“I think so too. Jiang Yu is rather close to Ye Xue. I even saw him buying her ice cream, once,” another girl chimed in.

  Lu Yan sent Ye Xue a withering glare. Although they had been dormmates for a little over a month, it was enough for her to know how weak-willed she was. Ye Xue knew she had a crush on Jiang Yu. Yet, she still had the audacity to snub her. Perhaps it was time for her to learn who her betters were.

  “Do you think Jiang Yu likes Ye Xue?” The girl hazarded a guess.

  “.……”


  Lu Yan snorted. “Jiang Yu would not be interested in someone like her. Ye Xue isn’t even fit to carry his shoes.”


  Lu Yan did not bother to lower her voice and Ye Xue heard every word she said. Unconsciously, her hands balled into fists.

  Seeing her taunt fail spectacularly, Lu Yan hissed angrily and stalked to where Ye Xue sat. With a sharp crack, Lu Yan slammed a fist into the back of Ye Xue’s head, sending her careening face-first into her keyboard. “Do you like Jiang Yu?” Lu Yan growled in disgust.

  The computer screen flickered and died, its contents presumably deleted by the force of the impact. Ignoring the pain hammering away at her forehead, Ye Xue scrambled to check on her work. All that greeted her was a blank screen. Hours of hard work had gone down the drain just like that.

  Infuriated by Ye Xue’s lack of response, Lu Yan yanked her hair and forced Ye Xue to look into her eyes. The fact that Ye Xue refused to acknowledge her question rankled her. It was as if Ye Xue was looking down on her.

  By the time she felt a painful tug on her hair, it was already too late for Ye Xue to react. Lu Yan’s assault forced her backwards and caused her chair to wail in protest as it scraped against the floor.

  Lu Yan glared at her menacingly. “I’m asking you a question. Are you dating Jiang Yu? Do you find excuses to seduce him on a daily basis?”


  The pain was blinding. She felt like a ragdoll with her hair being wrenched from side to side. If she did not know better, she would have thought Lu Yan was ripping her hair from her scalp. Holding back her tears, she choked out a few words, “I-I’m not…… I……”


  “Lies! Even now you deny the truth. They all saw you flirting with him. You disgusting vixen! How dare you seduce the man I love?!” Lu Yan practically screamed the last few sentences. Raising her hand, she slapped Ye Xue’s pretty face over and over again.

  Her swelling cheeks, from being slapped two days before, had yet to subside. Now that she was being slapped again, they instantly swelled; taking on the appearance of two bright tomatoes.

  “Lu Yan, she must have done it on purpose. She knows how you like Jiang Yu so she deliberately seduced him with her pitiful wiles.”


  “Look at her! She’s just using her woeful looks to garner Jiang Yu’s sympathy.”


  Lu Yan’s two cronies fanned the flames from the side. Neither of them liked Ye Xue much nor did they take kindly to the way she wooed many a male student with her woebegone looks.

  “I’m not! Let go of me…… Please……” Ye Xue pleas fell on deaf ears as the ever-burning pain in her cheeks would attest. She tried wriggling free but every time she did so, Lu Yan would stop her with a harsh tug of her hair. Ye Xue was in so much pain that her forehead was layered in a thick film of perspiration. She feared what her captors would do to her if she continued to resist.

  “Still not confessing, I see. That’s alright. We’ll have to things the hard way, then. I know of a lot of women like you. You act all innocent, pretending to be meek and helpless when really, you’re all wolves in sheep’s clothing; playing the damsel in distress to seduce good, honest men.”


  The more she looked at Ye Xue, the more she grew sickened by her paltry display of helplessness. Lu Yan wanted nothing more than to wipe that loathsome look off her face, permanently. Just as she was about to slap Ye Xue again, the sound of someone knocking at the door echoed.

  “Dong, dong.”


  Lu Yan paused, turning towards the door.

  “I’ll get it.” A tag-along of Lu Yan’s walked over to the door and opened it. The person knocking was Qin Shu.

  “Hello, is there someone you’re looking for?”


  Qin Shu was not familiar with the girls living on the fourth floor. When an unfamiliar face greeted her at the door, she asked, “Is Ye Xue around?”


  “No…… She went out to buy something.” Lu Yan was in the midst of teaching Ye Xue a lesson. It would not be good if anyone walked in while the lesson was still being taught.

  At this moment, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor resounded from within the room.

