UCS Chapter 136

Chapter 136

Zhang Xu lay on the ground, his face rapidly swelling and turning red; his gaze remained calm, yet a trace of bewilderment leaked through.

Behind him stood a crowd of students.

Someone screamed as they surrounded Zhang Xu and Mo Hua; others quickly stepped forward to help Zhang Xu up, glaring angrily at Mo Hua. “What do you think you’re doing?”

In an instant, Mo Hua found himself the target of everyone’s condemnation.

In truth, Mo Hua was strikingly handsome. His muscles were firm but not exaggerated, and his features were composed yet sharp—like an ancient blade of a thousand years, its edge concealed within the scabbard.

If Gao Gusheng was a flower of exquisite purity and allure that everyone coveted, and Zhang Xu was a gentle yet unreachable cedar atop a snowy peak, then Mo Hua was a birch tree standing forever straight—a silent, upward-reaching poplar. Mo Hua was the undisputed heartthrob of the Sports College—the kind of guy who used to have young female admirers blushing as they waited by the track, hoping for a chance to hand him a bottle of water.

But now, everyone was pointing fingers at him.

“Why did you just lash out and hit someone for no reason?”

“Do sports majors have nothing but muscle in their brains??”

“Even if the senior was in the wrong, you can’t just hit him, can you? He hasn’t even fully recovered yet, and you actually went straight for his head!”

“Guys are even scarier when they get jealous.”

“How could someone like that exist…”

…

There is a concept known as the “herd effect”—a phenomenon where an individual’s beliefs or behaviors shift to align with the majority due to real or perceived group pressure. A situation that could have been handled calmly escalated rapidly as voices piled up; the attacks on Mo Hua grew increasingly vicious, eventually spiraling completely out of control.

It was much like how a stampede often begins with nothing more than one person accidentally stepping on another’s foot.

Words, sharp as blades, were being hurled at Mo Hua.

Mo Hua watched it all in silence. He wanted to defend himself, but while one person’s voice might drown out five or ten others, how could it possibly overpower dozens or hundreds?

Gao Gusheng pushed through the crowd and stepped in front of him.

“Shut up!”

That angry voice landed in the crowd like a firecracker, causing everyone to instinctively fall silent.

They had never seen Gao Gusheng this furious; he resembled an exquisitely alluring man-eating flower, unfurling its leaves and thorn-studded vines, poised to devour its prey.

Terrifying, yet intensely vivid and breathtakingly beautiful.

So beautiful that it stole one’s breath and made one’s head spin—like the scorching midday sun, too dazzling to look at directly.

Zhang Xu’s eyes darkened slightly.

He spoke softly, “Student Mo, I apologize.”

A ripple of agitation ran through the crowd.

He turned his gaze toward Gao Gusheng and smiled. “If it’s what you like…”

Leaving behind those ambiguous words, he stood up; the crowd parted automatically to make way for him as he walked away.

The students, however, had yet to snap out of their daze.

They replayed that sentence over and over in their minds.

—”If it’s what you like.”

…What did that mean?

Did Gao Gusheng… like Mo Hua?

In that instant, the possessiveness they felt toward Gao Gusheng curdled entirely into anger.

Why?

Why did *he* get to stand by Gao Gusheng’s side?

Why did *he* get to be the one Gao Gusheng liked? “Gao, don’t let him fool you!”

“Gao Gusheng, are you really going to be with a violent thug?”

“Gao Gusheng, you’re actually going to defend a guy like that?”

“Gao Gusheng isn’t exactly a saint either, is he? He treated our senior with cold indifference; he wouldn’t even look after him when he was vulnerable and suffering from amnesia. And now, here he is protecting Mo Hua—the very guy who hit our senior!”

“So that’s the kind of person he is. I really misjudged him!”

Moments ago, when the crowd was pinning baseless accusations on Mo Hua, he had listened with calm composure; yet, when Gao Gusheng came under fire from the frenzied mob, he was suddenly consumed by a towering rage.

“You guys…”

“Hold on, Hua-zi.”

Gao Gusheng stopped him. Even so, some classmates noticed Mo Hua’s tense arm and the bulging veins standing out against his skin. “What do you think you’re doing?! Are you planning to hit someone again?”

Gao Gusheng spoke coldly, “You’ve been shouting and hurling abuse from the very beginning, but can anyone actually explain the full sequence of events?”

One student, emboldened, looked at him with a mix of disgust and greed. “The full story? Isn’t the whole story just that Mo Hua knocked the senior down? The senior hasn’t regained his memory and has a mild temper—he doesn’t have conflicts with anyone. It’s obvious Mo Hua was just looking for trouble!”

Gao Gusheng pulled Mo Hua to his side. “Hua-zi, you tell them.”

