Zhao Yixuan’s strength seemed to suddenly increase a lot. Xie Tao was being choked by her, her face turning red, and breathing becoming increasingly difficult.
She had no way to break free from Zhao Yixuan’s grip.
It felt like a huge stone was pressing hard against her chest, squeezing her chest cavity and gradually depriving her lungs of air.
Zhao Yixuan’s eyes had long lost focus, devoid of any vitality. The angry expression on her face, which had been scratched in several places by Xie Tao, was gone, and she seemed to be in a state of stupor.
But her hands continued to grip Xie Tao’s neck tightly, showing no intention of loosening.
Xie Tao’s consciousness gradually became unclear. She tried to grab Zhao Yixuan’s wrist but lacked the strength to shake her hand off.
Just as Xie Tao was about to lose consciousness, she felt a sudden gust of wind blowing across her cheeks, its slightly cool temperature momentarily restoring some clarity to her hazy mind.
But how could there be wind when the classroom doors and windows were tightly closed?
Xie Tao couldn’t distinguish whether what had just happened was real or an illusion.
At that moment, a faint golden light suddenly appeared, accurately shining on Zhao Yixuan.
The second before, Zhao Yixuan, who had been choking Xie Tao, felt her grip loosen as the faint golden light hit her. She closed her eyes, swayed slightly, and then collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Breathing in the fresh air again, Xie Tao touched her neck, curled up on the ground, coughing violently, tears welling up in her eyes.
Through teary eyes, when Xie Tao looked up, she seemed to see a slender figure.
Gasping for breath, tears streaming down her cheeks, she clearly saw that it was the figure of a boy.
“I almost didn’t make it…”
The boy in the black hooded sweatshirt patted his chest, wiping away nonexistent sweat from his forehead.
“You…” Xie Tao opened her mouth to speak, but her throat was dry and sore. She tried to speak but couldn’t help coughing.
“Are you okay?”
The boy quickly walked over to her, bent down, and helped her sit up.
In that moment, Xie Tao caught a whiff of a faint unknown fragrance emanating from him.
He somehow produced a thermos from somewhere and unscrewed the lid, bringing it to Xie Tao’s lips. “It’s goji berry tea, good for your health. Would you like a sip to soothe your throat?”
…?
Xie Tao was a bit puzzled. How could this teenager, who seemed to be in his teens, be carrying a thermos of goji berry tea?
Her throat was dry and sore, and she didn’t refuse. She took a few sips from the cup he offered.
“Is it sweet?” the boy asked her.
Xie Tao nodded.
“I added several pieces of rock sugar.” The boy covered the thermos lid.
Then Xie Tao watched in disbelief as the thermos in his hand disappeared in the blink of an eye.
This strange scene left her wide-eyed in astonishment.
At that moment, footsteps could be heard approaching from outside the door, as if many people were heading this way.
Xie Tao still vaguely heard Shi Cheng’s voice.
Originally, the young man wanted to explain something to her, but as he heard the increasing commotion outside, he said, “I’ll tell you about these things later, I have to go now.”
But Xie Tao called out to him, “Wait a moment.”
Her throat still hurt when she spoke, and her voice sounded hoarse.
As the young man looked at her, Xie Tao pointed to Zhao Yixuan lying unconscious on the ground and asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
“She just fainted, she’ll wake up soon.” The young man replied briefly.
Someone was knocking on the door outside. Xie Tao stared at Zhao Yixuan for a moment and then suddenly asked him, “Do you have telekinetic abilities?”
The young man was taken aback for a moment, then rubbed his chin, “…you could say that.”
Xie Tao nodded and said, “Can you make me faint?”
“What?” The young man didn’t quite understand.
“Knock me out, then wake her up, can you do that?” Xie Tao looked at him.
Zhao Yixuan was very good at turning the tables.
She really wanted to extricate herself from the previous violent incident, but Xie Tao would never allow her to get away with it.
“I’ve never heard such a unique request…” The young man clicked his tongue.
“Alright.”
As he spoke, the young man rolled up his sleeves.
Seeing him like this, Xie Tao shrank back and bit her lip, “Can you use your telekinetic abilities? Don’t hit me, I’m a little afraid of pain…”
“Afraid of pain, yet you still fight? Look at what she did to your face, scratched all over, doesn’t your face hurt?” The young man pointed to the bloody wound on her face.
“It hurts…” Xie Tao replied softly.
The boy grabbed his own hair, seeming a bit impatient, “Alright, alright, just lie down on the ground quickly! Get into position!”
Upon hearing this, Xie Tao obediently lay down on the ground.
The next moment, she only managed to see the dimly lit silhouette of the boy, and the faint golden light between his fingers blossomed like fireworks in the sky, dazzling and eye-catching.
