Chapter 33
The bell signaling the end of lunch break suddenly rang out, like a muffled thunderclap rolling across the roof.
Everyone instinctively shrank back into their seats, yet couldn't help but peek back.
Zhou Yu remained frozen in place, his eyes frighteningly red, yet not a single tear fell—as if nailed to a pillar of shame, afraid to even make a sound when he cried. Xu Li had already returned to her seat, opened the competition question bank, and her pen cap snapped open with a "click."
But suddenly the classroom door was pushed open, and Lao Cao came in with a gust of wind, carrying a stack of weekly practice papers under his arm.
He glanced at the candid photos scattered next to the trash can, his brows furrowing deeply.
"Xu Li, Zhou Yu, come to the office."
Old Cao's tone was emotionless, yet carried an undeniable force. The corridor was even more stuffy than the classroom, and the sunlight reflected harshly off the tiles.
Zhou Yu staggered, as if stepping on a knife's edge; Xu Li, however, stood ramrod straight, twirling the black ballpoint pen in her hand.
Tan Yuze suddenly grabbed her wrist without saying a word. Xu Li turned her head and said, "It's okay." She got up and walked outside.
--office--
Old Cao slammed the photos on the table, his tone frighteningly calm:
"explain."
Zhou Yu's lips trembled for a long time before he could only squeeze out, "I took the picture. I... I was confused for a moment."
Old Cao didn't look at him, but instead looked at Xu Li: "And you? Did you enjoy humiliating someone in public?"
“Teacher,” Xu Li put the pen cap back on, her voice calm, “if it were your daughter who was being slandered today, how would you want her to fight back? Endure it until after the college entrance exam, and then let the rumors fester on their own?”
Old Cao choked, tapping his finger on the table: "So you choose to fight violence with violence?"
“I chose ‘public execution’,” Xu Li said, raising her eyes. “It’s more effective to make the rumor-monger feel the pain once and for all than to let him test the limits repeatedly.”
Zhou Yu suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse: "Teacher, I was wrong. I am willing to write a self-criticism, record a demerit, and apologize publicly... Please don't let her be punished."
Xu Li turned her head to look at him, her gaze, for the first time, not sharp, but rather a faint scrutiny.
Old Cao remained silent for a long time, then took off his glasses and wiped them: "Zhou Yu, taking photos without permission and spreading rumors, the Moral Education Department will handle it according to school rules; Xu Li, the method was too extreme, so you will receive a verbal warning. Both of you, write down what happened today and hand it in before evening self-study."
He paused, then added, "Zhou Yu, post the apology letter on the bulletin board for a week. Xu Li, you'll oversee it."
—Before Evening Self-Study—
The bulletin board was crowded with people.
Zhou Yu's apology letter was neatly pasted in the center, with the last part in bold red ink:
"I, Zhou Yu, out of jealousy and cowardice, secretly photographed and spread rumors about classmate Xu Li, which has seriously damaged her reputation. I hereby publicly apologize to Xu Li, Tan Yuze, and the entire class. If I commit this offense again, I am willing to bear all the consequences."
At the end of the signature, each stroke was carefully engraved, as if carved with a knife. Xu Li stood outside the crowd, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a bottle of iced cola.
Tan Yuze walked up to her without her noticing and asked in a low voice, "Feeling better now?"
“No,” Xu Li unscrewed the bottle cap, “I just wanted to scare him, but at least he won’t dare to do it again.”
The bubbles of cola rose, hissing softly in the night—like a short, cold laugh, or a sigh. The crowd gradually dispersed, and Zhou Yu stood alone in front of the bulletin board, staring at the paper as if trying to nail every word into his bones.
As Xu Li passed by, she didn't stop, but simply stuffed an unopened bottle of iced cola into his hand.
"What's there to be sad about?" she said very softly. "Tears will ruin the paper, and then we'll have to rewrite it."
Zhou Yu clutched the cola, his knuckles white, but he didn't look up. The evening study bell rang, and the entire teaching building was brightly lit.
Xu Li returned to her seat, opened the competition questions, and began writing the first line:
"Known rumor propagation models..."
She wrote very steadily, as if nothing had just happened.
Only she knew that a small hole had been poked in the bottom corner of the draft paper by the pen tip.
That was the last bit of anger, quietly leaking out.
As the lights-out bell rang in the teaching building, the crowd surged into the dormitory like a receding tide.
Xu Li put away the last test paper and noticed that Zhou Yu's seat was empty, but there was a brand new notebook of incorrect answers on his desk—the cover said "ToL.", and underneath it was the unopened bottle of iced cola. At the end of the corridor, Zhou Yu leaned against the window. All the lights were off, leaving only the emergency light, which pinned his shadow to the wall.
Xu Li walked over, popped the can of cola with a "click," and the bubbles sprayed out, splashing onto the backs of the two people's feet.
“It would be a waste not to drink it.” She handed it over. Zhou Yu didn’t take it, his voice hoarse like sandpaper: “After I posted the apology letter, everyone was taking pictures… They sent them to the grade group and said, ‘This is what happens to perverts.’”
Xu Li leaned against the wall, tilted her head back and took a sip: "So, you finally got to taste what it's like to be 'publicly executed'?"
