Chapter 55

In class, the students were whispering amongst themselves. The girl seated next to Zhou Zhi suddenly nudged her.

“Take a look at this.”

From under the table, Zhou Zhi secretively received the phone and took a glance. She immediately jumped and slapped the table. 

“This post is full of crap!”

Due to her loud reaction, the class momentarily fell silent. The female deskmate tugged on the hem of Zhou Zhi’s uniform.

Zhou Zhi smiled sheepishly, “Sorry.” 

Turning to her deskmate, she said, “Forward the post to me.”

She grabbed her phone and pulled an unsuspecting Tao Yi Xi to a corner in the girls’ restroom in order to avoid others’ gaze. 

The following parts of the text will be scrambled to prevent theft from aggregators and unauthorized epub making. Please support our translators by reading on secondlifetranslations (dot) com. If you are currently on the site and and you are seeing this, please clear your cache.

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Pkpvydv xlxsaklp olal pweeldzu caswtbv vs vbl pwaqynl.

**

“Yi Xi, I believe you wouldn’t do those things. I’ll always be on your side!” Once, a close friend had vowed.

“Thank you for believing in me.” The then-naive Tao Yi Xi had held her close friend’s hands, shedding tears of gratitude.

At that time, she was young and fragile. Although she was already beaten down ruthlessly multiple times by those malicious people, that bit of kindness in the storm was enough to warm her up.

So, she did her best to be good to her friend. Yet, one day, the friend started to deliberately avoid contact with her and started to distance herself from her.

Puzzled, Tao Yi Xi found her, holding a surprise present she had prepared for her friend. She had heard her mentioning it previously and remembered. She saved a week’s worth of breakfast allowance in order to be able to afford it. 

But after being cornered by Tao Yi Xi, the friend acted like a frightened bird due to the proximity, “Do you need something?”

“You… What’s wrong?”

“My mom told me to stay away from you. She said that your mother isn’t clean…” Although the friend had said it tactfully, it seemed that her mother had told her a lot more about the scandals related to Xia Yan than she was letting on.

Tao Yi Xi tightened her grip on the gift bag. She could deny all the rumors and slanders about herself, but she could not deny the things her mother had done.

“Let’s go our separate ways from now on.” After saying those words, the girl left hurriedly.

The next time they met, that friend had already become one of the onlookers.

The once solemn and earnest words declared, became weightless as a feather, floating away like a wisp in the wind.

Was this what she meant when she said that she would always stand by her side?

As a friend, she should have known that Tao Yi Xi’s relationship with Xia Yan was bad. Yet, that friend chose to believe her mother’s words.

In just one short semester, Tao Yi Xi experienced Xia Yan’s disdain and her friend’s betrayal. She finally understood where she stood in life. 

Whether it was family affection or friendship, none of it truly belonged to her.

From then on, she chose to live alone. As long as she avoided all kinds of relationships, there would be no chance of getting hurt again. 

**

She held on to that belief for two years. Now, in a new place, the rare friendship she managed to form with her classmates made her neglectful of the past. The familiar plotline reemerged once more, making her relive it once again.

Tao Yi Xi exited the forum, “What they said is true.”

“What?” Zhou Zhi was stunned.

“Here’s your phone. Thank you for letting me know.”

Tao Yi Xi was sincerely grateful for Zhou Zhi’s goodwill. 

Let’s preserve this friendship in its current state and leave both parties with a good last memory before everything shatters to pieces.

“I’ll be heading back first. Let’s go our separate ways in the future.”

“Yi Xi?” Zhou Zhi was confused by her sudden change of attitude. “I know you wouldn’t do these things.”

What campus violence, tattering on others, cheating on tests, and relying on connections to get to where she was… 

Utterly absurd! 

Although Tao Yi Xi looked rather aloof, she was always amicable and her academic talent was evident for all to see. Each accusation was baseless and full of crap!

As for those comments regarding her family situation, that was the business of the older generation. It did not have anything to do with the younger generation.

“You obviously didn’t do any of it, so why are you admitting to it?”

“Truth or lies, who can distinguish between them?”

Tao Yi Xi’s elusive voice momentarily left Zhou Zhi bewildered. In her moment of daze, Tao Yi Xi had already turned and left.

At the same time, Qi Yue also saw the post.

