The color drained from Luo Xiaoran's face like a receding tide, quickly fading from flushed to pale, finally turning a translucent greyish-white.
Her large eyes, which had just been brimming with 'grievance' tears, were now filled with shock and disbelief, as if she had seen something more terrifying than a ghost.
Her carefully maintained 'victim' posture instantly collapsed, and her crying stopped abruptly, like a chick whose neck had been squeezed, leaving only faint, uncontrolled sobs.
She reached out, trembling, trying to grab Lu Xuan's phone, her lips quivering, but she couldn't utter a single word.
"What? Don't recognize them?"
Lu Xuan casually shook his phone, the shocking lines of records on the screen appearing particularly glaring in the sunlight.
"Luo Da Xi Hua, which account on here isn't yours? Which 'glorious achievement' do I need to help you recall?"
He lightly swiped his finger, and the screen switched to another page, showing Luo Xiaoran's fierce dispute with a small merchant over a 'refund only' issue. In the chat records, Luo Xiaoran's words were so arrogant and her attitude so overbearing, she was like a completely different person from the tearful, delicate girl in front of him.
"No...it's not...this isn't me..."
Luo Xiaoran's voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz, carrying a desperate struggle, but her pale excuse appeared so powerless in the face of irrefutable evidence.
She watched helplessly as Lu Xuan swiped a few more times, each page like a heavy hammer, striking her heart.
Those little actions she thought no one knew about, those 'wool-gathering' techniques she was proud of, those 'achievements' she showed off in her small circle, were now brazenly exposed by this man in broad daylight!
"This...this is you...where did you get this from?"
Luo Xiaoran finally couldn't hold it together. The accumulated fear was like a bursting dam, instantly engulfing her.
She no longer cared about her image or her Luo Da Xi Hua aura. With a "wah," she really started crying, crying heartbrokenly, snot and tears smearing her face.
The crying was no longer the feigned, pear-blossom-like rain of tears from before, but genuine fear and breakdown from deep within.
"You...can you please delete these things? I beg you...boo hoo hoo...otherwise I'm finished...I'm really finished..."
She pleaded incoherently, clutching Lu Xuan's clothes tightly with both hands, as if that were her last straw of hope.
The surrounding students, who had been indignant and pointing fingers at Lu Xuan, were now dumbfounded.
This plot twist was too fast, wasn't it?
One second she was a pitiful girl being bullied by a hooligan, how did she end up crying and begging for mercy at the 'hooligan's' feet the next?
"Hey, what's going on? What happened to Luo Xiaoran?"
"What did that guy show her? How did she get so scared?"
"Could it be...Luo Xiaoran was acting?"
The whispers gradually changed direction, from sympathizing with Luo Xiaoran to curiosity and confusion about the scene unfolding before them.
Lu Xuan gently shook off her hand, his face expressionless: "Now you know you're finished? Where's that 'extortion' energy from earlier?"
He looked down at Luo Xiaoran, who was slumped on the ground, without a trace of pity in his eyes.
He wouldn't show a good face to someone who wanted to frame him to death.
"Speak," Lu Xuan's voice was not loud, but it carried an undeniable pressure, "Why did you come to trouble me? What good does slandering me do you?"
Luo Xiaoran cried breathlessly, sobbing, and said intermittently: "It...it was last night...someone contacted me through Douyin..."
"He said...he was my fan...said he would give me...give me a hundred carnivals..."
"Let...let me come here at this time today...to wait for you...and then...and then say you molested me...film a video and post it online...to ruin your reputation..."
She cried as she spoke, afraid Lu Xuan wouldn't believe her. She hurriedly pulled out her phone from her designer handbag, her trembling fingers tapping open Douyin, and found the chat records to show Lu Xuan.
Lu Xuan took the phone and quickly scanned it.
It was indeed an anonymous user, with a default system avatar and nickname. The chat records also confirmed Luo Xiaoran's statement; the other party used a hundred carnivals as bait to get her to execute the plan.
"No one knows Luo Xiaoran's true identity and family background, so offering a hundred carnivals sounds reasonable," Lu Xuan thought to himself, but he still felt something was off.
He looked up at Luo Xiaoran, his eyes sharp: "Don't you know your own family's circumstances? Your father is Luo Zhenxiong, and your mother is Liu Qin. Would you lack the money for these hundred carnivals?"
One carnival costs three thousand yuan, so a hundred would be three hundred thousand.
For ordinary people, it was a huge sum, but for a rich young woman of Luo Xiaoran's caliber, it was at most pocket money.
When Lu Xuan called out her parents' names and identities, Luo Xiaoran's face instantly went three shades paler than before, and her pupils widened slightly in fear.
She hadn't expected Lu Xuan to know her family background so clearly!
"I...I wasn't for the carnivals..."
Luo Xiaoran's voice grew even softer, and her head drooped lower. After much stammering, she finally said in an almost inaudible voice: "I...I just thought...I thought extorting you...this matter...was quite...quite fun..."
"What did you say?"
Lu Xuan almost thought he misheard, and he rubbed his ears, "What did you say? Fun?"
He was almost infuriated into laughter by this woman's thought process.
Just because she thought it was fun, just for the thrill, she almost ruined someone's life? What kind of bizarre logic was this!
"I...I was wrong! I was really wrong! Lu Xuan, please be magnanimous and forgive me this one time! I will never dare to do it again!"
Seeing Lu Xuan's face grow increasingly grim, Luo Xiaoran was so scared that she repeatedly bowed and pleaded, her tears falling like they were free.
Lu Xuan took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to slap her to death. Now was not the time to lose his temper; he had to clean up this mess first.
He glanced at the growing crowd of onlookers, then at Luo Xiaoran, who was crying like a tearful mess, and said coldly: "Enough! Stop wailing! Since it's a false accusation, there must be an accomplice nearby filming you, right? Call them out!"
"We need to come up with an explanation to smooth this over! Otherwise, today, I'll really be ruined by you, you idiot!"
Lu Xuan's voice carried suppressed anger.
He was now more curious about who that anonymous user was who paid Luo Xiaoran to frame him.
Was it Zhang Yining, still unwilling to give up, or was it someone else?
It seemed that ever since he was reborn, troubles kept coming one after another, with no end in sight.