“I want to save my mother, no one can stop me…”

Yin Mingzheng sat cross-legged on his bed, and his phone was placed on his foldable table. It was playing the fifteenth episode of August the Great. He carefully went through the entire video, but he didn’t find anything particularly funny. 

He opened the comment barrage. The originally barren screen suddenly increased in comments. They were all saying something along the lines of [Everyone check out the godly leg shaking skill] or [Here comes the leg shaking part].

All of the comments were mocking.

Yin Mingzheng was at a bit of a loss. He thought August was super cool and charming. Why were these people laughing at him?

The man in the living room had the TV on. He was drinking as he watched TV, like an evil demon outside his room. Since he was a child, Yin Mingzheng had imagined many times that one day he would defeat the Demon King and save his mother. 

Perhaps, this was the dream of ​​every boy in an abusive family.

August the Great was a niche TV series. Not many people watched it. He had quietly fallen in love with it. August had the same thoughts as he did. He saved his mother from the Demon King. He knew both magic and swordsmanship. Whenever anyone bullied him, he would shake his leg and face it head on, him against the world.

In fact, August would always be bullied and misunderstood, but, in the end, he would always prove that he was in the right.

He was such a good person, so why did everyone hate him and laugh at him?

When he was in the fourth grade, Yin Qiang had flown into a rage and beaten both Yin Mingzheng and his mother. Zhou Juan cried as she hugged Yin Mingzheng, but Yin Mingzheng didn’t know what he could do.

Later, he accidentally ran across this TV series while he was using his mother’s phone, and he quickly fell in love with the plot and the protagonist.

He fantasized countless times that he was August. He fantasized beating the shit out of Yin Qiang and leaving that house with Zhou Juan, never to return. Unfortunately, it was only a fantasy.

He was too young. He couldn’t beat Yin Qiang. 

His classmates in school and the comment barrage were all telling him that shaking his legs was wrong, that he’ll be mocked, ridiculed. Fine, he won’t do it from now on.

Yin Mingzheng put down his phone and silently took out his workbook.

The bedroom door was pushed open, and Zhou Juan walked in.

Yin Mingzheng looked up. Zhou Juan’s expression was a little strange today. She stared at Yin Mingzheng for a while before asking, “Mingzheng, did anything happen at school to make you unhappy?” 

Yin Mingzheng was stunned for a moment. Then, he shook his head, “No.”

Zhou Juan said, “Oh.” She didn’t continue. She suddenly came to realize that she didn’t know how to communicate with this child. During the time she hadn’t been paying attention, Yin Mingzheng had already grown into a fifteen-year-old boy.

“Then, have you been bullied?” Zhou Juan asked again.

Yin Mingzheng shook his head, “No.” 

He was very reticent, even more so at home.

Zhou Juan stood awkwardly for a while. Then, she decided to spit out Shu Ning’s words, “I heard that some of your classmates were imitating you… maybe, those classmates didn’t mean to make fun of you. They were just joking, don’t take it to heart…”

Yin Mingzheng revealed a faint smile, “I know.”

Zhou Juan felt a little discouraged, “If you’re really being bullied, let Mom know, okay? Mom cares about you very much.” 

“Mn.”

Zhou Juan wasn’t very good at communicating with Yin Mingzheng. The older this child became, the further away from him she felt. She put the two hundred yuan on Yin Mingzheng’s bed and said, “Mingzheng, lunch money.”

After saying that, she left the room and closed the door.

Yin Mingzheng looked at the two hundred yuan on the bed, and the corners of his eyes slowly turned red. 

Lf abbx atf akb tecvgfv sejc jcv mjgfoeiis qea la lcab tlr rmtbbiyju.

Efmfcais, atf ojwlis kjr yfmbwlcu wbgf jcv wbgf tjgv-qgfrrfv obg wbcfs. Ojra alwf, Itbe Aejc vlvc’a ulnf tlw iecmt wbcfs, rb tf kjrc’a fnfc jyif ab fja iecmt obg j mbeqif bo vjsr. Lf xcfk tlr ojwlis kjr qbbg, rb tf vlvc’a jrx obg wbcfs jcv vfmlvfv ab mjggs bc klat jc fwqas rabwjmt.

However, one day, Zhou Juan suddenly apologized to him. She forgot to give him lunch money before, but he was older now and needed to eat better. Since then, his weekly lunch money went from being just enough to buy the cheapest meal at the cafeteria, which was about sixty yuan, all the way to two hundred yuan.

