They congratulated her: “Zoe Young, you’re amazing.” Zoe Young forced a stiff smile, her cheeks flushing, and said, not at all calmly, “Nonsense, who says I’m amazing… I’m not amazing at all…” Everyone kept teasing her, backing it up with grades and rankings. Then she declined even more awkwardly, and everyone got even more excited… For the first time, Zoe Young didn’t mind being surrounded and teased by a group of unfamiliar classmates. Their laughter sounded so sweet, and she suddenly thought they all looked very nice. “Alan Carter, I know I should stay humble and not get arrogant. This is just the first exam—there will be many more in the future. I definitely won’t let it go to my head. My journey is still long!” The pen paused on the paper. She no longer put on an overly modest expression, but grinned foolishly, touched her nose, and added,

“But… let me be proud for a moment now! I’m so happy.”

Alan Carter really never wrote back. Zoe Young had long since stopped hoping. After sending the first letter, she had waited symbolically for a week, but after a slight disappointment, she let it go. She no longer picked special stationery—she could just tear off a piece of scratch paper to write a letter.

Even though she kept writing letters that would never get a reply, Zoe Young still didn’t feel sad. Now, even the always stern Chinese teacher would smile and pat her head after reading her essays. In Class Six, which was below average in the grade, Zoe Young was the teachers’ greatest pride. She even had many friends now. So many people liked her—people said she was pretty, said she had good grades, said she was friendly. On weekends, girlfriends would link arms with her to pick out pretty notebooks and all kinds of pens at the stationery store; after class, many people would gather around her desk to ask what extra workbooks she did outside of class…

Fate, without any warning, knelt on one knee and respectfully put a glass slipper on her. The little Cinderella was overwhelmed, not even having time to give thanks.

“Alan Carter, you have no idea how happy I am right now.” But Zoe Young forgot that fate, this moody prince, whether he wants to kiss you, hug you, or slap you with domestic violence, never gives advance notice. In the middle of a self-study period, when the homeroom teacher Monica Zack burst into the classroom with a wary and sinister look, most people were still laughing and playing around, and the three boys in the last row hadn’t even had time to pull their feet off the desks.

No matter how arrogant you are, when you hear the words “call your parents,” you still get scared. “Ethan Xavier, what’s going on with you? Didn’t you learn your lesson after I scolded you last time?!” “What the hell did I do?!” Ethan Xavier pulled his feet off the desk and shouted at Monica Zack at the top of his lungs. He had a long face, never shaved, always wore a sequined black outfit, and was the only boy in class with a cell phone. Every sentence he spoke was full of crude words.

“Did you just talk and disturb the students around you? Aren’t you ashamed?! Why are you yelling at me? You think you’re so tough?!”

The boy and girl in the class argued back and forth, neither side winning for a while. Ethan Xavier leaned arrogantly against the wall, stubbornly repeating, “Ask who saw me talking?” He jerked his chin at the whole class. “Go ahead, ask, who dares say they saw me talking just now?”

Monica Zack was red with anger, and, not holding back, pointed at Zoe Young and said loudly, “Zoe Young, tell the teacher, did you hear Ethan Xavier cursing and shouting during self-study just now?”

Zoe Young froze. She slowly stood up. Monica Zack’s gaze was full of trust, while Ethan Xavier’s slanted look was full of unmistakable threat.

Everyone was looking at her. Zoe Young panicked. She knew there was no middle ground for her. “I…”

From the start of junior high until now, the classroom had never been as “quiet as if you could hear a pin drop” as it was at this moment.

Zoe Young nodded lightly. “Yes, he was talking.”

Monica Zack always exposed the “informant” and forced her to tattle face-to-face. But Zoe Young still stood on her side despite her fear, just because she’d once said to her, “You’re really smart.”

Ethan Xavier opened his mouth wide, still not reacting. “I—” He’d only gotten half the curse out before Monica Zack dragged him out of the classroom by the ear.

