Chapter 159.2: Reconciliation? Not a Chance
Shen Xiu, supporting Jiang Jinya, walked at the very back.
Whenever he’d visited her home before, it had always been for homework help or private tutoring sessions. Ninety percent of their conversations were about academics.
Shen Xiu had never been the type to make small talk, and now, with the “wolves” ahead of him and his mind still in a whirlwind, he couldn’t think of any topic to chat about. So the two of them ascended in silence—until they reached the seventh floor.
Along the way, no one had brought up the topic of mediation. Shen Xiu felt a small wave of relief wash over him.
It didn’t seem like they were here to push reconciliation after all.
This wasn’t what mediation looked like—at least, not the kind he had seen before.
Standing at the familiar dorm room door, Shen Xiu stayed at the very back. He saw the counselor lower his head and tap a few times on his phone, and within five seconds, the dorm door opened.
The person who opened the door was Shen Xiu’s classmate. “Teacher, Dean Zhou, Dean Liu, Professor Jiang…”
After politely greeting the school leaders and professors one by one, the former roommate’s gaze fell on Shen Xiu, eyes filled with sympathy. “Shen Xiu.”
Shen Xiu nodded in response and called the other by name as well.
Seeing the door open, the counselor naturally said to the student who opened it, “Alright then, you can go off and do your own thing.”
Hearing this, the student had no choice but to nod. “Okay, Teacher.”
Shen Xiu’s former roommate understood very clearly what this situation was. As students, they all knew—this was most likely an attempt to get Ling Yuanzhen and Shen Xiu to reconcile, to get Shen Xiu to delete the post, and let the matter quietly blow over.
After all, whenever something negative involving a school went viral and hit the trending list, many universities’ first reaction was to treat it as a scandal and suppress it as tightly as possible.
The school usually didn’t care about what the students themselves thought. They stubbornly believed that burying the issue was always the correct course of action.
But… when it came to those who repeatedly and maliciously spread rumors, anyone who lived honestly could one day become their next “victim.” While he understood the school’s likely decision, that didn’t mean he was willing to accept it.
The only thing he could do now was not wake up Ling Yuanzhen—who, after spreading rumors, was now happily sleeping in bed.
Maybe, just maybe, when the school leaders saw how indifferent and uncooperative Ling Yuanzhen was, they might decide not to protect him after all.
Inside the dorm, only Ling Yuanzhen was left. The counselor couldn’t help but wonder: the door’s open, and his roommates said Ling Yuanzhen was here—so why hadn’t he come out to greet anyone?
Maybe he got scared after causing trouble and ran off to hide in the bathroom.
With that thought, the counselor fully pushed open the dorm door and gestured for the school leaders to enter first.
Once everyone was inside, the counselor—still standing by the door—closed it behind them.
As the door shut, he noticed that all the school leaders in front of him were staring in the same direction. Following their gaze, he looked toward the back corner bed near the door—where Ling Yuanzhen lay on his side, facing them, eyes closed.
Counselor: “…”
Seriously? Even now, Ling Yuanzhen was still asleep?!
Seeing him still in bed, Shen Xiu—who was the last one to enter the room and happened to be standing right next to Ling Yuanzhen’s bed—tilted his head slightly and found himself staring directly at Ling Yuanzhen’s face, questioning everything.
Shen Xiu had lost sleep over being falsely accused of hit-and-run, and yet Ling Yuanzhen had the nerve to sleep like a baby?
Feeling a growing sense of imbalance, Shen Xiu stared at Ling Yuanzhen with a resentful, almost wounded look.
Jiang Jinya, seeing that Ling Yuanzhen showed no signs of waking up, frowned slightly.
The school leaders noticed that since entering the room, Shen Xiu’s cold gaze had been locked onto Ling Yuanzhen without shifting. They silently thought: judging from that look, convincing Shen Xiu to back down was going to be even harder now.
In his sleep, Ling Yuanzhen dreamed he was being surrounded by a pack of fierce wolves—and jolted awake in terror.
The moment Shen Xiu saw him open his eyes, he couldn’t help but speak, voice low and chilling: “How could you even sleep through this…”
Counselor: “…”
For some reason, he felt that Shen Xiu… might actually have a bit of a deadpan sense of humor.
