Read Novel Full Chapter 78.1 – A Noble Hero Who Loves to Fight Injustice (I)
Chapter 78.1 – A Noble Hero Who Loves to Fight Injustice (I)
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That night, Xia Mian had a dream.
It was Xia Chun at first—just as she appeared in the original ‘Xia Mian’ memories, from young child to adult woman, every image crystal clear.
Then it was Xiao Feng. In the dream, she had not come to this world, and Xiao Feng, just like in the previous life, was locked in a dark room by Zhang Qiming and Huang Xiaojuan and abused…
Xia Mian woke up drenched in cold sweat. Looking down at the little guy sleeping peacefully in her arms, she couldn’t help but hold him tighter.
“Auntie?” Xiao Feng rubbed his eyes and murmured sleepily.
“It’s nothing.” Xia Mian kissed his forehead and gently stroked his back. She was comforting him, but also herself. She guessed this dream might have something to do with the consciousness of the original ‘Xia Mian.’
Because of the dream, Xia Mian was a little out of sorts the next day, muddling through the morning. At noon, she forced herself to take a nap, but accidentally overslept.
She got up, splashed water on her face, grabbed her clothes, and rushed toward school. Passing an alley near the school, she saw several thugs surrounding a small, skinny boy.
“Hurry up and hand it over! Or else, don’t think you can go to school today.”
The boy was on the verge of tears. “I don’t have any more money, really—I gave it all to you yesterday.”
“Yesterday was yesterday. What, you don’t eat today?”
The boy was visibly anxious. “That was my lunch money for the whole week, and I already gave it to you. We have a test today, I can’t be late…”
The more flustered he got, the fiercer the thugs. They were just about to search him when Xia Mian ran over, grabbed the boy’s arm, pushed a thug aside, and charged forward, saying, “Why are you still here? The dean is on his way—don’t be late.”
The thugs probably hadn’t expected such a delicate, well-behaved-looking girl to trick them, so they hesitated and glanced back.
The dean of discipline at Yan Affiliated was a name well-known to the local hooligans—rumor had it he was once the martial arts champion in the north, and beating up street punks was like child’s play to him.
His claim to fame was the time he floored more than a dozen gangsters who came to ambush him, leaving them scrambling for their teeth. He was said to be one of the original “Thirteen Protectors” of No. 14 High—the fiercest gang in the area at the time. If you ran into him, you’d better run.
But when the thugs turned around, they saw only a few students hurrying by. Realizing they’d been duped, they cursed and gave chase.
“Damn you!”
“You stupid girl, looking for trouble, huh? Stop right there!”
At first, they had some distance to close so that the thugs couldn’t catch up right away. They just shouted from behind, “Don’t let us find you!”
“Just wait—unless you quit school, we’ll drag you out eventually!”
Xia Mian didn’t believe a word of it. She was wearing a cap and the standard uniform of her school—there was no way those thugs could recognize her amongst hundreds of students.
Just as she was about to scoff, a clear voice rang out, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Xia Mian?! What happened to you?”
Xia Mian turned and saw Tian Xueya not far away, looking innocently worried. She sneered inwardly—when had the two of them ever been close enough to care about each other?
Sure enough, the thugs behind them yelled, “Xia Mian, huh? Stop right there!”
“Nice name! Wait until we catch you!”
Xia Mian immediately put on a panicked expression and said, “Tian Xueya, run! Those thugs are robbing people, and you’ve got more than 200 yuan of class fees we just collected—don’t let them take it!”
Tian Xueya’s face changed slightly. Sure enough, the thugs instantly stopped, changed course, and surrounded her instead. Their original intention was to extort money—anyway, they had learned about Xia Mian’s name and could deal with her later.
Xia Mian pulled the boy along and ran off.
Want to harm me? I’ll let you have the first taste!
Xia Mian couldn’t help shaking her head. How many times had Tian Xueya suffered losses already? And yet she still hadn’t learned her lesson—her hatred ran so deep that she wouldn’t let go of any chance to retaliate.
Once inside the school, Xia Mian let go of the boy and asked, “First year?”
The boy nodded, still glancing nervously behind him. “That senior girl… will she be okay?”
“Don’t worry,” Xia Mian said. “She’s no pushover—definitely tougher than you.”
“How many times have they extorted you?”
The boy mumbled, “Second time.”
“Yesterday was the first?” Xia Mian asked. “How much did you give them?”
“Fifty,” the boy said. “My lunch money for the whole week.”
Well, no wonder he’s being targeted—clearly a kid from a family with money.
“Did you tell any adults?” She asked, though she immediately realized it was a pointless question. If he had someone looking out for him, they wouldn’t just hand him so much allowance at once.
Sure enough, the boy shook his head and said quietly, “My parents aren’t home.”
“Then you’ll have to rely on yourself,” Xia Mian said. “You’re fifteen already, aren’t you? Or maybe sixteen. Totally not a little kid anymore.”
“In short, once it happens once, it’ll happen again. You have to fight back—otherwise, your whole high school life will be miserable.”
Seeing the boy’s uneasy expression, Xia Mian sighed. “Forget it, I’ll show you once. Next time, you do it yourself.”
She led him straight to the dean of discipline’s office.
