[“Luo Siyu, you wouldn’t be that clueless about yourself, would you?”]

The major joint exam in February every year carries the most weight among all mock exams.

In this exam, the teachers setting the papers would abandon their previous approach of increasing difficulty and instead simulate the difficulty of the national college entrance examination to the greatest extent. Moreover, the marking was done across schools, and all the top provincial high schools participating in the joint exam would be included in the ranking. This meant that the ranking achieved by students—especially top students—in this exam would be very close to their final provincial ranking in the national college entrance examination.

No one dared to take it lightly.

The exam results came out quickly.

First place in First High, Zhou Leqi, 732 points, first in the city, sixth in the province.

Second place in First High, Hou Zihai, 729 points, second in the city, eleventh in the province.

Third place in First High, Yan Lin, 725 points, third in the city, twenty-second in the province.

Among the top thirty in the province, First High had only these three students on the list. According to the admission situation of Tsinghua University and Peking University in the province over the years, only the top thirty were relatively guaranteed to be admitted in the first batch—of course, candidates ranked lower would not be able to enter their desired popular majors.

Zhou Leqi and Hou Zihai were both satisfied with this exam result. Although Zhou Leqi was still 5 points behind the top provincial scorer in this simulation, she finally broke the 730 mark this time, with a total deduction of only 18 points across all six subjects, which meant that all her subjects except Chinese were basically close to full marks.

Although Yan Lin felt a bit frustrated for getting third place, he could accept the result because his provincial ranking was quite high. Another good news was that Mi Lan ranked 43rd in the grade and 1627th in the province, which could be considered within the top 2000. In other provinces, she could definitely get into a top 211 or a lower-tier 985 university, but going to Beijing might mean not finding a very suitable school. Yan Lin felt a mix of joy and worry, neither completely satisfied nor completely dissatisfied with her score, so he gave her equal parts praise and warning.

Old Pan was basically satisfied with the overall exam results of Class One. The average score of the science students in First High ranked second among all schools in the province, and Class One was the best class in First High, so the overall level was considered stable. However, First High hadn’t produced a provincial top scorer for many years, and Old Pan had always hoped that he could train one. After thinking it over, he called Zhou Leqi, Hou Zihai, and Yan Lin, the three students most likely to achieve this, to his office and gave them earnest instructions.

“The school has high expectations for all three of you,” Old Pan said, sitting behind his desk and looking at the three students standing in front of him. “You still need to continue your efforts in the upcoming sprint stage. I believe you also discovered some of your weaknesses in this exam. Don’t relax, summarize carefully and solidify your foundation, and strive for even better results next time.”

After speaking, his eyes swept over Zhou Leqi and Hou Zihai again, adding, “The three of you happen to sit together, so help each other more often, but don’t get too close, lest it affect your studies!”

A clear warning.

Zhou Leqi kept her head down, not daring to say a word because of her guilty conscience, while Hou Zihai was very calm, as if Old Pan wasn’t talking about him. Yan Lin felt even better, thinking that with this couple as a distraction, Old Pan wouldn’t discover his relationship with Mi Lan...

And the last place in the whole school in this exam was still Luo Siyu. Her provincial ranking was also terrible, second to last in the bottom ten, single-handedly dragging down the average scores of every subject in Class 43. This made the homeroom teacher of Class 43’s eyelids twitch and his hair almost stand on end in anger.

The results of Class 43 were lower than the neighboring liberal arts Class 44 just because of Luo Siyu. This made the entire Class 43 feel very frustrated. Every time class started, they would be bombarded by the subject teachers. After many times, everyone got annoyed, and consequently, their attitude towards Luo Siyu became even worse.

And Luo Siyu’s mood had already reached rock bottom. One reason was the mess at home, and the other was Liu Jun’s disappearance.

Let’s talk about home first.

Zhou Lei didn’t come home on New Year’s Eve, which almost drove Gao Xiang crazy. She kept calling Zhou Lei non-stop, checking up on him, making a call every two minutes on average, almost like she was possessed. Zhou Lei didn’t answer until the first day of the Lunar New Year. When he came back, he was reeking of alcohol and avoided talking about why he didn’t answer the phone, which of course led to an argument.

Gao Xiang’s belly was already very big. Being eight months pregnant was very risky for a woman in her forties. In the intense argument, she gradually felt unbearable abdominal pain. Eventually, things escalated to the point where they had to call an ambulance. As a result, the entire Butterfly Bay neighborhood spread the news that their couple’s quarrel had reached the point of needing hospitalization.

Gao Xiang’s water broke on the way, and she gave birth prematurely. The child was indeed a boy, just as Gao Xiang had hoped, but... he was a deformed child.

He was diagnosed with visceral deformities such as heart and digestive tract malformations. The doctor said this was a potential risk of childbirth for older mothers because the aging of the mother’s body and ovaries increased the probability of damage from various radiation and harmful substances, and multiple factors would increase the chance of genetic mutations. Moreover, organ malformation was likely just one aspect; the child even had a risk of intellectual disability...

