Chapter 92: “Self-Protection”
When Yu Yuan heard the familiar knock on the door, her first reaction was to open it.
But as she reached the doorway, she realized something was off and called out through the door, “Did you bring Sesame with you?”
Yesterday, Yu Xin hadn’t brought Sesame, and she had opened the door anyway—that was far too careless. She absolutely couldn’t make the same mistake again!
Standing outside, Yu Xin found it amusing. She reached up to scratch under Sesame’s chin where he was perched on her shoulder. Sesame immediately let out a “meow” and rubbed against her hand.
Sesame: Mom! Pet the cat more! More petting!
Hearing Sesame’s cry, Yu Yuan quickly opened the door. She saw Sesame trembling slightly as he stood on Yu Xin’s shoulder and became instantly furious, “How could you carry Sesame like that! What if he falls?!”
Yu Xin wanted to say that this was Sesame’s new favorite game lately—despite the wobbling, he was actually perfectly steady, and it was hard to get him down even if she tried.
But seeing how worried Yu Yuan looked, Yu Xin decided not to mention it.
Amid Yu Yuan’s nagging—“Be careful not to drop Sesame”—Yu Xin walked into Yu Yuan’s room and sat down on a chair.
Sesame leapt down to the floor, heading straight for the glass door of the TV cabinet like he knew the place well: The cat remembers there’s yummy stuff in here!
Yu Yuan opened the glass door and pulled out a bag of freeze-dried treats from the corner, hesitating before pouring a handful into her palm.
Yu Xin fixed her with a look.
Yu Yuan sheepishly poured most of them back, leaving only five.
Sesame looked at Yu Xin, and seeing her nod, happily began eating from Yu Yuan’s hand.
Yu Yuan was enjoying feeding the cat when Yu Xin suddenly said, “Didn’t some of your classmates come to our class today and cause trouble?”
Yu Yuan’s hand trembled, and a piece of freeze-dried treat fell to the floor. Sesame didn’t mind at all and crunched it up with a “crunch crunch.”
From her reaction, Yu Xin knew their guess had been correct—the spray paint on the blackboard had indeed been done by Class 10 students.
Yu Yuan also realized she had been too obvious—but wasn’t that because Yu Xin had guessed so precisely?! How did she know?
Could this be the level of a top student?!
“We guessed that the person who sprayed the blackboard was targeting Teacher Chen. And then we happened to hear that your homeroom teacher said something bad about Teacher Chen, so our first suspicion was Class 10.” Yu Xin explained simply.
Guessed? That explanation was way too condensed! Yu Yuan grumbled inwardly.
But she knew that wasn’t the main point here.
She slowly sat down in another chair and said softly:
“First of all, it has nothing to do with me. If anything, it was just a personal action by a few boys in our class—most people didn’t even know about it.”
Yu Xin gestured for her to continue.
Since she had started, it became easier for Yu Yuan to go on.
She recounted everything she had seen and heard upon arriving in the classroom that morning, then asked nervously, “I heard that your class hung up a banner to cover the words?”
“Mm. Just to cover it for now—we didn’t want the teachers to see those two characters. Several people were still scrubbing the blackboard at noon,” Yu Xin nodded.
“What two characters?” Yu Yuan asked curiously, summoning some courage.
Yu Xin glanced at her: “Trash.”
Yu Yuan froze, then flared up: “Why are you suddenly insulting me out of nowhere?!”
“I mean—the two characters they wrote were ‘trash,’” Yu Xin said, enunciating each word.
Yu Yuan’s anger vanished instantly, and she awkwardly looked away, “Oh… I see. That’s still way too much, writing something like that…”
“So you also think they shouldn’t have done it,” Yu Xin said immediately.
Yu Yuan faltered, mumbling, “I just think it’s not right to go to someone else’s class to do something so insulting—especially targeting a teacher… Your homeroom teacher didn’t even do anything. As for Teacher Chen, he…”
She trailed off, suddenly realizing—Class 3’s improvement was a fact; Class 10’s average score being lower than Class 3’s was also a fact.
