After the Real Young Miss Became My Canary - Chapter 40
Chapter 40
The door that had just been closed was abruptly pushed open, and five people appeared in the doorway.
The leader was dressed in the season’s most popular Y-line rococo princess-style ensemble, dazzlingly bright, but piled with large-area jewelry, making her look like a painted peacock. She clutched the jacket draped over her body as she walked in: “It’s surprisingly cold.”
Evidently, she was the one who had just shouted.
From afar, she saw Shen Ying standing near the door and Xie Yu at the controller. She gave Shen Ying a slight smile, then turned to Xie Yu: “How dare you be here?”
It seemed she knew both of them.
Xie Yu didn’t have time to speak, her pupils slightly widened as she stared at the doorway.
The enormous display screen finally lit up at that moment, illuminating her rapidly paling profile. The humming sound of the machine’s massive power consumption suddenly roared to life. The green indicator lights on the side, representing operation, lit up one after another, and the entire control room was suddenly brilliantly illuminated.
She was standing right in the center of the control panel, hundreds of meters from the door, so she couldn’t possibly make it in time.
Shen Ying reacted instantly. She darted toward the door and simultaneously shouted: “Song Zhi!”
The people trailing the woman looked at each other, confused as to what was happening.
The lights came on row by row, spreading at an extremely fast pace toward the door. Shen Ying ran incredibly quickly, almost sprinting to the entrance.
Song Zhi, who was directly opposite Shen Ying, reacted sharply and immediately started running. Soon, both were at the doorway, their objective clear. They each grabbed one side of the door.
The door slowly slid shut in their hands.
Seeing the door close, Xie Yu at the control panel let out a silent sigh of relief. She looked at the culprit who had now reached her side, put her hands on her hips, and snapped: “How dare I? Because I’m a student of this department! Because I borrowed this machine! Why do you think? I want to know how you dare to be here! Do you realize you almost broke the machine today?!”
Zheng Min: “It’s just a machine, why be so tense? Heh. Besides.”
She raised her hand and pulled out an arbitrarily folded A4 paper from the bag she carried. On the paper, in black and white, stamped with the HKU red seal, was her: “I have a borrowing certificate, signed by the Principal.”
Xie Yu glared at her: “I borrowed it first! You want to use it? Wait a day!”
Zheng Min: “I only borrowed it for today, now. Move aside. If you want to use it, borrow it again.”
As an ordinary student, she knew very well that the only reason she could borrow this level of equipment this time was because her supervising professor was kind. But no matter how kind he was, he wouldn’t let her borrow this machine multiple times.
She knew very clearly that if she backed down now, she would never have another chance: “We borrowed it first! I won’t move! Don’t push your luck!”
Shen Ying was the only one working on this subject. Zheng Min needs the machine? Xie Yu didn’t believe it. To put it plainly, it was all because of that eldest daughter of the Song family.
She gritted her teeth. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t qualified to speak to Zheng Min this way. After all, this machine was donated by the Song family.
Zheng Min crossed her arms and chuckled: “Angry? What’s the use of that? Who told you not to be surnamed Song? I have the Principal’s signature on this.”
A voice of confusion interjected: “Who is surnamed Song again?”
It was Song Zhi. Xie Yu only now realized that she was also surnamed Song. The word again was spot on: “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”
Zheng Min laughed: “Who told you this machine was donated by the Song family? Who told you we know each other?”
Song Zhi and Shen Ying walked in, shoulder to shoulder, from the doorway. From afar, Song Zhi had noticed the tension between the group. Walking closer, she happened to hear that last sentence.
She looked at Shen Ying in surprise, showing her innocence: “This, I don’t know, ha.”
Shen Ying: “Your friend.”
When did she acquire a peacock friend?
Song Zhi was silent for a moment: “Maybe I should step in and manage this.”
Otherwise, she might miss out on Song Guan’s illegitimate child outside of the family. It wasn’t that she thought too highly of herself, but the only family surnamed Song capable of donating a machine like this had to be hers.
But she was here. Song Qin wasn’t at HKU. The only remaining possibility was Song Guan had an illegitimate child outside.
Zheng Min covered her mouth and laughed: “Such nerve.”
She turned and asked the people behind her: “Hey, did you hear what she said? She said she wants to manage us.”
The people behind her immediately burst into exaggerated laughter.
Song Zhi looked at her with the expression reserved for a rare animal, one who was so unique and pure she was simply brainless. Afraid she wouldn’t understand, Song Zhi asked her very directly: “May I ask your esteemed father’s surname?”
Zheng Min immediately grew furious: “What do you mean?”
Song Zhi spread her hands: “The literal meaning. Can’t you understand?”
Xie Yu hesitated. She didn’t know why Shen Ying wasn’t stopping her, but letting Song Zhi and Zheng Min clash like this really seemed like a bad idea.
Xie Yu whispered to Song Zhi: “Don’t you know this was donated by the Song family?”
Song Zhi: “Huh?”
Xie Yu thought, she really doesn’t know the implications: “This Zheng Min is good friends with that person from the Song family.”
Song Zhi’s first reaction was: “What’s their name? Never heard of them.”
Her second reaction was: ?! Who is friends with her?
Song Qin? Girlfriend?
Song Zhi asked suspiciously: “Are you friends with Song Qin?”
