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Later that night, all the supermodel contestants returned to their respective rooms to rest.
Because there was such a large number of people, the seven bedrooms located throughout the three-story villa weren’t evenly distributed. Therefore, the larger bedrooms held several people, and the rooms where there was only a double bed without the room for any additional beds, contained two people. As for where they would sleep, it was decided with a lottery.
As soon as the contestants had entered the villa, they’d drawn lots for the beds. Sheng Jiaoyang had unfortunately drawn a floor mattress in one of the larger rooms on the third floor. There were also three 1.2 meter wide beds placed in the room, making it capable of housing seven people. Sheng Jiaoyang was the only one in the room who would have to sleep on the floor.
Sheng Jiaoyang was quite late to wash up, and the moment she returned to the room, the other girls were already sitting on their beds. Some of them were lying down, some were applying facial masks, and the rest were laughing and chatting.
As soon as Sheng Jiaoyang walked through the door, all voices suddenly cut off, blanketing the room in utter silence.
The three girls who’d been chatting, and two girls who’d been applying face masks, watched as she walked towards her mattress.
“Xu Jiaojiao, I’m so sorry! When I was walking past your floor mattress, I accidentally slipped and spilt my drink on your quilt.”
Sheng Jiaoyang raised her brow and looked at the person who’d spoken. An hour ago, she’d pointed out the part where this person had played the song wrong. Now, she’d spilled her drink on the floor mattress placed in the corner of the room. Would there really be such a coincidence like this in the world?
“It doesn’t matter. Just switch your quilt with mine, and that will make up for it.”
“Sorry, but I can’t do that. I’m sharing my quilt with Yuan Fang.” Qi Hua instantly refused.
“Then, go and find me a spare one.”
“I’ve already asked. There are no spare quilts.”
So, you just waited here for me instead? Sheng Jiaoyang swept her eyes across the other girls in the room, noting that all of them were acting as spectators. Ignoring their curious gazes, she bent to examine her mattress and found a yellowed water stain in the middle of the white quilt. If the water stain was in the corner of the mattress she could still reluctantly put up with it. However, it was in the middle of the bed. Obviously, the middle of the thin material underneath would also be soaked. Unfortunately, since the mattress was narrow, with the middle of it now soaking wet, how could it be possible for someone to sleep on it?
The air conditioning in the room was also turned up quite high, and she had the feeling that the others wouldn’t agree to turn it down for her.
Sheng Jiaoyang shrugged, picked up her suitcase, and unhurriedly walked out of the room. When she passed Qi Hua, she stopped and gave her a sardonic smile, “The mattress was placed in the corner of the room, and you slipped very accurately.”
“I really didn’t mean to.” Qi Hua’s expression was filled with grief.
“I understand. You deliberately told me that you did it so openly, making it harder to say that you did it intentionally.” Sheng Jiaoyang stared at Qi Hua for a moment before she grabbed her suitcase once more and left the room.
“All the other rooms are full, so she’ll have no place to go. Qi Hua, you should call her back!” one of the girls applying a face mask blurted, unable to stand by and watch any longer.
“Our beds are already so small, and we can sleep at most two people on each bed. If I called her back, where would she sleep? Would she squeeze in with you?” Qi Hua looked at the girl who’d just spoken.
The girl didn’t say anything more.
Once Sheng Jiaoyang was standing in the hallway with her suitcase, she was momentarily perplexed. Why did this scene feel so familiar? She recalled carefully and remembered the isolation and difficulties that she faced when she’d first gone to school abroad. That was when she’d lived with her grandfather.
No wonder this kind of indescribable feeling was familiar. It turned out that a similar scene had occurred a few years ago.
