Following Wang Arthur to a pawnshop, they walked inside. Qiao Xi and Ding Xiaoyu followed him in as well, realizing what he intended to do.
Emerging from the pawnshop:
"My phone, watch, necklace, and rings—pawned every last one of them. Walking around with empty pockets feels terribly awkward."
"Ah, what is a friend? A friend is always an idiot who stands by your side when you make an unforgivable mistake."
"Brother Arthur, you're just being a tsundere. You say you don't want to help, but your body is quite honest." Qiao Xi blinked at Wang Arthur, looking at him with a mischievous grin.
Wang Arthur rubbed her head. "Alright, go back and hand this money over to your Brother Dadong."
The three of them returned together to Ultima Class and took their seats. Ding Xiaoyu walked up to Wang Dadong and handed him the envelope containing the money from the pawnshop.
Wang Dadong paused in surprise. "This is..."
"Someone pawned his watch, phone, necklace, and rings. Hey, say something, won't you?"
Wang Arthur put down the book in his hand and said indifferently, "Well, out with the old, in with the new."
Wang Dadong took the envelope and walked over quietly to Wang Arthur's side. "Arthur, you really leave me at a loss for words."
Wang Arthur reverted to his old teasing tone toward Wang Dadong. "I know your IQ too well, no need to strain yourself trying to find words to thank me. Hurry up and calculate how much we're still short so everyone can figure something out."
Ding Xiaoyu told Dadong that Arthur's jewelry had been pawned for 120,000.
Added to Qiao Xi's 100,000 and the 300,000 just given by the Homeroom Teacher, it came to a little over 500,000.
"Great! That's the 500,000 covered!" Wang Dadong and the rest of Ultima Class cheered.
Qiao Xi chimed in unhelpfully, "What about the 50,000 with Jin Baosan?"
"I bet he's already spent it on goodness knows what," Wang Arthur said, a smile touching the corners of his eyes.
Qiao Xi held up her hand for a high-five with Wang Arthur. "My thoughts exactly. With that bunch of lackeys around him, even if he didn't dare spend it, they would've talked him into it."
Wang Dadong raised an eyebrow. "If he dared touch a single cent, he's dead meat."
As expected, Jin Baosan really had spent it, and ended up having a few teeth knocked out by Wang Dadong, who told him to use his lottery winnings to fix them.
Qiao Xi muttered to herself, "You reap what you sow."
That evening at the Black Cat Bar, Wang Dadong and the other two went with the 500,000 to pay off the debt. Well, why just three people? Because these three... wouldn't let her go! Ugh! She really wasn't that weak, so why wouldn't they listen to a word she said? Qiao Xi was so furious she was ready to spit blood. How could they do this?
With no other choice, she stayed home to process paperwork.
Time ticked by. Just as she finished her paperwork and stopped typing on the keyboard, she sensed a familiar presence on the balcony. With a helpless sigh, she walked over to the balcony.
"Tell me, Brother Rex, is it really okay for you to show up at my place like clockwork every single day to punch in? And you never use the front door, always taking the balcony. Makes me feel like my front door is just for decoration."
Rex flashed a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Xiao Xi, you knew all along that I'm the owner of the Black Cat Bar. Why did you still go along with them to work part-time? There shouldn't be any need for that in your case. Besides, King Arthur has been suspecting me for a long time. You could have just told him my true identity and let him expose me—that way, you wouldn't be violating your stance of neutrality."
Qiao Xi smiled slightly at him. "I actually struggled with it, too. Watching them bust their tails working part-time to pay off your debt, completely unaware that this was essentially handing you 500,000 for free—my heart ached for them. But in the end, I still didn't speak up. I figured this 500,000 must be of great use to you. And besides, even if I told Brother Arthur and had him tell everyone in Ultima Class, given Brother Dadong's IQ and his trust in you, he definitely wouldn't believe it. Isn't that precisely why you've kept provoking Brother Arthur all this time?"
Rex sneered and shook his head. "As expected of Xiao Xi. Smart, and always so calm and clear-headed no matter what happens since you were a kid."
"I just feel that nothing in this world is absolute. Before the truth comes to light, you can't easily and irresponsibly take sides; that only hurts everyone involved. I think the position of neutrality suits me just fine."
He hesitated for a moment before asking, "Aren't you curious why I'm doing all this?"
