A weekend passed. Monday morning was as serious and silent as countless mornings before it. The campus broadcast called out by name to criticize students who didn’t follow school rules. The director’s resonant female voice echoed between every wall of the teaching building. Long Qi was sleeping.

The homeroom teacher slowly patrolled inside the classroom. When the broadcast sternly mentioned the two words “Long Qi,” he deliberately knocked her desktop with his knuckles. Only then did she wake up, the squinted eyes she opened full of traces of staying up late.

After the homeroom teacher left, she continued sleeping, but male students in the back seat were chattering. They vaguely mentioned her name. She sat up again and glanced back. It was one fat guy and two short, thin male students. The fat male’s expression was quite proud, but after another person discovered her, he immediately pushed the person next to him. The three of them suddenly fell silent and restrained their expressions.

The broadcast ended. People in the class got up one after another preparing to go to the exam room to participate in the monthly mock exam. For a moment, the sounds of desks and chairs colliding and books being organized buried the boys’ conversation. Long Qi withdrew her gaze. Girls in the adjacent row discussed with each other: “Which exam room are you going to?”

“I’m in the class next door.”

“I’m in Class 1 exam room.”

“I’m so nervous. This monthly exam score determines the class assignments for the second half of the semester. I’m so afraid of not doing well and being assigned to a poor class…”

A text message came on her phone. On her way to the exam room after packing up her things, she looked. It was from Long Xinyi: Come to the back of Teaching Building No. 2 after the exam, little sister.

“Lunatic,” she muttered, putting her phone back in her pocket.

The first exam was mathematics, lasting two hours. You could hand in your paper one hour after the exam started. The exam room was quiet. Students wrote feverishly. Long Qi did the test for half an hour, slept for half an hour, then, as usual, timed it to be the first to hand in her paper and leave the exam room. Just as she reached the stairway entrance, her phone vibrated in her pocket again.

She looked down at the text message. It was still from Long Xinyi. Her steps going down the stairs gradually slowed. Long Xinyi had sent over a photo of her back view taking off her top in the bathroom. The pixels were blurry, as if it was a video screenshot.

…

At a speed that brooked no delay, she arrived at the back of Teaching Building No. 2. Long Xinyi had also finished his exam. He was standing in the corridor breezeway eating oden he had just bought back from the school store. Long Qi came up from behind and kicked him in the back with one foot. His whole person stumbled from the corridor to the garden path outside the teaching building. The oden soup spilled all over his hand, scalding him so that he grimaced again, preparing to curse.

“Are you a man or not?” She walked down the steps. Long Xinyi retreated backward because of the momentum.

“Don’t, sis, don’t get excited, little sis.” While speaking, he switched the oden to his left hand. His right hand quickly reached into his pocket to take something out. Only after he displayed the thing did he raise his momentum again, no longer retreating, deliberately showing a smile.

Once the thing was displayed, everyone knew what despicable level this guy Long Xinyi had reached. It was the unopened pregnancy test stick she had left in the living room of his house. He held it, as if holding a supreme trump card, waving it in front of her eyes, saying tirelessly: “Whose is it? Whose seed is it?”

“Whose?” Long Qi asked back. “Long Xinyi, you’re a big man in puberty holding such a thing in your hand—aren’t you ashamed? Well done, you even dared to go buy this.”

“Pretending,” Long Xinyi countered her.

“Right, pretending,” Long Qi put one hand into her garment pocket. “So what if I’m pretending? Go ahead and tell people. An unopened pregnancy test stick—what ghost story can you tell?”

“Don’t be like that, sis, just a joke. I specially brought this to return it to you.” He tossed it over. “This is a matter of human life, after all.”

Long Qi didn’t catch it, so Long Xinyi foolishly caught the thing he threw out himself. She directly asked: “How much video do you have left?”

It seemed to finally get to his main topic, but he was fairly composed, not excessively revealing emotion, just sneakily taking out his phone from his pants pocket: “Only three segments left, all here, about ten minutes each.”

“What do you want to do?”

“If you want them, I’ll sell them to you. Absolutely won’t keep backups, really. You even smashed the tower.”

“Don’t even think about getting money. If you don’t want me to call the police, hand it over, now!”

Long Xinyi made a comical businessman’s face and clicked his tongue: “Didn’t you run to many events these past two days? You made at least thirty or forty thousand yuan, right? The videos are super cheap, really. Two thousand per segment, six thousand total. Pay it all at once and there’s no backup. I guarantee it.”

Long Qi took out her phone from her garment pocket and pressed the first digit “1.” Long Xinyi rushed up in a few steps and changed his tune: “Okay then! Like this! I’ll just sell you the video password, two thousand is enough!”

The second “1” was also pressed. She questioned: “Video password?”

“I told you not to get excited. Yesterday I posted saying I have a video of you. I must say you’re quite in demand. That very night someone…”

“Long Xinyi, you beast!”

Before hearing the end, she exploded. Long Xinyi retreated rapidly with quick steps, shouting back: “Who told you to smash my computer! My mom won’t buy me one, so I have to damn well scrape together money to buy it myself!”

“How many people have you sold to!”

“One, just one!” He extended his index finger as if swearing. “And I really didn’t screw you over. I encrypted that video. Only when he transfers the payment will I send him the password. As long as before that, you use two thousand to buy the password, I’ll immediately cancel that transaction!”

“Sold to whom?”

“Can’t say that.”

“Who!” The shout was very loud, directly forcing Long Xinyi into panic. He ran up to symbolically placate her. His mouth immediately ran like a train and supplied the buyer.

“It’s that dead fat guy in your class. He’s got money to spare. Without a word, he snapped it up at the asking price.” But even while supplying the buyer, he didn’t forget to do business with her. “Truth be told, the payment has already entered my account. I’m about to send him the password immediately. You really don’t want to buy from me? Sis, I’m also forced into this desperate situation. I also don’t want to make money off you…”

Long Qi pushed him away with one hand, turned around and went up the teaching building. Long Xinyi stood incredulously in the breezeway shouting at her: “You’re really not buying? You’re really not buying! Then I’m sending it to him! I’m really sending the password!”