Jiang Yan’s post went up, and at first no one responded — everyone was still processing…

Then, once they caught up, the post was instantly shot to the top of the trending list —

【No way, no way, no WAY — so you cheated?? I can’t believe I used to bring you water when you were playing basketball! Trash!!】

【Question: from when you two broke up until now, there have been occasional rumours going around saying Jiang Ruoqiao was two-timing. You saw those, didn’t you? So why didn’t you come out and defend her? You’re the one who was two-timing! I think I’m going to be sick. You had the nerve to hide behind everyone this whole time, letting us all believe you broke up over future goals or whatever! I’m going to dedicate a song called “What Kind of Man Are You” to you!】

【Quietly weighing in — I was suspicious at the time too. Breaking up over “incompatible future goals”… did people really believe that? It wasn’t even their final year — they’d barely started their third year. I already thought something was off back then… Looking back now, Jiang Ruoqiao really did spare his dignity. I’d like to dedicate him a song: “What Kind of Man Are You”!】

【…To be fair, you can’t say it like that. At least he stepped forward to explain now, didn’t he?】

【Ha! Ha ha!! Wasn’t it Lu Yicheng who posted first? I’d bet anything that if Lu Yicheng hadn’t posted, Jiang Yan would have been absolutely silent — not a single word. And here he is, on one hand letting his ex-girlfriend get smeared with no defence from him, while on the other hand shamelessly going around begging her to get back together! The sheer thickness of that skin — I am fully, completely done.】

The tide had completely turned.

Shortly after, more people came forward with additional revelations: the real reason Jiang Ruoqiao had broken up with Jiang Yan was because of a girl he had a close relationship with — not a blood relative, but someone he’d referred to as his “little sister.” The two of them had grown up together and were very close. Not only had he kept bringing her along to improve his reputation, he had even included her in joint activities between their friend groups. What made it truly insufferable was that Jiang Ruoqiao had walked in on the two of them in an intimate moment and then initiated the breakup.

The only people who knew this in such detail, besides Jiang Yan’s roommates, were Jiang Ruoqiao’s three dorm mates.

Originally, this was something that had simply been left behind. Jiang Ruoqiao hadn’t wanted Yun Jia and the others to spread it, and they had agreed to stay quiet. But none of them had anticipated wave after wave of mud being flung at Jiang Ruoqiao. If they didn’t fight back now, were they really just going to let people think they were pushovers?

……

Early the next morning, Jiang Ruoqiao’s phone rang. Unknown number.

These past two days, she hadn’t been answering any unknown calls.

She hung up directly — and then the number sent her a message: 【Ruoqiao, it’s me. I’m sorry.】

It was Jiang Yan.

Jiang Yan’s post had genuinely caught Jiang Ruoqiao off guard.

She truly hadn’t expected him to voluntarily come forward to clear her name. After all, in the original story, the male lead had never said a word to defend the female supporting character when she was treated that way — not a single sentence. She had assumed that in this incident, he would most likely stay invisible.

“Who called?” Yun Jia came in from the balcony with laundry and asked casually.

Jiang Ruoqiao replied: “Jiang Yan.”

Yun Jia’s expression became complicated. “Sometimes I think about it, and I wish he’d just be thoroughly terrible — then I could curse him out with a clean conscience. The problem is he’s half-and-half. Can’t say he’s decent, but can’t fully say he’s not either. He did step up and clarify things at a time like this. It’s all very… bittersweet.”

Gao Jingjing was sitting at her desk doing her skincare routine. She turned around at that and smiled: “I wouldn’t put it that way. Everyone says to judge actions, not intentions — but we all know what Jiang Yan’s intentions are, don’t we? He wants Ruoqiao to be moved by him. He wants her to think he’s not so bad, and then try to win her back. But ultimately, he was just doing what he should have done to begin with… You can’t say the man is terrible, but his opponent is Lu Yicheng. Put the two side by side, and the contrast is brutal.”

“Exactly,” Luo Wen chimed in. “Ruoqiao had spared his dignity before — she didn’t let any of that come out while they were together. Now that Ruoqiao’s been misunderstood and smeared, the very first person who should have stepped forward was him.”

Jiang Ruoqiao smiled quietly, deleted the text message, and blocked the number.

See — the lingering consequences of having dated Jiang Yan were truly too many.

If she could go back a few months, she would never have gotten into a relationship with him. Not even the slightest connection.

On Weibo, the discussion was still going strong.

Though by now, it had nothing to do with whether Jiang Ruoqiao had been two-timing.

The main focus was Lu Yicheng and Jiang Yan’s back-to-back public statements. Lu Yicheng’s personal history and photos had been posted by various people, and netizens collectively imagined a storyline: “The campus heartthrob sees the campus beauty for the first time and is immediately captivated — only to find out the next time they meet that she’s already his good friend’s girlfriend.” What made it even more compelling was that after the breakup, the heartthrob finally chose love over friendship and bravely pursued the beauty — falling out with his former best friend in the process…

Netizens: Wow~ Compelling! Brilliant! More, more!

Then came Jiang Yan’s post and the subsequent revelations, which stirred up even more discussion.

At last the situation had its reversal. The voices “condemning” Jiang Ruoqiao grew increasingly scarce, and a growing number of people rallied around a single sentiment: never sympathise with men, or you’ll end up miserable.jpg

Meanwhile, in a certain girls’ dormitory at another university, someone was also enjoying the unfolding drama.

