Yes, yes, yes, keep thinking of me that way

The high school was a boarding school. Ye Xiao had been sleeping soundly in his dorm today when he suddenly received a call from his eldest brother.

He was told to meet the younger sister he had never met before, and was even threatened with having his card frozen if he refused.

So Ye Xiao had no choice but to bow to the evils of capitalism. He had originally planned to just go through the motions.

But the moment he reached Ye Xunzhi's classroom, he encountered the ugly sight of "bastard" written on her desk and heard a whole slew of rumors.

Ye Xiao was furious on the spot. Whatever the circumstances, outsiders had no right to bully a member of the Ye Family at will.

Ye Xiao was already Ningde High School's notorious school bully, and plenty of rumors said he came from a wealthy family. In short, he was someone you absolutely could not cross.

"What's going on with this desk? Bastard? Whoever wrote that, stand up."

Ye Xiao swept a cold gaze across the classroom. The room, which had been fairly noisy because of his arrival, instantly fell silent.

All the students watched him as meekly as quails, their eyes filled with confusion and bewilderment. They did not understand why he was getting involved in Ye Xunzhi's affairs.

Then Ye Xiao's next words left them stunned.

"Ye Xunzhi is my little sister. She's under my protection. I hope you'll all weigh the consequences carefully from now on."

"As for the ones responsible..." Ye Xiao paused and sneered. "It doesn't matter if you won't admit it. When Ye Xunzhi gets here, I'll have her identify you herself."

At those words, the guilty students immediately grew uneasy. The others, who had not caused any trouble, were mostly shocked.

What was going on? Wasn't Ye Xunzhi the fake heiress who had taken someone else's place, then gone back to her biological parents in a poor family?!

Then why was her brother Ye Xiao? This was nothing like what Lin Ranran had revealed!

Ye Xiao ignored the undercurrents running between them, propped his feet on a desk, covered his face with a book, and started catching up on sleep.

He could already imagine the admiring, respectful look Ye Xunzhi would give him when she arrived at school.

Then he heard the following statement.

"Either you replace my desk today, or you're not leaving today."

"..."

This wasn't how I imagined the script going.

Ye Xiao barely salvaged his dignity, drawing his neck back to put a little more distance between himself and the steel rod.

"Little sister, this is our first meeting. Aren't you going to say something to me?"

He thought he sounded pretty cool saying that, only to hear a disastrous remark from his disastrous teammate beside him.

"Holy shit! Brother Xiao, your sister is fucking hardcore!"

"Ahem." Realizing she had threatened the wrong person, Ye Xunzhi casually withdrew the rebar and, with skin as thick as a city wall, put on a sweet, well-behaved smile.

She held the steel rod flat in her hands and offered it to Ye Xiao.

"Hello, Fifth Brother. Since this is our first meeting, please accept this steel rod."

Ye Xiao: "..."

He had no idea how much courage it took him to accept it. He did not need a mirror to know he must look utterly ridiculous holding a steel rod.

So he casually tossed the steel rod to the disastrous teammate beside him.

His teammate: "..."

Do I look like someone who deserves this?

Having successfully tossed away the "hot potato" in his hands, Ye Xiao tucked both hands into his pockets, looked at the students in the classroom, and raised his chin imperiously at Ye Xunzhi.

"Point out everyone who usually bullies you."

[If you put it that way, I won't hold back.]

Ye Xunzhi strode forward, and her very first move was to slap a hand onto the shoulder of the boy sitting in front of her seat.

Clearly, not everyone was Lin Ranran. Zhang Man's acting plainly fell short. His eyes betrayed obvious guilt when she touched him, and he gave a weak smile.

"Did you need something, Sister Xun?"

Ye Xunzhi could not be bothered to play along. She went straight to the point. "You wrote those words on my desk, didn't you?"

Ye Xunzhi remembered Zhang Man very clearly. He was a jack-of-all-trades who bullied the weak and feared the strong.

To him, having neither money nor influence was an original sin, marking someone as a target he could humiliate however he pleased.

By contrast, he had sucked up to every powerful, influential person in the class, including Ye Xunzhi in the past. But she had never paid much attention to people like him, so he had come to resent her.

Sure enough, the moment he heard she had fallen on hard times, he could not wait to put her down to curry favor with Lin Ranran.

