Chapter 69: Zhang Shutong's Capture |
Right up until the second period break in the afternoon, Zhang Shutong still hadn't returned to the classroom.
The morning's building block incident wasn't over yet—Teacher Song was conducting another major investigation in the office.
As a result, the hallway was noisy and chaotic. Only the students of Grade Nine, Class One were studying on their own, supervised by the class monitor.
But this bespectacled girl truly lacked authority. Getting the students to stay put and not run outside was already the best she could manage. As for people chatting with each other? Let them be—there was no controlling it.
So the most brazen little clique in the class had already openly switched seats.
Du Kang greeted a male student with a grin, and in exchange for a carton of student milk, moved to the third-from-last row by the window.
Right behind him was Qingyi, who sat in the second-to-last row. In Qingyi's words, this was strategically vital territory.
And the person who had squeezed in beside Qingyi early on was none other than Ruoping.
The three of them were preparing to hold an emergency meeting.
"Unfortunately," as the only person in the know, Qingyi signaled for everyone to brace themselves for bad news, saying gravely, "Shutong's been exposed after all."
"Exposed?"
"He's the one who put Li Yipeng up to smashing the building blocks." Qingyi said in a low voice.
"What?" Du Kang and Ruoping were shocked.
"Du Kang, keep your voice down, or I'll have to write down your name..." At that moment, the class monitor's weak voice drifted over from the podium. She only dared pick on easy targets.
"Mercy, mercy." Du Kang turned and clasped his hands together apologetically. He had no heart for banter though, and immediately pressed on: "Explain it clearly—how does this involve Shutong?"
"I'm kidding." Qingyi observed them seriously for a while, finding it genuinely amusing, then leisurely revealed the answer. He casually tilted his head to the side, dodging Ruoping's clutches. "Don't get so worked up, hey..."
He only managed to dodge her hand, not her foot—the girl stomped hard on his shoe.
"Hurry up and talk, quit being so mysterious." Ruoping glared at him.
Meng Qingyi then handed his phone to her while going to wipe off his sneakers. They were white, and getting stepped on really hurt—he treasured them as much as his hairstyle, viewing both as things a man holds dear.
A moment later.
After the chat records on the phone had made the rounds, the emergency meeting transformed into a gossip session.
"I knew there was something between those two—best desk partners of the year, and now they're in cahoots." Du Kang raised an eyebrow.
"When did they get so close? Weren't they ignoring each other just a while ago?" Ruoping was stunned.
Du Kang patted Ruoping's shoulder, saying earnestly: There's no helping it—your Shutong's wings have grown hard, you can't control him anymore. I suggest you let go.
"Get lost, who are you calling old?" Ruoping shot back irritably, then asked Qingyi: "So what are the two of them doing in the office right now?"
"Shutong said, 'fishing again.'"
"What do you mean 'again'?"
"Probably because we just went fishing last night." Qingyi was also somewhat puzzled.
As they talked, students kept leaving the classroom and coming back. Teacher Song was calling names by seat order, so it would soon be Du Kang's turn. The three of them discussed it and originally wanted to go together as a support group to offer condolences—after all, they had that kind of rapport with the homeroom teacher.
But Qingyi stopped them:
"Shutong specifically instructed that the three of us should go one at a time."
"This is also part of the plan?"
"This is also part of the plan."
Ruoping found this mysterious behavior exasperating. She waved her hand, saying: Du Kang, you go scout ahead. Du Kang made a show of saluting and said: Yes ma'am, wait for my good news.
Then he turned and ran off.
Before long, Du Kang returned with a sigh.
"It's over, it's all over." As soon as he entered the classroom he started making a fuss. "Shutong really got caught..."
"What happened? Hurry up and tell us, what did you see?" Ruoping asked urgently.
"As soon as I went in, I saw him standing facing the cabinet. Teacher Song and Gu Qiumian were sitting nearby, each with a colder expression than the last. I even heard them say they were going to call his mom over...
"Oh, and they said something about transferring him to another class. We won't be seeing him anymore after this..."
"Du Kang, Feng Ruoping, keep your voices down." The class monitor weakly reminded them again.
Du Kang didn't seem to hear—or maybe he did—but just kept sighing as he returned to his seat.
Soon it was Ruoping's turn.
Ruoping also came back quickly. She didn't sigh—she was angry:
"I think Shutong was framed. Isn't Gu Qiumian just making baseless accusations? Just because her family has money! And Teacher Song too—why does he believe everything Gu Qiumian says? I say it was someone else!"
The angrier she got, the more she wanted to go to the podium to seek justice for Zhang Shutong. Du Kang went over to pull her back, saying quietly: Auntie, please don't make a scene...
"Am I in your way?" Ruoping whipped her head around.
"You're scaring her..." Du Kang weakly pointed at the class monitor, who had already conscientiously gathered up her textbooks, preparing to give up her seat to the lady warrior Feng.
Qingyi also ran over to mediate. The two boys spent a long time coaxing and cajoling before finally pulling the sulking girl down from the podium.
The rest of the class had been completely confused at first, but after the commotion these three kicked up, they finally understood—
It turned out that the castle incident from the morning break was suspected to have been Zhang Shutong's doing.
No wonder he and Gu Qiumian hadn't come back since last period.
At this point, someone who had been to the office said quietly:
"It's probably confirmed. The homeroom teacher just wants to ask if there are any eyewitnesses."
As soon as these words came out, it was like throwing a large stone into a pond—water splashed everywhere, and discussion erupted all at once:
Some were confused;
Some were shocked;
And some were eager to find out more and watch the drama unfold.
