Anning encountered the school bully, Ge Yiming, after class. Ge Yiming has a notorious reputation at Thirteen Middle School, definitely not a good one, but rather one that invokes fear in others. Ge Yiming is a sports student, tall and strong, with substantial strength and some martial arts skills; he can easily take down five or six adults, let alone ordinary high school students. Anning usually waits until the other students in the class have left before she packs up and heads out. Just as she descended the stairs, she spotted from afar Ge Yiming and his gang smoking together. Anning ignored them and tried to take a detour. But Ge Yiming’s lackeys noticed Anning. A student from the school basketball team said to Ge Yiming with a smile, "Brother Ming, isn’t that our school’s beauty?" Upon hearing this, Ge Yiming immediately tossed his cigarette on the ground and stamped it out twice. He slung his school uniform over his shoulder, and blocking Anning’s path, he wobbled towards her in his loose-fitting T-shirt. Anning frowned; she felt slightly uncomfortable seeing the bright cigarette butt thrown on the ground. "There’s a trash bin over there." Anning pointed to a nearby trash can and said to Ge Yiming. Ge Yiming sneered, "Yo, our school’s beauty is also a little environmental guard, huh." "Protecting the environment is everyone’s duty." Anning was somewhat afraid of Ge Yiming; she shrugged her shoulders and said, very softly. Ge Yiming’s henchmen couldn’t stop laughing, "Brother Ming, the school beauty’s quite amusing." While the group was laughing, Anning squeezed out of the encirclement, carefully picked up the cigarette butt, and threw it into the trash. It wasn’t until then that her brows relaxed. Watching Anning do this, Ge Yiming felt a surge of anger inside. This pretentious woman, really... He clenched his teeth, took a few steps forward, and grabbed Anning’s hair: "Damn it, are you trying to embarrass me?" Anning’s eyes welled up with tears from the pain of having her hair pulled. Her nose turned red as she cried, looking extremely pitiful. "Brother Ming, let it go, please." Even Ge Yiming’s entourage felt it was too much and hurriedly tried to persuade him. Ge Yiming did not let go; in fact, he felt a bit of heartache seeing Anning , but the dream he had made him want to be more ruthless. "Damn it, you still dare to cry." Ge Yiming cursed again, "Such hypocrisy, truly ugly." Anning sniffled, holding back her tears and trying to appear strong, an image that only made her more pitiful. Still, Ge Yiming couldn’t bring himself to continue; he released her and scanned her up and down, "How about being my girlfriend?" Anning, clutching her bag, stepped back several paces, a look of extreme fright on her face: "No." Ge Yiming narrowed his eyes, threatening Anning, "You dare not agree? If you don’t, you won’t have peaceful days ahead." "I need to study; I can’t get involved in an early romance." Anning declared confidently, trying to stand tall, but seeing Ge Yiming’s fierce look, she still felt apprehensive, her eyes like a frightened little animal, full of fear. "Heh." Ge Yiming sneered, "What a good excuse." "I’m not making excuses; I just need to study hard, I have to get a scholarship." Anning raised her voice this time, and after shouting she wiped her tears and started to run. Ge Yiming, tall with long legs, quickly caught up to Anning and grabbed her clothes, "Did I say you could go?" Anning, flustered and a bit bristled, but still delicate and soft, unintentionally appeared even cuter with her feigned fierce expression. After all, those lackeys hanging out with Ge Yiming felt overwhelmed by her cuteness. Ge Yiming was charmed as well, but even angrier as a result. He had resolved to remove this false ingénue from his heart, to stop caring about her, and to bully her savagely out of revenge. Yet for some reason, he always found himself subconsciously unable to bring himself to do it. Ge Yiming was particularly livid. He wanted to give Anning a severe beating, but when he saw her face, he couldn’t bring himself to act. His followers didn’t want things to escalate, so they quickly advised Ge Yiming, "Brother Ming, let it go, it’s not worth it to fuss over a little girl." Others were signaling to Anning with their eyes, hinting that she should hurry up and leave. Anning got the message and scurried off with her backpack. One of the followers cautiously advised Ge Yiming, "Brother Ming, if the school beauty isn’t willing, let’s drop it. We can’t force her, after all. She’s a good student who loves studying, that’s normal." Ge Yiming spat out in anger, "That’s just an excuse of hers. If she loves studying so much, why isn’t she at the top of the class? It’s nothing but her looking down on me, and yet she still plays me for a fool." His followers looked at Ge Yiming as if he was an idiot, "Brother Ming, are you dreaming? The school beauty has barely spoken a few words to you. What do you mean she’s playing you for a fool?" Only then did Ge Yiming remember that he and Anning weren’t close yet; they had hardly spoken. Besides, she wasn’t aware of his identity, so of course, she wasn’t inclined to pay attention to him. And in that dream, it was only after a few years, when Anning went to university and they met again, knowing his true identity, that she approached him under the guise of being high school classmates. Thinking of his own excitement when he saw Anning in his dream, and his almost insane joy as they gradually got closer, Ge Yiming wanted to slap himself. How could he not have seen at that time that Anning was innately a fraudulent white lotus and sincerely a green tea (scheming) girl? Anning left the school, looking fearful, and once outside the school gates, she looked left and right but couldn’t find the car from home to pick her up. She took out her phone and called Yu Anjing. Yu Anjing said that she had waited a while but hadn’t seen Anning, and since there was something going on at home, she left first. She told Anning to take a taxi home. Anning’s shoulders slumped as she looked mournfully at the variety of vehicles driving on the street. Reaching into her pocket, she realized she didn’t have a single penny. After a while, Anning shouldered her backpack and psyched herself up for a brisk walk home. When Mother Yu saw Yu Anjing return home alone by car and hadn’t seen Anning for a while, she remembered that Anning didn’t have any money on her. That morning, she didn’t let Anning take the car to school but had her walk. The area was a villa district, quite far from the school. Walking there, who knew how long it would take. Moreover, Anning had left for school early when there were few people around. A young girl walking by herself, if she encountered any bad people... Mother Yu started to worry. She said to Father Yu, "Old Yu, come upstairs with me; I need to discuss something with you." Father Yu put down the newspaper and followed Mother Yu upstairs into the bedroom. Father Yu asked Mother Yu. Mother Yu, looking worried, said, "Ningning still hasn’t come back. What if something happened to her?" "Something happened?" Father Yu’s face turned cold instantly, "You’re still worried about her?" "She is our daughter after all." Mother Yu, thinking of the issues that had occurred recently, felt utterly helpless and on the verge of tears, "Our daughter who we’ve doted on for so many years, how did she... She’s always been so obedient and kind, aren’t we being too hard on her?" Father Yu’s shoulders sagged a bit as well. Even raising a dog for so many years creates a bond, let alone with one’s own daughter. Thɪs chapter is updatᴇd by 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭•𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚•𝕟𝕖𝕥 Sometimes, Father Yu himself couldn’t bear to be so harsh on Anning. "What can we do?" Father Yu embraced Mother Yu and whispered comfortingly, "We’ve spoiled her into becoming someone with malicious intentions. If we don’t want this family to fall apart, we must be tough on her."