100 Shen Yue's supporters
Class Ten A was doing what they usually do. Studying and revising. The class would start in ten minutes and they were revising the lecture that the teacher would give today.
Someone pushed the door of the class violently and they looked up to glare at the intruder. Everyone knows that while entering or leaving the class, they must not make a noise and disturb other students who are studying.
But someone dared to cause a ruckus in their class!
Who dared.
Han Nanxian who was sitting next to Gu Shangyan raised his eyes to find his student standing at the door, holding his brother’s beloved steel pipe. For a minute, he believed as if she was possessed by Han Zixin’s violent streak. Whatever it was, he was more than excited to be a part of it.
“What are you doing here, Crybaby?” Gu Shangyan asked with furrowed brows. His eyes narrowed on Wang Yuxi who was following her with an evil glint in his eyes. And then at the girl whose hand she was holding. Wasn’t it Shen Yue the student who was transferred to Class Ten K for misbehaviour?
“I’m here to avenge my friend,” An Xiulan announced.
“What?” Han Nanxian reacted. “Who wronged your friend?”
“All of you!” An Xiulan glared at every single child of Class Ten A. All of them looked so decent but who would have thought that these bloodsuckers would leave no stone unturned in breaking an innocent girl. Did they not know how their allegations had almost killed Shen Yue?
Shen Yue might be alive but they ruthlessly killed her confidence.
“What?!” The student of class Ten A reacted. “What do you want?”
“I want all of you to apologise to my friend, Shen Yue. The same student you all have been wrongly accusing of something that she never did,” An Xiulan announced. She would never let Shen Yue be another duke’s daughter who was bullied mercilessly by her own people and eventually died in that horrid house. She would never let anyone bully Shen Yue. No, she would never let anyone bully anyone else.
“You are saying that we are wrongly accusing her?” Huo Mian asked. She was sitting next to Song Xueyun. She was already in a bad mood that her gardens improved in this monthly test but she lost to Song Xueyun again. And now she saw another pretty girl. Her bad mood worsened.
“Do you even know what she did?” Huo Mian further asked.
“I don’t,” An Xiulan replied, blinking her big doe eyes. “But I want to know from all of you what Shen Yue did.”
Huo Mian looked at An Xiulan speechlessly. A hooligan wasn’t supposed to look adorable.
“Little girl, since you don’t know what she did, I will tell you the truth,” Huo Mian said with a scoff as she got out of the desk to stand beside An Xiulan.
“Who are you calling little girl?” Wang Yuxi glared at her. He was the only one who wasn’t affected by Huo Mian’s devastating beauty. He was kind of into adorable girls. He didn’t know when but his type had recently changed.
“I’m not talking to you,” Huo Mian arrogantly rolled her eyes, pointing her finger at the delinquent boy.
“You don’t need to talk to him, talk to me!” An Xiulan said. She didn’t know where she got the courage to stand against all these people. Her mother always says that we shouldn’t be afraid if we have to walk on the right path alone. She was walking on this path for Shen Yue and herself. Even if she was alone, she should be courageous.
“Girl, this girl has bullied a girl in our class so bad that she chose to commit suicide,” Huo Mian said and all the other students of the class hummed in reply.
“Where is the evidence that Shen Yue bullied that girl?” A Xiulan asked.
“Are you crazy?” Huo Mian asked in English. She was the English representative of her class and she often uses half Chinese and half English while talking.
“No, I’m not crazy,” An Xiulan replied in fluent English, her accent evident. “Yet. Don’t force me to show my crazy self. I would like to see the proof that shows that my friend Shen Yue bullied the student in your class.”
“Yes, show us proof,” Wang Yuxi added. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
Shen Yue glanced at her old class with teary eyes, her heart turning cold. She knew that An Xiulan was wasting her time. There was no benefit in confronting Zhou Liling. The latter had been bullying her for years and there was now way An Xiulan would ever find any evidence against that bully.
She wanted to stop An Xiulan from wasting time but knew that it would be futile so she just stood there, expecting nothing.
When An Xiulan motivated her to fight back, she did and now she was bearing the consequences. Her father threw her out of the house saying that she was dangerous to her stepsister. She was living in a dormitory starting this month. She was happy to live in the dormitory, at least she would get meals on time. She could finally breathe there.
“Zhou Liling, come out!” Huo Mian said impatiently. How dare this girl’s English be better than hers?
An aggrieved girl came out whimpering as she hid behind Huo Mian as if afraid of looking at Shen Yue or An Xiulan.
“Mian, please help me,” Zhou Liling called in a soft and aggrieved voice as she looked at her classmate as if begging.
“You have nothing to be afraid of,” Peng Cheng, another top student said as he looked at the trembling girl. “We are with you, Liling.”
Zhou Liling looked at him as if he was some kind of Messiah. Her gaze fell on Gu Shangyan and Han Nanxian who were silent all this time.
“Liling, tell us how Shen Yue bullied you,” Another student encouraged her.
Zhou Liling swallowed and her eyes teared up. “I–I–”
“Cat caught your tongue,” An Xiulan impatiently looked at the girl. For a minute, even she couldn’t believe that it was the same girl who pushed her against the pillar that day and hauntingly used the phrase ‘You don’t know who I’m.’
“Shen Yue, your step-sister, is a natural-born actress,” An Xiulan looked at her friend and said. “I must say she has a bright future ahead of her. If I hadn’t seen her bullying you or pushing me against the pillar, I would not have believed that you didn’t bully her.”
“What did you say?” Both Han Nanxian and Gu Shangyan asked at the same time.
“She pushed you against the pillar?” Song Xueyun asked as she left the desk to check up on the girl. She had been quiet until now because she had been not able to accept that this girl was Lu Xuan’s twin. She always felt that the girl was familiar and way too adorable to be Gu Shangyan’s cousin.
It was only a few days ago, that she found out from her aunt that Lu Xuan’s cousin, An Xiulan was studying in their school. And it didn’t take her much time to figure out which An Xiulan they were talking about.
“Are you okay now?” Song Xueyun asked with utmost care. She wanted to be friends with this girl because she was Lu Xuan’s twin and little Xun’s big sister.
An Xiulan nodded her head as she showed with her finger how big the bump on her head was and how painful it was.
“She is lying, “Huo Mian said.
“She has no reason to lie, “Song Xueyun replied coldly.
Now that Song Xueyun took An Xiulan’s side, how could Han Nanxian take anyone else’s side? Moreover, he wasn’t going to take Zhou Liling’s side in the first place. He had the utmost trust in his naive but kind and honest student.
“We can check the CCTV camera to see if Zhou Liling pushed her or not, “Han Nanxian commented.
Zhou Liling panicked internally. She had always bullied Shen Yue in blindspots (the area where there is no CCTV) but she didn’t know if she had pushed An Xiulan in blindspots or not.
If they checked the CCTV, she would be over.
Thus, she did what she was master.
Acting pitifully.
“Shen Yue, do you hate me this much?” Zhou Liling sobbed. “I know you hate me because my mama married your dad. But I always see you as my real sister. Why should you treat me so cruelly? I never told anyone how you hit me in the washroom that day! I never told anyone how you made me choke in the bathtub that day at home. I never told anyone how you cut my hair so poorly because you were jealous. What’s my fault?”
The students started murmuring in pity as they heard Zhou Liling’s painful cry. They looked at Shen Yue’s supporters with disgust flashing in their eyes.