If it weren't for me, maybe Lucas wouldn't have fallen into Sloane’s cage.

If it weren't to see me, maybe Caspian wouldn't have increased the stakes of Lucas's humiliation time and again.

If I weren't so useless, would everything be different?

But having lived it again, I finally understood—

Blaming everything on oneself is the easiest and most tragic thing.

The real culprit was standing right in front of me.

I looked at her calmly: "At least I won't be like you, turning 'liking' someone into 'torturing' them."

Sloane’s face changed instantly.

Lucas suddenly seized my wrist, as if to stop me from provoking her further.

But I didn't stop.

"You say I'm a burden to him, but what about you?"

"If Lucas is being gossiped about because of you, threatened with his future, and forced to bow his head—do you think that's proof of your love, or that you are destroying him?"

The surroundings had gone completely quiet.

Many people were watching, and some were even secretly taking out their phones.

The color drained from Sloane’s face and then rushed back in, looking terribly grim.

The thing she could stand least was someone puncturing her self-righteous "love" in public.

After a long silence, she squeezed a sentence through her teeth:

"Who do you think you are to teach me how to love someone?"

Before I could speak, Lucas had pulled me behind him.

He stared at Sloane, his voice low and chilling.

"She’s right."

"Sloane, that isn't love."

"You are just used to everything going your way, so you can't accept that someone didn't choose you."

The air suddenly solidified.

My heart hammered in my chest; I could even feel Lucas’s palm was tense.

But having said that, his expression was calmer than ever.

It was as if he had finally, cleanly spoken the words that had been building up for a long time.

Sloane was stunned.

Likely even she hadn't expected Lucas to tear her pride so thoroughly in front of so many people.

Her eyes went red instantly.

It wasn't out of sadness, but rather extreme humiliation turned into rage.

"Fine."

She nodded, her voice trembling.

"Very well."

"Lucas, you’d better not regret what you said today."

With that, she turned and left.

The white sedan soon sped away, and the onlookers at the school gate gradually dispersed.

But I knew this wouldn't just end here.

On the contrary, it had pushed everything in an even worse, more irreversible direction.

Lucas looked down at me, his voice a bit raspy.

"Scared?"

I shook my head.

"No."

I just felt a bit of heartache.

Someone like Sloane could be relentless even when rejected; being exposed in public would only make her more manic.

And Lucas’s words just now were no different from a complete falling out with her.

But I also knew he couldn't keep humoring her forever.

Some words had to be said eventually.

It was just that the price would also arrive sooner.

I said softly: "We’ll move this weekend."

Lucas nodded: "Okay."

As we reached the entrance of the alley, my phone suddenly rang.

It was an unknown caller.

When I answered, the gentle voice of a middle-aged female teacher came through.

"Hello, is this student Lynn?"

"I am the teacher in charge of the provincial exchange project."

"Regarding your comprehensive test, we have some materials we need you to prepare in advance."

I stood frozen in place.

The voice on the other end continued, but my ears were filled with a ringing sound.

This was a step further than the email; it was confirmation.

It meant I really was on the shortlist.

Holding the phone, I slowly looked up.

The night wind blew, the streetlights were a dim yellow, but for the first time, I felt like a light had truly been lit up ahead.

12

But light never falls upon a person for no reason.

If you want to get closer to it, you must run a little faster.

Over the next few days, I channeled almost every spare second into studying and preparing my materials.

The exchange program required more than just grades; there were English interviews, personal statements, past award records, and teacher evaluations. I attended classes by day, solved practice problems during evening self-study, and returned to the rental room to practice speaking over and over with an old phone until my throat went dry.

Lucas wasn't idle either.

He didn't say much, but he was actually more invested than I was. Every morning, he would wake up half an hour early to copy English materials I needed to memorize onto small slips of paper. After evening self-study, he would practice with me, checking the dictionary for any pronunciation he didn't know and correcting me syllable by syllable.

Sometimes we practiced so late that I would slump over the desk, barely able to keep my eyes open.

Lucas would push a glass of warm milk toward me and whisper, "Just ten more minutes."

I would look up and see his lean, focused profile under the dim yellow light, and the exhaustion in my heart would suddenly vanish.

Those days were grueling.

But they were real.

It wasn't the kind of "living" trapped in a gilded cage where even crying required checking someone's temper; it was truly moving toward a goal, running forward with everything I had.

On Friday afternoon, Sloane finally began her counterattack.

It started with a snide remark in the class group chat: [Some people shouldn't think they can change their lives just by taking a test. No matter how high a sparrow flies, it can never become a phoenix.]

No one dared to respond.

Immediately after, rumors began to swirl through the school.

They said I was privately using connections with teachers to secure the exchange spot; they said Lucas had been associating with unsavory people outside school recently to find a "sugar daddy" in advance; some even claimed that Lucas and I lived very close to each other and that our relationship was far from innocent.

It was obvious who had spread these words.

Nauseating and clumsy, yet enough to drain one’s spirit.

During lunch break, I went to the washroom and heard two girls whispering about me as soon as I entered.

"Is it her? She usually acts so pure and noble."

"Who knows? I heard Sloane was furious because of her."

"True, men always fall for that fake innocence—"

They stopped mid-sentence when they saw me.

The scene became awkward for a moment.

One of the girls bit her lip, whispered a small "sorry," and pulled the other one away.

I stood there and turned on the faucet. The icy water rushed down, reflecting my somewhat pale face in the mirror.

In my past life, I feared these rumors most.

Because I knew that once a poor person is stained with filth, how hard it is to wash it off.

Others won't bother to investigate the truth; they’ll just think: Oh, so you’re just like that too.

But this time, as I looked at myself in the mirror, my heart didn't panic as much as I expected.

Perhaps it was because I had already seen deeper malice.

These flimsy insults didn't have the power to hurt me anymore.

I turned off the tap, slowly dried my hands, and returned to the classroom.

The moment Lucas saw me, he knew something was wrong.

"What happened?"

I shook my head. "Nothing, just some gossip starting."

His expression darkened instantly.

"I'll go find—"

"Don't." I held him back. "Going to anyone now is useless. It will only prove their point that we can't keep our cool."

Lucas gritted his teeth, anger suppressed in his eyes.

I said softly, "Lucas, this is exactly what they want to see."

"They know they can't force us directly, so they want to drag us down from elsewhere."

"The one thing we cannot do right now is lose our composure."

Lucas stared at me for a long time before finally uttering a low curse.

This was rare for him.

Instead of being upset, I felt like laughing, and the heaviness in my heart eased slightly.

"It's fine," I said. "Once I secure that spot, nothing they say will matter."

After school, we didn't go home immediately. Instead, we went to the old urban village as planned to look at the apartment.

The place was even more cluttered than I remembered.

Narrow alleys crisscrossed, power lines tangled overhead, and buildings were huddled so close that the sky was reduced to a thin line. Downstairs, there were stalls selling braised meat, shoe repairers, and phone shops. Children ran wild in the alleys amidst a noisy, heavy atmosphere of everyday life.

But because of this, a stranger blending in wouldn't be noticeable.

The woman showing us the place was in her forties with a loud voice. She talked as we walked: "The place is small, but it's clean. One month's deposit and one month's rent. Utilities are charged fairly. It's perfect for students like you."