Nicholas grew quieter by the day.
Apart from Liu Feifei, who studied with him every day, perhaps only Zheng Qing and a few others had noticed. Most of their classmates did not mock Nicholas as relentlessly as students from other classes or Alpha Academy did, but they would not stand behind him and cheer him on, either.
Ever since Nicholas had published his "defense" in the newspaper, the debate had shifted from "an ordinary Jiuyou student's view of the fishman unrest" to the conflict between the academies over "freedom and equality."
The prevailing view at Alpha was that Nicholas had been pressured by Jiu You Academy, making his defense in the paper untrustworthy. When the Beta Town Post released the full interview and insisted it had quoted him in context, the uproar only grew. Inside Alpha Castle, plenty of people called Nicholas a "liar," a "coward," and a "man of no integrity."
Nicholas had few supporters at Jiu You Academy, either. For one thing, Alpha Academy had been the first academy he attended before transferring to Jiu You. That seemed to burden him with a kind of original "sin," one his remarks on the "fishman incident" only appeared to confirm. For another, the ease with which he had changed his position under public pressure gave people grounds to accuse Jiu You Academy of forbidding its students from expressing their own views.
It sounded contradictory, but that was how things stood.
It was Thursday's Potions Class.
In a corner of the classroom, Liu Feifei snipped through a herb with wooden shears and handed it to Nicholas. To keep their classmates from hurling insults at him, she had specifically asked to join his potion-making group.
"Star Grass is pungent, warming, and aromatic. It works inward on the heart and spleen and outward