Shen Qinghuan turned back in surprise.
This was… she looked at the white-dressed girl who had suddenly called out to stop her.
So this was Bai Anqi, the pure, innocent little white flower female lead from the original book?
Shen Qinghuan frowned imperceptibly. Neither the male nor female lead of the original book was a good person.
“Qinghuan, wait a moment.”
Bai Anqi jogged up onto the stage, her eyes rimmed red, and grabbed Lin Chen’s sleeve.
She lowered her head, her voice choked with tears, but loud enough for those in the front rows to hear clearly.
“I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have asked Lin Chen to speak up for me.”
Tears fell from Bai Anqi’s eyes as she lifted her head to look at Shen Qinghuan, her gaze pitiful and delicate.
“That spot was always yours. I don’t deserve to compete for it, and I don’t want to. Qinghuan, please don’t be angry, okay?”
She looked utterly pitiable, but the implication behind her words was that Shen Qinghuan was using her power to bully others.
Below the stage, Jingda students began whispering among themselves.
“Don’t you think… Shen Qinghuan has gone too far? Anqi already said all that.”
“Come on, everyone knows she has a terrible temper.”
“She’s already cut ties with her family—she’s not the Shen family heiress anymore. Who is she putting on an act for?”
“Actually, Shen Qinghuan really was the best performer…” That remark was drowned out by the other voices.
Shen Qinghuan didn’t rush to speak. Instead, she smiled.
At her smile, Bai Anqi’s sobbing paused for an instant, and those whispering below the stage unconsciously fell silent.
“Bai Anqi, haven’t you gotten one thing wrong?” Shen Qinghuan’s tone was casual and light.
“Yes, you’re pitiful. But I’ve helped you plenty in the past.”
Bai Anqi froze, tears still clinging to her lashes, looking both pitiful and helpless. “…What?”
“Why don’t you go ask Professor Zhou? My grades are at the top of my class—how many national scholarships have I given up to you?”
Shen Qinghuan sifted through the original owner’s memories.
Bai Anqi’s family was poor. Every time Lin Chen brought up this reason, the original owner would act tough but soften inside, giving up her own scholarships and honor student spots.
And with Lin Chen keeping it from her, Bai Anqi always believed she had earned those things through her own excellence.
Lin Chen’s pupils contracted sharply as well.
Shen Qinghuan couldn’t be bothered to look at them anymore. “I don’t care about the money, but that spot in the elite performance troupe—even if I gave it to you, you couldn’t handle it.”
“Bai Anqi, you’re very pitiful. But aside from being pitiful, do you have any other merits at all?”
The audience erupted.
Bai Anqi panicked completely. Her grip on Lin Chen’s sleeve tightened, her voice trembling. “Lin Chen-gege, is all of that true?”
Lin Chen watched Shen Qinghuan’s departing figure, then shook his head, dodging the real issue. “Anqi, you deserved those things all along…”
Bai Anqi released Lin Chen’s sleeve. Tear stains still marked her face, but her lips were pressed so tightly they’d gone white.
The audience was silent for three seconds.
Someone started a round of applause—scattered and sparse, like raindrops falling on a lake.
But Shen Qinghuan didn’t look back.
Seeing this, Lin Chen hatched another scheme. He reached out and patted Bai Anqi’s shoulder, his tone helpless and regretful.
“Anqi, don’t blame yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Qinghuan never used to be like this. Maybe she still has some resentment in her heart.”
He paused, then said in a low voice, loaded with implication:
“Ever since we got together, her attitude has always been…”
At these words, even more people below the stage began whispering to each other.
Everyone could read the meaning between Lin Chen’s lines—
Shen Qinghuan had given up her scholarship to Bai Anqi, but because she failed to win Lin Chen’s heart, her love had turned to hate, and she took her anger out on Bai Anqi.
In a corner, a student raised their phone and secretly recorded the whole thing.
Those who loved watching drama and never feared it getting bigger quickly opened the campus forum and started posting.
Within just a few dozen minutes, the campus forum was flooded.
One video was titled: “Heiress Publicly Bullies Poor Female Classmate—Caught on Camera!”
Another was even more outrageous: “Shocking Xiuluochang at the Music Conservatory: Young Miss Furiously Tears Apart the Gentle Bai Yueguang.”
The comment section was overwhelmed.
“Isn’t this that Shen Qinghuan who broke off her engagement to a hundred-billion-dollar CEO for a man? Has her love-brain gone crazy?”
