She Adopted Me After My Biological Mother Passed Away - Chapter 18

Chi Yeyu: “In a way, I can be considered half a mother to you.”

“Hmm?” Chi Yeyu blinked.

She had been stopped by Shi Shuxue and thought the girl would continue to press for details regarding the band’s public controversy. She hadn’t expected the youngster to ask such an unrelated question. Unable to stifle a laugh, she said, “Why are you asking about that?”

Shi Shuxue’s dark eyes remained fixed on her, unmoving: “I want to know.”

“Since when did you become curious about this side of things?” Chi Yeyu sat on the chair beside Shi Shuxue with great interest. She propped one hand on the table, playing with the tips of her blue hair, looking as if she were settling in for a long talk. “Did something happen at school?”

“No. Don’t change the subject. I’m just interested in you. Are you the same as Yu Xiu?”

Chi Yeyu was amused by her bluntness. This kid really had a way of speaking…

“Interested in me? Well, I…” Chi Yeyu drawled her words on purpose, drawing Shi Shuxue’s gaze closer until it fell deep into her own eyes. Only then did she say: “It’s a secret.”

Shi Shuxue glared at her.

Chi Yeyu asked with a smile: “How about you? Do you have someone you like? I’m a very open-minded parent, you know. I can accept whatever gender you prefer.”

Shi Shuxue pushed her head away expressionlessly: “That’s also a secret.”

“Fine. At your age, you might not have ‘awakened’ yet anyway. It’s better to stay far away from all that love and affection stuff for now.”

The morning breeze still carried a hint of dawn chill. The breakfast stalls on the street were emitting white steam, and the morning peak-hour traffic moved slowly along the road.

Chi Yeyu drove steadily into the flow of traffic. In the passenger seat, Shi Shuxue gripped her backpack straps, her gaze fixed on the bus stops passing by the window, she still felt this was making too much of a fuss.

“Drink the soy milk.” Chi Yeyu leaned over and handed her a cup of warmed soy milk. The cup was wrapped in a paper towel, making it just the right temperature. As Shi Shuxue took it, her fingertips brushed against Chi Yeyu’s.

The scenery outside the window became increasingly familiar as they neared the school. While drinking the soy milk, Shi Shuxue suddenly heard Chi Yeyu say, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to start a fight.”

Hearing this made Shi Shuxue even more worried.

The car pulled into a parking space at the school gate. Chi Yeyu turned off the engine but didn’t rush to get out. Instead, she reached out to tilt Shi Shuxue’s chin up to inspect her face. The ointment applied last night had been absorbed. After two days of recovery over the weekend, the marks on her cheeks had faded, leaving only faint red imprints.

“Go in. Let’s find your homeroom teacher first. I’ve already made an appointment with her.”

Shi Shuxue followed Chi Yeyu into the teaching building. The door to the homeroom teacher’s office was slightly ajar. Chi Yeyu knocked, and a voice answered from inside.

When they entered, the teacher was sitting behind her desk grading assignments. Seeing them come in, she stood up: “Ms. Chi, Shuxue, please have a seat.”

Chi Yeyu didn’t sit. She simply placed a bag on the desk and unzipped it. Inside was the school uniform with cigarette burn holes and organized evidence.

“Teacher Wei, last Thursday afternoon, Qiao Zina from your class brought three girls from outside the school and cornered Shi Shuxue in the alley by the southwest gate. Shuxue was afraid of trouble and didn’t dare say anything, but as her guardian, I cannot watch her suffer such grievances in silence.”

Teacher Wei picked up the uniform. When she saw the cigarette holes on the shoulder, her brow furrowed deeply. “I asked Qiao Zina this morning, and she said she was just playing around with Shi Shuxue…”

“Playing around involves beating someone like this and burning a uniform with cigarette butts?” Chi Yeyu looked up, her voice laced with coldness. “I have already contacted the parents of those three girls from outside, and I’ve spoken with the police station. I came here today because I want Qiao Zina and those girls to apologize to Shi Shuxue in front of you and take responsibility for what they’ve done.”

“I’ll have the class monitor call them in.”

In less than two minutes, there was a knock at the door. Ci Cheng, the class monitor, stood at the entrance and said quietly, “Teacher, Qiao Zina is here, and those three girls are in the hallway too.”

Chi Yeyu stood up and said to Shi Shuxue, “Come out with me.”

When Ci Cheng saw Shi Shuxue, her expression shifted. She bit her lip but remained silent.

Shi Shuxue followed Chi Yeyu into the hallway. Qiao Zina stood not far away, flanked by the three outside girls, all of whom kept their heads down, not daring to look at them.

Chi Yeyu didn’t get too close. Standing two steps away from them, her gaze swept over the group. “Who wants to speak first about what happened in the alley last Thursday afternoon?”

A girl with yellow hair stammered, wanting to say something, but under Chi Yeyu’s piercing gaze, she got scared and swallowed her words.

However, the girl in the black jacket suddenly stepped forward half a pace, her voice forced with bravado: “It was Shi Shuxue who hit us first! We just wanted to talk to her, and she just started throwing punches!”

Qiao Zina immediately chimed in. Gone was her previous shrinking timidness in front of Chi Yeyu; instead, she acted out a sense of righteous grievance: “Exactly! I originally wanted to clear up the misunderstanding about Ci Cheng’s gift. Who knew she’d give us an attitude as soon as she saw us and even hit Xiao Yu first? We only fought back then!”

As she spoke, she glanced toward Ci Cheng, as if looking for a witness to back her up.