  Qin Shu peered over the girl’s shoulder in confusion. The door had not been opened completely and only a small gap was visible. Coupled with the girl blocking her view of the room’s interior, Qin Shu could not see anything of note.

  “Is there anything else you need?” The girl asked nervously, her eyes darting from side to side.

  Qin Shu hesitated for a second but turned away. “I’ll come back later, then.”


  Before Qin Shu could change her mind, the girl slammed the door shut in her face and rejoined her friends who were tormenting Ye Xue. “It was some girl who was looking for Ye Xue. I managed to convince her that Ye Xue had gone out.”


  Offering the girl a curt a nod, Lu Yan turned her attention back to Ye Xue. “Did you think someone was going to save you? Dream on! If you blab on us, I’ll find someone to rape you. Let’s see whether Jiang Yu would ever look at you again. The vile wench that you are.”


  Ye Xue paled in fright. Lu Yan had always been a bully – forcing her to finish work that was not hers – but now she was taking things a step further. If these beatings were merely the beginning, how much worse were things going to become?

  She could not understand why this was happening to her. Why was Lu Yan treating her like this?

  She had only bumped in Jiang Yu that one time. Sure, they might have had a few words but it was not anything intimate.

  Tears pooled in Ye Xue’s eyes, threatening to spill over her cheeks. It was getting harder for her to suppress them. She just wanted the pain to stop.

  “You’re still crying?” Lu Yan glowered at Ye Xue’s pathetic expression with hate-filled eyes. Jiang Yu must have fallen prey to Ye Xue’s depraved deception. There was no other reasonable explanation that could justify her being so close to him.

  With the answer repeating itself in her mind, Lu Yan’s fury reached an all-time high. Raising her hand, she wanted to give Ye Xue a lesson she would never forget.

  No sooner had she raised her hand than the door was kicked open violently from the outside.

  Everyone in the room froze, stunned by the abrupt turn of events. Qin Shu stood at the doorway. Her wintry gaze swept over the inhabitants of the room sending chills down the spines of those who met her eyes.

  Ye Xue caught sight of Qin Shu through her puffy, tear-stained cheeks. A glimmer of hope danced in the depths of her eyes.

  Along the way back to her apartment, Qin Shu replayed her encounter with the girl who had met her at the door and felt something was fishy. Not in her wildest dreams did she imagine Ye Xue being tortured in her own dorm room.

  Her cheeks were badly bruised and swollen. Blood trickled down the corner of her lips and from the wound on her forehead.

  No wonder Ye Xue had looked a little strange when she saw her earlier that day……

  Qin Shu rushed to Ye Xue’s side. “Is this how you usually bully Ye Xue?”


  “Stay out of this. You should mind your own business if you know what is good for you. You don’t want to end up like her.” Despite her words, Lu Yan was actually quite afraid.

  “You should worry about yourself.” Qin Shu’s eyes were cold and stern. She reached out and grabbed Lu Yan’s wrist. Exerting a bit of force through her fingers, she snapped Lu Yan’s wrist with an audible “crack”.

  “Ah!” Lu Yan squealed like a pig brought to the slaughterhouse.

  Her face took on a ghastly parlour as she struggled and failed to cope with the intense pain emanating from her wrist. The hand gripping onto Ye Xue’s hair slackened with her broken wrist.

  The two girls were so frightened by the sound of Lu Yan’s screams that they cowered in a corner, silent and unmoving.

  Qin Shu regarded Lu Yan’s pained expression. As much as she did not enjoy resorting to violence, sometimes it was a necessary evil. Snapping Lu Yan’s wrist was an adequate punishment in her book since it allowed her to sample some measure of the pain she had inflicted upon Ye Xue.

  Staring Lu Yan in the eye, Qin Shu said, “This is only a small taster of all the pain you have done to others……”


  With a casual wave of her hand, Qin Shu slapped Lu Yan more than a dozen times. She did not stop slapping her until her face resembled a pig’s head, bleeding from multiple orifices. Satisfied with her work, Qin Shu threw Lu Yan to one side as if she was a sack of potatoes.

  Lu Yan crumpled onto the floor groaning in pain. Everything seemed to flash in and out of focus.

  Having dealt with the main perpetrator, Qin Shu strode in the direction of the two girls. When they saw Qin Shu marching over, their faces turned as white as a sheet and they tried to make themselves as small as they could.