Zheng Min was impatient: “What Song Qin or Wang Qin? I’m friends with the Eldest Miss Song. I’m telling you, the Eldest Miss needs to use this laboratory. You want to use it? Not now.”
How ridiculous. I kind of want to laugh.
Song Zhi asked Shen Ying: “How long has she been like this?”
Xie Yu thought she was talking to her: “What?”
Song Zhi covered her face with her hand in exasperation: “How long has she been having her hysterics?”
Shen Ying: “You really don’t know her?”
Song Zhi nodded pitifully: “I truly don’t know her.”
Xie Yu said: “You certainly wouldn’t know her. Who in our department doesn’t know her? She’s so arrogant in school, leveraging her connection with the Song family. Even the publication of an integrated model data from one of Shen Ying’s earlier team experiments was stolen by her for the first authorship, and also…”
Shen Ying said flatly: “Xie Yu.”
Xie Yu: “Fine, fine, I won’t say it.”
As soon as Shen Ying spoke, Zheng Min watched her warily: “What nonsense are you two talking about?”
Song Zhi smiled sweetly at Zheng Min. When she smiled, the two dimples at the corners of her mouth appeared, but instead of making her look gentle, they gave her a cold, sharp quality: “You’re surnamed Zheng, right? I’ve never heard of your family, so you must know her from outside. May I ask where and how you met the Song…”
She found it difficult to refer to herself that way, so she blurred the two words: “…was met?”
How would Zheng Min know? She answered casually: “We met at a banquet.”
“Which one?”
Zheng Min stammered for a while, recalling a cruise ship party more than a year ago: “We met at a cruise party.”
“When?”
How would she know the exact date? Zheng Min was impatient: “Sometime in the last two years! What’s it to you?”
The person behind her immediately chimed in: “Exactly! Why are you so talkative?”
Song Zhi laughed. When she smiled, her two dimples appeared, but they didn’t make her look soft; instead, they gave a sense of cool composure: “There are only two members of the Song family in this generation. The elder one left the country before junior high and hasn’t returned for years. The younger one is always with Song Guan, and I don’t think he would attend your so-called unknown party. Who do you actually know?”
Zheng Min’s face instantly went pale.
She had used this name for so many years. No one had ever dared to question her. Even when they did, they only dared to beat around the bush and were satisfied with her ambiguous answers.
She forced herself to stand firm: “That’s my privacy! Why should I tell you? And what nonsense are you spewing? How can you say she hasn’t returned? How do you know?”
If she had a time machine, Zheng Min would definitely go back to this moment and gag herself, but it was too late now.
She only saw Song Zhi look at her with an extremely peculiar expression, then say: “Because I’m Song Zhi.”
Zheng Min felt guilty and was thus furiously defiant: “No one’s ever heard of you! I’m telling you, the Eldest Miss Song and I are friends! Be careful, or I’ll make you suffer!”
The person behind her, who happened to have checked this year’s freshman roster, tentatively tugged on her clothes.
Zheng Min instantly snapped impatiently: “What are you doing?!”
The person shrank her neck but still whispered the words: “She’s… a freshman.”
“What freshman or senior, what’s it to me?”
She suddenly realized. There was only one person surnamed Song in the freshmen class. She turned her head stiffly: “You…”
Song Zhi was watching her with composure. Seeing her turn, she curved her eyebrows in good spirits: “Hello. Can I use this machine? Please?”
Zheng Min sharply stumbled back: “How is that possible?! I don’t believe it!”
Song Zhi thought seriously for a moment, but before she could say “That’s none of my business,” Zheng Min’s eyes rolled back, and she actually fainted.
The people behind her immediately reached out in a flurry of hands, then, as if remembering something, drew them back. Song Zhi looked at them innocently, her expression blank: “Remember to close the door on your way out.”
The moment she looked away, she met Xie Yu’s astonished gaze. A chill ran down her spine as Xie Yu’s words started coming out like a fast clapper: “You’re Song Zhi? That Song family one?”
Song Zhi nodded stiffly: “Mhm.”
Xie Yu said furiously: “You and Shen Ying are friends?”
Song Zhi nodded: “Yes, we are.”
Xie Yu was even angrier: “Why did you steal Shen Ying’s overseas study spot?!”
Shen Ying said quietly: “Xie Yu.”
Xie Yu ignored her: “Don’t you have your own money? Why couldn’t you go abroad on your own dime? That’s the spot Shen Ying has always wanted!”
Song Zhi was dumbfounded: “Huh?”
The Stolen Opportunities
Ten minutes later, Song Zhi learned from Xie Yu about her series of misdeeds at the school over the past two years.
Misdeeds included leveraging her identity to steal first authorship and publications, and leveraging her identity to steal various opportunities and spots from others.
And all of this, she had apparently had done through that friend.
Because Shen Ying was so excellent, she was stolen from particularly often. Even the data model that won an award last semester had Zheng Min’s name listed as the first author.
The problem was, Song Zhi blinked at Shen Ying: “But I don’t even know her.”
Shen Ying pursed her lips: “It’s fine. I know.”
Song Zhi said coldly as she picked up her phone: “It’s not fine! She stole so many things from you. I’m going to make her spit them out. I’ll make her give you back the spot first.”
Shen Ying looked at her plainly, noticing the genuine anger in her eyes, as if she were truly indignant on Shen Ying’s behalf.
Shen Ying was a little confused by her. Does she think I don’t know?
Shen Ying: “But… that spot was meant for you.”
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