96 Chapter 96
Have you seen Shi Ziqian?
She and Dai Yun arranged to meet on Saturday afternoon, as their schools were surprisingly close to each other. Dai Yun said she really wanted to visit University A, so they decided to meet at the university's main gate.
More than a year had passed since they last met, and Dai Yun had changed a lot. She was wearing light makeup, and her hair was straightened and hung down over her shoulders. When she walked over from a distance, Zhan Xinyue didn't recognize her at first glance.
Contrary to expectations of awkwardness after a long separation, Zhan Xinyue was still pondering her opening remarks when Dai Yun greeted her familiarly, "Wow, Xinyue, why did you cut your hair?"
Zhan Xinyue tucked a stray hair behind her ear: "My hair was too long before, and it was a bit of a hassle, so I cut it." In the months since she finished the college entrance examination, her hair has grown quite a bit and can now just reach her shoulders, but it is naturally nowhere near as long as it used to be.
"What a pity, your signature long hair used to be so beautiful." Dai Yun shook her head regretfully, but quickly perked up again, naturally taking her hand. "Long time no see, Xinyue!"
Zhan Xinyue grasped her hand in return: "Long time no see."
"Time flies so fast. It feels like so much time has passed since you transferred schools. You're amazing! You actually got into A University."
Zhan Xinyue smiled and said, "Your school is really impressive too. Come on, didn't you want to take a look around? I'll take you inside."
It was late autumn, the best season in Beijing, with clear skies, crisp air, and pleasant temperatures. The yellow leaves along the campus roads rustled in the wind, and students on bicycles sped past like the wind, their tires crunching crisply over the fallen leaves.
The two walked slowly. Dai Yun tilted her head back in the breeze, closed her eyes, and sighed, "Going to university is so great. The wind smells like freedom. Unlike high school, which felt like being in prison every day. I couldn't have endured a single day of that."
Zhan Xinyue couldn't help but laugh: "You were the class monitor back then. If you can't even beat the others, what are you going to do?"
Dai Yun sighed, "You know, it's a good thing you left early. In our senior year of high school, the school forced us to have an extra evening class and an extra morning class. We had to be in the classroom by 6:30 every day and didn't finish the evening class until 11:30 at night. We were really getting up earlier than the chickens and going to bed later than the dogs. Thankfully, we're finally free now."
"I changed schools and it was pretty much the same; it's probably the same for everyone in their senior year of high school..."
The two chatted casually as they passed a coffee shop. Zhan Xinyue gestured to her, "Would you like to come in, sit down, and have a drink?"
“Great!” Dai Yun immediately walked inside with great interest. “I’m curious, let me see how the coffee at A University is different from the coffee at our school.”
The two found a seat by the window, ordered their food, and Dai Yun rested his chin on his hand as he looked her over: "Xinyue, you really haven't changed much. You're still as beautiful as you were back then."
Zhan Xinyue said, "You're even more beautiful than you were back then."
"Don't tease me. I only started learning makeup after summer vacation, and my skills are still not very good." Dai Yun smiled shyly. "Speaking of which, you transferred schools so suddenly back then. After a weekend, your things suddenly disappeared. Many people in the class came to ask me what happened to you, but I couldn't explain it."
"I'm sorry I didn't say hello," Zhan Xinyue apologized. At the time, she only wanted to leave immediately and didn't tell anyone, which must have been quite abrupt for the people in the class.
"Hey, it's nothing." Dai Yun waved her hand. "That year, such a terrible thing happened at school, and it had such a big impact. You were an eyewitness and were even taken to the police station. I guess your family was worried about you, so they transferred you to another school. I can understand that."
"Witnessed...?" Zhan Xinyue sensed something was amiss.
"Oh right, I forgot to mention, we all know that you took the initiative to help Wang Zhiyi."
Zhan Xinyue asked anxiously, "Who spread the word?"
“It’s not anyone else, it’s Wang Zhiyi himself,” Dai Yun said.
Zhan Xinyue was taken aback: "Her?"
