For the next three days, Zuo Xingyun did not see Hua Sheng in the classroom.
He was accustomed to looking diagonally from the far left of the front row toward the back right.
Usually, Hua Sheng would be sleeping or whispering to others. He would stack his books very high to hide doing sneaky things, eating snacks, and chatting behind them; in short, he never wasted his mind on studying.
Yet, over the past few days, that dawdling, slacking appearance of Hua Sheng was nowhere to be seen.
He used his dad’s phone to send WeChat messages to his own phone, but he never received any response again.
His calls went unanswered, and in the end, the phone was simply turned off.
Zuo Xingyun was somewhat puzzled. Could it have been that his words were too blunt, causing Hua Sheng to decide to ignore him?
The day before yesterday, he had suggested the study mutual-aid group to the head teacher and successfully persuaded her to assign him and Hua Sheng to the same group. Looking around now, everyone else had their group members, yet his Hua Sheng had been absent for three days.
He knew where Hua Sheng’s home was. Hua Sheng came from a wealthy family and lived in a luxury residential area far away from the campus, surrounded by mountains and rivers with beautiful scenery. On regular school days, a chauffeur would pick him up and drop him off.
Holding his pen, he stared at the blank test paper in front of him, unable to write anything down for a long time as his thoughts drifted aimlessly.
Soon, the bell rang for the end of the last class in the afternoon.
Zuo Xingyun packed up his things, went to the office to ask the head teacher for leave, and then left the school.
Hua Sheng had spent three days at home feeling blissful.
Recently, with the transition from autumn to winter, he had caught a slight cold, and coupled with his reluctance to see Zuo Xingyun, he pitifully called his teacher to ask for a three-day leave.
Being at home these past few days could be described as a wild horse having broken loose from its reins; playing video games to his heart’s content and eating snacks until he was fully stuffed. His older brother was away on a business trip, and his parents were not home. There were only a few dogs, a cat, a cook, and a housekeeper in the house. Without annoying homework or nagging teachers, he thought with a sigh of emotion that this was the ideal life he wanted to live.
However, good times do not last, and his carefree days came to an end.
At the end of the third day, his older brother called him. Before Hua Sheng could even speak, his brother berated him fiercely, enumerating Hua Sheng’s egregious acts and stating that even if it wasn’t truancy, taking leave for no reason was completely unacceptable.
Hua Sheng was scolded to the point where he nodded repeatedly in agreement, not daring to say another word, and could only tuck his tail between his legs and dejectedly go back to school.
He didn’t understand how there could be something as annoying as going to school in this world.
Who on earth actually liked going to school? Waking up so early and having zero freedom, aren’t the students annoyed? Aren’t the teachers annoyed? Aren’t the principals annoyed?
Hua Xu was annoyed to death! He wasn’t his dad, so why did he have to manage so many things from morning till night? His company had piles of matters that weren’t necessarily handled well, yet he was getting on in years and still hadn’t settled down, constantly controlling him, and Hua Sheng wasn’t even his son!
Hua Sheng cursed and grumbled for half the night, then got up super early the next day, carrying his schoolbag with one hand as he walked out of the villa. He refused the chauffeur’s ride and insisted on squeezing onto the subway by himself.
Whenever he played on his phone in the car, his brother always found out about it, which must have been the driver’s doing. What kind of driver was that? Clearly, he was a spy arranged by his brother right by his side.
Hua Sheng was going to reject every single arrangement his brother had prepared for him.
Not taking the car was just the first step.
Sigh, actually, what his older brother said wasn’t wrong; staying home for too long really wasn’t good, but going to school wasn’t his original intention either.
His older brother knew what kind of temperament he had; going to school meant he certainly wouldn’t take things seriously.
Besides, having forged such a huge grudge with Zuo Xingyun, he didn’t want to see that face for a while.
It was just that the guy’s phone was still with him, and if he didn’t return it, the guy might think he was trying to misappropriate private property.
Who couldn’t afford a phone worth a few thousand yuan, but who was going to compensate for the mental distress caused by sending messages to harass him every day?
Fortunately, it had been locked in the drawer all along, and when he took it out last night, it seemed to have run out of battery and shut down.
He had even kindly charged it for him. As soon as the phone turned on, he discovered 56 WeChat messages.
Hua Sheng had no interest in reading those disgusting sexually harassing texts, so he casually shoved the phone into his schoolbag.
At 7:30 in the morning, it was right in the middle of the morning rush hour. The subway was even more packed to the brim; as soon as one train reached a station, a few people got off while a wave of people got on, coming in an endless, bustling stream.
Hua Sheng had originally been sitting down, but when several elderly people got on, he couldn’t just sit still anymore, so awkwardly and reluctantly he gave up his seat to them.
He lazily leaned against a pole, holding his phone in his right hand as his fingers boredly scrolled up and down.
To him, a phone was merely a tool for playing games and making payments. He tapped into Weibo, browsed the official accounts of a few games he often played, and listlessly clicked into the trending searches.
Whoever dyeing their hair or getting a manicure could make it onto the trending list; even the most trivial matters had to trend.
Hua Sheng muttered inwardly.
Human trafficker Zhang Kaifu sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Hua Sheng’s fingers paused, and on a whim, he tapped into it.
He clicked into the topic.
[Why on earth did the human trafficker only get sentenced to 12 years? I say human traffickers should be executed by firing squad!]
[That’s right, the eldest young master of the Xie family group was abducted for eight years, isn’t this matter big enough? How could it only be a twelve-year sentence?]
[Zhang Kaifu abused children; have those seventeen unclaimed disabled children been properly resettled? How can a twelve-year sentence actually be handed down?]
