“Stop pestering me, let’s break up.”
Cen Jin calmly shoved Ethan’s hand away, finished speaking, and strode past him.
The moment Cen Jin uttered those words, passing students involuntarily slowed their pace. Some had already whipped out their phones, tapping furiously at their screens. Their faces radiated an unmistakable excitement and curiosity as they watched the drama unfold, entirely unable to conceal their glee.
Ethan’s face drained of color, his body stiffening.
It wasn’t until he watched Cen Jin’s retreating figure that he realized Cen Jin meant it.
He took long strides forward and quickly caught up to Cen Jin.
Pressing a hand onto Cen Jin’s shoulder, he stepped directly into his path to block him.
“Why? We haven’t even been together for a full month!”
“You’re not my type.”
“Then why did you agree to be with me in the first place?”
“I thought I could handle someone like you, but I still can’t stand it.” Cen Jin hesitated for a fraction of a second, glanced at Ethan’s expression, and added, “You’re too dark. I like fair skin.”
With that, he batted Ethan’s hand away once more.
“Yet you didn’t stop me from seeking out others either,” Ethan said, his initial impulse subsiding into a voice cold enough to freeze.
Cen Jin had a gut feeling Ethan was about to drop something earth-shattering, and narrowed his eyes at him. “Shut up.”
“You went out drinking with other guys, did you think I wouldn’t find out? I was sitting in the booth right next to yours yesterday. From my angle, I saw everything you and the others were doing crystal clear.”
Cen Jin froze, his mouth parting slightly in shock, completely stripped of words.
“Those guys were upperclassmen, and they go to our school too, don’t they?”
“Ah…” Cen Jin genuinely had no idea.
“Stop putting on that pitiful, innocent act. Don’t expect me to believe you didn’t know who they were.”
“Which one of them caught your eye? Was it because they’re fair? Or because they have money and family background?”
“Do they know you have a boyfriend? I’m dying to know what on earth made them so appealing that you actively sought them out.”
Having never experienced a scene resembling a public “infidelity showdown,” Cen Jin completely lost his footing. He could only stare blankly at Ethan, utterly speechless.
Ethan stood right before Cen Jin, gripping him firmly by both shoulders.
Up close, Ethan was remarkably tall standing at nearly 1.9 meters, close to two meters. Cen Jin’s head barely reached Ethan’s chest.
From behind, the stark contrast in size made Cen Jin appear entirely enveloped by Ethan, with only a few strands of pale hair whipped up by the breeze visible to anyone tall enough to peer over Ethan’s shoulder.
Cen Jin’s attention drifted.
Judging by Ethan’s attitude toward him, he couldn’t have liked Ethan very much back when they were together.
That must have been why he never cared for Ethan perhaps because his blood didn’t taste good.
“I’m talking right to your face, and you’re zoning out?”
“Look at me. I’m not even dark; this is a sun-kissed tan, understand?”
Ethan leaned down, gritting his teeth as he murmured directly into Cen Jin’s ear.
Cen Jin’s breathing hitched for a fraction of a second. Gazing up at the face hovering inches away, his pupils trembled.
Finding a sudden surge of strength he didn’t know he had, he shoved Ethan away hard.
He could finally breathe again.
Ethan staggered back a few steps, pressing a hand against the spot Cen Jin had touched, standing dazed for two full seconds as if his chest still retained the soft indentation of the touch.
By the time he snapped back to reality, Cen Jin had already sprinted far away.
Ethan made no move to pursue him. Instead, he remained rooted to the spot, pressing a hand over his heart with a low, scoffing laugh.
Watching Ethan’s antics, some of the surrounding student onlookers shook their heads with expressions that screamed, You’re a hopeless case, while others shot excited glances toward the direction Cen Jin had fled.
Standing in the shadows behind a nearby pillar, a gloomy-faced Zelin gripped the stone column with a single hand, his fingertips pressing down with enough force to carve a hole straight through the marble.
Though delayed by the confrontation, Cen Jin reached his classroom just as the instructor stepped onto the podium to begin the lecture.
The foot Cen Jin had already stepped inside the doorway pulled back instantly. Before he could utter a formal “Permission to enter,” the teacher smiled and nodded encouragingly at him, gesturing for him to come in.
Sinking into an empty seat, Cen Jin took a few moments to catch his breath and steady his respiration before retrieving his phone from his schoolbag.
Throughout the earlier commotion, the phone in his bag had been vibrating incessantly, though he had no idea who was blowing up his inbox.
Unlocking the screen, he found that aside from a few unread messages from the previous night, the vast majority of notifications originated from a single group chat:
St. Jago Gossip Circle #1.
Curiosity piqued, he tapped it open, only to be met with a wall of flashing messages. After a lengthy loading screen, the backlog finally finished syncing.
Since class was in session, the frequency of incoming new messages had slowed down, though several members continued typing nonstop.
Cen Jin glanced sideways to make sure the teacher’s attention remained anchored elsewhere, then lowered his gaze to peer at the screen hidden inside his schoolbag.
Wait, who on earth is that guy anyway?
He’s the captain of our school’s varsity football team! A week or two ago, he was the one making a massive public spectacle out of chasing Cen Jin.
I remember now! Wasn’t he the one who broadcast a confession over the school PA system and hired workers to plant the entire middle of the athletic field with red roses?
I heard Xiaojin say he hates dark skin, hahaha.
If that guy hadn’t cornered him so aggressively, our Xiaojin never would’ve agreed to date him.
Spotted a wild fan in the wild!
Wild fan checking in! I was sitting close by, and I actually heard Ethan whining in that pathetic, sour tone: “I know you went drinking with other guys,” “I didn’t stop you from finding others either,” “I’m not even dark, just look at me”~
Is it just me who feels sorry for Ethan? Playing right into the palm of a scumbag.
