NOVEL WEB
Chapter 24
Shen Yichen sat at his desk, looking at the two young girls baring their hearts to each other on the tablet screen. He felt gratified but also a little heartbroken.
He was gratified that Shen Yue had said the right words at the most suitable time.
He was also heartbroken at Shen Yue's words and expression. He could tell that Shen Yue was really afraid.
As expected, no matter how indifferent she acted in front of him these days, what had happened at school still left irreparable damage on Shen Yue.
Shen Yichen could not imagine what would have happened if he had not gone to the school with Uncle Zhang that day because he thought it was too troublesome. If Shen Yue had just gone home by herself, with her parents’ obtuseness, who knows how things could have developed.
This was his younger sister. No matter how weak she was, she was still a Shen family child. He would never let those people off.
"Notify everyone that the previously suppressed news can be released now."
"Yes, Mr. Shen."
After massaging Zou Xuerong's legs, Shen Yue also massaged her hands. Although it was very painful, Zou Xuerong was somewhat used to it now and could chat with Shen Yue at the same time.
"Yueyue, you're so capable. Why are you still afraid to speak?"
Shen Yue answered expressionlessly, "I'm afraid."
Zou Xuerong laughed at the stark contrast. "You don't look afraid at all."
"That's the point, to not look afraid."
"But how do you know how to massage? Does your family make you hurt like this at home too?"
Shen Yue thought that she was not in pain at home, but it was quite painful in prison. That was a world-class special prison, filled with abnormal criminals instead of regular ones. To survive there, she had to work hard to learn all kinds of knowledge and train herself physically.
Tsk, it was terrifying enough that just the memories made her physiologically reject them now.
So Shen Yue reasonably suspected that the reason she didn't want to do anything now was because she had done too much in her memories, which made her physiologically reject it, and not because she herself wanted to sleep and play.
Perhaps seeing that Shen Yue's expression was not good, Zou Xuerong quickly said, "I'm sorry, if you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. I shouldn't have asked."
Shen Yue put down Zou Xuerong's hand and suddenly reached out to pinch her cheek. "It's okay, I don't mind."
Zou Xuerong was puzzled as Shen Yue pinched her cheek, and asked unclearly, "Why are you pinching me?"
Shen Yue was still expressionless, matter-of-factly saying, "You should smile more, you look good when you smile."
Shen Yue's tone was very flat, without any emotion, as if she was just stating a very ordinary matter. But it was such a simple sentence that suddenly made Zou Xuerong's tears gush out like a burst dam.
Crying again.
This time Zou Xuerong cried even harder than before, but she stubbornly bit her lips without making a sound, like a silent wail.
After a long time, Zou Xuerong finally calmed down and kept saying sorry to Shen Yue.
"I'm sorry, Yueyue, but no one has ever told me I look good before."
Shen Yue wiped Zou Xuerong's undried tears like a little adult, and said softly, "You do look good, don't keep your head down all the time from now on."
Zou Xuerong nodded. After a pause, she beamed at Shen Yue, "Okay!"
After tidying up, the two girls turned off the lights and lay in bed. Zou Xuerong suddenly said, "What happened just now is our secret, right?"
Shen Yue hummed without saying anything else.
She started thinking about when would be an appropriate time to speak up on the show. After all, Shen Yichen had told her to speak at the right time.
She couldn't keep silent forever either.
Hmm...thinking about it was so troublesome. She'd think more about it tomorrow.
After a while, Zou Xuerong suddenly asked again, "Yueyue, when I was bullied before, my parents told me it must be my fault that I was bullied instead of others, and I definitely did something wrong. I'm from the Zou family but I'm nothing like my sister at all. I can't do anything right and my personality is bad too. I don't even dare to fight back when bullied. It's all my fault.
But you're so capable. I think you're super capable. Even though I don't know what you're afraid of, don't be afraid. You can definitely do it."
Shen Yue did not expect to hear such words. Her heart warmed a little, but she knew she absolutely could not tell others what really happened to her.
So she just said, "It's not your fault, and it's not mine either."
