"At first, I didn't tell anyone about this or ask Xie Zhi. After all, I had nothing to go on, and asking would only make things awkward. Then one day after class, Deng Hanyu suddenly came over to talk to me."
"I wasn't particularly close to him. After I exchanged a few words with him, he looked at Xie Zhi, who was asking a question at the lectern, and suddenly asked me, 'Does Xie Zhi... like Teacher Shang?'"
"That question came out of nowhere. It caught me completely off guard, and I didn't answer right away. Looking at my expression, he suddenly said, 'Oh-I get it,' then left the classroom before I could deny it."
"You know what happened after that. Rumors that Xie Zhi liked Teacher Shang suddenly started spreading among our classmates. Back then, Xie Zhi didn't even know they were gossiping about her. Between work and classes every day, she barely had time for a social life. I didn't tell her, either. I thought that kind of talk would die down soon..."
"But then someone saw Xie Zhi going in and out of Teacher Shang's office, and someone else spotted her getting into his car. After those two incidents, the rumors about her suddenly got several orders of magnitude worse. By then, it was too late to stop them."
Xu Loubai clenched her fists in regret. "When everyone started ostracizing Xie Zhi, my other two roommates would even say horrible things right to her face... like how her bed was filthy, or how unlucky they were to have to live with her. Even making eye contact with her was enough to make them mutter, 'Bad luck.'"
"It's not that I didn't try to stand up for Xie Zhi-but there was something really, really wrong with our class!"