The 'Involution King' Second Female Lead Quits [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Opening Up

◎Opening Up◎

Most of the movies for the Spring Festival are about family reunions, making them very suitable for families to watch together.

After picking up Shu Heng’s mom, the three of them chose a light comedy with the highest ratings. After coming out of the cinema with smiles on their faces, they could also conveniently go downstairs and eat a hot pot meal to fill their stomachs.

Holding onto the mentality of ‘since we’re already here,’ Shu Heng held her mom’s hand on one side and Li Jianwei’s hand on the other, and pulled them along to shop at the mall.

Shu Heng’s mom was used to being frugal. She would carefully select and buy clothes that were only one or two hundred dollars. When she saw her daughter trying to buy her a coat that was close to a thousand dollars, she quickly waved her hands in refusal.

“Mom, I can make money now. I earn five hundred dollars a day,” Shu Heng said with a serious face. “I just want to use two days’ worth of my salary to buy a piece of clothing for the mom who raised me. Is there anything wrong with that?”

Shu Heng’s mom couldn’t argue with Shu Heng, and she was even more unable to refuse her daughter’s love. She could only mumble about how her daughter shouldn’t spend money so recklessly while letting her daughter help her put on the new coat.

Compared to Shu Heng and her mom’s careful selection, Li Jianwei’s way of shopping was much faster. She would go into a store, have the clerk put together some outfits, and if she liked one, she would just swipe her card and pay.

This kind of extravagant behavior made Shu Heng a little envious and at the same time, she couldn’t help but think to herself.

If I want to make money to support Sister Li in the future, how much do I need to earn in a year?

A million dollars a year? Or ten million dollars a year? Can I do that in a short amount of time?

After thinking about it, the most perfect solution was to invent a high-value patent. By collaborating with a company and getting a share of the profits, she could get a large amount of money from continuous dividends.

…

After shopping and eating until nightfall, the three of them drove home.

As expected, they encountered a small traffic jam on the way. Fortunately, it was just a slow-down due to the high volume of cars, so they were only delayed for about ten minutes. By the time they got home, it was only nine o’clock, which was not past Shu Heng’s mom’s usual bedtime.

After taking a shower and coming out, Li Jianwei saw Shu Heng sitting cross-legged on the bed, holding her phone and seemingly lost in thought. It took her calling her name twice for her to snap out of it.

“Sister, the time for the class reunion has been set. It’s tomorrow at 5 p.m., in private room 6 of the Jinlun Hotel,” Shu Heng pursed her lips. “Do you have time to go with me, Sister?”

“Of course I do. If your teacher is also going, should we prepare a gift?” Li Jianwei asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“I want to find a time to visit the teacher alone,” Shu Heng said, resting her chin on her phone. “Let’s not prepare anything for tomorrow. We’ll just go and have dinner.”

“Okay,” Li Jianwei lifted the covers and got into bed. “Turn off the lights and rest. We’ve been out all day.”

Shu Heng turned off the lights in the room and curled up under the covers. After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she moved toward the middle of the bed and whispered, “Sister, Hu Xuan might also be there tomorrow. I don’t know if he’ll say anything strange.”

Li Jianwei immediately guessed what Shu Heng was thinking. “Are you worried he’ll offend me?”

“Hu Xuan… is a bit of an unreasonable person,” Shu Heng licked her lips and said the words she had rehearsed many times.

“When we were in school, Hu Xuan was like that. He was very self-centered and arrogant. I just gave him water once during a sports meet when he was an athlete, and he stubbornly thought that I had a crush on him.”

“I clearly told him that I didn’t like him at all, but he took it as me being coy.”

Shu Heng’s tone showed obvious distress. After recalling the related scenes, she couldn’t help but frown. “Once, he called his good friends and blocked me on my way home, insisting that I confess my ‘love’ for him before he would let me go.”

“Did he get violent with you?” Li Jianwei turned around under the covers so she was facing Shu Heng. Then she grabbed her tightly clenched fist under the blanket.

“Not really. He just blocked my way on the street,” Shu Heng’s tone became slower, and her voice became softer. “But his friends jeered and took pictures on their phones and uploaded them to the school’s online forum.”

“That caused me some trouble, leading to some bad rumors circulating in the school, which seriously affected my studies,” Shu Heng said, downplaying some of the more unbearable parts.

“But after Teacher Gong found out, he asked me about the situation. In the end, he had the people who spread the rumors delete the posts, and he even made Hu Xuan apologize to me in front of the whole class.”

Sometimes, when you look back at things after they’ve happened, they don’t seem like a big deal. You can just ask a teacher for help and it’ll be resolved.

But in the eyes of the eighteen-year-old Shu Heng at the time, those experiences were enough to destroy her already sensitive and fragile heart, making her teeter on the verge of a breakdown. She didn’t have the courage to reach out at all.

Fortunately, the young Shu Heng had good luck and a teacher who cared about his students, which prevented her from falling into the abyss.

Shu Heng slowly let out a breath. After saying what had been weighing on her mind, she felt much lighter, and many of the invisible restraints disappeared.

“Hu Xuan is a bit like my uncle. They both like to talk to themselves, thinking that what they believe is right, which I find very unreasonable,” Shu Heng’s tone became more cheerful, and her fingers slowly relaxed.

“Sister, if you hear them saying nonsense, just ignore them. Just think of them as clowns who have comprehension problems.”

Li Jianwei noticed the change in Shu Heng’s mentality. She didn’t say much and just gave Shu Heng a hug.

Originally, Shu Heng thought that she had already let go and could even talk about those people and things as a joke.

But the moment she was hugged by Li Jianwei, her nose tingled, and tears welled up uncontrollably.

“Sister…” Shu Heng’s voice was a little nasal. She buried her head in the warm crook of her neck. “Are you comforting me?”

“If you need it, this is a comfort,” Li Jianwei gently stroked Shu Heng’s back. “If you don’t, it’s just a simple hug.”

Shu Heng didn’t say anything. She just tightened her arms around her, letting herself be filled with Li Jianwei’s scent.

Shu Heng had never told her mom about these bad experiences. Besides the people involved, the person who knew the situation best was her homeroom teacher, Teacher Gong.

It had been almost five years since the incident. The classmates who had pointed at her and talked behind her back might have long forgotten what they had said.

The impression might be a little more profound for her classmates, but if no one brought it up, they probably wouldn’t remember.

The person involved, Hu Xuan, still remembered, but he only remembered what he had done after seeing Shu Heng.

What left a deep impression on him was not the harm he had caused Shu Heng, but the fact that he was made to apologize in front of the whole class by the homeroom teacher, which made him lose face.

From beginning to end, Shu Heng was the only one who was trapped. She had always tried to bury the past, avoiding it by not contacting the people who knew about it.

Fortunately, Shu Heng had walked out on her own and no longer feared things related to her being a victim.

“Sister, can I hold you while I sleep tonight?” After calming down, Shu Heng began to crave this warm embrace. She didn’t want to let go and she didn’t want to lose it.

“If you don’t mind my arm going numb,” Li Jianwei said, her voice filled with an obvious smile.

“I want to hold you while I sleep, Sister,” Shu Heng used a declarative sentence this time, actively wrapping her arms around Li Jianwei’s waist.

Li Jianwei freed a hand and pulled the covers up, silently allowing Shu Heng to lean against her shoulder and curl up in her arms.

She was 1.72 meters tall, and holding the little cabbage who was 1.6 meters tall was very easy. It seemed that the saying about the perfect height difference online wasn’t completely baseless.