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“I apologize, Director Chen — He Youyuan’s attitude just now was out of line, and he deserved the correction.” He Qiuming drew a brief breath and addressed Chen Guoming evenly. “But I do believe the facts of last night remain open to interpretation. The security camera was at a distance, and there were blind spots — the footage simply isn’t clear enough. Both children have also stated explicitly that they are not in a relationship and that nothing in violation of school rules occurred. As for why the footage appears as it does, I think it would be best to allow us parents to take our children home and speak with them privately…”

The girl’s parent cut in: “Take them home and talk? They won’t even tell the truth here — what makes you think you’ll get anything out of them at home? Your family has a son — he comes out of this with nothing to lose, so of course you’re not in any rush. But we have a daughter. If there are any consequences, we’re the ones who bear them!”

Li Kuiyi and Xia Leyi pulled a face at each other. Even if they really had kissed — what consequences were we talking about exactly?

Both pressed their ears closer to the wall, ready to hear the rest. Then a male teacher’s figure appeared at the far end of the corridor, walking their way. Fortunately the lighting was dim, and the half-open door of the discipline office partially blocked the view. He wouldn’t spot them immediately. They hunched over, flattened themselves against the wall, and crept away.

They didn’t dare stand up straight until they reached the elevator. Xia Leyi glanced around nervously, then whispered, “You don’t think we were caught on camera, do you? Are we going to be the next ones called into the discipline office tomorrow?”

“Oh no…” Li Kuiyi felt a twinge of unease. “Surely not?”

“Well, whatever — we already heard it. The worst they can do is give us a talking-to. It’s not a big deal.” Xia Leyi reassured herself and straightened her back, pressing the elevator button.

Li Kuiyi watched the red numbers ticking upward and asked, “What about them? I mean — if they really were caught in a relationship, will the school punish them?”

“Of course,” Xia Leyi said. “Didn’t Liu Xinzhao make it clear when school started? This school cracks down hard on relationships between students. Back in middle school, some of my classmates got publicly denounced in a school-wide announcement for dating — they even put up a notice on the bulletin board for everyone to see!”

“That’s severe,” Li Kuiyi said with a frown. “In my middle school, the homeroom teacher would just have a talk with you and that was that.”

Xia Leyi had a sudden flash of understanding. “Oh — I just figured out what that mother was getting at. If the school officially categorizes He Youyuan and that girl as being in a relationship, they’ll both be named in the school-wide announcement. The mother is probably worried about the damage to her daughter’s reputation — if her own classmates start talking about her, it would take real psychological resilience to hold your head up. But boys are different. Some of them actually brag about having multiple girlfriends.”

The elevator gave a cheerful chime, and both of them stepped in.

Li Kuiyi said, “That’s not fair. It’s like the concept of ‘reputation’ only applies to girls.”

“It’s not fair at all,” Xia Leyi agreed, with a small shrug. “But that’s how it is. Is it easier to change the way everyone thinks, or to change the way you think yourself? So you just have to take a page out of the boys’ book — be shameless, and wear it like a badge of honor.”

“That’s incredibly hard to do,” Li Kuiyi said, shaking her head. “The reason boys can be shameless is that no one ever imposed a framework on them growing up — that attitude is built up over years and years of not being constrained. Girls can’t simply decide to copy it, at least not overnight.”

“True enough.”

After that, the elevator fell into silence. The small square cabin felt close and confining; the stainless steel walls reflected their distorted shapes back at them.

After what felt like quite a long time, there was another cheerful chime.

They stepped out, took a deep breath to compose themselves, faces solemn as diplomats preparing for an international summit, each quietly rehearsing what to say, how to stand, what to do when they faced the principal.

They crept up to the door of the principal’s office and peered through the glass panel: no one seemed to be inside.

They held their breath and knocked three times. Still no answer.

In that instant, both of them felt an identical wave of relief wash over them. They looked at each other and simultaneously smiled.

They wedged the letter around the door handle, made sure it was secure, and ran.

Once they were back on the ground floor, Xia Leyi grabbed Li Kuiyi’s arm and said, “Let’s go out through this exit — if we go back the way we came, I’m scared I won’t be able to help myself from sneaking past the discipline office again.”

“Alright,” Li Kuiyi said, drifting naturally back to the earlier topic. “Honestly, the school’s whole approach to punishing students for relationships is pretty troubling.”

