The Abused Villain is Always Obsessed with Me - Chapter 22

The sharp, piercing school bell exploded in Lu Cang’s ears, its urgent ringing seeming to strike directly at his heart.

Lu Cang lowered his head slightly, his eyelashes drooping as he gazed down at the floor, his face utterly expressionless.

Workbooks lay scattered across the staircase, strewn haphazardly across the steps. Some slid downward uncontrollably until they finally came to rest on the bottom step.

Shen Wenyu gripped the iron railing with his right hand, his knuckles white with strain. He sat precariously on a step two or three meters away.

His ankle was twisted at a slight angle as he braced himself against the lower step, straining every muscle to maintain his balance. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead from the pain, his expression a mask of distress.

Ah, he reacted quickly.

What a pity.

Lu Cang stared at Shen Wenyu’s pain-contorted face, his expression indifferent.

If Shen Wenyu hadn’t swiftly dropped the workbooks he was carrying and grabbed the railing, his fall would have resulted in far more than a twisted ankle.

As the corridor gradually filled with students after class, Lu Cang listened quietly to the approaching footsteps.

Someone was about to arrive.

Lu Cang closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, the gloom in his gaze had vanished completely.

He set the homework he was holding aside, straightened up, and bounded down the steps in two quick strides, rushing to Shen Wenyu’s side with a look of urgency.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?!”

His brow furrowed, the corners of his eyes drooping as he asked anxiously. He gripped Shen Wenyu’s shoulder with one hand, his expression filled with concern, looking every bit the worried, well-behaved student anxious about a classmate’s injury.

It was as if everything Shen Wenyu had just witnessed had been a mere illusion.

Shen Wenyu stared at him, his hair standing on end as a bone-chilling coldness coiled up his spine and spread through his entire body.

He instinctively tried to back away, but Lu Cang’s grip on his shoulder tightened, preventing him from escaping.

“Ah, someone fell!”

A voice called out from behind them. Shen Wenyu looked up to see a crowd of students had gathered, their faces etched with concern as they watched the scene unfold.

Several quick-thinking boys and girls had already rushed down to their side, gathering the scattered notebooks and stacking them neatly aside. Together with Lu Cang, they helped Shen Wenyu to the corner of the corridor and sat him down.

“Are you alright? Should we take you to the infirmary?”

Several voices clamored around him, Lu Cang’s expression fading into the background, no longer clearly visible.

Shen Wenyu stared at them, forcing a weak smile.

“I’m fine, just twisted my ankle. It’ll be better in a couple of days.”

“Are you guys heading to turn in your homework? You should go back to class first. We’ll take it for you.”

The group of helpful students helped Shen Wenyu to his feet, while another picked up the stack of homework from the ground. Turning to Lu Cang, he said, “Let’s go. I’ll turn in his homework for him.”

Lu Cang looked at him and offered a faint smile.

“Thank you all so much.”

Then, he turned and walked down the stairs with the other student, disappearing around the corner of the corridor.

Supported by the others, Shen Wenyu was led toward the classroom, not even having time to glance back at Lu Cang’s expression.

He knew this was the staircase and had been careful with his steps.

But in that instant, his foot twisted uncontrollably to the side.

It was almost as if someone had deliberately tripped him.

Yet Shen Wenyu distinctly remembered not making any direct physical contact with Lu Cang, nor did his foot feel anything that could have tripped him.

It couldn’t have been my own clumsiness…

A voice from beside him interrupted his thoughts.

“Hey, your shoelace is untied. You should tie it before you trip and fall again.”

A girl beside him spoke kindly.

Shen Wenyu froze, slowly lowering his head.

He was wearing sneakers, and the shoelace had come undone without him noticing.

Burdened by a stack of homework reaching his chin, he hadn’t seen it or felt it.

Staring at his shoe, he noticed a faint but discernible mark on the white shoelace.

A footprint.

A chill shot up from his feet to his spine, every nerve focusing on the hairs on the back of his neck that suddenly stood on end.

Shen Wenyu’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he instinctively reached to touch his arm, where goosebumps had already erupted across his skin.

The smile he had seen on Lu Cang’s face just before he fell flashed through his mind again.

Everything had happened so quickly that he hadn’t even had time to confirm whether it was real or a hallucination.

Seeing Lu Cang sitting beside him with a worried expression, Shen Wenyu found himself thinking that Lu Cang would never do something like that.

He was wrong.

Lu Cang was no introverted, withdrawn, weak, or easily bullied model student.

He was far more sinister and ruthless than Shen Wenyu—or anyone else—had ever imagined.

What if I hadn’t grabbed the railing in time? What if I had really fallen backward, face-up?

Shen Wenyu’s hands began to tremble uncontrollably, and his throat felt choked, rendering him momentarily speechless.

“Hey, are you okay?”

The girl noticed Shen Wenyu’s rigid posture as he stared fixedly at his shoelaces for an unnaturally long time and couldn’t help but call out to him.

Hearing her voice, Shen Wenyu looked up, forcing a smile that was more painful than tears.

“I’m fine. Could you please take me home?”

After placing his homework on the teacher’s desk in the office, the boy turned to Lu Cang and smiled.

“It’s so easy to trip when you’re carrying homework down the stairs. I did it once too—I wasn’t watching my step and took a tumble. You guys should be careful too. Our school’s stairs are so steep; a real fall could be serious.”

“Mm, I’ll be careful,” Lu Cang nodded, his gaze locking onto the boy’s face as he spoke deliberately, word by word.

