Zhang Zhu quickly brought Wang Ping over.

The top student had barely stepped into the principal’s office, let alone said a word, when the skinny punk Wang Yang got up from his chair, walked around Zhou Heng’s homeroom teacher, Zhang Zhu, and threw an arm around Wang Ping.

The principal frowned, a trace of anger showing on his face.

“What are you doing?”

Wang Yang chuckled awkwardly.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. Your student and I are good friends.”

Wang Yang patted Wang Ping’s shoulder like they were old friends and smiled.

“Isn’t that right, Wang Ping?”

Wang Ping took a deep breath, forced a faint smile, and said,

“Yeah. That’s right.”

Zhou Heng suddenly shot to his feet, staring in disbelief.

“Wang Ping, you two are friends?”

Wang Ping looked at Zhou Heng. His lips moved a few times, but in the end, he still nodded.

“Yes, we’re friends. Zhou Heng, you hit my friend yesterday.”

The principal’s eyes moved from Wang Ping’s face to Zhou Heng, whose anger was beginning to show, before he spoke.

“Wang Ping, may I ask you a few questions?”

Wang Ping pushed Wang Yang’s hand off his shoulder.

“Sure, Principal. Ask me anything.”

The principal adjusted his glasses and said calmly,

“Yesterday, Zhou Heng and Mr. Wang and Mr. Xu got into a physical altercation. He said he saw you being bullied…”

Before the principal could finish, Wang Ping spoke up loudly.

“That’s false. I was just fooling around with Mr. Wang Yang and Mr. Xu Jin…”

Zhou Heng couldn’t hold back. Pointing at Xu Jin, the burly punk, he cut in,

“That guy was waving a pocketknife in your face. You were scared shitless, and now you’re telling me you were just fooling around?”

Wang Ping looked at Zhou Heng, his gaze filled with inexplicable, lofty contempt.

“You’re not me. How do you know we weren’t just fooling around?”

Zhou Heng fell silent.

The principal coughed, then tilted his head slightly toward Zhou Heng, who was about to argue back.

“Zhou Heng, I don’t want anyone interrupting while I’m asking questions. Whatever you have to say, can’t you wait until I’ve got the facts straight?”

With the principal putting it that way, what else could Zhou Heng do?

He returned to his seat.

The principal turned back to Wang Ping and asked,

“Wang Ping, tell me what happened yesterday.”

Wang Ping nodded.

“Yesterday at noon, I was fooling around outside school with Wang Yang and Xu Jin. Then Zhou Heng suddenly came charging over. I think it was because he’d brushed shoulders with Wang Yang while walking, and they started arguing. Zhou Heng insisted Wang Yang apologize, but Wang Yang refused, so they got into a fight.”

Wang Yang, the skinny punk beside Wang Ping, immediately perked up. He patted Wang Ping on the shoulder and said,

“Exactly, exactly! We were just walking along minding our own business when this clueless kid came over and bumped into me. That would’ve been bad enough, but then he demanded I apologize. Tell me, Principal, what kind of sense does that make?”

The principal rubbed his temples irritably.

“Mr. Wang Yang, did I ask you to speak? I said you can respond after I’ve finished questioning Wang Ping. Can you do that?”

Wang Yang smiled and shut his mouth, but he turned toward Zhou Heng, whose face had darkened, and raised an eyebrow.

Doing the right thing in this world doesn’t come free. If you’re going to help someone, you’d better be ready to pay the price.

“I have a pretty good idea of what happened now.”

The principal’s gaze flashed like lightning behind his glasses.

“Wang Ping, can you guarantee that everything you’ve said is true?”

Wang Ping nodded.

The principal turned to Zhou Heng.

“You can ask your questions now.”

Zhou Heng stared hard at Wang Ping. He had no idea how Wang Yang and Xu Jin had threatened or bribed him into taking their side at a time like this—and turning around to stab his own benefactor in the back.

But there was no point dwelling on that now. Zhou Heng said helplessly,

“Lu Yile and Zhang Xuan were there too. Bring them in…”

Wang Ping cut in.

“They weren’t even at the scene of your fight. They were outside the street, watching from a distance. How could they know what happened? Besides, they’re your friends. Who knows if their testimony would be biased?”

Zhou Heng was so angry he laughed.

“So we’re just supposed to take your word for it?”

Wang Ping nodded.

“Isn’t that how it should be?”

“You’re completely twisting the truth! Fuck, how was I so blind back then that I saved an ungrateful bastard like you? You don’t have to thank me, but you actually turn around and bite me!”

Wang Ping sneered.

“Zhou Heng, I think you’ve got something wrong.”

Wang Ping pointed at his own chest.

“You saved me? Who do you think you are?”

Zhou Heng stood up, his clenched fists turning white. He could barely contain his fury.

The principal tapped the desk lightly and said sternly,

“Zhou Heng, sit down. This is no place for violence.”

Zhang Zhu immediately rushed over and forcibly pulled Zhou Heng back into his seat.

Wang Ping felt some of the weight in his chest lift.

He knew that with this testimony, Zhou Heng might receive a serious disciplinary warning and have to pay tens of thousands in compensation.

But he had no choice. The one pulling the strings behind him wasn’t some punk like Wang Yang or Xu Jin. With the mastermind’s influence, if Wang Ping didn’t give this testimony, he wouldn’t be able to get by at this school.

Compared with what Zhou Heng stood to lose, Wang Ping’s own interests mattered more, of course.

Thinking of that made Wang Ping feel a lot better.

He considered himself one of the school’s top students, an intellectual aiming for Tsinghua or Peking University. And Zhou Heng?

An inferior student who could only keep his temper in check because Zhang Zhu was holding him back. All brawn, no brains, and nothing going for him.

It was obvious that after the college entrance exams, he’d end up at some no-name college, scrape together a worthless diploma, then find some dead-end manual labor job to keep himself fed.

Wasn’t it a fair trade for a loser like that—someone destined to vanish into the crowd—to make a few sacrifices for a future master’s degree holder, PhD, and academician like Wang Ping?

After all, Wang Ping’s value to society was far greater than Zhou Heng’s.