“It really is. But He Youyuan definitely isn’t in one, for the record.”

“Why do you say that?”

Xia Leyi gave a small, knowing smile. “With his personality? If he actually had a girlfriend, he’d have found some way to show off to us about it.”

“Us” — the word carried an easy, unthinking warmth.

Li Kuiyi’s curiosity caught on it. “Are you and he very close friends?”

“Yes,” Xia Leyi said, her eyes curving up. “We were in the same class in middle school — Qi Yu too. He and Qi Yu sat together, and I sat in front of them. He used to sleep through class all the time back then, and Qi Yu and I had to cover for him constantly. We’d help him catch up on everything he missed too. Honestly, he should be getting down on his knees and bowing to Qi Yu and me for the fact that he made it into this school.”

She said it with her chin slightly lifted, as if proud — but with both cheeks softly rounded, her expression brimming with something warm and sweet, like an unripe greengage plum: a little tart, a little tender, and entirely charming.

Li Kuiyi sensed, with quiet certainty, that Xia Leyi liked him.

Then why hadn’t anything come of it? Did He Youyuan not feel the same way?

Yet Xia Leyi was lovely — in looks, in grades, and in personality. More than a match for him, by any measure.

Li Kuiyi found herself recalling something Fang Zhixiao had once said: Insufferable boy, acting all cold and superior.

It had to be said — Fang Zhixiao did have a fairly sharp eye for people.

Although Xia Leyi had sworn up and down that He Youyuan was definitely not in a relationship, the next day at noon, a school-wide disciplinary notice appeared on the bulletin board nonetheless.

“It has been confirmed that He Youyuan of Class Twelve, Year One, and Zhang Yue of Class Thirteen, Year One, have engaged in a romantic relationship. Furthermore, the two students were found to have engaged in inappropriate conduct in the corridor of the old laboratory building after evening study on Monday. This behavior seriously violates school regulations and codes of conduct and constitutes a damaging influence on school culture. Both students are hereby subject to formal school-wide disciplinary notification…”

The sunlight was brutal. Li Kuiyi gripped Fang Zhixiao’s hand tightly, letting the crowd press them back and forth, like a small boat drifting at the mercy of the current.

The voices around them surged and crested. The truth was, “romance between students” was old news — although the school kept a strict watch, the restless energy of youth was like bamboo shoots after rain, impossible to contain by pressure alone. What wasn’t allowed in the open simply happened in secret, and every class had its share of covert couples. What really drew everyone’s attention in this particular notice were the words: “inappropriate conduct in the corridor.”

What, in the context of students, counted as “inappropriate conduct”? Holding hands? An embrace? A kiss? Something more? Or—

The deliberate vagueness of the phrasing left everything wide open to the imagination.

And that imagination was, without question, malicious.

“Are the younger students really this bold these days?” a boy ahead of them laughed to his friend. “School’s barely started and they’re already at it — in the old lab building, no less.”

His friend laughed back. “Young people just can’t control themselves!”

“Ha — you’d better specify which area of self-control you mean.”

“Don’t act innocent.” That boy smirked, then lowered his voice conspiratorially: “I’m telling you, I just watched this video a couple days ago — they were in a school corridor, and the girl was doing this thing to the guy where she—”

Li Kuiyi felt a dull roar filling her head, like a hundred filthy flies circling her ears. She clenched her teeth and said, in a conversational tone designed to carry: “People with dirty minds see filth in everything.”

Not loudly. Not loudly at all. Just enough that everyone nearby could hear.

The two boys stiffened and turned around.

Li Kuiyi looked back, steady and unafraid.

Fang Zhixiao, who had obviously caught every word of their conversation too, followed immediately: “Exactly. Has anyone told you that people who talk like this in public deserve terrible things to happen to them?”

Both boys flushed with rage, fists tightening. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

Li Kuiyi said mildly, “Anyone who said what you said knows perfectly well who this is aimed at.”

Not that there was much to fear — there were security guards stationed just two steps away at the school gate. Let them try something.

The two boys faltered. This was still this school — fighting on school grounds was grounds for expulsion, and they were already in their final year. They couldn’t afford that kind of trouble.