Ling Yuanzhen opened his eyes and immediately met Shen Xiu’s cold, piercing stare. Hearing his eerie tone, he was so startled he bounced upright with his blanket clutched to his chest, scrambling back against the wall in a panic. At the same time, he almost swore:
“F*ck—Shen Xiu, you damn psyc—”
Counselor: “Ahem!”
The string of curses in Ling Yuanzhen’s mouth was cut off in time by the counselor’s cough. At first, Ling Yuanzhen had been scared by Shen Xiu. But after being reminded and seeing a roomful of school leaders, his heart nearly stopped from the shock.
Once he recovered, he stammered out a greeting while quickly climbing down from the upper bunk. “D-Director Zhou…”
After getting down, Ling Yuanzhen’s mind was in a mess. He had no energy to spare on Shen Xiu; all his attention was on the school leaders. In his heart, he thought bitterly—‘What is Shen Xiu, a child? Runs to complain the moment something happens?’
Besides, the thing he did was so secretive—there was no way it could be traced back to him. Shen Xiu couldn’t possibly have just acted on a hunch and recklessly called in all the school leadership, right?
‘Tch. Rich people really can do whatever they want. Disgusting!’
Thinking that, Ling Yuanzhen’s initial panic began to subside. He feigned ignorance, eyes full of confusion as he looked at the group, putting on a façade of total innocence. “May I ask… what’s going on?”
The counselor sent him the downloaded PPT file. “I’ve sent it to you. Take a look yourself.”
Communication between classes was more convenient via QQ, and as the counselor for the Chinese Department, they had all the Chinese major students added on their account.
Ling Yuanzhen frowned, wondering what the hell is this about, and opened the chat.
He saw a PPT file and clicked on it.
Since the counselor told him to look at it, and in front of so many school leaders, Ling Yuanzhen didn’t dare disobey. He planned to take a serious look, curious to see what kind of trick Shen Xiu was playing.
But after just the first slide, his expression changed.
At that point, no one had to pressure him—his own trembling fingers clicked through to the next slide…
Five minutes later, seeing that Ling Yuanzhen had finished looking, the counselor spoke up:
“Classmate Ling, you owe Classmate Shen an apology.”
Thinking about the evidence he had just seen, Ling Yuanzhen swallowed hard. His mind was buzzing—like a swarm of bees holding a team-building retreat in his head—and for a moment, he didn’t know how to speak.
It had never crossed his mind—not even once—that Shen Xiu hadn’t bothered tracing the registered phone number of the account. Instead, he had gone straight for Ling Yuanzhen himself, fully decked out in disguise, and recovered all the deleted browsing history and data from the internet café.
Not only that, Shen Xiu had started from the assignments Ling Yuanzhen had filmed before, and the various photos he’d posted on social media.
He had matched the hat, clothes, shoes, rings, the way Ling Yuanzhen typed on a keyboard, the scars and tattoos on his hands, the earrings, even his height, weight, posture, and walking gait…
Through meticulous screenshots and comparative analysis, supported by linguistic evidence, Shen Xiu had made it so obvious that the person who spread the false rumors from that internet café at that exact time could only have been Ling Yuanzhen.
It had never occurred to Ling Yuanzhen that the schoolwork he’d once proudly submitted would become the straw that broke the camel’s back—the final nail in his coffin.
I mean, who the hell would even think of something like that?
Shen Xiu had to be insane!
The counselor, seeing Ling Yuanzhen remain silent and the school leaders starting to frown, raised their voice again with stern authority: “Classmate Ling?”
Jolted by the shout, Ling Yuanzhen stood up straight, eyes locked on the floor. Faced with such overwhelming evidence, he didn’t know what else to do—he could only follow the counselor’s instruction and apologize.
“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
Shen Xiu: “?”
Was that apology even directed at the right person? Why did it sound like he was apologizing to the counselor? Did Ling Yuanzhen even realize who he was supposed to be apologizing to?
…Wait a second.
So the reason the counselor called him to campus, with all these school leaders present, was to make Ling Yuanzhen apologize to him?
Not the mediation session Shen Xiu had originally assumed?!
It finally dawned on Shen Xiu—belated and angry—why he had been summoned to the school.
