As though afraid Li Xian might not understand the consequences, Deng Hanyu continued to ramble:
"Think carefully. Going from admiration to disappointment-that kind of reversal gets people furious more easily than anything else. What will they call you then? A bitch? A slut? **?"
The words coming out of Deng Hanyu's mouth grew nastier and nastier, until they were almost unbearable to hear. Without seeing it firsthand, probably no one would have believed that Deng Hanyu, who acted so polite and sunny in public, could be like this behind closed doors.
He had now shed his disguise completely. As though certain Li Xian would not resist him, he flashed a confident smile:
"Your reputation at school will be completely ruined."
Dimples appeared with his smile. A feature that had once suited his clean-cut image now looked jarringly out of place.
On the surface, Li Xian looked frightened, his eyes wide as he stood frozen in place, seemingly cowed by everything Deng Hanyu had said. Inside, however, he was thinking-
This guy is even more shameless than I imagined, and more calculating, too.
Li Xian felt no fear whatsoever, because the person being threatened was "Lin Yaoyao," not "Li Xian." If he wanted, that first identity could disappear from the school forever.
He had pretended to flirt with Ji Xie precisely to hand Deng Hanyu something to use against him.
In Deng Hanyu's account, he had been an entirely innocent bystander who played no part in any of the events sparked by "Xie Zhi getting involved with a teacher." In that case, Li Xian would recreate the situation and see exactly what he did-then work backward to deduce how Deng Hanyu had treated Xie Zhi at the time.
If he pretended nothing had happened after seeing Li Xian flirting with Ji