Chapter 4

Lina's POV

After the restroom incident, Blair Winston and her two followers were quiet for an entire week, and I began living a normal campus life.

I started to remember the fastest route from classroom to cafeteria, started to recognize a few mathematical symbols that appeared repeatedly in textbooks, started to adapt to Luca's punishments when he tutored me—

I had to say, Luca's punishments were unlike any I'd ever heard of.

Not any severe penalty, but punishment like that given to a small child.

"Come here, over my lap." Luca's low voice echoed in my ears.

I still remembered the warm, dry touch of his palm, remembered his soft praise of "good girl" whispered in my ear, remembered the heat my body produced when he soothed me.

I was puzzled by this, and Luca said this was something normal people experienced as children—some normal people.

Well, for the sake of being a "normal person," I would try hard to adapt. So I said.

Luca's deep brown eyes looked at me steadily. He showed a satisfied smile.

"Mm, good girl."

However, I only experienced such a normal life for one week.

On Monday of the second week, as soon as I walked into the classroom, I discovered someone had written a word on my desk in red paint.

MURDERER.

The letters were crooked, the paint not yet dry, dripping down along the desk edge like blood slowly flowing after a fresh kill.

More than a dozen people were already seated in the classroom. No one looked at me, but everyone's shoulders were slightly tensed—they were waiting to see my reaction.

I stood there, quietly looking at that word.

MURDERER.

I didn't deny this label.

After all, I truly was. The blood on my hands was far more than these pampered young masters and misses could imagine—probably as much as the water they drank.

They thought this word could humiliate me, but they didn't know that to me, this word was as ordinary as "hello."

But what concerned me wasn't the word itself, but the person behind it.

Blair.

She sat in the third row of the classroom, head lowered as she flipped through a book. Her blonde hair fell to cover half her face, but I still clearly saw that tiny upward curve at the corner of her mouth.

I took out tissues and wiped away the paint.

The paint that had seeped into the wood grain couldn't be cleaned. The desktop was left with a patch of dark red, fierce and ugly.

I didn't bother with it anymore and sat down directly.

I didn't hear a single word of that morning's classes.

Besides truly not understanding anything, I was also thinking about something: Was Blair like me, also unable to understand class, which was why she constantly picked on and bullied people?

Obviously yes.

I watched Blair chewing gum vigorously while frantically fiddling with her spider-crab-like manicured nails, confirming my conclusion.

Cafeteria, lunchtime.

I walked into the cafeteria carrying a tray, found a corner seat, and placed the tray on the table.

Today's lunch was pasta, salad, and a piece of chocolate cake. The cake looked good. I planned to eat it last.

I had just picked up my fork when a hand reached over, sweeping past in front of me.

The tray flew out. Pasta, salad, cake all dumped on the floor.

Sauce splashed on my shoes. The cake shattered everywhere.

"Oops, my hand slipped."

Blair stood before me, smile brilliant. Behind her stood those two followers. The tall, thin one covered her mouth laughing. The short, chubby one laughed out loud, sharp as a whistle.

The originally noisy cafeteria instantly went quiet. A hundred pairs of eyes looked in our direction.

I looked down at the food on the floor—pasta scattered in a heap, salad dressing flowing everywhere, that piece of cake broken into several pieces, cream stuck in the gaps between floor tiles.

I raised my head and looked at Blair.

"It's okay," I said.

I stood up, took the tray and walked toward the serving area, beginning to queue again.

Blair's voice came from behind me: "Is she sick or something?"

I didn't turn around.

The line was long. I stood at the very end, in front of me were two lower-grade girls.

They occasionally stole glances back at me, their gazes carrying curiosity and sympathy, but no one spoke.

By the time I returned to my seat with a new tray, more than half the people in the cafeteria had dispersed.

Blair was gone, but there was something extra on my seat—a folded note.

I set down the tray and opened the note.

Written in red marker: "Get out of St. Herman." The handwriting was the same as on the desk, crooked and twisted, carrying a deliberate arrogance.

I folded the note and put it in my pocket, then began eating.

The pasta had already cooled. The salad was no longer fresh. But I still ate it all, bite by bite, not wasting anything.

At "Raven," food was never taken for granted.

Sometimes missions lasted several days. All you could eat were compressed biscuits and cold water.

So I understood a principle from that time: No matter whether food tastes good or not, you must finish it. Because you simply cannot predict when your next meal will be.

After the first class in the afternoon, I decided to do something I'd never done before.

I went to the teachers' office.

The hallway was long. Sunlight shone through the windows, cutting the floor tiles into grid patterns of light and shadow. I walked unhurriedly through the light and shadow.

The door to the teachers' office was frosted glass, with a metal plate that read "Faculty Only."

I knocked on the door.

"Come in."

I pushed open the door.

The office wasn't large. Four desks were pushed together, piled with homework notebooks, water cups, and a nearly dead pothos plant.

The dean of students sat by the window—Mrs. Hurst. She was over fifty, wore gold-rimmed glasses, and always had a silk scarf around her neck.

She looked up and saw me. Her expression changed slightly.

Although the change was quick, I caught it—a faint disdain and impatience.

"Lina," she put down the red pen in her hand, "what is it?"

I stood in front of her desk, hands hanging naturally at my sides.

I tried hard to make my posture look like an ordinary student's—not standing too straight, not with too sharp a gaze, not expressionless.

"Mrs. Hurst, I'd like to report something to you."

"Speak."

"This morning, someone wrote the word 'murderer' in red paint on my desk. This isn't the first time I've been treated this way. Over the past few weeks, my textbooks have been thrown in the trash, my bag has been doused with water, I've been locked in the restroom, food has been swept to the floor. I hope the school can handle this matter."

After Mrs. Hurst listened, she was silent for a few seconds.

Then she removed her glasses and slowly wiped the lenses with a cloth.

"Lina," she said, "do you know how many students this school has?"

"I don't know."

"A total of three hundred twenty-seven. Every single one has a family background. Every single one was sent here with great effort by their family."

She put her glasses back on and looked at me.

"Jokes between classmates—don't be too sensitive. You say you were locked in the restroom. Do you have evidence? You say food was swept to the floor. Did anyone see? Blair Winston is one of this school's most outstanding students. Her GPA is 3.9. She's student council vice president. Her father is an important donor to the board of trustees. And you—"

She paused.

"You're just a transfer student. I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying you may have misunderstood your classmates' good intentions. Perhaps they were just trying to joke with you, only in an inappropriate way. You need to learn to fit in, learn to get along well with your classmates."

She smiled. That smile was like the silk scarf around her neck—soft, decent, without any warmth.

"Go back to class. If there are any more 'similar' incidents, you can come find me. But for now, try to make friends with everyone first, okay?"

I looked at her and suddenly remembered something Dmitri once said: "In this world, the strong make the rules, the weak follow the rules. If you're not strong, then shut up."

Clearly, at this moment I was the one being told to shut up.

"Alright, thank you, ma'am," I said.

I turned and walked out of the office, gently closing the door.

The hallway was still bright with sunlight. I stood in the light and shadow, clenching my fists.

I took a deep breath and silently told myself: It's okay. You don't need her help. You've never needed anyone's help.