Hao Yan sneered. “Liu Xia, see? Your kindness is being thrown back in your face!”
Gai Gai chimed in. “Exactly! Acute conjunctivitis is contagious. You were worried about infecting others, so even though you knew covering it was bad, you deliberately did it. But they thought you were just putting on an act! We told you good people are out of fashion these days. Are you stupid?”
This statement immediately reminded everyone.
“Oh, right. I just checked my phone. It does seem to be contagious.”
Dozens of eyes shifted back to Deng Jiali and the straight-perm girl.
“Isn’t that the definition of a jealous woman? Jealous that someone else is prettier than her.”
“Campus belle, former campus belle, former former campus belle… I can’t take it! I’ve already imagined a million-word palace intrigue drama!”
Qi Fei glared at the straight-perm girl and her friends. He said to Hao Yan and Gai Gai, “The teacher is about to arrive. Let’s just get her seated first.”
The straight-perm girl (Xiao Ziqing) objected. “Seat what? She’s faking it! If it were really a contagious disease, how could the teacher possibly allow her to stay in class?!”
Gai Gai retorted, “It’s not a severe contagious disease! It’s perfectly fine as long as you cover your eyes!”
Xiao Ziqing: “Then take it off and let us see!”
Deng Jiali’s friend: “Exactly, let us see!”
Hao Yan sneered lightly. “Fine, you take it off. If it’s contagious, it’ll only infect you, so it won’t affect anyone else.”
“I’ll take it off then!”
Xiao Ziqing abruptly stood up and marched to the front. She had the momentum, but when she actually reached out to pull it off, she hesitated slightly.
“Do you really have pink eye?”
Hao Yan scoffed. “No, she’s faking.”
Gai Gai laughed. “Right, she’s faking. Hurry up and pull it off!”
Xiao Ziqing reassured herself. “I think it’s fake, too. Even if it’s real, it won’t be contagious just from one look. I’ll pull it off. What’s the big deal?”
As she reached out to tug at the knot, Hao Yan suddenly spoke. “Let’s be clear about this first. Since you are so aggressive and insistent on taking off the bandage, if she truly has pink eye, you—including her, her, and her—all need to immediately apologize to Liu Xia!”
This made Deng Jiali’s friends falter. They whispered nervously in Deng Jiali’s ear.
Deng Jiali had too much self-pride to lose face like that. She spoke loftily, “I never forced her to take off the bandage. I was just kindly reminding her not to damage her eyes by covering them. Isn’t caring for a classmate the right thing to do? Why should I apologize? If she wants to cover it, let her cover it. It has nothing to do with me anyway.”
Since the main person had spoken, the straight-perm girl who had stood up for her now looked utterly ridiculous.
It was true: whether the other girl was sick or not, why should it concern her? Why be so relentlessly demanding that she remove the bandage? She was clearly trying to provoke her!
Xiao Ziqing felt as if she could hear the students’ mockery, and every movement of the crowd seemed to be a silent taunt.
Gai Gai gave an insincere smile and urged her. “The teacher is about to arrive. Hurry up! Are you planning to stall until the teacher comes and leave it unresolved?”
Hao Yan twisted the knife. “How can you say that? How can you judge her like that? Even if the teacher comes, so what? It won’t stop her from continuing to pull it off after class. She’s definitely not deliberately dragging her feet.”
Xiao Ziqing was in a bind. Taking it off or not would result in shame. If she took it off, she might still win if Liu Xia was faking it.
She grit her teeth, hardened her heart, and yanked the bandage off.
“Ah! Hiss!”
Liu Xia gasped, lowering her head to cover her eyes with her hands.
Gai Gai immediately yelled dramatically, “Ouch! You did that on purpose, didn’t you? Look how much you hurt our Xia’er!”
Through the partially covered fingers, the students vaguely saw Liu Xia’s tightly closed eyes with a noticeable redness around the sockets.
Xiao Ziqing was closest and saw it most clearly. Her expression immediately turned as ugly as the lyric from that song, The Fox Spirit—thrown to outer space to eat…
Her hand had reached for her phone, but she put it back down.
Take an ugly picture to save face?
No way.
Let alone with Liu Xia’s hand half-covering her eyes, even if she wasn’t covering them, she wouldn’t dare to take the picture.
What was battle-scar beauty? What was ravished, abused beauty?
The pale, tender skin, the surrounding crimson redness, the ripe-looking, luscious lips…
If she took a picture and posted it online, she wouldn’t be avenging Deng Jiali; she would be gaining fans for Liu Xia!
The pitiful, charming, yet slightly seductive look—Qi Fei’s straight-ahead stare proved everything.
Xiao Ziqing clenched her fist and turned to leave, but Gai Gai grabbed her arm.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to leave. Apologize first.”
Xiao Ziqing gritted her teeth and looked at Deng Jiali.
Deng Jiali immediately looked away.