“Try not to be ‘careless’ in the future.”

He tugged at the corner of his mouth, offering the boy a faint smile.

“Hey, Shen Wenyu, what happened to you?”

“What’s wrong with your leg? Did you cripple yourself handing in your homework?”

Shen Wenyu limped into the classroom, leaning against the wall for support. All eyes turned to him, and expressions of surprise spread across the room.

A few of his close male friends teased him as they rushed over to help him. After struggling back to his seat and settling down, Shen Wenyu couldn’t manage a smile.

Curious classmates gathered around him, peppering him with questions. Shen Wenyu opened his mouth to explain what had happened on the stairs, but his peripheral vision caught a figure in the doorway.

It was Lu Cang.

Leaning casually against the doorframe, Lu Cang watched them silently.

Even without seeing his expression clearly, Shen Wenyu felt the cold, dark gaze locked onto him, as if waiting for his next words.

The chilling sensation that had gripped him earlier returned, his skin tightening involuntarily. Shen Wenyu swallowed hard, the words he was about to speak freezing on his tongue.

Forcing himself to appear normal, he smiled at the people around him.

“I just wasn’t paying attention and twisted my ankle on the stairs. Luckily, I reacted quickly and grabbed the railing, or I would have taken a nasty fall.”

“How could you be so careless? Falling down such a high staircase must have been terrifying!”

“Exactly! I heard a student fell backward and hit their head a while ago. They had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.”

The murmurs of the surrounding students reached Shen Wenyu’s ears, and his smile stiffened.

Rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment… Had Lu Cang thought the same thing back then?

A few beads of cold sweat trickled down his forehead. No, it couldn’t be. That would be too much. Lu Cang is just a high school student like me. He wouldn’t do something like that, would he?

Suddenly, someone noticed Lu Cang standing by the door.

“Lu Cang, you were with Shen Wenyu when you went to submit the homework, right? What happened back then?”

The figure by the door shifted, slowly stepping into the classroom.

Shen Wenyu stared intently at him, but Lu Cang lowered his gaze, his voice soft and tinged with remorse.

“I’m sorry. The stack of homework was blocking my view, and I didn’t notice Wenyu’s situation. If only I had grabbed him in time…”

His expression of guilt was so convincing that even Shen Wenyu, who had witnessed the truth firsthand, might have believed it if he hadn’t seen it all so clearly.

“It’s not your fault, Lu Cang. Ultimately, it was Shen Wenyu’s own carelessness. He just needs to be more careful next time.”

As expected, the surrounding students accepted this explanation without further questioning.

Shen Wenyu stared intently at Lu Cang, noticing that the others seemed ready to drop the matter. He spoke in a low, deliberate voice.

“Come to think of it, right before I fell, I felt someone step on my shoelace.”

As all eyes turned toward him, Shen Wenyu continued, his gaze fixed on Lu Cang’s face.

“The bell hadn’t rung yet, and Lu Cang was the only one near me. If my shoelace hadn’t been stepped on, I wouldn’t have fallen.”

The moment these words left his lips, all eyes shifted back to Lu Cang, focusing on his frail figure.

To Shen Wenyu’s surprise, Lu Cang finally looked up.

His lips pressed into a thin line as he stared at Shen Wenyu. He rushed toward him, his eyes filled with panic and guilt, his voice trembling slightly.

“Did I step on your shoelace? I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize.”

“It was my fault you fell. It’s all my fault.”

Shen Wenyu watched in stunned silence as Lu Cang’s expression shifted in an instant, and in the blink of an eye, he was standing right in front of him.

Lu Cang leaned down urgently.

“Let me check your foot. I’ll take responsibility. If you need to go to the hospital, I’ll cover all the costs—the medical bills and the medicine. I’m so, so sorry!”

“Lu Cang probably didn’t do it on purpose, right?”

“Yeah, it’s easy to step on a shoelace if you don’t notice it’s untied. No one’s to blame.”

“I heard Lu Cang’s family isn’t doing so well…”

“Hey, keep your voice down!”

The surrounding classmates began to stare and whisper, their words clearly siding with Lu Cang.

After all, it was just a shoelace incident. No one could reasonably believe it was intentional.

Shen Wenyu looked up at the boy before him. His long, delicate eyelashes trembled slightly, and his peach-blossom eyes brimmed with misplaced guilt, their rims faintly reddened.

He looked utterly consumed by remorse.

The sinister expression he’d worn just moments ago seemed almost unimaginable on the same person.

Shen Wenyu forced a weak smile. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t make you pay for anything. It was my fault for not paying attention.”

He couldn’t bring himself to blame Lu Cang.

Lu Cang had already seized the moral high ground. The entire class knew about his family’s financial struggles—far worse than Shen Wenyu’s own.

Demanding Lu Cang cover his medical expenses would only make Shen Wenyu appear aggressive and unreasonable.

Lu Cang had likely anticipated this from the start.

He deliberately wore that expression for this very reason, didn’t he?

Beneath the table, Shen Wenyu’s hand clenched into a fist, his fingernails digging deep into the soft flesh of his palm. He struggled to steady his breathing.

“Thank you, Wenyu.”

Hearing this, Lu Cang finally stopped apologizing.

He looked up at Shen Wenyu’s expression, which could hardly be called pleasant.

Lu Cang’s voice was soft and slow, his dark eyes holding the deathly stillness of a drowned world.

“You’re such a good person.”

As he spoke, his peach blossom eyes curved into a smile.