A young woman lying in bed came across a photo, and her brow furrowed.

The photo on her phone screen was blurry.

Several people were in the frame.

The photo had been sent by a close friend of hers from university A, who had circled one person with a note: 【This is the ex-boyfriend of the girl in the anonymous post. Not bad-looking, right? Let me look for a photo of the campus heartthrob — he’s even more handsome!】

The young woman stared at the blurry photo, but her attention had landed on a woman in her forties: 【Who is this auntie? I feel like she looks really familiar. Is she a teacher at your school?】

Her friend replied: 【No, probably one of these guys’ parents.】

The young woman felt certain she’d seen this woman somewhere, but couldn’t place her. She gave up and got out of bed to wash up. While brushing her teeth, a spark of memory lit up in her mind — and she finally remembered who it was!!

Wasn’t this the woman who had come to drop off Lin Kexing at the start of the school year?!

At the time, everyone in Lin Kexing’s dorm had assumed she was her mother, but later, when Lin Kexing’s actual mother arrived, they realised she was a family housekeeper. They had all marvelled at it then — Lin Kexing’s family must really be well off, even the housekeeper carried herself with such elegance. Every young woman can be a detective when she puts her mind to it — and this one, toothbrush in hand, had formed a bold hypothesis: there might be a scandal involving Lin Kexing!! After all, no matter how she looked at the photo, the ex-boyfriend in the anonymous post bore a strong facial resemblance to the woman — they could very well be mother and son. And if that was true, then the question arose: who was the so-called “little sister” mentioned in the exposé?

The more she thought about it, the more excited she got. She fired off a message to her boyfriend: 【Babe, I just thought of a way to make a lot of money!!】

That afternoon, Jiang Ruoqiao was called into the teacher’s office.

She figured her Outstanding Student nomination had probably fallen through. That was understandable — this whole incident had caused quite a stir across campus, and the school had far too many genuinely impressive students. She had already steeled herself for this outcome back when her account was suspended and the anonymous Weibo post had appeared out of nowhere.

But the teacher didn’t bring up the forum situation at all. She took a bottle of juice from the cabinet, handed it to Jiang Ruoqiao, and said with a warm smile: “I’ve looked through all your materials. Everything should be fine. I’ll submit the list today for the first round of screening. The specific results will be out by the end of this month or the beginning of next month at the latest. You can start preparing in the meantime — write a draft speech, so you’re not scrambling when the time comes.”

Jiang Ruoqiao couldn’t hide her shock. She stared at the teacher blankly, and when she came back to herself, asked in disbelief: “Teacher Yu, I wasn’t removed from the list?!”

Teacher Yu laughed. “Of course not. To be honest, I was on edge myself yesterday. Today the department head told me the list is going through unchanged.”

Teacher Yu spoke gently: “I’ve supervised you for so long — do I not know what kind of person you are? Don’t worry. You did nothing wrong in this matter. But I’ll let you in on something: the department head mentioned that someone came to him with your grades and academic history, laid out the entire situation clearly and logically.”

Jiang Ruoqiao was taken aback. “Who?”

Teacher Yu said with a knowing look: “A good student who would make a favourable impression on any department head.”

At those words, what was there left not to understand?

The person who had gone to such lengths for her — there were a few candidates: her friends, and… Lu Yicheng.

And Teacher Yu’s hint couldn’t have been clearer.

It was Lu Yicheng.

It was indeed Lu Yicheng. The night before, he had barely slept. He had connections in the Foreign Languages Department, so obtaining Jiang Ruoqiao’s grades from the past two years hadn’t been difficult. The morning after dropping Lu Siyan off at kindergarten, he had compiled the materials and knocked on the department head’s office door.

He couldn’t quite say why he had felt compelled to do this.

But he had always felt that if Jiang Ruoqiao deserved to be selected as an Outstanding Student, she shouldn’t be affected by this baseless incident. That wasn’t fair to her.

Even if the person in her situation today hadn’t been her — if he had encountered anyone else in need, he would have reached out to help all the same.

If Jiang Ruoqiao were ultimately not selected, it should be because someone more qualified than her had earned it — not because two people had rather abruptly fallen for her and pursued her.

Lu Yicheng brought Jiang Ruoqiao’s academic record to the department head and laid out the full context of the situation. He said: if this kind of thing were being used as an evaluation criterion, then the person who should be removed from consideration was him — not her. He was the one who liked her. He was the one pursuing her. If there was any fault, it was his, not hers. And if the university was going to consider students’ personal relationships in these evaluations, shouldn’t that be made explicit in the documentation? If this kind of thing were allowed to set a precedent, couldn’t anyone use it to target a rival in future competitions?

After all, when one wishes to condemn, the charges are easily fabricated.

The department head said he would handle the matter fairly and seriously.

That morning, the department head had also sat down and carefully gone through Jiang Ruoqiao’s academic record from the past two years.

……

Jiang Ruoqiao stepped out of Teacher Yu’s office.

It had been overcast for several consecutive days, but today, finally, there was a sliver of sunlight. She tilted her head up to look at the sky. The light was breaking through the clouds and falling down.

After walking for a while, she took her phone out of her bag and called Lu Yicheng.

He picked up quickly. The same warm yet steady voice reached her ears: “Are you doing okay?”

She hadn’t expected that to be his first question. She laughed. “Pretty good. By the way, are you free this afternoon? I’d like to treat you to dumplings — that same place we went to before.”

—