What Long Qi wanted was the kind like Dong Xi—quiet as a maiden.

In just one day, there was already a trend of people taking sides at school. The number of posts on the campus forum surged dramatically, mostly discussions about this conversation between Dong Xi and Jin Yiken.

At noon, while using the internet at the school library, Long Qi looked at the voting post with the most comments on the forum, asking how many weeks Dong Xi could hold out. Countless people followed with replies, among them someone posted a slightly conspicuous question: Hasn’t anyone noticed that Jin Yiken’s family and Dong Xi’s family live in the same residential complex?

This news received multiple inquiries within just a few minutes. The poster quickly responded: My brother lives in that complex. Both Dong Xi’s and Jin Yiken’s families are in the villa district, but the two families seem to live quite far apart. Last summer when I stayed at my brother’s place, I saw both of them on separate occasions.

One ID replied: It’s over, Dong Xi seems more formidable than Bai Aiting.

They were talking about family background.

Of course, there was also an ID that was obviously a girl who responded to this ID: How funny, what’s there to compare about family backgrounds? This is a personal issue, okay? Besides, Aiting’s family is also very powerful.

A male student ID with a sports star avatar followed up: Bai Aiting always puts on airs for no reason, no interest. Sister Dong Xi has a good face.

The female ID retorted: Sure enough, lower-body-driven animals, hehe.

From this, the topic gradually became a beauty contest between Dong Xi and Bai Aiting. The disagreement mainly stemmed from differences in male and female aesthetics. Bai Aiting had better connections with girls than Dong Xi. Dong Xi’s quality of being untainted by worldly desires had now become a disadvantage instead. Those speaking up for her were basically only the male group, so the essence of the matter was gradually overlooked. The post became a battlefield of heated male-female debates with flying spittle, among which there was no lack of offensive language.

When things got heated, a post flew out: Everyone stop howling, when it comes to looks, who can compare with our great Seventh Master? Seventh Master’s looks are the highest, unbreakable for the next five years!

A follow-up comment: Mm, this contest can end now.

So the contest not only didn’t end but also dragged Long Qi into it, completely transforming into a comprehensive contest post about the three queens of Beifan. In the end, the original verdict was still maintained: Most beautiful—Long Qi, Most intelligent—Aiting, Most talented—Dong Xi.

What was strange was that at a time like this, Jin Yiken hadn’t been splattered with even a bit of dirty water. Someone handsome to a certain degree seemed able to be forgiven for doing anything. Even the female group, who usually had strong moral feelings about this kind of thing, didn’t say a single bad word about him. Long Qi couldn’t stand it after reading for a while and was about to close the webpage when the newest reply that popped up in the post caught her attention back.

An anonymous ID of indistinguishable gender said: Dong Xi is good. This kind of weak and otherworldly girl to a certain degree makes people have more sexual desire for her than Bai Aiting. Already rubbed one out.

Attached was a photo of a crumpled tissue.

The posting time was one minute ago. The texture of the table under the tissue was exactly the same as the library tables, with faint traces of sunlight visible. Long Qi’s anger instantly flared up. She immediately scanned the male students in positions by the library windows. Among them, two were with their girlfriends, five sitting alone were reading, two were playing with phones, and finally the remaining three male students using laptops to surf the internet were gathered together talking and laughing in low voices. On their table was a crumpled tissue.

Long Qi couldn’t control her emotions at that moment. She pulled out her chair and walked quickly toward them. These three male students still thought this behavior was “super cool” and were snickering with their heads down. They were completely unaware when Long Qi walked in front of the three of them, until she slammed her hand down on the laptop screen with a bang. The super loud noise made all the students in the entire library look over. The three male students looked up in shock.

Her eyes were fierce. Just as she was about to speak, there came another loud noise from the bookshelf area of the library. The gazes originally gathered here were attracted there, and the administrator who was about to rush over here also paid attention in that direction. She looked over there and just then saw several girls walk out from between the bookshelves, with smiles not yet fully cleaned from their faces, as if they had just completed an interesting prank.

They quickly slipped out of the library.

Long Qi first set aside the matter of these three male students and walked toward the bookshelf together with the administrator. She walked faster than the administrator. When she reached the source of the sound, she saw Dong Xi crouched on the ground picking up books.

That spot had dim sunlight. Books from almost an entire bookshelf had fallen to the ground. Dong Xi was gathering the books one by one into her arms. After gathering five books, she organized them and put them into the bookshelf, then picked up the next five. Her movements were a bit slow, as if held back by some difficult-to-express emotion. Her head was lowered, showing no expression at all.

