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When Li Kuiyi was in her third year of middle school, a pair of young sweethearts emerged in her class, exchanging furtive glances every day, wrapped up in each other’s sweetness.

At that time, Li Kuiyi’s world consisted essentially of three things: studying, reading, and Fang Zhixiao. And so, even though the girl who was in that relationship sat directly in front of her, Li Kuiyi had noticed nothing at all — in the end, it was Fang Zhixiao who had mysteriously told her about it as the latest gossip.

There was a strange unspoken pact among students. Despite the school’s repeated emphasis that early romance was forbidden, it was rare for anyone to go and report it to the homeroom teacher — behaviour that would have been seen as small-minded and despicable. By the age of fourteen or fifteen, they already understood well enough that even if the informant appeared to be in the right, they would be regarded as a snitch and reviled for a thousand years.

But the homeroom teacher found out in the end.

Cleanly and decisively — a conversation, a call to the parents, a forced break-up.

The girl buried her face in her arms on her desk and wept softly. She was pretty and lively, well-liked in the class, and many people gathered around to comfort her. Between sobs, she said: “The homeroom teacher said… said he heard it from a classmate…”

Everyone immediately erupted in righteous indignation, hurling curses at the informant.

Afterwards, a group of them gathered together and worked through the class one by one, eventually landing on Li Kuiyi as the suspect.

The reason was simple: Li Kuiyi was the homeroom teacher’s class representative, and someone said they had seen her going in and out of the teacher’s office frequently over those past few days. Someone else said they had seen Li Kuiyi walking alongside the homeroom teacher after school just the day before.

Once the seed of suspicion is planted, it grows wildly. The girl naturally began to connect the dots — ever since she had started dating, many people would tease and joke about it in a good-natured way, or kick up a small commotion when her boyfriend walked past. But Li Kuiyi never did. She seemed completely oblivious to all of it; when others made a fuss, she simply kept her head down doing her work, not lifting her eyes even once.

Wasn’t that odd? Teenagers at this age were most interested in anything to do with love and romance — just like Fang Zhixiao, who was always the loudest one making a commotion.

The girl did not make a scene, nor did she confront Li Kuiyi directly — but the classmates she was close to immediately distanced themselves from Li Kuiyi.

Li Kuiyi remained completely unaware of this, because her interactions with those people had never been deep to begin with, and she could not feel the sudden sharp deterioration in their relationship over such a short span of time.

It was not until someone busybody went with an air of great concern to warn Fang Zhixiao, urging her to keep her distance from Li Kuiyi — and Fang Zhixiao slammed the desk and shouted “Are you people out of your minds?” — that Li Kuiyi finally realised, belatedly, what had happened.

In the end, it was she who took the initiative to find the girl: “On what grounds do you think it was me?”

“Aren’t you the one who goes to the homeroom teacher’s office every day? Isn’t that right?”

“I’m his class representative — isn’t it normal for me to go to the office often?”

The girl snorted. “And what evidence do you have to prove it wasn’t you?”

A gust of resentment lodged in Li Kuiyi’s chest. Yes — she had no concrete evidence either. She could hardly go to the homeroom teacher and ask him to openly declare who had informed on them.

She fell into a state of self-interrogation.

She felt like a suspect being watched by the police — to prove her innocence, she should theoretically produce an alibi.

But evidently, she could not.

She could only retort rigidly: “And what evidence do you have to prove it was me? Just because I went to the office? Don’t you find that reasoning laughable?”

Such a pointless argument naturally produced no result. The two parted on bad terms. Li Kuiyi continued to be shunned by those people, but she did not particularly care, because those people were not important to her. What she cared about far less was whether they were close to her or not. The person most affected was actually Fang Zhixiao — she was always naturally sociable and got along with everyone, and suddenly having no one willing to talk to her was genuinely hard for her to adjust to.

Only then did Li Kuiyi begin to worry, afraid that Fang Zhixiao might stop being friends with her too.

Fang Zhixiao was passionate and impulsive — she would stand up for Li Kuiyi at the first opportunity and fiercely denounce anyone who slandered her. But once she calmed down? Would she carefully weigh the pros and cons and choose to side with the others?

That was the first time Li Kuiyi played the sulky card with Fang Zhixiao. After school, she said to her flatly: “Believe whoever you want to believe. I won’t force you. Either way, the outcome doesn’t matter to me.”

As though by saying this, she had made herself impenetrable — as though even if Fang Zhixiao left her, she would not be hurt.

The result was that Fang Zhixiao cried out in furious tears: “Who’s the one not trusting whom here! Li Kuiyi, you are truly heartless — I don’t want to be your friend anymore, and you don’t even care anyway! We’re cutting ties right now, and whoever takes it back is a dog!”

In that instant, Li Kuiyi saw clearly the dark and shameful pettiness of her own heart. At the root of it, she had simply never fully trusted Fang Zhixiao — nor fully trusted the friendship between them.

She burst into tears too, sniffling and pouting: “I’m sorry.”

Afterwards, the two of them held each other and cried their hearts out. Fang Zhixiao wiped her nose and said — something along the lines of: what is all this, even if you were strapped with explosives and trying to blow up the earth, I’d still be on your side!

She rambled on about all sorts of things — but pointedly said nothing about who would be a dog if they took it back.

After that, the young couple went underground, no longer as conspicuous as before, and very few people in the class knew about it. But it still could not escape Fang Zhixiao’s notice. For one, ever since Li Kuiyi had been wrongly accused, she had been watching that couple’s every move like a hawk. For another, Fang Zhixiao was extraordinarily attuned to the rosy-pink bubble of romance — no clue, however small, could escape her sharp eyes.

