Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I jogged down the silent, empty school road.

My own frantic heartbeat roared in my ears.

After tonight, if everything went as expected, Song Wangshu and I would be well and truly over.

He now knew I was the kind of petty person who would stop at nothing to get what I wanted, that even my first approach had been with ulterior motives.

Maybe I should have felt sad or guilty. But I felt the exact opposite. Right now, all I felt was excitement and wild, delirious joy.

Zhang Kang had spread rumors that I was a loose, shameless little schemer. He had even set things up so Song Wangshu would see me at my most pathetic, convinced I would never be able to explain myself.

But why should I have to prove my own innocence?

All I needed to do was prove that Zhang Kang was pure scum. Then every one of his slanders would collapse on its own.

Now, as I flipped through the thousands of photos in his phone album, I was practically trembling from head to toe.

So what if I lost Song Wangshu? I, Li Zhuguang, was going to personally destroy that bastard Zhang Kang today!

The moment I remembered Song Wangshu was still not far behind me, I slapped myself hard across the mouth as I ran-damn mouth, hold it in.

Forget it. I couldn’t hold it in at all.

At last, my vicious, delighted laughter rang out through the quiet campus.

After I got home,

I photographed every picture in Zhang Kang’s phone one by one, preserving them as evidence.

Just as I had expected, I wasn’t the only subject in those photos. There were other female students, even female teachers-girls from our class, from other classes, people I knew, people I didn’t…

Every photo had been taken from an angle that carried a faint, hidden malice, and none of the subjects had any idea they were being photographed.

Back when Zhang Kang led the charge in isolating me, all of these people had stayed silent.

What they didn’t know was that their silence hadn’t only fueled my suffering. It had also encouraged the abuser to reach farther and farther.

And these photos hadn’t all come from his camera album. Many of them had been manually saved by Zhang Kang.

Which meant-besides Zhang Kang, there were other creeps secretly taking pictures.

They were even sharing them with one another.

Disgusting. Filthy. Damn peeping perverts!

I forced myself to stay as calm as possible and sorted the photos into categories.

Then I opened the grade-wide group chat on my phone.

The group included the dean of students, every class’s homeroom teacher, and all the students in our grade.

If I sent these photos to the grade-wide group right now, then no matter how silver-tongued Zhang Kang was, no matter whether the teachers wanted to cover for him, his reputation would inevitably be ruined. He would become the target of everyone’s condemnation.

But just before I tapped “Send,” I hesitated.

The feeling I’d had when I saw Zhang Kang’s lock screen came surging back.

After thinking for a moment, I exited the grade-wide group chat and opened my contacts instead.

…

I worked tirelessly through the entire night.

I sent the sorted photos privately to each corresponding victim.

After sending the very last photo, I checked the clock-5 a.m.

I rubbed my aching neck and was just about to take a shower when someone suddenly knocked on my bedroom door.

I opened it and saw Grandma standing there hesitantly. “Nannan, has school been very stressful lately?”

Grandma got up at five every morning to make me breakfast before going out to collect bottles.

Maybe she had noticed the light in my room was still on, so she was worried.

I froze for a second. “Yeah. I missed one exam paper yesterday, so I got up early today to make it up.”

I put on a jacket, covering the red marks Zhang Kang had left on my wrist when he grabbed me.

Smiling, I said, “Don’t worry, Grandma. I know what I’m doing.”

There was concern in Grandma’s cloudy eyes, but she still nodded, reminded me of a few things, and left.

I let out a breath of relief.

Many people who have been isolated and bullied have been asked the same question: “Why don’t they bully other people? Why you?”

I had asked myself that too.

And the answer was simple-because they were certain I wouldn’t dare make a fuss. Certain that even if I did, no one would back me up.

My parents were both dead. My family was poor. Even at every parent-teacher meeting, the one who showed up was my elderly Grandma.

Slut-shaming could choke me by the throat, and my family background could lock my ribs in place.

They were certain there was no umbrella over my head, no road behind me.

That was also why I had taken Zhang Kang’s phone without the slightest hesitation-no one was going to catch me if I fell. I could only gather evidence and fight back on my own.

If Grandma found out her Nannan had been bullied and no one had been punished for it, she would be so upset she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

I wanted Grandma to sleep well every night.

I took a rushed shower, then dragged my exhausted body into bed to catch up on sleep.

It felt like I had only just closed my eyes when my alarm rang.

With great difficulty, I turned it off and picked up my phone. Then I saw 99+ unread messages.

The class monitor had made a girls’ group chat for Class 3.

The whole group had exploded. Messages were flying faster than a stomach after bad street food.

Everyone was furious.

Some people said they should submit it to the Campus Confession Wall and ruin Zhang Kang’s reputation. Some wanted to tell the teachers. Others said it would be more appropriate to have their parents step in and handle it…

To be honest, secretly taking photos had always existed in a gray area.

If we didn’t blow this up, there was a high chance it would be minimized into nothing.

Among the dense wall of unread messages, a star profile picture kept bouncing-Luo Xing.

She was good at Chinese, and she cared a lot about being liked, so no matter who asked her about a Chinese question, she would always answer seriously.

But she never expected that when she stood at the podium and bent over to explain a problem, Zhang Kang would raise his phone and photograph the view exposed through her neckline.

Last night, I had dragged her out of my blacklist and sent her the photos.

I had thought she must have blocked me long ago too, but to my surprise, the messages went through.

Now, she had called me several times and sent me a long essay that filled an entire five screens.

Expressionless, I swiped out of her chat, shouldered my backpack, and went to school.

…