3:00 PM, Women's Dormitory.
Zhou Jingyao sat on her bed, her eyes blank and her spirit crushed.
In the past, Zhou Jingyao never showed her bare face to anyone, wearing delicate, light makeup even inside the dormitory.
But right now, her face was completely bare, burdened with two massive eye bags and dark circles like a heavy debuff. She looked like a completely different person from the campus goddess of the Foreign Languages Department.
There was no help for it—she was at her wit's end from sheer frustration!
For a whole week, aside from a trip to the hospital, she hadn't stepped foot outside the dorm once.
Though not as extreme as a total mental breakdown, Zhou Jingyao had certainly been having a miserable time lately.
Influenced by Li Youzhi, all the backup suitors she had cultivated around campus had cut ties with her.
There was no one left in her WeChat messages pouring out concern, tirelessly asking if she had eaten, if she had gone to class, if she had gone to sleep. There was no one sending gifts, inviting her out for meals, taking her shopping, or buying movie tickets...
Before all this, Zhou Jingyao had actually looked down on these backup suitors. Most of the time, she couldn't even be bothered to reply to their vapid expressions of concern.
Yet now, when these people and things she used to find so annoying suddenly vanished, Zhou Jingyao finally realized just how much she couldn't live without them!
She had originally thought it was her beauty and self-confidence that attracted these people to orbit around her.
Yet looking at her increasingly haggard reflection in the mirror these past few days, Zhou Jingyao finally discovered—she might have gotten the logic entirely backward.
Perhaps it was precisely this continuous attention and attentiveness that had forged her confidence and charm.
Without these things... she was just an utterly ordinary, failing college student.
Fortunately... no matter how outsiders behaved, her sisters in the dorm hadn't given up on her yet.
"Yaoyao, stop looking so miserable. Didn't you already ask Sister Hu to go deal with that asshole? Sister Hu has always been quite protective of us girls. I'm sure with her stepping in, she'll make that bastard back down in no time. People nowadays have short memories; once you take care of the instigator, you'll be back to your old life in a flash."
"Yeah, yeah! By that time, our Yaoyao will still be the goddess of the Foreign Languages Department! When those guys see our Yaoyao, hormones raging, won't they just come crawling back to curry favor?"
Hearing her sisters' comforting words, Zhou Jingyao managed a forced smile.
Let's hope so...
Seeing that it was already approaching 3:00 PM, she picked up her phone once more. Seeing that her counselor still hadn't called her back, she couldn't help feeling a bit anxious.
The whole day was almost over; why hadn't the counselor gotten rid of that bastard Li Youzhi yet?
"Huh?"
Just as she was debating whether to call the counselor herself to check on the progress, her lower-bunk roommate, who was holding an iPad, let out a cry.
"Yaoyao, did you post about your situation in the Fairy Circle?"
"Oh, holy crap! The sisters in the Fairy Circle really pull through! They've completely taken over the campus confession wall just to stand up for you!"
"Where, where? Let me see! Oh, wow, it really is! Haha, not just the confession wall, but the campus forum and our school's official Weibo too!"
"The sisters are so amazing! This time, they aren't just denouncing that low-tier jerk, but the entire school's male population! That's how it should be, letting those guys see the might of us fairies, so they'll see if they ever dare to mock our Yaoyao with sarcastic remarks again!"
"What?!"
Hearing her two idiotic lower-bunk roommates clapping and cheering, Zhou Jingyao leaped straight down from the upper bunk.
Snatching the iPad right out of her roommate's hands, she checked the campus confession wall, the forum, and the comment sections of the official Weibo—and her face instantly turned ashen!
What on earth was going on?!
At that moment, another roommate, who usually maintained a relatively neutral relationship with Zhou Jingyao, put down her phone.
"Yaoyao, I don't think you should have done this. Your conflict with that guy shouldn't have been escalated to the school level. Blowing it up this big makes the school lose face. You..."
"I didn't! It wasn't me! Stop talking nonsense!"
With an ashen face, Zhou Jingyao threw the iPad aside and offered a panicked triple-denial.
"I only told the counselor about this! I never asked the Fairy Circle for help!"
Ring, ring, ring...
The phone clutched in Zhou Jingyao's hand suddenly rang. Seeing that it was the counselor calling, she immediately answered it.
"Sister Hu..."
