Chapter 31 - Trust
Zhao Yu was a spoilt brat but she was only 15 years old – still just a child!
“Zhao Yu, your earlier words caused a dent to my reputation. Let me warn you, please stop your behavior of infringing on my personal rights. If not, I can sue you for slander. You are not of legal age, but you are already 16 this year. The country’s law is that anyone 16 years or above can be legally charged. Are you prepared to be sued by me?
“Me, what crime have I committed?”
Zhao Yu was stupefied, she had merely stated a few facts, at most they were just gossip about Qiao Nan. What did that have to do with committing a crime?
“Don’t you feel ashamed that you don’t even know that you’ve committed a crime? Don’t tell me that you think you don’t need to be responsible for what you said?” Qiao Nan rolled her eyes. “If you have nothing better to do, please read more books on politics. We are already in secondary three, there’s a lot of law information in those books. Moreover, you are a high school student, don’t act like a moron about law.”
Threatened by Qiao Nan, Zhao Yu was really scared, she started to flip the pages of this year’s newly issued politics textbook.
True enough, there was a lot of law-related knowledge in the textbook.
Although there was no mention of slander in the book, she thought about the look of of conviction on Qiao Nan’s face when she had said those words, and did not dare to gossip about Qiao Nan anymore.
The rest of the classmates had ears for themselves. They clearly heard Qiao Nan and Zhao Yu’s argument.
Initially, when everyone heard that Qiao Nan scored full marks because she cheated, they felt that it was unfair. Why should someone who cheated on the exam receive the best grade for an individual subject?
But everyone did not have that deep an enmity with Qiao Nan.
Besides, this was ultimately a rumour which had just started today, not everyone believed this.
Not long after, a girl came over and sat beside Qiao Nan. “Qiao Nan, do you know why Zhao Yu said that about you just now?”
“Why?” Previously, Zhao Yu just sounded like sour grapes.
“Someone has been spreading that you are close to a group of hooligans, those hooligans were bad and did not have clean hands and feet, they climbed into the school to steal things before. So someone said that your english grades were so good because the hooligans helped you to steal the test papers prior to the exam, that is why you scored full marks.”
Since when was she close to hooligans?
“It’s ridiculous that people believe in such baseless rumors.” Qiao Nan was shaking her head. “Don’t talk about the rest, if I had the means to get the test papers, why did i score 85 marks for Chinese and Maths? Put aside maths, the marks deducted for my Chinese test were those that required memorizing.”
Upon hearing what Qiao Nan said, her classmates felt that she had a point.
True, since she was stealing, why would they steal for one subject and not all?
That Chinese paper of Qiao Nan, which Teacher Li was so angry about, all of the 14 marks were content that required memorizing.
In the whole class, except for Qiao Nan who scored zero out of 14 marks, even the slower ones could get around seven or eight marks.
The first thing that needed to be done after receiving the test paper was to find the answer and memorized them.
Based on her results, it was illogical that she had cheated.
“True, I did not believe.” That girl’s face turned slightly red after hearing Qiao Nan.
Qiao Nan replied with only laughter. Was the girl being nice by clearing her doubts or trying to gather more information? As an adult, she was not oblivious.
If she really did not believe the rumor, why was she embarrassed?
Qiao Nan laughed. The other party seemed to know that she did not get what she expected and felt self-conscious, so she quickly returned to her own seat.
When peace resumed, Qiao Nan could not help thinking, who was the one who could not see eye to eye with her, who went around spreading such ridiculous rumors?
Hooligans.
Thinking about what happened throughout her aggregated two lifetimes, Qiao Nan recalled one matter. This happened recently – it was yesterday.
Yesterday, she saw a group of people surrounding, beating up and scolding a person. She directly found the policeman and saved the person. Was it because of this?
While reading her book, Zhao Yu, whose mind was floating elsewhere, stole a glance at Qiao Nan. Actually the mastermind of the rumors about Qiao Nan was not anyone else – it was none other than Zhao Yu.
However, Zhao Yu’s initial version of the rumor was not the same.
Yesterday, Zhao Yu looked for Teacher Li to request Teacher Li’s guidance on her essay. Hence, Zhao Yu left school late, slightly later than Qiao Nan.
The two of them headed home in the same direction – they had to pass the same main road.
As she felt awkward, Zhao Yu would rather slowly follow behind Qiao Nan’s back than to catch up with Qiao Nan to go home together.
Upon reaching the quad, Qiao Nan changed her direction as she wanted to go to the residence of the Zhai family.
Zhao Yu, who followed behind, saw that something was amiss. Qiao Nan should not be heading home in that direction. Where was she going?
Out of curiosity, Zhao Yu decided to tail her after much consideration.
When Zhao Yu caught up with Qiao Nan, it was at the time when Qiao Nan brought the police to save the person.
Zhao Yu did not see anything else, she only saw Qiao Nan running towards that group of hooligans.
The hooligans had sticks in their hands and blood on their bodies. At the sight, Zhao Yu was scared out of her wits. Carrying her schoolbag, she ran all the way home. When Zhao Yu reached home, her heart was still pounding loudly.
When the neighbors’ children came to look for her to study together, Zhao Yu could not help but mention this matter, and told them she wondered when Qiao Nan had gone astray – she was even in such a good relationship with the punks?
When the neighbors’ children confirmed the identity of the few hooligans, they unintentionally revealed one matter. “It was those people who came to our school during the summer vacation to steal things. If Qiao Nan is close to them, she will certainly be able to top the class every year.”
Rumors are always spread the wrong way. The most recent version that was spread to the school was that Qiao Nan had always scored well in her exams because she relied on this group of hooligans to help her steal the test papers.
Qiao Nan was a good student, that eye-catching name made it impossible for people in the school to not know her.
When there suddenly a scandal related to a model student, the speed of the news spreading was faster than that of the light.
“Qiao Nan, Teacher Chen requested that you go to his office.” The class’s Maths Representative said after he returned from Teacher’s Chen’s office, where he sent the homework to.
Zhao Yu laughed. “Still not admitting, even Teacher Chen summoned her for a talk, perhaps her parents will be called next.”
“I’ve been Qiao Nan’s classmate for several years, I don’t believe she is such a person.” The student who was seated at the same desk as Zhao Yu started to be argue with her again.
“Zhou Lei, what is your problem, why are you always putting in good words for Qiao Nan, what benefit did you receive from Qiao Nan?”
Zhou Lei was the class’s Sports Representative. Lean and energetic, he was certainly good at sports, especially basketball. His three-point shots were amazing.
10 years later, this was a full-grown little basketball prince who would make the young ladies’ hearts throb.