She stared at the little fireworks between his fingers and quickly lost consciousness.
As the boy’s figure gradually disappeared, Zhao Yixuan suddenly woke up as if being pricked by a needle, and opened her eyes abruptly.
Outside the door were various noisy sounds. Zhao Yixuan shook her head, and when her eyes cleared, she saw Xie Tao lying not far away.
What was going on?
As Zhao Yixuan struggled to stand up, the classroom door was pushed open from outside.
She turned around and saw a group of people.
There were teachers, security guards in uniforms, and several classmates in school uniforms.
“Xie Tao! What’s wrong with you!”
Shi Cheng saw Xie Tao lying on the ground at a glance and hurried over.
As these people rushed past Zhao Yixuan at the door and headed towards Xie Tao, she looked at their backs, feeling inexplicably flustered.
The classroom surveillance was broken, so she dared to tidy up Xie Tao in the classroom.
Moreover, it had been more than two hours since school ended, and there were hardly any people in the teaching building.
But who could have expected that Shi Cheng would return?
And now, with everyone’s eyes on her, Xie Tao unconscious, this situation seemed very unfavorable for her.
When Xie Tao woke up, she found herself just being brought to the hospital.
In the emergency room, the nurse turned to fetch the medicine to clean the wound on her arm. Meanwhile, Xie Tao, upon fully regaining consciousness, noticed the name of the hospital posted on the glass door.
Zhou Xinyue was in this hospital.
As she sat up, the scrape on her knee from the edge of the desk that had collided with it made her furrow her brows. With a slight movement of her mouth, it aggravated the wound on her face, causing her to wince in pain, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
Nevertheless, she gritted her teeth, put on her shoes, and rushed towards the inpatient building.
“Xie Tao, what happened to you?” Yan Xiping was taken aback upon seeing Xie Tao.
“Aunt Yan, I want to see Xinyue,” she said.
Without waiting to see if Zhou Xinyue was willing to meet her, she bypassed Yan Xiping, turned the doorknob of the ward, and walked in.
“Zhou Xinyue.”
Seeing the figure lying with their back towards her on the hospital bed, Xie Tao called her name.
How could Zhou Xinyue not recognize such a familiar voice?
Her fingers twitched slightly, but she showed no intention of turning around.
Xie Tao gazed at her silhouette, her almond-shaped eyes inexplicably reddening. “Turn around,” she pleaded.
“Zhou Xinyue.”
Xie Tao called her name once again.
After waiting for a while, Xie Tao finally saw Zhou Xinyue lying on the hospital bed react.
“Tao Tao, go back,” she said.
Xie Tao limped to her bedside, grabbing her shoulder to force her to turn around.
“Tao Tao…”
Zhou Xinyue struggled to break free from her grip, but when her eyes met the face of Xie Tao, with wounds, even bleeding, and some bruises, the words she was about to say choked in her throat.
“Tao Tao, what happened to you?”
Zhou Xinyue suddenly sat up, holding Xie Tao’s shoulder, repeatedly asking her, “Who bullied you, Tao Tao?”
The familiar tone, the familiar expression.
It was still her.
She had never changed.
Thinking of this, Xie Tao looked at the girl in front of her, tears falling without warning, her lips trembling.
“Xinyue,” Xie Tao finally spoke, “don’t be afraid.”
“Have you heard what your mom said? Xu Hui has been sent to the juvenile detention center.”
Even though tears had blurred her vision completely, Xie Tao stubbornly stared at Zhou Xinyue in front of her, even though she appeared as a blurry silhouette to her.
“Zhao Yixuan wants to cover up what she has done,” Xie Tao reached out, holding Zhou Xinyue’s hand on her shoulder, “but I won’t let her succeed.”
Just hearing Xie Tao say these words, Zhou Xinyue froze.
It was unknown how long had passed before she suddenly spoke again, “You… know everything?”
Her voice sounded a bit dry.
Xie Tao didn’t speak, just looked at her intently.
At that moment, the hospital room was silent, without any sound.
How on earth did Xie Tao know all these things? Zhou Xinyue wanted to ask at the moment, but looking at the girl in front of her, covered in wounds on her face and body, all the questions she wanted to ask got stuck in her throat.
Like a snail that had long been accustomed to shrinking into its shell, at this moment, she felt as if someone had completely removed her shell used for hiding, leaving her no way to escape.
And at the same time, her heart, which she thought was numb, was once again overwhelmed and capsized by various emotions that had been suppressed for too long.
She had thought she had long lost the ability to say anything.
But at this moment, looking at Xie Tao in front of her, her only friend for so many years.
She suddenly broke down and cried.
How long had it been since Zhou Xinyue had cried like this?
