Li Yuanci absolutely adored Jiang Hexing’s tsundere little demeanor. Watching the girl’s retreating figure, he turned his head to glance at Xie Qiushi. His expression was casual, but his tone carried a hint of warning: “Qiushi, Hexing is the girl I like. You’d better be a bit more polite to her.”
Although Jiang Hexing had already angered Xie Qiushi to the point of fuming, that didn’t mean he could keep targeting Jiang Hexing.
Li Yuanci left.
Xie Qiushi’s expression also turned ugly.
He and Li Yuanci had known each other for so many years—one could even say they’d grown up wearing the same pair of pants—yet now Li Yuanci was actually speaking to him in that tone for the sake of a girl he’d only known for a few days.
“Jiang, He, Xing.”
Xie Qiushi practically enunciated each syllable. His gaze fell on Jiang Hexing, and his dark eyes were full of malice.
As for Zhuang Mo and the others, they had initially found it quite amusing, but seeing Li Yuanci and Xie Qiushi like this, they couldn’t laugh anymore either.
Suddenly, they felt that Jiang Hexing’s place in Li Yuanci’s heart might be even more important than they had imagined.
Seeing that the atmosphere was off, Tian Wenjing and the other two quickly left the elevator. In their hearts, they deeply admired Jiang Hexing’s courage—she was clearly just a special admissions student, yet she dared to speak to Xie Qiushi in that tone.
But still…
Li Yuanci seemed to like her too, actually defending her like that.
So, would Jiang Hexing end up with Li Yuanci?
Could it be that someone around them would also end up dating Li Yuanci?!
The flames of gossip burned fiercely in the hearts of Tian Wenjing and the other two.
…
Because of Li Yuanci’s warning, Xie Qiushi didn’t cause any more trouble for the rest of the meal, and no one else’s Favorability Rating increased either.
This left Jiang Hexing slightly disappointed, but fortunately, it hadn’t decreased either. There was still a long way to go—this was only the beginning.
“We should count as friends now, right?”
After the meal, Li Yuanci took out his phone, propped his chin on one hand, and looked at Jiang Hexing. His long, narrow phoenix eyes were filled with laughter: “How about we add each other’s contact info?”
He looked less casual than usual, with a bit more tenderness and seriousness.
“Sure.”
Jiang Hexing didn’t refuse.
The two successfully exchanged contact information. The handsome man and beautiful woman pairing made Tian Wenjing and the other two feel a wave of excitement. But then, remembering how Li Yuanci changed girlfriends faster than turning pages, after parting ways with Li Yuanci and the other four, they finally began to probe Jiang Hexing indirectly.
“Hexing, what do you think of Li Yuanci as a person?”
Walking on the way back to the classroom, Tian Wenjing was the first to speak up.
Jiang Hexing turned her head to look at her: “Third on the Top 100 Ranking?”
“That’s it?”
Wang Shu’s eyes widened in disbelief, and Zhou Yi and Tian Wenjing also looked at her curiously.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Jiang Hexing nodded: “What else would there be?”
Wang Shu and the other two exchanged glances. After a moment, Zhou Yi pursed her lips: “Then… if he was interested in you, what would you think?”
“Interested in me?”
Jiang Hexing actually began to seriously ponder this. But before she could speak, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Song Qiaoxia and Li Yuanzhen walking toward her from not far away.
They were walking among the crowd, arm in arm, step by step,
She walked toward her step by step, each step seeming to land on her heart, making the blood throughout her body boil along with it.
If she hated Li Yuanci, hated Xie Qiushi, hated Song Qiaoxia and the others—
Hated them so much she wished they would die.
Then what she hated even more was Li Yuanzhen, who seemed innocent and harmless but was actually manipulating everything from behind the scenes.
Li Yuanzhen had a pure, harmless face, but in reality, she was the most vicious of them all.
In her previous life, during that dark period after she entered Laiga Academy,
After she discovered that the mastermind behind it all was Li Yuanci,
She had gone to see Li Yuanzhen once.
After all, at the time, many people at school said Li Yuanzhen was kind and innocent, and Li Yuanzhen was Li Yuanci’s younger sister. So at that time, she felt as though she had grasped at a last straw of hope. She begged Li Yuanzhen to make Song Qiaoxia stop bullying her, begged her to help put in a word with Li Yuanci…
And what did Li Yuanzhen say at the time?
She blinked her big, innocent eyes: “Sorry, classmate.”
“I don’t think my brother and my best friend Qiaoxia would target someone for no reason.”
“Why don’t you reflect on what you did yourself?”
“As long as you correct yourself properly, they naturally won’t bully you anymore.”
Li Yuanzhen cut off the last shred of hope in her heart. So she began frantically trying to save herself, investigating why Li Yuanci was targeting her. Later, by accident, she saw that photo in Li Yuanci’s phone.
And at the same time, she also saw—
The chat records between Li Yuanzhen and Li Yuanci.
It turned out that the one who had first noticed her was Li Yuanzhen.
【Brother, I noticed that the new special-admissions student who came today looks a bit like Mom.】
It was that single sentence that became the beginning of her nightmare.
She finally realized that Li Yuanzhen was never as simple and innocent as she appeared on the surface. And in the process of investigating her origins, she had observed Li Yuanzhen countless times.
She was basically certain.
Li Yuanzhen had long known her own origins, so she—who bore a three-tenths resemblance to Mother Li—had become a thorn in her side.
Of course, Li Yuanzhen probably wasn’t entirely certain that she was the real daughter, but she held to the idea of “better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one slip through the net,” and incited Li Yuanci, Song Qiaoxia, and the others to make a move against her.
Actually, “incite” wasn’t quite the right word either.
After all,
She had only mentioned it once, and everything else was done by others.
And she herself remained spotless and clean throughout.
Thinking of this,
Jiang Hexing let out a heavy breath.
Li Yuanzhen was indeed clever, and vicious enough.
But that was as far as it went.
Because in this life, she would become Li Yuanzhen’s lifelong nightmare.
“So you’re Jiang Hexing?”
Song Qiaoxia’s sharp voice rang in her ears.
Jiang Hexing snapped back to her senses and met Song Qiaoxia’s unwilling, jealous gaze. She pressed her lips into a smile: “That’s me. May I ask who you are?”
“My name is Song Qiaoxia.”
Song Qiaoxia was as impatient as ever. She raised her chin slightly, her eyes carrying a trace of condescension, her tone a trace of disdain: “I just saw people on the campus forum saying you’re very pretty, even prettier than Yuan Zhen. But now that I’ve come to see you, you’re nothing special.”
“Oh, Qiaoqiao, don’t say that.”
As soon as she finished speaking,
Li Yuanzhen, who was beside her, nudged her arm, and then she gave Jiang Hexing an apologetic smile: “Sorry, classmate, Qiaoqiao is just like that. She really doesn’t mean any harm.”
Jiang Hexing nodded and smiled: “It’s fine, I don’t mind.”
Seeing that they were still blocking her, she asked again: “Is there anything else? If not, I need to get back to class.”