It’s just that Zoe Young really had no interest in fighting poison with poison and dragging him down with her.

Alan Carter laughed, “Back in elementary school, you would cry over this, but now you don’t. That’s the difference.”

Zoe Young was stunned for a moment. “Maybe it’s because my mom is gone now.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

“周周, do you really not care about yourself at all?”

She didn’t know how to answer.

Zoe Young truly didn’t care. When some girls were mysteriously gossiping with the just-returned Michael about this, Michael immediately slapped one of them: “Is gossiping about others all you know how to do? Damn it, you spread things everywhere without even knowing if they’re true, and then say ‘don’t tell anyone’—how about you try that yourself first!”

Later, Michael apologized to her, because her impulsiveness had blown things up, making the girl who got slapped even angrier, and under the guise of “seeking justice,” spread the story even further.

Zoe Young smiled, gently ruffled Michael’s hair, and thought to herself: “Good for you, I don’t blame you.”

“周周?” Alan Carter softly called her name, pulling Zoe Young out of her thoughts.

“Actually, it’s not like that,” Zoe Young said slowly. “I’m not giving up on myself the way you’re worried about.

I just remembered, back in elementary school, I felt like not having a dad was crushing me, terrified others would find out, and all I wanted was to hide.”

“And I really did hide,” she paused, “under your protection.”

“Later I realized, those classmates and teachers who used to affect my mood had already faded out of my life, and they don’t even remember me anymore. Even those who do, like Charlotte Lee and Charles Johnson, they’re growing up too, and will come to know what’s right and what’s wrong. So this time, with a fresh start, all I have to do is pretend I don’t know anything. Sooner or later, all these people gossiping about me in the same classroom will disappear from my life, as if they never existed.”

Living for an obsession, that’s what it means to be human. Zoe Young was almost convinced by the reason she’d just made up.

Yet, she seemed to hear Alan Carter shaking his head.

“周周, I’d rather you couldn’t get over it, and came to me crying, asking what to do, so I could comfort you. At least that would mean you still care about your reputation, that you still care about something, that you’re still like a child. Tell me, do you really think this way? Or have you just stopped caring altogether?”

No, she still cared. She thought of that cold summer, and Alan Carter’s warm embrace.

Zoe Young gripped the receiver, held back for a long time, and finally swallowed the words she wanted to say.

“Alan Carter,” she changed the subject, “are you busy at work?”

Alan Carter was never fazed by her attempts to change the topic, but this time, he paused, then suddenly laughed brightly.

“I’m exhausted, there’s so much to learn, I’m as tired as a dog. Oh, 周周, I didn’t take time off during the New Year, I saved it all for the summer. I have a relative in Thailand, I want to go to Bangkok for a trip. Would you like to come with me?”

Zoe Young’s heart trembled, and she answered without thinking, “Yes, yes!”

She was as excited as a child.

Then she calmed down: “Alan Carter, I don’t have any money.”

When the rumors about Zoe Young were at their peak, Andrew Lane was in a coastal city in the east, attending a physics and math competition training camp.

He kept calling her, but she never picked up. But every night, he would receive a routine text message, telling him: “Good night, rest well, good luck.”

From being touched at first to now, the texts felt more and more like a routine comfort. Andrew Lane suddenly started to doubt his one-sided, burning love.

Nathan Lucas’s call came one morning: “Hey, young master, do you know about your girl…”

“What do you mean, my girl?” Andrew Lane scratched his head. “She’s not mine yet… give it a few years before you call her that.”

“Fine, cut the crap. Your future girl, something happened to her, do you know?”

Andrew Lane felt as if a hand was squeezing his heart.

“What happened?”

Nathan Lucas rambled on, then added, “But it’s all just gossip, don’t take it too seriously. I thought for a long time about whether to tell you, didn’t want you to get distracted over there, but… sigh, do what you think is best.”