“I heard she cut ties with her family for Lin Chen, but Lin Chen didn’t like her, so she took revenge on the girl he does like.”
“Tsk tsk tsk, going insane over unrequited love—truly terrifying.”
“I feel so bad for Bai Anqi. She did nothing and got publicly humiliated.”
“Please. This kind of young miss is just spoiled. She thinks she can bully people just because she’s rich.”
Others dug up even older dirt.
“the Shen family’s youngest daughter Shen Qinghuan, right? She broke off her engagement with Lu Shiyan in front of the entire Jingquan. She must regret it now—he stopped paying attention to her ages ago.”
In the backstage lounge, Shen Qinghuan sat in front of a vanity mirror.
She carefully placed her violin into its case, unhurried.
The commotion outside, the messages constantly popping up on her phone—she didn’t spare them a single glance.
Though she appeared calm on the surface, she had actually been screaming inside the whole time:
“What’s going on? Am I dreaming?”
A kind-hearted classmate ran in, phone in hand, face pale.
“Um… Shen Qinghuan, right? You need to look online right now—everyone’s trashing you!”
Shen Qinghuan looked up, gave the kind classmate a glance, and then showed a sincere smile.
“I know. Thank you!”
She closed the violin case, took a sip of mineral water from the table, and still didn’t check her phone.
The classmate stood frozen, seemingly unable to believe it.
The spoiled, unreasonable the Shen family young miss of campus rumors… seemed like a pretty decent person, actually.
Faced with malicious gossip, her first reaction had been to thank her!
And she was really, really beautiful!
The classmate walked away with little flowers blooming in her heart.
Meanwhile, Shen Qinghuan squeezed her eyes shut, slumped back into her chair, and completely abandoned the elegant image she’d maintained moments before.
She remembered this plot point from the book.
In the junior-year violin tour selection competition, the original owner, with talent far beyond her peers, had won first place without question.
Then, because of a few words from Lin Chen, despite despising Bai Anqi, the original owner had handed the spot over anyway!
Back when Shen Qinghuan read this chapter, she’d been furious at how hopeless the original owner was.
She never imagined that not long after, she herself would transmigrate into the story.
She straightened her back and cheered herself on:
“At least I arrived with a healthy body. Let me see what this is all about…”
At the top floor of the Jingda concert hall, in the VIP box.
Lu Shiyan lounged on the sofa, his slender fingers scrolling across his phone screen.
On the city’s real-time trending list, the topic “Heiress Bullies Poor Girl” was climbing.
On the campus forum, the pinned post’s title was glaringly eye-catching.
He opened the maliciously edited video.
The video showed only Shen Qinghuan coldly refusing and turning to leave, while Bai Anqi’s tears and Lin Chen’s sighs were magnified.
Lin Chen’s line—”Maybe she still holds a grudge”—was clipped out on its own and played on repeat.
Lu Shiyan set down his phone, eyes lowering slightly.
He had long expected her willfulness to get her into trouble.
Back when she broke off the engagement for Lin Chen’s sake and split with her family amid a citywide storm, he had known this girl would stumble sooner or later.
This time, he had planned to simply watch from the sidelines.
But…
Lu Shiyan picked up his phone again and watched the video once more.
He noticed the flicker at the corner of Bai Anqi’s mouth as she grabbed Lin Chen’s sleeve.
And the deliberately amplified volume and precisely chosen words in Lin Chen’s sigh.
Every single word was splashing mud onto Shen Qinghuan.
Lu Shiyan frowned slightly.
He set down his phone, his gaze returning to the empty stage outside the window. His brow furrowed faintly; he neither moved nor spoke.
That slight frown was already the greatest display of emotion he was capable of at the moment.
Public opinion online was spiraling out of control.
Shen Qinghuan’s face was unforgettable to begin with, and having been pampered by her family all her life, her temper was far from good.
The short video’s likes had broken a hundred thousand, and the comment section was a wall of insults aimed at Shen Qinghuan.
Some began digging into her family background, claiming she bullied others on the strength of her pedigree.
Some dug up screenshots from a year ago, when she had publicly broken off her engagement at a the Lu family banquet, mocking her as “a fool born into wealth.”
Others threatened to have the school revoke her tour performance eligibility.
Under Bai Anqi’s social media account, meanwhile, the comments were nothing but comfort and sympathy.