“Mr. Li, I saw some thugs extorting a student and taking his lunch money for the whole week—fifty yuan,” she reported..
“I pulled him away and ran, but I think they stopped another girl right outside the school gate.”
The dean immediately stood up and left. Xia Mian turned to the boy. “See? Next time they ask for money, do the same thing. Get the money back. If you can’t handle it yourself, find someone who can.”
“Our dean is very capable. Remember their faces, and if you see them again, go straight to him.”
The boy clearly hadn’t expected someone to treat the dean like a personal bodyguard, but…
“What if they catch me alone and beat me?” he asked timidly.
“First things first, avoid being alone,” Xia Mian said. “Then, here are two options for you.”
“Option one: carry something valuable on you, worth a few hundred yuan. If they take it, just hand it over—then go to the police immediately. That counts as a criminal offense, and the police will arrest them.”
“Option two: grit your teeth, take a beating, and go to the police right away. Intentional injury can also get them detained.”
The boy stared at her in a daze.
Xia Mian didn’t have time to deal with him further. She tossed out, “You won’t always run into someone like me who likes meddling. If you don’t want to be bullied, figure it out yourself. If you can’t stand on your own, no one can help you.”
By the time she entered the classroom, she was already late. It happened to be Mr. Mi’s class. Seeing she didn’t look well, he asked, “What’s wrong? Feeling sick?”
“Ran into some thugs extorting an underclassman,” Xia Mian explained. “I went to report it to Mr. Li.”
“Are you okay?” Mr. Mi asked with concern.
“I’m fine. Mr. Li’s on it.”
“Alright, go back to your seat.”
As Xia Mian took her seat, Sun Yuexin handed her the notes and said, “It must be those guys from No. 14 High.”
Xia Mian was puzzled. “No. 14 High? That’s a few streets away—why would they come to our school?”
“No. 14 High has the lowest admission scores in all of Yan City, you know,” Sun Yuexin said. “Everyone calls it the ‘delinquent high school’—they’ve got all these gangs with names like the Thirteen Protectors, the Eight Vajras, the Four Gold Stars, you name it.”
Xia Mian was amused by the outdated, over-the-top names.
“Those thugs can’t stand students from our school. They’re always coming to bully people—either to take money or to pick fights.”
Xia Mian understood now. In the eyes of No. 14 High’s students, kids from Yan Affiliated were the classic model children—ones that were used as good examples against them.
“During the first year, we even fought their school’s Thirteen Protectors a few times,” Sun Yuexin said with a hint of nostalgia.
Xia Mian patted her head and sighed. “That’s quite wild.”
Sun Yuexin chuckled. “If they didn’t come looking for trouble, we couldn’t be bothered either. And now, who has the time? We’re too busy struggling with our studies.”
Going from first to second year, both Sun Yuexin and Li Lizhen had made it into the school’s top 100. The teachers held them up as examples to lecture the slackers, and their overjoyed parents even treated Xia Mian to a meal in thanks. The two of them had also started to enjoy studying, working harder and more seriously than before—though the biggest motivator was still having Tian Xueya as a target to chase.
“They stopped bothering you after that?” Xia Mian asked.
“No,” Sun Yuexin said. “Didn’t you send Hao Jian’s trio to the police station not long after you transferred here? Once that story got around, the local thugs didn’t dare come near our school anymore.”
Xia Mian hadn’t realized last year’s incident had such a deterrent effect—but clearly, it had an expiration date.
“Too bad it only lasted a year,” Sun Yuexin sighed. Then she suddenly thought of something. “Hey, do you think it might be because of Hao Jian? He transferred to No. 14 High.”
“You’d better be careful—I’m afraid he might come after you.”
“Tian Xueya definitely told him about your family. If he knows you’ve got no connections, he won’t hold back anymore.”
Last year, not long after Xia Mian had invited Sun Yuexin and Li Lizhen to her place for a skewers feast, rumors had spread through the school that her family only ran a street food stall, but she was pretending to be rich. The gossip brought her a few days of ridicule, but she hadn’t cared at all—it was right when the Jia family was making trouble, and business wasn’t doing well anyway.
Xia Mian had responded in front of the mockers by directly inviting her classmates to her family’s skewers stall. “I’m from the countryside, dirt poor, and this stall is the only thing supporting my family. Please give us your business!” With no sense of accomplishment in teasing her, they soon lost interest and left.
At first, she thought it was just a misunderstanding. Xia Wenyue’s stall was in plain sight anyway, and she’d never hidden it. Added to the rumors Tian Xueya spread about her having a powerful background, it was natural for people to be confused.
But once word got out that she was an orphan, she knew without a doubt it was Tian Xueya. The fact that she had no parents was not known in school except to Tian Xueya, Sun Yuexin, and Li Lizhen.
Given Tian Xueya’s hatred for her, Xia Mian knew the girl would not hesitate to use anything she could as a weapon. Xia Mian didn’t care, but Sun Yuexin was already on high alert. “From now on, we should walk to and from school with Zhao Cheng.”
Then, her expression softened into a dreamy smile. “I wonder if that guy has befriended Han Haoyan yet.”
Xia Mian could only shake her head helplessly.