Those two girls, even though this period wasn’t PE, already knew the class schedule for Class 3, Grade 2 had been thoroughly dug up and posted on the forum these past few days. If they wanted to “accidentally” run into someone, all they had to do was take a stroll around the track at this time.

However, before they even had a chance to peek through the wire fence a few more times, they saw three boys walking toward them from inside the basketball court.

The one in front, muscular, was holding a basketball, and the three boys surrounded them.

Luke Carter coughed and took the lead, saying, “Ladies, you can eat whatever you want, but you can’t say whatever you want.”

Logan Wright: “These two classmates from our class, they’re good brothers! Honest, upright brothers!”

Wanda: “Do you know what good brothers means?”

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82. Chapter Eighty-Two

Ethan Young tossed the ball to Henry Howard with a backhand, and then the two switched positions.

Henry Howard dribbled a few times, catching a glimpse of a few people gathered outside the basketball court. In this kind of weather, Logan Wright was only wearing a sleeveless jersey, his arm muscles especially prominent.

Henry Howard glanced over a few times. “Them?”

Ethan Young pulled his jacket zipper down, watching Henry Howard dribble so casually, not caring about “them” at all. He frowned and said, “Focus.”

“No, what are they doing surrounding those two girls—” Henry Howard hadn’t finished speaking when he saw the two girls holding hands, squeezing past Wanda.

The two girls ran off at lightning speed, practically sprinting like it was the 100-meter dash at the school sports meet. They looked panicked, as if they were running for their lives into the teaching building.

Henry Howard didn’t understand how this story had developed, and couldn’t imagine what had happened before.

Even the people involved, like Logan Wright and the others, didn’t really get it.

Wanda stood there, scratching the back of his head. “Why did they run?”

Luke Carter reflected, “We were pretty polite just now, gentle and courteous, we didn’t scare them.”

Logan Wright felt exhausted, hugging the ball as he walked back to the court. He really couldn’t figure out what girls were thinking, muttering as he walked, “The question is, did they even understand? Remember, they’re honest, upright brothers, upright!”

There were three or four scattered teams on the basketball court.

Class 3 occupied half the court, so the neighboring Class 4 could only dribble their way in.

Class 4 split into two teams, looked like they were about to play a friendly match, pretty formal, one of them even had a whistle hanging around his neck.

Henry Howard looked away, planning to get serious and play a few rounds of one-on-one with Ethan Young.

But before he could shoot, he saw a ball suddenly fly over from the diagonal opposite side, heading straight for Logan Wright.

Logan Wright reacted quickly, stepping aside, and the ball brushed right past his face, like a gust of sharp wind, suddenly closing in, finally slamming hard into the iron fence on the other side.

—“Bang.”

The ball hit the rubber ground hard, bouncing several times.

“Sorry,” a boy from Class 4’s team stood about two meters away from them, his hair cut very short, a buzz cut, and when he spoke, he smiled with his mouth but not his eyes, spreading his hands in an innocent gesture, “Slipped.”

After speaking, he jogged over to the fence, bent down to pick up the ball, then raised it high and, with a flick of his wrist, threw it back onto the court. “Keep playing, guys!”

That team burst into a commotion.

Ethan Young’s first impression of that buzz-cut boy with the fake smile was not good—in other words, he found him annoying. Seeing Logan Wright playing just fine, only to be interrupted a second time by this guy’s “slip,” he couldn’t help but stop and ask, “Who is he? Can he even play? Is there something wrong with his hand or his brain?”

As soon as Ethan Young finished speaking, there was another “bang” behind him.

Immediately after, Logan Wright’s voice rose sharply: “What’s your problem?”

After being interrupted several times, even the most patient person would lose it.

“It’s like this,” the guy smiled, pointing at the basketball hoop Logan Wright and the others were using, finally stating his purpose, “We always use this one, we’re used to it.”

Class 4 didn’t have PE this period, and they’d never run into them before. Today was probably a last-minute schedule change.

They really acted like the court was their own home.

Logan Wright was shocked by this guy’s shamelessness, and for a moment didn’t know how to respond, when suddenly a ball slammed into the other guy’s back with a dull thud.

