Screeeech—
A desk leg dragged across the floor with an ear-piercing shriek. The teacher, who had been writing on the blackboard in chalk, turned around in shock.
Among the students slouching, sitting, and sprawling in every conceivable position, the black-haired boy who had risen to his feet stood out unmistakably.
Gu Yang wore a gloomy expression. Several strands of hair stuck to his face, and he looked for all the world as though he had only just woken up.
"Student Gu, is something wrong?" The young mathematics teacher, who had become their homeroom teacher just a year after graduating, nervously adjusted his glasses. He had no idea what was happening.
A few students who loved nothing more than a spectacle turned right around to watch him with broad grins.
"Nothing." Gu Yang tugged at the corner of his mouth, pulled out his chair, and sat down. Then, under everyone's gaze, he rested his head on his folded arms and went straight back to sleep.
The mathematics teacher: "…"
Would it really kill you to show me even the tiniest bit of respect, Student Gu?
He could think it all he liked, but he didn't dare say a word aloud.
He had earned his undergraduate degree at Capital University and completed graduate studies at a top overseas institution. His academic record and research achievements were both outstanding, and he had joined the school's teaching staff immediately after graduation.
Observance High School was a private school with terrifying tuition fees. In return, it paid its teachers exceptionally well.
Plenty of people thought a man with his qualifications was wasting his talents teaching high school. But only he understood the joy of seeing his monthly salary arrive.
Compared with that, putting up with the spoiled tempers of a few young masters and heiresses was nothing.
The teacher's unhurried lecture resumed.
Gu Yang heard every word perfectly clearly. In fact, he wasn't sleepy at all. He was only lying like this because he was afraid his face would betray him and arouse unnecessary suspicion.
Just as he had been dozing off, an enormous bang had suddenly exploded inside his head. Immediately afterward, a book appeared before his eyes.
Its cover was spectacularly tacky: against a background of pink roses, a handsome white-haired man held a sleeping, beautiful youth in his arms. A wickedly roguish smile played on his lips, perfectly complementing the two lines of pink, decorative lettering underneath.
The Tyrannical Young Master's Long Road to Winning Back His Wife.
What the fuck was this garbage?
That was Gu Yang's first thought. Nevertheless, despite his contempt, he opened the book.
As he read, he began to notice something wrong.
Wasn't the Observance High School in this book the very school he attended? And he recognised more than one name.
At the thought, Gu Yang actually laughed.
The sound was muffled by his arms. The classmate sitting to his right felt a chill down his spine, wondered what kind of madness this menace was up to now, and silently edged his desk farther away.
At last, Gu Yang's interest was piqued. He read on, first skimming the book rather carelessly. Familiar names appeared one after another, strengthening his suspicion.
The story followed a boy from an impoverished family who entered Observance High School with the highest entrance-exam score in the city, and everything that happened afterward.
A gambling father, a sick mother, a younger brother still in school, and a boy already broken by life: no description could sum up the bottom protagonist better.
Lured by the generous scholarship and tuition waiver promised by the admissions office, he had turned down a place at a prestigious public school to attend this private academy for the wealthy.
But the class divide meant he was bullied and singled out wherever he went.
The worst offender was the top protagonist, an entitled young master who took the idea of being born above everyone else to its most grotesque extreme. His offences included, but were by no means limited to:
Locking the bottom protagonist in a toilet cubicle and drenching him with cold water in the dead of winter; framing him for theft; and even sending people to surround him on the day of the national university entrance examination, making him miss the exam and destroying years of effort in one stroke.
Before enrolling, the boy had signed an agreement with the school. He had to gain admission to Capital University and place among the top ten examinees in the province; otherwise he would have to repay every scholarship payment and all the tuition fees the school had waived.
Under that crushing pressure, his mother, once she learned the truth, could not bear to remain a burden and disconnected her own life-support tubes. To repay the mountain of debt, he abandoned any thought of sitting the entrance exam another year and went straight to work to support his younger brother, who was still studying.
That was the first half of the novel. The second half took place after they entered adult society and told the story of the two male leads meeting again years later and rekindling their broken relationship.
Yes. There was no long, painful reckoning for the abuser. Just a reunion.
What a vicious plot.
His own grades were nothing special, but an almost sacred attachment to the university entrance examination was practically written into the DNA of everyone in the country. So when he skipped ahead to the final page and found a happy ending, Gu Yang could only marvel inwardly at the sheer audacity of it.
The closing bonus chapter laid out what happened to every character. Gu Yang found his own name there, too.
Apparently he was minor cannon fodder, whose role was to oppose the top protagonist, then watch his entire family go bankrupt, their businesses acquired by the male lead, before meeting a miserable end.
Normally, someone who learned they were disposable cannon fodder in a novel would panic at least a little, then rush to cling to the protagonist's coattails or do something to save themselves from their destined downfall.
But Gu Yang wasn't a normal person.
Put a button in front of him that could destroy the entire world with one press, and he would push it without a moment's hesitation.