Finally realizing what was going on, Shen Xiu couldn’t help sneaking a glance at the school leaders, feeling a twinge of guilt for his earlier malicious assumptions.
Turns out, there really are still good people in this world!
He had never even expected an apology from Ling Yuanzhen—he just wanted to identify the person who spread the rumors, to prove that the accusations weren’t baseless, to clear his name.
But—
When Shen Xiu noticed that Ling Yuanzhen had directed his apology to the wrong person, clearly just going through the motions with no sincerity whatsoever, he felt both disappointed and resentful.
The school leaders had gone to the trouble of standing up for him, and he himself had been wronged and humiliated. He’d lost sleep over being slandered for “hit-and-run,” while Ling Yuanzhen had probably slept like a baby. The more he thought about it, the more upset he became.
Shen Xiu stared at Ling Yuanzhen with a deep, piercing gaze and asked a soul-crushing question:
“Doesn’t your conscience hurt?”
He didn’t even apologize to the right person. Just one careless sentence? Infuriating!
The school leaders: “……”
The counselor: “……”
Wasn’t that the exact same line people online had used to criticize Shen Xiu when Ling Yuanzhen first spread the rumors?
Something like, ‘How can someone sleep after a hit-and-run?’ and ‘Does your conscience not hurt?’
As expected, Shen Xiu held a grudge. He’d remembered every single line of slander thrown at him during the scandal, all so he could return them to Ling Yuanzhen at just the right moment.
The boomerang came back—every strike, deadly!
Hearing Shen Xiu’s words, Ling Yuanzhen, still looking down, frowned. “?”
He’d already apologized in front of so many school leaders. And Shen Xiu still wanted to humiliate him? What more did he want?
Seeing that Ling Yuanzhen didn’t even bother to come over and sincerely apologize face-to-face, Shen Xiu grew even more displeased and said softly but coldly:
“I understand now.”
Just as he’d thought—Ling Yuanzhen had never intended to apologize sincerely in the first place!
Since the apology wasn’t sincere, Shen Xiu didn’t want it anymore.
Counselor: …What exactly did he just understand?
The school leaders and the counselor shared the same confusion.
The next second, Shen Xiu’s cold voice rang out in the dorm room.
After composing his thoughts, Shen Xiu spoke: “Thank you for your kindness, teachers and leaders, but I don’t need his apology.”
Those cold words instantly translated in the school leaders’ minds as—reconciliation: off the table.
School leaders: “……”
Kindness? The “kindness” Shen Xiu referred to… probably had quotation marks around it.
It was now clear Shen Xiu had seen through their intentions from the start. The moment Ling Yuanzhen offered his so-called apology, Shen Xiu not only ruthlessly rejected it, he also subtly shaded their attempt to sweep things under the rug as “kindness.”
They’d always known Shen Xiu had a touch of deadpan humor, but this was the first time they’d seen him deliver such a cold and cutting remark with hidden barbs.
By firmly rejecting Ling Yuanzhen’s apology, Shen Xiu completely shut down any chance of “mediation.”
Counselor: “!”
As expected of the fearless, sharp-tongued Demon King Xiu!
After all these years working at Jinghe, this was the first time the counselor had seen a student dare to go full sarcasm mode right in front of this many school leaders—absolutely no face given, utterly savage!
Jiang Jinya, watching the shift in her colleagues’ expressions after Shen Xiu’s words, spoke up: “Now that you’ve seen Shen Xiu’s stance, I think it’s time to make a decision.”
After she finished speaking, she turned to Shen Xiu: “Shen Xiu, what do you think?”
Shen Xiu, hearing his mentor speak up for him while the others remained silent, was genuinely touched.
When no one responded to her first sentence, and to save her from the same awkward silence he’d just experienced, Shen Xiu quickly replied the moment he heard her second question:
“Teacher, you’re absolutely right.”
He appreciated the leaders’ kind intentions, but honestly, they should just leave—because right now, just seeing Ling Yuanzhen was enough to put him in a foul mood.
Counselor: “!”
Impressive. Truly impressive. This was the first time he’d ever seen a student pressuring the school leaders to hurry up and hand down a punishment. In all his years, he’d never witnessed anything like this!
Wasn’t this basically the same as throwing the leaders straight onto a roasting fire?
