Fractured Jade - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

There was another time when the school announced we had to make up classes over the weekend, and the fee was eight hundred yuan.

I stood in front of the bulletin board and stared at the notice for a long time. Then I turned and left.

When class started on Monday, she turned around and glanced at me.

“Why didn’t you go to the extra classes?”

“I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

I didn’t say anything.

She stared at me for a few seconds, then stopped asking and turned back around.

I thought that was the end of it.

After school, she stopped me at the school gate.

“Those extra classes are useless. It’s a huge group lesson. Going would just be a waste of time.”

I had no idea why she was suddenly telling me this.

“I’m taking one-on-one lessons outside of school. The teacher’s good. Come with me.”

“I…”

“Your grades are so awful you’re dragging down the class average. Just looking at it annoys me. Come to class with me, and consider it helping me take notes.”

She pulled a flyer out of her backpack and shoved it into my hands.

“Saturday morning, eight o’clock. I’ll wait for you at the school gate.”

I lowered my head and glanced at the price on the flyer.

Twelve thousand.

“I can’t afford this.”

She glared at me. “The money’s already been paid. It can’t be refunded. If you don’t go, it’ll just go to waste.”

And just like that, I followed her to tutoring for a year and a half.

Every Saturday morning at eight, her family’s car would stop outside my house right on time.

She would roll down the window. “Get in.”

Once, during a break between classes, a few classmates gathered together to chat.

“Shen Zhaoning is ordering Li Yi around again. She really thinks she’s some kind of princess.”

“And Li Yi too. Why does she listen to everything Shen Zhaoning says?”

“Do you think Shen Zhaoning gave her some kind of benefit?”

I happened to be right nearby.

“She’s actually pretty good to me. She paid my tutoring fees before, and she bought me clothes too.”

They froze. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Do you like her or something?”

I paused, then smiled. “How could I?”

Someone like me had average grades, average looks, and an average family background.

As for her, she had good grades, a good family, and good looks too.

She sat up in the front rows. I sat in the very last row.

What stood between us wasn’t just a few seats.

A lackey had no right to like a princess.

A lackey didn’t even have the right to a name.

Fair enough.

A lackey didn’t need a name. She only needed to be obedient.

Then I went back to my seat.

But I didn’t notice.

Shen Zhaoning was standing at the corner of the hallway.

She was holding a water bottle, probably on her way to refill it.

She stood there, and I didn’t know how long she had been listening, or how much she had heard.