Chapter Seventy-Three: Who Is the Lord

This earth-shattering revelation left Qiu Chongwei utterly bewildered, unable to react for quite some time. After giving a small shiver, he suddenly remembered that back when Chao Si had been coldly bullied by the entire class, he too had added insult to injury. However, he had never stooped to fighting like the fools; at most, he’d hurled verbal abuse, maybe kicked a desk, but nothing more. So why was Chao Xu questioning him about this now?

Could it be… he was here for revenge?

Having just suffered at his hands not long ago, Qiu Chongwei trembled, terrified that Chao Xu might suddenly turn violent. Yet, contrary to his expectations, Chao Xu did nothing of the sort. He simply asked a question.

“Do you know who was the last person my sister saw before she left school?”

Her lips parted slightly, her voice was chillingly indifferent, but her eyes flashed with an icy gleam.

Qiu Chongwei, shivering like a cabbage in the wind, blurted out loudly, “It was Si Jue! Before Chao Si stopped coming to school, the last person she saw was Si Jue!”

Si Jue? The surname Si? What connection did that have to the Si family the butler mentioned—the one where Chao Si’s fiancé was?

All Chao Xu wanted was to know who had ultimately aided Gu Zhongming in harming Chao Si, but his face betrayed nothing. He calmly pressed on, “Who is Si Jue?”

Qiu Chongwei replied, “You don’t know? Si Jue is the one Chao Si liked—our school’s top heartthrob. Chao Si… well, no one knows what went wrong in her head, but she followed Si Jue everywhere, insisting that he was hers. At first, the girls thought she was just silly and didn’t take it seriously, but when she kept trailing after Si Jue day after day, they got annoyed and started targeting her. Si Jue always kept up his aloof persona, never paying attention to anyone, and never got involved in Chao Si’s isolation. But that day, for some reason, he suddenly came to see her, said he had something to discuss, and after Chao Si went with him, she never came back.”

As he spoke, Qiu Chongwei glanced nervously at Chao Xu, whose gaze was lowered and expression unreadable. A faint fear crept in.

So Chao Si was connected to Chao Xu—which meant that the unremarkable Chao Si from their class also had ties to the Chao family. Then why—how had the young lady of a distinguished family fallen so low, with no one to care for her?

His mind teemed with questions, but wary of the youth before him, Qiu Chongwei kept his head down and didn’t utter another word.

After a moment, as if lost in thought, Chao Xu looked up at him and said, “I understand. You can go now.”

Hearing this, Qiu Chongwei felt as if he’d been granted amnesty; he turned and fled without so much as a backward glance at his own followers.

Those left behind, faces bruised and swollen, stared at each other in confusion, unsure what to do next. Just then, a cold voice rang out behind them.

“Aren’t you leaving?”

That sentence sent a chill racing up their spines. With a collective shudder, the group scattered faster than rabbits.

Once everyone had gone, Chao Xu straightened her clothes, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and left the school grounds. As soon as she stepped outside, Chi Naiyun, who had been waiting anxiously, rushed over and carefully looked her up and down. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “I’m fine.”

Those weaklings couldn’t possibly have hurt her.

Chi Naiyun let out a sigh of relief, but then she seemed flustered, her words tumbling out disjointedly. “Thank you. But… I don’t know if standing up for me like this will bring you trouble.”

What if she caused more problems for someone else?

At that thought, her gaze dimmed considerably. She hadn’t said it aloud, but Chao Xu could clearly sense the suffocating darkness pressing down on Chi Naiyun—an aura of someone on the verge of collapse.

There was something seriously wrong here.