Chapter 222

Xiaoqi returned to her dormitory, feeling like she had experienced so many things these past few days.

She still decided to go for a run. When she exercised her body during the run, her mind soared, and her head became clearer.

Today when she went running, she didn't wear headphones to study English and Japanese. Instead, she used the time running to think back on her experiences since starting university.

She felt that everything had gone smoothly since starting university, and the people she had met were all very nice.

Was it that her luck had changed?

Or were people outside just better?

Obviously neither was true. In terms of luck, for someone in her circumstances, it clearly wasn't very good - coming from an impoverished family, with a disabled father and uneducated mother. She had barely managed to get into a key high school herself, and then didn't perform well on the college entrance exam, only getting into a third-rate private university.

It wasn't possible that people outside were all better either. She had seen all kinds of people, and although it was still a campus environment, not everyone was that innocent. Just as Xiaoqi had heard all kinds of crazy rumors about herself, those rumors didn't appear out of thin air - someone must have been saying and spreading them.

But the things she had encountered these past two days - the student council president getting her an equestrian coach, the calligraphy club president helping her join the municipal calligraphy association, the music club president inviting her to join the music club...

It was as if in an instant, she had become talented and popular.

But Xiaoqi felt that she was still herself. If she had to identify the biggest change, it would be her attitude towards studying. Her past self had studied passively - in high school, in order to do well on the college entrance exam.

But now that she was in university, many students' attitudes were completely different. Because in university, basically as long as you didn't fail badly, you could graduate. Studying had become something more casual and self-directed. In this kind of environment, away from the tense high school life and parents' company and nagging, many people's mindsets would change.

Not knowing what they wanted to do in the future, they might feel confused, and want to just enjoy themselves for now. Exposure to all kinds of new things - student organizations, student council, big city, new classmates - could also lead to confusion. In this kind of environment, Xiaoqi still persisted in the most basic studying, taking studying as the main focus.

Xiaoqi felt this was the fundamental reason she was able to receive so much goodwill.

Heaven helps those who help themselves - she hazily understood this principle, although not very clearly, but it suddenly appeared in her mind.

She would not be like her father, who because someone gave him 100 RMB, spent most of his life repaying the favor, because her father Su Youfu was too weak after all. His whole life was trapped in that small village.

She wanted to become stronger, she wanted to improve. Even if it was to repay kindness, she wanted to let the little trickle of favor become a gushing spring in return. She wanted herself to be like a great river, able to accept even great kindness, and be able to repay it.

Thinking this way, she suddenly understood many things.

She and her father had different life starting points and paths. She didn't have to impose her father's tragedy onto herself, doubting others and hesitating about her own life.

This run, Xiaoqi didn't even look at her step count. Unknowingly she had run over 30,000 steps, feeling very free and refreshed. Her whole body was drenched in sweat, but not just physically - psychologically too she felt refreshed. It was as if before there had been a faint shadow obscuring her vision of life, and now that shadow had been lifted, and the road ahead seemed brighter and clearer.

The run left her body very tired, but she felt her mind had expanded significantly. The seed in her heart seemed to have broken through a thick shell, and was striving upwards.

After showering, Xiaoqi went to evening self-study in her class.

She continued methodically doing English exercises, reviewing Japanese, and previewing the content for tomorrow's classes.

Time was tight, and when she started studying she would be very focused and serious, not easily disturbed.

She usually wore headphones, ignoring outside noises.

Her deskmate Honey was also unusually joining evening self-study today, but she loved idle chatter and gossip. When doing homework with deskmates she would barely sit still, and as soon as she was done would swivel over to someone else's seat to chat.

At this time, a shocking piece of news appeared on their Enhua University campus forum.

Originally a few people were chatting about games, game streaming, and related topics. Then in the course of chatting, the topic went off track, and someone leaked screenshots of a chat between a group of Korean esports players who had come to the country for a tournament. They were saying how easy it was to hook up with Hua Country's girls, that with just a little effort they would put out, and were openly sharing photos of the girls they had hooked up with.

Already this was an unsavory scandal, since the girls included some currently popular game streamers and such.

But after this came out, there was also news of a freshman at Enhua University hooking up with a Korean foreign teacher, allegedly she had taken the initiative to show up at his apartment, and they had gone back together. There were incriminating photos too.

The photos were a bit blurry, but some people could make out it was the girl from Enhua University's official TikTok who had become an online singing sensation.

Supposedly she was a new freshman this year, an information management major.

She had won the Ten Best Singers competition, taking home 20,000 RMB in prize money.

To rich students, 20,000 RMB wasn't much, but even though Enhua was a private university, most students were still ordinary. For ordinary students, 20,000 RMB was still a significant amount.

This post quickly caught fire.

Because later on there were photos of the Korean foreign teacher escorting the girl back to her dorm building, giving her a bag of fruit and snacks, looking very intimate.

Plus photos of them hugging outside the foreign teacher's apartment building, with her dressed very scantily.

Then leaked chats of the Korean esports players trash talking and using vulgar language, instantly escalating things from a minor scandal to feeling like a national level issue, especially since this online circle was full of youths, who reacted passionately.

Posts expressing righteous anger that Hua Country female university students were throwing themselves at foreigners, and demanding the foreigners get out of campus.

The discussion spun more and more out of control.

And although no specific names were used, Miss Weekday was used in place of Su Xiaoqi's name.

Earlier, the two rumors about Xiaoqi had just spread within the class. After people saw the donation certificate, no one talked about that nonsense anymore.

But now on the forum post, it was brought up again.

Saying that Miss Weekday had just won 20,000 RMB from the Ten Best Singers competition, yet still needed to work a part-time job at the equestrian center - because it was full of rich young masters, so her goal was clearly very money-oriented.

That Miss Weekday came from an extremely poor family, and didn't spend any of the prize money, eating a lot, like she'd never eaten before - so it was understandable she could be taken advantage of by the Korean foreign teacher.

Somehow this post started fermenting and catching fire.

At first Wu Xinyue had just casually shared the photos online, cleverly using a computer outside instead of in her dorm room.

She hadn't expected later on that someone else would provide corroborating evidence - that girl had seen it happen but didn't take photos, looks like Su Xiaoqi didn't have great interpersonal relationships huh.