"No, I only got here a little while ago." Zhang Man stubbornly refused to admit it. In his mind, Ye Xunzhi had not yet seen the side of him that had turned against her.

In other words, even if she did not consider them friends, she would not consider them enemies either. Perhaps she only suspected him right now. As long as he kept denying it...

"Do you think everyone's an idiot?" Ye Xiao pointed at the surveillance camera at the front of the classroom, folded his arms, and fixed Zhang Man with an intensely intimidating gaze.

"There's a camera that big in the classroom. Do we need to pull up the footage?"

At Ye Xiao's words, Zhang Man's face went pale.

He was filled with regret. Earlier, he had learned that Ye Xunzhi was an impostor whose family had neither money nor connections, and her grades were not exceptionally outstanding either.

He had figured neither the principal nor the teachers would protect her, so they had bullied Ye Xunzhi without any qualms and had made little effort to avoid the camera.

Who could have imagined... the reversal would come like a storm.

"Why go to all that trouble? I'm sure quite a few of you here saw what happened."

A sweet smile appeared on Ye Xunzhi's face, carrying a kind of innocent cruelty.

Seeing this, the students immediately began identifying the culprits, talking over one another.

"That's right, I saw it all. Zhang Man brought a bucket of paint first thing this morning and used a mop to write on the desk."

"Yeah, and after he finished, he threw the desk and chair right beside the trash can. He said Xunzhi had to make room for his goddess."

"And that wasn't all..."

As accusation after accusation reached Zhang Man's ears, his face turned green.

He was still too young and had never faced anything like this. Zhang Man slapped the desk, determined to drag someone down with him even if he went down.

"That's not what happened! I didn't want to bully you at first. Feng Chen and Chu Wei put me up to it."

The two people suddenly named could no longer stay seated either.

"What are you talking about? When we first heard Ye Xunzhi was dirt-poor, weren't you the one most eager to get back at her?!"

"Sister Xun, we've known each other for so many years. I didn't know anything about this. I didn't do a thing. Those two came up with the whole plan. I was even planning to tip you off when you arrived."

"What kind of bullshit is that?!"

Without Ye Xunzhi needing to do anything, the three before her were already turning on each other. A single sentence had broken up their group without a fight on her part.

The homeroom teacher stood at the doorway, witnessing the scene, unable to either enter or retreat, and quietly made their presence as small as possible.

The three were already frantic and furious, tangled together in a brawl. Ye Xiao watched coldly, then shifted his gaze to Ye Xunzhi's calm, unruffled face.

Had his little sister taken too big a blow and been left with some psychological trauma?

Remembering his eldest brother's instruction to keep this little tagalong with him all day, Ye Xiao figured he probably would not be able to study today anyway, so he might as well take her away.

He first walked over to the homeroom teacher, paying no attention whatsoever to the three still fighting, and spoke casually with his hands in his pockets.

"When they're done fighting, tell them the Ye Group will remember this. They'd better pass that on to their parents. I'm sure their parents will know what to do."

Ye Xiao took out his phone and briefly sent his eldest brother an account of the current situation, then continued speaking to the homeroom teacher.

"As for the rest, give Ye Xunzhi a day's leave. I'm taking her with me today."

"Of course, of course." Naturally, the homeroom teacher did not dare object.

Ye Xunzhi had inexplicably gained a day off. Her heart, which had remained completely unmoved even as she faced her enemies and shattered their alliance, stirred at this moment.

Ye Xunzhi tugged Ye Xiao's sleeve and asked, "Fifth Brother, should I pack my things and go home now?"

Hearing her call him brother, Ye Xiao, who always occupied the lowest rung at home, was so moved he nearly teared up. On the surface, however, he remained very restrained.

"No, Eldest Brother wants you to stay with me today... Say it again."

It was not as though they had never spent time together before. Ye Xunzhi had long since seen right through his personality, but considering that he had helped her...

Ye Xunzhi tilted her head in feigned confusion. "Say what, Fifth Brother?"

Ah~

"Nothing. We've got your leave approved, so let's go." Ye Xiao handed the completed leave slip to the teacher and strode ahead on his long legs.

Ye Xunzhi happily followed behind him.

[A day off, the best beauty treatment a student could get. Long live Fifth Brother!]

Listening to the cheers behind him, Ye Xiao could barely keep the corners of his mouth from rising, even with his usually unflappable expression.

Yes, yes, yes, keep thinking of me that way.