Chapter 64: Classmate Harassment

The area in front of the school gate was a designated no-honking zone. Everyone outside valued their reputation and adhered to basic etiquette, so they would not easily violate the rules. Therefore, these three blasts of the car horn were exceptionally conspicuous.

Xia Yu looked toward those vehicles: a Rolls-Royce, a Lamborghini, and a flashy McLaren. She immediately recognized the McLaren as belonging to Lin Yichen.

True to form, Lin Yichen poked his head out of the car, eliciting shrieks from many surrounding female students. He smugly glanced at Xia Rusheng, only to find that she was looking down and adjusting her school uniform, not even sparing him a single glance.

"Yichen must be just like me, knowing it's your first day of school and coming to cheer you on," Xia Rui hurried over to greet Lin Yichen, and the two walked over together.

"Is it really a good idea for you to disrupt the school order like this?" Xia Rusheng cast a faint glance around. Great, now they were "surrounded" by a large crowd of female fans.

"I'm not the only one disrupting the order," Lin Yichen said, glancing sideways at the other two cars. "I came here today on official business. Did you really think I came here just to accompany you?"

"I certainly didn't think that," Xia Rusheng replied, then asked, "Your new television series is about to start filming. Are you here for casting?"

"How did you know?" Lin Yichen asked in surprise, then suddenly smiled with ambiguous amusement. "So you care about me this much, to the extent that you even know my schedule inside out."

Xia Rusheng remained noncommittal. Words spoken from Lin Yichen's mouth were best let in one ear and out the other. Both she and Su Xi were now shareholders of Universe Media, so naturally, she would pay close attention to company matters. Otherwise, did he really think she just idled away her days at home watching dramas?

"Since you have your own business to attend to, go get to work. I have to go to class." Xia Rusheng didn't much care for the envious, jealous, and hateful gazes of those girls; she just wanted to get as far away from this human lightbulb as possible.

Lin Yichen rubbed his nose sheepishly. At that moment, two people stepped out of the other two vehicles. Xia Rusheng's foot, which had been about to step forward, froze in place as she looked with bewilderment at the man stepping out of the Rolls-Royce.

Feng Yuan? Why was he here too?

After getting out of the car, Feng Yuan did not greet Xia Rusheng, passing right by her as if he didn't know her. Xia Rusheng, however, couldn't help casting another look at the Rolls-Royce. To her disappointment, no one else emerged from the vehicle, whereas Lu Si'ang, who had alighted at the same time as Feng Yuan, was staring at her with great amusement.

"Brother Si'ang, why did you come to school?" The moment Xia Yu saw Lu Si'ang, her eyes lit up, and she hurried over to his side to ask attentively. Ever since Lu Sining was sent abroad for her studies, Xia Yu had rarely had the chance to visit the Lu family, and naturally had no way of seeing Lu Si'ang.

Lu Si'ang took two gift bags from the car, handed them to Xia Rusheng and Xia Xia respectively, and said, "I came to accompany someone to look at beauties. A little gift, hope the two Miss Xias like them."

The "someone" he referred to was naturally Lin Yichen.

The Lu and Lin families shared a deep friendship, and Lu Si'ang and Lin Yichen were childhood friends who had grown up together. This time, when Lin Yichen came to the school for casting, he had invited Lu Si'ang along as an adviser. Furthermore, Lu Si'ang was also an investor in this television series.

"Thank you, Brother Si'ang." Xia Yu opened her gift to find a particularly adorable diamond bunny brooch. She then purposely glanced at Xia Rusheng's gift bag and noticed it was smaller than hers, a flash of smugness instantly crossing her eyes as she assumed Xia Xia's portion was just an afterthought.

Xia Rusheng casually handed Lu Si'ang's gift to Xia Rui and said, "Dad, you can take this back for me."

Lu Si'ang raised an eyebrow and asked, "Aren't you going to look at it?"

"Not interested." With that, Xia Rusheng walked straight toward the administrative area.

Xia Rui smiled awkwardly, thanked Lu Si'ang on behalf of Xia Xia, and hurried to catch up. Xia Yu watched from the side, utterly fuming. The young master of the Lu family was doing her a favor by giving her a gift, yet she was acting all aloof? Who did she think she was!

"Brother Si'ang, my sister is just that kind of person, don't mind her. Where are you holding the auditions? Can I go take a look?" Going to see the auditions was fake; entangling herself with Lu Si'ang was her true goal.

"Don't you have classes?" Lu Si'ang was a veteran among flowers; how could Xia Yu's little scheme escape his eyes? Among the Xia family, only Xia Xia had any appeal, and he had promised his buddy that he would help him win the beauty's heart. Since Xia Xia loathed Xia Yu, how could he let this fool ruin things?

Mentioning classes suddenly reminded Xia Yu of something. A cunning gleam flashed in her eyes as she said, "Brother Si'ang, actually, our class has many girls who are both very beautiful and talented. You should go take a look; there might be suitable candidates."

Both Lu Si'ang and Lin Yichen thought this was a rather good suggestion, as Xia Xia was also in that class. They were quite curious to see what she looked like playing the piano.

When the three of them reached the piano hall, Xia Rusheng was already sitting quietly in the back row, looking completely out of place with the surrounding students. The people around her would point and whisper at her from time to time, but once Lin Yichen and Lu Si'ang walked in, those girls immediately shifted their targets, looking at the two of them with hearts in their eyes.

Standing right in the middle of them, Xia Yu faced the envious, jealous, and hateful gazes of the crowd and suddenly felt exceptionally glorious. She had originally worried that her classmates would mock her over the news incident, but now everyone's attention was clearly not on that matter. Two of City A's most renowned wealthy heirs were standing beside her like guardian angels; let's see who would dare mock her after this!

"Brother Si'ang, let's sit over there." Xia Yu pointed, directing them to the seats right in front of Xia Rusheng. She deliberately chose to sit there to show off to Xia Rusheng.

Lu Si'ang and Lin Yichen were wishing for nothing better and readily agreed.

Before long, Shen Rou also arrived at the piano hall. Seeing Xia Yu, the two exchanged a quick glance before Shen Rou casually found a seat and sat down.

Ever since the news scandal, not only had Xia Rui forbidden Xia Yu from associating with Shen Rou, but Shen Tao similarly did not want Shen Rou to remain friends with the Xia family. Although Xia Yu and Shen Rou were still good friends in secret, they had already broken off relations publicly.

As the pleasant class bell rang, a young female teacher walked in. The first thing she did was take a circle around the entire hall, then locked her gaze onto Xia Xia and said, "We have a new student joining our class today. Now, let's invite the new student to introduce herself. Everyone, please welcome her with applause!"

Just as Xia Rusheng was about to stand up, someone among the classmates suddenly piped up, "Teacher, we all know she is Xia Yu's sister, so an self-introduction is unnecessary. This is a piano class, why don't you have Miss Xia play a piece as her introduction instead?"

The moment that female student finished speaking, quite a few people below immediately began to echo and jeer. Seeing that Xia Rusheng made no move whatsoever, Shen Rou suddenly stood up and said, "Miss Xia, you wouldn't happen to not know how to play the piano, would you? This is an advanced piano training class. If you really don't know how, you should hurry home and find a private tutor to learn properly before coming back to school next year."

As soon as she finished speaking, a wave of ridicule broke out in the classroom. It was already rare for a wealthy daughter not to know how to play the piano, and coming to an advanced piano training class without knowing how to play was simply asking for humiliation.