At that time, in order for her to quickly integrate into the life of a foreigner, her grandfather had arranged for her to stay in an aristocratic school. In the beginning, water and garbage was continually spilt on her bed, even though she didn’t dare confront the foreign girls who were all taller than her. Instead, she just turned around and paid a considerable amount of money to switch dormitory rooms with another transfer student. Of course, that transfer student was known as a violent girl. When she’d lived with her mother and had attended a different school, she’d beaten a bully there to the point where she was almost crippled, resulting in her being transferred. More importantly, she also had a very powerful father in the area, and because of her previous fighting, her father had refused to give her any pocket money. The money that Sheng Jiaoyang gave her was something that she urgently needed.
Afterwards, the resulting behaviour of those few foreign girls was entirely within her expectations. They, who’d always liked to mess with people, got taught a lesson by the violent girl which resulted in them not been able to come to school for several days. Later, those girls were so terrified that they’d even transferred to another school.
Well, in actual fact, she still had to thank those people. If it weren't for them, she never would’ve met Mei Niu.
The commotion caused by Qi Hua, which resulted in Sheng Jiaoyang standing alone in the hallway, caused a fuss with those watching the broadcast. The viewers watching her were unable to remain calm and filled the screen with comforting words such as ‘don’t cry sweetie’, ‘hugs’ and so on.
Even though it was already so late at night, many people were still watching the live broadcast, and the majority of those viewers were only paying attention to Sheng Jiaoyang because they really liked her. Half of them had begun to pay attention to Sheng Jiaoyang after they saw her mixing the drinks. The moment they saw her kicked out of the bedroom, one by one they felt sorry for her, and many people in the comments requested the program’s staff to provide her with a new bed.
Sheng Jiaoyang recalled the good times of the past for a moment, then took her suitcase downstairs and made her way to the bedroom door beside the staircase on the second floor. After placing her suitcase by her feet, she then knocked on the door.
“The door’s unlocked, come in!”
Sheng Jiaoyang pushed the door open and entered the room which only had one bed in it. Looking straight at the person lying down on the bed with the facial mask on, she said, “Let me stay here, and I’ll tell you that secret.”
Luo Yi removed the facial mask from her face and sat up, glanced at the suitcase beside Sheng Jiaoyang’s feet, and said without surprise, “Can’t sleep on the floor?”
“Mm, it got wet.”
“Come here, my poor little Jiaojiao! Come to Big Sis’ arms~” Luo Yi spread her arms wide and shouted passionately.
Watching Luo Yi’s comic behaviour, Sheng Jiaoyang’s eyebrows raised and she couldn’t help but softly chuckle.
Regardless of whether or not Luo Yi agreed to let her stay here because of wanting to know the so-called secret, she didn’t hesitate to respond to Luo Yi. She also wanted to accept this offer of friendship.
“What about the other person sharing the room?”
“You mean Mingyu? She went to the toilet. Don’t worry about Mingyu; she's a very good person. I’ve known her for several years now so I couldn’t be clearer about her personality,” Luo Yi said with a smile when she noticed Sheng Jiaoyang’s concern.
Sheng Jiaoyang pushed her suitcase into the corner of the room, then sat on the bed as she said, “I remember that your roommate should be called…”
“Chen Han. She was originally supposed to share a room with me, but she wanted to sleep with Xiao Yang. Therefore, she exchange rooms with our fellow Pu Mingyu.”
“Are you talking about me?”
Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear.
Just as Pu Mingyu had reached the bedroom, she’d heard her name being mentioned, and once she entered the room, she immediately noticed that there was another person inside. Moreover, it was the girl that everyone was currently gossiping about behind her back. According to certain people, everyone knew that this girl had been alone with Zhuo Yiyan in the piano room on the third floor. This matter, of course, caused everyone’s imagination to run wild.
“Mingyu, hurry up and greet our new roommate!” Luo Yi beckoned towards Pu Mingyu.
Due to her trust in Luo Yi, Pu Mingyu didn’t reveal her doubt, and instead walked over to Luo Yi and smiled as she said to Sheng Jiaoyang, “Welcome, my name is Pu Mingyu.”
“Hi, I’m Sheng, uh, Xu Jiaojiao.” Sheng Jiaoyang had nearly blurted out her previous name by mistake.