Mo Hua cast a calm, indifferent glance at the students before him. “Zhang Xu deserved the beating; he…” Mo Hua paused, then continued, “You all saw me hit Zhang Xu, but who among you actually saw Zhang Xu hit Gao Gusheng?”

Gao Gusheng was momentarily taken aback as he looked at Mo Hua, but he immediately added, “Justice lies in people’s hearts. If you want to fight or hurl accusations, bring proof first. Otherwise…”

He let out a low, cold snort.

The students were jolted, finally snapping out of their frenzied rage—what on earth had they been doing?

Even if Mo Hua *had* done something wrong, that was Mo Hua’s doing; Gao Gusheng hadn’t done a thing. Yet, here they were, baselessly pinning a multitude of charges on Gao Gusheng!

Not to mention, Gao Gusheng was the sole heir to the Gao family! If he decided to settle scores later, not a single person present would be able to escape the consequences!

They broke out in a cold sweat, but by then, the backs of Gao Gusheng and Mo Hua had already disappeared from sight. Once they reached a secluded spot, Gao Gusheng gave Mo Hua a hard slap on the shoulder. “Not bad—I never thought a guy with such an honest, open face would be capable of spouting nonsense.”

“But don’t worry; with those scrawny limbs of his, I could take on ten of him at once!”

“What did Zhang Xu say earlier? Why were you so angry?”

Mo Hua looked away. “Just a load of crap. Nothing worth mentioning.”

No matter how much Gao Gusheng pressed him, Mo Hua wouldn’t say another word.

He gazed into the distance, toward the horizon, where drifting clouds and gathering winds swirled.

Zhang Xu’s voice echoed in his ears once more.

[He is destined to be mine.]

[He will be destroyed, wither, and rot, becoming nothing more than a handful of spring soil in my grasp.]

Zhang Xu’s gaze had been calm—and mocking.

…

“The meeting has concluded; I invite the department heads to speak.”

Yun Zhiyi set down her pen and took her seat.

The student council department heads exchanged glances, hesitating to speak. Yun Zhiyi frowned. “If you have any opinions, please voice them so we can discuss them together.”

Finally, the head of the Personnel Department raised a hand. “President, there have been requests to withdraw from the council.”

Before Yun Zhiyi could ask, the department head added, “There are quite a few—nine people in total.”

The entire student council consisted of only one hundred and thirty members. Yun Zhiyi asked, “Did the application state the reason?”

The head of the Student Life Department raised his hand. “I might know a bit about the reason.”

He stood up. “A ‘Self-Regulation Committee’ has been formed at the school. Many students have joined; it’s currently spreading underground. A lot of people are involved, but they keep it very quiet—I only found out after asking around for a long time.”

“The goal of this Self-Regulation Committee is to give students more autonomy, freedom, and independence.”

Several department heads frowned.

The slogan sounded exciting, but a group of students who hadn’t yet entered the real world didn’t truly understand the nature of the freedom they sought; blindly pursuing freedom often leads only to restriction and chaos.

The head of the Discipline Department spoke up, “Lately, the school’s complaint box has been flooded with grievances regarding discipline—issues like lights-out times, hygiene inspections, and the point-deduction criteria for the library. Are they trying to revise the rules regarding these penalties?”

Yun Zhiyi asked, “How do they want to change them?”

The head of the Discipline Department frowned as he explained, “They are demanding an end to hygiene inspections and mandatory lights-out times, asking instead for dormitories to manage themselves freely.”

Yun Zhiyi immediately rejected the idea. “Absolutely not.”

“If we stop hygiene inspections, some dorms will go long periods without cleaning, piling up trash bags at their doorways and leaving toilets unscrubbed—all of which affects the sanitary conditions for other students. Currently, most students go to sleep around the lights-out time; without it, some dorms might stay noisy late into the night or even the early hours, disturbing neighbors or sparking internal conflicts over whether to keep the lights on.”

“Furthermore, the waste of water and electricity is also an issue.”

……

After the meeting, Yun Zhiyi wearily rubbed her temples.

The so-called “Self-Discipline Committee”—

It was merely a label slapped onto an “anti-student council” movement to avoid attracting the teachers’ attention.

She had a keen intuition; during her patrols, she noticed that students who ought to have been focused on their studies were becoming restless and agitated.

Something invisible was stirring up the students’ emotions.

Students possessed passion but lacked a measure of rationality; they were prone to herd mentality and excitability, making them easily incited.

She needed to report this to the supervising teacher immediately.

She had a nagging feeling that a storm was brewing over the entire school.

Suddenly, she felt a cold draft brush against the back of her neck. She shuddered instinctively, her body tensing up as she whipped around—

“Who’s there?!”

The space behind her was empty; there was nothing out of the ordinary.

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