Chapter 12: Brand
During the break after the second class, Xiahou Ming lay on the table, the ten-minute break stretching endlessly.
Each heartbeat thudded like a dull drum. She could hear the blood rushing through her veins, feel the candy she’d swallowed melting in her stomach.
Ten minutes was enough for it to become part of her body.
The sweet, cloying milk taste lingered in her mouth.
She stood abruptly, walked to the water bucket at the back of the classroom, and scooped cold water from a scratched, paint-peeling enamel cup, gulping it down.
It didn’t help.
The sweetness, like Yu Yuhui’s lingering ghost, had seeped into her.
Every time she tasted it, her mind flashed to Ling Yicai’s recorder from two days ago, the complex, unfamiliar flavor when she held it in her mouth.
Then, another image burned into her mind like a branding iron.
Yu Yuhui, bringing the recorder to her lips, her pale tongue tip gliding over the mouthpiece.
Her calm, chilling expression as she mimicked Xiahou Ming’s actions, drawing air through the flute.
Her lips…
An absurd, shocking thought hit Xiahou Ming.
Would they taste this sweet?
Nausea surged from her stomach.
She wanted to vomit again.
“Xiao Ming!”
A hand stopped her as she lurched toward the bucket.
Ling Yicai, seeing her pale face and sweaty forehead, asked anxiously, “What’s wrong? Are you unwell? I’ll go to the infirmary with you!”
Xiahou Ming stared, speechless, her mind consumed by the monster in the corner and the illusory sweetness in her mouth.
A commotion stirred at the classroom’s back door.
A thin, timid figure appeared, clinging to the doorframe, eyes red, asking something softly.
“Excuse me…” Her voice broke with nerves and tears. “Have you… seen… a dark blue straight vest dress? I left it hanging downstairs in the dormitory yesterday…”
Her voice flipped a switch, igniting the class’s gossip.
“A dark blue shift dress?”
All eyes shifted from the girl at the door to Xiahou Ming, wearing the described skirt.
The air froze.
Lin Xiaomei was the first to recognize the girl.
She stepped forward, as if to approach the sobbing figure, but stopped, her gleeful smirk faltering.
Shock, guilt, and a flicker of nostalgia crossed her face, unnoticed even by herself.
It lasted less than a second.
She donned her harsh mask again, screaming in a theatrical tone: “Hey, isn’t this Xue Lan? Why are you in our class? Looking for a skirt? Look at the one our ‘Sister Ming’ is wearing. The one I told you about… they look so similar!”
She emphasized “Sister Ming” with venom.
Xue Lan trembled at the scream, glancing at Lin Xiaomei but avoiding her eyes.
Steeling herself, she followed the class’s gaze to the corner.
She saw a strange, delicate girl in her lost skirt, wearing a oversized boys’ jacket, head lowered, expression unreadable.
Xue Lan felt confused and humiliated, a clown on display, just like before.
Xiahou Ming, hearing “Xue Lan,” went blank.
Xue Lan… Xue Lan…
She rummaged through her mental garbage heap of “unimportant people.”
A blurry image aligned with the figure at the door.
Wen Xuelan.
A first-year high school girl, one of the most bullied by Xiahou Ming and her followers.
The girl who never dared cry aloud.
It was her.
The origin of the “costume” she wore hit her.
Cold sweat soaked her back.
It’s over.
Ling Yicai, beside her, stiffened at Lin Xiaomei’s accusation.
A white recorder, one she knew well, flashed in her mind—also missing.
The thought pierced her heart like an icy needle.
Her face paled faster than Xiahou Ming’s.
She opened her mouth to defend her but couldn’t speak.
In the explosive silence, a calm voice cut through.
“Lin Xiaomei.”
Yu Yuhui.
She rose from her seat, walking slowly toward Lin Xiaomei.
Lin Xiaomei froze, then smirked scornfully: “What, you want in on this? Excuse me, what’s your name?”
“A person’s cognition shapes their world,” Yu Yuhui said, textbook-flat. “When your cognition is filled with malice, every coincidence becomes evidence of guilt.”
“Huh?” Lin Xiaomei laughed, as if hearing a joke. “What are you babbling about? I just know someone lost a skirt, and ‘Sister Ming’ is wearing the exact same one! What a coincidence!”
Her words drew giggles from her clique.
Yu Yuhui ignored the mockery, addressing the class clearly: “The skirt she’s wearing was bought by me yesterday after school at Dream Paris. It didn’t fit her, so she wore her school uniform jacket over it.”
“You bought it with her?” Lin Xiaomei’s voice shot up, dripping with suspicion. “You? Since when are you two so close? Who can prove it? Got evidence?”
Yu Yuhui calmly produced a wrinkled receipt from her pocket, waving it. “Here’s the proof. I paid for her. Any questions?”
Lin Xiaomei, stunned by the “receipt,” fell silent, staring for flaws in Yu Yuhui’s expressionless face but finding none.
“Even if it was bought, so what!” she rallied. “Doesn’t change that he’s a pervert! Who knows what disgusting things you two weirdos are doing? Everyone heard that recording!”
“That sound, tsk tsk… gives me goosebumps. Doing something shameful?”
She raised her voice for the whole class to hear.
“Pervert?”
Yu Yuhui smiled faintly, dripping with contempt, looking at Lin Xiaomei like a crawling bug. “You project your repressed, foul imagination onto others’ pure curiosity to feel morally superior. In psychology, that’s called ‘projective identification.’ Simply put, you assume others think like you.”
“You…”
Lin Xiaomei, flustered by unfamiliar terms, flushed red, speechless.
Yu Yuhui turned away, walking to Wen Xuelan at the door, who was still sobbing.
Everyone expected harsh words for the “troublemaker.”
Instead, Yu Yuhui’s expression softened.
She took a handkerchief from her pocket and gently wiped a tear from Wen Xuelan’s cheek.
Wen Xuelan flinched, like a startled deer, but Yu Yuhui’s calm eyes soothed her fear.
She didn’t resist the touch.
“Don’t cry,” Yu Yuhui said softly, withdrawing her hand. “It’s just a skirt. If it brings trouble, its value is gone.”
Seeing Wen Xuelan’s confused, red eyes, she added: “If you need to come to this class again or have trouble with anyone here, find me.”
Xiahou Ming, watching from afar, was stunned.
She’d never seen this side of Yu Yuhui—gentle, promising protection.
Wen Xuelan nodded, confused but grateful, and fled the suffocating classroom.
A long, eerie silence followed.
All the students, even Xiahou Ming’s former followers, looked at Yu Yuhui with confusion and faint fear as she returned to her seat.
She’d hammered herself into the class’s power structure like a nail.
She didn’t belong, but no one would treat her as invisible anymore.
Lin Xiaomei glared at her back, fists clenched, nails digging into her palms.
As Yu Yuhui sat, she growled: “Don’t think… this is over!”
Yu Yuhui didn’t turn, as if she hadn’t heard.
Unseen, she slipped the white cloth tag from last night out of her pocket, showing it to Xiahou Ming.
The tag spun between her fingertips, revealing “Wen Xuelan” in blue thread.
She mouthed three silent words to Xiahou Ming: “You’re welcome.”