Chapter 8

  Rape?

  These two words suddenly stopped all of Yi Ling's movements, the next second, he abruptly backed away, staring at her with a terrified gaze, then stared at his own hands.

  What did he do? He is Xiao Jiao's fiancé, although the selection has not been finalized, but he thinks that one day he will become Xiao Jiao's husband. And his Xiao Jiao is his only wife candidate. Unexpectedly, one day, he actually laid hands on Xiao Jiao's friend.

  Yi Ling Meng slapped his own forehead, as if regretting doing something stupid. His eyebrows were filled with intense anger. He turned around, re-buttoned and re-buckled, and stormed off, leaving behind Ji Xiaojuan, who was clutching her collar with a terrified face, leaning against the tree trunk and sliding to the ground.

  Ji Xiaowan found herself being kissed by two men in one day. She also discovered that her helplessness was only just beginning. She was an ordinary and insignificant person, she only wanted to live an ordinary life, but her ideals were distant. This world had too many helplessness waiting for her, and she could only choose to accept it or force herself to adapt to it!

  Ji Xiaowan's heart was in severe pain, but she still didn't cry. She quietly got up, taking advantage of her mother's deep sleep to sneak back into the house, cleaned herself up a bit, and lay back on her own bed. However, this night was sleepless.

  The next day, Ji Xiaowan wore a high-necked dress to cover up the bruises on her neck. Fortunately, the weather had turned cooler in recent days, so she didn't arouse anyone's suspicion by dressing like this. Apart from her, only Yi Ling knew about this matter.

  It's as if she benefited from last night, Ji Xiaowan found that Ye Haiyuan and Yi Ling didn't bother her again, Luo Meiyue also stopped bothering her, Ji Xiaowan returned to her peaceful life, except for the fact that Ye Haiyuan took away her photo, in the following days, Ji Xiaowan lived very comfortably.

  About that photo, Ji Xiaowen didn't take the initiative to look for Ye Haiwei because she knew that Ye Haiwei wouldn't easily return the photo to her. Rather than rushing over and inviting humiliation, it was better to quietly wait for an opportunity to retrieve the photo.

  That weekend, Yi Ling ran to all the bookstores in N Province to find a historically rare book. The book was published over a decade ago and only had a print run of a few hundred thousand copies, with no reprints since then. As a result, the book is now out of print and none of the major bookstores have it in stock. There were also no auctions for the book online. It wasn't until Yi Ling stumbled upon a small, out-of-the-way bookstore that he finally found a copy of the book in their inventory. However, the store employee told him that it would take some time to retrieve the book from storage and asked him to come back the next day to pick it up.

  The next day, when Yi Ling went to get the book, he heard the employee say something strange: "When did this book become a bestseller? It actually sold two copies in one day."

  Yi Ling vaguely knew who had sold the second one, but he didn't ask.

  On Monday, Ji Xiaowan walked into the classroom and found two identical books quietly lying on her desk. These two books were the ones that Luo Mei Yue had snatched and thrown into the water. Ji Xiaowan picked up one of them, opened it, and found a note inside with the words "Returning this book to you, hoping we can make amends." It was signed by Luo Mei Yue.

  Then, Ji Xiaowan took out the second book. Inside it was also a pink card with the words: "This book is very hard to buy, I ran through all the bookstores to get it for you, don't waste my efforts." Signed by Luo Mei Yue again.

  The handwriting on these two cards is not written by the same person at all, and Lu Mei Yue wouldn't do something like this to curry favor with herself. These two books, even a fool would guess that they're definitely not gifts from Lu Mei Yue!

  Ji Xiaowan stuffed the two books into her desk and turned around to see Luo Mei Yue walking into the classroom with a dessert, still followed by Tai Li.

  The dessert in Luo Mei Yue's hand was naturally sent by Tai Li.

  Ji Xiaowan actually wanted to return the two books to them, but she didn't want to have too much contact with them. Ji Xiaowan also thought of returning the books through Luo Mei Yue's hands, but she didn't want to cause another misunderstanding with Luo Mei Yue either. So the two books were left on her desk like this, and after throwing them in, she never touched them again.

  Then another week passed.

  Yi Ling and Ye Haiwei found that she had actually left the books they gave her on her desk, not even bringing them back home. They recalled how she used to carry that old book with her every day to and from school, not even putting it in her backpack for fear of damaging it. The difference in treatment was too great! Although it was just an old book, they knew the difference lay in who gave the book.

  Yi Ling was furious and said to Ye Haiyi, "Let's investigate who Ji Xiaowen's lover is, find him out and beat him up, how about that?"

  Ye Haiyuan had only seen what that person looked like, but he had only seen his childhood photos and didn't know what his name was. Ji Xiaowan would never take the initiative to tell them, Ye Haiyuan didn't ask Ji Xiaowan, but he was really curious about who that boy was.

