“Teacher Xiao Feng, hello.”

Teacher Xiao Feng glanced at Meng Yanxi across from him. “It’s like this— I sent you a WeChat message earlier. Did you see it? We’re having our thirtieth anniversary event here, with a lottery to give back to longtime clients. Your Jin Zhao won thirty free private lessons.”

“Mm, I know.”

Teacher Xiao Feng asked tactfully, “It’s already been a month. How come we haven’t seen Jin Zhao come to class?”

“She’s in her second year of high school now. Studies come first. I didn’t tell her.”

“That’s fine, of course studies come first.” Teacher Xiao Feng adjusted smoothly and continued enthusiastically, “But I think you could still let her know. This course has no expiration date. Even if she goes to university later, she can still come learn anytime.”

“No need.”

“This is completely free. There won’t be any charges.”

The other side repeated the same words. “No need. Thank you.”

Teacher Xiao Feng glanced at Meng Yanxi, whose expression had grown cold and heavy, and continued trying to communicate. “Is there some difficulty? Jin Zhao started learning dance with us at seven. Teacher Yuyu and I have more or less watched her grow up. Jin Zhao is truly outstanding. We were very happy that she was drawn in this event. If there are any difficulties at home, we can try to solve them together.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end, then the man suddenly said, “Teacher Xiao Feng, may I ask you for one thing?”

“Mm, mm, go ahead!”

“Please stop praising Jin Zhao. Whether it’s saying she’s pretty or excellent, I don’t want to hear such things anymore. Do you know that every time you praise her—no, even just every time she comes back from class with you—there’s a fight in my house?”

Meng Yanxi frowned.

“A fight?” Teacher Xiao Feng was also caught off guard. “How could there be a fight? She’s just coming to dance. She didn’t do anything else.”

“I know. What I mean is, I already have a new family. I need to consider my wife’s feelings more. For me, family harmony brings success in all things. Household harmony comes first. I hope you won’t call me again.”

Teacher Xiao Feng: “?”

No—what does your wife’s feelings have to do with other people praising Jin Zhao? So for the sake of your wife’s bullshit feelings, Jin Zhao doesn’t even deserve a single word of affirmation?

And “family harmony brings success in all things”? Saying it so grandly— isn’t it just that the pampered wife can’t stand the former wife’s daughter being outstanding, getting jealous and making a fuss whenever she sees her do well?

At this moment, even the professional composure of a gold-medal salesperson couldn’t keep him smiling anymore.

After hanging up, Teacher Xiao Feng wanted to rant together with Meng Yanxi. When he looked up, however, the boy had already stood up with a cold face and left the meeting room.

“Should I refund that money to you?” Teacher Xiao Feng quickly turned and asked.

Meng Yanxi didn’t look back. His cool, distant figure walked into the corridor where dance music and pounding beats intertwined noisily.

“No need. Give it to her.”

Teacher Xiao Feng: “?”

No— how was he supposed to give it? On what grounds? What was he supposed to say?

Hello, Jin Zhao, coins are falling from the sky— one just happened to hit you?

That Sunday, Wu Nian called Jin Zhao over to her place.

The two lived in the same residential compound; Wu Nian’s home was in the building directly opposite Jin Zhao’s.

Wu Nian’s finances had eased up. She returned the money she’d borrowed from Jin Zhao, principal and interest included.

Jin Zhao didn’t take the interest, only accepting the two thousand yuan she’d originally lent out. Wu Nian insisted, but she still refused, only asking softly, “Are we still friends?”

Wu Nian froze for a moment, then smiled. “As long as you don’t keep telling me to go back to school, we’re still friends.”

Jin Zhao laughed.

She was in a hurry to get to the library to study and didn’t stay long. When she left, she ran into He Yu coming to see Wu Nian in the stairwell, and with He Yu was his inseparable friend, Yu Lei.

Yu Lei was the same age as Wu Nian and He Yu and studied at a vocational school. Last year, on Wu Nian’s birthday, he’d gone to a bar together with He Yu. Later, when something happened in the nearby alley, it was also he and He Yu who went together to pick Wu Nian up.

In the stairwell, Jin Zhao lowered her head and walked past them.

Behind her, Yu Lei let out a whistle. “Hey, pretty girl!”

Jin Zhao pretended not to hear and quickened her steps downstairs.

