On Monday, Long Xinyi was clever—he didn’t come to school.

Having her card maxed out left Long Qi in a foul mood for two consecutive days. She didn’t sleep well, didn’t eat well, and thought constantly about beating Long Xinyi up. She also considered reporting directly to her aunt, but thinking about how her aunt had repeatedly called asking her to move back home, stirring up this matter at this juncture might produce unpredictable consequences, so she let it go.

No matter how much the younger generation fought, it wasn’t worth dragging the elders into it.

This day was also when the midterm exam grade rankings were released. The number of posts on the campus forum was about to explode. Someone had photographed the grade-level rankings that hadn’t yet been posted in the office and uploaded them to the forum. Within half the morning study session, it was pinned as the hottest post and spawned quite a few analysis posts.

Long Qi had seen it.

This ranking basically established Jin Yiken’s reign. He still held first place steadily with a high score she couldn’t ignore. In the much-anticipated battle between Dong Xi and Bai Aiting, Dong Xi’s performance was especially brilliant. She not only maintained her usual level to surpass Bai Aiting, but also broke the longstanding pattern of “strong boys, weak girls” and unprecedentedly surpassed Zhuo Qing, following closely behind Jin Yiken to rank second in the entire school. Zhuo Qing’s performance was actually inferior to the past, as he ended up tied with Bai Aiting in third place. As for Long Qi’s own grades, although they couldn’t be compared with honors class students, she had also jumped up dozens of places, performing at an excellent class standard with her last-place class student status, shattering many people’s expectations.

Regarding the recommendation spots, it was said that Jin Yiken ultimately didn’t apply and gave the opportunity to Zhuo Qing, while…

While Bai Aiting—she and Dong Xi both successfully applied.

“Wasn’t it said there was only one spot?” a female student asked after learning about it.

“Having family connections makes all the difference. Even one spot can become two. Fortunately, Dong Xi’s family background is also solid. If it were you or me, we might have been directly replaced.”

The sound of running water stopped. The girls chatted as they left the restroom. Long Qi, who came out one second later, emerged from a stall and went to the sink to wash her hands.

Creak—another stall door opened. Long Qi looked up and saw Bai Aiting emerging from the stall through the mirror.

Bai Aiting’s head was lowered, as if she knew Long Qi was right in front of her. The two stood side by side at the sink, the sound of water rushing. After washing her hands, she was about to leave when Long Qi spoke up blandly: “Being gossiped about doesn’t feel good, does it?”

Bai Aiting’s footsteps paused at the restroom door, then she left without a word. Long Qi continued fixing her hair in front of the mirror, making no further sound.

This move by Bai Aiting’s family cost her quite a bit of popularity and goodwill in the circle of ordinary girls. In contrast, Jin Yiken’s reputation grew better and better. The fact that he had both high IQ and high EQ began to be mentioned more often. Probably aside from Zhuo Qing silently suffering, no one could see any problem with him.

But just when his “national favorability” was greatly increasing, he caused an incident over Bai Aiting.

It happened in the school gymnasium. The boys had been playing basketball the entire class period, drenched in sweat. The score difference was very small. At the last moment, the ball was passed into Jin Yiken’s hands. The girls from his class shouted his name from the stands. Long Qi was there too at that time. Their class was supposed to be in self-study, but most students had run over to the gymnasium to watch the basketball game between the honors class and excellent class boys. Long Qi’s support went to the excellent class (because she had also participated in betting posts on the forum). She had her feet propped on the back of the front row chairs, drinking beverages and playing on her phone while watching the game absentmindedly (actually only glancing when the score was announced). Dong Xi wasn’t there—she was in the office with a teacher doing some preparation work for the recommendation student interview.

At that moment, Jin Yiken stared at the basketball hoop, dribbling the ball in his hand, quite confident, as if doing psychological preparation before victory. But at this critical moment, his teammate shouted something.

“Don’t fumble at the goal like your wife! We don’t have connections!”

