Unfortunately, Qian Wei still couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. Less than an hour after she’d fallen asleep, she was jolted awake by the sound of the dorm supervisor knocking on the door.

In an instant, everyone else in the room stirred groggily awake too.

Liu Shiyun poked her head out from under the covers and complained, “Auntie, it’s the middle of the night—this isn’t a vice raid…”

The dorm supervisor’s face carried an apologetic look. She stepped into the room, followed by another girl. Qian Wei opened her eyes and looked—the girl seemed vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t place her.

“I know it’s not right to wake everyone up in the middle of the night like this. I hope you’ll forgive Auntie—next time I’ll bring you some homemade dumplings to make up for it.” Once she’d smoothed things over, the supervisor got down to business. “This is a bit awkward, but we may need to open everyone’s cabinets and drawers for an inspection.”

“Huh? Why?”

The supervisor gestured to the girl behind her. “Liang Qing here has lost something very valuable.”

Liu Shiyun blinked, then caught on. “She lost something valuable, and she suspects someone in our dorm stole it, so you’re here to search us?” Liu Shiyun let out an incredulous laugh and pointed at herself and the others. “Do we look like thieves to you? Why would we steal her stuff? Waking us up in the middle of the night for this—might as well be a vice raid after all!”

The supervisor tried to calm her down. “Of course Auntie believes you. But since you didn’t take it, why not just let me open your cabinets and drawers in front of this student, show her there’s nothing there, and settle this once and for all?”

“If we’re innocent, then why should our cabinets be opened at all?” Qian Wei was starting to get annoyed too. “The legal principle is presumption of innocence—we haven’t even been formally accused of anything, so how can you just decide to search us like this? Is there any evidence? If people can just search wherever they like with no evidence at all, wouldn’t society fall into chaos? Could public authority just barge into anyone’s private space to search them without any justification, whenever it wants to deal with someone?”

“Auntie knows you’re all law students, and I can’t out-argue you. But it’s not like there’s no evidence at all.” The supervisor glanced back at Liang Qing. “This student’s necklace—some foreign brand, worth tens of thousands—it was her mother’s, something she left behind. It went missing tonight. Before it disappeared, she’d just taken it off and put it in a drawer in her dorm room, which is right upstairs from yours, very close by. She says she saw someone from your room going in and out wearing an identical necklace.”

Liu Shiyun scoffed. “Necklaces are mass-produced these days—so what if someone has a similar one? That’s completely normal. And that’s supposed to prove someone in our dorm is a thief?”

“She says this necklace is one-of-a-kind—a custom piece by a foreign designer, so there’s no way there could be duplicates. And there’s a small chip on one corner of the pendant, a little wear mark from an impact. Just compare them and you’ll know right away if it’s the same one.”

The other two girls in the room had woken up by now too, and they weren’t backing down either. “Why does our whole room have to be searched? Why wake us all up in the middle of the night over this?”

“We’ve all lived together for years—we know each other’s character. If there were a thief among us, things would have gone missing long before now. But nothing’s ever gone missing.”

Even the dorm supervisor started to hesitate. She turned to the girl called Liang Qing. “Could this be a misunderstanding? Maybe you left it somewhere else while you were out? Our dorm building has always had a good record—nothing like this has ever happened before…”

Liang Qing, who had stayed silent this whole time, pressed her lips together, looking like she had something to say but was holding back. “I saw clearly. I know who took it.”

Liu Shiyun sneered. “Fine, go ahead then—who took your necklace?”

Liang Qing looked deeply conflicted, hesitating for a long moment before finally, as if working up her courage, raising her hand. “Her.”

Qian Wei: …? She pinched her own arm, making sure she wasn’t seeing things. Liang Qing was pointing straight at her.

Seeing this, Liu Shiyun completely lost her temper. “There’s a limit to how far you can go with false accusations, you know? Qian Wei is my close friend—I know exactly what kind of person she is. You think she’d care about your cheap little necklace?”

Liang Qing looked startled by Liu Shiyun’s fierce glare, and she shrank back a few steps, her voice timid, her eyes nearly brimming with tears. “It really was her. I wouldn’t mistake it. I’m not falsely accusing her…”

Liang Qing paused, then continued in a softer tone. “Look, this necklace is worth tens of thousands. If someone borrowed it because they liked how it looked, all they need to do is give it back and apologize, and I won’t pursue it further. But if they refuse to return it, then there’s no way to resolve this—it was my mother’s, it means something different to me. I’ll have no choice but to call the police. You’re law students, you know how this works—once the police get involved, it’s out of our hands to settle privately. Something worth tens of thousands might even count as theft, right?”

“Are you seriously threatening us now?”

Qian Wei tugged at Liu Shiyun’s arm. “Forget it.”

But Liu Shiyun had dug in her heels. She looked at Liang Qing, then at the dorm supervisor. “So you’re determined to open Qian Wei’s cabinet and drawers no matter what, is that it? Coming in here talking about the law in front of law students—do you even know what procedural justice means? Even if someone really did steal something, you can’t just go searching people like this before it enters the judicial process! If you went to a supermarket and they suspected you of shoplifting and just forced their way into your bag, would you accept that?”