[It’s definitely a gang crime; Zhang Kaifu couldn’t possibly have done it alone.]
[Camping for updates, we must uproot this detestable gang of human traffickers!]
Netizens at large were filled with righteous indignation and spoke with great fervor. Hua Sheng’s interest was piqued, and he learned about the matter.
The general gist was that the son of a major corporate CEO had been abducted and sold more than a dozen years ago and wasn’t found until two or three years ago. Therefore, this boss spent a huge sum of money to track down the human traffickers who had abducted his son. Half a year ago, they finally found one of them, whose name was Zhang Kaifu. When they found him, he was cowering in a small room in an unfinished building, filthy, stinking to high heaven, and he was still sleeping inside.
Taking advantage of his unpreparedness, the police broke down the door and caught him on the spot. After a round of searches, they also discovered 17 dying disabled children, all with broken hands and feet, emaciated beyond human recognition.
The children’s faces in the photos were pixelated, but even through the mosaics, one could imagine the tragic scene on site.
Hua Sheng scrolled his fingers down and saw this greasy, crafty-looking middle-aged man with broken eyebrows, triangular eyes, a buzz cut, and a scar, the absolute portrait of a villain.
He stared into the camera, not a shred of remorse visible in the depths of his eyes.
Hua Sheng couldn’t help but clench his fists, cursing under his breath, “Damn it, animal!”
What kind of people don’t exist in this world? Devils walking among humans!
How could such a heinous incident only rank around 20th on the trending searches?
Junk Weibo just pisses me off the moment I look at it.
Fuming with anger, Hua Sheng exited the app.
He shoved his phone into his pocket. At that moment, the subway doors opened again, and a crowd of young office workers, dressed exquisitely yet bearing exhausted expressions, swarmed in.
Hua Sheng took off his schoolbag, wore it across his chest, and grabbed tightly onto the pole, refusing to let go.
Geez, you really cannot underestimate the subway during the morning rush hour.
He began to regret not taking his family’s car; being monitored was being monitored, but at least that was better than squeezing onto the subway.
Before long, the subway appeared even more crowded, with heads bobbing all around and people rubbing shoulders.
They were either student cliques or office workers, all looking listless and dejected. The ones standing were dozing off, while the ones keeping their heads down played on their phones without uttering a word. The heavy atmosphere felt like a carriage packed with lifeless walking corpses.
Hua Sheng remembered that today was Monday, which explained a lot.
Suddenly, his back was bumped by someone. At first, Hua Sheng thought it was just because of the crowd, so he didn’t pay much attention to it. He tugged at the hem of his hoodie and straightened his posture, leaning against the pole.
Who would have thought that the person behind him would bump into him again? Calling it a bump wasn’t quite accurate; if he had to use another word, it could be described as pressing against him.
Much like his own action of leaning against the pole earlier, the person behind him took a step forward and pressed flatly against Hua Sheng’s back.
Unaccustomed to being so close to someone else, the nerve at Hua Sheng’s temple throbbed twice. Enduring it without erupting, he moved away from the pole and stepped two inches to the side to avoid that person’s contact.
Who knew that the person behind him was like a piece of dog-skin plaster, sticking right back to him like a shadow.
Once is a coincidence, twice is an accident, three times is pushing it, isn’t it?
Hua Sheng wasn’t one to be pushed around. He clenched his teeth, cracked his knuckles, and decisively thrust his right elbow backward with sudden, unyielding force!
As a result, his arm was accurately and swiftly grabbed by the person behind him, who neutralized his fierce strength using a method that combined gentleness with firmness.
For a moment, Hua Sheng found himself completely unable to move.
He froze briefly, immediately checking the surrounding people. Fortunately, no one noticed his humiliating appearance, as everyone else had their heads down and was half-asleep.
He ground his teeth, stepped backward, and heavily stomped down on that person’s shoe.
A muffled groan was heard, and the person behind him shuddered, clearly not expecting him to retaliate in such a manner. Hua Sheng felt quite smug and was about to turn his head to look when he suddenly felt something pressing firmly against his lower back.
Hua Sheng’s body stiffened. Having thought he ran into some lawless element, he never expected it to actually be a subway pervert!
As if sensing Hua Sheng’s tension, that person let out a soft, ambiguous chuckle.
To look cool, Hua Sheng never liked to wear thermal underwear; the paper-thin school uniform pants couldn’t fend off the bitter cold, nor could they insulate against body heat.
His head buzzed with anger and pain. He never imagined that he, the dignified young master of the Hua family, would actually be molested on the subway in broad daylight!
He couldn’t move, he absolutely couldn’t move. What if someone else noticed and this spread out? How would he, Hua Sheng, ever show his face at No. 3 High School again?
Clenching his teeth tight, he tried his utmost to suppress the suffocating wave of nausea rising in his chest and struggled with his right arm. But that person had anticipated it long ago; fingers like iron pliers gripped even tighter, and another hand even rested on his waist, giving it a playful pinch!
A tingling numbness traveled down Hua Sheng’s tailbone. A sense of shame welled up inside, flushing his cheeks crimson, and he began to twist his body, clutching his schoolbag as he tried to escape forward.
However, the crowd was packed tightly like a solid wall, leaving not even a gap to flee through.
“You fucking…”
This had truly crossed Hua Sheng’s bottom line. Pride and face didn’t matter anymore; right now, he was going to bring that pervert to justice right in front of everyone!
He turned around angrily, but the moment he caught sight of that person’s face, the torrent of curses abruptly stopped in his throat. His pupils shrank drastically in sheer panic and disbelief, shouting, “Zuo, Zuo Xingyun?”