Ci Cheng didn’t move. She stood by the office wall, her fingers twisting the hem of her school uniform into a knot, the black fabric creased with deep folds. Her gaze fell on the faint red, still slightly swollen wound at the corner of Shi Shuxue’s mouth.

Teacher Wei hadn’t expected this matter to involve the class’s star student, Ci Cheng. She said sternly, “What happened? Make the whole sequence of events clear.”

“Teacher, it all started with me. I wanted to give Shi Shuxue a birthday gift, but she didn’t accept it. Qiao Zina thought she had made me angry, so she went to stand up for me, and then…” Ci Cheng said guiltily.

“Wasn’t I doing it for you?” Qiao Zina turned her head sharply, her voice rising as if she had been betrayed. “You told me before that Shi Shuxue was always cold to you and even threw back the gift you gave her this time. That’s why I wanted to help you blow off some steam!”

“Giving her a gift is my business! Who told you to corner her and beat her?!”

Teacher Wei’s face darkened. “Qiao Zina, not only did you lie, but you also distorted your classmate’s intentions and incited outsiders to harm a fellow student. This is no longer just ‘playing around.'”

The girl in the jacket said, “We just wanted to have a good talk with her about the gift.”

Ci Cheng suddenly interrupted her: “A talk? You guys stuffed the gift box into her mouth!”

As soon as these words were spoken, the hallway fell so silent that only the chirping of birds outside could be heard.

Chi Yeyu’s expression turned cold, like a heavy storm cloud pressing down. She asked grimly, “Stuffed the box into her mouth?”

The girl in the jacket was only a sixteen or seventeen-year-old kid after all. Under that gaze, she broke into a cold sweat and her face turned pale. She waved her hands frantically, saying, “I…I didn’t do it! She did it, Qiao Zina did it! She said she wanted her to taste what it’s like not to accept a gift and forced the box into her mouth!”

Teacher Wei’s brow furrowed tighter the more she heard. This wasn’t playing around; it was severe school bullying.

Chi Yeyu didn’t say a word. She walked to Shi Shuxue’s side and looked down at her. The girl’s mouth still bore the marks, a faint red trail curved along her lip line. She had wondered before how such a mark could have been made, it turned out it was scraped out by the gift box being forced in.

Shi Shuxue wasn’t the type to talk about pain. She would grit her teeth even when the medicine was being applied. Whatever injuries she had or how she got them, it was nearly impossible to pry more than a few words out of her. Chi Yeyu had never seen such a stubborn child, it was as if she had grown used to independent life from a young age, keeping everything bottled up inside.

If she had encountered such bullying before, who would have handled it for her? Chi Yeyu felt a pang in her heart. She reached out and gently rubbed the girl’s back. When she looked up again, there wasn’t a hint of warmth left in her eyes for Qiao Zina and the three girls.

“When I contacted the police yesterday, I was still thinking of leaving you some leeway, since you are just children. But now it seems you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong at all. Lying, making excuses, you even describe stuffing something into someone’s mouth as ‘talking.’ There’s nothing more to say. We’ll meet at the police station.”

“Teacher Wei, I’m taking Shi Shuxue to the hospital. She’s taking the day off.” She grabbed Shi Shuxue’s hand, her blue hair tracing a semi-circle in the air as she turned and left.

Shi Shuxue trotted to keep up behind her. Chi Yeyu walked with large strides, and only slowed down when she noticed Shi Shuxue couldn’t keep up. Shi Shuxue said, “My classes…”

“Classes? You’ve already got full marks, what are you going for?” Chi Yeyu said. “You should go to the dorm, pack up, and move back in with me so I don’t have to worry about you every day.”

As they walked, Shi Shuxue stayed half a step behind. She suddenly pointed to the underground student supermarket on the left and said, “The crunchy persimmons they sell there are quite good.”

Chi Yeyu asked, “Shall I buy some for you?”

“It’s not open at this hour,” Shi Shuxue said.

Chi Yeyu was amused and annoyed by her clumsy attempt to change the subject. She hadn’t expected the seemingly well-behaved and sensible Shi Shuxue to be so good at making her angry when she first took her in.

“Does your mouth still hurt?”

“It stopped hurting long ago. Where are we going?”

Chi Yeyu said, “To buy four toilet plungers.”

“What for?”

“I’ll call a few people and have them delivered into their mouths, one for each of them.”

“…You didn’t actually call anyone, did you?” Shi Shuxue took two quick steps and looked back at her. The latter had an expression on her face that said, “Why shouldn’t I do that?” completely devoid of self-awareness.

“Chi Yeyu, hitting people is wrong. Don’t call anyone.”

Chi Yeyu raised an eyebrow and asked, “Didn’t you fight back too?”

“That’s because they insulted me, saying I had no father to raise me. I was emotional, so I threw a punch,” Shi Shuxue said. If she had a second chance, she would have picked up the iron rod next to her first.

Chi Yeyu was quiet for a moment before speaking. “…Actually, you do have a father.”

“I know. I saw him occasionally before I was nine,” Shi Shuxue said. “But that’s not what bothered me. I’m annoyed that they used that to insult me for being ill-bred. Does a person without a father have to be morally bankrupt, while having a father makes one morally upright?”

“Hahaha.” Chi Yeyu laughed a few times and said as if it were a matter of fact: “Of course not. No one can define your character just because a role is missing in your home. Besides, although you might be missing more than one person at home, you have me now. In any case, I can be considered half a mother to you, right?”

Shi Shuxue really didn’t think so.