Chapter 12
Zhu Letao’s deskmate was named Lin Xiaoyu. Her family was in business and owned two clothing stores in the county town.
In a small place like this, they were considered quite wealthy.
Zhu Letao had lost count of how many times she had heard Lin Xiaoyu mention her mother.
“My mom bought me this new pencil case yesterday. Look, it has two layers. You can put rulers on this side and erasers on this side, and there’s even a little mirror on top… Do you see it? Isn’t it pretty? You don’t have one, do you?”
Lin Xiaoyu held the pencil case in front of Zhu Letao and deliberately waved it around, making it obvious that she was showing off.
The pencil case was pink and printed with a cartoon princess. The little mirror on the lid happened to reflect Zhu Letao’s face—expressionless, though her gaze had darkened.
“Mm,” Zhu Letao responded, lowering her head and continuing to scribble in her book with her pencil.
Lin Xiaoyu did not notice her coldness and continued boasting. “My mom said that if I place in the top fifteen on the final exam, she’ll buy me that imported genuine-leather schoolbag. It costs several hundred yuan.”
Several hundred yuan.
Zhu Letao’s grip on her pencil tightened.
Her pencil case was nothing more than an old, flimsy pouch she had found in a rubbish bin after someone threw it away. Her schoolbag had been made before she moved, altered from unwanted curtain fabric by an elderly neighbor.
Even her pencils were the cheapest kind.
“Where’s your pencil case?” Lin Xiaoyu asked when Zhu Letao ignored her, finding it unsatisfying to show off without receiving a reaction. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. Let me have a look.”
Zhu Letao unconsciously pressed her lips together. Her gaze drifted toward the compartment beneath the desk, where her dusty grey pencil pouch lay. Compared with Lin Xiaoyu’s, it looked like something that belonged in a rubbish heap.
She controlled her voice and answered evenly, “I forgot to bring it.”
“Then where did you put your stationery?”
“…Inside the desk.”
Lin Xiaoyu laughed.
Zhu Letao found the sound piercing.
She raised her head and gave Lin Xiaoyu a cold glance.
The dark emotion contained in that look made the smile on Lin Xiaoyu’s face stiffen. She stopped insisting on looking inside Zhu Letao’s desk, though after sitting back down, she still muttered quietly, “Fine, I won’t look. Why glare at me? Stingy. It’s not as though I’d steal yours.”
Zhu Letao said nothing, but the fingertips gripping her pencil turned white.
She appeared completely unaffected, yet Lin Xiaoyu’s careless words were like nails, driving themselves one after another into her mind.
They deeply wounded Zhu Letao’s pride.
Pretty clothes, shoes, hair ties, and clips.
A delicate two-layer pencil case.
An expensive fountain pen costing dozens of yuan.
And an expensive genuine-leather schoolbag she could receive merely by placing in the top fifteen.
Zhu Letao unconsciously covered her book with chaotic, meaningless lines.
Lin Xiaoyu remained silent for less than two minutes before beginning to chatter again. She talked about how her new eraser was strawberry-scented and translucent, beautiful like a gemstone, then said her mother would take her into the city by car that weekend.
Zhu Letao released the pencil she had gouged with her fingernails and calmly listened to her speak. Sometimes, she even murmured a response.
When school ended, Zhu Letao smiled and took the initiative to invite Lin Xiaoyu home to see her pencil case.
Lin Xiaoyu appeared somewhat hesitant. Zhu Letao’s home lay in the complete opposite direction from hers, and she was afraid she would be scolded if she returned late.
However, all her hesitation and concern disappeared with Zhu Letao’s next sentence.
“The pencil case at my house is even prettier than yours. Don’t you want to see it?”
Everything after that became easy.
Zhu Letao had arranged for the chubby boy and his skinny friend to follow them. Once they reached an alley with few people around, the two boys rushed out and snatched Lin Xiaoyu’s schoolbag.
They poured everything inside onto the ground, then crushed her beloved new pencil case beneath their feet right in front of her and stole the beautiful strawberry-scented eraser.
What happened afterward was the scene Ye Chengji had witnessed.
Raindrops began landing one after another on the stone pavement, spreading into dark stains.
Ye Chengji picked up the eraser that had rolled beside the road, brushed off the dust, and returned it to the girl.
“That brat can really run.”
Ye Chengji cursed while staring in the direction Zhu Letao had fled.
Although she was anxious to chase after Zhu Letao, who had suddenly run away, she first apologized to the girl on Zhu Letao’s behalf. Then she motioned for the two useless henchmen standing beside them to come over and apologize as well, ordering them to put everything they had dumped from the girl’s schoolbag back inside.
“Escort her safely home. If you run off halfway without taking her all the way…” Ye Chengji gave a cold laugh.
The two boys shuddered violently and nodded frantically, promising to complete the task.
“And you.” After finishing her instructions—or threats—to the boys, Ye Chengji turned toward the girl. “How much did that pencil case cost? I’ll find you tomorrow. Zhu Letao will apologize to you and pay you back.”
Lin Xiaoyu looked at Ye Chengji’s anxiously furrowed brows and her clear black-and-white eyes, which appeared slightly fierce. A trace of fear arose in her heart, and she timidly answered, “She doesn’t really have to apologize… It was fifty yuan.”
Her small desire to show off had targeted the wrong person.
Lin Xiaoyu had begun regretting everything the instant her schoolbag was snatched away. Now she was so frightened that she only wanted to hurry home.
Ye Chengji nodded to show that she had remembered, then ran in the direction Zhu Letao had gone.
She had barely left the alley when the rain began pouring down.
