Green Plum, Green Plum (9)
“Why are you so good to her?”
Shen Yelan was late.
Since graduating from elementary school, she had never been late to school again. Because she was constantly disliked by her relatives, she was eager to grow up, to be self-reliant, and to end this life of living under someone else’s roof.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to leave—
But her relatives would always find a way to bring her back.
Every time she was brought back after calling the police, she would be reprimanded by the neighbors and onlookers. The crowd would murmur, thinking she couldn’t hear.
“She really causes trouble for adults. Her relatives are kind enough to raise her despite her being an orphan, and she still causes them trouble. So ungrateful! If she were my child, I’d have slapped her already.”
“Exactly. It’s definitely because they’re too good to her. Why are the police so busy every day? It’s all because these kids watch a couple of TV shows, get a temper, and cause trouble by running away from home. Is it really because she has a mother who gave birth but not one who raised her?”
“In my opinion, she needs a good beating. A couple of beatings and she’d behave.”
When she was little, she was too sharp, thinking those people had such thoughts because they were deceived by her relatives’ kind faces, so she screamed:
“That’s not true!”
“They took my parents’ things! They are thieves! I don’t want to live with them!”
The murmuring in the crowd stopped briefly, and some elder came over and slapped her.
She was stunned by the slap, didn’t even cry, just heard the person in uniform next to her trying to mediate:
“Hey, hey, hey, we can talk this out. No need to hit the child.”
“Sorry for the trouble. We’ll take her back now. The child is just talking nonsense because she doesn’t understand. None of that is true. You see, we haven’t neglected her in terms of food and clothing, and we haven’t abused her. It’s all because she’s too immature.” Her aunt came over, wearing that fake smile, nodding and bowing to the mediator.
After all, even a clear-sighted judge can’t settle a family quarrel.
She was still so small.
No one could help her.
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Moreover…
Did those onlookers really care about the truth?
After the crowd dispersed, the next day, when Shen Yelan was carrying her backpack downstairs, she happened to see through a security gate a usually loud neighbor flicking a child’s backpack.
“Stay away from her. Who knows where she learned it from, but she’s very scheming at such a young age. Don’t play with her, or you won’t know when you’ve offended her.”
Little Shen Yelan stood there, meeting the woman’s gaze through the vertical bars of the iron gate, confused and bewildered.
She thought, should she forget everything her relatives did?
Clearly, she wasn’t the one at fault, so why did these people still dislike her?
She thought for a long, long time.
Later, she stopped thinking about it because she had gotten used to it.
……
“Oh my, was it Shen Yelan who just got caught by the homeroom teacher and punished to stand? Isn’t she from Class 1? I heard Class 1 students voluntarily go to the classroom at 5:50 in the morning. Our class’s morning reading starts at 6:20, and she was actually late?”
“She’s a top student, okay? Not like us slackers. Maybe she was just studying somewhere else and lost track of time, which is why she was late.”
“That makes sense.”
The voices in the class woke Xu Jiao from her nap. Last night, after helping Su Xi with her disastrous homework, she was dragged by her little follower to sing karaoke at home all night, claiming she was too tired from studying. So, in the morning, she simply caught up on sleep.
Now woken by the voices from Class 7’s morning reading, Xu Jiao yawned slowly, her eyes brimming with tears, and she casually glanced outside the classroom, through the window glass, and saw a familiar figure.
Shen Yelan?
She reached out and poked the shoulder of the boy with glasses in front of her.
“Hey, what’s up?” The boy, who had been bought over with a milk tea, now treated her with extraordinary reverence, as if he would do anything for Xu Jiao at her word.
Xu Jiao lifted her chin, signaling him to look outside the window, and casually said, “Why is she standing outside?”
The boy with glasses used his large, thin Chinese textbook to block his face, adjusted his glasses, and lowered his voice, “She was late, got punished by the homeroom teacher to stand through the entire morning reading.”
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“Sigh, the homeroom teacher is so annoying, so inflexible. Before, our class monitor, who always ranked first, heard that Class 1 allows the top student in the grade to take time off freely, and she also went to ask for it, but got scolded by the homeroom teacher.”
“We used to think the homeroom teacher was impartial, but guess what?”
“Last time, the principal’s daughter didn’t do well in the exam and accidentally dropped to our Class 7. The homeroom teacher directly arranged for her to sit with the class monitor, asking them to help each other. Clearly, he just wanted the class monitor to help her study. Such blatant flattery makes me want to vomit…”
Xu Jiao didn’t bother to listen further. She just squinted her eyes and looked outside the window again. After a while, she patted the boy with glasses on the shoulder:
“Got it, turn back around—the class representative has been watching you for a while.”
The boy’s voice stopped abruptly, and he obediently turned back, shaking his head as he recited the text.
Xu Jiao was left staring at Shen Yelan’s back, narrowing her eyes slowly.
She remembered that -20 favorability rating again from yesterday.
……
Morning reading passed in a flash.
During the break, Shen Yelan silently came in through the back door, pulled out a chair, and sat down next to Xu Jiao.
Suddenly——
A hand reached over, pushing a packaged bread across the seam where two desks were joined, placing it on her desk.
Shen Yelan was somewhat surprised and followed the direction of the hand, meeting Xu Jiao’s slightly tired and weary eyes.
Despite her sleepy appearance, Xu Jiao lazily drawled:
“Have you had breakfast?”
“If not, this is for you.”
Shen Yelan was quite taken aback, looking at the red bean paste bread on the desk. She was about to refuse, but her stomach betrayed her with a long “growl.”
She hurriedly lowered her head, mumbling, “Th-thank you.”
But…
Why was Xu Jiao suddenly being so nice to her?
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From close by.
Xu Jiao slumped back onto her desk, and the system’s puzzled voice emerged:
“Huh? Why are you being so good to her?”
Xu Jiao yawned lightly again, covering her mouth with her hand. Beneath her eyelashes, her eyes, usually calm and untroubled, showed a slight ripple:
“If I’m good to her, her favorability towards me decreases—”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“After all, according to the setting, she is someone who, despite experiencing many hardships, still retains a good heart and can distinguish between good and evil. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be moved by that domineering CEO later and have a deeply sadomasochistic romance for dozens of chapters.”
“Right now, I’m very curious to see what will happen when her favorability towards me reaches negative one hundred.”