The guy cursed, turned around, and saw the legendary Boss of West Tower standing two meters away, expressionless.

“Sorry,” Ethan Young said, “Slipped.”

That Class 4 guy was the typical bully who picked on the weak and feared the strong.

He knew exactly who Ethan Young was—not just Ethan Young, but also the one leaning lazily against the basketball hoop, who hadn’t said a word but whose eyes clearly carried a warning.

When he’d walked over earlier and saw the two of them playing separately from the rest of their class, he’d thought maybe they didn’t get along.

Even though he was annoyed, the Class 4 guys didn’t dare say anything. In the end, he just held it in, bent down to pick up the ball, and when he stood up again, he forced a smile and gently tossed the ball back. “Your ball.”

Tough—Ethan Bro is tough.

Luke Carter gave Ethan Young a “you’re awesome” gesture.

With two big shots holding things down, both classes played their own games until PE was over, and there were no more conflicts.

When class ended and Logan Wright was collecting the sports equipment, Wanda couldn’t help but say, “Just now Ethan Bro was so cool, that Class 4 guy, Leonard Brooks—”

Ethan Young helped put away the balls, raising his eyebrows at the mention: “Leonard Brooks?”

Wanda: “The one who kept ‘slipping’.”

Leonard Brooks was pretty well-known in their grade.

But his kind of reputation wasn’t like being a “school bully”—he only dared to do sneaky things behind people’s backs, and after pulling dirty tricks, he’d never admit it when confronted.

Privately, everyone in the grade knew exactly what kind of person he was.

There weren’t many people in the equipment room. Ethan Young put the ball in the storage bin, and as soon as he finished, he heard Wanda continue gossiping: “The PE committee is always thinking about basketball games, but Mad Dog said there might not be one this year, all because of him.”

“Wait a sec,” reminded by Wanda, Henry Howard finally remembered and interrupted, “That jerk?”

Wanda, stunned by the word “jerk”: “Bro Henry, I never realized you were so good at cursing.”

Henry Howard: “Polite. Be civilized, respect each other, I don’t usually curse.”

That basketball game in Grade 1 ended in a farce, the score was voided.

Leonard Brooks’s whole team played dirty, as dirty as possible. Henry Howard had originally signed up with a few guys from his class, but before the preliminaries even started, just watching from the sidelines gave him a headache: “What the hell? Why even bother playing against a team like that?”

In the end, Henry Howard couldn’t even be bothered to play.

He’d only met Leonard Brooks once, didn’t remember him, didn’t even know his name.

Old Thompson had managed to get them a PE class, and in the afternoon during Chinese, the whole class was super enthusiastic, like it was an open class: “Teacher, I know this one, let me answer!”

“I can recite this classical passage!”

“Me!”

It made Old Thompson a bit embarrassed: “With you all like this, I’m not used to it.”

“No worries, teacher. We’re always this proactive in class.”

“All right, let me remind you again,” Old Thompson shook his head and smiled, “There are only two weeks left until finals, so don’t stress, pay attention to your review methods. Organizing your mistakes is important, go over the questions you got wrong in each subject a few more times.”

Finals were approaching.

Normally, they didn’t have much free time, just two or three PE classes a week, and even those were hard-won by Old Thompson fighting tooth and nail with the other teachers. Even though the other teachers couldn’t out-compete Old Thompson for class time, they weren’t willing to give up, so the homework they assigned to Class 3 kept piling up.

Just the math worksheets alone were two sets thick, and with all the subjects combined, it was a hefty stack.

When Ethan Young finished showering, walked down the hallway, and pushed open the door to Henry Howard’s dorm room, that stack of homework had already been whittled down by Henry Howard to just one set of math papers.

He worked fast, most of the questions just had a check mark or a circled answer. For the big questions, he was even more careless, scribbling a bit of scratch work, and the answers were messily mixed in with the rough work.

Ethan Young brought a pen, drying his hair with one hand, holding a black gel pen in the other, which he casually tossed onto Henry Howard’s desk, asking in a not-so-friendly tone, “Which set?”

Henry Howard stopped, chair and all sliding back, turned around, and looked at him sideways: “Mock test A, second-to-last question.”

Ethan Young walked over and glanced down at the question.