Ye Chengji forced her eyes open against the heavy downpour and searched every possible hiding place for that small figure.
Bean-sized raindrops pounded from the gloomy sky, and the air quickly filled with the damp scent of wet soil mixed with moss.
Ye Chengji knew every hiding place in the area well, so she had been confident she could find Zhu Letao. She had not expected the rain to become so heavy that it severely obstructed her vision.
After searching for more than ten minutes, her clothing was soaked through and clung wetly to her body, adding a needless weight to every step.
At last, Ye Chengji found the brat sheltering beneath the eaves near an abandoned factory, curled tightly into herself from the cold.
She had run quite far.
Still, at least she knew to find shelter from the rain.
She was not completely stupid.
Ye Chengji strode over and crouched beside Zhu Letao, raising a hand to wipe the rainwater from her face as her brows drew even tighter.
She shook her dripping hair. Water ran down her thin jaw, which had already lost its childish roundness, sharpening her features and making her entire presence seem colder than usual.
Ye Chengji had made no attempt to approach silently, nor had she concealed the noise she made.
The brat visibly trembled when she realized someone was beside her, yet she stubbornly refused to raise her head. Her thin lips were tightly pressed into a straight, obstinate line.
Ye Chengji turned to look at the brat who had run away so defiantly.
Even curled into herself, it was obvious that she was completely soaked. She must have fallen while running because her body was covered in filthy mud. Her awkward, medium-length hair clung miserably to her face as she hugged her knees and shivered.
Since she had her hands wrapped around herself, Ye Chengji could not tell whether she was injured.
Mud even stained the brat’s snow-white face. She resembled a foolish puppy that had disobediently run outside during the rain, rolled around in a mud puddle, and turned itself into a complete mess.
The two of them remained crouched in silence for two or three minutes.
Only the torrential rain beyond the eaves could be heard. The weather, which had previously been unbearably hot, had suddenly turned cold beneath the storm. Wearing only short sleeves and shorts made them shiver involuntarily.
Ye Chengji watched the brat beside her tremble harder and harder.
“Zhu Letao, look at me.”
Naturally, the brat did not move.
So Ye Chengji reached out and forcibly lifted her chin with brute strength.
The brat finally raised her head.
It was impossible to tell whether the water on her face was rain or tears, but her eyes were red. Her lower eyelashes, longer than most people’s, were soaked and clumped together against her lower eyelids like blossoming flowers.
The gaze she directed at Ye Chengji appeared calm—so calm that it resembled a pool of dead water incapable of producing even the smallest ripple, as though she were looking at a stranger.
Yet Ye Chengji saw something else inside it.
She knew it far too well.
It was the expression the brat wore every time she caused trouble: provocative and defiant, as though asking, What can you possibly do to me?
“Come home with me.”
Ye Chengji called to her again.
“Why did you come?” The brat remained motionless, her voice slightly hoarse.
Ye Chengji thought she would definitely catch a cold tomorrow.
But she did not answer. She merely reached out to pull her to her feet.
At that sight, the brat’s deliberately cold mask finally shattered.
Like a startled animal, she violently slapped Ye Chengji’s hand away with astonishing force—far more than should have been possible from such a tiny body.
“Don’t touch me! Weren’t you refusing to help me? Why did you come? Did you want to laugh at me?”
“Didn’t you say people shouldn’t use violence to bully those weaker than them? Why does that rule apply only to me? Don’t you have to obey it too? You liar!”
Ye Chengji’s hand remained suspended in midair as the rainwater lingering on her fingers dripped downward.
She had never expected the brat, who had always seemed reluctant to speak, to suddenly become so articulate.
Her ears were assaulted by shrill shouting, and her head began to ache. She glanced at Zhu Letao, whose face had flushed from anger and whose chest was rising and falling heavily.
Silently repeating the guidebook’s advice to remain patient, she said, “Whatever you want to say, we can discuss it after we go home. If you stay outside any longer, you’ll catch a cold—”
“I hate you!”
Zhu Letao could not stand her calm expression and roared the words, her hoarse voice exploding through the rain like sudden thunder.
“Why are you pretending to be a good person? You were only nice to me because you wanted me to obey you, weren’t you? She was the one who showed off in front of me first! She was the one who mocked me for not having a pretty pencil case! Why wasn’t I allowed to get revenge? Didn’t you say you were my Sister? Why didn’t you take my side? Didn’t you say I should tell you whenever someone bullied me?”
“But this time you went too far…”
The barrage of complaints, fired like a machine gun, made Ye Chengji’s head throb. Still, she caught the final question and tried to answer it.
Zhu Letao, however, showed no reflection whatsoever. She continued glaring at Ye Chengji, her entire body filled with resentment.
“I didn’t go too far at all! It was all Lin Xiaoyu’s fault! And even if I did something wrong, you should still help me. Otherwise, what do I need a Sister like you for?”
Ye Chengji was stunned by how self-righteous she sounded.
“If I’d known you were that kind of person too, I never should have…”
I trusted you so much!
Zhu Letao felt deeply betrayed.
She remembered how familiar and close she had acted with Ye Chengji in front of those three children, only for Ye Chengji to avoid her when she approached.
Perhaps Ye Chengji had secretly laughed at her for imagining they were close.
The other three might be mocking her in private as well…
And she had lost the eraser.
It was unbearably humiliating.
Zhu Letao suddenly choked on a sob.
Ye Chengji clearly saw large, transparent tears rolling from her aggrieved, reddened eyes.
Her quiet sobbing abruptly turned into loud, uncontrollable crying.
“It’s all your fault! They must be laughing at me behind my back now! It’s all your fault, you huge liar! I don’t want a Sister anymore!”
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