Xiao Ziqing’s eyes dimmed slightly. She lowered her head and gave a self-deprecating, bitter smile. Then, as if throwing caution to the wind, she said viciously, “I’m not apologizing! What are you going to do about it?!”
Gai Gai sneered. “If you won’t even keep your face, what can we do to you?”
Hao Yan added the final blow. “Why did you suddenly decide to make trouble for our Xia’er? Was it for her? Or for him?”
She glanced at Deng Jiali, then at Qi Fei.
Qi Fei took half a step back, quickly distancing himself. “We’ve known each other for so long. She’s never said anything. It definitely has nothing to do with me.”
Gai Gai looked at Deng Jiali. “So it was for… ahem, but you went to all that trouble for her, and she’s worried about getting infected by your shame.”
Xiao Ziqing’s face was dark. She snapped, “It has nothing to do with anyone! I just don’t like the sight of her!”
Hao Yan scoffed. “You’re wicked, so you must be right, okay?”
Gai Gai lamented, “It’s the 21st century, and we still have to bow down to the forces of evil.”
Qi Fei couldn’t watch anymore. “Xiao Ziqing, apologize!”
Xiao Ziqing ignored him, circled back to her seat, and the students began to gossip. This time, they genuinely showed contempt for her.
Apologizing when you’re wrong at least shows morality and decency.
Refusing to apologize when you’re wrong is simply… Tsk, tsk. It’s better to keep your distance from people like that in the future.
Qi Fei: “I’m talking to you! Come out and apologize!”
Liu Xia re-wrapped her bandage, seizing the opportunity to softly and weakly deliver her second line of dialogue since entering the room. “It’s all a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding. I believe she didn’t do it on purpose. The teacher is about to arrive. Let’s return to our seats.”
What a refreshing, pure White Lotus~~
Yet, her ‘whiteness’ wasn’t annoying at all. People just wondered how she could be so good-hearted and easygoing.
It turned out the former campus belle wasn’t a completely useless flower vase; at least she possessed the excellent traditional virtues of China’s five millennia of history!
Liu Xia’s White Lotus line was timed perfectly. No sooner had she finished speaking than Mr. Seider walked in with his teaching materials.
Seeing the bandage over Liu Xia’s eyes, Mr. Seider asked a few questions. He cast a look of approval at her spirit of overcoming all difficulties to attend class and praised her verbally with six words:
“Not bad. Keep up the good work!”
And then he added the immortal instruction Liu Xia had been waiting for: “Gu Lingluo, help tutor her when you have time. You’re in the same group. Only by helping each other can you both improve.”
Teacher! How did you know that the only reason I went to all the trouble of pretending to be blind was to hear those words from you?
How can you be so understanding and lovable?
Teacher! I love you!
Mr. Seider turned and walked up to the podium, thinking to himself: The last-place student and the first-place student in the same group. This is truly a first. It’s hard not to remember them.
Liu Xia, who had been pretending to listen for two periods but actually slept through them while resting her chin in her hands, ignored the stabbing glares from Xiao Ziqing behind her. The moment class ended, she grabbed Gai Gai, who had arrived late and was sitting on a small stool next to her for the entire class.
“Remember to block Gu Lingluo for me.”
“Don’t worry, leave it to me!”
But how easy was it to block Patron Mom?
“Excuse me, I have something else to do. Let’s talk another time.”
“I’ll only take up a few minutes of your time, just a few minutes!”
Liu Xia tapped her cane for the blind and walked over. She fumbled through her bag, pulled out a paper packet, and shoved it into Gu Lingluo’s arms.
Gu Lingluo frowned. “What is this?”
Before Gu Lingluo could react after opening it and glancing inside, the gasps of nearby students were already ringing out.
“Heavens! Red notes! So much! It must be tens of thousands!”
“Why would she give her money for no reason?”
“There must be some unspeakable secret!”
“No, my mind is in the gutter.”
“Mine, too. I can only think of four words… money-for-sex transaction…”
Although the whispering was suppressed, it reached Gu Lingluo’s ears. Before she could hand the packet back to Liu Xia, Liu Xia spoke.
“Now I don’t owe you anything. Shouldn’t you fulfill what you promised me?”
“What did I promise you?”
“Just last Wednesday, at my house, on the sofa. You pressed my wrist, and when you told me to close my eyes, I did. When you told me to relax, I relaxed. When you told me to not think about anything and just listen to you, I did all of that. I satisfied you, so what about you? What about your promise? You did what you wanted and then just left. Isn’t that a little too much?”
What?!!!
What kind of earth-shattering gossip is this that breaks the dimensional wall?!
Regardless of whether others understood, certain people understood instantly, and their inner universes were about to explode with excitement!
Nothing was more thrilling than eating a lily (yuri) melon (gossip).
Luo Xia (Gu Lingluo and Liu Xia) szd (is real)!
Luo Xia is rio (is real)!!!
This is absolutely Affection (a homophone for ‘obstacle/impediment’ in Chinese, but used for dramatic effect)!