The Tender Beauty is Sweetly Doted in the 20th Century Novel!-Chapter 229 - 228: Ji Bowen Apologizes

Although he indeed has changed his view of Ye Manman, he is still himself and won’t fall for her just because he admires her strength or start fawning over her.

Besides, he just stated the objective fact just now.

When he first saw He Chen, he was indeed very envious of his physique—broad shoulders, narrow waist, long legs, and beautiful muscles. Which guy wouldn’t want such a body?

It was just that at the time he was still a bit naive...

"Really? Really? Did I really talk nonsense? Wasn’t I just telling the truth? Maybe it’s just some people unwilling to admit it?"

Liao Yonghe was still making faces, and Ji Bowen could hardly stand his annoying look, so he frowned a bit and stepped forward quickly.

"I’m going to find my seat, you find a place to sit yourself."

Liao Yonghe chuckled, "Alright!"

He was just here to enjoy the fun. In terms of learning spoken language, you can’t learn much in such a short time; it’s better to build good relationships with these two big shots.

In the future, if he wants to learn spoken language, wouldn’t it be just a matter of calling them ’brother’ or ’sister’?

Compared to Liao Yonghe’s good mood, Ji Bowen was now under a lot of pressure.

In the preliminary round this morning, many people with poor spoken language skills were eliminated. Now it’s the finals, and all thirty people here are those chosen by the judges, the best among one or two hundred people in spoken language.

He noticed in the morning that there were many more people with good spoken language skills in the second half of the competition than in the first half. Most were sophomores or juniors, quite proficient in spoken language, probably just unlucky to be drawn at the end.

But a talent will always shine.

He glanced quickly, the few he felt had excellent spoken language were all in his row.

In other words, this final round mostly consists of people with great spoken language skills. His ranking in the preliminary round was only eighth, and this final is even harder than he imagined.

What made him even more nervous was that there were only seven or eight people from Qing University entering the finals, and only he and Ye Manman were freshmen, so their seats were next to each other.

Ever since realizing her tremendous power, he didn’t dare to talk to her much, always feeling inferior and annoying.

However, despite this, he kept encouraging himself in his heart and finally gathered the courage to turn around and take out the pen he had been holding in his pocket.

"Ye, I’m sorry. Although now isn’t quite the right time or place since the competition is about to start, and maybe you really dislike me now and don’t want to see me, I still want to apologize to you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to affect your performance, I just wanted to apologize as soon as I realized my mistake."

"I was too arrogant and looked down on girls, not only insulting you with words but also questioning your grades, and even intentionally bumping into you, almost hurting you. I have no excuses; I was wrong."

"I’m sorry for causing you mental and physical pain with my words and actions. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but there’s a hurdle in my heart that I cannot get over, so I want to apologize to you. I hope you can accept this pen."

Ji Bowen lowered his posture, eyes downcast, even using both hands to present the pen that looked quite expensive.

His voice wasn’t low, several people nearby heard it and curiously looked over.

But Ji Bowen didn’t seem affected, as if the apologetic person wasn’t the proud boy he used to be.

Ye Manman was a bit surprised.

She felt Ji Bowen seemed quite different from before, although she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, he just seemed much more pleasing than before.

Moreover, with his sincere attitude, they didn’t have any genuine deep hatred, and there wasn’t a need to hold onto it.

So she naturally accepted his apology gift.

"You just gave me a pen; didn’t you bring ink with it?"

Just like jokingly chatting with a friend, Ye Manman opened the pen and took a look, realizing there was no ink inside, she teased him deliberately.

Ji Bowen froze for a moment, then a flash of joy appeared on his face, followed by embarrassment and awkwardness, with a bit of excitement-induced redness on his face.

"Ah, I’m sorry, I did buy ink, but it wasn’t convenient to put it in my pocket. How about I bring it in class tomorrow?"

He had never talked to a girl like this before, feeling strange and awkward all at once but also a bit secretly happy and excited in his heart.

But not for any adolescent affection, purely because the guilt weighing on his heart had been eased, and he could now peacefully converse with someone so talented it was unbelievable, leaving him feeling flattered.

Ye Manman wasn’t much into using pens, and her previous words were just to ease the overly serious and solemn atmosphere between them, using this relaxed, natural way to turn hostility into friendship, preventing future awkwardness from too much seriousness.

However, it was nice of him to voluntarily bring her an ink bottle, saving her the time of buying it herself.

"Alright, it’s a deal then."

"Mm!"

Getting forgiveness, and even the potential to become conversational friends, made Ji Bowen incredibly excited, almost unable to sit still.

However, since the competition was about to start, he couldn’t stay excited for long as he became nervous again.

Only the two of them as first years made it to the finals, especially with other schools; the finalists were all sophomores and juniors, each impressively skilled.

The main issue is that higher-grade students have richer experience. The last two years had speech contests, and more or less they must have participated or observed to practice. He had never faced judge questioning, nor had he used English face-to-face, wondering if he could do it.

The format of the final was the same as the morning’s, but this time they had plenty of time to use the bathroom, or even have a stomach upset, so Ye Manman wasn’t nervous at all.

However, Ji Bowen became tense watching the first person smoothly give a speech, yet struggling to answer the judges’ questions. He began to expect that he might end up the same.

He also wondered how Ye Manman would handle this kind of situation.

He subconsciously glanced at her, and unexpectedly, her attention wasn’t focused on the speech contest but rather wandering around, and their eyes met by chance.

He suddenly became more nervous, sitting up straight at once.

Ye Manman understood his situation a bit, "Are you very nervous?"

She thought Ji Bowen was always confident and wouldn’t be nervous, unexpectedly noticing his uneasy demeanor.

Ji Bowen was somewhat embarrassed, "Yeah, I’m a bit worried I might not pass the Q&A session."

He somewhat wanted to ask her how to adapt to this situation, but didn’t have the courage to ask, considering they weren’t quite familiar, just barely reconciled.

But Ye Manman still gave him some tips.

"It’s really nothing to worry about; it’s just like doing a listening test but switching from multiple choice to fill-in-the-blank, just answer what they ask. You should have understood what the judge asked just now, right?"

Ji Bowen nodded, "Yeah."

"Then that’s settled. Since you understood, just translate your answer into English. They’re not going to bite your head off, and their questions are quite simple. Just talk casually; the main thing is to be fluent."

"They are looking for future interpreters. Just speak naturally. If you can’t organize your next sentence, use more gestures, try to make it feel like a conversation rather than an exam, relax."