After the administrator arrived, she frowned and asked: “Dong Xi, what happened? How did all the books fall down?”

She didn’t speak.

The administrator continued asking: “Who did this?”

She still didn’t speak, only picking up books and placing them on the shelf. Long Qi crouched down and picked up the few books by her feet, and when putting them in the bookshelf, her hand lightly touched Dong Xi’s. She looked at Dong Xi, while Dong Xi had already crouched down to continue picking up books.

She picked them up together with her.

The administrator said: “Well, if you won’t say, you can only organize this bookshelf yourself. Will you say or not?”

“I’ll help her organize it.” Long Qi spoke up.

Dong Xi lowered her head, patting the dust off a book cover, not even glancing at the administrator.

The administrator left.

The process of organizing the books by the two was very quiet, without a single conversation. Long Qi organized faster than Dong Xi, so more than half of the books were arranged by her. When Dong Xi placed the last book into the bookshelf, the weak sunlight had already slipped from her shoulder to the top of the cabinet.

“Thank you.”

She said.

Her voice was very light and low. After saying it, she walked away, still without looking at Long Qi. She hadn’t looked from beginning to end. Long Qi’s hand rested on the bookshelf, watching her lonely departing figure.

After school, she rushed to the gymnasium. As soon as she found Jin Yiken on the bleachers, she fiercely threw her bag at him. He was scrolling through forum posts on his phone, legs propped on the railing. The bag Long Qi threw directly hit his stomach. He reacted quickly and caught it, looked at the bag in his arms, then looked up at her. After figuring out the situation within a second, he returned to his lazy rich heir appearance and even unzipped her bag to stick his hand inside.

“Do you know what people are saying about her? Do you know that at noon today a group of girls blocked her in the library!”

“I know now.” He replied.

“You’re psychologically twisted, Jin Yiken!”

He listened composedly, whistled, and used his eyes to remind her to look at the court below the bleachers. Zhuo Qing was playing ball with someone down there.

After Long Qi withdrew her gaze, he had already found her wallet from that bag. After opening it to look, he said: “Qi ah, these past few weeks I haven’t taken care of you, you’ve really been living rather tight.”

“Put it back!”

He smiled and took out his own wallet from his pocket, pulled out several red bills from inside and put them in her wallet. After putting it back, he found her makeup bag, saying: “Feel sorry for her?”

Long Qi took away the makeup bag. Jin Yiken’s hand was empty again, but he still stuck his hand in her bag to continue searching: “If you feel sorry for her, I’ll teach you a method. You post photos of us in bed on the forum, guaranteed the public opinion pressure will transfer to you in one second. Sacrifice yourself to save others, first-rate effect.”

Long Qi said sarcastically: “You really can bear to part with Bai Aiting.”

“This is where you don’t understand,” he said. “Bai Aiting is actually the key to me pursuing Dong Xi. The more trouble she makes, the greater my chances of successfully pursuing Dong Xi.”

Long Qi prepared to kick him. He withdrew his feet in advance and crossed his legs.

“Scum.”

“This scum here is about to hook up with your girl.”

While looking at her, he pulled out the third item from her bag. The instant Long Qi saw it, she immediately snatched the item along with the bag from his arms. So he only touched the pregnancy test stick but didn’t see the pregnancy test stick. She quickly walked away. Jin Yiken stood up from his seat completely unaware, putting his hand in his pants pocket.

“Qi.”

She turned around impatiently.

“Solving this matter is very simple. You know clearly in your heart what I want. I don’t have to go ruin Dong Xi.”

She laughed: “She won’t even look at you properly.”

“Her proper look won’t fall on you either.” He gestured with his lips. “Have you ever thought that one day you might have to rely on my introduction to become familiar with her?”

“I’m not that reserved,” Long Qi walked backward, telling him word by word, “What you can do, I also dare to do. I’m not doing it now because I know the timing hasn’t arrived yet. I won’t be like you, going to scare her.”

“The mere fact that you like her is already scary enough, Qi.”

She no longer lingered to talk with him, turned and walked down the bleachers. When passing through the court, she was seen by Zhuo Qing. Zhuo Qing called out to her. She completely ignored him, only taking out her wallet from her bag, taking out all the money Jin Yiken had left for her, and throwing it backward without looking back.

Several hundred-yuan bills flew in the air above the court and scattered all over the ground. Jin Yiken’s elbow rested on the bleachers, watching her quietly from afar, while the boys playing basketball simultaneously let out a chorus of “awesome” low exclamations.

She left.