“I remember that you got the floor mattress in the large room upstairs, right?” Pu Mingyu asked.
“Yep, but now the bed can’t be slept on anymore, so I came here,” Sheng Jiaoyang said helplessly.
Pu Mingyu turned to look at Luo Yi and saw Luo Yi wink at her. With their many years of friendship, she instantly understood that there was something else going on. In fact, Pu Mingyu didn’t really need to think too deeply about who’d spilled their drink on the mattress so that she couldn’t sleep on it anymore. If everyone more or less had an objection to Xu Jiaojiao, it wasn’t impossible to push her out of the room.
“Jiaojiao, I just want to know, but someone said that she saw you and Teacher Zhuo alone in the piano room upstairs. Everybody was talking about you and guessing about your relationship with Teacher Zhuo. Actually, I’m quite curious too,” Luo Yi asked bluntly.
“You’re talking about Qi Hua, right?”
“You knew already?”
Sheng Jiaoyang rubbed at her short hair and said with disdain, “She’s the only one causing trouble behind my back.”
“How did you offend her? Oh, that’s right, she’s also sleeping in the large room on the third floor. Is she the reason why you can’t sleep on your bed?” Luo Yi asked curiously.
Pu Mingyu also looked at Sheng Jiaoyang.
“Wasn’t it her that said I was alone in the piano room with Zhuo Yiyan? He was just curious as to where I learnt to mix cocktails, so he came and asked me. But, right after Zhuo Yiyan entered the piano room, she followed him in. The next thing that happened was that she told Zhuo Yiyan that she’d especially learnt a new piano song and wanted to play it for him to hear. After she played, I pointed out the notes she’d played wrong since it frustrated me that she didn’t know she’d made mistakes. I even considered her feelings and told her about the mistakes once Zhuo Yiyan had left. I didn’t expect her tolerance to be so low.”
Sheng Jiaoyang easily reversed the two listeners’ impression of Qi Hua. She was used to being pushed about so much that it had become a habit, and she now knew how to deal with these kinds of matters. If it must be known, she was a person who’d contended with foreign noble misses and ultimately won.
She liked to give people a taste of their own medicine. Since Qi Hua was so gung-ho about messing with her, then she would let Qi Hua enjoy the feeling of being ostracised by everyone in the future too.
“You can play the piano as well?” The two listeners were surprised.
“My proficiency is only so-so,” Sheng Jiaoyang said calmly. “However, the song Qi Hua played was my first practise song, so I’m pretty familiar with it.”
In the beginning, she’d only learnt how to play the piano to be close to one person.
That year, the sight of him playing the piano so gracefully and elegantly had stunned her.
Although her personality was continually changing, the one thing to remain unchanged was who she dared to love and hate. In a matter of moments, she became a fangirl and had immediately decided to pursue this unattainable man. Later on, she’d used the excuse that she would suddenly like to play the piano to request that he teach her. Presumably, because she was Mei Niu’s best friend, he didn’t decline and strictly supervised her practice. During that time, whenever she’d play a wrong note, he’d tell her to practice it repeatedly; even in her dreams. Yet, while the training was painful, she was happy nonetheless.
“What are you thinking about? You can still smile after being stabbed in the back?” Luo Yi’s voice pulled Sheng Jiaoyang back from her train of thought.
“I’m too lazy to pay any attention to her. Anyway, I couldn’t care less,” Sheng Jiaoyang replied with an indifferent shrug.
Generous people were more likely to give a person a favourable impression. Even Pu Mingyu, who’d initially doubted Sheng Jiaoyang, had now begun to stand on her side and said without concealing her disgust, “She dared to say all those hateful lies! What if it spreads to the judges and affects their impression of you? It’ll be worse then!”
“No one here is stupid. As time passes, they will naturally know the kind of person I am.” Sheng Jiaoyang laughed nonchalantly.
In fact, with her personality, how could she not counterattack? But, it wouldn’t be any fun if she revealed her plans.