My name is Chu Turan. It sounds pretty sudden—and pretty hard to understand, right? But if you knew that my parents suddenly had me, then, with no other choice, suddenly got married, my name wouldn’t seem so sudden after all...

Long story short, I’m Chu Turan, a textbook left-behind kid. I’m already seventeen, though, so I guess I should be called a left-behind teenager now. Add in the fact that I’m socially withdrawn and practically an orphan, and that’s me. Of course, my two lousy parents are still alive and well, much to my regret. I’m always sighing over my dream of inheriting my mom’s billions. But...

As far back as I can remember, my mom and dad hardly ever showed up. They’d just send me a sum of money every year on my birthday—my living expenses for the coming year. Whenever I got it, I knew they probably hadn’t died yet. So that’s why Mom and Dad taught me how to live on my own so early.

It wasn’t a small amount, either. They sent me a hundred thousand yuan, but they never adjusted it to keep up with that year’s inflation. That hundred thousand was supposed to last me a whole year! What the hell was I supposed to do if inflation got worse?

You’re wondering where they went? My dad’s a diplomat stationed overseas, working at an embassy. He hardly ever has time to come home. My mom does business across borders and is always out negotiating deals. Maybe it’s because they both grew up with a Western education, but they seem to believe in letting kids grow up freely.

From when I was very young, my parents had me go out and buy things on my own. Like when they came home once in a while and sent me to buy soy sauce for them. Seriously, I was only three at the time. How the hell was I supposed to carry a soy sauce bottle to the little shop downstairs?

Or they’d give me some money and have me manage my expenses for a month or so. But when they did that, they were right there beside me, staying with me the whole time. Then, on my birthday in fourth grade, after they’d eaten birthday cake with me, they disappeared for a long, long time the next day. They left me with a birthday mess that took half the day to clean up, a bank card, and a note. The note said the money in the account was supposed to cover my living expenses until my next birthday—and if I ran out, I’d have to deal with the consequences.

Deal with the consequences? The first time I tried budgeting, I blew through a month’s living expenses in ten days. Then I got so hungry I had to eat leftovers from the school cafeteria, while everyone looked down on me. So I knew perfectly well that if this period of being broke stretched from a month to a whole year, the consequences wouldn’t be something I could just deal with.

But it wasn’t all bad. After that, I finally learned that all that talk about brotherhood was fake. During the first month, I thought I was financially free and spent money like water. Whenever I treated the class to something, they were all my brothers. But when I ran out of money and needed them to treat me, they immediately looked at me with contempt.

After that, I stopped pretending to be rich. It’s always best to keep your money in your own pocket.

Later, when I started middle school and read the student handbook, I thought I understood my parents’ good intentions. They were probably trying to build my independence. But now that I’m in high school, I’ve realized that other people’s parents don’t seem to be like mine.

Seriously, am I really those two people’s biological son? Was I actually a freebie for topping up their phone credit? Come to think of it, when they were all lovey-dovey in front of me as a kid, they said they’d first met while topping up their long-distance roaming credit. Remembering that detail made my prospects of inheriting the family fortune look pitch-black. I was doomed.

Whatever. I don’t really care anymore. I’ll just take things as they come. After spending so much of my life practically alone, I’ve learned why you have to be careful about everything. So throughout my school life, I’ve always been on my own. I don’t really have any friends, and during breaks I just make the most of the time by sleeping, which also helps me pass the lonely hours without a little group of my own.

I’ve never thought much of this so-called pure friendship in high school. It’s just a bunch of chuunibyou teens banding together. Once they enter the real world, a few thousand yuan in wages can crush that kind of solidarity in an instant.

Heh heh. My naive, innocent homeroom teacher is saying right now that high school friendships are incredibly sincere. Is that true? I look at the little groups in class, all formed back in our first year. Some fell apart in our second year, while others held strong. But they all have one thing in common: hardly anyone new ever joins. Is that what sincere friendship looks like?

My homeroom teacher is a really cute young woman who just started working at our school. She was parachuted in to take a first-year class.

According to the class gossip, our homeroom teacher is apparently some kind of well-connected appointee sent down by a provincial official...

That’s some serious backing! (****!)