Zoe Young saw the threatening look Ethan Xavier shot her, and her mind went blank. In the hallway, Monica Zack’s one-sided scolding could be heard, and Ethan Xavier didn’t talk back anymore. But that silence made Zoe Young shiver. She didn’t know how long it was before she heard Monica Zack change her tone to answer a phone call, then hurry away in high heels, leaving only, “Go back to class first, I’ll call your dad!” A few seconds later, the back door of the classroom was slammed open with a bang, even the glass shaking.

“I’ll—your ancestors for eight generations!” Zoe Young turned back in despair and saw a few of his buddies holding him back, all talking at once: “Don’t make trouble, if you break something you can’t afford to pay for it, why bother with a girl,” as if they were talking about a fragile vase. She lowered her head in silence. “You know what, Alan Carter? I feel so useless. He cursed at me so horribly, but I didn’t dare talk back. Yes, I was afraid he’d hit me. I never knew someone could curse so viciously, but I couldn’t cry. He cursed for a full ten minutes, nonstop. And no one spoke up for me. I have so many ‘good friends,’ but not one of them spoke up for me.

“Not a single one. Long after that boy left the classroom, they finally dared to come over and tell me not to stoop to his level. I don’t blame them. You see, even I didn’t dare stand up. The worst part is, I still had to smile and tell them I didn’t care, that I wasn’t angry at all, why bother with a thug. As if saying that could save a little face. But I know my smile was totally fake.” Zoe Young gently burst the beautiful pink bubble in front of her, lowered her head in humiliation, and saw the truth behind the bubble.

“But, there was one thing that made me happy.” Zoe Young stopped writing, and Michelle Cindy’s strange smile floated before her eyes. That day during the exercise break, she suddenly appeared beside her, curled up one side of her mouth, and smiled a little creepily. “I scattered a whole handful of thumbtacks on his chair,” she said.

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3. The Hero No More

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Michelle Cindy dropped that line and left, her awkward figure somehow looking a bit dashing in Zoe Young’s eyes. She didn’t react until all the students had finished the exercise break and were filing back into the classroom, when Ethan Xavier’s duck-like screech almost blew the roof off—the rest of the class stared at Ethan Xavier in shock, but she was delighted.

Ethan Xavier was chatting with his buddies, all smug, and sat down on his chair without looking—then shot up like a rocket.

Actually, only two tacks stuck him—but that was enough. The homeroom teacher Monica Zack was in the classroom asking about the incident, and Ethan Xavier had already been carried off to the nurse’s office.

Zoe Young turned around and winked at Michelle Cindy in the second-to-last row, mouthing a silent thank you. Michelle Cindy quickly lowered her head, as if she hadn’t seen anything.

“Alan Carter, I’m still the same as before, but now when they ask me out, I find excuses to turn them down. I told my mom about what happened, and she told me that when I grow up, I’ll get used to everyone just minding their own business, and I won’t blame them anymore. She told me not to be too idealistic, not to be too harsh, that relationships just need to be good enough, or else I won’t be happy. Honestly, I don’t really understand what she means. She’s in business, so she only needs contracts, not sincerity. But I need sincerity.

“Alan Carter, do you have friends? There must be way more people around you than around me, right? But do you have friends?” Classmates who meet by chance, then part ways after a few years—should you be grateful they kept you company for a while, or regret that you couldn’t truly connect? The confusion rising in Zoe Young’s heart lingered for a long time. She still smiled at her classmates, still studied hard for Zhenhua, but those ten minutes of shameless cursing were like a trapped beast in her heart, occasionally letting out a muffled roar.

But soon, something else came up for her to worry about.

After taking three days off, Ethan Xavier came back to class and punched a boy who couldn’t help but laugh when he saw him, making everyone too scared to mention the tacks in his butt again.

Zoe Young stopped using the back door early on. She sat in the first row, those boys were in the last row—out of sight, out of mind. But after PE class, when she was heading back to the classroom, she still saw that group of boys hanging around the front door, joking with each other. That Ethan Xavier spotted her from afar—and actually smiled at her.