Lu Yanhe's cell phone rang.
It was a message from Chen Siqi: See you in the lab building after school.
The laboratory building is where the first and second year high school students do biology experiments. Compared to the teaching building, there is basically no one in the laboratory building after school. They can meet there without being seen by others.
After school, Lu Yanhe came to the laboratory building.
Chen Siqi was waiting for him in an empty laboratory on the top floor.
"Is your leg healed?" Lu Yanhe asked as he entered the laboratory.
Chen Siqi nodded: "It's healed, but the scar hasn't disappeared yet, and I don't know if it will ever go away."
"It's okay, it's on my legs anyway, I can cover it up."
"I'm not one of you boys who wear trousers from the beginning of the year to the end. I wear skirts too, okay?" Chen Siqi glanced at Lu Yanhe speechlessly. "Forget it, I don't want to talk to you about this. I heard that you got into trouble again at noon and your parents were called in?"
"My parents are gone. Why are you shouting? They are not my parents." Lu Yanhe pulled up a chair in the first row and sat down. There were several rows of seats between him and Chen Siqi.
The orange-yellow sunset slanted in from the window, like a cutting line that divided the room into two completely different areas: one was the light world gently enveloped by the sunset, and the other was the dark world swallowed by the shadows.
Lu Yanhe sat at the intersection, with only the corner of his chin being cut into his sphere of influence by the setting sun.
Chen Siqi looked at Lu Yanhe and said, "Tell me, I've caused you trouble this time. How can I compensate you?"
"Forget it, you're also a victim. It's not like you asked your stepmother to come here." Lu Yanhe smiled, a silent laugh. "Actually, today was quite interesting. I met three different adults, all completely different. In comparison, your stepmother doesn't bother me that much."
Chen Siqi looked at him suspiciously and asked, "Who did you meet who could be more annoying than her?"
"You don't know her, she's the mother of my classmate Luo Zicheng."
"Who said I didn't know them? I've seen them before. One time, they came to my house to see my dad and asked him to help with something," Chen Siqi said. "That time, they brought Luo Zicheng with them, and my dad asked me to entertain him. He had no skills, but he kept boasting and showing off. It really annoyed me and left a deep impression on me."
Lu Yanhe was stunned.
Chen Siqi looked at him and asked, "What's wrong? I didn't expect that I also hate Luo Zicheng?"
"I didn't expect you actually knew him," Lu Yanhe asked. "Then why didn't you invite him to your birthday party? If you had invited him, he would have been happy to attend."
"Forget it. If he goes and shows up as my friend, I'll be completely humiliated." Chen Siqi said, "I asked you to come over to save my reputation, not to lose it all."
"Aside from his unpleasant words, he's pretty okay. Does he also speak so badly in front of you?"
"Then you definitely haven't heard him talk about his own growth story." Chen Siqi suddenly changed her tone, as if imitating Luo Zicheng, and said, "Chen Siqi, don't look at my skinny face. I've been practicing martial arts since I was a child. I even participated in the National Children's Martial Arts Competition and made it to the semi-finals!"
After Chen Siqi finished her imitation, she immediately slipped back into her signature dismissive tone: "He has the nerve to bring up the National Children's Wushu Competition. Even a gold medal would be embarrassing, and it was only a semi-final. Is he a child now? He's already covered in acne, yet he's still bringing up his childhood. I'm really impressed."
"Haha." Lu Yanhe laughed out loud.
"Did he give you a hard time today?"
"No, it was my classmate who was giving me trouble." Lu Yanhe asked, "You heard that my parents were called in, don't you know what happened?"
"I heard your parents were called in. That's obvious. The news I heard has been passed around so many times that I don't even know which ones are true."
Lu Yanhe briefly recounted the incident.
"Luo Zicheng, what's with all that foul talk?! Your classmate gave it a good beating. If I were here, I'd give him a slap too." Chen Siqi looked like she was about to slam the table and hit someone. "How dare he pick on your classmate like that? How unreasonable!"
"That's understandable."
"You don't understand anything, and you're still speaking for them."
"Which mother doesn't protect her child unconditionally?" said Lu Yanhe.
When he said this, he was thinking of his mother.
He didn't know whether he still existed in the original time and space. If he didn't exist, were his parents looking for him?
Lu Yanhe didn't dare to think about it too much, for fear of losing control.
Lu Yanhe looked up and saw that Chen Siqi suddenly burst into tears for some reason.
He was stunned.
"Why are you crying suddenly?"
As soon as the words fell, Lu Yanhe reacted.
Stupid goose!
Chen Siqi's biological mother left her early, and her current plight is all caused by her stepmother. Why are you still saying "Which mother doesn't unconditionally protect her children" at this time? Aren't you just picking on Chen Siqi to provoke her?
"It's okay." Chen Siqi raised the back of her hand, wiped her eyes, and stopped crying. "Don't worry about me. I lost control for a moment. It's nothing. You and I are both wanderers in this world. No one should comfort each other."
Chen Siqi's words made Lu Yanhe couldn't help but smile bitterly.
Too.
Chen Siqi stood up and said, "Since you don't want my compensation, let's go back."
Lu Yanhe nodded and left the laboratory building with Chen Siqi.
After this scandal happened, Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi walked out of the laboratory building without avoiding suspicion and continued to walk towards the school gate together.
Although there were not as many students on campus as when school was just over, there were still quite a few. When they saw the protagonists of today's campus forum scandal suddenly appear and walk side by side, they took out their mobile phones to take secret photos and upload them to the campus forum, but they soon discovered that the posts they uploaded were deleted in less than a minute.
"Everyone suspected that we were in a relationship, but the teachers didn't seem to doubt it at all," said Chen Siqi.
Lu Yanhe: "Because of Luo Zicheng's incident, my homeroom teacher is now very clear about how this rumor started and won't doubt it."
"Lu Yanhe, are you going to avoid me at school from now on and pretend you don't know me?"
"You're pretending not to know me after rumors started spreading. Isn't that a case of trying to cover up one's own guilt?" Lu Yanhe said. "At first, I felt a little uncomfortable with their finger-pointing, but after Li Pengfei punched Luo Zicheng, I suddenly felt indifferent. Let them say whatever they want. Rumors are doomed to be irreversible the moment they're started. When dealing with rumors, the saying 'the innocent will be cleared' makes sense."
"The idea that the innocent will be cleared will only make the rumors worse." Chen Siqi looked at Lu Yanhe in surprise. "You don't really like me, do you?"
Lu Yanhe: “…”
He looked at Chen Siqi seriously and said, "The innocent will be cleared."
After saying that, he turned around and walked forward.