Even cleverer students had already figured it out:
"I was wondering why Zhang Shutong suddenly went to sit with Gu Qiumian as desk partners. I thought they'd made up. Do you guys remember that scarf incident last time? Gu Qiumian's always falsely accusing people—well now it's great, this time he actually did it."
"If it really was Zhang Shutong, I don't think he's that kind of person..."
"I also think Zhang Shutong was framed..."
"Even if it was really him, you can't entirely blame him. Who told Gu Qiumian to falsely accuse innocent people last time? If it were me, I'd want to get even too."
Generally, it was the girls who spoke up for justice like this.
Even the class monitor stopped trying to maintain order, merely symbolically tapping the podium with the eraser, then pricking up her ears to listen.
Some boys wanted to voice their opinions too, but they were glared back into silence by Ruoping with a single look.
Public opinion in the classroom began to shift overwhelmingly to one side.
This continued until a male student hurried back and tapped his desk partner on the shoulder—a somewhat dark-skinned boy:
"When you go in, say as little as possible. Teacher Song is about to explode..."
Zhou Ziheng nodded, got up, and left the classroom.
It was finally his turn.
But at this moment, all he felt was puzzlement:
How did it become Zhang Shutong?
If it really was him who did it;
Then where did Li Yipeng go?
And where did I go?
It must have been during the first period in the afternoon when he heard someone say that Gu Qiumian had gone to get water. Something happened—no one knew what—and she suddenly ran out with red eyes. Then Zhang Shutong chased after her. Everyone had discussed it briefly, but how did he suddenly become a suspect?
But whether it was Zhang Shutong or Gu Qiumian, he only felt disgust for both of them. So after his initial confusion, what he felt more than anything was schadenfreude.
Didn't Gu Qiumian ignore his "warning" this morning? Now she couldn't keep her composure and was lashing out randomly at people, wasn't she?
And that boy called Zhang Shutong too—didn't you want to play the flower guardian this morning, grilling me with questions? Well, karma comes quick. Better think about how to clear yourself of suspicion first.
Thinking this, he slowed his pace.
He'd always been the type who could keep his cool. He knew that when he went in, he absolutely couldn't let his gloating show on his face. As the only person who knew the inside story, he naturally knew the real sequence of events.
If he had to describe his current mood, it would be: watching a bunch of people being played for fools, all because of one small arrangement he'd made.
He sat on high looking down, inwardly sneering.
Zhou Ziheng walked into the office.
As soon as he entered, he nearly laughed out loud. Just as Du Kang had said, the boy named Zhang Shutong was indeed standing facing the cabinet in reflection. On the other side, at the desk, the homeroom teacher had his face set sternly, and Gu Qiumian sat beside him. To Zhou Ziheng's disappointment, the girl merely had a cold expression—she wasn't crying.
Dark clouds hung over the office.
A sense of superiority arose unbidden.
But even so, Gu Qiumian was truly the most beautiful and dazzling girl he had ever seen. Even though she just sat there without saying a word, it made him instinctively avert his gaze, not daring to look too long. This inexplicable sense of inferiority made him grind his teeth.
Although he himself was the one hiding behind the scenes exacting revenge—supposedly they were enemies—sometimes he still hoped she would pay him just a little more attention.
But Gu Qiumian had never once turned her gaze toward him.
He felt inexplicably angry. Actually, his feelings toward Gu Qiumian were complicated—not like his father, who hated their family to the bone. When his father first told him to do this, he had hesitated. To burn down someone else's house—wouldn't that really cost lives? But his father said the weather forecast showed it would rain that day. It would just be a harsh lesson, nothing major would happen.
A lesson.
This notion had gradually taken root after the two of them became desk partners. He had originally thought: Gu Qiumian had no friends in class and was often alone. Once they became desk partners, he could take advantage of the opportunity—friendship, or perhaps an even deeper relationship, wasn't impossible. When that time came, perhaps he wouldn't need to do what his father said. Instead, he could persuade her, and then she could persuade her father. Wouldn't that be a better outcome?
However, the reality was that the girl named Gu Qiumian had never once looked at him seriously. Even when he went over with a smiling face showing concern and care, she would just perfunctorily nod. Sometimes when she was impatient, she simply wouldn't speak at all, just wearing that cold expression she had now... He originally hadn't wanted to teach her a lesson, not until he found himself wrapped in deep inferiority and self-loathing.
If she had been like that with everyone, it would have been fine. But as her desk partner, Zhou Ziheng could notice that she treated that boy named Zhang Shutong differently. So a month ago, he had already done a trial run of today's events:
A perfect opportunity, a dirtied scarf, a malicious accusation. Sure enough, he successfully made the two of them turn against each other.
In that case, he still had a chance. That's what he thought right up until yesterday;
But somehow these two had made up again!
Just yesterday!
And became desk partners!
That should have been his seat.
The girl was like a delicate flower on an unreachable mountain peak. If he couldn't pluck it, then crushing the petals into mud—destroying something equally beautiful—would bring its own kind of pleasure.
Just the thought of it was exciting enough to make his hands tremble.
So Zhou Ziheng never felt he had done anything wrong—
That's right, he had already made an effort.
At first, he had tried to use a gentle approach.
To mediate the conflict between their families.
But it hadn't worked.
Could you blame him for that?
It's your fault.
It's your family's fault.
If you're going to blame someone, blame yourself.
He looked at Gu Qiumian one last time.
I already gave you a chance.