Liu Jia spat on the ground.

He looked pretty pleased with himself.

City No. 1 High School was considered a pretty decent school, but its management was lax and it allowed students to enroll without taking the entrance exam. They couldn’t get into any of the elite classes, but wealthy businessmen still bent over backward to get their spoiled, useless kids through the door, hoping the school’s atmosphere would somehow rub off on them.

As if that could turn dog shit into jade.

But the facts spoke for themselves: dog shit stank wherever you put it. Even if it spent every day with jade, it couldn’t help reeking like the same foul crap. Liu Jia was one of the stinkiest pieces of shit in the bunch.

He was rich and powerful, so as soon as he started school, he gathered a bunch of like-minded pieces of shit around him. The few of them formed a little gang, never studied, and spent all day playing basketball and chasing girls… though not many girls went anywhere near them.

And bullying good students.

It seemed to be the only way they could prove themselves. Whenever they saw those good students—the ones teachers praised, whose names always sat near the top of the results posted on the noticeboard—trembling in fear and falling apart in front of them, they felt a twisted kind of pleasure.

Just like now.

He slung an arm around the boy’s shoulders and forcibly pulled him close, putting on a warm, buddy-buddy smile.

“Hey, Brother Tong, you and me—we’re such good friends, right? Your buddy’s a little short on cash lately. You wouldn’t mind lending me a bit to spend, would you?”

With a family like his, he shouldn’t have been short on pocket money. But that old bastard at home had cut him off, claiming it was for his own good. The two of them had a huge fight, and the old man got so worked up he ended up in the hospital. Liu Jia hadn’t exactly come out of it any better, either.

All his bank cards were frozen, and he didn’t have any cash. He was used to spending money like water, so how was he supposed to put up with his finances suddenly shrinking to nothing?

So he’d started eyeing a quiet student he’d recently picked out as his next target.

He got even friendlier. For the first time in his life, he even reached out to straighten the poor kid’s uniform collar, then brought that hand down hard on his shoulder. The blow was so heavy it made half the boy’s shoulder sink.

The poor kid let out a muffled groan.

“N-no… I don’t.”

His voice was hoarse and low.

Liu Jia’s face twisted for an instant. Then he sneered.

“You don’t? I heard your homeroom teacher’s been collecting the textbook fees for the new school year. It was eight hundred, right? Let me guess where you’ve hidden it…”

He shot a look at one of his lackeys.

The lackey got the message at once. He stepped forward, grabbed Su Tong by the arm, wrenched it behind him, then kicked the back of his knee and cursed.

“Stay still, you little shit! Don’t fucking move!”

Even though Su Tong hadn’t struggled.

He only lowered his head further. His body shuddered once, and he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t say another word.

“Oh-ho! Got a bit of a backbone, huh?”

Liu Jia called out in a mocking singsong, then turned to the other lackeys to amuse them.

“Look, look! Our good student Su Tong’s got some backbone after all. That’s what a good student’s like! Good students are the best, oh-ho-ho-ho!”

Then the group burst into laughter.

Su Tong kept his head down. He seemed to have stopped hearing them altogether, unmoved even as they surrounded him and laughed. There wasn’t even a glimmer in his eyes. He looked like a soulless… puppet.

So the group soon ran out of laughs. There was no point bullying someone who didn’t react at all.

Liu Jia snorted. A sudden, inexplicable anger flared inside him, and he kicked Su Tong in the stomach.

“Are you fucking deaf? I’m talking to you! You hear me?!”

“Ugh!”

A muffled groan.

After taking a blow like that, Su Tong was finally forced to react.

Only then did Liu Jia grin viciously.

“Oh, so you’re not mute after all. You can talk just fine. So why not say something? Here, I’ll teach you—how about you call me Daddy?”

The boy, his arms pinned, suddenly raised his head.

His eyes were pure black, as if they hid something—but there was only an abyss in them. A dangerous glint flashed and vanished.

Then his expression settled into a deeply unsettling calm.

Liu Jia’s heart gave a jolt. He felt a sudden, inexplicable fear, but quickly came to his senses. Anger rose at the thought of how pathetic he’d just looked. He drew his arm back, ready to swing with all his might.

“You little—”

“Don’t hit him,” a clear, bright female voice suddenly cut in. “If you swing that hand, I can’t promise you’ll still have that arm in one piece afterward.”

Her tone was calm. The threat wasn’t.

Liu Jia stopped without thinking. But the moment he realized he’d flinched, anger took over, and he turned to curse.

“Who the fuck said that? You looking to—”

He cut himself off halfway through.

He’d finally gotten a good look at who’d arrived.

She was a beautiful girl in little sandals, a spotless white blouse, and a lemon-sea-salt pleated skirt. A purple ribbon tied her hair into a neat, low ponytail. She came up the stairwell and stepped into the early-autumn sunlight, glowing so brightly it seemed to shine from her whole body.

Like an angel.

But Liu Jia wasn’t about to let that stop him.

He didn’t care whether she was an angel or a demon. He wouldn’t have cared if she were the Jade Emperor himself. He was just furious that she’d dared to interrupt him!

His anger turned to laughter. He raised his hand and slapped Su Tong across the face, then curled his lip and taunted her.

“I hit him! What are you gonna do about it?”

But the reaction he’d expected never came.

The girl didn’t fly into a rage or look shocked. She just kept smiling as she raised the phone she’d been holding, unlocked it, opened a number in her contacts, and brought it to her lips.

The call connected almost immediately.

“Hello,” the girl said softly. “Principal Wang? It’s Su Tong… Yes, well, I just witnessed a case of school bullying with my own eyes on the fifth floor of our school’s classroom building. So much for the campus safety you just promised… Is this really how your school maintains order?”

After that, Liu Jia couldn’t hear what else the girl said.

There was only one Principal Wang at City No. 1 High School.

When Liu Jia first enrolled, his father had tried every possible way to meet Principal Wang, but in the end, he’d only managed to see the man’s secretary… And yet this girl could reach Principal Wang himself with a single phone call?

Sudden panic gripped his heart.

Run!

The thought flashed through his mind.

He gritted his teeth, glared at Su Tong, and said,

“Shit… Run!”

Then, while everyone was still stunned, the group scattered, leaving Su Tong and Su Tong alone.

The girl watched their wretched backs retreat without a word. Then she turned to the even more battered Su Tong, her expression turning helpless. She reached out and gently touched his rapidly swelling cheek.

“It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?”

But she got no answer.

Su Tong only gave her a long look. Then he pulled a stack of yuan from his jacket pocket and struggled to fish a voice recorder out of a hidden pocket in his uniform sleeve.

“He’s an adult. Extortion carries a sentence starting at one thousand yuan… Thanks, but I don’t need an angel. And angels don’t exist anyway.”

As he spoke, he struggled to his feet and finally limped away.

The girl stood there, stunned.

[To be continued]