So what the hell was a mere family bankruptcy? If the day actually came, he would probably buy fireworks to celebrate.
In that splendid frame of mind, Gu Yang turned back through the book.
Apart from its morally repugnant plot, another remarkable feature was its utter disregard for its readers: it was padded to the point of bursting, like floodwaters released from a dam. Every character with even a modest role was treated to a painstakingly detailed personal storyline.
But for Gu Yang, who actually lived in that world, it was a magnificent collection of gossip.
[This is a hell of a lot more interesting than this shitty class.]
The voice that suddenly reached every student in the room made them all freeze. That arrogant, dead-inside tone was far too familiar.
Had Gu Yang finally lost his mind altogether? How did he dare say that in front of everyone, in the middle of a lesson? Aaaaaah—
The familiar, excruciating secondhand embarrassment was about to strike again. Whether they had been listening to the lesson or not, everyone turned to look at the mathematics teacher's rather narrow back.
When the teacher turned and saw them all staring, he nearly dropped his chalk.
Were they all possessed today? Since when did they pay this much attention?
Knowing precisely what kind of students they were, the teacher was not touched in the slightest. He was terrified. But he dared neither ask questions nor make a fuss, so he steeled himself and continued teaching.
"I've noticed Little Feng has gotten better and better at playing dumb lately."
A temporary group chat sprang up. In the third row beside the window, a girl with long, straight black hair propped her chin on one hand while typing rapidly beneath her desk with the other.
Once she got things started, the other students immediately joined in.
"Still, Gu Yang's way too arrogant. He's a teacher, for heaven's sake. Can't he show the man even a little respect?"
"Somebody give Teacher Liu Feng a hug. He looks ready to fall apart, hehe."
"Gu Yang's always been sick in the head. Are you meeting him for the first time or something? I bet it runs in the family."
"Cheng Zishi, do you have a death wish? Slandering the Gu family? Careful someone doesn't screenshot that and come after you, hehe."
"…"
All that aside, the students of Class Eleven did have a few ground rules. A class of barely more than a dozen could somehow produce twenty group chats, and their friendships were shallow and cheap, but they agreed on one fundamental principle.
What happened in private stayed private.
"What the hell was His Highness Gu Yang doing last night? He's been asleep all day. He suddenly rose from the dead just now and scared the life out of me, only to go straight back to sleep."
"Who knows? Maybe he overdid it with all that… strenuous activity."
"Oh?"
"Oh??"
The suggestive remark instantly awakened everyone's appetite for gossip. The sender was anonymous, but that hardly dampened their enthusiasm.
"Well, well, sounds like you know something. Do tell us more."
"Heh. Is there anyone who doesn't know about Gu Yang and that certain Mr Gu?"
"What? I thought it was only a rumour. They're actually doing it? The Gu family is seriously messed up."
"Holy shit. I thought it was just a sick joke. You're telling me it's real…?"
"What? What are you talking about? Which Mr Gu? What's this new gossip about Gu Yang?"
"Be good and go sit at the children's table. This topic's much too adult for you, @TaroBallsCoconutJelly."
"??? What am I not allowed to hear? You're openly excluding me! @+1"
"You anonymous coward, you might want to watch your mouth. What, were you the floor lamp beside their bed?"
Ying Jiayi continued typing. The dark blue-and-black cat's-eye manicure she had just had done tapped incessantly against her screen, the noise swallowed by the chalk scraping across the blackboard.
"If nothing happened, how could a scandal that disgusting have started in the first place? You think it came out of nowhere? There are eyes all over the Gu household, and people talk. Of course rumours would leak. Why would I need to see it myself?"
Oh, dear.
Ying Jiayi clicked her tongue and sighed, glancing sideways at the boy to her right. His profile was cool and studious, his uniform sleeves rolled up a little. His lean back was so straight it looked as though it would stay that way even if the sky fell.
You've really outdone yourself, Shen Mingjun. You play the exemplary student in public, and behind everyone's backs you spread filthy sexual rumours about someone else.
It wasn't as if she were clairvoyant. Someone had brought up this very rumour in an anonymous school-forum post before, and because the people involved were so conspicuous, the post had gone viral almost immediately.
For some unknown reason, however, the forum had abruptly switched to displaying real names. The original poster's identity had appeared in plain sight for everyone to see.
The slanderous post was swiftly removed, and Shen Mingjun put up another claiming his account had been hacked and he knew nothing about the earlier post.
[Ha.]
A laugh so soft it was barely audible rang out, and everyone stopped typing at once.
They knew that laugh far too well.
Whenever Gu Yang laughed like that, something was about to suffer—whether a person or an object.
Surely he couldn't somehow sense them gossiping about him behind his back?
[Shen Mingjun, that stone-faced bastard, acts so superior at school. Turns out he's the illegitimate son of a woman who knowingly became a mistress and drove the lawful wife to her death so she could take her place. Impressive.]
The words left everyone stunned.
Holy shit. Was that true?
At that moment, the cool, rigid figure in the front row suddenly seemed to collapse in on itself.