“Brother-, Brother Yuan!” Qi Yue almost jumped up in fright. With reckless abandon, he poked repeatedly at Gu Jing Yuan’s back.

“Do you want to die?” Gu Jing Yuan, who stayed up late last night, was napping when he was rudely awakened due to Qi Yue’s jabbing. Gu Jing Yuan glared at him with a gloomy expression.

“Sister Yi Xi is in trouble! Look at this!”

Gu Jing Yuan’s brows furrowed tightly as his countenance became ominously dark.

As always, few would lend a helping hand during adversity but there would be many who could not wait to add fuel to the fire.

In the face of her mother’s scandal, her excellence was deliberately and completely tossed aside.

A mixture of truths and falsehoods, intertwined in such a way. Because a few details were confirmed to be true, everything else was taken to be a fact without further doubt.

A person who was once placed on a pedestal just a few days ago suddenly fell from grace, becoming the subject of criticism and condemnation on the internet.

He stared fixedly at his name as it appeared on the screen as well. As an ‘insider’ in that story, he became one of the accomplices that resulted in her being nailed to the pillar of shame.

She was not in her seat. Gu Jing Yuan hurriedly went out to search for her and spotted her walking back alone. Her expression remained unchanged, but her eyes were dim. Upon meeting him, she quickly concealed the fleeting turbulent emotions that had briefly surfaced.

“Are you skipping class?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go back.”

“En.”

Gu Jing Yuan followed closely behind her. In the corridor, some classmates glanced at her, whispering to each other. However, when they met his death stare, their mouths instantly snapped shut.

Despite the commotion, she maintained a nonchalant expression, but it lacked her usual fake smile. This made her appear more distant and indifferent than usual.

Gu Jing Yuan was certain that she had learned about the rumors from the forum.

“Do you know about it?”

“En.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“The mouths are on other people’s faces and hands are on their bodies. I don’t have control over them. Compared to last time, this is already much better.”

She showed no anger, seemingly indifferent, as if accustomed to such things. Upon closer examination, one could even detect a hint of relief in her demeanor.

In an instant, Gu Jing Yuan remembered those delinquents he had encountered in the suburban city. He clenched his fists, he regretted not hitting them harder the last time.

Zhou Zhi returned to class just as the bell rang. Her gaze fell on Tao Yi Xi. However, Tao Yi Xi showed no response. It felt like, in that short span of time, the two of them had become strangers.

Feeling increasingly bitter, Zhou Zhi walked up to Tao Yi Xi with determined steps and fiercely declared, “I won’t end our friendship!”

Tao Yi Xi was stunned by her outburst, staring as Zhou Zhi pouted, looking extremely aggrieved.

“You…”

“Don’t talk to me! Anyway, I won’t end our friendship!” After saying that, Zhou Zhi turned and left. She was afraid that Tao Yi Xi would say more hurtful things if she stayed longer.

“…”

Tao Yi Xi blinked, only to belatedly realize that her eyes were moist. With a tense expression, she lowered her head to focus on her assignment. What she used to complete in under ten minutes, now took more than half an hour to finish.

Even though Zhou Zhi did not speak to her, she still insisted on giving her her daily supply of cookies. They were blueberry-filled ones, Tao Yi Xi’s favorite.

Tao Yi Xi placed the cookies in her backpack and took them home. At home, she would put the cookies into the drawer, aligning it beside the previous ones. She stared at them for a full minute before silently closing the drawer.

The incident stirred up quite a storm. The school forum had been heavily moderated for two days, and yet, some still managed to start spreading new rumors about the authenticity of her grades. People are willing to believe anything nowadays.

Everyone enjoyed watching the spectacle, and they eagerly commented on the most popular threads. The few posts supporting Tao Yi Xi sank each time they were posted, but a handful of people still persistently shared them.

Gu Jing Yuan frowned, his phone displaying the ridiculous comments. He was so furious that he wanted to drag the person behind this out and give them a good thrashing.

However, there was a more pressing matter at hand.

“Have you identified the person who started spreading the rumors?”

“No, that person is quite cunning. The IP address I found belonged to the school’s public computers,” Qi Yue said, utterly disappointed after finding out where the IP address came from.

“Then check the history records on the public computers.”

“There are so many people using those computers every day. How can you pinpoint who did it?”

Gu Jing Yuan stared at the corner of the ceiling. “I have a way.”