On her first day at a new school, Luo Tingwu became Shen Qichi's deskmate.
The whole class was waiting for her to be scared off by this “poor student who once stole a watch.”
But all she noticed was that Shen Qichi's lunchbox was about to fall, so she reached over and steadied it.
From that day on, rumors began to haunt them.
A pink envelope was stuffed into a schoolbag, a name was crossed off the competition list in black ink, half a registration slip turned up under the old umbrella stand, and the phrase “the schoolbag had been zipped up” in an incident report was changed to “she claimed the schoolbag had been zipped up.”
The teacher said, “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
A classmate said, “She was always bad news.”
Luo Tingwu asked, “Then why is she the one who gets blamed every single time?”
Shen Qichi rarely spoke, but she would shift her umbrella toward Luo Tingwu, turn the book to a page she could understand, and quietly remind her, whenever everyone was pressuring her to give in, “Don’t rush. The paper is still here.”
They had no System, no golden finger, and no truth that fell from the sky.
Only old umbrellas, old notebooks, crossed-out names, and two girls who refused to bow their heads any longer.
