Chi Wan took the student information form that Qin Nanyang had given her and turned back to her seat.
With black ink on white paper, the single A4 sheet was tossed casually onto the desk by Chi Wan. Yan Xu stretched his neck to take a peek, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, went back to playing his mobile game.
Chi Wan took in every detail of his petty action, making no move to stop or block him. She leaned back against her chair, staring at the blank family background section, and it was a long time before she slowly picked up her pen.
Stroke by stroke, she wrote down names that were once familiar yet now felt utterly alien. Those unfamiliar details filled the form that belonged to her.
Just as the tip of her pen was about to touch the paper, the sheet was suddenly snatched away. Chi Wan looked up in puzzlement.
She saw Lu Yulin holding the information form, who then let out a sudden laugh as if she had just seen something immensely entertaining.
The moment Chi Wan understood her intent, Lu Yulin flashed a radiant smile and crowed loudly, "Oh my, how does the new transfer student manage to misspell even her own parents' surnames?" She read aloud from the paper, "Father Song Wenbin, mother Fu Ping—tsk, tsk, tsk. Aren't you surnamed Chi?"
Chi Wan's calm gaze gradually grew icy. She said in a low voice, "Give me the form."
Ignoring her entirely, Lu Yulin pressed on in a sarcastic tone, "Three different surnames in one family. Could it be that you were adopted? An orphan with no dad and no mom?"
Jiang Zhi had already looked over the moment Lu Yulin's voice rose in sudden loudness. At this moment, his deep, sharp black eyes were filled with disgust. He slowly stood up, exuding an invisible pressure on those around him. The other people who had originally wanted to crowd around and watch the fun saw this and quietly retreated two paces.
"Are you deaf? Didn't you hear her say, give the form back to her?" Jiang Zhi looked at her coldly.
But Lu Yulin had been harboring a bellyful of anger ever since she saw the two of them getting off the school bus together in such an intimate manner. Seeing that Jiang Zhi—who was always aloof and never meddled in other people's business—had actually stood up to intervene, her fury soared to the heavens, and she long forgot about his ruthless reputation.
Far from returning the information form to Chi Wan, Lu Yulin curled the corners of her mouth and walked away with a malicious smile. "I really never expected that our cold and pretty transfer student is actually an orphan with neither father nor mother. So..."
She turned back, her eyes full of mockery, and enunciated every single word clearly and loudly right at Chi Wan: "No—one—wants—you."
Chi Wan stood by her desk, staring fixedly at those moving lips. Her mind left her with only the words just spoken: "No one wants you," "No one wants you"…
"You're courting death, Lu Yulin…" Jiang Zhi's voice was cold, and the moment his leg started to step forward, the girl beside him rushed out like a whirlwind.
It happened so fast that nobody even saw clearly how the two girls suddenly ended up rolling on the floor in a wrestling match.
Jiang Zhi paused the leg he had already moved out of his seat, and Yan Xu let out a gasp of surprise as he stood up. "Bro…"
"Keep an eye on the busybodies." Jiang Zhi only glanced at him indifferently before fixing his eyes on the girl who was using her superior weight to pin the other firmly beneath her on the ground.
Slow-witted as he usually was, Yan Xu caught on instantly this time, grasping Jiang Zhi's meaning.
He was supposed to keep an eye on Lu Yulin's little sycophants or any other meddlers to stop them from running off to the teachers' office to snitch, giving Chi Wan enough time to thoroughly vent her anger.
Wait, though… When did his bro ever start showing such consideration for an outsider, and a girl he'd barely known for long at that?
Feeling both depressed and obedient, Yan Xu walked out of the circle, stood by the doorway, and glared at everyone to ensure no one went off to sound the alarm.
Surrounded by the crowd, the onlookers watched as the seemingly frail transfer student pinned their campus belle underneath her, rendering her completely immobile. Blow after blow rained down on the campus belle's body, drawing a series of miserable screeches from her. At the same time, Chi Wan's exposed face and arms inevitably got scratched by Lu Yulin's long-grown fingernails, leaving red marks where the deeper spots even oozed beads of blood. She looked almost more wretched than the person she was pinning down.
