The story has to start with that day.
His name was Gu Yi, and he was kicked out of his home by his adoptive parents.
The reason was that he was heinous beyond measure, that he had hurt a female classmate in his class, gotten that female classmate pregnant, and driven her to desperate suicide.
The girl was named Bai Nuo, and she was very outstanding and beautiful. After Bai Nuo died, her family refused to let it go, and several times made a scene at the Gu family home, crying and shouting for Gu Yi to pay them back with their daughter’s life.
The Gu family could not take it anymore, and in the end they threw Gu Yi out of the Gu family and terminated the adoption procedures.
After leaving the Gu family, Gu Yi took nothing with him, his hands empty, walking on the street, looking utterly desolate.
If one had to say the only thing he had left, it was a set of clothes and a jade pendant hanging from his neck.
This jade pendant had followed him since he was little. It did not seem special at all, and it seemed worth very little money. It was square, with no unique texture or pattern. One could not tell what era it was from, nor where it had come from. He only knew that since he could remember, this piece of jade had always been hanging around his neck, and over the years it had gone with him through household after household, until he was kicked out again.
From when he was a child in the orphanage, when Gu Yi first met a family willing to adopt him, to now, when he was in high school, he himself could not remember how many families had adopted him and then abandoned him.
His personality was relatively introverted, unlike those children in the orphanage who desperately tried to show themselves off to adults. More than that, there was a birthmark on his left eye, very large, and pitch-black. This birthmark was on his face, ugly beyond words, causing many families, at first sight of him, to choose to give up.
However, Gu Yi was still fortunate. Though he was introverted, he was diligent and sensible. The year he was five, he finally met the first family willing to take him in.
But he was also unfortunate. That warm period did not last long before his family ended the foster care for all kinds of reasons.
From then on, this became a curse Gu Yi could not shake off. No matter how many families he met, the final outcome was always being abandoned, for all kinds of different reasons.
The Gu family had taken him in the longest, but they were also the most ruthless in throwing him out.
He had never thought Bai Nuo would die, and he had never thought that everyone would pin her death on his head.
Ever since he started school, Gu Yi had been the kind of person bullied the most at school. He had a birthmark on his face, and he did not like to speak much. There were always some overbearing boys at school who took pleasure in teasing people, and unfortunately, Gu Yi was their favorite source of amusement.
For example, they would make Gu Yi run errands to buy snacks. After Gu Yi bought them, they would tell him he had bought the wrong thing and needed to buy it again.
For example, they would secretly put chewed-up chewing gum on Gu Yi’s seat, and when Gu Yi sat down on it without knowing, they would slap the desk and burst into exaggerated laughter.
For example, they would snatch the jade pendant from around Gu Yi’s neck, pass it from one person to another, and watch Gu Yi run back and forth between them, pleading with a desperate expression for them to give it back. They would laugh even louder, even more recklessly.
For example, after they had had enough fun with the jade pendant, they would throw it into the toilet without hesitation, and then pee on it.
Things like this happened to Gu Yi every day, and he had long since gotten used to them.
Even when he picked up the jade pendant in the toilet, there was no ripple in his heart.
He knew he could not afford to provoke those boys, and no girl would be willing to be friends with him.
That was just how this world was.
These days continued into high school, and later, they would probably continue too.
Who told the devil who always took the lead in bullying him, the devil he could never shake off from childhood to adulthood, was the young master of a rich family?
People like that, even if he asked the teachers for help, the teachers would only say, You can’t just know how to study. Sometimes you also have to learn how to get along well with your classmates.
Gu Yi thought helplessly, If I knew how to get along well with him, I wouldn’t have been bullied for so many years.
However, after he entered high school, there was one person who did not bully him. Not only did she not bully him, she was very good to him. She was also the only friend he had in his life.
That person was Bai Nuo.
A model student, a teacher’s capable assistant, the class monitor with the strongest influence in the class, not only outstanding, but also graceful and poised. She was the goddess in the hearts of all the boys in the class.
Such a goddess became the best friend of the “monster” Gu Yi, and also made Gu Yi even more of a thorn in the side and a pain in the flesh of the boys in the class.
Bai Nuo was a girl from a single-parent family. She looked proud and independent on the outside, but in fact she had a very lonely heart. That loneliness resonated with Gu Yi, and so the two of them became good friends who talked about everything. This was also the first time in Gu Yi’s life that he experienced the happiness of having a friend, and he was truly very happy.
Bai Nuo would chat with him about her dreams for the future. She loved dancing, loved performing. She said she had a very beautiful red dress, and on the day of graduation, she would wear that dress and stand on the podium to say goodbye to everyone through dance.
She smiled and said, Gu Yi, when the time comes, you must come and watch!
Gu Yi nodded.
He looked forward to that day.
But the first time he saw Bai Nuo wearing that red dress was when she spread her arms and stood on the top floor of the school’s teaching building.
Everyone at the school saw that scene.
Countless students screamed.
Bai Nuo’s expression was calm. Her slender figure stood there in the wind, her long hair flying with the hem of her dress, and then she lowered her head and looked down at the dark mass of people below.
Gu Yi stood in the crowd, stunned. The next second, he saw Bai Nuo break into a smile at him.
