Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It wasn’t until Su Ying dropped the hose that the girls finally saw it was her.

“Su Ying, are you crazy? She stole your life for over a decade, and you’re actually helping her?”

“Are you being sidelined by her? Are you too afraid to speak up? If you’re being forced to help her, just say so and we’ll help you.”

Su Ying, however, took my hand and looked at them coldly.

“I hate internal female rivalry the most. If you want something or like something, work hard to get it yourself. What kind of talent is it to bully people?”

“Su Wanwan is my sister, and she will be for the rest of our lives. If any of you dare touch her again, don’t blame me for being ruthless.”

She pulled me along as we walked away. In that moment, looking at her profile, I felt as if she was glowing.

Su Ying took me to the school clinic and had me change into a tracksuit.

After I finished, she took some tissues and wiped my face.

“What are you crying for?”

I touched my face, only then realizing I had been streaming tears for a long time.

“I’m sorry. I stole thirteen years of your life. I always thought you disliked me. Thank you… thank you for helping me.”

Su Ying should have hated me, yet she still helped me.

She wiped my face haphazardly, rubbing so hard it hurt.

Although she always kept a straight face and rarely smiled, I felt like I understood her a little better now.

She was cold on the outside but warm on the inside; she just wasn’t good at expressing herself.

“You’re still smiling? Are you an idiot?”

“I really am stupider than you. No matter how hard I study, I can never get the top grades.”

She paused. “If there’s something you don’t know, you can ask me.”

My heart leaped with joy. “Thank you.”

She finished wiping my face and stuffed my dirty clothes into a plastic bag. Turning to me, she asked, “Don’t you suspect that I was the one who leaked the secret? After all, I’m the person in school who understands the situation best. You even thought I hated you.”

I blinked, looking at her a bit blankly. “But if you wanted to say it, wouldn’t you have said it long ago? It couldn’t be you.”

Although Su Ying was aloof, she was upright and fair in her dealings; she wouldn’t do something like that behind someone’s back.

Besides, my intuition told me it wasn’t her.

Su Ying stared at me in a daze before reaching out to ruffle my hair. “You really are a fool. Haven’t you ever read those stories about ‘Real and Fake Heiresses’?”

I shook my head, then nodded. “I have, but the fake heiresses in those are always the villains.”

And I was that villain.

Su Ying suddenly burst out laughing, messing up my hair even more. “Truly a fool.”

I rarely saw her laugh, but she looked beautiful when she did. Her smile was like a fresh breeze, blowing away the haze that had been trapped in my heart for years.

The Liu Family came to find me a few more times, but I never yielded.

“Everyone at school already knows my business anyway. I’m not afraid of you talking.”

Liu Wei and Aunt Li both cursed at me, calling me ungrateful.

“You’re living like a dog begging for scraps in the Su Family. They all know you’re our seed. No one will ever love you. You look down on us, but you’re just like us-rats in the gutter who can never see the light of day.”

When they couldn’t get any money, they wanted to hit me, hurling vicious insults.

My heart ached, but I could only pretend I didn’t hear them.

In any case, I would never give them a single cent.

At school, those girls didn’t dare to bully me so blatantly anymore, but they began to ostracize me in secret.

In many ways, cold violence and psychological abuse are even more terrifying than physical harm.

No one would associate with me. They drew rats on my desk and poured dish soap over it. No one spoke to me; they even skipped over me when passing out test papers.

I didn’t resist or say anything; I just studied in silence.

Su Ying was right: relying on anyone else isn’t as good as relying on yourself.

Instead of agonizing over these things, it was better to study hard and achieve my own results.

Besides, I had Su Ying with me.

Perhaps the previous incident had flipped a switch; she was much closer to me than before, becoming almost inseparable from me.

She was using her actions to prove that she stood with me and that the Su Family hadn’t rejected me.

Aside from her, there was also the class monitor, Liang Qi.

He was also very kind to me. He would hand me my test papers separately and help me wipe the filth off my desk.

The girls all thought he liked me. Some said he had poor taste, or that he had been bewitched by me. They said that because I came from a poor background, I must be using some low-class methods to seduce him.

I really didn’t understand. They clearly called me ugly, yet said I was a temptress. Wasn’t that a contradiction?

We didn’t tell our family about the bullying.

My brother had gone off to university and was very busy. My parents were also busy lately; there were some problems with the business, and they were leaving early and returning late every day. I didn’t want to add to their troubles.

When I said this, Su Ying looked at me silently, stroked my head, and sighed.

Probably because I was always being picked on, she seemed to sigh more and more whenever she looked at me.

As high school graduation approached, Liang Qi received an admission offer from a prestigious university abroad. Many other classmates were also planning to study overseas after graduation.

Both Su Ying and I chose to take the National College Entrance Exam and stay in the country for university.

Studying abroad cost too much money. Ever since I learned the truth about my identity, I had tried to minimize my expenses as much as possible, not wanting to spend too much of the Su Family’s money.

Liang Qi asked me out, saying he would be leaving the country soon and had something to tell me.

His tone was somewhat ambiguous, as if he intended to confess his feelings.

Over the years, only he and Su Ying had been kind to me, and I was very grateful to him.

If I were to say I liked him, perhaps I did.

I dressed up a little.

Su Ying watched me in silence before suddenly asking, “Do you like him?”

I thought about it. “Maybe. But he’s going abroad; even if we like each other, we can’t be together. I just want to talk things through with him.”

Su Ying didn’t say anything else. She picked up her book of practice exams and walked away.