Chapter Thirty-Two: White Moonlight and the Four Guardian Kings

Gu Yin did not tell his family about being bullied at first; as a young boy, he cared about his pride. However, his mother eventually discovered the injuries on his body.

Wang Yan, who was busy running her street stall that afternoon, was trembling with rage when she heard the news. She abandoned her stall, dragged Gu Yin to the school, and marched in with a megaphone, shouting and waving a banner. Before long, the police arrived, forcing the high school principal to personally call the students who had bullied Gu Yin and their parents to come to the school and offer an apology.

The incident caused quite a stir; Gu Yin remembers it even making the local evening paper. It was likely the first time Gu Yin saw his mother—who was usually so concerned with appearances, so strong-willed, and so kind—fearlessly do something so dramatic.

But how should one put it... perhaps it was precisely because of that incident, and his mother’s assertiveness, that both Gu Yin and his sister, Gu Yue, grew up with personalities that refused to let themselves be taken advantage of.

As for those students later on... did they change? Not at all. As the saying goes, old habits die hard. Some people are just petty to the bone; they enjoy making jokes at others' expense and find amusement in picking at people's scars. Because of Gu Yin’s mother, they were intimidated for a while, but out of resentment, they continued to talk behind his back. During those years, Gu Yin was always alone, which gradually shaped his introverted, indifferent personality.

"It’s been over ten years, hasn't it?" Lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling, Gu Yin couldn't help but sigh. It felt as if it had all happened just yesterday.

On a sudden whim, he rolled off the bed, retrieved a key from a cabinet, and walked over to an iron chest on the west side of the room. He inserted the key, turned it, and opened the chest. It was a very old, antique safe left behind by the family. Gu Yin had always been protective of his privacy, so he kept many of his personal belongings locked away. Every boy has that one cabinet in his room filled with "treasures."

Opening the box, he was flooded with memories. Gu Yin sifted through one item after another until he finally pulled out his high school graduation photo. He found himself at a glance and couldn't help but remark, "So ugly."

Back then, he was imitating upperclassmen with that greasy, slicked-down fringe. He wasn't the only one; many boys wore similar bangs, and the girls sported those "dragon whisker" curtain bangs—a group of veritable non-mainstream kids.

Oh, wait. Not everyone was "non-mainstream."

In the center of the graduation photo, a tall girl wearing a white short-sleeved shirt stood beside the class teacher. A faint smile played on her lips, and her skin was so fair and delicate that she seemed to exist in a completely different world from the other girls.

In a year when curtain bangs and greasy fringes were the trend, she kept her hair pulled back. Even as a high school student, she carried an air of poise, tidiness, and grace.

"Yu Jie..." Gu Yin felt a twinge of sentimentality. In his memory, Yu Jie was the most beautiful girl in their class during high school. In these small towns in the north, the concept of a "campus belle" didn't really exist, and the depictions in novels felt more like science fiction to them. Yet, in all his three years of high school, Gu Yin had never seen anyone more beautiful than Yu Jie. Even after heading to different cities for college and meeting many women, he had never encountered anyone with a temperament as outstanding as hers.

Oh, wait... the celebrity he met today, Xia Qianyi, could perhaps compare to her. And that officer, Su Nuan, didn't seem to be any less impressive. As for Chen Yunjin... perhaps it was his bias, but he felt she didn't quite measure up.

"A 'white moonlight'?" Gu Yin gave a self-deprecating laugh. He had been seeing that term a lot in novels lately. If he truly had a "white moonlight," it would definitely be Yu Jie. He recalled that during his second year of high school, he had the privilege of sitting next to her, but because his grades were poor, he soon became one of the "four pillars" at the back of the classroom and lost contact with her thereafter.

"Someone so exceptional probably wouldn't come back to a small place like ours, right?" Gu Yin mused. People nowadays were breaking their necks to squeeze into big cities. Even Gu Yin, if not for his mother’s failing health and his sister still in high school, would likely have been drifting in a bigger city for a few more years.

His "white moonlight" had been an excellent student. He remembered she went to study Business Administration in Chongqing. If the admission standards in the Shandong region hadn't been so high, she might even have had a shot at Beijing or Shanghai. How could someone so brilliant ever return to their sleepy little town?

The more he thought, the more lost he became. Outside, his mother’s shouting had gradually subsided. Gu Yin set an alarm, determined to wake up and leave before dawn tomorrow, lest he be caught by Ms. Wang Yan and subjected to another lecture. He had actually promised to fix a car tomorrow anyway.

*Ding-dong.*

Just as he finished setting his alarm and was about to silence his phone, he heard a notification. "Who could it be at this hour?" Gu Yin initially thought it was another student looking for driving lessons, but to his absolute shock, when he opened his phone, the message was from... Chen Yunjin?!

Chen Yunjin: "Brother Gu, are you asleep?"

The lights were off, and the dim glow of the phone screen illuminated Gu Yin’s face, which was etched with surprise. He never expected Chen Yunjin to message him at this time. It was already 11:30 PM.

"Wasn't she just..." Gu Yin scratched his head, his mind flashing back to when he returned home earlier and saw Chen Yunjin hugging Mai Tengnan in the hallway. As a driving instructor, Gu Yin’s eyes were sharp; Chen Yunjin had specifically looked at him before the hug—anyone with half a brain could see she did it on purpose.

She had deliberately been intimate with another man just to get a rise out of him, so what was this message supposed to mean? Gu Yin thought that, logically, she should have blocked him by now. Driven by curiosity, he replied with a "?". It served both to say he wasn't asleep and to ask what she wanted at such a late hour.

To his surprise, as soon as his message went through, the screen displayed "Other party is typing...", as if she had been waiting there.

A moment later, Chen Yunjin sent: "The person who brought me home today is my cousin. Please don't misunderstand."

Seeing this, Gu Yin thought, "???"

He was completely bewildered. A cousin? A cousin who gives you a scarf? A cousin who drives you home from so far away and shares such an intimate hug? Only a fool would believe that...

Just as Gu Yin was about to type a reply, Chen Yunjin sent another: "Really! You have to believe me!"

"Heh." Gu Yin was actually amused. Was it really that important whether he believed her or not? Since when did his opinion matter so much to the people around him? He didn't understand, but he was deeply taken aback.