A Teacher's Kindness
Lin Er had only just learned that when Li Xiang told her to wait after school last week, other classmates had overheard him too.
They knew she was Ying Yuecheng's older female cousin, so after some hesitation, they told him.
Ying Yuecheng had called a few friends over and planned to escort her to the intersection. Beyond that point, Li Xiang wouldn't know the way to her house anyway.
He hadn't expected her to run off so fast after school.
Afraid he wouldn't catch up, Ying Yuecheng had hurried to get the homeroom teacher.
But when they rushed over, what they saw was a group of alternative-looking youths stopping to help her.
In the end, Ying Yuecheng left, while the homeroom teacher stopped Li Xiang, visited his home that same day, and went to speak to a teacher at No. 2 Middle School.
So he knew everything. He had just been trying to bluff Lin Er and see what her relationship with Lin Yueyue and the others was.
Lin Er was a little touched. In her grudge ledger, she let the matter of Ying Yuecheng not acknowledging her on his own last time go, as well as what the homeroom teacher had just said, asking her, the victim, to prove it herself.
"There's no real connection. He's from the same village as me, and there's a pretty big age gap, so we never played together."
Gao Bo nodded and handed her a new meal ticket.
"All right. Don't hang around those people from other schools and out in society. I'm not saying they're all bad, but you're still a student, and you're the vulnerable one when you're with them. If they force you to do something illegal or take part in dangerous activities, your whole life could be ruined."
Lin Er nodded obediently. She paused as she took it, then spread the two meal tickets apart.
"Teacher, there's an extra one."
They now paid their meal fees to the class monitor, who also handed out the meal tickets. He had only said so before class. Her fifty-yuan note had now become a five-yuan ticket, the reddish-brown kind, and she almost wanted to keep it as a collectible.
"The higher-ups gave us an extra one. I've noticed you usually don't have enough to eat, so take it. It'll just expire if I keep it here!"
Lin Er took it and lowered her head for the first time. It seemed she now owed him a favor.
Back in the classroom, she spent half of another lesson daydreaming. But she had studied the material beforehand this time, so she probably hadn't missed much.
After school, she tidied her desk and dawdled, planning to wait until the students had all left before going up to check on her peanuts. But the class monitor came over first, carrying some things and looking at her with pity.
"Here, the homeroom teacher said these are from Li Xiang's parents and the parents of those No. 2 Middle School students. Oh, right, you weren't hurt last Friday, were you? The homeroom teacher also gave you some gentian violet. It's pretty good for disinfecting, and the stuff on your face hasn't faded yet anyway."
The classmates who hadn't left yet were dawdling. One of them heard this as he passed and hurried out of the classroom. The ones waiting outside immediately gathered around him, clearly gossiping.
Lin Er blinked and raised a hand to touch her face.
She hadn't had any potions this time, but she hadn't actually been hurt much. Perhaps the marks on her face had been too obvious before, because Li Xiang had instinctively avoided her face when they fought. After several days of washing, the purple was very faint now.
Still, since the homeroom teacher had said so, she ought to use it. It would be such a waste not to.
"Got it. Thanks, class monitor. Have an apple!"
Before he could refuse, Lin Er picked up the remaining five bags of apples and left. They were neatly packed, and it was obvious that several families had bought the apples together and sent them over.
It looked like all their parents had come today; she just hadn't seen them.
The class monitor went after her for a moment, but Lin Er walked so fast that, thinking of the big bags she had, he didn't refuse.
Lin Er really was too unlucky. She was a girl, yet Li Xiang had actually called in students from another school to corner her. He was nothing like a man.
As for the rumors at school, everyone in their class knew Li Xiang had come and spread them today. But after this, probably no one would believe them, or dare bully Lin Er either. After all, although she had no connection to those people, one of them was from the same village as her.
Who knew whether, if she was bullied badly enough, she might go find someone to get revenge?
By the time Lin Er carried the apples to the dormitory, the rumors had already shifted. She could clearly sense that the looks directed at her, some of which had been fearful before, were now mostly pitying.
The troublemakers in the next dorm room no longer looked quite so eager to make a move against her, either. She really did remember those girls; they had been notorious figures in junior high.
They had bullied or warned off every other good-looking girl except the ones with good grades.
Lin Er had been dark-skinned and timid enough to escape them, but she had seen them slap other classmates in the dormitory.
They only got away with it because there were so many of them and because ordinary classmates didn't dare fight back or tell teachers and parents. Lin Er was clearly no longer in that category. She was someone who, despite being black and blue, had dared to fight several No. 2 Middle School delinquents over the weekend instead of running away.
Besides, she didn't seem afraid of parents being called in or teachers being told. Unless necessary, no one would go out of their way to provoke someone like that. At this time, teachers and parents still had a strong hold over students.
That night, Lin Er went out and used up her last spell for the day, then came back and went on sleeping, perfectly content. Stupefy really was that good for sleep.
To her surprise, the next day those girls sent her a note asking if she wanted to join them.
Lin Er refused, saying they were in different classes, she had no time, and she needed to focus on her studies.
There was a monthly exam in the first month of school. It was a crucial occasion; at least, she still remembered that she had scored sixty in math, ninety in English, and eighty in Chinese on that exam, dispelling suspicions that she was intellectually disabled in one stroke.
But the math teacher still disliked her because her math score was the lowest in the class.
This time, she had done her best to study ever since school started. Judging by her classwork so far, she had absorbed at least eighty percent of it. Surely she would have no problem passing when the time came?
The homeroom teacher was also quite pleased to see her studying quietly every day. So far, she seemed obedient. No one had provoked her, and he hadn't seen her do anything extreme. She was just too unsociable; she didn't even have anyone to sit and eat with.
Shi Meng and Xu Duoduo both had their own circles, but Lin Er ran off as fast as she could every time, leaving as soon as she got her food. At first, she always went back to the classroom. Later, when eating in the classroom was forbidden, she kept turning up in the most out-of-the-way places.
Gao Bo had even seen her up in a tree by the sports field.
Lin Er felt this was unfair too. She couldn't exactly go to the toilet to send her pen pal a meal, could she? She had sent him a cloth bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm cast on it.
Now neither of them had to worry about the time difference. Whenever they ate, they would send a portion to the other, then chat for a while, talking past each other, when the time was right.
Come to think of it, having a pen pal had made her much quicker at memorizing vocabulary, because whenever she got something wrong, he would send back the correct version. It was like having an extra correcting tool.
Because of the time difference, though, he was almost always eating cold food. Lin Er had asked about sending him a stove, but he refused, saying he could soak his rice in boiling water.
Lin Er's heart couldn't have ached more. She had given him more than half her apples.
But he had also become more generous about letting her use his magic. They had tested it: if she used it about ten times in a row, he would feel uncomfortable, but there was no problem if she didn't use it consecutively.
In other words, she now had practically no limit on how many times she could use it. After all, aside from scavenging and sleeping, she had no use for magic in her daily life.