"It hurt more than I expected."
“Then remember that.” Her voice was soft. “Next time you want to use someone else as a target, first calculate whether you can withstand the backlash.” After a long silence, Zhou Yu suddenly asked, “If… instead of writing a complaint letter, I had told you ‘I like you’ to your face, how would you have answered?”
Xu Li did not answer immediately.
A night breeze blew in from the end of the corridor, causing her ponytail to sway gently.
“I would say—thank you, but I don’t have time.” She turned her head, her gaze straight ahead. “But at least you wouldn’t be like you are now, hating yourself.” Zhou Yu chuckled softly, as if swallowing a shard of glass: “I understand.”
He reached out and took the Coke, tilted his head back and gulped down most of the bottle. The bubbles made him cough, and his eyes turned red.
After watching him finish coughing, Xu Li took the notebook of incorrect problems and casually flipped to the first page—a dense collection of mechanics problems, with the same line of small print written next to each problem:
[If I had used that energy to do practice problems back then, would I have been closer to her?] "Keep it safe," she snapped, slamming the notebook shut. "Don't let me see this kind of thing again before the college entrance exam."
"And what about after the college entrance exam?"
"After the college entrance exam?" Xu Li crushed the empty can and threw it into the trash can three meters away, the metallic sound ringing out. "After the college entrance exam, if you can get into a university in the same city as me, then we'll talk."
She turned and walked downstairs, her back looking like a straight ruler.
“However,” she added without turning her head, “the lowest admission score for Tsinghua’s Yao Class last year was 693, you’re a bit far off.” Zhou Yu stood there, stunned, until that figure disappeared around the corner of the stairs.
He looked down and saw that his palms were red from the cold cola, but for the first time he felt—
The pain is both conscious and vivid.
The classroom before morning reading was noisier than usual—the notice on the bulletin board was photographed and went viral, and the group chat was buzzing with messages.
Xu Li brought in soy milk, and before she could even sit down, she was surrounded by compliments from all sides, with Lu Yi's voice being the loudest.
"Little Li! Your move yesterday was so damn cool, I'd call it the 'public execution of the ceiling'!"
He slapped his thigh twice, grinning from ear to ear, "When I got back to the dorm and described it, the whole room was slapping their beds—the heroine from the 'powerful novel' has become a reality!"
After saying that, she raised an eyebrow at the boy in the back row: "From now on, anyone who dares to gossip should first consider whether they can withstand three stabs from Sister Xu."
Zhu Yu rolled up his Chinese textbook like a microphone and leaned close to Xu Li's desk: "Sister Li, I wrote a poem for you last night—"
"Rumors stop with the wise, and the wise one is in Class 6 of Senior Three; the wise one's surname is Xu, and his given name is Li. Do you think we should post this on the bulletin board as a poster for Season 2?"
Xu Li looked up: "Payment for the manuscript?"
"A cup of milk tea!" Zhu Yu presented the Four Seasons Spring tea he had just bought with both hands, his movements as quick as handing in homework.
Bai Chuan rationally praised him, pushed up his frameless glasses, and commented in an algorithmic tone: "From a game theory perspective, you have reduced the rumor-monger's 'reputation gains' to negative infinity in one go, while simultaneously raising your own 'deterrence' to positive infinity—the Nash equilibrium is directly locked."
“I would like to call you ‘Xu Pareto Optimum Li’.”
After saying that, he handed over a freshly printed A4 sheet:
[Zhou Yu's 60-Day Improvement Curve Forecast Chart] - The horizontal axis is time, and the vertical axis is provincial ranking. Xu Li is marked with a merciless horizontal line, while Zhou Yu's curve is rising wildly.
Note: Supervisor efficiency factor = 2.718 (natural logarithm e, Bai Chuan's romance)
Leng Yuxuan waited until the three people in front of him finished speaking before slowly taking out a small vacuum-coated iron box from the drawer and placing it on Xu Li's desk.
"for you."
Open it—inside are seven platinum-rhodium alloy resistance wires neatly stacked, each with a label:
Day 1-Day 7 corresponds to the remaining days of the apology in the announcement section.
"Break one every day, it's a ritual."
Xu Li raised an eyebrow: "Why break it off?"
Leng Yuxuan said indifferently, "Burn it as paper money for the rumors."
The students around me all exclaimed "Wow!" It felt even more exciting than setting off fireworks.
—The morning reading bell officially rings—
Xu Li held a soy milk in her left hand and a resistance wire in her right, with a cup of milk tea, a new poem, and a mathematical prediction chart in front of her.
She raised her hand and pressed it down, as if silencing the noise of the entire class:
"Alright, now that you've finished praising me, get back to work. Next week's monthly exam, I want to see all three of you score 90+ on your physics papers, or I'll take back all the compliments I gave you."
Lu Yi: "Received!"
Zhu Yu: "Recite the poem immediately to earn points!"
Bai Chuan: "The praise function has been added to the to-do list."
Leng Yuxuan: "There are only six resistance wires left. I'll do my homework tonight." The classroom fell silent instantly, save for the sound of pages turning.
Everyone had the same thought in their hearts:
"Following Sister Xu is satisfying and helps me rank up."
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