"Sigh, you don't know, the parents of the student who committed the crime were really disgusting. They wouldn't let go of Xu Shen and wanted to sue him for intentional injury. Wang Zhiyi's side originally seemed to agree to a settlement, but I don't know if it was because of Xu Shen, but later they suddenly refused to withdraw the lawsuit and even hired a very good lawyer to sue him for attempted rape. Later, things got out of hand, and that's how we found out what happened."
Zhan Xinyue's feelings were mixed. Xu Shen's appearance was a complete accident. She never expected that because of him, the course of events would change so drastically.
"And you know what? I heard that the reconciliation was originally facilitated by the school, and she was not allowed to talk about it outside the school in order not to damage the school's image. But you don't know how tough Wang Zhiyi is when she looks gentle and kind. I can't believe it at all. One morning, I found a poster that she had put up on the bulletin board downstairs. It clearly described the whole process of the day that happened in a very chronological order, and even the conversation between Gao Qiang and the others when they talked to her. The school was in an uproar that day."
Could this... be the king's intention? Not only her, but even Zhan Xinyue seemed to find it hard to believe. "So, what did everyone say when they saw it?" she asked cautiously.
"Of course we're furious! Not only did such a scoundrel emerge, but the school also has this attitude. Everyone's furious. We're definitely on Wang Zhiyi's side. We think her attitude is awesome. That very night, quite a few students secretly took their breakfast boiled eggs and smashed Gao Qiang's office window, haha."
How could this be? Recalling all the speculations about her in her previous life at school, Zhan Xinyue felt a little dazed. After a long while, she asked, "Won't the school do anything to her like this?"
"I don't know what happened, but it seems like the school didn't investigate this. At first, they even held a meeting to tell us not to spread it, but then suddenly nobody cared." Dai Yun propped her face up with her hand and pondered, "Maybe it's because it spread later and they were busy with public relations and didn't have time to deal with us students."
"It's spread?"
"Haven't you heard? This case caused quite a stir later on. It spread throughout the city, and even the city's evening paper reported on it on the front page."
Zhan Xinyue had never heard of it. After transferring schools, she didn't even bring her cell phone. She finished her evening classes late and didn't watch TV or read newspapers much. She was completely unaware of what was happening outside of school.
"However, the local media were surprisingly conscientious back then. Their headlines were all things like 'Male student arrested for molesting female teacher,' without using Wang Zhiyi as a gimmick or mentioning any of her personal information. It was nothing like the shady media of the past. On the other hand, that pervert was thoroughly exposed, and people were cursing him everywhere he went. The only pity was that because he was a minor and the attempt was unsuccessful, he was only detained for a while before being released. But as soon as he got out, he was expelled from our school. He was given a major demerit first, and no school would take him in after that. I don't know what he did after that. I heard he didn't even take the college entrance exam. His father was apparently some kind of minor leader, and the fact that he used some private connections to get him out of trouble was also exposed, which almost got him fired from his job."
"And also," Dai Yun added, "Gao Qiang was also fired."
"Gao Qiang? Because of the poster incident?" In my memory, Gao Qiang's position at school was quite stable. In my previous life, she was promoted to principal not long after her graduating class.
"It's not just that. I think the main reason is that he was in charge of the high school. With such a big incident in the high school, someone had to be pushed out to take responsibility, otherwise how could we explain it to the outside world? Besides him, the other leaders in the high school were also demoted or had their salaries docked. Even the moral education department was replaced. It was quite a big commotion. Only Lao Fang was lucky. After Gao Qiang left, he was promoted to vice principal. But Lao Fang is a decent person. Although he has a bad temper, he's not a bad person. He's not as hypocritical as Gao Qiang, and everyone respects him."
"But he's probably the only one who's feeling a bit better off. We're in a terrible situation too. After this incident, our school's discipline has become incredibly strict. The old-fashioned security guards have been replaced by a group of young people. The streetlights on the back playground are as bright as searchlights at night. Even the classrooms have been equipped with cameras. We also have a fixed Morality and Law class every week. I think even criminals aren't treated this badly."
