Chapter 87: One Sentence Stirred Up a Thousand Waves
When Wang Mengmeng heard Liu Yao say that, she immediately spoke up and described what she had seen.
“I came out of the room to collect my shoes. As soon as I stepped outside, I saw him pick up my shoes — from where I had put them out to dry, not from the ground. I saw it clearly with my own eyes. He’s lying, and I don’t know what he was planning to do with my shoes.”
Chen Yechu knew the truth, but judging by the reaction of the other educated youths, they obviously didn’t believe Wang Mengmeng. Just thinking about such a pervert made her skin crawl. After all, she did have a day where she had to wash and dry her shoes.
She turned to Li Yang and asked, “Li Yang, do you have anything to say? We should clear this up now to avoid affecting the harmony in our educated youth courtyard.”
Ning Xiyue was a bit surprised — she hadn’t expected Chen Yechu to step in.
And since Chen Yechu had spoken up, how could the male lead Yu Zhiyu not echo her?
“Yechu is right. Wang Mengmeng doesn’t look like she’s making this up out of nothing. Comrade Li, you’d better explain yourself.”
Well, that did it. With the male and female leads speaking up, everyone else’s attitude started to waver too.
Ning Xiyue silently watched the “halo effect” in action.
Zhao Jianshe, as the male leader among the educated youths, spoke up: “Li Yang, you should also tell us what happened. The two of you are telling completely different stories — maybe there’s been some misunderstanding. Let’s sort it out while everyone’s here.”
Li Yang still looked righteous and unbothered. “I already said, I didn’t do it. I’m a grown man — would I really steal a pair of your shoes? If you think I was trying to steal them, show me the evidence. Making false accusations like this out of thin air — what’s that supposed to mean?”
Since he hadn’t actually stolen them, of course he didn’t feel guilty or afraid. But the motive was different. Ning Xiyue curled her lips. This was exactly the kind of person who wouldn’t cry until they saw the coffin.
Ning Xiyue (thinking): “System, according to the usual script, I’m guessing this Li Yang is about to cry. In stories like this, when the male and female leads step in, they never miss.”
Little Turtle (system): “Oh, so you know again?”
Of course she did. TV dramas and novels hadn’t been wasted on her — no matter how powerful a villain was, they were no match for the protagonist’s halo.
But Ning Xiyue didn’t expect the blow to come so soon. As soon as Li Yang finished speaking, Wang Jiandong, who had just walked out holding a bowl, spoke up.
Looking curiously at the shoes on the stone slab, he said, “Huh, so that’s a pair of shoes? From inside, I thought I saw our comrade holding up a piece of smoked bacon and sniffing it with his eyes closed, looking very satisfied. I was even wondering if he had traded with Comrade Ning Xiyue for some bacon. But nope — not bacon, just shoes. Tsk, I was hoping to bum a piece of meat off him. Guess that’s not happening.”
Wang Jiandong shook his head regretfully, then noisily slurped a mouthful of vegetable soup.
One sentence stirred up a thousand waves.
Ning Xiyue (thinking): “Now this is exciting! I love when someone drops a bombshell so innocently.”
She quickly looked around to gauge everyone’s reactions.
A trace of panic appeared on Li Yang’s face.
Wu Guifang, the senior educated youth, looked utterly shocked.
The “protagonist faction,” led by Chen Yechu, wore complicated expressions.
And Wang Jiandong, the one who’d spoken, quietly retreated to the side to continue eating.
Who knew whether he’d done it on purpose — but he certainly didn’t look like someone who’d spoken by accident.
Meanwhile, the other party at the center of this incident was trembling with rage.
“Ha! What more excuses do you have? You’re a disgusting man, doing something so filthy. Pah! Shameless!”
Wang Mengmeng immediately understood what Li Yang had done to her shoes from Wang Jiandong’s words. Her face flushed red with shame and anger. She snatched up a thorny branch from the ground and charged at Li Yang.
“I’ll beat you to death, you sick pervert! How dare you touch my shoes!”
“Hey! Don’t fight — think about the consequences!” Wu Guifang shouted, but she didn’t immediately step forward to stop them.
Li Yang didn’t even get a chance to defend himself. Covering his face, he scrambled to dodge. The other educated youths deliberately or accidentally blocked his escape routes, allowing Wang Mengmeng to land several hits on his shoulder with the thorny branch.
Ning Xiyue took the chance to blend in, landed a hit herself, and then slipped out of the chaos. She saw Chen Yechu also hitting Li Yang several times, shouting, “You sick freak!”
