Chapter 04
Bullying
I am willing to use a Roschett Medal in exchange for information about this classmate.
1L: Roschett Medal: A symbol of the Roschett family. The holder of this medal can freely enter and exit any shop under the Roschett family’s name.
2L: Far more than that. The Roschett family is a legal clan second only to the Nilu family. Anyone who can casually give away a medal should be the next heir of the Roschett family. A favor from the next heir. Tsk tsk tsk, OP is too generous. Post a photo. If there’s really no photo, at least describe what he looks like and roughly how tall he is. I’ll get someone to help look.
3L: Big shot… worship big shot… Let me make a wish, what if I know him…
4L: What if, I’m saying what if, it’s my bro?
5L: OP stop fishing. Post a photo. Let me see what he looks like.
6L: Must be fairy-level beauty (dog head).
7L: It’s not even freshman enrollment time. Where would there be any fairy. I bet one federal coin OP has a thing for ugly people.
8L: Photo photo photo
…
There was no photo. It was a short video of a few seconds.
The north wind howled, ghosts seemed to wail.
At dusk, heavy leaden clouds pressed down. Aurora’s temperature suddenly dropped. The dim streetlights flickered on and off. The cold air swept violently through the cedar forest. The shadows of trees on the ground and even on the walls swelled and twisted exaggeratedly, forming large patches of darkness.
From the darkness, a vague outline of a back figure was drawn.
Thin, tall, upright, cold.
He seemed to notice the camera’s gaze and turned his head in confusion. The black umbrella tilted down, covering most of his face, revealing only a section of pale, narrow jaw.
As the umbrella lifted slightly, the camera unconsciously zoomed in.
An indifferent, world-weary face. The black assault jacket zipped to the top. From the cuffs, pale bony knuckles were exposed, full of restrained tension. His gaze fell coldly onto the camera.
The camera shook once and instantly turned into a black screen.
Only the heavy breathing close at hand suddenly overwhelmed the ghostly wailing in the forest.
……
【35L: ctyvubvyhhjhvhjhigufyvugu】
【36L: Cough, cough, cough】
【37L: ……】
【38L: Damn, I can finally breathe】
【39L: Helen of Troy-like beauty】
【40L: Mm, how should I put it. Not that I said it. I just feel… how should I put it. One shouldn’t be too confident. You also have to look at what conditions you yourself have.】
【41L: Agree】
……
【82L: I don’t really want to know much. I just want to ask, what’s this classmate’s name? (poking fingers together)】
……
【134L: I scrolled the thread for half a day. Give me a little information.】
……
Lin Yan underestimated Aurora’s wind strength. The black umbrella he had just bought was instantly blown broken—the canopy flipped upward as if it wanted to carry Lin Yan into the sky.
After walking behind the teaching building, the hem of Lin Yan’s clothes was damp.
He took off his assault jacket, revealing the light coffee-colored vest inside, and calmly walked toward the classroom.
Professor Sumer’s class was Genetics.
The old professor’s legs were inconvenient, so the director specially applied for a fixed classroom on the first floor of the main teaching building.
Lin Yan entered the classroom from the back door.
The classroom was very dark. Outside the windows, shadows looked ghostly. Inside, it was noisy and disorderly.
The original owner’s seat was in the fourth row by the window.
Lin Yan walked straight to the window seat.
The class fell silent instantly.
Lin Yan saw that the original owner’s desk and chair had been ruined beyond recognition—torn books, a clown drawn on the desktop with red paint, the stool covered in glittering glue, the drawer stuffed full, emitting an indescribable stench.
As expected, Lin Yan turned around, hugged the newly received Genetics textbook, and found an empty seat to sit down.
The classmates in the classroom stopped talking at the same time, like ghostly figures in a strange tale unconsciously fixing their gaze on Lin Yan.
Only when Professor Sumer began class did the classmates heavily let out a breath, greedily inhaling, their hands quickly tapping on electronic devices.
At first, the boys did not recognize Lin Yan.
But when Lin Yan approached the seat, it was as if the world’s consciousness reset. A question mark surfaced in their minds at the same time—had Lin Yan become prettier?
No. It seemed Lin Yan had become a different person.
Gone was the shrinking, timid, foolish temperament of a top scholarship student.
The keen instincts cultivated since childhood made the nobles put away their phones and unanimously conceal their teasing gazes. Leaning back in their chairs with arms crossed, they examined Lin Yan by the window.
Lin Yan was reading.
Professor Sumer was of medium height, thin, with messy gray-white hair. Wrinkles floated lightly like waves across his face, yet when he smiled he was unexpectedly kind. When he lectured, his tone rose and fell with energy.
Lin Yan tried for five minutes.
After five minutes, he turned on his phone’s recorder, then took out Volume One of the Genetics textbook and began flipping from the beginning, looking at the course outline and semester objectives—Aurora Public School’s core courses were profound and obscure. The extended academic requirements were comparable to top universities’ academic goals.
