Grace Howard didn’t expect her to be so merciless as soon as she started, her words sharp and cutting. For a moment, her eyes reddened, but she could only retort stubbornly, “Your liberal arts questions are just easy.”

Ray Cindy nodded. “Yes, liberal arts questions are indeed easy, but only for me. Actually, for me, even the entrance exam from junior high to high school was pretty easy.”

Grace Howard didn’t know if she was thinking of her own exam results, but she bit her lip hard. “Fine, I can’t out-argue you. So what if you have good grades? That’s all you have. Do you think people live their whole lives just relying on exam scores? Look at your liberal arts Charlotte Lee and Zoe Young, aren’t they both prettier and have better grades than you? You pick on me because you’re useless, right? What’s wrong with you, addicted to showing off? Still haven’t gotten over your childhood trauma?!”

She was only thinking of venting herself, and only realized after speaking that Ray Cindy’s face was pale, but she still showed no expression, just stared at her intently.

Grace Howard suddenly felt very afraid. She took a step back and almost instinctively shouted, “What do you want?”

The corridor in this part of the branch school was chaotic, so no one noticed their argument. Ray Cindy suddenly gave a bleak smile. “Charlotte Lee? Zoe Young? Good-looking, good grades? I bully you? Show off? Psychological trauma?”

Only then did Grace Howard realize her words had been hurtful. She lowered her head. “I got a little worked up, don’t…”

No, everything you said is true, every single one.

Ray Cindy narrowed her eyes, and suddenly heard a short boy passing by snicker and curse, “Zoe Young? Doesn’t even have a dad, bastard, her slut mother deserves to die too.”

Both Grace Howard and Ray Cindy were shocked. Ray Cindy grabbed the small-eyed boy, not even knowing why herself.

“I’m Zoe Young’s best friend, how can you say that?”

Even Ray Cindy herself couldn’t tell how much indignation and how much excitement was in her words.

Michael started skipping classes frequently.

Zoe Young asked her why she was taking leave every few days, and Michael’s answer was always, “Anime club is too busy.”

She thought she envied Michael. Many people envied Michael’s free-spirited boldness, being able to spend the best years of her life doing what she was most passionate about, doing what she loved most, saying whatever she wanted even if it sounded outrageous. But on the other hand, she warned herself not to be like that, telling herself that such reckless living for today and not tomorrow would come at a price.

Life is still long, all the good things and good days should be saved for the future.

For Zoe Young and her friends, “the future” only meant after getting into college. As for anything else, they couldn’t see it yet.

After the exam, Ian spent whole days slumped over his desk, not moving at all. Zoe Young leaned over and asked, “Are you sick?”

Ian’s face grew even paler, his voice tinged with desperation: “Zoe, I can’t study anymore, what should I do?”

Before he even finished, his tears were already dripping onto the desk. Ian’s fear was palpable to Zoe Young.

“Ian?”

“No matter how hard I study, my grades stay the same. Now I feel sick just looking at Chinese characters and numbers, I’m afraid to touch them. I sit at my desk until one or two in the morning, staring at history, and can’t even turn a page all night. Zoe, what should I do, what should I do?

Now just seeing the gate of Zhenhua makes me tremble all over, I don’t want to go to school…”

He seemed afraid others would hear, so his voice was very low, and his tears fell like they cost nothing.

“…Then, just don’t go.”

Zoe Young gently patted his back. “Then don’t go, go home and rest for a week. Watch TV, play games, draw, sleep!”

Ian buried his head in his arms, and after a while, said timidly, “If I miss a week of classes, I’ll fall behind.”

“You’re not getting anything done sitting here anyway. You’ve been like this for two days already.”

Ian was silent for a long time. Just as Zoe Young was about to lower her head and continue working, he finally mumbled, “Zoe Young, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

Zoe Young shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Not at all.

She only knew that every day passed by uneventfully, and maybe her greatest happiness was listening to Michael’s nonsense and watching Andrew Lane clown around.

