The Truth of the Matter
Fang Yichang glanced at Huo Cheng, and his first thought was to push him away. But he found himself decidedly not in the mood to shake off the hand that restrained him.
“I’m here to clarify something with Qiu Ziqing. Don’t butt in.”
Huo Cheng dragged him wordlessly out of the room, much to the confusion of everyone else present. So the top student in their year was not only the best at academics but also at conflict management??
After Huo Cheng had dragged Fang Yichang out of the room, he even dusted his hands as if he had been handling something dirty.
Fang Yichang: “???”
He wanted to hit someone again. 🙂
[T/N: Y’all, I’m living for these paggro smileys, man]
“Fang Yichang, what happened? What’s it got to do with Qiu Ziqing?” Shen Wanying made herself known, all warmth and concern.
Now, even if he wanted to, he(FY) couldn’t bring himself to vent out on her. He kicked at the wall in front of him sulkily. “Qiu Ziqing said she saw me ask Tong Wenjing for the leaked questions.”
She frowned, for the briefest of moments. “Where did she see this?”
“Near High School 2.”
Huo Cheng asked, “How do you know it was her?”
“It’s just a guess.” Fang Yichang made a frustrated noise. “Look, it’s a reasonable guess! She lives near High School 2, and apparently, the person who accused me is a reliable top student. Doesn’t she fit the bill?”
Besides, he had reprimanded her for that incident with Shen Wanying. Who was to say that she didn’t have something against him, and was using this opportunity to get back at him?
Qiu Ziqing could hear everything they were talking about in the corridor from inside her classroom. She laced her hands nervously on the table, staring blankly at the book before her. The one who accused him had indeed been her. She lived near High School 2 and figured that if she said she saw them while on her way home, it would be credible. She had originally wanted to go to High School 2 because it was close to where she lived. But after her mother heard that Shen Wanying was going to this school, she had given up convenience for prestige and sent her here instead.
Ah!
In the corridor, Huo Cheng said to Fang Yichang, “Qiu Ziqing is not important. The only one who knows the truth of this situation is Tong Wenjing herself.”
Fang Yichang was struck dumb. Huo Cheng had enlightened him with a single sentence.1The phrase used here is 醍醐灌顶, literally “to anoint one’s head with the purest ointment”, a figure of speech that refers to enlightening someone with perfect wisdom. Used to describe wise teaching, and almost definitely used hyperbolically here.
That’s right, what good would it do him to go after Qiu Ziqing? After all, it was Tong Wenjing who had leaked the exam questions. He might as well go straight to her.
♥
Because she had leaked exam questions, Tong Wenjing was home, suspended from her duties as a teacher. Someone from the Fang household had already tried to look her up, but she had refused to say anything. Fang Yichang had decided he would speak to her that afternoon after school, and Huo Cheng, hoping to resolve the matter as quickly as possible, accompanied him.
“Huo Cheng, I would never have guessed you’d have my back like this!” Fang Yichang tried to treat him the way he would Hong Hong, with a friendly jostle and pat on the back, but the guy dodged him with no hesitation.
“Stand further away from me.”
Fang Yichang had nothing to say to that. It’s not like he had some sort of disease or something, geez!
He laughed coldly. “Oh, come off it. You won’t let anyone touch you, but back at Starlight Farm you were more than happy to hug and piggyback Lady Shen.”
Huo Cheng didn’t dignify the comment with an answer, too busy navigating using the map on his phone. He wasn’t fun to tease, and so Fang Yichang followed him in sulky silence.
After about a five-minute walk, they arrived at the neighbourhood Huo Cheng had marked on the map.
Tong Wenjing wasn’t originally from City A. She had recently graduated and didn’t have much money, so she had no choice but to rent a cheap apartment near the school.
The apartment building was old and had definitely seen better days. It was guarded by an old gentleman. Inside, the compound didn’t have much greenery, just the landlord’s car, parked wherever he pleased. It wasn’t a large neighbourhood either, comprising a grand total of three buildings, with approximately ten residents on each floor.
Tong Wenjing lived in the leftmost apartment block, on the seventh floor. And so the two boys took the elevator to the seventh floor and found her apartment without much difficulty.