As Professor Sumer lectured, his gaze swept across the electronic devices on most students’ desks, and he sighed almost imperceptibly.
The boys who could enter Aurora Public School were not mediocre.
They had high IQs, were arrogant and hard to deal with. Almost no one listened seriously.
Professor Sumer’s gaze circled and landed on a student reading with head lowered. His eyes lit up. His thin body squeezed through the aisle and he looked at the mind map written on Lin Yan’s desk, nodding in satisfaction.
Sumer stood behind Lin Yan and fixed his eyes on the content on the white paper—Volume One of Genetics.
Professor Sumer had nothing to say. He sighed and continued teaching.
Lin Yan did not know he had already been regarded by the professor as a slow-reacting fool.
Whenever Lin Yan did something, he devoted himself entirely, almost unable to hear outside sounds or discussions. Only after he finished understanding and writing the mind map did he realize class had ended.
The classroom was darker.
Outside the window, the wind raged. Another rainstorm seemed about to descend upon Aurora.
Figures lingering indoors anxiously flipped through books. Pages fluttered like scattered butterflies. The clock on the wall clicked as it turned, quiet yet restless.
Lin Yan calmly packed the textbooks on the desk.
The shadow behind him could no longer endure and expanded, stretched, twisted, overlapping with Lin Yan’s shadow on the desk.
Lin Yan’s brow moved slightly.
He stood up, loosely pressing the wrist joint of the newcomer with two fingers, and said coldly, “Something?”
The rain and mist that had gathered all day finally fell.
In the lightning and thunder, occasional white light filtered through the rose window, scattering at the red that faintly bloomed at the corner of Lin Yan’s eyes, giving him an indescribable magnificence.
Lin Yan’s breathing did not falter in the slightest.
But the brown-haired classmate restrained by Lin Yan’s grip had a blank mind. The brown-haired classmate had bipolar disorder. He anxiously bit his mouth, breathing slightly heavily, and asked half a beat late:
“You… you have… contacted Fang…”
With a bang.
The door was violently kicked open.
Seven or eight drenched figures instantly interrupted the conversation.
The red-haired boy at the front wore a pink brooch on his chest. The ends of his soaked hair hung awkwardly over high brows and deep eyes. His heavy gaze swept the room, sticking to the shadow in the corner, as if discovering his wife’s infidelity. Trembling with rage, he said:
“Get the hell out, all of you.”
One reason Aurora Public School had clear class hierarchy was that,
From nobles to top scholarship students, everyone wore a brooch on their uniform. The brooch colors were crimson, pink, light green, gray, blue, purple, coffee, yellow, black, and white.
The four young masters of F4 wore crimson brooches.
Top scholarship students wore white. Other nobles hovered among the eight colors in between according to family power.
Red cards were discipline. Brooches were power.
Part of the reason some top scholarship students clung to nobles was hoping nobles would give up their brooch and protect them. For ordinary nobles, giving up a brooch was equivalent to giving up part of their power. So ordinary nobles would never give up their brooch, only toy with top scholarship students.
Lin Yan followed the flow and hugged his books, preparing to leave.
As he passed the red-haired boy—
The brown-haired classmate was suddenly kicked to the ground. In the darkness, someone seemed to heavily grind over his wrist and said in a contemptuous British accent:
“Just you?”
Lin Yan frowned unconsciously.
A hand blocked Lin Yan’s movement. The red-haired boy glared at him angrily. “Why did you lie to me?”
Lin Yan looked at him inexplicably.
For a moment, Lin Yan forgot who the boy was. He was silent for a few seconds, expression indifferent, eyes innocent.
A sticky, damp gaze seemed to cover Lin Yan, sliding over his exposed cheek and wrist, trying to mark him forever in that way.
Just as Lin Yan wanted the red-haired boy to give a hint—
He inadvertently saw the black-haired, brown-eyed Eastern face guarding the door and suddenly woke as from a dream. He curved his brows and eyes slightly and asked maliciously:
“What did I lie to you about?”
Lin Yan always had a cold face. He did not like to smile.
But when Lin Yan smiled,
Ripples seemed to move in his black pupils, reflecting the person before him, hypnotic, hooking one’s soul and muddling the mind.
In the cedar forest not long ago,
It was precisely such a signal that made the boys unconsciously follow Lin Yan’s words.
Lin Yan had said only one sentence.
【I know. He’s been discharged.】
Everyone knew the school hospital had only one exit.
That exit happened to be next to the cedar forest in District Three.
After discharge, Lin Yan could only pass through that cedar forest that could easily make one lose direction.
The boys had originally gone to cause trouble for Lin Yan.
Aurora had countless beauties. They would politely ask beauties for directions.
Lin Yan had a cold beauty face that did not look like it could lie.
With brooches symbolizing power and status pinned to their chests, they never thought the beauty would lie, nor would they let Lin Yan go.
