Chapter 6

While burying himself in review, Weng Shao couldn't help but feel grateful to his younger self from twenty years ago. No matter how difficult and miserable eighteen-year-old Weng Shao's life had been, he had always been meticulous and fully focused when it came to studying. He had organized the notes for every subject with perfect order and clarity. Weng Shao only needed to review the knowledge systems and frameworks in those notes a few more times before quickly recovering the points he had forgotten.

Thus, in the third mock exam a month later, Weng Shao's grades rose rapidly, and his rank returned to the top fifty in the grade.

That score was still far from enough to get into Jinghai University. But Weng Shao had great confidence in himself. He knew his review approach was correct. At this pace, he could thoroughly master every knowledge point before the National College Entrance Examination. During his review, Weng Shao had even created mind maps for all six subjects according to the way he absorbed information.

Compared with clearly structured but purely text-based subject notes, visual mind maps had more distinct memory anchors. His three roommates found them immensely helpful as well. Naturally, all three of them improved to varying degrees in the third mock exam.

After the results came out, the three roommates unanimously agreed that they had to treat Weng Shao to a meal.

Weng Shao knew that they were doing this not only to express their gratitude, but also to take the opportunity to get him something good to eat. They had always done this throughout their three years of high school.

They wanted to take care of Weng Shao, but they also wanted to protect his pride.

"We're paying tuition." Jiang Rui draped an arm over Zhang Chang's shoulder and said with a grin, "If this were ancient times, the three of us would have to offer the Six Shu Xiu Gifts."

The so-called Six Shu Xiu Gifts were six foods: dried meat, celery, dried longan, lotus seeds, red dates, and red beans.

As Zhang Chang listened, his inner foodie grew hungry. Swallowing his saliva, he suggested, "Let's get congee hotpot." They could cook seafood in it, as well as beef. The steaming rice porridge could bring out the freshest flavors in the ingredients. Zhang Chang didn't dare think too much about it. If he did, his drool would turn into Niagara Falls.

Jiang Rui asked curiously, "Our city has congee hotpot?"

Zhang Chang said, "Yep. My family just opened one. It's delicious."

Zhang Chang's mother, Zhao Mingyan, was from Hengde. After marrying here and living away from home for many years, she had opened this congee hotpot restaurant because she missed the food from her hometown.

Jiang Rui and Zhou Mingjing exchanged a glance, then looked at Weng Shao.

Although Weng Shao was insatiably greedy, he did not care much about food. He was fine with anything as long as it filled his stomach. Unlike Young Master Pei, who demanded exquisite food and delicate preparation, even having requirements for the plating.

Realizing he had thought of Pei Xingze again without meaning to, Weng Shao paused slightly. He did not take such a ripple—one that could hardly even be called a brush of dragonfly wings over water—to heart. He simply smiled casually. "I'm fine with anything."

"Awesome, then it's settled." Zhang Chang raised both hands and said excitedly, "Time is short and the task is heavy. Let's take a cab there."

The congee hotpot restaurant Zhang Chang's family had just opened was only a twenty-minute drive from City No. 1 High School. It was located beside a farmers' market. Perhaps because the shop had only recently opened, there were not many customers even during the dinner rush.

The moment Zhang Chang entered, he rushed straight to the counter and shouted carelessly, "Mom, I brought my classmates here for dinner!"

Zhao Mingyan, who was sitting behind the counter with a calculator in hand, immediately looked up. "You little brat—"

Before she could finish, her gaze swept over Weng Shao among the four boys, and her expression shifted slightly.

Zhang Chang immediately noticed that something was off with his mother, but he did not ask. Instead, he said with a playful grin, "What tasty stuff do we have today? Hurry and have the kitchen bring it out. We need to get back to school for evening self-study after we eat!"

For seniors with only one month left before the National College Entrance Examination, not only had their weekends been taken away, but evening self-study lasted until midnight. Thankfully, they were almost through it.

Having brought his classmates to his own territory, Zhang Chang carried himself like the young owner of a hotpot restaurant. As he spoke to Zhao Mingyan, he arranged for the guys to sit at a table near the window. A uniformed server brought over four sets of sterilized tableware. Before Zhang Chang had even touched his butt to a chair, he casually said, "I'll go get the menu from the counter. Order whatever you want."

He was gone for ten minutes. The server had already brought over the clay pot and fresh ingredients before Zhang Chang finally returned with a dark expression.

"Where's the menu?" Jiang Rui knowingly asked. "The dishes are already here, but your menu isn't. What were you doing?"

"Nothing." Zhang Chang waved his hand evasively, his eyes fixed straight on a plate of beef in front of him. "Let's eat. I'm starving."

Jiang Rui and Zhou Mingjing exchanged a glance. They immediately realized, "Does this have something to do with Weng Shao?"

Zhang Chang had just put a plate of meat into the pot. Hearing that, he took a deep breath, and his tone turned irritable. "I told you it's nothing. Hurry up and eat. We still have evening self-study to get back to!"

Despite what he said, Zhang Chang had completely lost his appetite. He picked up a slice of beef and put it in his bowl, then kept stirring his dipping sauce with his chopsticks. His face was full of unease, though he still tried to act as though nothing was wrong.

