Shi Nianhuan hunched her head down and said nothing.
She did not need to answer. Jiang Chenyu had already read the answer from her movements and expression.
An inexplicable surge of anger welled up in his heart.
Jiang Chenyu stood up and looked down at Shi Nianhuan, who was covering her body with the blanket. Then he spoke coldly: “Rest assured, I will not do anything to you again. I drank too much last night. As compensation, there is 500,000 on this card. Take it.”
Jiang Chenyu placed the bank card on her blanket.
Shi Nianhuan stared blankly at the bank card. She shifted her body slightly, and the card slowly slid down the blanket onto the bed.
Her meaning could not have been clearer: she did not want the money.
A trace of anger stained Jiang Chenyu’s eyes. He snorted coldly, his face somewhat stiff, and said coldly: “Get up early. I will take you to school.”
He turned and left, leaving her with tear-streaked cheeks.
Shi Nianhuan could not remember how she had climbed out of bed or how she had gotten dressed.
She had no one to rely on in this world, no family and no relatives. For one brief moment, she had truly thought about dying. But she admitted that she was very ordinary and really was afraid of death.
She did not die. She chose to continue barely surviving in this world.
After eat, she got into Jiang Chenyu’s car. The car felt stifling, yet she felt much more at ease than she had the previous night.
Perhaps the situation was already terrible enough. If she continued living, things could not possibly get any worse than they were now, right?
She sat in the car with her face turned toward the window the entire time, seemingly ignoring Jiang Chenyu completely.
When they arrived at school, the car stopped. She opened the door and got out of the car without even glancing at Jiang Chenyu.
She remembered that last night, she had left a very deep bite mark on Jiang Chenyu’s arm.
It must have hurt, but compared with the pain she had suffered, that little bit of pain was simply not worth mentioning.
There were classes in the morning, but after getting out of the car, Shi Nianhuan suddenly did not want to attend class even a little.
She staggered back to the dormitory, opened the dormitory door, and found no one inside. Bi Tiantian and Xia Bing should both have gone to class.
She closed the door, climbed into her bed, and shut her eyes, wanting to sleep for a while.
But half an hour passed, and she still could not fall asleep.
Her mobile phone rang several times, but she had no strength at all and did not want to find out what the messages were.
She lay on the bed in a daze, with tears flowing nonstop from beginning to end.
She thought she was foolish—foolish enough to be tricked into going to that kind of place, foolish enough to call Jiang Chenyu and ask him to save her, and foolish enough to mistakenly believe that Jiang Chenyu was someone she could trust.
Jiang Chenyu was simply scum, a bastard, a demon.
Yes, a demon.
Shi Nianhuan could not find a more precise word to describe Jiang Chenyu.
At noon, Bi Tiantian returned and discovered her on the bed, becoming startled.
“Xiao Huanhuan, you did not go to class today. How amazing! This is the first time our Xiao Huanhuan has skipped class during her college life, right?”
Shi Nianhuan acted as though she had not heard. She stared ahead with a pair of empty, wide eyes and said nothing, while tears continued streaming down her face.
Bi Tiantian sensed that something was wrong. She looked up at Shi Nianhuan, and when she saw Shi Nianhuan’s swollen, reddened eyes and tear-streaked face, she was startled as well.
“How did you end up crying like this? Shi Nianhuan, what is wrong with you? What happened?” Bi Tiantian looked at Shi Nianhuan in panic.
After all, they had been roommates living together for a long time. Shi Nianhuan had always smiled with gentle serenity; even when joking, she would cover her mouth.
She had never cried in front of anyone.
So today’s Shi Nianhuan had genuinely frightened Bi Tiantian.
Shi Nianhuan still said nothing, which frightened Bi Tiantian half to death.
She asked several more questions, but Shi Nianhuan only continued crying and did not answer any of them.
Bi Tiantian also did not dare act rashly. When Xia Bing returned, she pulled Xia Bing into the restroom to discuss what they should do.
Xia Bing was startled as well.
“Could she... have been dumped?” Xia Bing thought for a moment and could only come up with the one explanation that seemed reasonably plausible.
“Dumped...” Bi Tiantian pondered seriously. “But she does not seem to be dating anyone.”
“Then... was her confession rejected?”
“This...” Shi Nianhuan did not look like the kind of Girl who would confess her feelings.
The two discussed it for quite a while but reached no conclusion, so they cautiously went back.
Xia Bing stood below. Since their school dormitory had desks underneath and beds above, Xia Bing had to stand on tiptoe to see Shi Nianhuan’s entire profile.
“Nianhuan, are you okay? What happened to you? Why are you so sad that you are not even going to class?”
Shi Nianhuan finally spoke slowly in a hoarse voice: “I am fine. You... have no need to worry about me.”
Xia Bing and Bi Tiantian exchanged a glance. The atmosphere was somewhat awkward.
“Xiao Huanhuan, if something happened to you, tell us about it. If you do not want to talk, that is fine too. How about this? We will ask for leave for you from the afternoon classes, and you can stay in the dormitory. Do not be too sad. No matter what happened, you still have us.” Bi Tiantian also looked at Shi Nianhuan and spoke with a sincere expression.
Shi Nianhuan nodded through her sobs.
The dormitory fell silent once again.
They said illness came like a landslide and left like unraveling silk. Shi Nianhuan had never suffered any serious illness, but at this moment, she rather wished she truly were sick.
This time, she lay in bed for three days. She neither ate nor drank.
The food Bi Tiantian brought her was still sitting on the desk below, completely untouched.
Seeing her so dejected, Bi Tiantian did not know what had happened and did not dare make wild guesses, so she simply let her be.
However, three days passed.
On the morning of the fourth day, Shi Nianhuan climbed out of bed as nimbly as a monkey. After crying for so long, her eyes were still swollen and red. She got out of bed, washed up, showered, and changed clothes, like two different people from her former self.
This version of Shi Nianhuan startled both Bi Tiantian and Xia Bing once again.
“Xiao Huanhuan, are you okay?” Bi Tiantian asked her cautiously.
Shi Nianhuan had just come out of the restroom. She wore a dry-hair cap, water droplets still clinging to her face, and her small face had grown thinner. Yet she smiled anyway.
“I am fine.” Her carefree smile inexplicably made people feel a pang of heartache.
“As long as you are fine, as long as you are fine.” Bi Tiantian said something she did not truly mean.
Shi Nianhuan got up at six o’clock and went to the cafeteria to eat as if she had been injected with stimulants. Then, as usual, she exercised and climbed the stairs to the classroom.
Her mobile phone had been turned off for three days. After she opened it, she found all kinds of messages, but she was too lazy to read them and simply deleted them all.
This way, Shi Nianhuan seemed to have become a completely renewed person. It was as though the former Shi Nianhuan no longer existed.