Director Gao heard them chatting, and while her expression remained unchanged, she felt nothing but contempt inside.
What good was being serious and responsible? The only thing that mattered was whether you could actually solve problems!
Director Gao had no choice but to regard Yu Xiaxing as an enemy.
What was more, Yu Xiaxing was gradually winning people over, causing her own authority to shrink more and more…
If Yu Xiaxing continued working here, Director Gao figured it wouldn’t be long before she was forced to resign.
Director Gao slowed her pace as she walked, thinking of a solution.
She also knew a thing or two about Jiang Tinglan. After all, Jiang Tinglan had such an impressive mother.
Girls from wealthy families who lacked neither money nor anything except love were nothing new to her.
She could tell that Jiang Tinglan had never genuinely wanted to leave school. She was simply trying to force her mother to back down.
So this task shouldn’t be difficult. After all, the girl herself had never truly wanted to leave.
But what if she made Jiang Tinglan leave despite herself?
Director Gao let out a cold laugh, then turned and headed toward Jiang Tinglan’s classroom.
It was break time.
Jiang Tinglan was leaning alone against a corridor window, staring blankly at the sports field below. An air of melancholy surrounded her.
Just then, the click-clack of high heels approached from a distance.
The noisy students immediately quieted down a little. Everyone knew that Director Gao, who was in charge of school discipline, had arrived.
Director Gao walked over and spotted Jiang Tinglan at once.
She put on a kindly smile and spoke loudly enough for the entire class to hear. “Jiang Tinglan, the school leaders are taking your plans to withdraw very seriously! In particular, Board Director Yu personally asked about your situation and even reviewed all the records of the conversations you’ve had with the school!”
She paused deliberately and swept her gaze around.
Sure enough, quite a few students poked their heads out curiously to look. Even students from the neighboring class came over after hearing the commotion.
Jiang Tinglan’s eyes began to dart away.
She had only secretly told her homeroom teacher and the principal about wanting to withdraw. She had never intended to make such a spectacle of it, attracting everyone’s attention and letting them stare at her as if she were some kind of zoo animal.
Director Gao continued, “Look how much Board Director Yu has gone out of her way for you. What are you still being so difficult about? Just study hard, and stop setting yourself against your teachers and parents. Understand?”
Just like that, her grievances had been dismissed as “being difficult”?
Director Gao walked away after saying her piece.
Once she had gone far enough, the students around Jiang Tinglan immediately crowded around her with questions.
“Wow! The board director personally tried to persuade you to stay? Jiang Tinglan, you have way too much face! I’m so jealous that you have such a powerful mother! If I caused trouble, the school leaders definitely wouldn’t take it this seriously.”
“What does the board director look like? Jiang Tinglan, you have to tell us after you meet her! She’s so mysterious. No one’s even seen her until now.”
Others didn’t say it to her face, but their voices were loud enough for Jiang Tinglan to hear anyway.
“Director Gao was right. She’s just being difficult. Making such a huge fuss—isn’t it simply because she wants to show off how powerful her mother is? She’s upset, so the entire school’s upper management has to coax her?”
“Exactly. There’s no way she’ll really withdraw.”
Jiang Tinglan’s face turned dark, then pale.
At sixteen or seventeen, she still didn’t understand that this was malicious goading.
She was already at odds with her mother, and every word they said seemed to mean, “Everything you have today is because your mother knows how to make money.”
Some people resented her for having such a powerful mother. Deep down, they wanted nothing more than for Jiang Tinglan and her mother to fall out, so they deliberately fanned the flames.
Jiang Tinglan was consumed by anger. She had originally still been hoping that the board director might have a way to make her mother back down. As long as her mother apologized, Jiang Tinglan would make up with her and return to her studies…
But at that moment, she became determined to let everything fall apart.
She would withdraw from school! She would resist her mother’s authority! She would resist the school’s authority!
No matter what that board director said or did, she would never change her mind!
-
Director Gao had gone some distance away, then looked back at the effect she had created.
She watched as Jiang Tinglan’s face flushed red while she stood there arguing with the others, her expression rigid.
Director Gao gave a cold, inward laugh. This was exactly the effect she wanted.
She wanted everyone to know that the board director was personally trying to persuade Jiang Tinglan to stay.
Now that Jiang Tinglan had been placed under the gaze of the entire school, would she still have the nerve to back down easily?
Her fragile pride and rebellious spirit would only be provoked into resisting even more fiercely.
At its core, this was a form of public social humiliation.
When people were at their most vulnerable, their sense of self-worth was already close to collapsing.
Take someone who was about to commit suicide, for example. If the onlookers mocked and egged them on, they might think: I’ve already humiliated myself enough. If I stop now, I’ll become the laughingstock who didn’t even dare to die. That would be even more humiliating. I might as well really do it.
At the same time, it also destroyed her sense of agency and self-awareness.
It reduced her from a human being with legitimate grievances to a mere spectacle.
If she didn’t finish performing, everyone would laugh at her.
Director Gao didn’t completely understand the psychology behind it.
This was merely the experience she had accumulated from controlling teachers and students over the years.
-
Yu Xiaxing had spent the entire day playing games.
By afternoon, she set down her phone, which had grown hot in her hand, and stood up to stretch.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated.
It was a message from Ruan Tian. The first thing she sent was a photo.
When Yu Xiaxing opened it, she found a scene at a private racetrack for professional drivers.
It was dusk. The sky was a vivid purplish red, blending with the dazzling floodlights at the end of the track.
A group of stylish young men and women in racing suits were raising champagne glasses and celebrating something. The atmosphere was lively.
The man standing at the very center of the crowd was especially eye-catching.
He wore a black racing suit. Tall and long-legged, with naturally smiling, flirtatious eyes, he exuded the lazy charm and rakish elegance of someone steeped in money.
Another young man stood beside him, his arm around his shoulders as they laughed and clinked glasses. Yu Xiaxing didn’t recognize him, but from his clothing and bearing, he was clearly from the same social circle.
Ruan Tian asked, “This is probably one of your cousins, right?”
Yu Xiaxing replied, “Yeah, he’s my aunt’s son. Why?”
He was Yu Yuanchen, the person Grandpa had singled out for criticism over his lack of effort at work.
He excelled at eating, drinking, and having fun, and had friends everywhere.
The places he frequented included racetracks, yacht clubs, golf clubs, and private wineries…
Wherever wealthy people gathered, his friends were sure to be found.
He had been a social butterfly since childhood, able to fit in anywhere.
Even his name stood out from those of the rest of the Yu family. Everyone else had names made up of simple characters expressing beautiful hopes.
For example, Yu Xiaxing’s name evoked the brilliant light of stars in a summer night, while her older brother’s suggested unyielding strength and the ability to hold up the heavens and earth…
Only Yu Yuanchen’s name used unusual characters and had an obscure meaning.
That was because her aunt had loved reading romance novels when she gave birth to him, so she had given him a name that sounded straight out of a romance story.
Yu Xiaxing asked, “Why did you send me a picture of him?”
Ruan Tian replied, “I happened to run into your handsome cousin, and I overheard one of his secrets…”