Andrew Lane hung up and immediately called Zoe Young’s phone, but as usual, she didn’t answer.

Was it because she was upset and didn’t want to talk to him?

Or did she not need anyone’s concern at all?

Andrew Lane put down his phone and gave a bitter smile. In the end, he was still just someone else to her!

And so summer arrived.

Charlotte Lee raised her hand to shield her eyes from the blazing light, and after a while, her arm grew sore.

The morning flag-raising ceremony was only halfway through, and the sun was already beating down on them. The days were getting longer, and she often woke to find it already bright outside, with none of the ambiguity of early spring.

The student giving the flag-raising speech on the podium was a first-year boy, his voice flat and tone stiff. Charlotte Lee thought of Thomas Chase, who had been away at training camp for a whole month.

She remembered how, during evening self-study, they would hold hands and talk on the top floor of the dark administration building. She would confide her troubles to him, but always carefully left herself some room, complaining in a “graceful” way, generous and measured.

He would hug her from behind, gently nuzzling her smooth hair, telling her things she already understood—but when he said them, they sounded different, very different.

Charlotte Lee suddenly found it all very ironic.

She kept telling herself, if this person were disfigured, and you thought about his character, you definitely wouldn’t like him anymore, right? Right?

But she just couldn’t stop. Whenever she thought of that blurry outline, she would unconsciously put on a fake, eager smile.

A love that wasn’t really love, a breakup that wasn’t really a breakup.

Still missing him, missing him so much she couldn’t sleep. At night, she would wake up crying from the pain.

Living for an obsession, that’s what it means to be human. The square was packed with people, and Charlotte Lee suddenly felt very lonely. She knew that while Jennifer Lewis ate lunch with her, she was also gossiping about her with others. She knew a bit about those rumors, kept telling herself not to get upset, but still couldn’t help wanting to know what they were saying.

The cooperation between your enemies and your friends will completely destroy you—one is responsible for spreading rumors and slander, the other for telling you all about them and the devastation they cause.

Jennifer Lewis poured out all the gossip to her, holding nothing back, every detail, and even pretended to be righteously indignant.

Charlotte Lee didn’t want to deal with Jennifer Lewis anymore, but her silence at lunch only confirmed Jennifer Lewis’s suspicions—

She’d been dumped by Thomas Chase, was still clinging to him, so much so that she’d lost her appetite and become withdrawn. At the same time, she was coveting first place, and, unable to get it, was even more depressed.

When the flag-raising ceremony ended and everyone headed toward the teaching building, Charlotte Lee suddenly noticed that Zoe Young was walking not far from her.

“It’s starting to get hot,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“The sun gave me a headache during the flag-raising ceremony.”

“It was really hot.”

Charlotte Lee smiled. “Am I pretty boring?”

Zoe Young shook her head.

“Do you miss Andrew Lane?”

The girl raised her eyebrows in surprise. Charlotte Lee didn’t know if that expression meant “Why are you asking?” or “Why would I miss Andrew Lane?”

Charlotte Lee and Zoe Young had never been close, but the recent pressure made her desperate to confide in someone.

“But I miss someone,” Charlotte Lee said openly, her smile bleak.

Zoe Young seemed to know what Charlotte Lee was thinking, and said softly, “He should be coming back soon.”

“So you’ve heard the rumors too,” Charlotte Lee kept smiling.

“What rumors?”

Zoe Young’s expression didn’t look like she was lying at all. Charlotte Lee was taken aback, then shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“There are rumors about me too,” Zoe Young smiled, “and they’re all true.”

Charlotte Lee turned her head away.

The rumors about her were almost all true as well. She was still carefully texting Thomas Chase, she still wanted to reclaim first place, and although she’d developed a physical aversion to that position because of Thomas Chase, she needed it. She needed the only proof that could allow her to shut out the disgusting atmosphere of rumors around her, and she needed it to heal the twitch in her mother’s left cheek.