Since she had heard from the gentleman at the door that she would have visitors today, Tong Wenjing had stayed home all day. But she flatly refused to open the door to Huo Cheng and Fang Yichang.
“Miss Tong, I know you’re in there. I’m just a pitiful student, please open the door.” This time, Fang Yichang took Huo Cheng’s advice and tried to evoke pity. He, an innocent high school student, had been terribly wronged. A teacher as young as Tong Wenjing would surely feel sorry for him.
But it seemed she had a heart of stone.
“F*ck, I don’t think this tactic of yours is working.” They had been pleading at her door for ten minutes now, and Fang Yichang’s patience had finally worn itself out.
Huo Cheng didn’t respond, but at that moment someone walked over from the corridor across the building.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“It’s none of your business, when you’ve finished passing through you can hurry up and go away,” Fang Yichang groused.
Huo Cheng had also looked up to see who had approached them. And he froze.
Why did she look so familiar? Where had he seen her before?
He knitted his brows, combing his memory for some inkling of who she might be, but coming up empty.
The girl was also staring at him, and Fang Yichang, noticing this, snapped. “What are you looking at, never seen a handsome man before? But honestly, all the good looks in the world won’t help him, he’s cold as ice. You got that?”
Huo Cheng calmly turned his gaze to Fang Yichang. The girl blushed at his words.
Huo Cheng’s gaze, as it were, was getting a little unbearable, so he knocked on Tong Wenjing’s door again. The girl ducked her head and walked away, but stopped at the door and turned to ask, “Are you guys looking for Miss Tong?”
Fang Yichang stopped everything he was doing and turned to her. “You know her?”
“Mmhm! I’m not a student at High School 2, but I see her around pretty often,” she said. “She should still be in school around this time, though.”
Fang Yichang didn’t tell her about Tong Wenjing’s suspension, instead moved to knock on the door again.
Huo Cheng looked at the girl and asked, “Hey, have you seen Miss Tong together with anyone suspicious lately?”
“What would she know?” Fang Yichang interjected.
But the girl nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen something like that before.”
Fang Yichang was struck dumb.
“I’ve even taken a photo.”
A thunderous silence from the loudmouth.
“It’s this person.” The girl opened the photograph on her phone to show Huo Cheng. “The other night, I went out to buy something, and when I came back I saw him with Miss Tong. He looked really fierce, and Miss Tong looked like she was a bit afraid of him. I was worried it was some kind of bad person, so I took a picture.”
Huo Cheng examined the picture. It wasn’t anyone he knew. He looked up at Fang Yichang. “Do you know him?”
The girl’s phone wasn’t a particularly new model, and the camera resolution wasn’t much to speak of. It was taken during the night, so the photograph was grainy and dark. But the faces of the people in the photo were recognisable enough. Fang Yichang studied the face of the person next to Tong Wenjing, frowning slowly. “I do.”
Fang Yichang couldn’t help but guffaw. Nothing escapes the long arm of the la2The idiom used is 天网恢恢,疏而不漏. lit. “Heaven’s net has a wide mesh, but nothing escapes it”. It’s a proverb from Laozi 73, and has the same meaning as the English phrase in my translation, more or less. I know I probably didn’t need to provide this extra context since it has an accompanying phrase in English, but maybe some of you are interested in Chinese idioms? (:. “He’s a student at High School 2, his name is Sun Xinyi. Everyone in High School 2 knows who he is.”
Huo Cheng was silent, waiting for him to finish talking.
Fang Yichang continued. “He was held back twice. He’s still in his second year, but he should be turning twenty this year. He turned to the girl beside him and asked, “Could you send me that picture?”
She thought it over for a moment, then gestured towards Huo Cheng. “I can send it to him.”
Fang Yichang had nothing to say. This is such an important piece of evidence, but you use it as an opportunity to get a cute guy’s number?!
♥
T/N: My thoughts earlier in the chapter: I swear to god, this Huo-Shen couple is the parents of their group, and FYC is the angry problem child lmao. My thoughts now: oh holy shit have we been teased, bc we have not met this Xinyi guy yet. But hey, I still get to know before you, and you’ll get to know before other people if you so wish, because we might have advance chapters if enough of you want them, so let us know! See you on the other side.