They searched the cedar forest for a long time.
After the sky completely darkened, the boys strangely encountered eerie crawling creatures.
Heaven cut off all paths.
They ran wildly out of the cedar forest.
Aurora began pouring rain again.
The soil loosened. The road was muddy.
Sticky bodies of crawling creatures. Ghostly branches.
These high and mighty nobles had never been so disheveled. Fortunately, years of noble military training allowed them to barely escape the pursuit.
Panic and despair followed one after another.
The boys viciously took out their phones to contact their parents—someone at Aurora was privately raising a giant snake.
But before contacting them,
They saw the viral anonymous forum post—the photo crowned by clowns as “Helen of Troy-like beauty” was not some unparalleled treasure, but the extremely detestable top scholarship student Lin Yan who had insulted the entire public school.
The boys realized,
They had been played.
Played by a beauty. Played by the detestable Lin Yan.
A beauty might be beautiful, but not irreplaceable.
The nobles might forget in two days, but the beauty overlapped with Lin Yan and maliciously toyed with them like hide-and-seek.
The nobles would never let Lin Yan go!!!
The red-haired boy grew angrier. His teeth trembled. He grabbed Lin Yan’s wrist.
Lin Yan reacted faster, stepping back defensively.
The red-haired boy laughed in extreme anger. His knuckles cracked. Negative emotions surged from his chest, flushing his face red. He kicked a chair furiously, even sounding somewhat embarrassed and enraged:
“You f*cking let others touch you but won’t let me!”
Lin Yan looked at him inexplicably. He pressed his aching brow and said calmly,
“When you blocked me in the cedar forest, why didn’t you think I would play you?”
The red-haired boy froze.
His family background was second only to F4 in Aurora. Everywhere he went, people flattered him. He had never been questioned like this.
He wanted to refute Lin Yan.
Before he could speak, a finger tapped the pink brooch on his chest.
At Aurora Public School, brooches were worn ten centimeters below the shoulder line.
High-ranking nobles would not obediently wear uniforms. Personal butlers would redesign the uniforms and brooch placement to match their young masters’ temperament.
Coincidentally for the red-haired Leslie,
His brooch was worn at the fourth intercostal space on the left sternal border—at the heart.
Lin Yan leaned closer.
His pale finger teasingly and maliciously tapped the pink brooch at Leslie’s heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Leslie swallowed hard. His hand clenched unconsciously. From below came a soft chuckle, seemingly mocking.
“Just because of it?”
“Just because of it, you think I won’t fight back when hit, won’t talk back when cursed?”
It felt as if a hand gripped his heart. It stopped for a moment.
Leslie could only watch Lin Yan withdraw his finger from the pink brooch and calmly leave.
The cold aura vanished.
Leslie grabbed forward, catching only air. The panic of being toyed with made him unconsciously seize a chair and smash it toward Lin Yan, roaring:
“Lin Yan, if you f*cking dare walk out today, tomorrow I’ll find someone to—”
Bang.
The crowd instinctively scattered.
The metal chair smashed into the rose-patterned wooden door said to be made of sandalwood. Wood splinters scattered everywhere. A tiny splinter even cut across the corner of Lin Yan’s eye, forming a faint red mark.
Lin Yan closed his eyes irritably.
Leslie raised his hand to block, then quickly curled his fingers.
Lin Yan walked up to Leslie in a few steps and forcefully grabbed his collar.
Lin Yan’s face was close at hand.
Leslie’s breath stopped. His neck was seized.
The surrounding boys stared in shock.
The nobles could not imagine a top scholarship student daring to mock them. They stared at Lin Yan in disbelief and shouted angrily:
“Lin Yan, do you want to withdraw from school?”
Lin Yan restrained the struggling Leslie.
Leslie could not move, humiliation nearly driving him to kill Lin Yan. He roared furiously:
“Lin Yan, you dare choke me. From today on, you’d better pray you don’t fall into my hands!!!”
Paper was sharp.
Lin Yan held the sheet and steadily sliced across the corner of Leslie’s eye.
Blood beads emerged.
A mist of blood filled Leslie’s vision. He struggled to look at Lin Yan, who had released him.
Lin Yan’s body lines and facial contours seemed covered in a layer of blood-red mist. Yet his gaze was cold, like a gorgeous ghost rising from blood.
Leslie’s heart stopped. His wrists fell weakly.
Lin Yan calmly looked at the restless figures. He reorganized his books. When he lifted his foot to leave, he looked at the disheveled Leslie leaning against the wall. Mockery faintly overflowed from his brows and eyes:
“Fall into your hands? Bully me? Like tearing my books, locking me in an abandoned warehouse, arranging people to beat and isolate me, forcing me to withdraw?”
Lin Yan turned around.
He effortlessly knocked down several boys trying to surround him and said coldly:
“You’re very welcome.”
