Chapter 34
Jiang Cuo swallowed, her throat feeling a bit dry. A thought suddenly occurred to her: could it be that when Su Xianxian leaned over to look at her phone just now, she had accidentally seen the nickname?
Did she already know that the person who proposed the petition in the group was her, and that was why she said that?
Was it a roundabout way of confessing to her?
Saying something like wanting to “marry her”—what a strange thing to say. How could anyone blurt that out so abruptly?
Jiang Cuo’s gaze instantly became serious as she carefully considered the possibility of this being the case.
It seemed Su Xianxian was not only good at playing hard to get, but had also learned how to “play the long game to catch a big fish.”
Clearly, she had sat so far away from her in the car this morning, yet now she was uttering such blunt, flirtatious words.
Could it be that she wanted Jiang Cuo’s moods to fluctuate along with her every whim?
Realizing that her emotions seemed to change with Su Xianxian’s every move, Jiang Cuo immediately suppressed her thoughts. Even if she knew Su Xianxian said it on purpose, she couldn’t show any abnormality. Otherwise, wouldn’t she be falling right into Su Xianxian’s trap?
Su Xianxian must have said that deliberately just to see her reaction.
“Marrying her” indeed! At such a young age, her head was full of nothing but useless nonsense.
While Jiang Cuo’s thoughts were strictly upright, not only were her ears red, but her usually pale, bloodless face was now tinged with a faint blush. Even her fingertips resting against the screen were a light shade of pink.
Su Xianxian felt the air around her was sweltering; a thin layer of sweat broke out on her forehead.
“What’s going on? It was freezing this morning, why is it so hot again?”
[Trash System: Congratulations! The system has detected that Jiang Cuo’s Disgust Value has decreased by 2. Current Disgust Value: 28.]
Su Xianxian: “?”
Why did her Disgust Value drop for no reason again?
Su Xianxian took a cautious peek at Jiang Cuo.
Seeing Jiang Cuo keeping a straight face, frowning slightly as she tapped at her screen with pursed lips—looking quite impatient—Su Xianxian immediately retracted her gaze.
Forget it. It could be anyone, but it definitely wouldn’t be Jiang Cuo.
Su Xianxian rubbed her nose. She’d better not go looking for trouble.
How could Jiang Cuo have known that her “push-and-pull” behavior would be interpreted by Su Xianxian as impatience?
Once the students in the group agreed to the idea of a petition, they spontaneously began leaving their fingerprints during the break.
Even the class teacher was very supportive of the students’ idea, nodding in satisfaction and feeling quite gratified. She didn’t object at all; upon realizing the students didn’t have an ink pad, she even brought one from her office to prevent them from coloring their fingers with red pens, which would be hard to wash off.
Jiang Cuo was the Class Monitor and the Study Representative, so when she brought out the handwritten petition, no one doubted that she was the one who had come up with the idea. They assumed that after someone proposed it in the anonymous group, she, as the Monitor, naturally took over the task and wrote the petition for Su Xianxian.
When school was dismissed, there was still a crowd of reporters at the gate, making it difficult to maintain school discipline. The black-clad security guards sent by the butler drew even more attention from the press.
Su Xianxian pulled Jiang Cuo into the luxury car. Looking at the pushing and shoving outside, she felt a headache coming on.
How should she solve this?
Someone was intentionally trying to harm her, and she didn’t know who it was yet. Facing so many people who were just there for the spectacle, what should she do? Buy them off with money?
Why bother? She was rich, but she wasn’t a sucker.
Su Xianxian recalled the messages in the small group. What was this “Su Faction” and “Jiang Faction”? She still hadn’t figured that out. But she saw that someone had tracked the IP address of the person who posted the thread.
“Trash System, can you lock down who posted that thread for me?”
[Trash System: Certainly, Host. Since your integration with this world is now greater than 65%, Little Trash can provide this service. The system has detected that the phone used to post the thread was the phone of the girl who committed suicide. The posting time was the afternoon of the day she took her life.]
Su Xianxian’s gaze darkened. In the first three chapters of the original book, there were only a few characters. Who else could it be? This wasn’t a ghost story; it couldn’t be that the girl came back to life to post it herself.
However, the butler had already prepared everything. He wouldn’t allow annoying reporters to disturb Su Xianxian’s studies, but he couldn’t stop their actions entirely. If he rashly bribed them, it would only prove the accusations—that Su Xianxian had driven a classmate into depression and led the whole class to isolate her, resulting in her suicide.
When the luxury car pulled back into the villa, Jiang Cuo didn’t say anything to Su Xianxian. She pushed the door open, got out, and walked toward her own living quarters. Su Xianxian, busy thinking of a way to solve the situation, didn’t ask further.
Sitting in the car, Su Xianxian said to the butler, “Prepare two bodyguards for me. I need to go somewhere.”
Although the butler was slightly worried, he remained respectful and immediately called the black-clad guards.
“Don’t use the car; it’s too conspicuous. Find a good piece of camera equipment and make sure the evidence is preserved.”
After Jiang Cuo returned to her room and put down her bag, she told her grandfather where she was going and headed toward the old district where families lived to support their students.
