My Dearest General: It Has Always Been You

A few days later, the traces of blood in the courtyard of Sangzhe High was thoroughly cleaned, leaving nothing away. The students' lives gradually returned to normal. Today was also the day for third year students to have their suspended exams.

The first and second years were being let out early so as to not cause a ruckus for their seniors. Meanwhile, the third years' suffering didn't end there. After the exam, they still had two sessions of additional lessons to make up for the time they had lost caused by Li Qing's death.

It was kind of ironic. One life was lost but there were still thousands of another. They couldn't keep on looking back to the past and had to force themselves to focus on the future. And being busy proved to be efficient because the talk of Li Qing's death gradually receded. It was unknown whether in the near future, when a new sensational gossip came out, would anyone still remember Li Qing?

The sun sank down the horizon as time ticked by. The bell rang, signifying the end of today's school.. The third year students couldn't even make out a sound anymore, slumping on their desks lifelessly, half dead.

Shi Nian pressed her forehead onto the cold surface of the table to cool down her buzzing brain. It was very comfortable and if not for the noises, she would have fallen asleep right there and then.

"Shi Nian, what do you think is the answer to the last question in the Maths essay section?" Chen Jiawei was the kind of person who wouldn't surrender until she gathered everyone's answer and compared them one by one.

Shi Nian bitterly smiled as she wrote in her notebook. [1?]

The most abominable thing in Mathematics was how the answer steps required three full pages but the final answer ended up being 1 or 0.

  "Damn," Chen Jiawei cursed under her breath. "I answered 0. Five people answered 1, and seven people including me answered 0."

Shi Nian couldn't care less about it anymore as she begged pitifully. [Please don't say it in front of me. I don't want to know.]

"Alright, it's my fault." Chen Jiawei pushed up her glasses and grabbed her backpack. "Should we walk to the gate together?"

Shi Nian nodded, eyes trailing to the empty table where Mo Ling sat on.

Chen Jiawei instantly knew what she was thinking of. "She still hasn't recovered from the fever. Her mother didn't allow her to take the exam when she's like that. Don't worry, Teacher Yao has promised to give her makeup exams."

Shi Nian nodded with a sigh.

Mo Ling was actually very simple with clear distinction between likes and dislikes. She genuinely treated Li Qing as a friend. Compared to any other student, Li Qing's death had affected her the most. Grief was inevitable. In the end, only time was able to give her the chance to recover.

She walked with Chen Jiawei to the gate. Her first reaction was to look around for a certain someone. 

Her act was noticed as Chen Jiawei asked, "Your brother is coming to pick you up?"

Jiang Jinyan wasn't here today. She shook her head in disappointment. 

They parted in a junction afterward and Shi Nian proceeded to make her way to the subway station. Out of nowhere, a boy with shabby clothes tugged on her skirt, halting her in her tracks. He looked only six or seven, skinny with patches of dirt on his clothes and face.

Shi Nian blinked in surprise as she crouched down. "Little boy, what's wrong?" Shi Nian took out a candy from her pocket and gave it to him.

The boy accepted it with a grin. "Are you Shi Nian?"

Confused, she nodded. "How do you know me?"

The boy pointed at a side alley, his huge eyes innocent. "There's someone there waiting for you."

The first person that came to Shi Nian's mind was Jiang Jinyan. However, she was still wary and tried to ask more. "What does that person look like?"

The boy adorably reached above his head, tip toeing. "Tall, very fierce and scary big brother! He's carrying a black umbrella, it seems like he was injured."

Shi Nian gasped in shock. She became certain that it was Jiang Jinyan. The notorious General who had the record of silencing crying children was still as effective as it was until this day.

"Injured? How injured is he?" She asked anxiously. Could it be that his leg was hurting again?

The boy shook his head.

"Thank you for telling me." She patted the boy's head and hastily ran toward the direction he pointed to, eyes looking around anxiously. "Mr. Jiang, where are you? Mr. Jiang?!"

"Oh, so his surname is Jiang?"

Shi Nian turned around in surprise and found that the mouth of the alley was surrounded by three large built, muscular men with piercings, tattoos and dyed hair. Shi Nian's heart sank as she belatedly realized that the boy was literally telling the truth. Tall, scary and fierce. Shi Nian lowered her eyes to see that one of them was holding a foldable black umbrella.

But they were certainly not injured no matter how she looked at it.

Her instinct screamed of danger and without hesitation, she turned around to run deeper into the alley.

"Oops." Someone blocked her way. "Where do you want to go?"

Shi Nian recoiled back from the collision. Her golden eyes looked around in alert, heart thumping rapidly as her mind whirled. They knew her name and they deliberately led her here using Jiang Jinyan as bait. Who was the real target, her or Jiang Jinyan?

Around her was a small and narrow alley where the houses' back door was. The surrounding was desolate and no people passed through here. Shi Nian calculated the possibility of someone helping her if she screamed for help.

The four men looked at each other and their faces turned increasingly fierce. "You're Shi Nian, right?"

Shi Nian made a fearful expression and shrunk her neck. "W—Who is Shi Nian?"

The gangster: "…"

Shi Nian trembled like a little white bunny. "Really? Who are you? Why are you getting on my way?"

The gangster: "......"

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A/N: Shi Nian's acting mode: on