They pushed their way out of the crowd, embarrassed, but unwilling to drop it — and after putting a bit of distance between them, they turned back and called out: “Two little hussies. No better than the girl in that notice — all just the same.”

Fang Zhixiao was incandescent. She craned her neck and launched right back: “You’re the ones who are trashy — through and through. Even in a financial crisis you’d still be producing garbage. What’s wrong with your parents, not keeping you on a leash? Letting a mutt like you run around in broad daylight biting people—”

If the surging crowd hadn’t been between them, she would have torn them to pieces with her bare hands.

Fang Zhixiao had the high ground in terms of sheer verbal firepower, but she still ended up crying anyway, dabbing at her eyes intermittently through lunch. She was an only child, she had never heard a single harsh word from her parents, and being called something as degrading as “hussey” was enough to leave her seething for hours.

Li Kuiyi wiped her tears for her, bought her ice cream, and then joined in cursing the two boys enthusiastically until Fang Zhixiao finally calmed down.

She thought to herself that she and Fang Zhixiao had charged into battle on He Youyuan’s behalf — he really ought to bow to both of them as well. As for the girl called Zhang Yue, well, they didn’t know her — a simple “thank you” would suffice.

That afternoon, Class One had physical education.

Same as the previous week: two laps around the track, then a brief session learning tai chi, after which the class was dismissed and students could check out basketballs, badminton sets, or ping pong equipment from the PE equipment room, or simply use the time however they liked, as long as they didn’t return to the classroom early.

While running laps, a group of boys who clearly had energy to spare discussed He Youyuan’s situation loudly among themselves. The girls’ group was running ahead, the boys’ group behind, so Li Kuiyi couldn’t catch much — just fragments of talking and laughing, until, at some point, she heard them start jostling each other around.

When the group was released, Li Kuiyi went to sit in the stands at the edge of the field. She wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about any sport, and when some of the girls invited her to play badminton, she declined gently. Zhou Fanghua was exactly the same when it came to physical activity — she settled in beside her, clutching her water bottle and taking small, careful sips.

Li Kuiyi sat staring out at the vast expanse of the field, her gaze unfocused. She was thinking about whether she should write the principal another letter asking him to rescind the school-wide disciplinary notice.

Was the principal even in charge of something like that? Or was it the discipline office? Or Chen Guoming?

Was she overstepping?

But she couldn’t convince herself not to care, because she believed the school’s approach to handling student relationships was simply wrong. She cared deeply about whether something was right or wrong — it was like a city with a precise and orderly code built inside her, and she could not allow it to fall into disorder.

So her true motivation wasn’t to help any particular person. It was to protect the order she had built in her own heart.

But even if she did write another letter — would it change anything? Just like the one she’d already sent, the letter requesting fewer laps — would anyone even read it?

She let out a quiet breath and brought her gaze back.

Zhou Fanghua tapped her arm and pointed across the field.

Two figures stood nearby: their physical education teacher, Mr. Huang Xing, and a girl from their class named Jiang Yilin.

Li Kuiyi had noticed Jiang Yilin early on — she was the tallest girl in Class One, standing at around 175 centimeters.

What they saw: Huang Xing had a small clipboard in his hand, and he was striking Jiang Yilin on the head with it — more than once. Though they couldn’t hear what he was saying, his body language and expression made it plain that those hits weren’t light. Jiang Yilin had her head pulled in and her back slightly hunched — clearly the posture of someone being scolded.

Why? Had she been slacking off during the run? During tai chi?

Even so, was hitting her really necessary?

Li Kuiyi felt a twitch at her temples and stood up sharply. Zhou Fanghua reached out and grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?”

“I want to know why Mr. Huang is hitting her.”

“And… are you just going to walk over there and ask?”

“Here’s what we’ll do. Hold my hand. We’ll walk past them together like we’re heading to the snack stand, and see if we can catch what he’s saying.”

Zhou Fanghua found this person consistently, genuinely astonishing — nothing like what her face suggested.

But she liked it. She liked doing slightly outrageous things with her.

The two of them joined hands and descended from the stands, chatting and laughing as naturally as they could manage.

As they drew level with Huang Xing and Jiang Yilin, before they could even make out what he was saying, they watched him raise that clipboard again and bring it down on Jiang Yilin’s head.

“Teacher!” Li Kuiyi called out to stop him. “What did she do wrong?”