During our morning self-study session, Xiao Qin felt ashamed when she saw the band-aids on my face.

“Ye Lin classmate, the person who appeared in front of you yesterday wasn’t me! Just think of him as my evil twin brother! Please don’t bear a grudge against me, okay!”

Unbelievable. She was the same person who trampled me to the ground viciously and hit my face until it turned swollen.

“Huh? Yesterday you beat me and today you’re pretending to be innocent?” I said angrily, “Didn’t you say that I’m as weak as a dog? Didn’t you say that whether or not I deduct your stars doesn’t matter? In that case…”

“No!” Xiao Qin suddenly raised her voice to the extent where it attracted our classmates’ attention, “Please don’t deduct the thousand stars that I worked hard to earn…”

“It’s hundreds! Why are you still trying to increase the numbers of stars at this time! It looks like you haven’t reflected on your mistakes at all! Did it feel good when you gave me a beating?”

“You can’t deduct my stars.” Xiao Qin sounded like she was about to cry, “You can’t hit me if you still aren’t satisfied! You can hit my face until it gets swollen, even if it gets swollen like deep-sea fish…”

“Are you saying I look like deep-sea fish right now? I had to bandage my face and you’re making fun of my appearance…”

The class leader came over and the first thing she asked was: “Ye Lin, what happened to your face? Don’t tell me it was when you caught up to Xiao Qin yesterday and she…”

“No! It definitely wasn’t because Xiao Qin hit me!” I quickly denied it to avoid embarrassment, “After Xiao Qin got drunk, she climbed up a tree like a monkey. I accidentally fell and injured myself when I tried to pull her down!”

Xiao Qin seemed to be very dissatisfied with my lie:

“I wasn’t acting like a monkey! How could you describe a girl as a monkey…”

I pointed to the front row of the classroom, where Xiong YaoYue was wearing Little Smart’s hair clip horizontally on her forehead and imitated the tightening spell from ‘Journey to the West’.

“Who says girls can’t act like monkeys? Isn’t that a monkey with the Sun surname?”

It wasn’t only Sun Wukong who had a tightening headband spell in Journey to the West. The black bear demon who guarded the Purple Bamboo Forest in the South Sea for Guanyin Bodhisattva also had one, but it was a bit too cruel to describe Xiong YaoYue as a black bear demon.

“Thankfully, this happened after your heart… after your waist injury healed.” the class leader found it both amusing and was slightly also worried, “No matter what Xiao Qin did while drunk, it wasn’t intentional —— so you won’t blame her, will you?”

“Yeah, that’s right!” Xiao Qin chimed in with the class leader’s support, “I don’t remember anything after getting drunk! It’s like having my memory erased by the men in black! It’s too cruel to punish me for something I can’t remember!”

“The reason why Xiao Qin was drunk was because I brought back alcoholic candies from a wedding.” the class leader voluntarily took responsibility, “It’s my fault because I didn’t double check, so don’t wholly blame Xiao Qin —— besides, didn’t you injure yourself when you fell off a tree?”

“Um… yeah! Of course I injured it when I fell off a tree!” I said awkwardly, “What else could could it be other than a fall injury or do you think someone hit me? I’m really strong, so if anyone hits me…”

Xiao Qin put on a serious expression while I was talking, but it looked like she was trying really hard to suppress her laughter which was infuriating.

In the end, the class leader decided to set up a table of food with Xiao Qin this weekend to apologize to me. Additionally, it would be an opportunity to teach Xiao Qin some recipes she had always wanted to learn —— the class leader was now quite proficient in French cuisine.

The class leader didn’t really didn’t say anything about what Xiao Qin said yesterday about “from now on, you’re my girl” as Xiao Qin claimed to have no memory after getting drunk. Also, since they were both girls, the class leader simply took it as a joke.

After temporarily resolving this matter, rumors began circulating at 28 Middle about a fight between me and a professional boxer.

The rumors were detailed and said the professional boxer was called Lei Long. Apparently, his wish since he was born was to beat me up (no one knew what kind of prenatal education his mother gave him). Just yesterday, he finally caught up with me on my way home from skipping school and struck my right cheek with his ‘golden left hand’.

I couldn’t handle it anymore, so when a few students from other classes were discussing it, I asked them where Lei Long was now and why his sole purpose seemed to beat me up before disappearing without a trace?

The ignorant people could only nod in response. Half a day later, a new version of the rumor emerged: after Lei Long hit Ye Lin’s right cheek, Ye Lin went mad bit Lei Long to death, and then threw his body into the Da Ning River.

Damn it! Why would I bite me opponents to death? Do I have rabies? And please, stop throwing bodies into the Da Ning River! It’s already filled with corpses from numerous versions of rumors!

That being said, despite the rumors, Xiao Qin sincerely admitted her mistake to me. For example, at noon, she voluntarily went to food stall street to buy fried rice for me and even gave me the shrimp from her lunch box. She blinked her eyes and tried to act cute, hoping I would forget everything from yesterday.

How could I forget! I completely remember yesterday’s events and also every little thing we experienced together in our childhood came rushing back to me!

“I’ll let it slide this time for the class leader and Auntie Ren’s sake.”