Shen Mingzhe was scolded by Zhang Xuehai, and Chen Zelin was only mentioned as a comparison—he hadn’t done anything wrong himself.
When she really thought about it, those boys should’ve been targeting Zhang Xuehai, the one who said Class 12 wasn’t as good as Class 3, if they wanted revenge. So why did they go after Class 3 instead?
Was it because they didn’t dare provoke Zhang Xuehai, so they chose the seemingly easy target of Class 3?
No — it was because during Shen Mingzhe’s retelling of the incident, he shifted the blame onto Chen Zelin.
As if — if Class 3 didn’t perform well, Class 12 wouldn’t get scolded.
Yu Yuan clenched her fingers tightly, murmuring, “Old Shen… why would Teacher Shen do something like that?”
Yu Xin didn’t comment, only asking, “Can you tell me which boys did it?”
Yu Yuan snapped back to her senses, realizing what Yu Xin meant. She quickly shook her head, “No way! Those boys are on very good terms with Yan Zhengqing. If you try to retaliate and he finds out, you’re finished!”
Yu Xin thought for a moment, “He’s not afraid of the Jiang family?”
When she mentioned the Jiangs, Yu Yuan hesitated before replying, “If it’s Jiang Chuchu, he probably wouldn’t do anything to her. But there are other people — Yan Zhengqing would take it out on them!”
True — Gu Qinghuan followed a “don’t involve the innocent” principle, but that didn’t mean others would stick to that rule.
Jiang Chuchu might be able to protect a few people, but she couldn’t protect everyone in Class 3.
Yu Xin let out a breath. She wasn’t great at thinking through these kinds of matters — when it came to social maneuvering, Gu Qinghuan was much better.
After thinking for a while, she finally asked, “Would you be willing to talk to Qinghuan and Chuchu?”
Yu Yuan: “Huh?”
When Gu Qinghuan saw that there was suddenly one more person in their small three-person group chat, she thought she was seeing things.
She rubbed her eyes and looked again.
No mistake — Yu Xin had added Yu Yuan.
Yu Xin: [I didn’t know how to get the information out of her, so I just added her here.]
The implication was clear: Yu Yuan knew who was behind the spray-painting incident, but wouldn’t say. So Yu Xin had dumped the task of prying it out onto Gu Qinghuan and Jiang Chuchu.
Jiang Chuchu was probably showering or doing homework, since she didn’t reply right away.
Gu Qinghuan, on the other hand, had just finished her homework. She greeted immediately:
[Good evening~]
Yu Yuan: [Good evening.]
Gu Qinghuan thought — wow, for someone usually so lively, she was surprisingly reserved in the group chat.
Instead of immediately asking about the spray-painting, Gu Qinghuan began with: [Can you tell me why Class 12 did this?]
Yu Yuan stared at her phone for a while, then glanced at Yu Xin, “You reply — didn’t I already tell you?”
Yu Xin stayed still, holding Sesame to check if its claws had grown too long.
So Yu Yuan had no choice but to type slowly into the chat herself.
She explained about Shen Mingzhe complaining in class about Zhang Xuehai and Chen Zelin, and said the boys’ actions came partly from annoyance, and partly to vent on Shen Mingzhe’s behalf.
Gu Qinghuan: [So it was just their own private actions…]
Yu Yuan suddenly felt lighter: [Exactly! I didn’t even know they were going to do this — lots of other classmates didn’t know either.]
Gu Qinghuan: [But if you had known, would you have tried to stop them?]
Yu Yuan’s brief feeling of relief vanished instantly.
Gu Qinghuan: [On the flip side — the reason they feel free to do things like this is because they know none of you will step in.]
Gu Qinghuan: [This isn’t just those few boys’ problem — it’s a problem with the whole of Class 12.]
Gu Qinghuan: [I understand why you’d make that choice — because everyone’s afraid of Yan Zhengqing and doesn’t want to cross him. You’re trying to protect yourselves.]
Gu Qinghuan: [But, Yu Yuan, that kind of “self-protection” only fuels their arrogance, making them go further and further. Sooner or later, the fire will burn back onto you.]
