The sun hung low, dyeing half the sky orange.

The streets grew lively after school, with students heading home in pairs and small groups.

“Hey, Old Bai, wanna go play ball tonight?”

Bai Chen gave his friend an awkward smile. “Sorry, I’ve got work tonight. Rain check?”

“Working again? You really are putting yourself through school.”

His friend teased him, then left with the others. Before long, Bai Chen was the only one left in the classroom.

Putting himself through school? He was just a poor sucker working part-time.

Almost everyone in class thought Bai Chen came from a poor family and had to work to help support them. Even his homeroom teacher had taken him aside to talk about it.

In reality, Bai Chen thought he was no different from any other high schooler. He was seventeen, in his second year, and went to class when there were lessons and took breaks when school was out.

After packing up his textbooks, Bai Chen left the classroom and saw his friend walking out of the school gates with his girlfriend.

Bai Chen had never had much luck with romance. He barely even talked to girls. Still, as a teenager in the thick of puberty, sometimes he couldn’t help wishing that he’d get struck by Cupid’s arrow, just once.

“Ugh!”

As Bai Chen passed an alley, he heard a muffled grunt from inside. At first, he thought some local punks were fighting over a meetup, but then he heard a few soft sobs.

After a moment’s thought, Bai Chen crept closer and peered inside.

Several men dressed like street thugs had surrounded a girl. It was a classic bullying scene.

Bai Chen knew them. Those jobless layabouts had taken over the whole alley, using violence to demand a toll from any student who tried to take the shortcut.

The girl wore the same school uniform as Bai Chen. She huddled against the wall, like a little white rabbit surrounded by wolves.

“Hey, didn’t we tell you we’d let you go if you handed over the money? You really don’t take us seriously, do you?”

One of them bent down, grabbed the girl by her black hair, and roughly lifted her head.

“S-sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

Her voice quavered with tears, and she didn’t dare meet the thug’s eyes.

At her words, the thug’s expression darkened even further, as if he were about to vent all his anger right in her face.

“Sorry? Go ask around. Everyone nearby knows this is our turf. Which student gets through here without paying?”

“But I really don’t have any money…”

“You’re really set on taking this shortcut without paying. You sure don’t think much of us.”

As he spoke, the thug gave her a hard shove. The girl hit the ground with a cry of pain.

He was cracking his knuckles when another man grabbed him. “Hey, don’t you think she’s pretty cute?”

“What?” The thug froze.

The other man raised his eyebrows at him, his eyes full of leering desire. “If she’s got no money, she can pay us back with her body.”

“You’ve got a point. She is pretty cute.”

Hey, hey, hey! How did this get even worse?

Hiding in the corner, Bai Chen furrowed his brow more and more. He’d thought the girl would just get beaten up, but he never expected things to go completely off the rails.

Now that he’d seen what was happening, Bai Chen felt he couldn’t just stand by. He hated people who abused their strength.

Good thing he’d brought his phone to school today.

Bai Chen chuckled, raised his phone, and stepped out from cover.

The punks panicked as soon as they saw someone appear with a phone in hand.

“Who the hell are you, brat?”

“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“Keep filming and see if I don’t smash your phone!”

Bai Chen ignored their threats and even pointed the camera at each of their faces.

“They just installed new security cameras around here. You’re committing a crime right under their noses. If you don’t want to get caught, you’d better run.”

The warning backfired. The punks couldn’t take that kind of humiliation, and one of them pulled a folding knife from his pocket.

“You little punk, you’ve got a lot of nerve!”

The thug rushed up and swung his knife at Bai Chen. But Bai Chen darted aside, dodging the slash aimed at his arm.

While the thug was still stunned, Bai Chen put his phone away, seized the knife-wielding arm, disarmed him, and twisted his arm behind his back.

“Are you leaving or not?”

“I’m going, I’m going! I’m sorry, boss!” The thug hissed through the pain. “I’m really sorry. We won’t do it again.”

“I’ll give you five seconds to get lost. That enough?”

“More than enough!”

Five seconds meant five seconds. Bai Chen counted silently, and sure enough, the punks skulked out of the alley within the allotted time.

After chasing them off, Bai Chen went over to the girl. She’d already sat up.