Behind her, He Yu laughed and pulled him back. “Don’t be a toad lusting after swan meat. You forgot whose woman she is?”

Yu Lei didn’t care at all, his eyes fixed straight on the girl’s back as she went downstairs. “I already checked it out, she’s just in the same class as Meng Yanxi. There’s nothing between them. That night, Meng Yanxi just gave her a ride because it was on the way.”

The two discussed her without any restraint, their voices echoing through the empty stairwell. Jin Zhao’s scalp went numb, and she ran out of the stairwell as fast as she could.

Jin Zhao thought this chance encounter would pass quickly. After all, her days were just a straight line between two points— she focused on studying and had no chance to get mixed up with people like them. What she didn’t expect was that it was only the beginning of being targeted.

On Monday night after evening self-study, Yu Lei waited for her at the school gate on a motorcycle.

An eighteen-year-old boy, a little over one meter seventy tall, with dyed yellow hair, leaning against the motorcycle behind him, a lit cigarette pinched between his fingers. The crimson glow flickered in the dark night. Mixed in among the honest, well-behaved students of the affiliated school, he was extremely conspicuous.

From far away, some students avoided him, while bolder ones walked closer and stared straight at him, their eyes carrying a kind of yearning and excitement at breaking the rules.

Jin Zhao didn’t dare go out. She hid in the security room until the guard went out and drove Yu Lei away, only then sprinting across to the bus stop opposite.

But the second day, the third day… he appeared again. She didn’t dare keep troubling the security guards, so after school at night she waited to leave together with Lu Jingyue and Si Tian, hiding behind them as they went out of the school gate.

It just so happened that recently Lu Jingyue and Meng Yanxi seemed to have some kind of misunderstanding and were no longer inseparable. Most of the time after class, Lu Jingyue walked with Si Tian instead. Boys naturally had more deterrence in situations like this, and by coincidence, it helped her.

But beneath the tedious homework and endless test papers of school, rumors always spread especially fast. Before long, Jin Zhao heard that there was a girl at the affiliated school dating a boy from the vocational school, that he came every night to pick up his girlfriend— only no one knew exactly which girl it was.

Jin Zhao was restless and unsettled.

There was no evening self-study on Saturday. After school in the afternoon, Lu Jingyue went to play basketball, and Si Tian was called away by the English teacher. Toward evening, Jin Zhao felt a little braver. She walked out of the school gate alone and ran into Yu Lei again.

Without the darkness of night as a backdrop, he didn’t seem quite as frightening. She didn’t like yellow hair, but that was just her personal preference. She told herself not to have prejudices— whatever it was, it was better to make things clear.

Jin Zhao took a deep breath and walked toward the boy across the street.

Seeing that she was finally no longer avoiding him, Yu Lei got off his motorcycle and asked bluntly, “How about the two of us get together? I’ll pick you up and drop you off every day, bring you breakfast, take you out when you feel wronged. When I make money, I’ll spend it on you.”

Jin Zhao rejected him just as bluntly. “I don’t like you.”

“Why?”

Jin Zhao used a condition he was least likely to meet as her excuse. “I like boys who are good at studying. I don’t need him to pick me up or spend money on me, he just needs to be able to explain problems to me.”

“Boys who are good at studying? First in the grade? Meng Yanxi?” The yellow-haired boy laughed disdainfully. “But you’re not worthy of him. Even your own dad doesn’t like you, even your family looks down on you. How could someone like you be worthy of Meng Yanxi? You and I are the ones from the same world.”

He pointed at himself, then pointed at Jin Zhao.

There was indeed an unpleasant, greasy air clinging to him. As he spoke, he even reached out, wanting to touch the girl’s face.

But before he could touch Jin Zhao, his hand was suddenly seized hard by a boy who appeared out of nowhere.

“Crack!”

Meng Yanxi had no idea where he came from. He grabbed Yu Lei’s wrist and forcefully bent it downward.

Before Yu Lei could even react, Meng Yanxi yanked him over, drove his knee upward, and landed a heavy blow squarely into his abdomen.

“Agh—” Yu Lei clutched his stomach and cried out in pain, and Meng Yanxi followed up with another punch straight to his face.

Throughout the entire process, he didn’t say a single word. His face was cold as he struck without mercy, as if anger he’d been bottling up for a long time finally had an outlet today.