As soon as the words were out, faint laughter spread around the court. Long Qi looked up to see which person had such a slippery mouth. Given Jin Yiken’s character, she originally thought he would laugh along, but at that moment, his dribbling speed suddenly slowed down, and his gaze that had been fixed on the hoop suddenly relaxed. Immediately after, the basketball rolled from his hand, bouncing away to the side. Some low booing sounds came from around. He straightened his body in an abandoning-the-game posture, his expression particularly bad as he turned around. His pig teammate consciously backed away. The surrounding boys also quickly surrounded them, but still failed to stop Jin Yiken from punching that guy. There was an outcry from outside the court. Long Qi could feel her seat shake because the girls in the same row were startled.

That male student covered his nose lying on the ground and shouted angrily: “What’s your problem! I was just joking!”

“You don’t deserve to.” Jin Yiken replied without reaction, speaking in a threatening tone: “Even if she fumbles at the goal, she’s still at a level you couldn’t crawl up to!”

An uproar.

Long Qi stopped the movement of her finger on her phone screen.

Although there was much discussion on the court, she had different thoughts. Jin Yiken’s act of defending Bai Aiting this time was beyond her expectations, but she quite admired it. That was a realm someone like Zhuo Qing, that indiscriminate nice guy, couldn’t reach. Although excessive, it was really manly. It was also the first time she felt Bai Aiting had chosen the right man—this kind of man who, when she fell into people’s gossip, took her side, spoke for her, and had an imposing air that wouldn’t tolerate his own people being speculated about.

On this point, she felt Bai Aiting was quite lucky.

And after that class, indeed no one in the school dared to gossip about Bai Aiting anymore.

After the dismissal bell rang, Long Qi was organizing things in the classroom. Several girls in front were chatting about today’s gymnasium incident. After a while, they chatted about other things, complaining that homework was always plentiful, complaining that a certain teacher always sprayed saliva when teaching. Getting into the spirit of things, one girl suddenly turned around: “Right, Long Qi?”

She had just put on her earphones. Being asked this, she stopped her movement and looked at the other party in bewilderment.

“They’re saying Teacher Xu doesn’t like to wash his hair, because homework books he’s corrected always have a lot of dandruff on them.”

Dong Xi had just arrived and reminded her. Only then did Long Qi realize the other party had tossed a conversation topic to her.

But what did this mean?

Did it mean that these gossip groups of girls she once viewed as boring and naive now actually left her a speaking spot too? Did it mean the hostile and demonic aura about her wasn’t as strong as before, because even the most well-behaved girls in class dared to talk to her?

Did it mean… she had integrated into the group?

Dong Xi helped her organize her pencil case. The girls waited for her to respond. She tilted her head slightly, somewhat unadapted, pulled out her earphone, and said: “Oh… right.”

The girls picked up the thread and started chatting again. It was strange yet harmonious. She didn’t know how to describe it. Perhaps this was… fitting in?

Thinking carefully, aside from that bastard Long Xinyi still giving her trouble from time to time, her life was indeed starting to move in a good direction. Some rotten places gradually healed, foul-smelling places gradually gave off fragrance. Even her previous feeling that life was boring and everyone was hypocritical seemed to be immature thinking. How could her former self deserve sincere people? Only by making herself better could she attract people with equally good personalities to her side, and only then could she feel more goodwill from the group.

Feeling that life wasn’t good enough was all her own fault. She just hadn’t reached that level yet. That’s how it was.

After leaving the classroom, walking in the corridor, Long Qi took out a wooden peach pendant and put it in Dong Xi’s coat pocket. Dong Xi inquired with her eyes. She said: “When I was little, my mom got this blessed for me, said it was a lucky charm. I didn’t believe it and never wore it, so everything went wrong. Later she got one for each of my two younger brothers. After they grew up, they were especially smart and lived especially good lives. From then on, I believed. And from the day I believed, I met you.”

“So?”

“Wear it during the recommendation student interview. Wishing you pass.”

At that time, the dusk was orange-red. Dong Xi lifted up the pendant, looking up to examine it. The winter sunlight fell on her knit coat, on her black long hair, on her fine white wrist exposed to the air. It was warm, fragrant.

Long Qi stared at that fine wrist for a long time. Only when Dong Xi put the pendant in her coat pocket, covering that section of wrist, did she withdraw her gaze.

She really wanted to hold it.

That day’s dusk was especially beautiful, making her suddenly feel a kind of joy she had never experienced from childhood to adulthood. She wholeheartedly thought the momentum was slowly developing in a good direction, but what happened later shattered these newly emerging points of light into fragments all over the ground.