And so, Li Kuiyi walked into the office without a hint of hesitation and reported them.

She said to that girl: “Don’t get it wrong — this time, it really was me.”

This incident seemed to have been resolved perfectly, as though it had left no actual damage on Li Kuiyi — yet she still found herself trapped in an unspeakable, nameless spiral. Whenever she thought of it, she felt suffocated: when I am questioned, what kind of proof of myself am I supposed to produce?

Later, she watched a film called Let the Bullets Fly. She had not fully understood it, but one scene lodged itself firmly in her memory — the question of “how many bowls of cold noodles are actually in your stomach.”

Perhaps what the director intended was to show that no one cares how many bowls you ate. They simply want you to cut yourself open and show them. But Li Kuiyi could not help wondering: so what do I do? Aside from cutting myself open — how am I supposed to prove how many bowls I ate?

Just now, she felt she had finally understood — you want to know how many bowls I ate? Then gouge out your own eyes and let me swallow them. See for yourself.

In short: if you doubt something, you provide the proof. I will not prove it for you.

Chen Guoming was utterly incredulous. He had lived for over forty years, and had been a teacher for over twenty — this was the first time anyone had stood in a position of lesser power yet declared, with complete self-assurance, that he should be the one to produce the evidence.

The girl before him had clear, bright eyes, and she nodded as though affirming her own conviction. “This is the correct logic. We are not unwilling to accept questioning — but we will not accept questioning based on groundless speculation or fabricated claims. So I hope that, Mr. Chen, you will be able to find concrete evidence regarding our romantic involvement. Otherwise, we will not be responding, nor will we be accepting any punishment.”

Chen Guoming pointed at himself, both annoyed and amused: “I’m the one who has to prove it?”

“Yes. You prove it.”

What an outrageous joke. In truth, Chen Guoming understood perfectly well what Li Kuiyi was saying — he simply felt that children of fifteen or sixteen possessed a kind of reckless courage. Right now she was living in school, like an ivory tower, so she could say anything without fear. But once she truly entered society — could she look her high-and-mighty supervisor in the eye and say, “You’re questioning me? Please first provide evidence of your suspicion”?

Being too sharp-edged was not a good thing.

Chen Guoming had naturally forgotten that when he thought this way, he was himself high-and-mighty — yet he felt he was entirely thinking of the student’s future: “Do you think this solves the problem? You’re placing the entire hope of resolving this situation squarely on someone else’s shoulders! If you can’t produce evidence that you’re not in a relationship, the school can naturally declare that you are, and take corresponding disciplinary action. I ask you — who would you go to complain to then? Write another letter to the principal?”

He Youyuan stood to one side watching the two of them go back and forth, feeling as though a Third World War was on the verge of breaking out — though it was difficult to predict which side would emerge wounded.

Li Kuiyi’s eyes widened slightly in irritation, yet she refused to yield even one step: “Defining an incident without evidence and imposing punishment on the parties involved — that’s not reasonable.”

“Not reasonable — what’s reasonable then? Is it reasonable to have the principal go find evidence for you?”

“Ha —” He Youyuan could not hold back a laugh.

Both parties instantly ceased fire and looked at him simultaneously. Chen Guoming extended his hand and gave him a firm smack on the head: “And here you are enjoying the spectacle, are you?!”

He Youyuan: “…”

What? He hadn’t even been in the fight — how was he the one getting hurt?

But he decided he had better save the world.

His lips curved into a cool half-smirk. “You want evidence that we’re not in a relationship? I have some.”

With that, he reached into the pocket of his school uniform and rummaged around, pulling out a mobile phone.

Chen Guoming’s expression darkened instantly.

He Youyuan understood perfectly well that this move was going to cost him eight hundred of his own men in order to kill a thousand of the enemy — but what choice did he have? He could not just watch Li Kuiyi and Chen Guoming argue until the sky fell and the earth went dark.

He unlocked the phone, swiped to the screen, tapped into his messaging account, found Li Kuiyi in his contacts, and opened their chat window.

“Here — these are all my conversations with her.”

They had only chatted twice. And to be precise, neither exchange could really be called a conversation — more like business being conducted with complete detachment.

“Your pen-washing cup is here with me.”

“Oh.”

“?”

“Bring it to me after the holiday.”

“Do you not know how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’?”

“Please bring my pen-washing cup to me after the holiday. Thank you.”

When the voice message played, both of them felt somewhat awkward — He Youyuan in particular, since he had not previously noticed that his voice in that last line sounded as though he had suffered some enormous grievance, with an inexplicable hint of a whine to it.

Ugh. Revolting.

He wrinkled his nose and feigned complete indifference.

The second conversation was even more concise and to the point.

“Tomorrow morning at 6:10, at the entrance to Zhuangyuan Residence. I’ll return the pen-washing cup to you.”

“Oh.”

A moment later.

“Thank you.”

Chen Guoming looked at it — and had to admit, this… truly did not resemble a conversation between a couple. It looked more like a successful taming exercise — turning a little savage who did not say “thank you” into a civilised modern human being who did.

He Youyuan slipped the phone back into his pocket without a sound and said: “Mr. Chen, do you believe us now? Who has a relationship without even talking? This makes a Platonic relationship look positively Aristotelian!”

Platonic, Aristotelian, what are you even on about — Chen Guoming’s face hardened: “Hand over that phone. Who gave you permission to bring a phone to school?!”