Liang Qing blinked. “Then I’ll call the police.”

The dorm supervisor looked troubled. If the police got involved, it would look bad—and if something actually came of it, not only would the students face disciplinary action, the dorm staff could end up docked pay too.

“Fine, go ahead and open it. But if there’s nothing there, you owe me an apology—and an apology to everyone in this room you woke up.” Qian Wei didn’t want to put anyone else in a difficult position, and dragging this out wasn’t going to help. She went ahead and opened her own wardrobe. As a local from City A, she usually went home on weekends, so even though she lived in the dorm, she didn’t keep many clothes there. Her wardrobe wasn’t full, and once opened, everything inside was plainly visible. She went through the pockets of a few garments herself—no necklace, though she did find a hundred-yuan note stuffed in one that she had no memory of putting there.

“See? Qian Wei’s clean. You’d better be ready to apologize to her and to all of us.”

“There’s still the desk drawer,” Liang Qing said, eyes fixed on Qian Wei. Qian Wei pulled her drawer open without hesitation. Inside was a messy pile of little red-covered law code booklets.

Just as Qian Wei was about to take all the booklets out, her fingers brushed against something cold and metallic tucked behind the stack of papers. She pulled it out with some confusion—a small heart-shaped pendant, elegantly designed but showing some wear, with one corner clearly scuffed from an impact… Qian Wei pressed her lips together and drew the object out further, and sure enough, trailing behind the pendant was a thin platinum chain…

“That’s it! My mother’s necklace!” Liang Qing rushed forward and snatched the necklace from Qian Wei’s hands, clutching it to her chest, her eyes quickly welling with tears, looking overwhelmed with the emotion of having recovered something precious. Qian Wei could only think: what an incredible performance.

With tears in her eyes, Liang Qing turned the necklace over in her hands for a moment before finally looking up at Qian Wei and saying slowly, “If you apologize to me in front of everyone, we can just consider this whole thing never happened.”

“How could this possibly just never have happened?” Qian Wei let out an incredulous, almost angry laugh. She genuinely had no idea how that necklace had ended up in her drawer. She was shocked and bewildered, but her resolve to clear her name was firm. “I never took your necklace. I’d like to know how it grew legs and walked into my drawer on its own. Out of nowhere I get slapped with ‘caught red-handed,’ and you expect me to just let this go?”

The dorm supervisor hesitated too, looking back and forth between Liang Qing and Qian Wei, thoroughly confused. Both of them looked completely sincere; neither seemed to be lying.

Because of all the commotion, it wasn’t long before people from the neighboring dorms started waking up too, drifting over bleary-eyed to see what was going on outside Qian Wei’s door.

“So how do you explain my necklace being in your drawer?”

Liu Shiyun rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? You framed her. And who steals something and then just calmly lets you search the place, practically inviting you to find the stolen goods in front of everyone?”

“I didn’t even know Qian Wei before today—why would I target her and frame her?” Liang Qing’s voice cracked. “As for how it ended up being found on the spot, how would I know? I’ve never stolen anything in my life, I don’t understand how a thief’s mind works. And I wanted to let this go quietly, but you law school girls are going too far. Is this somehow my fault, when I’m the victim here?” As she said this, seemingly at the peak of her outrage, her voice suddenly rose. “Is this how a thief acts when they’re caught red-handed—so full of righteous indignation?!”

Her words clearly struck a chord with the other girls gathered outside Qian Wei’s room, and soon more and more people, woken by the noise, crowded around the doorway, murmuring and exchanging uncertain glances.

Liu Shiyun, of course, would stand by Qian Wei’s side no matter what. But the others weren’t Liu Shiyun—they didn’t know Qian Wei well, and under Liang Qing’s accusations, more than a few of the looks directed at Qian Wei began to waver.

Naturally, neither side was willing to back down, and in the end the dorm supervisor had no way to mediate. She had no choice but to call in the law school’s counselor. The counselor, of course, hoped to smooth things over and minimize the whole affair, but no matter how much persuading was done, both Qian Wei and Liang Qing held firm.

With no resolution in sight, the matter had to be escalated up the chain, eventually reaching the dean of the law school. Worried that Liang Qing might actually go to the police and damage the school’s and the department’s reputation, the school specially formed an investigative committee—partly to placate Liang Qing, and partly to try to persuade Qian Wei to back down and offer an apology.

“You’re only a sophomore, still young—it’s normal to make mistakes, no one’s really going to hold it against you, and this won’t follow you for the rest of your life. But if this really blows up and you end up with a disciplinary record, it won’t just affect your bar exam application—it’ll affect your eligibility for civil service exams too. You know how it is, a lot of our law school graduates go on to work in the police, procuratorate, or judiciary system…”

As the go-between, the counselor naturally tried to talk Qian Wei into backing down. Qian Wei, having barely slept that night and now repeatedly summoned to the department office for “further education,” felt both furious and disappointed in equal measure.

