Chapter 13: 12. Let Me Cosplay with You?!
Zhang Luo froze.
“Me? A top student? I’m not.”
Xu Da said, “I saw how seriously you listened in class.”
“Listening seriously in class doesn’t make you a top student,” Zhang Luo said frankly.
“Damn, bro, that sounds pretty pretentious. Don’t tell me when the exam results come out next week, you’ll be right at the top,” Xu Da said.
Zhang Luo: “If I rank near the top, I’ll treat you to Coke for a week.”
Xu Da: “Holy crap, deal.”
“What if I don’t rank near the top?” Zhang Luo said. “It’s not like I should get nothing out of this bet, right?”
“If you don’t rank near the top, I’ll treat you to Coke for a week,” Xu Da immediately said generously.
“Forget Coke for a week. Treat me to cafeteria meals for a week,” Zhang Luo said.
Xu Da: “Fine.”
Clearly, he didn’t care at all how much this little wager would cost.
Zhang Luo, on the other hand, thought to himself: Great, I’ve saved a week’s worth of lunch money.
-
After lunch, Xu Da wanted to go to the campus store to buy a drink.
Zhang Luo actually wanted one too, and he had money on him, but when he thought about how his family wasn’t actually as well-off as they seemed on the surface, he held back.
He could just go back to the classroom and drink purified water. Same thing.
“You guys don’t want anything?” Xu Da asked.
Zhou Hengyu: “Not me. I’m trying to lose weight.”
Xu Da looked Zhou Hengyu over and nodded. “Fair. You really should lose some.”
“Let’s go,” Zhang Luo said.
But as soon as Zhang Luo returned to the classroom, Liu Song came over.
He said quietly, “Zhang Luo, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Zhang Luo nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Why don’t we talk outside?” Liu Song glanced at Xu Da, who was sitting beside him.
“What are you talking about that you need to go outside and whisper?” Xu Da looked Liu Song up and down.
Liu Song seemed completely at a loss for how to respond to that kind of half-teasing, half-aggressive remark, and he stammered awkwardly.
Zhang Luo stood up. “Let’s go. We’ll talk outside.”
Liu Song immediately let out a breath of relief.
-
“You want me to join you in cosplay?!” Zhang Luo shook his head without the slightest hesitation, like a rattledrum. “I’m not interested in this stuff. You guys go ahead.”
“If you’re willing to compete with us, we’ll definitely win an award!” Liu Song said. “Zhang Luo, everyone else really hopes you can join.”
Zhang Luo scratched his head.
“No, it’s not that. I’m really not interested in this. I do watch anime and read manga, but when it comes to dressing up like that myself, I have a mental hurdle.”
“Huh? A mental hurdle?” Liu Song froze.
“I’m not trying to fool you. To put it bluntly, I’d be embarrassed,” Zhang Luo said. “If you want me to dress up like you guys did yesterday, I can’t do it.”
Liu Song: “…Like we did yesterday?”
He froze, looking at him with some surprise.
“I—I thought you understood.” Liu Song suddenly seemed as if he had suffered some kind of blow, and his mood dropped all at once. “Sorry. We misunderstood.”
He hurriedly turned and went back into the classroom.
Zhang Luo sucked in a sharp breath.
Damn… Had he not made himself clear just now, and ended up stabbing Liu Song’s somewhat sensitive anime-otaku heart?
All right, what he said did sound a little like it carried a hint of “disgust and discrimination.”
But heaven and earth as his witness, that wasn’t what he meant.
He really was just embarrassed.
-
Strictly speaking, after Zhang Luo went to Yuming for university, he actually often saw classmates walking around campus in cosplay outfits, brazenly moving through the crowd. People around them would glance a few more times, and that was all.
But right now, in the small city of Xuyang, in an era when online information still wasn’t that developed, cosplay really was quite a shock to many people.
Especially to the schoolteachers. To them, this group looked like the typical sort who didn’t focus on proper things and were just making a spectacle of themselves.
No wonder Liu Song was a little sensitive.
Zhang Luo hesitated, wondering whether he should go explain things to Liu Song.
He didn’t want to hurt someone for no reason.
Even if it was a misunderstanding.
Thinking this, Zhang Luo was just about to enter the classroom and explain things to Liu Song.
“Zhang Luo, come here.” Xu Shuiyun appeared.
Zhang Luo was called to the office by Xu Shuiyun.
“You participated in debate competitions in junior high?” Xu Shuiyun asked.
Zhang Luo nodded.
“How good are you?”
“Pretty… decent?” Zhang Luo thought to himself, That was so many years ago.
Xu Shuiyun said, “Our grade is about to hold a debate competition. Each class will participate as a unit, and in our class, you’re the only one who’s had experience in a debate competition before.”
Zhang Luo vaguely found a hazy trace of it in his memory.
There did seem to be something like that.
In his first year of high school, he had indeed participated in a debate competition.
But they had been eliminated in the first round.
The main reason was that his own level was just so-so, and the other three were even worse.
Later, when the finals were held, Xuyang No. 2 High School had put in quite a bit of effort and invited Hong Min, a popular host from Yuehu TV, to be a judge.
After that, Hong Min had even specially invited the championship-winning team onto a variety show she hosted, causing quite a stir at the school.
Wait!
Hong Min?!
A show?!
Zhang Luo suddenly remembered something. Because of that show, Jiang Xiaoyu had been extremely depressed that she hadn’t participated in the competition.
“Otherwise, I definitely would have led our class to win the championship!” Jiang Xiaoyu’s deeply regretful expression from back then suddenly sprang vividly from the depths of his memory.
Jiang Xiaoyu must have started developing her dream of becoming an entertainer around this time.
Zhang Luo came back to his senses.
“Teacher Xu, do you want me to participate?”
Xu Shuiyun nodded. “That’s right. The school is taking this debate competition quite seriously. It’s only being held for the first-year students, and the principal personally presided over the briefing.”
When Zhang Luo heard that, he thought, No wonder.
“All right, then I’ll participate,” he said.
Xu Shuiyun: “Is there anyone else in the class who’s good at performing and quick on their feet?”
Zhang Luo shook his head. “I’m not that familiar with everyone yet. We just met.”
Xu Shuiyun: “All right. Then keep an eye out during ordinary times too. If you think anyone is suitable, let me know anytime.”
“Okay.”
Zhang Luo nodded.
“Teacher Xu, when does this competition start?”
“Next month,” Xu Shuiyun said. “Twenty classes. They’ll draw lots for 1v1 PK matches, and then four more teams will be selected from among the eliminated teams. A total of fourteen teams will enter the second round.”
Zhang Luo was quite surprised when he heard that.
This was really quite a large-scale affair.
After Zhang Luo left Xu Shuiyun’s office, Lu Xia, the homeroom teacher of the neighboring class who sat across from Xu Shuiyun, said with a smile, “That student from your class is quite mature. It’s rare to see a first-year high school student speak so calmly and naturally in front of a teacher, actually discussing things properly.”
Xu Shuiyun smiled faintly.
“Neither servile nor overbearing. Not bad.”
Lu Xia: “Which junior high did he come from? How are his grades?”
Xu Shuiyun: “The first unified grade exam is next week. We’ll know once the results come out. I’m still getting familiar with the students in the class too. More than sixty students—it’s a lot of pressure.”