Andrew Lane. Thinking of him, Zoe Young looked up in confusion. At the end of April, the sky was filled with drifting clouds.

After the science museum, they rarely saw each other anymore, which made Zoe Young feel relieved. Andrew Lane no longer needed to chase after her again and again to figure out his feelings, but could instead focus wholeheartedly on fulfilling his vow to “become better and stronger.” Zoe Young remembered how, on the way home from school as a child, he would tell her with animated confidence that if you don’t know what you want yet, then just try your best at everything, so that when you finally know what you want, you won’t regret not having the means to reach for it.

Maybe he still felt that this relationship and that promise both proved the truth of this life philosophy. He worked hard, and he held her hand.

Zoe Young muddle-headedly let him. She didn’t know if she should regret it.

Alan Carter accompanied her through that bone-chilling summer, with his maturity and warmth, appearing by her side like a god at every crucial moment as before. Only this time, this god could cry, could laugh, could tell jokes. Zoe Young felt that he had come down to earth for her.

When Alan Carter left, he gently patted her head and said, “Zoe, find someone to love, or to hate.”

A relationship of equal strength and motivation can give you the energy to live well.

Love makes people better, hate drives them to the top. Zoe Young didn’t give up studying because of Alan Carter, but it was her father’s phone call that made her want to be number one.

Andrew Lane probably wouldn’t understand that there are some things in this world you can’t get just by working hard enough or having enough capital.

And even if you get them, it doesn’t mean you won’t lose them.

She lost, so she understood what pain meant.

Ray Cindy lowered her head and quickly said a few words, avoiding Tina Carter’s surprised gaze.

That kind of gossipy, excited look made Ray Cindy’s heart ache with guilt.

“Anyway, I was really surprised, but she never mentioned any of this to me… I think maybe it’s that Ryan Johnson making things up, but the details sounded pretty real. Zoe Young in junior high wasn’t like this at all, her personality changed so much, I was really shocked and worried, but I don’t know why…”

After saying this, Ray Cindy pretended to look flustered and looked up. “Oh right, you mustn’t tell anyone!”

Tina Carter nodded vigorously.

Promising to keep a secret is the easiest thing in the world, even easier than leaking it.

“Actually, I’ve been pretty upset lately too,” she leaned in toward Tina Carter, imitating her, acting like a close friend, “Charlotte Lee looks at me weird. Last time I passed by the bathroom, she even said I couldn’t possibly get first place unless I cheated. I felt really bad hearing that. Actually, I really like her, she’s great at everything, I don’t know if I made her misunderstand me?”

Tina Carter immediately said indignantly, “She’s got a lot of nerve! You’re not any worse than her, why would she say that? I think she’s just jealous, desperate to be first! She should hear what our classmates say about her. Me, and Patricia Lucas, we all look down on her, she never wears her uniform, thinks she’s some fairy, and looks down on people, she’s really awful.”

Ray Cindy chatted a bit more, then naturally changed the subject, as if she hadn’t complained at all.

Innocent, aggrieved, generous, caring for friends, at a loss.

For a moment, even Ray Cindy believed her own act.

Lucas Walter walked into the classroom, and Tina Carter sensibly returned to her seat. Only then did Ray Cindy realize her body had been trembling all along.

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9. Drawing a sword to cut water only makes it flow more

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Rumors were flying everywhere.

Zoe Young sat at her desk, flipping through the beautiful color pages of “Chinese National Geography” while picking at the grapes on her plate. She had just hung up the phone with Alan Carter, her mind in a mess.

She had laughed and asked Alan Carter, back then, to escape the shadow cast by Ryan Johnson and the others, and to avoid math olympiad, she chose No. 13 Middle School as a place to quietly train herself—so why, when the heroine returned to the world, did she fall into the same trap again?

Maybe it was her father’s phone call and the invitation to “spend New Year’s together” that caused it. At the branch school, Ryan Johnson, who had always behaved himself, suddenly made a move again. This time, his identity was just a mysterious insider, not Zoe Young’s half-brother.