Chapter 32: Confrontation

Tuesday.
The aluminum lunch box lay quietly in Xiahou Ming’s schoolbag.
The dishes inside were specially made for Yu Yuhui after she returned home last night.
She didn’t eat a single bite herself, and the food was already cold.
She didn’t know why she brought it, maybe it was just a foolish fantasy that was unrealistic.
What happened last night kept her awake almost all night, and she fell into a deep sleep just before dawn.
As a result, she woke up late today.
As soon as she approached the back door of the classroom, Xiahou Ming heard a familiar and noisy voice coming from inside.
“…How dare you come back? I thought you were dead in some stinking ditch!”
“Why, you can’t make it out there, so you come back to school and pretend to be dead?”
Lin Xiaomei’s voice was so sharp because of her anger that it hurt her eardrums.
Xiahou Ming subconsciously pressed her body against the wall beside the door, her heart beating uncontrollably.
Yu Yuhui is back.
But Lin Xiaomei came to the door before her.
She suddenly didn’t know how to face Yu Yuhui.
Last night…
Before everything ended, the face that appeared before her eyes…
Thinking of this, her cheeks instantly heated up and her steps became as heavy as if they were filled with lead.
She could only cling to the door frame and peek inside cautiously.
Lin Xiaomei was leaning on Yu Yuhui’s desk with both hands, like an angry wild cat, looking down at the figure who had been reading with her head down from beginning to end, and madly outputting malice.
Ling Yicai sat in her seat, frowning slightly, as if hesitating whether to step forward to stop this farce.
The few people who had followed Xiahou Ming had an expression of enjoying the show, and occasionally let out a few chuckles.
The other students in the class avoided the center of the storm and pretended to study seriously in the morning.
“Hey! I’m talking to you! Are you mute!?”
Yu Yuhui seemed to have completely blocked out the noise from the outside world.
She stretched out her pale fingers and turned to another page of the book.
This complete disregard ignited Lin Xiaomei.
“Damn it, still pretending!”
“Do you know,” she gritted her teeth, “that yesterday, someone was looking for you like a dog for most of the day!?”
Outside the door, Xiahou Ming’s breathing stagnated.
“Oh?” Yu Yuhui continued to read the book leisurely, “Really?”
“What do you mean!?” she roared in anger. “Do you think it has nothing to do with you?!”
At this moment, a calm voice suddenly came from the front of the classroom, interrupting Lin Xiaomei’s anger that was about to explode.
“Lin Xiaomei.”
Everyone looked in the direction of the sound.
Ling Yicai had stood up at some point and was walking towards them step by step from the aisle between the desks.
“Is what you just said true?”
Lin Xiaomei was already angry and was stunned by this sudden interruption, which made her even angrier.
“Get out of here! You have nothing to do here!”
Ling Yicai didn’t say anything else.
But she got the answer she wanted.
She turned around silently, walked back to her seat in the astonished eyes of everyone, and then sat down slowly.
From beginning to end, she never looked at anyone again.
“Look! Even she is laughing at you!” Lin Xiaomei pointed in the direction of Ling Yicai and roared at Yu Yuhui.
“Why don’t you just stop coming and die!”
But her roar was only met with Yu Yuhui’s disregard.
She could no longer tolerate the woman in front of her, and suddenly reached out to snatch the book from Yu Yuhui’s hand and tear it to pieces.
Xiahou Ming suddenly pushed open the back door of the classroom and rushed in.
The moment Lin Xiaomei’s hand was about to touch the book, she grabbed her arm.
The force from her arm brought Lin Xiaomei’s movements to an abrupt halt.
“Are you done yet?!”
Lin Xiaomei subconsciously thought that it was the nosy Ling Yicai again.
Without thinking, she shook her hand and tried to break free, while turning her head with an impatient roar.
But when she saw who broke in, the rest of her words got stuck in her throat.
The expression on her face changed from anger to disbelief in an instant.
She lowered her head and glanced at Xiahou Ming’s hand that was grabbing her arm.
The hand was so strong that it hurt her a little.
“…Are you serious?”
Xiahou Ming didn’t say anything, but just looked back at her with her dark eyes, silently and firmly.
There wasn’t any hesitation in her eyes like under the street light last night.
Everything that happened yesterday seemed like a joke.
“Haha… that’s right… this is you…”
“You won’t… listen to me seriously…”
“I thought…” Lin Xiaomei’s voice began to tremble slightly uncontrollably, “I thought that yesterday, we could finally have a good talk.”
“How funny…”
She exerted force suddenly and shook off Xiahou Ming’s hand.
Like a cornered beast, she pounced again on the woman who had stayed out of the matter from beginning to end.
“Give her back to me—!”
She grabbed the thin collar of Yu Yuhui’s school uniform tightly with both hands, and the huge force even pulled Yu Yuhui’s body slightly up from the chair.
But Yu Yuhui’s reaction exceeded everyone’s expectations.
She didn’t dodge, didn’t resist, and even her facial expression didn’t change at all.
She just let Lin Xiaomei hold her, her body swaying slightly with her shaking, like a soulless puppet.
She just… slowly raised her right hand.
There was something more at her fingertips.
—The wooden board covered with blades.
It was less than ten centimeters away from Lin Xiaomei’s cheek.
Even Xiahou Ming, who was standing nearby, was startled and subconsciously wanted to step forward.
The classroom was dead silent, not even the sound of breathing could be heard.
“Do you want to test this toy on your face?”
Lin Xiaomei’s face lost all color in an instant.
She suddenly let go of her hand and staggered back two steps.
The official morning reading bell rang sharply at this time.
Yu Yuhui put the “toy” back into the drawer as if nothing had happened, and even reached out to slowly smooth out the collar that was wrinkled by Lin Xiaomei.
Then she lowered her head and continued reading her book, as if the conflict just now was just a boring illusion.
Lin Xiaomei seemed to have lost all her strength.
She walked back to her seat in a daze, slumped down on the table, and never raised her head again.
Seeing this, several students who had been watching the fun could not help but sneer in glee.
“Hey, Sister Mei, why are you so scared?”
Lin Xiaomei, who was lying on the table, trembled violently.
She didn’t look up, but growled in an indistinct voice from the crook of her arms:
“Stop talking nonsense… a bunch of beasts…”
Xiahou Ming stood there, watching all this, feeling mixed emotions.
She looked at Lin Xiaomei’s slightly trembling back, and then looked at Yu Yuhui who was calmly turning the pages of the book.
In the end, she didn’t go to anyone.
She just walked back to her seat at the other end of the classroom tiredly.
Then, she stuffed the backpack containing the carefully prepared lunch box into the deepest part of the table.