In the past, he was only able to afford the worst lunch the school had to offer, which cost twelve yuan. But now, he can afford the twenty or thirty yuan lunches and still have money left over. 

It was too luxurious.

Originally, he only wanted to take one hundred yuan, but Zhou Juan insisted on giving him two hundred.

In order to help Zhou Juan with her burdens, he took the money, but only spent one hundred yuan per week. He saved the rest to buy meat and vegetables on the weekends. This way, he would be able to improve their meals at home.

When Zhou Juan saw him shopping for vegetables, she tacitly agreed. 

On the weekend, Yin Mingzheng would buy spare ribs, chicken and duck, a couple things that Zhou Juan didn’t buy much herself. Then, he learned how to make soups and stir-fries from the Internet in order to help nourish his family.

He was more satisfied than he’d ever been in his entire life.

In the past, Zhou Juan didn’t ask a lot about what went on at school. It was to the extent that he sometimes had the illusion that his mother didn’t care about him, that no one in the world cared about him.

However, he realized today that Zhou Juan had him in her heart. 

If she really didn’t care, how would she know that people at school were imitating his leg shaking? She must have accidentally found out from the homeroom teacher.

After finding out about it, Zhou Juan was actually worried about whether his feelings were hurt, so she specifically came to talk to him.

His mother had been caring for him silently.

When he came to realize this, Yin Mingzheng blamed himself. 

His mother would rather starve herself than to let him go hungry and secretly inquired about how he was doing at school. What reason did he have to doubt her love for him?

Yin Mingzheng stroked his worn schoolbag with a warm heart.

When he went to school the next day, Yin Mingzheng sat in his seat. Shu Ning seemed to want to talk to him, but Yin Mingzheng ignored him.

Outsiders have always rejected him since he was little. He didn’t expect the world to show him any kindness. 

So long as he had his mom, it was enough.

As long as he could obtain his mother’s understanding and love, it didn’t matter what other people thought.

Yin Mingzheng stuffed his schoolbag into the desk and lowered his head. His long eyelashes fluttered, and his side profile was graceful and smooth.

After a little while, he felt that something wasn’t right. He raised his head, and, before he knew it, several boys had surrounded him. 

“What do you want?” Yin Mingzheng stood up, his whole body tense.

He had never been afraid of a fight because fighting was something he was used to. Rather, fighting was the method of communication that he was most familiar with.

Just as he was preparing to throw down, the group of boys looked at each other. Suddenly, they all bowed their heads and apologized, “We’re sorry.”

“We shouldn’t have copied you.” 

“We didn’t mean to make fun of you.”

“Sorry!”

Then, they ran away.

Yin Mingzheng: “…” 

Yin Mingzheng didn’t know how to react. He stood there in a daze before slowly sinking back into his seat.

He didn’t understand why those boys had suddenly apologized to him. It was really inexplicable.

This wasn’t something he was familiar with.

Others had always been hostile towards him. He knew how to face other people’s hostility, but, when faced with their kindness, he was at a complete loss. 

His heart was beating a mile a minute.

He really wanted someone to tell him why, but he didn’t know who to ask.

Suddenly, an apology came from the person beside him. “I’m sorry.”

Yin Mingzheng turned his head and saw the handsome blond boy looking at him sincerely. 

Yin Mingzheng frowned, “Why are you apologizing?”

Shu Ning handed his phone to him and motioned for him to look at it.

Yin Mingzheng warily took the phone and discovered a post on the school forum. He didn’t really check the school forum that often. Either way, he knew nobody would say anything good about him on there.

The title of the post: Is imitating other people’s posture and speaking habits considered bullying? 

The post resonated with a lot of people. A lot of people added onto the post underneath it, and some people linked other highly upvoted posts from other forums. The discussion around the topic was full of lively conversation.

“After seeing this post, a couple of classmates and I realized that copying you could also be a kind of bullying, so we wanted to apologize.” Shu Ning’s voice was clear and sincere, “However, we were really just kidding around. We didn’t mean to make fun of you. I hope you can forgive us.”

Only then did Yin Mingzheng finally understand why those boys had suddenly apologized just now.

It was because of this post. 

Did his luck improve recently? His lunch money increased, people started apologizing to him, and nobody was bringing up the past in order to attack him or mock him.