Qiao Xi shook her head. "I feel that since you're doing these things, they must be aimed at certain people—like Brother Dadong and Brother Arthur. Even though I don't know your true goal, when the time comes, you'll naturally speak of it."
She looked up at the sky, her tone casual and relaxed.
For a long time, neither of them spoke another word.
Rex broke the silence first. "Xiao Xi, don't you hate me for the things I've done, the way King Arthur does?"
Qiao Xi flashed him a big, bright smile. "Of course not. You'll always be the Brother Rex who stood in front of me to protect me whenever I was in danger when we were kids."
In the blink of an eye, Rex was down on the street. He looked up at Qiao Xi, gave her a gentle, genuine smile, and turned to walk away.
"Brother Rex, thank you for showing me that true, unmasked gentleness just like you did when we were kids."
The next morning, Ultima Class classroom.
True to the original script, Rex stood on the podium, expressed his gratitude to the Ultima Class students for their help, and took a bow.
Sha Jie half-joked, "Rex, what's gotten into you? It's not the first or fifteenth of the month, why are you bowing to us?"
The entire Ultima Class burst into laughter.
Qiao Xi had her head down on her desk trying to catch up on sleep. Raising her head with an aura of pure grievance, she grabbed a thick dictionary and hurled it straight at Jin Baosan.
"Shut up, you're the one laughing the loudest! Can't you see I'm trying to sleep? I'm exhausted, would you all keep it down?" With that, she buried her face back down and went back to sleep.
Next, Rex's eyes welled up, brimming with tears that hovered on the verge of falling, and he looked at everyone with a gaze full of gratitude.
"I just wanted to thank everyone for saving me from the Black Cat Bar. I've never really done anything for you, yet you extended a helping hand without hesitation and helped me do night labor to pay off my debt. I will keep this kindness in my heart forever. Thank you all." After saying this, he bowed deeply to everyone once more.
Then Jin Baosan proposed the only plan that wouldn't get him beaten to a pulp by Wang Dadong: "As members of Ultima Class, there's no need to be so formal! Not only are we going to rescue you from the Black Cat Bar, but we're also going to start a fundraising campaign for you. Am I right, classmates?"
Wang Arthur couldn't sit still any longer. He slammed his copy of Shakespeare's plays down in anger and teleported directly in front of Rex. "Enough already. How much longer are you going to put on an act?"
Hearing Arthur speak, Qiao Xi—who had been feigning sleep—raised her head as well and watched them. Seeing Qiao Xi lift her head, Xiaoyu also stopped the pen he was using to write sheet music and looked at Arthur.
Of course, Rex couldn't afford to be exposed this early. He looked at Arthur with a feigned, clueless expression, pretending not to understand what he was talking about, while Wang Dadong, standing right beside him, watched Arthur with a trace of vigilance.
"Drop the act and show your true face. What's the point of being so hypocritical?"
"I really don't know what you're talking about."
Wang Dadong was displeased with Arthur's behavior. "Wang Arthur, exactly which of your wires is crossed?"
*Oh no, Brother Arthur is being too impulsive.*
"Ha! I'm telling you, this guy right here is the legendary KO.2, and the Black Cat Bar is his!" Arthur pointed angrily at Rex.
Wang Dadong naturally didn't believe it. How could he possibly not know his own sworn brother who had grown up with him?
Sha Jie and the others certainly didn't believe Arthur either, and Linda, who had always had a crush on Rex, was even less likely to believe him.
"You had the guts to admit it to my face last night, so don't chicken out and act like a coward in front of the whole class today about who you really are!"
"I mean, Brother Arthur, have you been hanging around Brother Dadong so long that you've gone stupid too? Rex definitely told you last night that the best part is yet to come—how could he possibly admit it in public?"
Rex looked at Arthur with an expression of utter bewilderment. "Last night I was literally tutoring a junior high student."
"Rex! How do you have the face to trick everyone into working their fingers to the bone for your money?! Xiao Xi is only sixteen! She shouldn't have had to go working part-time with us in the first place, and especially not at a dangerous place like a bar! All because of you! You've known Xiao Xi since you were kids, too! How could you have the heart to make her go work in such a dangerous place? And the 300,000 the Homeroom Teacher earned by selling her stocks—how on earth do you have the nerve?"