That smile was beautiful, but in Gu Yi’s eyes, it was somehow strange.
“Ah——!”
Even more intense screams rang in Gu Yi’s ears!
Bai Nuo, wearing a red dress, drifted down from the teaching building so lightly, like a butterfly spreading its wings to fly.
A pool of blood.
Even her brains had splattered out.
The sounds in Gu Yi’s ears all blurred.
He only remembered that smile Bai Nuo had left in his mind at the end.
After that, he felt nothing.
After Bai Nuo died, her family was heartbroken, and the medical examiner’s autopsy result struck them like a bolt from the blue.
Bai Nuo was pregnant. Although it was only something that had been around for just over a month, and could barely even be counted as a little lump of flesh, it was enough to determine that this was the reason Bai Nuo had chosen desperate suicide.
The school exploded at once.
Model student, beautiful goddess, jumped to her death, pregnant.
Many students could not even imagine encountering something this explosive.
So who had hurt the goddess and made her choose suicide?
There was only one answer.
Gu Yi.
“Oh my god, I thought he was just ugly, I didn’t expect his heart to be this ugly too!”
“I said it long ago, the hearts of people like that are all dark. If you’re not careful, they’ll take revenge on society. Sigh, I already warned Bai Nuo. She wouldn’t listen to me. How could she be friends with that kind of person?”
“Look at his face. With a beauty like Bai Nuo right in front of him every day, it would be strange if he could hold himself back. Too bad for Bai Nuo, you didn’t see her family, they cried themselves unconscious…”
“I heard Gu Yi was originally an adopted child. Now that something like this happened, I’m guessing nobody else would want him either. Ah, I really hope people like this get their retribution soon and hurry up and stay away from our lives. It’s too scary. I don’t want to graduate with a rapist!”
“Go die! Rapist! Devil! You’ll go to hell sooner or later!”
These were the vicious curses Gu Yi heard from his classmates on the first day he went to school after being thrown out of the Gu family.
They were everywhere. Every time he left the classroom and came back in, he could see those eyes full of fear, anger, and hatred.
Gu Yi pretended not to see them, went back to his seat, lay down, and silently slept.
The moment he closed his eyes, Bai Nuo’s smiling face appeared in his mind.
“Gu Yi, come to the office with me for a moment.”
Suddenly, a voice came from the classroom door.
It was the voice of homeroom teacher Li Dong, Teacher Li.
It was that teacher who had told him to get along with his classmates.
Gu Yi opened his eyes and sat up.
In the office, there were only Teacher Li and Gu Yi.
Teacher Li sighed, raised his head to look at Gu Yi, and said, “Your family called. After class today, you won’t need to come tomorrow.”
“Does Teacher Li also think it was me who did it?” Gu Yi asked.
Teacher Li did not answer directly, only said, “This is what your family means. They said they will no longer pay your tuition.”
“It won’t be long before graduation. At least let me finish this semester…”
“Can’t you understand what I’m saying? I’m telling you not to come tomorrow!”
Teacher Li interrupted him impatiently, his tone quite agitated. “You’re at the school, and the school can’t have a day of peace! Leave early, don’t affect the grades of the students in our class.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Gu Yi left the office. He had his head down and accidentally bumped into someone.
It was the rich second-generation who liked bullying him, also his nightmare for so many years. His name was Lin Ming.
But at this moment, Gu Yi had no emotions in his heart. He only treated it as if he had not seen him, slightly sidestepped, and walked past Lin Ming.
Unexpectedly, this time Lin Ming did not come looking for trouble either. If it had been before, he definitely would have punched him already.
That night during evening self-study, Gu Yi was the last person to leave the classroom.
Some classmates were day students, some lived on campus, and in an instant they dispersed like a tide.
Gu Yi walked alone to the top floor of the teaching building.
The wind here was very strong at night, and when it blew on his body, it felt as if it were pulling at him.
He stood at the spot where Bai Nuo had once stood, thinking of Bai Nuo’s smiling face, thinking of Bai Nuo’s dreams, thinking of the red dress Bai Nuo wore when she finally fell.
He thought of his adoptive father and adoptive mother, of the classmates’ curses and hatred, thought of the homeroom teacher’s irritated face, her cold words.
His family was gone, his only friend was gone, and everyone around him hoped he would disappear. Because he was a monster, no one hoped he would live in this world.
That was fine.
He was tired.
If he left, at least he could see Bai Nuo again, right?
Gu Yi took one step forward, closed his eyes, and let his body fall freely.
It was over.
…It was not.
As he fell, he listened to the wind whooshing past his ears, and somehow the jade pendant on his chest emitted a faint glow, crystal clear, extraordinarily beautiful.
Someone hooked his waist, and when he turned over, Gu Yi was a little startled.
What was going on?
A dream?
He was held in that person’s arms, and in the blink of an eye, that person carried him toward the top of the teaching building.
The moment his feet touched the ground, Gu Yi still had a blank expression on his face.
Before he could sort out what all this meant, a hand fiercely clamped around his neck and lifted his entire body up.
The pain of suffocation instantly enveloped his whole body. Gu Yi used both hands to grasp that person’s wrist, and only then did he hear, in the night, a man’s voice.
“You little bastard, you want to die that badly?”