Yan Xia’s expression froze: …There’s really no need to push the studying angle that hard.
But bathed in Shang Wandong’s earnest gaze, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse, and obediently lowered her head. “Okay.”
Seeing this, Shang Wandong nodded with clear satisfaction.
When the bell rang, the two headed back to the academic building.
At the door of Class A’s classroom, as they parted, Shang Wandong said to her, “After eight tonight, you can come find me and we’ll review together.”
Yan Xia’s eyes lit up. “You agreed?!”
She wished the clock hands would jump straight to eight.
Shang Wandong nodded, then handed her the few bottles of medicine from the infirmary.
Like instructing a child to take their medicine, she reminded her gravely, “Remember to take it according to the instructions. Follow the doctor’s orders.”
Yan Xia blinked, then couldn’t help the corners of her mouth lifting. “Don’t worry.”
She thought to herself: Actually, Shang Wandong is pretty decent, huh. Her emotional intelligence is a bit low, but at least she knows how to care about people.
It’s just that her way of caring is exactly like my mom’s…
Clutching the medicine, Yan Xia’s eyes curved into a smile, and her pale face suddenly came alive.
The tips of her ears reddened. “I’ll head back to class then!”
“Goodbye.”
Shang Wandong stood in place, watching her walk into the classroom, before turning to enter through the back door of her own class.
The air about her instantly turned cold.
The second period had just ended, and the classroom was at its noisiest—but the moment Shang Wandong walked in, every sound hushed for an instant.
Countless gazes landed on her in unison.
Shang Wandong walked through the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea before Moses; wherever she passed, the voices around her instinctively dropped.
At the back of the classroom, a group of girls had gathered, whispering about something, their eyes flicking toward Shang Wandong from time to time.
Shang Wandong paid them no mind and walked past.
One of them boldly called out to her: “Shang… Shang Wandong.”
Shang Wandong looked at her and asked calmly, “What is it?”
The girl hesitated, then asked, “Why were you talking to that person?”
Shang Wandong stopped and glanced sideways. “Who?”
“You know, the one from Class F,” another girl couldn’t help chiming in. “The one who got bullied really badly by her own class. Apparently she’s Yan Siqiu’s older sister, right?”
“It’s not like she gets bullied for no reason. One look at her face and I can tell she’s creepy… so scary. Yan Siqiu is actually pretty, and her grades are great! Why is her sister so different from her?”
“No idea. It’s weird.”
“She has a name,” Shang Wandong said suddenly, her expression cold. “Her name is Yan Xia.”
A bitter taste like sea wind spread freely through the air.
The girl met her gaze and couldn’t suppress a shiver.
“B-but you really shouldn’t get too close to her,” she pressed on, forcing herself. “That Yan Xia has a terrible reputation… Getting close to her will affect you.”
Shang Wandong shot her a glance and started toward her seat. “Who I get close to—what business is that of yours?”
The girl’s face flushed red, utterly mortified.
Her friends couldn’t help but protest indignantly: “How can you say that? Xiaoyu was only trying to help you…”
Shang Wandong didn’t look back, her tone flat. “Thanks. Not needed.”
As her friends’ comforting words reached her ears, Xiaoyu only stared at her retreating figure, biting her lip in unwilling frustration.
Shang Wandong returned to her seat, took out her exam paper, and began working on the problems.
She was solving the problems absentmindedly when, without noticing, her black pen wrote two characters on the scratch paper: “Yan Xia.”
She stared fixedly at those two words, silent for a moment, then crumpled the scratch paper into a ball and tossed it into her desk drawer.
“I’m sorry!”
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Zhu Yuxing gritted his teeth, his cheeks flushing red rapidly, and bowed his head deeply toward Yan Xia.
Yan Xia looked up at him from her seat, her face full of surprise.
The others didn’t dare make a sound, sitting quietly in their seats, enjoying the drama.
“Here are your textbooks. A new set has been reordered from the academic affairs office.” Beside Zhu Yuxing, a man in a suit placed a brand-new set of textbooks on Yan Xia’s desk and asked meticulously, “Miss Yan, are you satisfied with his apology?”
This man’s surname was Lin, a secretary sent by the Shang family to handle Zhu Yuxing’s expulsion.
She hadn’t expected Shang Wandong to be so efficient—true to her word, she had actually arranged for Zhu Yuxing’s expulsion.
Yan Xia tilted her head and thought for a moment, then said, “Not satisfied.”
Everyone gasped, suppressing the excitement on their faces as they quickly shared the gossip on their phones.
Zhu Yuxing took a deep breath and swallowed his pride: “I’m sorry. What will it take for you to let me stay in school? I’ll do anything.”
Behind him, a richly dressed noblewoman also pleaded piteously: “Miss Yan, please forgive my son! He’s still young—it’s only natural for him to make mistakes. How about this: give him one more chance, and I promise he’ll never dare do it again…”
She had seen that Yan Xia looked frail and delicate, and assumed she would be easily swayed, so she kept playing the victim, tears streaming down her face: “He’s already in his second year of high school—a critical period. If he’s expelled now, how could he possibly find a new school so quickly?”
Yan Xia looked at Zhu Yuxing and asked softly, “Really? You’ll do anything?”
Her voice lacked strength, and her face always carried a sickly pallor, making her seem somewhat weak.
Zhu Yuxing nodded vigorously, suddenly feeling relieved inside: A coward like Yan Xia, with such a soft temperament, surely wouldn’t dare go too far. This matter would simply blow over.
But to his surprise, Yan Xia leaned back against her seat, looking frightened: “But I don’t want to go to school with you. You should just be expelled.”