Wang Mengmeng quickly learned the new phrase and started shouting “sick freak!” too while she swung.
From the sidelines, Ning Xiyue and Wang Jiandong — the butterfly who’d triggered the brawl — exchanged a glance before both turned away, pretending to watch the commotion innocently.
Conclusion: Comrade Wang Jiandong was ruthless — the legendary “white lotus hiding a black heart.”
After venting her anger for a while, Wang Mengmeng was finally pulled back by Zhao Jianshe and Wu Guifang with the help of the others.
When it was all over, Li Yang’s face didn’t have a scratch on it, but Ning Xiyue figured his body had to be aching. The physical damage wasn’t much, but the humiliation was immense.
Zhao Jianshe spoke first, his voice stern: “Comrade Li, if you ever do something like this again, we won’t step in to help you. It’s shameful to have to break up a fight because of you — especially for us men. And to think we even defended you earlier. I didn’t expect you to be this kind of person.”
Li Yang hung his head and said nothing. He didn’t feel ashamed — just annoyed that his fetish had been exposed. Now everyone in the educated youth courtyard would be wary of him.
Wang Fenglan blurted out, “From now on, we’d better collect our shoes properly and not give certain perverts a chance. Just the thought of it is disgusting.”
“Mm, you’re right. Everyone should remember today’s incident,” Wang Mengmeng said, finally venting her anger and feeling much better. She used a stick to pick up her pair of shoes, glared at them with disgust, and said, “Ugh, I’ll have to soak these for three days and nights.”
Although Li Yang was a pervert with a special fetish, his personality was actually rather timid — a bit weak. Faced with solid evidence, he didn’t dare argue back, let alone stir up trouble to retaliate against the whole courtyard for beating him.
He just wanted the incident to blow over and not let his fetish become widely known.
So, head down, he said nothing more, covered his shoulder, and walked back to his room alone.
Pathetic.
Even as a pervert, he still cared about such trivial things. This villain was useless — he hadn’t managed to harm a single protagonist, and he’d only hurt himself. Ning Xiyue gave Li Yang’s character a rating of 2 out of 10.
Zhao Jianshe, watching Li Yang walk back to his room, said worriedly, “I share a room with him… What am I going to do about my shoes?”
Wang Jiandong teased, “Don’t worry, Comrade Jianshe. I don’t think Li Yang will torture himself by sniffing your shoes.” Comrade Jianshe’s feet could rival the stench of a septic tank.
Zhao Jianshe laughed honestly. “True. Even I can’t stand my stinky feet.”
Pfft! Ning Xiyue couldn’t help laughing. “Comrade Jianshe, you’re hilarious.”
Wu Guifang looked a little uneasy. “The results for the ‘Advanced Collective’ award are about to come out. I’m just worried he’ll try something behind our backs and ruin our chances of getting a spot at the Worker-Peasant-Soldier University.”
“No need to worry,” Chen Yechu said firmly. “He wouldn’t dare blow this up. It’d only make things worse for himself.”
She knew Li Yang’s personality well and wasn’t worried he’d try anything sneaky.
In her previous life, Li Yang wasn’t exposed until just before the resumption of the college entrance exams. Even then, he became more withdrawn but didn’t react too drastically.
Thinking back now, she didn’t even want to imagine how many times in those two years Li Yang had secretly sniffed people’s shoes. The thought made her sick.
Chen Yechu shuddered.
Yu Zhiyu, always paying close attention to her, asked with concern, “Yechu, are you okay?”
Chen Yechu waved her hand with a complicated expression. “I’m fine. Just disgusted. Thank goodness he was exposed this time. If we’d found out much later, that would’ve been so much worse.”
Knowing Chen Yechu was reborn, Ning Xiyue sympathized with her for a moment. Maybe in her past life, Li Yang had even sniffed Chen Yechu’s shoes. Judging from her reaction, that was highly likely.
Yikes. Chen Yechu’s shoes had probably lost their “innocence” in the past life.
Aside from Wang Mengmeng, Chen Yechu was the one most disgusted by all this — the one most uncomfortable.
Ning Xiyue suddenly felt lucky to be a transmigrator. If she were like Chen Yechu — reborn and forced to live along the same path as her previous life — she’d have to constantly relive all that disgusting stuff. It would ruin her mood.
How much better it was to be an outsider like she was now, just eating melon seeds and watching the drama unfold every day.
Now that the “actors” had left the stage, Ning Xiyue quietly walked away and returned to her little kitchen, where she continued eating with Little Gray.
