After Becoming Roommates with an Obnoxious Wealthy Heiress - Chapter 33

“I’ll have three beef buns and a cup of soy milk.”

The moment Yu turned around, the shaped frown on her forehead smoothed out instantly. Her expression changed faster than flipping the pages of a book, her lips immediately curling into a wide smile.

“Miss Zhu! Oh my, what brings you here today?” As she spoke, her small eyes flickered repeatedly toward the back.

Seeing Qin Shuyue turn her entire body away, not even daring to cast a single glance at Zhu Lingyi, Yu’s eyes darted about. She immediately barked an order in a loud voice “Qin Shuyue, didn’t you hear the customer’s request? Three beef buns and a cup of soy milk! Snap to it!”

For some unknown reason, from the moment she heard that voice, Qin Shuyue’s heart felt like a light feather being pulled up into her throat. her neck tightened, her heartbeat grew louder and stronger with every pulse, and her entire body froze in place.

Seeing Qin Shuyue dazed, Yu looked up to catch the completely indifferent expression on Zhu Lingyi’s face. She strode over to Qin Shuyue’s side. She didn’t raise a hand, but Qin Shuyue flinched, pulling her neck back as if by a reflexive arc.

Zhu Lingyi took in this entire scene.

She narrowed her eyes, her gaze fixed intently on Qin Shuyue. She was curious to see her next move.

“Don’t keep Miss Zhu waiting, hurry up!”

Qin Shuyue’s head remained lowered, seemingly terrified of making eye contact with the girl outside the window.

Today, Yu did not take the plastic bag from Qin Shuyue’s hand as she usually did. Instead, with a look of mockery and the air of someone watching a play, she said to her, “You, go handle the payment for Miss Zhu.”

The plastic bag in her hand trembled. Qin Shuyue looked up at Yu in disbelief, then darted a quick glance toward the window.

Yu, along with the students standing behind Zhu Lingyi, wore expressions full of malice and detached amusement. They watched her mockingly, waiting to see how she would “break” the rumors from the video.

However, when they noticed Qin Shuyue’s hands shaking, a flash of triumph appeared in their eyes, mocking her for overestimating herself.

How could a girl as cowardly, timid, and low-born as her be worthy of Zhu Lingyi?

As Qin Shuyue handed the plastic bag containing the buns and soy milk to Zhu Lingyi with both hands, a pair of boys standing behind Zhu Lingyi began to whisper.

“Qin Shuyue? Is that the sophomore transfer student who moved to Yueqi Court but ‘got lost’ and ended up in Heqing Court?”

“Got lost? Pfft, she certainly knows how to get lost. It just so happens she gets lost right into Miss Zhu’s dormitory?”

“How else can you call it premeditated? Look…”

The two boys pulled out their phones, pointing and tapping at the screens, occasionally glancing up at Qin Shuyue.

Qin Shuyue naturally heard them, and Zhu Lingyi must have heard them too.

However, the latter said nothing. She simply took the plastic bag from Qin Shuyue, her fingertips brushing unintentionally across the back of the other’s hand.

Qin Shuyue shuddered, giving a slight tremble.

This touch seemed like nothing more than a casual, accidental contact on Zhu Lingyi’s part, devoid of intent; it seemed as though she wasn’t even aware of it herself.

Her voice remained devoid of any particular emotion icy and cold, treating her just as she would any other cashier.

“How much.”

Qin Shuyue kept her head down, her voice hoarse and muffled as she replied, “12.”

The moment the word left her mouth, she felt for a second as if her vocal cords didn’t belong to her.

In front of her and behind her, everyone was waiting to laugh at her.

A “lesbian monster” who failed to seduce Miss Zhu into bed and was kicked out; an “old loiterer” who shamelessly and stubbornly hung around the door; a “bitch” who, after failing to seduce Miss Zhu, became intimate with Young Master Gao playing both sides and stepping on two boats at once; a “scheming girl” who feigned ignorance and fragility to gain the sympathy of her old roommates, only to bite the hand that fed her by claiming campus bullying to transfer to Yueqi Court, only to “get lost” and find her way into Room 601 of Heqing Court.

All these words came from the messages students had ruthlessly left for her on her phone.

Qin Shuyue thought she could ignore it, that she could tell herself to forget.

But these were real, tangible blades attacking her, each one stabbing into her heart.

And now, everything was being laid bare, brought out into the open to humiliate her in front of the entire school, crushing her carefully maintained self-respect into the mud.

Qin Shuyue looked up, meeting Zhu Lingyi’s indifferent, bystander like eyes.

Zhu Lingyi

Is this the goal you wanted to achieve by toying with me?

To play with me in the palm of your hand, and then discard me like an old shoe.

But Qin Shuyue didn’t understand. What was Zhu Lingyi’s motive? Why! why did she have to humiliate her like this!

In such a way that she had no means of defense.

Public opinion was like walls closing in on her from all sides. She was a lone mayfly trying to shake a giant tree, unable to push back even an inch.

But why? What exactly had she done wrong!

Watching Zhu Lingyi’s departing back, Gao and Xu followed behind her as they had before.

Once before, Qin Shuyue had looked at Zhu Lingyi through this very window.

Back then, she only lamented that the gap between them was like the Milky Way a vast chasm blocking her path, a heaven she could never reach.

But now.

She felt only disgust.

Like Song Jiajia and Liang Qi, she was an accomplice, an instigator.