Her messy black hair covered most of her face. Through the strands, her eyes looked like a lightless, dead sea. The fall had left a bleeding cut on her forehead, with a little dirt stuck to it.

“Are you okay?” Bai Chen went over and helped her up. “If you can walk, hurry home. Don’t take shortcuts like this again.”

Running into punks was one thing. If she’d run into something else, she might’ve lost her life before he could get there.

“Thank you.”

It was the first time the girl had spoken in reply. Bai Chen realized her voice was lovely, clear as a silver bell.

She brushed the hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ears, revealing the face she’d kept hidden.

For a moment, Bai Chen really was left staring.

The girl was pretty cute, with delicate features. Even with dust on her face, her skin was still fair and lovely. With a face that beautiful, a smile would surely win over countless people. It was a shame about those unsightly dead-fish eyes.

But those eyes were exactly why Bai Chen had stared.

“Your eyes are beautiful…”

He quickly covered his mouth, hoping the expressionless girl hadn’t heard him.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t shown much pain while the thugs were bullying her. Now, standing in front of Bai Chen, she seemed like a doll without a trace of emotion.

“Are you all right?” The doll-like girl tilted her head.

“Ah, yeah. I’m fine. You go to Fengling No. 1 High too, right? What a coincidence—we’re at the same school.” Bai Chen snapped out of it and quickly looked away.

“My name is Mo Qiu.”

“I’m Bai Chen.”

Mo Qiu’s gaze dropped. “You’re hurt.”

“Huh?”

Bai Chen raised his hand and only then noticed a cut on one of his fingers, with thin trails of blood seeping from it.

That must’ve been from the thug’s knife. Bai Chen had overestimated his own reflexes—he hadn’t dodged it completely.

A wound like that didn’t hurt at all until you noticed it. Then the pain started creeping in.

“You need to bandage it, or it might get infected.”

“It’s just a scratch, and there isn’t anywhere around here that…”

Before Bai Chen could finish, Mo Qiu took his hand and put his injured finger in her mouth.

Bai Chen’s eyes went wide. He froze in shock.

The girl's cherry lips were soft and warm, and the tight embrace felt incredibly comfortable; he could even feel her nimble tongue wrapping around his finger.

Bai Chen yanked his finger back, drawing out a glistening strand of saliva.

“What are you doing?”

“Saliva can disinfect wounds.” Mo Qiu wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth. “You got hurt because of me. I have to repay you.”

“You don’t have to repay me like that, though.”

“Then… would you like me to give myself to you and take care of you for the rest of your life?”

“Are you serious?”

The girl kept a blank expression, and her voice was so flat that it was impossible to tell whether she was teasing him or meant it. Bai Chen decided this kind of romantic luck was better left alone.

“I did a good deed because I wanted to. You can just say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

You didn’t have to say it twice.

Bai Chen sighed. This girl was impossible to figure out.

“You should head home soon. The sun’s going down.”

“Mm.”

Bai Chen set off first. If he didn’t hurry, he’d be late for work.

Mo Qiu stayed where she was, watching his figure shrink until he disappeared in the distance.

Several familiar figures appeared behind her. The punks had come back.

There was no anger on their faces. They knelt around the girl, looking completely infatuated.

“Master, did we do a good job?”

“Mm. Very good.”

Mo Qiu swept back her slightly messy black hair, plopped down on one of their backs, and crossed her long legs.

If Bai Chen had taken a closer look, he would’ve seen hearts dancing in the punks’ eyes. But Mo Qiu wasn’t going to give him the chance.

At last, the expressionless girl showed a strange smile.

“Having useful pawns really is convenient.”

She was very pleased with this carefully staged encounter. A pure-hearted virgin was so easy to manipulate.

She was pleased with Bai Chen’s reaction, too. She’d keep advancing step by step until she was the only one in his heart.

“Master, do you have any other orders?”

“Take off your pants and jog to Wanhua Plaza. Keep going until dark.”

“Understood!”

The punks ran off toward the sunset, while a sudden gust lifted the girl’s black hair. Above them, great banks of rain clouds gathered in the clear sky.

“Bai Chen, oh, Bai Chen. This time, let me—the villain—turn you into a true hero.”

By any means necessary. Seduction, threats—even sleeping with him, if it came to that. She’d build a deep bond with him, then make him realize it had all been one grand deception aimed at him.