Dai Yun became increasingly angry as she spoke: "It's all that pervert's fault back then. I still get furious when I think about it now. He really did a lot of harm!"
Zhan Xinyue steered the conversation back to the topic: "What happened to Wang Zhiyi afterward?"
"She's doing well, doing really well," Dai Yun said. "Before, everyone's impression of her was just that of a pretty female teacher, but after this incident, they all admired her and thought she was very brave. The school didn't do anything to her for openly going against the school leaders, and they even gave her a long vacation after the matter was settled. On her first class after returning to school, a class organized to give her flowers to comfort her, and she was so moved that she cried during class. I heard recently that she's dating the math teacher from Class 1, and the two of them seem quite well-matched."
Zhan Xinyue was genuinely happy for her. She looked down at the cup and asked, "What about Xu Shen?"
"I don't know much about him. After things got out of hand, the other party lost interest in him, and he returned to school not long after. But since he went back to Class 1, he's become very low-key, and we've rarely heard from him. The most recent news I have is that he unexpectedly failed his college entrance exam and had to repeat a year."
Everything had changed drastically from her previous life. Zhan Xinyue slowly stirred her coffee, processing everything. She seemed to have been asking questions all day, but she simply had too many to ask. There was another question in her mind, but she just couldn't bring herself to ask it.
Seeing that she was silent, Dai Yun lowered her head and took a few sips of coffee before casually asking, "By the way, have you seen Shi Ziqian?"
Zhan Xinyue was taken aback, then looked up at her blankly: "See him?"
"Huh? Isn't he also at A University? You two haven't been in contact?" Dai Yun asked in surprise.
"How could that be?" Zhan Xinyue's expression was even more surprised than hers. "Shouldn't he be going to study in America?"
“America? Why go to America?” Dai Yun asked suspiciously. “But the year we graduated, the school was indeed preparing for an international department. I don’t know when it will be completed… Oh, where did this come from? Shi Ziqian took the college entrance exam. He’s the face of our school, the top scorer in our year, and his provincial ranking was also very high. But speaking of which, it seems that everyone did speculate before that he was planning to apply to schools abroad. Because for a while, it seems that not long after you transferred schools, he often didn’t come to the classroom, and then he simply took a half-semester leave of absence. At first, we all thought he wouldn’t come back.”
"Suspending my studies..." Zhan Xinyue lowered her head, slowly taking a sip of coffee to hide her emotions. "Why?"
"Nobody knows. I originally wanted to ask him, but if he was just a bit aloof before, he became completely like an ice sculpture in the last semester, ignoring everyone."
“But Shi Ziqian is really something else. He was gone for half a semester, but when he came back, he still got first place in the monthly exam. How is his brain structured?” Dai Yun muttered. “I even suspect that he felt there was no challenge in his studies, so he became too lazy to come to school later on.”
Zhan Xinyue shook her head: "He's not that kind of person."
Dai Yun laughed, "I know, I was just joking. You seem to know him quite well. I remember you two used to be quite close, how come you've lost contact now?"
Zhan Xinyue said vaguely, "I left in a hurry back then, and we haven't had much contact since."
“It’s quite a coincidence that you two are both at A University. I think you should contact him. You’re old classmates, so it’s good to have someone to look out for you if anything happens.” Dai Yun said excitedly. Before Zhan Xinyue could speak, she had already taken out her phone. “Do you have him as a friend? Do you want me to give you a push? Oh, no need, he’s in the class group anyway.”
Zhan Xinyue was surprised: "He's actually in the class group chat."
"Of course, I personally added everyone in the class. Let me see, here he is. Thank goodness, I just suddenly wondered if he would have left the group after graduation, thankfully he hasn't."
As she spoke, Dai Yun turned her phone screen towards her.
Zhan Xinyue hesitated as she looked at the spot the other woman was pointing to, and then suddenly froze when she saw it clearly.
In the middle of a row of profile pictures in the class group, there is one that is dark.
A black cartoon rabbit.
Nickname: S.
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