Yu Xiaxing put on a righteous front. “What do you mean, ‘underperforming students’? Their grades are poor, so why should we call them that?”
“The teachers and principal favor students who do well academically. I can’t do anything about that—I can’t control how they feel.”
“But I’m a board director, and I’m a businessperson. Students are our customers. How can we use an insulting label like ‘underperforming students’ to refer to our customers?”
Lu Yanzhao apologized. “I’m sorry. What I said before was too one-sided and imprecise. Let me rephrase it. How are we supposed to explain to the evaluation committee that we want to send these students—who simply aren’t outstanding academically, but may excel in other areas—to use these resources?”
Yu Xiaxing thought for a moment. “Tell them that top students already have plenty of opportunities in their everyday lives, so this time, we’re giving the opportunity to students with poorer grades. Everyone pays the same registration fee, so why should students with lower grades be denied access to these resources?”
Lu Yanzhao mulled it over for a while. “All right.”
He went out first to work on his talking points.
Left alone in the office, Yu Xiaxing began thinking about how to accelerate her own march toward disaster.
Suddenly, she remembered that Fifth Brother had also completed these two contract-renewal missions in her previous life…
In her previous life, he had only been dragged into the conflict and paralyzed after Xu Tian was exposed for being pregnant. That had happened much later, and since that conflict would no longer occur this time, he was still perfectly fine at this stage.
He had successfully renewed the school withdrawal contract.
She had secretly investigated his report afterward. Unlike her own wicked method, he had simply invited the mother and daughter over for a proper discussion and persuaded Ms. Chen to back down.
After Ms. Chen apologized, Jiang Tinglan continued attending school. The matter was resolved quickly, without all the later complications involving divorce and so on…
Tsk. Now that she thought about it, she really was too awful. She had broken up someone else’s family.
But Fifth Brother’s second mission—the Qizhi Laboratory—had failed.
He had a short temper and wasn’t easy to deal with. When he went to renew the contract, he seemed to have been insulted and treated with disdain by the people there, so he got into a fight with them.
Yu Xiaxing slapped her palm.
Qizhi, you humiliated Yu Zheng in my previous life. This time, you absolutely have to humiliate me too!
If you humiliate Yu Zheng but not me, that would be an insult to me as well!
Besides, Yu Zheng had experience taking down Qizhi. So this time, she might as well bring him along and let him cause some trouble for her!
She would tell her brother as soon as she got home that evening!
—
That afternoon, every class at Shengde received a notice about signing up for “Qizhi Science Practice Day.”
Lu Yanzhao certainly wasn’t going to tell everyone that the students were customers or anything like that.
Instead, he wrote:
“To give every student a fair opportunity, students who have participated before will not be allowed to join this time. If the contract is successfully renewed in the future, opportunities will be arranged on a rotating basis.
“Board Director Yu believes in educating everyone without discrimination. At Shengde, grades are not the only measure of a person. As long as you do not give up on yourself, the school will not easily give up on you.
“That is why Board Director Yu fought to secure this opportunity for everyone! Students who are not selected this time should not be disappointed. We will arrange other suitable activities in the future as well!”
The response was unexpectedly enthusiastic.
The happiest students were those in the middle of the academic rankings.
Students who had no interest in studying at all generally couldn’t be bothered to sign up for this sort of activity. They were more likely to spend their weekends out having fun.
The ones who signed up were mostly students with at least some interest.
In the past, whenever the principal tried to register them, Qizhi would reject them because their grades weren’t high enough.
Now, they finally had a chance!
Everyone looked forward to Friday.
—
That evening.
After returning home, Yu Xiaxing went out to walk the dog with Yu Zheng and brought up the matter along the way.
“Brother, you’ve finished all your missions, so you must be pretty free lately, right? Want to come along with me? The Qizhi Laboratory is in the neighboring city, built at the foot of a mountain with beautiful scenery. It’ll be fun.”
Yu Zheng was indeed quite free. Once the property he had taken over was running smoothly, all he had to do was deal with the minor issues in the residential complex. He could leave those to his subordinates if he wanted.
He gave Yu Xiaxing a knowing look. “You couldn’t handle the contract-renewal mission, could you? You want me to help you?”
Yu Xiaxing was an expert at keeping a straight face and managed not to laugh.
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, yes. I’ve finally realized that I can’t do this on my own. I want to ask for your help!”
Yu Zheng agreed immediately. “Sure. Let’s go together.”
Yu Xiaxing curled her lips into a smile, already screaming inwardly.
Fight, fight, fight!
Walking beside her, Yu Zheng looked down at her barely concealed grin and smiled as well. “Xingxing.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m really happy that you took the initiative to ask me for help. Truly, I’m incredibly happy.”
Yu Xiaxing looked up at him and was surprised to see that the usually carefree, roguish man was being so serious.
Yu Zheng said earnestly, “It’s been years since you last let me do anything for you.”
“When we were little, you used to follow me around and ask me to stand up for you. Sometimes, you even asked me to take the blame for you…”
“Then, at some point, I don’t know when, you stopped telling me anything. You’ve become distant from me, too, and you hardly rely on me anymore.”
Yu Xiaxing fell silent and continued walking slowly.
“You can rely on me,” Yu Zheng said, moving closer with a bright, cocky smile. “I’m your real brother, after all. Touched?”
Yu Xiaxing hated it when a conversation suddenly turned sentimental. She had no idea how to respond, so she simply walked away. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Yu Zheng: “…Again? Does talking to me make you feel dirty?”
Yu Xiaxing hurried away, tugging Diandian along with her.
—
After showering, Yu Xiaxing lay down on her bed and noticed that she had received a new message.
It was from Ruan Tian.
Ruan Tian: “Boss Yu, I’ve been following Huo Mian’s situation for a long time. I even disguised myself as a cleaner and slipped into the rehabilitation center to observe her up close.”
“But I haven’t found much that seems unusual. She spends almost every day at your Third Brother’s rehabilitation center. Her daily movements are extremely limited.”
Yu Xiaxing frowned.
Previously, after hearing Breaking Free recount a story similar to Huo Mian’s, she had assumed that Breaking Free was Huo Mian.
She had also assumed that the police would trace the IP address, find out where Breaking Free was living, and arrest her.
But Huo Mian was still living normally…
Could it be that she had nothing to do with Breaking Free?
Could it simply be a coincidence—that Breaking Free and Huo Mian had experienced similar childhoods?
After thinking for a moment, she asked, “What about her mother?”
Ruan Tian: “Her mother, Qin Mei, is very popular at the rehabilitation center… Probably because she’s relatively young and beautiful.”
“Most of the people staying at the center are over sixty or seventy, but Qin Mei was specially approved for admission even though she’s not yet fifty.”
“She also likes to take care of her appearance and undergo cosmetic treatments. She looks young enough that people would believe she was in her thirties or forties, so a lot of people are fond of her. Professor Zhong even tried to court her.”
“I don’t know why, but Qin Mei is polite and courteous to everyone except her own daughter. She emotionally abuses her every day. If her daughter makes even the slightest mistake, Qin Mei insults and belittles her.”
Yu Xiaxing: “All right… What about my Third Brother? Is he good to Huo Mian?”
Ruan Tian: “He treats her quite well. If you saw Huo Mian being humiliated every day with your own eyes, you’d think she was terribly pitiful too.”
“It’s perfectly normal to feel sympathy for such a pitiful young girl… Even I feel sorry for her, let alone your Third Brother, who used to be her classmate.”
“But your Third Brother has a rather unique way of showing sympathy and concern for people…”
Yu Xiaxing immediately perked up and asked with great interest, “What did he do to Huo Mian?”