Yin Mingzheng was a little dazed, but, after a while, he regained his senses. He awkwardly returned the phone to Shu Ning and snorted softly, turning his head away.

“Last time I apologized to you, you didn’t say that you forgave me. You didn’t say it this time either. Can you forgive me?” The boy next to him continued to ask.

Yin Mingzheng felt a little nervous. He tried to feign indifference and brushed him off, “You’re annoying.” 

“Then forgive me.”

The boy had dyed his hair blond, seemingly trying to copy him. Because of this, he was called into the teacher’s office. Later, he heard that Shu Ning told their homeroom teacher directly that “hair color doesn’t determine whether a student is good or bad”.

To be honest, it was a surprise.

He was good-looking and had bright eyes. He looked like a little sun with dyed blond hair. 

When he laughed, he could blind people’s eyes.

Yin Mingzheng turned his head away, “Why should I forgive you?”

The boy stopped talking.

After a little while, he secretly pushed a carton of milk onto his desk, “We’re all classmates, don’t be so serious. I’ve already apologized.” 

Yin Mingzheng frowned. He was really annoyed by these kinds of words. It seemed as if it was his fault for not being understanding and accepting the apology.

It was clearly the other party who was stupid enough to be lied to. It was as if, just because he apologized, he should be forgiven and it’d be Yin Mingzheng’s fault if he didn’t forgive him.

Why should he?

He threw the milk carton onto the other boy’s desk and looked back down at his book. 

The milk carton rolled off the desk and fell to the ground. Yin Mingzheng heard the sound of the other boy’s desk and chair moving. After a while, the milk was picked back up.

“Okay, you don’t have to forgive me.” That boy said, “This carton of milk will be a token of our breakup. If you don’t want to be friends with me and you don’t want to talk to me, just drink this carton of milk. If you do want to talk to me…”

Bleep-bleep-bleep—

Yin Mingzheng took the milk carton from his hand, and gulped it all down. Then, he crushed the empty carton, showing Shu Ning that he drank it all, and threw it into a nearby trash can.

Shu Ning observed him for a moment. Then, he grinned, “I understand.” 

Yin Mingzheng snorted under his breath and lowered his head to continue reading.

He wasn’t actually able to read much into the book, but he didn’t know what else to do sitting there. The phone that he used was Zhou Juan’s old cell phone. The screen was cracked, and it didn’t have a whole lot of memory on it. Plus, he hadn’t bought a mobile data plan because it was too expensive. As a result, he couldn’t play mobile games, and he didn’t care to surf the web either.

They already decided to break off relations, but his seatmate’s line of sight had yet to leave him.

Yin Mingzheng pretended not to notice, but his seatmate’s gaze was too piercing. It was impossible to ignore even if he wanted to. 

Just as Yin Mingzheng reached the end of his patience, his seatmate would quickly look away.

It wasn’t appropriate for Yin Mingzheng to flare up, so he went back to his book.

Then, there was the sound of a click from beside him. Yin Mingzheng turned his head to see his seatmate quickly hiding his phone.

“What are you doing?” Yin Mingzheng asked in shock. 

His seatmate nervously said, “Nothing.”

Yin Mingzheng found him incomprehensible, “Are you secretly taking pictures of me?”

His voice ended up being a little loud because of his shock. The classmates around them looked over.

Shu Ning was super embarrassed. 

Yin Mingzheng demanded, “Delete it.”

Shu Ning was like a primary school student who did something wrong. He slowly handed him his phone, not meeting his gaze. His eyes held a bit of awkwardness, a bit of fear, and a little bit of embarrassment.

The moment Yin Mingzheng got Shu Ning’s phone, he suddenly felt as though he was in complete control of this person. It was different from “like” or “hate”. It was as if he had Shu Ning in the palm of his hand. As if he could do whatever he wanted and there was nothing he could do to stop him.

Total control. 

He quickly dumped those strange thoughts into the back of his mind. Yin Mingzheng opened Shu Ning’s photo album, and there was in fact a photo of him in it.

It captured his side profile. His jawline was clean and clear. He looked like a prince on campus.

Yin Mingzheng didn’t know that he looked like this in other people’s perspectives.

Yin Mingzheng sneered and deleted the photo. He spoke mockingly, “I can’t believe you took my photo. Don’t tell me you’re actually gay?”