She was the murderer making an already tragic fate even worse.

“Hey! Miss Zhu has already left the cafeteria, pull your eyes back!” Having witnessed Zhu Lingyi’s total lack of concern for Qin Shuyue, Yu decided that while she might have had to restrain herself slightly before out of respect for Miss Zhu, that was clearly no longer necessary!

Humph.

Making her pick up glass shards was meant to remind her to be careful at work! Who would have thought she’d turn around, play the victim, and go complain to Zhu Lingyi? It had resulted in Yu being summoned and criticized by the manager.

She could never swallow that bit of resentment.

But out of fear because Zhu Lingyi had once stood up for her, she hadn’t dared to truly cross the line.

It wasn’t until she saw Zhu Lingyi’s attitude toward Qin Shuyue today that Yu finally let her heart settle back into her stomach.

“Qin Shuyue, nobody cares about you.”

Yu looked at her with a smug expression. “Did you think your life would be like something out of a novel or a TV show? That you’re Cinderella and Zhu Lingyi is your Prince Charming?”

“Someone like her was born in Rome, with an illustrious background. What hasn’t she seen? What kind of woman hasn’t she dated? You think she’s going to descend from the sky like a prince, appear in your shit-stained life, and hold out a hand saying some crap like ‘I want to save you’? Qin Shuyue, wake up. Reality is reality. If you hadn’t deliberately ‘gotten lost’ and broken into Heqing Court, your paths would never have crossed in this lifetime.”

“And besides, do you think Zhu Lingyi would like women like a monster like you does? She’s a proper socialite, a famous young lady in Country C, the Chairwoman of the Zhu Group. What are you? An earthworm in the mud, or a toad in the swamp? Someone like you should stay honestly underground. If you’re exposed to the sun, there’s nothing for you but death.”

Yu grew more excited as she spoke. By the end, she was laughing wildly and pointing at Qin Shuyue. The group of students standing behind Yu also looked at her with strange, distorted expressions, their mouths curling into cold, mocking smiles.

It felt as though thousands of invisible hands were reaching out from the seabed, pulling at Qin Shuyue’s limbs, dragging her into the whirlpool of public opinion, sweeping her into a dark abyss along with the icy tide. No matter how she explained herself, it was useless.

In their eyes, all of Qin Shuyue’s explanations were just sophistry, just excuses to get away.

Qin Shuyue could do nothing. She could only stand like a marionette, staring blankly at the calm surface of the sea, silently enduring the hidden surge and erosion, falling into hell.

But just as she was about to give up struggling, the red hair tie in her mother’s hand from her dreams flashed through her mind.

The red hair tie grew larger, loop by loop, encircling Qin Shuyue’s waist like a life-saving rope. High up on the shore, amidst thick fog, a woman’s hand gripped the other end of the rope tightly, using all her strength to pull the sinking Qin Shuyue out of the whirlpool.

It was Mom.

Her mother’s blurred face flashed by, and the thick fog instantly swallowed it again.

Qin Shuyue’s rationality slowly returned.

When she opened her eyes again, Yu’s fierce, malicious face was right in front of her. Behind her, on the large iron table, were stacks of neatly arranged steamer baskets filled with steaming hot buns.

Dream and reality seemed to intersect for a moment. Once she regained her senses, her legs felt weak, her head throbbed painfully, and her strength left her.

She stumbled slightly, bracing one hand against her forehead and the other against the iron table to keep herself upright.

She was weak, but her voice was firm as she replied: “I am not a monster.”

“There hasn’t been a single moment where I thought about using the bed of the Chairwoman of the Zhu Group, or any of those filthy methods, to satisfy my own desires.”

“Furthermore, my sexual orientation is perfectly normal. I don’t like women. Do you understand? You bunch of idiots.”

This was the first time Qin Shuyue had ever called others “idiots.”

Because they truly were stupid to the core.

A little bit of wind was enough to incite them to hurl insults and spread rumors, as if talking and laughing required no responsibility at all.

In a sudden rush of blood to her head, she ripped off her work uniform and slammed it into Yu’s face. Yu lost her balance, her fat backside hitting the floor with a loud thud. She cried out in pain and began to curse Qin Shuyue up and down: “You bitch, are you crazy!? Do you even want to keep working here?!”

“Today,” Qin Shuyue said, looking coldly at Yu sprawled on the ground, staring down at her with an aura that had never belonged to her before, “I am taking the day off.”

“Deduct my wages if you want. Haven’t you already deducted enough by finding all sorts of faults before? One more day won’t make a difference, will it?”

Qin Shuyue gave a cold snort, then stepped over Yu, grabbed her canvas bag from under the checkout counter, and ignored the gazes of everyone in the cafeteria as she strode out.

Naturally, the video of “Qin Shuyue causing a scene in the cafeteria” was uploaded to the forum.

Gao Yin had always enjoyed browsing these sites that Zhu Lingyi dismissed as boring and pointless.

As soon as it was uploaded, Gao Yin received a notification.

After all, this matter might involve Zhu Lingyi, so he had to keep a close watch. If any inappropriate videos were leaked, he could discover and clear them in time.

“What are you looking at? Give it here, let me see.”

Zhu Lingyi, walking beside Gao Yin, shot him a sideways glance.

His mouth was hanging wide open, enough to fit an entire egg inside.

What could be so interesting?

Zhu Lingyi snatched the phone from Gao Yin’s hand.

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