The bully will eventually be bullied themselves—there’s nothing about Chen Kailun that deserves sympathy.
After all, this is just one of the countless ways of the world.
Xia Hua’s calm indifference, Fang Qiao’s anxious desperation, and Chen Kailun’s trembling fear— he doesn’t even have the courage to meet Xia Hua’s gaze anymore.
All he does now is fret in constant fear, wondering, Am I going to get beaten up again today?
For the two delinquents of Class Eight, their routine is just: eat, sleep, and beat people up.
As for Chen Kaiyue, in the eyes of those two, it’s: eat, sleep, get beaten up, then turn around and go beat up Chen Kailun.
In class, Teacher Ye Ling, for once, actually took an interest in class affairs, though it was only to say to Xia Hua, “The performance you want to do, or your talent act or whatever—can you submit a copy to the school for backup first?”
“Ah, well…” Xia Hua shook her head and refused, “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
What a joke— right now I’ve only designed the concept and framework, I haven’t even started working on it for real!
Xia Hua knew Teacher Ye Ling was in a tough spot too—after all, these things to be performed!
They have to fit the Value System, right? If something hasn’t been reviewed, who can guarantee it fits the Value System?
And on top of that, Fang Qiao keeps pestering her, chattering away until her head feels like it’s going to explode.
“Xia Hua, are you sure you’re actually doing it? And, there won’t be any problems?” Teacher Ye Ling asked.
“Don’t worry! I absolutely won’t violate the Value System, no indecency, no violence, I know every single thing that’s explicitly forbidden. Plus, I’m not the kind of person who likes to push the boundaries and test the limits. There’s no funny business, Teacher, you can rest assured! It’s just that the prep time is really short, so I hope you can cut me some slack.” Xia Hua listed off all the taboos, making it clear she knew where the line was.
And as Fang Qiao stared at her with puppy-dog eyes, Xia Hua just wouldn’t say she couldn’t do it.
Xia Hua insisted on projecting, I can do it, I’ll definitely pull it off, you can rest a hundred and twenty percent assured.
You could say she completely shattered Fang Qiao’s last shred of hope— Fang Qiao’s heart was like glass, and with a ‘crash~’ it broke to pieces. That sound was just so wonderfully crisp!!
Teacher Ye Ling pondered for a moment, then said, “All right, then! I’ll vouch for you this once in my name, but if something goes wrong, I won’t let you off. You got that?”
“Got it, got it.” Xia Hua made an OK gesture with her hand.
It’s just one of those ‘your glory is my glory, your loss is my loss’ kind of things! She wasn’t about to set up Teacher Ye Ling.
After all, the two of them have no grudges— what would Xia Hua get out of hurting her?
Just to do something thankless and offend someone?
As for Teacher Ye Ling herself— Xia Hua had said it before, Teacher Ye Ling came from a pretty good family, just found something to do, got a cushy teaching job, and honestly never wanted to actually teach.
Plus, she has a good impression of Xia Hua, so she’s a bit more lenient with her.
Class soon returned to normal order.
Teacher Ye Ling kept up her act of being a lackluster, unmotivated, “ruining the students” kind of teacher, when in reality her teaching was god-tier, instructing the whole class.
Ye Ling: I haven’t even started trying, and you all already get it!!
“Only three days left.” Realizing how little time was left, Xia Hua frowned and muttered, “Does this mean my part-time job for these days is doomed too? Isn’t that a bit…”
Such a loss, huh? It really does feel like a loss.
She worked about four hours a day at the convenience store, making around forty-something yuan each day.
Three days would be 120, plus yesterday’s missed 40, that’s 160.
Bleeding money!!!
Realizing how serious things were, Xia Hua said gravely, “I can’t keep being a slacker like this. With the money I’ve spent preparing for this, over all this time—”
“I haven’t earned a single cent, and I’ve actually spent quite a bit.”
“How am I supposed to live like this?”
“What a wasteful woman I am…”
Simply put, she had no idea how to manage a household— money kept going out, but none came back.
“Bread and milk will come, eventually. Even if I fail, what’s my best friend Lin An for? Don’t tell me he’s completely useless…” Xia Hua’s gaze grew deep, then she said in a low, firm voice, “When the time comes, I’ll just find a way to eat his family’s rice.”
Worst-case scenario, she’d just go eat at Lin An’s house.
So what’s there to be afraid of?
Shaking off those useless thoughts, Xia Hua began to focus all her energy—
All of it went into her show for the evening party.
When Xia Hua brought out all the borrowed equipment and dove back into constructing her piece, her state was completely different.
Lin An’s notebook computer was actually the latest model this year.
But before using it, Xia Hua took out a bottle of cheap alcohol and some alcohol wipes.
She carefully wiped the keyboard, muttering, “It’s not that I don’t trust you! It’s just, no matter how good your ‘kidneys’ are, how clean can this keyboard really be?”
“Even though I didn’t find any educational materials on your computer,”
“It’s still plenty suspicious.”
“Anyway, I just don’t believe it. There’s no such thing as a guy’s keyboard—”
“—being clean.”
“……”
Because only men truly understand men, and with a bit of logic—
For example, very few guys watch ‘educational films’ without fast-forwarding, so their mouse is always filthy.
Plus, Xia Hua had already cleaned the ‘arrow keys’ several times.
Of course, now that everyone’s glued to their phones—
A guy’s phone might be even dirtier than his computer…
As a girl, if you ever need to borrow a guy’s phone, or if a guy insists on lending you his phone—
All I can say is: be careful.
‘Ka-ka, ka~~’
With Xia Hua’s final wipe, a smile appeared on her face. “Mm, perfect~~~”
A faint smell of alcohol lingered on the notebook computer, but it quickly faded.
Next up was installing the professional livestream camera, fill light, sound card, and OBS Recording Software.
“All checked, everything’s fine.” she said happily.
Looking at the OBS Recording Software,
There were three separate small windows—the main screen was Xia Hua’s drawing page.
The secondary screen took up only a small corner.
The largest section was the main camera, focused on Xia Hua’s hands and the digital tablet.
You could clearly see that when Xia Hua’s hand moved, lines would appear on the main screen; another, less noticeable window showed her upper body.
“I’ve already chosen the background music,” Xia Hua murmured.
“There are three English songs in total.”
“Together, they’re about ten minutes.”
“Any longer and it wouldn’t be suitable for the party…”
She used the songs she’d selected, along with her marked cues in the music, to divide up all sorts of scenes.
Then, with her pen, she brought a world within the painting to life.
Under Xia Hua’s hand, a lively scene began to emerge.