65. Trouble Arrives (Ten Thousand Words—Subscribe Now!)

The first day of the new term, as expected, was spent taking exams. Still, Bai Jinyan kept the promise he’d made to Chen Ruowen over the break, fetching her lunch and dinner from the cafeteria and delivering it to her seat himself—much to Ma Yunan’s astonishment.

“Jinyan, it’s only been one winter break, and your position in the family has plummeted!” Ma Yunan exclaimed, barely able to keep his jaw from dropping.

Bai Jinyan was exasperated.

“Jinyan, did you do something to upset Ruowen? Is she punishing you because you wronged her?” Ma Yunan pressed on.

Bai Jinyan was tempted to hit him.

“I know!” Ma Yunan clapped his hands, inspiration striking. “You went to Du Yueyue’s birthday party and Ruowen got jealous, didn’t she? It has to be that—Du Yueyue said you used to help her get food, and Ruowen found out, so now you’re forced to fetch her meals every day, right?”

“Shut up!”

Chen Ruowen shouted before Bai Jinyan could, slamming her chopsticks on the table. She tore a scrap of paper from her notebook, scrunched it into a ball, and stuffed it into Ma Yunan’s mouth, shooting Bai Jinyan a furious glare for good measure.

Bai Jinyan spread his hands helplessly.

Spitting out the wad of paper, Ma Yunan crowed, “I knew it! Nailed it, haha!” And before Chen Ruowen could react, he dashed off.

Bai Jinyan cleared his throat. “Ruowen…”

“Don’t talk to me!”

“Didn’t we already move past this…?”

“I don’t want to talk to you!”

And so, Bai Jinyan found himself suffering another bout of undeserved misfortune. Even after school, Chen Ruowen refused to walk home with him.

“Jinyan, do you think Ruowen is really mad about this?” Ma Yunan trailed after Bai Jinyan, his face practically screaming “gossip.”

Bai Jinyan kept his distance behind Chen Ruowen, occasionally glancing at her retreating figure, then lowering his head to bombard her with texts. He shot Ma Yunan a weary look.

“Can’t you drop it?”

Ma Yunan snickered. “I didn’t realize Ruowen was so jealous. But that just proves she cares about you—you should be happy!”

“Can you please stop talking?” Bai Jinyan was in despair.

—

Not far from Bai Jinyan and Ma Yunan, Chen Ruowen ignored the relentless pinging of her phone, stubbornly refusing to check her messages. Yet as she neared the school gate, she hesitated, then snatched out her phone with gritted teeth.

“I’m not checking his messages! I just want to ask Old Cui where he parked the car today, that’s all!” she muttered to herself.

She opened her contacts, about to call Driver Cui, when a commotion broke out nearby.

“So you’ve grown bold now, have you? Not coming home all break—do you even remember you have a family? Do you care about your parents?”

“Why are you silent? Where did you go? Who did you run off with? What’s with the clothes you’re wearing? Who bought them for you? Did you find yourself a man outside?”

“How much more disgrace do you plan to bring upon this family? How did I end up with a daughter like you? How did your mother raise you? Have you no shame?”

The barrage of insults drifted toward her, and even the few lines she caught made Chen Ruowen frown.

“Didn’t come home all break—she’s probably been kept by someone.”

“Who knows? Last year, wasn’t there an older man who came to school for her? Didn’t they say he was her sugar daddy too?”

“She’s no good. People like her should be kicked out of First High, ruining the school’s reputation.”

“She’s made a laughingstock of the whole school!”

Some in the crowd seemed to recognize the father-daughter pair ahead, whispering and pointing. Chen Ruowen’s frown deepened at their gossip.

No wonder Guo Jingyuan always called herself trouble—she really was a little troublemaker.

“I should never have married your mother, let alone had a shameless daughter like you! I should have just dropped you on your head the day you were born!”

The man’s anger swelled with every word, as if his daughter’s very existence was a crime, and finally he raised his hand, aiming to slap Guo Jingyuan across the face.

“Why don’t you just die!”

But the slap fell on empty air; his momentum carried him forward a couple of steps, nearly making him stumble.

“You wretch, you even dare dodge?!”

Having missed, and narrowly avoided falling himself, the man’s humiliation only fueled his rage. He raised his hand again, but suddenly noticed someone new in front of him—a strikingly beautiful woman stood half a meter away, her chin lifted, radiating an intimidating presence that left Guo Yang momentarily stunned.

His shameless daughter was now shielded behind this woman, who had pulled her out of harm’s way.

“And who are you?” Guo Yang demanded, snapping out of his daze.

“The landlord who took Guo Jingyuan in over the winter break,” Chen Ruowen replied lazily.

She raised her voice on purpose, making sure everyone heard that Guo Jingyuan had been staying with her these past weeks—not hiding away with some man, as the rumors claimed.

Guo Jingyuan gazed at Chen Ruowen, who once again stood between her and harm, her expression soft and conflicted.

A moment earlier, she’d felt utterly hopeless.

She’d been away from home for over half a month, and not one person from that so-called family had sent her a single message or made a single call. On the first day of school, they ambushed her at the gate—not with a word of concern, not asking how she’d spent those weeks, whether she was well, whether she’d suffered. Instead, they accused her outright of running off with some man.

Regrets about marrying her mother, regrets about giving birth to her, telling her to die…

How could she not regret being this man’s daughter?

She deserved to die! Since her mother passed, she should have gone with her!

So she hadn’t even tried to dodge that first slap; part of her even hoped it would kill her, so that this man would remember he’d beaten his own daughter to death.

But someone insisted she live.

“Landlord, is it?” Guo Yang sneered. “So now you’re seducing the landlord too?”

He didn’t believe a word of it. When Guo Jingyuan ran away from home, she barely had a few dozen yuan to her name—how could she afford rent for over two weeks? She must have used her looks to ensnare the landlord!

Chen Ruowen’s brow furrowed. “Did you have your dinner in the restroom? Is that why your mouth stinks so much?”

The crowd burst out laughing, and Guo Yang’s face turned an even darker shade of red.

“Hasn’t anyone taught you to respect your elders?” he snapped.

Chen Ruowen snorted. “Elders? And whose elder do you think you are, going around claiming relatives? Have you no shame?”

Guo Yang’s expression turned positively black.