Gritting his teeth, he forced the words out from between his jaws, a twisted sense of malicious glee washing over him. Taking a few deep breaths, Zhou Mingxuan forcefully suppressed the violent and warped impulses inside him, replacing them with a look of feigned mystery mixed with a hint of heavy-hearted sorrow. His gaze swept over the crowd, quickly locking onto his target—Wang Ling, a girl in the class known as the school's ultimate gossip, famous for stirring up trouble and spreading rumors.
He walked briskly over, stopped beside Wang Ling, lowered his voice, and said with an air of profound secrecy: "Wang Ling, come here for a second. I have something monumental to tell you. It concerns the good name of one of our classmates, but I'm only telling you this because you must, absolutely must, keep it to yourself. I overheard Lin Fan bragging about it to someone else by accident, and it's so shocking I still can't wrap my head around it..."
He deliberately lowered his tone to manufacture an atmosphere of a confidential, high-stakes secret, while his eyes carried just the right blend of shock, pity, and reluctance.
Chapter 122