Since she started to dislike herself, since she decided to give up on herself, she had never cried again.
Because she no longer harbored any hope, everything in this world seemed dead and stagnant to her.
That night, Zhou Xinyue hugged Xie Tao and cried for a long time.
“Tao Tao, have I lost weight?”
Later, Zhou Xinyue suddenly asked her.
Xie Tao wiped the tears from her face with a tissue, gently replying, “You’ve lost weight.”
“Then, does that mean I’m not ugly anymore?”
Like a child yearning for candy, she looked at Xie Tao, her eyes, red from crying, seemed to flicker with a bit of hope.
At that moment, Xie Tao’s tears fell once again.
She hastily wiped her face, not caring about the pain the tears caused on her wounds, took a deep breath, and with a steady voice, earnestly said, “You’re not ugly, you’re obviously… the most beautiful.”
Zhou Xinyue was never ugly, her features were delicate, and her skin was fair.
She wasn’t overweight before either.
Xie Tao had seen her when she was thin.
However, during junior high, Zhou Xinyue fell seriously ill, and her weight gain was caused by taking steroids.
This type of steroid-induced obesity is the hardest to lose weight from.
At that time, Zhou Xinyue didn’t care about these things and remained the most cheerful and lively person.
For someone who didn’t care about these things to start caring more and more, it must have been because someone kept emphasizing it in front of her.
Thus, the girl who once was as cheerful and lively as a sunflower, started to become sensitive, self-conscious, and even started to despise herself.
From physical violence to verbal insults… in essence, how different are these two types of abhorrent behavior?
Xie Tao was later dragged away by the homeroom teacher, Liu Meiyu, and the emergency room doctor.
After treating her wounds, Liu Meiyu sent her home.
Liu Meiyu wanted to contact her parents, but she was stopped by Xie Tao.
Xie Tao’s knees were stitched, and she sweated from the pain while climbing the stairs.
After she hastily washed up and lay in bed, under the dim light, she looked up at the ceiling and took a long sigh of relief.
This was finally coming to an end.
She took out her phone, opened WeChat, and stared at the blank profile picture for a long time.
“Thank you.”
After typing these two words, Xie Tao hit send.
If it weren’t for him, she might still be the coward who was full of anger but had no plan and lacked the courage to seek out the truth.
She wasn’t smart enough; if it weren’t for him, it might have taken her much longer to accomplish this.
It was also him who made her feel a bit of safety in Nan City, a place that was both familiar and strange to her.
Even though he was not a man of many words and often appeared cold, he never brushed off any of her questions.
At that moment, in another dimension, Wei Yun was leaning against the bed, with an elderly man with white hair and beard kneeling beside the bed, his hand on Wei Yun’s wrist.
“The lord seems… to show no abnormalities,” the elder pondered for a moment, his head lowered as if carefully considering his words before cautiously looking up.
“If that’s the case, why did the lord experience that condition earlier? Have you diagnosed it clearly, Doctor Liu?” Wei Jing asked from the side.
“This… might be due to the lord’s overexertion these past days. Perhaps, I should prescribe some nourishing remedies?” Doctor Liu pondered for a moment before suggesting.
Wei Yun kept his eyes closed, showing no reaction.
Until he felt a warmth at his chest.
He suddenly opened his eyes, his voice clear and devoid of emotion, “Everyone out.”
Doctor Liu, as if granted amnesty, quickly responded, took his medicine box, and followed Wei Jing out.
The room fell silent.
The moment Wei Yun took out the copper pendant from his clothing, a light golden light condensed into a letter and gently landed in his hand.
He opened the envelope, and the golden-lettered paper inside bore just two short words: “Thank you.”
Wei Yun lowered his gaze, staring at the paper for a long moment.
Finally, he stood up, not bothering to put on an overcoat, wearing only a thin white undergarment.
As he stood in front of the desk, slightly bowing his head, holding a brush, and spreading out the paper, his clothing slightly askew revealing a delicate collarbone, a strand of dense black hair falling in front of him. Under the dim yellow light, his profile seemed to soften.
But before he could start writing, the copper pendant placed on the desk once again emitted a light golden glow, which then condensed into another letter before him.
“May I ask you a question?”
It was the cautious tone of that young girl.
Soon after, another letter landed in front of him.
“May I know your name?”
Holding the letter, Wei Yun stood in front of the flickering light, his amber-like eyes devoid of any emotion.
And on this night, at exactly twelve o’clock midnight.
Xie Tao waited and waited, almost completely overcome by sleepiness, when the phone she had been holding in her hand finally vibrated.
She quickly rubbed her eyes.
On the screen, in the chat interface, was the latest message he had sent, just two simple words:
“Wei Yun”