This news was undoubtedly an unbearable heavy blow to a “family” whose emotional foundation was already shaky. Gao Xiang was completely dumbfounded, and Zhou Lei didn’t know how to react. Looking at the thin and deformed child on the hospital bed, he couldn’t muster even a trace of affection in his heart. And when he turned his head to look at Gao Xiang, who was also lying on the bed next to him, the look in his eyes was more than just impatience.

It was irritability, disgust, unspeakable hatred, and a frantic desire to avoid trouble at all costs.

So they fell into endless quarrels, hostile and hateful towards each other. The loving and intimate 모습 they had when they first had the affair was completely gone. Every day was filled with吵吵吵. Luo Siyu even felt that it wouldn’t be surprising if they killed each other one day.

These messes at home bothered her endlessly, but what was even worse was... Liu Jun had also disappeared.

He left City A, returned to Z University, and also stopped answering her calls and replying to her messages, vanishing without a trace as if he had evaporated from the world.

She was furious and subconsciously began to imitate her mother, calling him every two minutes, pestering him like a madwoman, finally forcing Liu Jun to answer the phone because he couldn’t stand it anymore.

His first words were: Luo Siyu, are you sick?

The person who had been rolling in bed with her less than half a month ago suddenly turned hostile. This, of course, was unacceptable to Luo Siyu, who was experiencing her first serious “relationship.” She began to accuse Liu Jun of being irresponsible and a scumbag.

But unexpectedly, Liu Jun’s reply broke her even more.

“Irresponsible?” The person on the other end of the phone sneered. “What responsibility do I have towards you?”

Luo Siyu was completely dumbfounded. “...What did you say?”

“We enjoyed each other, it was consensual. What’s wrong with a one-night stand?” Liu Jun’s tone was already very impatient, and later it revealed increasingly obvious sarcasm. “Or do you think that just because we did it, you can consider yourself my girlfriend?”

“Luo Siyu, you wouldn’t be that clueless about yourself, would you?”

This last sentence completely crushed her.

It was at that moment that she truly realized a problem: she, Luo Siyu, was not respected by anyone.

The students at First High didn’t respect her, the teachers at First High didn’t respect her, Liu Jun didn’t respect her, and Zhou Lei didn’t respect her either. They all looked at her with those damn prejudiced eyes. They bullied her because they thought she didn’t deserve anything better!

Why!

Why!!!

Luo Siyu broke down.

For the first time, she felt so powerless. She wanted to take revenge on Liu Jun but found that she had no way to do so. She wanted to prove to others that she deserved to be respected but had no evidence to show. So, what could she do besides rage impotently? After sending Liu Jun several messages filled with swear words, she was blacklisted by him. From then on, she lost the channel to contact him again, and then she could only despondently drown her sorrows in alcohol.

And another problem arose: she had no money to buy alcohol.

Zhou Lei was now almost at the point of tearing his face off with Gao Xiang, so how could he have the leisure to give Luo Siyu pocket money? As for her mother, she was now wholeheartedly trying to find ways to operate on her deformed younger brother, busy and annoyed every day, and had no time to care about her. So, she was penniless, without even a direction to turn to for a drink to escape reality.

What could she do? After thinking it over, she could only go find someone to freeload off of.

Ding Peng was one of her options.

Ding Peng didn’t know about her breakup with Liu Jun yet. He only knew that Luo Siyu hadn’t paid much attention to him recently, and now she was looking for him again. This alone made him couldn’t help but be smug, thinking that this time, getting with her shouldn’t be a problem, right?

So he happily bought her drinks and meals. When she got drunk, he wanted to hold her hand, touch her thigh, and open a room, but in the middle of it, Luo Siyu suddenly burst into tears, wailing loudly. She drunkenly cursed Liu Jun as a scumbag who just wanted to sleep with her, cursed First High as a garbage dump of snobs, cursed Zhou Lei as a heartless and ungrateful man, cursed her own mother as a money-grubbing wretch, cursed her own brother as a deformed child with bad luck. In short, the whole world was against her, and she was just an innocent little girl persecuted by fate.

She was drunkenly slurring her words, and Ding Peng didn’t quite understand anyway. Besides, he had no intention of understanding at all. He only had one thing in mind, which was to sleep with Luo Siyu. So, he dealt with her while casually cursing along with her, and after they were done cursing, he poured more alcohol down her throat. After that, he finally managed to get her into bed.

Wasn’t Luo Siyu clear about Ding Peng’s intentions? Didn’t she know what the consequences would be of going to Ding Peng for a drink?

Of course, she knew.

She was clear and acquiesced because she also desperately needed someone to soothe the intense pain and imbalance in her heart at this moment. She needed a boy who was infatuated with her to rebuild her confidence, or perhaps the psychological mechanism behind this indulgence was more complex—she had given up on herself. She was acting out against what she saw as extremely unfair fate. She wanted to completely destroy herself in order to carry out a childish revenge against fate, not knowing that this couldn’t damage “fate” in the slightest; the only person she could hurt was herself.

And after a night of indulgence, reality crushed down on her again. Fortunately, Ding Peng was a decent person. Although he had been fond of messing around with other girls before, he was somewhat serious about Luo Siyu and wanted to have a proper relationship with her.

So, on the morning after they slept together, he proposed that Luo Siyu officially become his girlfriend.