It ruined Zhou Mingjing and Jiang Rui's appetites too.

Only Weng Shao smiled knowingly. "Did Auntie see something online?"

Zhang Chang abruptly looked up at Weng Shao and blurted out, "You already know?"

Zhou Mingjing and Jiang Rui were utterly confused. "Know what?"

"What are you two talking around? You're killing me here!"

Since Weng Shao already knew, Zhang Chang stopped holding it in. He went to the counter, grabbed Zhao Mingyan's phone, and returned with an angry expression. Lowering his voice, he said, "I don't know which bastard did it, but someone posted that stuff about Weng Shao's family online. They cut up the video, twisted the facts, and claimed Weng Shao abandoned his parents for wealth and luxury, even making his biological grandfather so angry that he fell ill."

Zhao Mingyan had seen the post on a local food forum. Since the new restaurant had just opened, she had wanted to advertise it on the forum and had stumbled across the post by accident. But after Zhang Chang searched around, he found that related "exposés" had already spread across the entire internet. Major social media platforms were discussing it. Netizens who did not know the truth were all condemning Weng Shao, and the snowball of public opinion kept growing larger.

Zhou Mingjing gritted his teeth in fury. "Which bastard did this? Are they trying to ruin Weng Shao?"

Jiang Rui sneered, reached over to snatch the phone from Zhang Chang's hand, and began typing furiously.

Zhang Chang asked, "What are you doing?"

Jiang Rui said, "I have to help Weng Shao clarify the truth! We can't let these people slander him!"

Hearing that, Zhou Mingjing and Zhang Chang immediately crowded around Jiang Rui. Three heads squeezed together as they began arguing online with netizens who did not know the truth.

In contrast, Weng Shao, the person at the center of it all, looked completely calm. He even had the mood to tell them not to get angry.

Jiang Rui and the others found it unbelievable. "They're saying all that about you, and you're not angry?"

Weng Shao smiled. "What's there to be angry about?" This was nothing yet! On the day of the National College Entrance Examination, reporters would suddenly appear outside the exam center and chase after Weng Shao for interviews!

Weng Shao looked at the flood of insults online. He knew that this one-sided public sentiment, sympathizing with the Weng family and belittling him, would soon catch someone's attention.

At that point, he would naturally enter that person's sight as the most conspicuous target, the sharpest blade, and the most tactful tool of revenge—

He was the finest hunter, so naturally he had enough patience to wait for his prey to walk into the trap on its own.

Author's Note:

Weng Shao truly did not take this little storm of public opinion seriously. After all, if he had tried to create hype for himself, who knew how much money he would have had to spend to achieve this level of attention? Since others were willing to spend money building momentum for him, Weng Shao was happy to see it happen. But that did not mean he would let off the people celebrating while stomping on his head—

Whether they had taken money to deliberately stir up trouble or had been swept up by public opinion and passively spread rumors, they should familiarize themselves with the sentencing standards for the same defamatory information being viewed more than five thousand times or reposted more than five hundred times!

Weng Shao's gaze paused for several seconds on several rather familiar forum IDs before he returned the phone to Zhang Chang. There was only one month left before the National College Entrance Examination, and he did not want to be distracted by such trivial matters.

But while Weng Shao planned to let the bullets fly a little longer, others had no intention of leaving him alone. Even during the final sprint of senior year, people tirelessly spread rumors about him around school. One moment, they said he was ungrateful and defied his elders; the next, they said he was blinded by profit and would disown even his own relatives. Someone even anonymously posted on the school forum that Weng Shao's grandfather had been angered into taking to his sickbed, and that he wanted Weng Shao to go home, care for him for two days, and apologize—yet Weng Shao refused.

Rumors spread everywhere. There were even hotheaded people who confronted Weng Shao directly during lunch break. "Are you really that cold and heartless?"

Weng Shao looked somewhat amused at the indignant classmate. Instead of answering, he asked, "There's only one month left before the National College Entrance Examination. If an elderly member of your family fell ill, would they have you give up your studies and go home to take care of them?"

The classmate was clearly stunned. After a long while, he finally reacted. "It's not like I made my grandfather so angry that he got sick and had to be hospitalized."

"Neither did I!" Weng Shao calmly and unhurriedly explained, "I didn't hit him in public, nor did I accuse him, as a grandfather, of failing to fulfill his obligation under the Civil Code to support his grandson when his son clearly lacked the means to provide support and that grandson was still a minor. I merely asked my biological parents to take responsibility for my college tuition. If that was enough to make him so angry that he fell ill and was hospitalized, then all I can say is that the old man has quite the temper."

"They say the elderly are like children. He's old now, so he may not think things through properly. I won't hold it against him. But you're a student about to enter university, a future pillar of the country, and you don't even have the ability to distinguish right from wrong... Are you genuinely stupid, or are you trying to mess with my head?"

Without waiting for the other person to speak, Weng Shao added, "I know you. You're Xu Tianyao from Senior Class Two, right? I heard you've been trying to secure a recommendation spot at Jinghai Normal University. Didn't get it?"