  "Why hit him? He didn't provoke you." Ye Haiyuan actually wanted to do the same, but he didn't show it.

  "I just don't like him." Yi Ling's anger flared up again as she grabbed her hair and muttered a few more sentences.

  Ever since that night, for the past few days, Yi Ling has been dreaming of Ji Xiao Wan. Although he had dreamed of her before, now every time he dreams, he feels like he's being too excessive, and in his dreams, he's just too evil. All the bad things he wanted to do but couldn't, he did them all thoroughly in his dreams.

  That night, he thought that he still had some status in Ji Xiaowen's heart. At least when she saw him, her eyes would be a little evasive or dodgy. But he was wrong, Ji Xiaowen didn't even give him a glance, and the book he gave her was left untouched on her desk.

  Won't she? Is it because the card that came with the book was signed "Lu Mei Yue", so Ji Xiao Wan thought it was sent by Lu Mei Yue, and since she still wouldn't forgive Lu Mei Yue, that's why she left the book on her desk untouched?

  But that's not right, Yi Ling doesn't believe this girl would be so stupid, these two books were actually given to her by Ye Haiwei and him. In any case, not looking at the monk but looking at the Buddha's face, this girl has clearly shown that she doesn't put the two brothers in her eyes.

  After a few more days, Lu Mei Yue's birthday was approaching. Coincidentally, her birthday fell on a Saturday. Ye Hai Wei and Yi Ling prepared a party for Lu Mei Yue, which was an annual ritual she had to go through, but also one of her favorite scenes.

  Lu Mei Yue invited all her classmates to the party on Friday and sent out invitations to everyone, including Ji Xiao Wan. The invitation was not given to Ji Xiao Wan by Lu Mei Yue, but by Ye Hai Wei, so she accepted it. However, she did not promise Ye Hai Wei that she would definitely attend the party.

  Lu Mei Yue's eighteenth birthday was more grand than any previous birthday party, and her outfit was extremely beautiful and luxurious from head to toe. Every piece of jewelry on her body was a valuable treasure worth tens of thousands of dollars. Ye Hai Wei and Yi Ling presented her with birthday gifts in front of everyone, one giving a necklace and the other a pair of earrings. All the classmates saw this and couldn't help but express their admiration, as well as shoot jealous glances.

  Lu Mei Yue couldn't help but share in the envy-filled gazes and the cheering voices.

  At the beginning of the party, Lu Mei's first dance was given to Ye Haiwei, and the last dance was planned to be given to Yi Ling. This was what they had agreed on beforehand, and every year they would take turns exchanging the first and last dances.

  Not long after the party started, while Luo Mei Yue was being bothered by her classmates and had no time to spare, Ye Hai Wei and Yi Ling kept making excuses to shuttle through the crowd, trying to find that figure that made people's hearts flutter. However, no matter how hard they looked, they couldn't find it, until the end of the party when they finally realized this fact - she didn't come to the party!

  Ji Xiaowan returned home on Friday evening, only to be informed by her mother that she would have to accompany Xia Zong to watch a movie the next day, Saturday. Ji Xiaowan neither agreed nor refused, planning to sneak out early the next morning. She had no intention of going on a date with Xia Zong, but what she didn't expect was that her mother had anticipated her attempt to escape and locked her in the bathroom while she was using it in the middle of the night.

  Ji Xiaowan slept for a few hours in the cold bathroom wearing her pajamas, when Liu Fei opened the door and dragged her out, then wanted to help her put on makeup, saying that President Xia's car had been waiting outside for a long time.

  Ji Xiaowan refused, Liu Fei scolded her severely and pinched her thigh while scolding, but Ji Xiaowan still didn't agree. Liu Fei had no choice and couldn't bear it anymore, so she hit Ji Xiaowan's head heavily.

  Ji Xiaowan was frozen for a whole night, and she had a slight fever. She was hit on the head by her mother and felt dizzy. Liu Fei didn't notice her discomfort, saw that she was dizzy, and hurriedly put makeup on her. After finishing the makeup, she even forced her to change into a revealing evening gown.

  After finishing, Liu Fei made a phone call and asked Xia Zong to send someone to pick up Ji Xiaowan.

  While Liu Fei was on the phone, Ji Xiaowan endured her headache and secretly slipped out of the room, and by the time Liu Fei discovered it, Ji Xiaowan had already gone downstairs.

  Ji Xiaowan didn't care about her own appearance and kept running out.

  The weather on Saturday was not very good, it was a cloudy day and occasionally there might be some light rain. The wind outside was also very sharp. Ji Xiaoyu wore clothes that were not enough to keep her warm, and she had caught a chill the night before, so she had a fever. Now she still had to endure the cold wind invasion, but with her strong will to survive, she managed to hold on for the entire day.