Our class has the best grades in the whole school and is a key class, yet they’ve let her practice managing us. She must have someone powerful behind her. Whether they’re trying to help her or set her up, the school wouldn’t risk handing her a key class like ours without some kind of support. Even if she caused a huge mess, she probably wouldn’t get into much trouble.

Our homeroom teacher is named Zhou Fang. She’s six years older than me, and she often complains to me about her worries over the students in our class. Come on, you’re the teacher! How can you show me this weak side of yourself?

When the bell rang, Zhou Fang—who’d been chattering away, working hard to improve the class atmosphere—left the classroom. It was a long break, and I was still slumped over my desk, bored out of my mind and ready to kill time.

At first, some of my classmates were probably interested in me and wanted to pull me into their little groups. But I acted so fake—so fake—about being interested that, out of politeness, they naturally ignored me and kicked me out of their group.

At last, I got the peace and quiet I liked best. I hate that kind of socializing. Being on my own is perfectly fine.

Just then, the area around me suddenly went quiet. That wasn’t something you usually heard at the start of a long break.

Huh? Had a teacher come in? No, that didn’t make sense. It was just a regular break, and things hadn’t even been that noisy. Even if a teacher had come by, there was no reason for everyone to suddenly go quiet. I was slumped over my desk in the corner, so I cracked my eyes open and looked around. Aside from a girl who seemed to have appeared by the window, nothing was different. I put my head back down.

That just goes to show that high school students are basically a pack of hormonal little mutts.

Yeah—in short, little beasts in heat. A teacher, who only meant getting them in trouble, was useless against them. But a female with a built-in trap could make them shut up in no time. They quieted down fast.

“Whoa, it’s Little Su!” A passerby who’d spotted the school beauty exclaimed. The overly familiar nickname immediately drew angry glares from everyone around him.

“Why’s the school beauty peeking around outside our classroom? She really has no manners.” The teasing was obvious. No need to ask—it was the girls in class getting jealous.

“That’s the school beauty! I heard she’s always worked part-time while studying. She’s the really hardworking type. She missed getting into our class by just one point.” That was the basic scoop from one of the class gossips.

“You think you can call her Little Su? Watch out, or one of Su’s Protectors will beat you up.” That was Passerby B’s warning to Passerby A.

“But I heard from my girlfriend that her life outside school is pretty wild.” Yep, that was Passerby C.

“By the way, the girl who came second in the school beauty ranking is back too. No idea where she is, though.” Passerby D joined in.

“She doesn’t really count as a student here anymore. She just has her name on the school’s books,” the gossip continued.

The school beauty’s full name was Liu Su. They said her family was fairly ordinary, but she’d turned down several rich second-generation kids from both inside and outside the school who’d asked her out. She worked hard while studying, and it was clear that working part-time had affected her grades. When they finally decided the class placements, Liu Su was one point short, so she ended up in a regular class.

Because she was a popular beauty from an ordinary background, some girls naturally saw Liu Su as an arrogant green tea bitch or a white lotus. That was the girls’ point of view, anyway.

To the boys, a woman who was thrifty, did well enough in school, and—most importantly—had a beautiful face and a figure that fit the Eastern ideal was naturally their dream girl.

The girl who came second in the school beauty ranking had a mysterious family background and had been a child star since elementary school. Now she was only on the school’s books in name, spending most of the year performing elsewhere. She was basically just waiting to get her diploma before going to a specialized college.

Although the second-ranked school beauty sounded impressive—an actress with a mysterious background, and a face and figure every bit as good as Liu Su’s—the fact that she clearly wasn’t going to become anyone’s girlfriend was enough to make most of the boys at school back off.

But leaving all that aside, just like that jealous girl said, Liu Su was always on her own at school. There’d once been a boy who thought his family’s money and influence meant he could force her to be his girlfriend. He even announced that in a few days he’d go to Liu Su’s house to ask for her hand in marriage!

Fortunately, our school had a decent atmosphere. A lot of boys who admired Liu Su joined forces under some unknown person’s lead and formed a little group called “Su’s Protectors.” They pulled every string they could to make the guy who’d planned to force himself on her give up. Then “Su’s Protectors” suddenly vanished and disbanded. The person behind it all stayed hidden, having done their good deed without seeking recognition.

Yeah, that unknown person was me. Why did I do it? Just call it a normal case of teenage lust. Later, I thought it was better not to get myself into trouble, so this horny little wolf pup turned back into a freeloading mutt.