Her five brothers were all outstanding while she was a useless chicken.
Zou Xuerong wanted to ask more but Shen Yue had already turned her back. "Let's sleep. You'll definitely be tired again tomorrow."
"Okay."
The two girls quickly fell asleep, especially Zou Xuerong who conked out immediately after lying down, even snoring lightly.
Shen Yue woke up halfway through her sleep and helped tuck Zou Xuerong in properly again.
[Waaahhh, what a fairy friendship!]
[I feel so bad for these two girls, I'm suddenly very disgusted with Zou Xuezheng. I don't think she's as kindhearted as she seems on the surface anymore.]
[I said before that Shen Yue might have psychological trauma. Now it looks to me like she suffered from school bullying.]
[No way, Shen Yue looks so capable and cool, who would dare bully her?]
[Haven't you noticed Shen Yue is the kind of person who is very gentle despite being expressionless? Who among you noticed Zou Xuerong at first, but she did. She must have helped Zou Xuerong last night too. Also, Shen Yue is very smart. This kind of person is easiest to be jealous of and then ostracized.]
[Oh my god, I feel so bad for my darling Yueyue. I wonder what happened to make her say she's afraid.]
[Their parents really have issues. How can they not stand up for their bullied child and instead blame the child? If I were those two girls, I definitely wouldn't speak either. I wouldn't even want to be on the show.]
[So this is what rich people's families are like? I suddenly feel they're so miserable.]
[Generally people perceive these types of families as aggressive. If she says she was bullied, probably no one would believe it.]
[That's true, it's quite tragic.]
That night, the hashtag #ShenYueSuspectedOfBeingBullied# quietly climbed up the hot search ranking.
Also climbing up with it were #FourSeasSchoolIsJustACapitalistsGame#, #HowCanPrincipalsAndTeachersBeReplacedJustLikeThat# and #SchoolsHaveTooMuchPowerEveryoneInvolvedFromPrincipalToStudentsNoOneSpared#.
Looking into the content, it was an accusation from a parent of a student who claimed to be bullied by Shen Yue in school.
"Hello everyone, I'm just an ordinary parent of a student at the Four Seas Private School. I don't know when it started, but my child has been coming home with low spirits every day. We didn't think much of it at first until we happened to see the child changing clothes one day and discovered his body full of bruises and contusions. The wounds on his back were especially abnormal, obviously from being beaten. After much interrogation at home, the child finally told us what was going on. Turns out he was bullied at school by a child from the Shen family.
Everyone knows the Shens are notorious bullies at school. You absolutely can't offend them or you won't get through school. My child was afraid to tell us because he thought it would bring trouble to the family. But how could we bear to let our child suffer this alone? So we secretly went to speak with the school.
Fortunately the principal and teachers are reasonable people. They also said they would handle this matter sternly. But unexpectedly, the result we got was the principal and teachers all forced to resign.
We don't understand what is going on with this world. Do ordinary people just have to put up with bullying? Our child did nothing wrong. He just wants to study. We only want our child to be safe!
Left with no choice, we can only seek the media's help and hope to get justice for our child!"
This was just a part of the content.
The companies that were previously suppressed and punished by Shen Yichen banded together to fabricate this fictional bullying case.
The reason they dared to be so confident was because they knew the school had no surveillance footage and the Shens had no evidence to refute their claims. As long as the Shens could not provide evidence, they could play the victim. And in many cases, the weaker side often garners more support from society because there is an unspoken rule universally accepted by society that the strong must protect the weak.
When you think you are protecting the weak, your brain tricks you into believing you are on the side of justice. And at that point, you will no longer listen to dissenting voices.
At the same time, it was the default rule that the strong did not need protection.
When these people described how powerful the Shen Family was, and how miserable they were, almost everyone would stand in opposition to the Shen Family, no matter how the Shen Family explained, no matter how much evidence they presented, or even if someone came out to testify for them, people would believe it was due to the Shen Family's power and influence.
This was the reality of the present.
The so-called justice of netizens could become the sharpest knife in the hands of those with ulterior motives.