She restated her position to the counselor once more and didn’t bother arguing further—there was no point saying anything to someone who didn’t trust you in the first place. Seeing that she wouldn’t budge no matter what, the counselor eventually gave up and let her go.

Looking at the outcome of the whole affair, the necklace had indeed been found in her drawer, in front of everyone; Liang Qing genuinely hadn’t known her before this. No matter how hard Qian Wei racked her brain, she couldn’t recall this person—not in this life, and not in her past life either—let alone any reason she might have offended her. From an outsider’s perspective, it all looked exactly like Qian Wei had stolen the necklace.

Good news never travels, but bad news spreads like wildfire. The moment Qian Wei arrived at the door of her morning tax law class, she could already hear classmates gossiping inside.

“Did you guys hear about it?” “That theft thing?”

“What?”

“Qian Wei—apparently she stole someone’s necklace. Is that actually true?”

“Doesn’t seem like the type.”

“You never know, though. You can know someone’s face but never their heart. A lot of serial killers abroad turned out to look completely ordinary and harmless too…”

“What are you standing at the door for? Not going in?”

Just as Qian Wei was hesitating, Lu Xun’s voice came from behind her. She turned around, and there was his face—as handsome and distantly cool as ever. But the moment he saw it was her, that face broke into a smile like the sun breaking through after fresh snow, softening his usually too-sharp presence.

Lu Xun walked up to her, pushed the door open, and stood there waiting for her.

“Shh, shh, stop talking—Lu Xun’s here.”

“Why does it matter that Lu Xun’s here?”

“You don’t know? Qian Wei’s his girlfriend!”

“No way?? That’s huge news??”

Just then, the tax law professor walked in with a stack of quiz papers for a case-study test, and everyone fell silent at once.

Once the papers were handed out, everyone focused on the test. Lu Xun clearly had a head full of questions but had to hold them in. He shot Qian Wei a look full of both worry and unspoken questions; Qian Wei held back her feelings and gave him a small smile.

The moment the test ended, though, Lu Xun pulled Qian Wei out into the hallway.

“What happened?”

“It’s nothing serious.” For some reason, though she’d stayed relatively composed while actually being falsely accused, now, facing Lu Xun, even as she insisted she was fine, she felt a wave of grievance rising in her chest, wanting to cry. Like a child who fell down alone and forced back the tears, only to burst into sobs the moment they saw the family member they relied on.

“Why are you playing tough right now?” Lu Xun, ignoring the people passing by, simply reached out and ruffled her hair. “You need to remember—you have someone backing you up. Who bullied you?”

“I’ll tell you!” Liu Shiyun had come out of the classroom too. “It’s absolutely outrageous!” It had to be said, Liu Shiyun had quite a talent for organizing a story. The three of them found an empty classroom, and in no time, Liu Shiyun laid out every single detail of the previous night with perfect accuracy.

As Lu Xun listened, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper, his expression growing darker by the moment. Given how protective Lu Xun was, the fact that he was managing to stay this composed already showed considerable restraint.

“I think this is revenge,” he said after a moment’s thought.

Liu Shiyun nodded along. “Right, that’s what I was thinking last night too—could it be some obsessive admirer of yours or something? I mean, Qian Wei dating you comes with its own pressure, doesn’t it! Some jealous girl, who knows if some psycho out there thinks Qian Wei stole you away and wants to get back at her…”

“What’s this girl’s name?”

“Liang Qing.”

Lu Xun pressed his lips together. “If someone’s willing to frame Qian Wei because of something to do with me, she’d have to be fairly obsessive by nature—which means she probably would’ve been harassing me long before now. But I have absolutely no memory of that name.” He thought for a moment. “What department is she in?”

“Huh?” Liu Shiyun paused. “I think it was the foreign languages department! Yeah! Foreign languages!”

Liu Shiyun’s guess and the words “foreign languages department” seemed to click together like puzzle pieces, and Liang Qing’s vaguely familiar face suddenly came into sharper focus in Qian Wei’s mind.

“I know now!” She slapped her thigh. “Liang Qing is that girl who used to obsessively chase after Mo Tao and harass him! That’s exactly why Mo Tao asked me to pretend to be his girlfriend, to get her to back off!”

Liu Shiyun’s eyes lit up too. “Then this is easy to solve! She must still think Mo Tao is your boyfriend and is targeting you out of revenge for that. Let’s go find Mo Tao and have him explain things to her, tell her to stop taking it out on you!”

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t just be useless—it would make things worse.” Qian Wei had calmed down enough to think clearly now. “Mo Tao’s complained to me about her before. She’s extremely obsessive—once she’s made up her mind about something, it’s almost impossible to change it. If Mo Tao tries to explain, not only will she not believe him, she’ll probably think he’s lying to protect me, and hate me even more.”

For a moment, both Liu Shiyun and Qian Wei were at a loss.

“Don’t worry about it anymore. Leave this to me.” No matter the situation, Lu Xun’s voice always carried that same steady certainty, as if with him around, there was no problem that couldn’t be solved. “I’ll protect my own girlfriend myself. I don’t need Mo Tao for that.”