Jiang Zhi glared at several girls nearby who were stirring restlessly, wanting to pull Chi Wan away. He threatened in a deep voice, "You'd all better stay put, or else…"
What would happen "or else" nobody knew, but nobody dared to move anymore. They could only listen as Lu Yulin shrieked, screamed, and cursed like a madwoman, completely shedding her usual image of a refined socialite. Looking at the other girl, she was no less intense; her hands didn't stop for a second, and she kept chanting over and over, demanding: "Who did you say nobody wanted? Huh? Who did you say nobody wanted?"
"Who did you say nobody wanted, huh?"
Chi Wan's nonstop interrogation sounded almost demonic. Gradually, Jiang Zhi began to realize something was wrong. At first, he had simply assumed she had been bullied and wanted to let her blow off some steam. He had even thought earlier that she was smart for knowing how to hit where it wouldn't show, but now it looked entirely unconscious. She wasn't intentionally avoiding getting her face and hands scratched—she simply didn't care at all.
Lu Yulin had run out of strength and was crying for help, while the person on top of her remained completely motionless, repeating her actions and words like an automaton. Only then did terror slowly grip Lu Yulin, every inch of her body aching as if she had been run over by a truck again and again.
"Chi Wan?" Jiang Zhi reached out to pull her up, but she flailed in resistance, nearly striking him in the face.
Jiang Zhi turned his face slightly, swiftly caught Chi Wan's wrists, and with a pull, spun the still-resisting girl around before gathering her into his arms, subduing her thrashing limbs. "Chi Wan, calm down, calm down, be a good girl…"
Jiang Zhi swore he had never used such a gentle tone with anyone in his life. He murmured soft, ceaseless words to soothe the emotionally overwrought girl.
"Good girl, let's slow down, settle down little by little, and follow my breathing." Seeing the girl gradually quiet her hands and feet, he freed one hand to gently stroke her head, just as one would comfort a small animal.
His caressing hand suddenly froze. The thin fabric at the front of his shirt was growing steadily damp.
She was crying. Without a single sound, her tears had soaked a large patch of his shirt.
Jiang Zhi's state of mind at that moment was extremely complicated. He utterly detested people crying in front of him. Yet right now, he couldn't describe what he was feeling; he felt somewhat irritable, wanting to push the girl away, but his hands seemed to have a mind of their own, showing no sign of letting go.
"The head teacher is here!" Someone shouted at the door.
Immediately afterward, Li Chunhua's uniquely exaggerated, booming voice rang out: "What's going on again? Why is everyone gathered around?"
When Li Chunhua pushed through the crowd and squeezed inside, he was startled by the sight of the girl lying on the ground, groaning in pain with her hair covering her face. Trembling, he pointed a plump finger and asked, "Wh—which student is this?"
At that, Lu Yulin's sycophants rushed over like reinforcements, shouting competing accusations all at once. Li Chunhua felt his head buzzing with noise, and his vacant gaze drifted idly until it locked onto a pair of cold, gloomy eyes, causing his chubby frame to give a slight shudder.
He waved a hand to cut off the girls' babbling, looked amiably at Jiang Zhi and the girl whose face was hidden in his arms, and asked, "Jiang… Jiang student, what is this about?"
"Let's talk in the office," Jiang Zhi dropped the words in an impatient tone, then shielded the girl as he walked outside.
"Eh?" Li Chunhua wanted to say something, but his outstretched hand hung in the air before he awkwardly pulled it back.
Only then, lowering his head, did he see who was lying on the ground. "Wh—which student did this Lu student get into a fight with?"
Li Chunhua's first reaction was: *Has this little ancestor been bullying someone again?*
And his second reaction was: *Did the little ancestor kick an iron plate and get beaten up by someone instead?*
The few girls supporting Lu Yulin were left staring in complete dumbfounded shock: "..."
Only Lu Yulin, ignoring the pain all over her body, gnashed her teeth with such fierce malice she looked as though she could take a bite out of him. "Are you blind? *I* am the one who got beaten up!"
Li Chunhua: "..." He silently rolled his eyes in his heart, and then silently wept bitter tears.
How hard he had it. Another day cut short by stress.