Right, it’s literally just you. [Protect our Xiaojin! .jpg]
Does the internet have no memory? Cen Jin has always been a scumbag; didn’t he used to play the field with multiple people at once?
And here I thought I was the only one who remembered. Honestly, aside from his face, does Cen Jin have anything else going for him?
What the hell do you know about suitors? Do you even know what a suitor means? All those stinky men swarmed Xiaojin of their own free will, okay? Xiaojin never dated them all at the same time.
Exactly, exactly! Xiaojin is just too soft-hearted; he shouldn’t have given those guys the time of day.
Xiaojin is good, Ethan is bad.
Xiaojin is good, stinky men are bad.
The chat was a chaotic mess. Some users were bickering while others were rambling to themselves, yet the central topic invariably revolved around Cen Jin, causing him to furrow his brows in deep annoyance.
He tapped on his own display name within the group it read Cen Jin plain as day. Did these people seriously fail to check whether the person they were gossiping about was currently lurking in the chat?
As for the derogatory remarks targeting him, Cen Jin felt zero emotional resonance, given that those past deeds had nothing to do with him anyway.
After brief hesitation, Cen Jin tapped open the text input box.
“What are you planning to do?”
Compressing his lips into a thin line without replying, Cen Jin typed out a quick message and hit send.
Stop arguing.
He assumed his display name, Cen Jin, was glaringly obvious enough to mortify these people for a moment, but he severely underestimated their utter lack of faith.
A fresh batch of messages popped up instantly, burying his text beneath a wave of new notifications.
Who the hell are you?
Did you seriously not realize when you joined that “St. Jago Gossip Circle #1” is basically the official “Cen Jin Fan Club”?
What on earth…?
Cen Jin stared in absolute bewilderment, his jaw dropping open, unable to snap it shut for a solid beat.
To the person right above me: you must be that internet troll spreading rumors about Cen Jin, right? Did you really think we wouldn’t spot your clumsy sarcasm?
Watch your tone. This “Cen Jin” wannabe is obviously just some stalker fan who changed his nickname to match. Say one more bad word about Cen Jin and wait till he rips you to shreds.
Tsk, we’ll argue if we want to argue.
If you hate the noise, stop looking at your phone.
Then leave the group, duh.
Hey, wannabe Cen Jin, why don’t you go check the group members’ nicknames? Hahaha.
Cen Jin tapped open the member list and glanced through it. A full fifth of the users had modified their nicknames to variants like Xiaojin’s Baby, Xiaojin is My Wife, Xiaojin’s Future Boyfriend.
He sat in silence for a moment, concluding that one particular group member had made a remarkably sensible suggestion:
Time to leave the group.
Just then, a fresh deluge of messages flooded the screen.
Alright, cut the fighting. Sharing a fresh photo of Xiaojin today! [.jpg]
Cen Jin sat bolt upright, tapped open the image, and nearly hurled his phone across the room.
What the actual hell?
Do these people seriously have nothing better to do with their lives?
If they had this much spare time to snap creep shots, they might as well line up and offer themselves up for him to take a bite.
Her majesty’s beauty, licking, licking, licking.
Xiaojin baby’s expression is so evocative, I’m obsessed.
He’s so blindingly fair! The contrast between the dark skin and our baby is unreal!
Suddenly having some R-rated daydreams, I wanna make Xiaojin cry so bad~ [Drooling] [Drooling] [Drooling]
Yet plenty of users voiced disgust as well.
What the hell is wrong with you guys drooling over a guy???
Holy crap, there are so many creeps in this chat. I can’t take this anymore, I’m out.
Leaving the group +1
Whether those users actually left the group remained a mystery to Cen Jin, as he had already tapped the leave button himself.
With the message bombardment silenced, his phone finally quieted down.
He tossed the device back into his schoolbag, where it struck something solid with a dull thud.
Flipping things aside to look, he spotted the glass jar that the mysterious voice had insisted was critically important.
“You finally remembered it. Fortunately, the bottle didn’t shatter when you tossed it.”
Cen Jin let out a soft murmur of acknowledgment, giving the jar lying at the bottom of his bag a gentle nudge with his fingertip. He still failed to perceive anything special about the container, despite the voice claiming it served as a tracker for accumulated malice points.
Squinting down at it for a closer inspection, he still came up empty.
The interior of the jar appeared choked with milky-white mist. Between the gaps in the swirling vapor, nothing was visible half-obscured and entirely indecipherable.
“Once the malice points are gathered in full, you’ll find out what this is.”
The voice echoed in his mind.
As young hunters who typically steered clear of such inane chats, they still couldn’t entirely escape the individuals forwarding group chat logs straight into their exclusive hunter circle.
The group consisted of just three members: Wei Xin, Talon, and Mann.
Wei Xin’s phone buzzed. Expecting an urgent mission alert, he instead found a forwarded gossip thread.
Without even opening it, he gave it a fleeting glance before typing out a command and hitting send:
wx: Recall that.
wx: Don’t forward this kind of boring crap into the group chat again.
Talon: No way, don’t you think the guy in the photos looks a little familiar?
Mann: Let me check.
wx: Don’t think so.
Talon: You definitely didn’t open it.
Talon: Mann? Did you look?
Mann offered no response for ages.
Talon: Mann is definitely staring at it right now, completely lost in it, ignoring messages completely.
Talon: Anyway, I already got someone to drag me into the group chat, hehe.
For reasons beyond his comprehension, yesterday’s image of those eyelashes fluttering uncontrollably flashed unbidden into Wei Xin’s mind, driving his fingers to click open the forwarded chat history of their own accord.
Five minutes later:
wx: Add me to the group.
Mann: Me too.