Chapter 14

Lu Hao was in a terrible mood after the fight with Class Two and he vented it all on Zhang Wenqi before leaving the classroom. Right now, Zhang Wenqi was full of anger with nowhere to release it.

Zhang Wenqi stood up. She unscrewed a bottle of ink and splashed it on Oreo’s face.

Half of Oreo’s face became black and a large amount of ink spilled down his shirt as well.

Oreo looked at Zhang Wenqi, then at Jia Beibei. For some reason, his heart chilled.

The crazy, dark thoughts that he had suppressed for a long time were threatening to burst.

These thoughts had formed when he learned of Gu Xin’s backstabbing actions. They crawled on Oreo’s heart and slowly ate away at the goodness he clung to while begetting ugliness.

Then, when Gu Xin began to treat him well, it was like he had lost the ability to feel pain, but now those feelings were all returning back to him.

At this moment, a few students from Class Six happened to pass by and walked in.

Gu Xin was smoking on the rooftop. When he heard footsteps behind him, he threw the cigarette to the ground and extinguished it with his foot.

Guo Yang’s footsteps were light like a cat’s, but Gu Xin had good hearing. He turned his head and asked:

“Walking quietly in a place like this, I’ll misunderstand that you’re trying to push me down.”

This rooftop was where Zhang Qin had jumped from.

“What’s the meaning of the video you sent me?” Guo Yang asked vigilantly.

Guo Yang came to the rooftop per Gu Xin’s instruction because Gu Xin had used a video to threaten him.

In the video, Guo Yang had his head lowered and was rummaging through Lu Hao’s school bag. He took out a watch and stuffed it into his pocket before walking hurriedly out of the classroom.

“I told you to bring the watch.” Gu Xin said.

“Huo Yang: “I brought it, what do you want?”

Gu Xin was displeased with his edgy attitude. He said: “I can send the video to Lu Hao whenever I want to.”

Gu Xin was just this sort of despicable person.

When Lu Hao lost a brand watch back then, even if Oreo wasn’t seen exiting the empty classroom, everyone still would’ve targeted him.

Back then, Gu Xin was very willing to see this sort of scenario unfold, but he still couldn’t help but film the entire process of Guo Yang’s thief.

“Do you really think that Lu Hao tormented Oreo for a year just because of a lost watch? He was just using that as an excuse, even if you showed him that I was the one who did it, nothing will happen to me and they will still hit Oreo like always. Such a redundant thing, why do it, Gu Xin?”

“Oh? Then tell me, if Lu Hao isn’t doing it because of the watch, what is he doing it for?” As Gu Xin spoke, he placed another cigarette into his mouth and lit it while blocking the wind with his hand. The wind blew a smoke behind Gu Xin’s head.

“It’s because of Zhang Qin, of course.” Guo Yang said.

“So it’s like this.” Gu Xin acted as if he was enlightened. He then said eerily: “Then take a look at what’s engraved on the watch’s wristband.”

Guo Yang didn’t understand what he meant, but seeing his expression, he didn’t seem to be joking. He took out the watch from his pocket. The wristband of the watch was black so anything engraved on it would be hard to detect.

When Guo Yang saw it, his heart fell.

On the wristband was Zhang Qin’s initials carved using the English alphabet.

Gu Xin smiled.

It wasn’t Cheng Jun who prepared the watch for Lu Hao, rather, it was Zhang Qin who asked Cheng Jun to pass it on. At that time, Lu Hao was already together with Zhang Wenqi who was respected among the girls so Zhang Qin had tinkered with the watch in hope of Lu Hao noticing her feelings.

Zhang Qin had a close relationship with Cheng Jun and when she asked for this favor, Gu Xin happened to have overheard it.

However, Gu Xin wasn’t a nosy person. The secret of the watch was only known to Zhang Qin, Gu Xin, and Cheng Jun.

Or perhaps Lu Hao had always realized it at some point.

All of Lu Hao’s friends knew that his relationship with Zhang Qin had been ambiguous, but all of them kept their mouth shut about this matter and never mentioned it to Zhang Wenqi.

“After Zhang Qin’s death, Lu Hao practically treats it like a treasure, en?” Gu Xin sighed and said.

The guys around Lu Hao knew that after Zhang Qin died, she had become the white moonlight in Lu Hao’s heart.

“If you want to expose me to Lu Hao, you could’ve directly sent that video to him. Since you called me here, you must’ve something else to say?” Guo Yang said this while feigning calmness.

“En. You’re in charge of the key to the printing room, right?” Gu Xin asked.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“The manuscripts for the students in our school participating in the Books Cup over the years, be it the preliminaries, semi-finals, finals, or classics, there should be records of them in the printing room ba.” Gu Xin said.

The Books Cup Classics was the contest that Oreo had won and Zhang Qin had accused him of plagiarism for.

“That’s right.”

The printing room was typically only used to help teachers make copies of papers. Few people knew that some documents were stored there. Gu Xin only learned of this after he began investigating the plagiarism case.

“Then tell me, was Oreo’s work copied off of Zhang Qin.” Gu Xin asked.

“I don’t know.” Guo Yang answered.

“What, are their manuscripts not in the printing room?” Gu Xin asked, puzzled.

“Zhang Qin never entered the Books Cup Classics, she had never even participated in the preliminaries so she doesn’t have a file.” Guo Yang explained.

“If Zhang Qin didn’t enter the Books Cup, why did she think Oreo plagiarized her work?” Gu Xin questioned.

“I’m also not sure.” Guo Yang said.

Gu Xin lifted his phone. Guo Yang asked vigilantly: “What are you doing?”

“Sending the video to Lu Hao.”

“Fuck, are you crazy?!” Guo Yang launched forward to grab the phone, but Gu Xin stepped aside, causing him to grab nothing but air.

“You’re not being truthful.” Gu Xin had already opened up the album on his phone. He only needed to press confirm to send the video to Lu Hao. Gu Xin showed the screen to Guo Yang like he was giving him one last chance.

“Don’t, don’t, I’ll talk. I know what happened.” Guo Yang stared at the screen nervously.

“Fine, I’ll give this final chance. Speak.” Gu Xin smiled and said.

Just before, when Gu Xin went to the printing room to help Teacher Zhao make copies, he had searched through the documents in the cabinets before finding a file labeled ‘Oreo’. He then quickly searched through the rest and found a manuscript that had many similar points to Oreo’s. There was no name on it but from the delicate handwriting, it should be Zhang Qin who wrote it.

Zhang Qin’s manuscript was in the printing room.

But why was her manuscript filed away when she didn’t enter the contest?

There was definitely something fishy going on here.

“Truth is, Oreo indeed didn’t plagiarize from Zhang Qin’s work…”

“Then it was Zhang Qin who framed Oreo. What was her motive?” Gu Xin asked.

“No, Zhang Qin didn’t falsely accuse Oreo, because Oreo didn’t plagiarize her manuscript, but Oreo’s manuscript was plagiarized off of Zhang Qin’s.”

“Do you hear yourself?”

Guo Yang let out a sigh and began to recount the events of that day.