"Zhou Jingyao, have you lost your mind?! Didn't I already tell you that I would handle this matter for you and to wait for the results? I just arrived at the Film and Television Department this afternoon, tracked down their counselor and Li Youzhi himself, and was actively dealing with it for you. Why on earth did you blow this matter up onto the internet?! Now the confession wall, the forum, and Weibo are being flooded by netizens—do you have any idea what kind of terrible impact this has caused? Even the vice president is questioning me about this. How am I supposed to show my face?!"
"Sister Hu, please listen to me explain. I really didn't do this, I..."
"Enough, say no more! The university's Academic Affairs Office has already stepped in, and you know what kind of things you've pulled! I can't help you with this anymore, you're on your own!"
Hearing the furious roar from the other end of the line, Zhou Jingyao's jaw dropped.
She only felt a loud roar in her ears, as if her ear canals had been flooded with muddy river water, shutting out all sounds from the outside world.
Along with the massive ringing in her ears, the entire room started spinning...
Looking at several roommates who ran over, their mouths moving continuously as they asked things she couldn't hear, Zhou Jingyao took a deep breath.
She knew that from this moment on, she would no longer have a place in this school.
***
"Aahahaha! This is driving me out of my mind!"
"Damn it, these fairies use the exact same buzzwords over and over again, can't they come up with something fresh?"
"Wuwuwu, we can't beat them, we simply can't beat them. How can their combat power be so strong?"
"The charm of the Chinese language is just too great, son of a bitch, looking at the screen can piss me off to death!"
Lying on his bed and listening to the chorus of wailing echoing through the dormitory hallway, Li Youzhi shrank his neck.
He had to admit one thing: he had severely underestimated the combat power of the fairies.
In just over an hour, the fairies who sortied from Weibo directly paralyzed the confession wall, the forum, and the school's official Weibo...
The students here at Agricultural University were simply no match for the fairies with their off-the-charts combat power. They lost in a single round, left staring at the massive pile of posts by the fairies on the forum, so frustrated they were scratching the walls.
Thump, thump, thump, thump!
Just as Li Youzhi was playing dead in resignation, his dormitory door was pounded wildly from the outside.
"Brother Zhi, Brother Zhi, are you okay?"
"I saw your Douyin getting hit the hardest by the fairies—please don't do anything foolish!"
"Don't worry, Brother Zhi, no matter what happens, we're your strongest backing! Come on out, chat with the brothers, don't just stew in the dorm by yourself!"
Hearing the concern from his classmates outside, Li Youzhi pursed his lips.
Good brothers...
You guys are suffering for my sake!
No way, this whole mess was stirred up by old Li here anyway. A true man—how could he just play dead and lie flat after stirring up trouble?
With that thought, Li Youzhi sprang up from the bed with a carp kip-up and yanked the dormitory door open.
Looking at the group of worried faces outside the door, he took a deep breath.
"Thanks, brothers, I'm fine. I was just thinking that we're too passive right now, getting flamed to the point where we don't even have the power to fight back. It's so frustrating!"
"Sigh..."
Hearing Li Youzhi say this, the classmates outside sighed in unison.
"Nothing we can do, there are just too many of them, and flaming people is their profession... The stuff they say is so dirty and infuriating... If anyone said that to my face, I'd beat the crap out of them, but on the internet..."
Li Youzhi could feel the grief and indignation of his classmates.
The current situation was just like that concept called "Life's Duel."
Life's duel was a symbol representing something that had to be done, something that could not be avoided. If it wasn't done, the whole of life would be tarnished and left with regrets.
Looking at the frustrated expressions of his classmates, Li Youzhi said slowly:
"The reason we're passive is because they attack while we defend. Therefore, the initiative lies with them, not us. As the saying goes, 'You can be on guard for a thousand days, but you can't be a thief for a thousand days.' Since we can't defend, we'll attack!"
Silently lighting a cigarette and putting it between his lips, Li Youzhi looked at his blinking classmates and gave a grand wave of his hand.
"So, I'm getting ready to march into their territory and flame them right back!"
Looking at Li Youzhi bathed in the LED fairy lights, one hand on his hip and the other holding a cigarette, the boys dropped their jaws.
"Damn, Brother Zhi, you kind of look like God right now..."
Someone muttered under their breath.
*Bip!*
Awe Points received, 275!
*(PS: Chapter 9 has already been released, please refresh your bookshelf.)*