let’s go?” 

“En.” Jiang Chenming nodded his head. He looked at Mo Lingqiu driving. The book that he had been reading earlier was still on his lap. 

Jiang Chenming was afraid that he felt uncomfortable, so he stretched out his arm to take the book and put it in the compartment. “Teacher Mo, did you browse the school forum today?” 

“…I created an account.” Mo Lingqiu didn’t want to talk about the weird posts that he had seen earlier. 

“Oh.”

Mo Lingqiu noticed that Jiang Chenming had stopped asking and felt that he was being strange. Then he thought of the weird look that the students had given him when he was going to the North Campus. He couldn’t resist asking, “How did you know?” 

“Cough… Teacher Mo, I think your fingers slipped and you Liked a picture.” Jiang Chenming wasn’t sure if he should say what was in the picture. 

Mo Lingqiu slowed the car down. “What picture?” 

“…A picture of us kissing that someone else photoshopped.” Jiang Chenming quickly gave him a way out. “Teacher, please don’t worry. I didn’t say anything when my friends asked me about it.” 

Mo Lingqiu’s mind crumbled for the first time. If you didn’t explain anything then doesn’t that mean that I Liked that kissing picture on purpose? My fingers slipped!