I didn’t eat the shrimp Xiao Qin offered and returned it to her.

“I won’t deduct your 105 gold stars for now, but you can’t drink anymore, understand? You were way out of line yesterday, especially with the centipede…”

“I understand.” Xiao Qin muttered and nodded, “I took a thorough shower when I got home yesterday, and I washed my hands twenty to thirty times. Just the thought of touching something so disgusting…”

“Hey! Didn’t you say you don’t remember anything after getting drunk?!”

“Well, just a little bit~~~” Xiao Qin pouted, “It’s because centipedes are so disgusting, so I remember it clearly. I can’t really remember the other less disgusting things…”

Well, should I be grateful that you classified me as “less disgusting”?

Xiao Qin vowed never to touch alcoholic food or drinks from then on, and she promised to do good deeds wholeheartedly to erase the bad impression she left on me yesterday. She was determined to excel in every aspect from now on.

However, as the saying goes, ‘more haste, less speed’, Xiao Qin tried to do a good deed in the afternoon, but it ended up being very counterproductive.

As I mentioned before, Mr. Song, the homeroom teacher for class 3-2, became our temporary homeroom teacher. He came to inspect our class just before the normal class hours ended and evening self-study began. He noticed that the power plug of the projector screen was loose, so he squatted down to adjust it.

There weren’t many people in the classroom at the time and the class leader wasn’t there either. Mr. Song tried to adjust the power plug left and right but couldn’t stabilize it (because the teaching equipment was old and poorly maintained). At that moment, Xiao Qin, along with Loud Mouth and Little Smart, came back into the classroom through the front door ——

Unfortunately, Mr. Song’s clothes had a buildup of static electricity and it shocked him, so he instinctively shook his hand.

“Ah! Mr. Song got shocked!”

Xiao Qin was eager to perform a good deed and she thought this was a perfect opportunity sent from above. She rushed up to the lectern without much consideration, and using her rubber-soled sneakers, she kicked Mr. Song’s other arm, which was holding the plug.

“Ah Ah Ah~~!!!!”

Mr. Song fell over with a wail. He was sent to the hospital with a broken wrist and Auntie Ren paid the medical bills and apologized profusely.

Both Loud Mouth and Little Smart were bystanders and spoke up for Xiao Qin.

“Mr. Song really looked like he was being shocked! He’s not an electrician, so why was he fixing the socket.”

“I was going to look for a broom, but who knew Xiao Qin was too fast and directly kicked him…”

That day, another rumor spread: whoever becomes the homeroom teacher of class 3-3 will get bad luck. First it was Mr. Yu who got stabbed on the butt, and then the young graduate who took over as homeroom teacher for a few days fell seriously ill. It seemed like a curse was at play.

Furthermore, some people expressed regret, saying it was unbelievable that Xiao Qin, such a quiet girl, had been influenced by me because we spent too much time together. They couldn’t believe she would dare to kick a teacher simply because I told her to do it.

Damn it! Xiao Qin was just too eager to earn gold stars and she misjudged the situation. What does it have to do with me? Also what do you mean I told her to do it? Why would I have a decades long grudge against the teachers?!

Anyway, Xiao Qin felt even more ashamed due to her consecutive mistakes. She even sat in the corner of the classroom closest to me during breaks to reflect on her actions. Fortunately, the class leader listened to Loud Mouth and Little Smart’s testimonies, so she knew that Xiao Qin had good intentions, so she comforted her.

“Don’t be sad. Auntie Ren didn’t blame you either, right? Regardless of what the rumors say, you know the truth. If Mr. Song really did get shocked, then you might have saved his life, right? Also, I heard that Mr. Song doesn’t blame you either…”

That’s true. Mr. Song, class 3-2’s homeroom teacher, wasn’t particularly narrow-minded. However, he felt quite sad about having his arm broken by a slender girl like Xiao Qin and thought it was a sign of his bones becoming fragile due to old age.

In any case, Mr. Song’s arm was put in a cast, and he would have to be absent from his own class for a few days. Moreover, he had developed some fears regarding our class and couldn’t continue as our substitute teacher. So, we, the students of our class, once again became sheep without a shepherd.

It was a dire situation, so the vice-principal actually sent the owl head teacher to become our temporary homeroom teacher. As soon as she took over, class 3-3’s students were on edge and feared doing anything that could give her cause to issue severe punishment.

However, the owl teacher was relatively lenient towards me. Firstly, she liked to bully the weak and feared the strong, and secondly, she was Xing Xing’s aunt, so things started off smoothly —— after all, it was just a temporary measure. Besides, her hunting ground was the entire playground and the entire school, so how could this small class 3-3 classroom confine her?

Wednesday quickly arrived and marked the middle of the week. Additionally, November 6th had a rather tongue-twisting name called the ‘International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict’.

Initially, when I heard about it, I thought someone made it up to trick me. But upon further investigation, I discovered it was indeed real and it was declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 2001.

Eunuch Cao jokingly suggested that this commemorative day should be renamed ‘International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of Women in War and Armed Conflict’. He even held a “referendum” among classmates, only to be caught in the act by teacher Owl and sent to stand in the corridor as punishment.