Someone in the group had mentioned that the IP address was here. A thought had begun to form in Jiang Cuo’s mind. Someone who had been contacting her frequently, who was very curious about her affairs, who liked to interfere, and who would benefit from this incident… it was easy to guess.
Jiang Cuo rode her electric scooter and quickly arrived at the neighborhood gate. The old neighborhood had no security guard; it was mostly inhabited by elderly residents and middle-aged women staying there for their children’s schooling.
Someone recognized Jiang Cuo and immediately tried to make small talk.
“Little Jiang is back! Are you here to see Jingjing? Jingjing should be home from school; I just saw her come back.”
The words of the middle-aged woman, who was holding a bundle of leeks, made Jiang Cuo frown. From the woman’s tone, it seemed she assumed Jiang Cuo and Fang Jingjing were very close.
Although she and Fang Jingjing had attended the same elementary and junior high schools, Fang Jingjing hadn’t moved here back then. They had only been neighbors for two years during their first and second years of high school; overall, they weren’t close.
The reason Jiang Cuo chose this time to come was because she knew the mother of the deceased girl would be cooking for her young son at this hour. This was the exact time the middle-aged woman would return from buying groceries.
Sure enough, as Jiang Cuo approached the building where the woman lived, the woman appeared around the corner of the alley. She recognized Jiang Cuo as well.
“Oh, if it isn’t Little Jiang? What brings you here? Aren’t you afraid of the bad luck?”
The woman’s words were quite acerbic and mean. Jiang Cuo’s expression remained neutral; she ignored the remark and stepped forward.
“Fang Jingjing said your daughter owed her 200 yuan before she died and hadn’t paid it back. She felt embarrassed to ask you for it directly.”
At the mention of money, the middle-aged woman’s face immediately twisted. “Who said that? What a sly little girl! She has so many schemes. A few days ago, she came to get my daughter’s phone, saying she wanted to help me. In the end, she couldn’t find any evidence and said the phone had been wiped. It seems she just wanted to transfer the money from my daughter’s phone!”
Hearing the woman’s vitriol, Jiang Cuo’s fingertips moved slightly; she understood the situation now.
Fang Jingjing had told her not long ago that their ordinary high school needed to select a top student to join the elite “sprint” at Jiang Cuo’s school. Fang Jingjing had ranked third this time. Seeing how attentive Fang Jingjing had been lately—taking the initiative to find her—she was surely looking for underhanded ways to secure that spot.
Coldness gradually seeped into Jiang Cuo’s gaze. She didn’t care what Fang Jingjing’s motives were or what immoral things she did, but she would not let Fang Jingjing’s actions affect her or Su Xianxian.
Jiang Cuo didn’t even know why she included Su Xianxian’s name. Perhaps it was because Su Xianxian was paying her tutoring fees. After all, she truly needed that money right now.
And Su Xianxian… was truly being wronged.
Behind Jiang Cuo, Su Xianxian was sitting in an ordinary car. The bodyguards were silently installing cameras near the middle-aged woman’s building and outside her door.
[Trash System: Host, rest assured. Within the system world, these actions are permitted because you are not changing the overall direction of the plot.]
Su Xianxian saw Jiang Cuo’s figure and felt a bit displeased. data-index-in-node="62">What is Jiang Cuo doing here? Why didn’t she tell me?
Su Xianxian ignored the Trash System’s words. This was just a book world, and a “romance-brained” one at that, which meant the supporting characters had no brains. It was a “face-slapping” story intended for fun. Why should she worry so much? She was simply upholding her own conscience and boundaries.
Su Xianxian suppressed an inexplicable sense of dissatisfaction; she felt as though she wasn’t being trusted by Jiang Cuo. Once the bodyguards finished their work silently, she returned to the villa.
She sat in her room, waiting listlessly to see if Jiang Cuo would show up at 8:30 PM for the tutoring session. A textbook was open in front of her, but she hadn’t turned a single page in half an hour; she couldn’t focus on a single word.
At exactly 8:30 PM, there was a knock at the door. Su Xianxian intentionally kept a straight face and just said, “Enter.”
“Sister, why are you so unhappy?”
Su Lian’s weak, caring voice rang out. Wearing a white dress, she looked like an innocent “little white flower.” Su Xianxian looked past Su Lian and saw Jiang Cuo standing behind her.
Only then did she sit up straight, her lips pursing slightly. “I’m not unhappy. You saw wrong.”
Su Lian glanced at Jiang Cuo behind her, then trotted over to Su Xianxian, half-crouching by her side and resting her face on Su Xianxian’s lap.
“Sister, don’t worry about that matter anymore. I told the classmates in the group to write a petition for you, and everyone agreed. Doesn’t that prove that they all believe in you?”
Su Xianxian: “You were the one who proposed the petition?”
Su Lian looked up, her eyes smiling. “Yes. If not me, could it possibly have been Classmate Jiang Cuo?”
Author’s Note:
Jiang Cuo: (Shocked/Jealous)
Su Xianxian: Oh?
Comments 0
You must be logged in to comment.
No comments yet. Be the first!