The car stopped in front of the gates of First City High, and when Gu Xiqiao got off, Jiang Shuxuan reminded, "Remember to come back later."
Gu Xiqiao"s steps paused for a moment, before turning around and waving at him in confirmation.
Seeing her figure disappear from his field of vision, Jiang Shuxuan leaned back on his seat and closed his eyes tiredly. He hadn"t had even a wink of sleep the night earlier because he was tracking every trace of evidence he could get, from surveillance cameras to a video taken by a pa.s.serby. Now that things were finally in motion, he could rest.
At that moment, his phone rang again, and he was about to ignore it before he saw the person that was calling him, accepting the call and thanking the caller politely before hanging up.
The one that called him was the princ.i.p.al of First City High, and he was calling him to tell him about the matter of Gu Xiqiao"s student status at the high school. The Gu family had acted quickly and gone through the procedures of converting Gu Xiqiao"s student roll to another small town, and the princ.i.p.al didn"t think of stopping them at the time. To his knowledge, the girl had done a great misdeed after all, and her grades were average, so there was no merit in leaving her in First City High.
But at the same time, the princ.i.p.al received a call from the mayor to talk with him about this incident, and later on the Wu family, Xiao family, and even the Yin family called him. The princ.i.p.al himself was the secretary of the munic.i.p.al party, so he realized that there was more to this incident than he had initially thought.
Because of a single statement from this young man, all of the people that stood at the top of the social pyramid in N City called him to talk about this matter, and it was clear how great this Young Master Jiang"s background was.
At the same time, the information that the Gu family had taken away were sent over to him by other sources, and as he compiled them he couldn"t help but muse about how this seemingly normal illegitimate daughter had the support of the mysterious Young Master Jiang and many high-brows in N City. The Gu family had truly bet on the wrong daughter, but the princ.i.p.al didn"t bother to remind them about this.
As for those people saying that she stole the oil painting, it only served to make the princ.i.p.al laugh. With such a background, it was extremely easy for Gu Xiqiao to get into whichever art exhibition that she wanted to, so why would she need to steal any paintings?
At the time that Gu Xiqiao returned to the school, three cla.s.ses had already gone by, and when Gu Xiqiao arrived, Old Ban was coincidentally coming out of the cla.s.s with a stack of papers.
He was stunned upon seeing Gu Xiqiao, and his first reaction was to drag her to the teacher"s office to question her.
All of the students in the cla.s.s watched as Old Ban led Gu Xiqiao away, and could only leave all of their gripes and complaints on their social media. Whenever they came across any posts that were throwing hate on Gu Xiqiao, they called argued with them like Gu Xiqiao was their idol.
These students were also checking on the broadcast of the press conference as cla.s.ses went on, and the teacher acted like he didn"t see them do so either. All of the students knew what happened, and they were all stunned by the outcome. It was completely unthinkable for Gu Xijin to do such a thing. Who would believe that the G.o.ddess of First City High was such a person?
And so they went through cla.s.ses without focusing on the topic that was being taught, but thankfully the teacher didn"t exactly seem to be focused on teaching, either.
When Gu Xiqiao returned to the cla.s.sroom, the lively cla.s.s was plunged into silence.
Gu Xiqiao glanced at them without saying a word, and placed her backpack on her desk and took out her papers as usual in preparation for the cla.s.ses that were going to start later in the day.
The boys in the cla.s.s pushed and nudged at each other, wanting to pick a representative to speak with Gu Xiqiao, but none of them dared to do so. Gu Xiqiao wasn"t in her school uniform today, and her light blue floral dress was the very image of first love in the eyes of all the boys in the cla.s.s, so none of them were brave enough to step up to her. Meanwhile, all of the girls had surrounded her immediately.
Thankfully, the bell rang again, and everyone returned to their seats.
Xiao Yun finally had the time to talk with Gu Xiqiao, and the latter responded to all of her questions without any reservations until the cla.s.s was almost over. Gu Xiqiao took out her phone and browsed a few more finance websites like usual.
As soon as the bell that signaled that cla.s.s ended rang, Xiao Yun nudged Gu Xiqiao"s arm gently and pointed towards the windows, where Wu Hongwen could be seen standing outside.
He was tall and handsome, and his figure in the hallway like a model had attracted the gazes of most of the girls in the cla.s.s.
Upon seeing this, the biology teacher allowed the students to leave.
The power of rumors and gossip in high school was unparalleled, and in a mere two days, the incident of Gu Xijin had become common knowledge to everyone in First City High.
Gu Xijin"s image had been too perfect and spotless before this, so much so that none of the students believed the news at first. After that, they realized that this news couldn"t have been fake—The Gu Family wouldn"t let fake news about their precious heir float on the internet without taking any action!
Even though a few fans of Gu Xijin didn"t believe that she was such a person, but most of the students were quite rational about this. As great as the image she had been upholding had been, who knew about what happened in the complicated social circles of upper society?
It was a fact that Gu Xijin had been absent from school for the past two days, that was for sure.
But the public was more interested in Gu Xiqiao.
This illegitimate daughter that seemed to have come out from nowhere was even more dazzling than her sister, her painting getting praised by the princ.i.p.al of the N City Art Academy and even getting sent to a national level art exhibition.
In the past two days, dozens upon dozens of reporters wanted to interview Gu Xiqiao but were all turned down.
And so, they all started to change their interview subjects to Gu Xiqiao"s cla.s.smates, who all praised her profusely as if she were a G.o.ddess as soon as they got a chance, in true fandom fas.h.i.+on.
These students all described Gu Xiqiao so perfectly that the reporters didn"t believe in them, and so they s.h.i.+fted their focus onto other pa.s.sersby and people that were loosely related to First City High. One of them was coincidentally the genius of First City High that had gotten first place in every exam ever since he was enrolled, as well as mult.i.tudes of prizes and trophies. The bespectacled young man stopped in his steps as he heard the reporter"s questions, and said a single sentence, "Ms. Gu is a very good person, and is smarter than I am."
He seemed to have been in a rush, so he immediately left.
But it was this simple sentence that thrown even the students of First City High into confusion.
This exam robot had never bothered to smile or get involved with any extracurricular activities, the very image of a nerd with thick gla.s.ses. It was hard to even catch sight of him usually, and he would go work part-time at KFC whenever he had the time to do so. Many education channels had wanted to interview him on many occasions but were always turned down, but he spoke up for Gu Xiqiao uncharacteristically.
And so, the students at First City High developed a strange sense of respect towards Gu Xiqiao.
The reporter that got the scoop immediately edited together the video clips of the interviews along with several pictures of Gu Xiqiao, and broadcast it that night on the news. Most of the people that watched weren"t all that interested in the interviews but were quite taken by the pictures of Gu Xiqiao.
On the internet, this video and the pictures of GU Xiqiao quickly became viral, and this beautiful yet pure girl became the belle of the internet.
Gu Xiqiao had no idea that any of this was happening as she walked together with Xiao Yun and Wu Hongwen. Suddenly, Wu Hongwen asked, "Why would Luo Wenlang speak up for you? It"s hard for him to even speak a single word in our cla.s.s, and he sometimes even flat out ignores us when we ask him questions! He goes working whenever he has the time and goes missing at every other moment, and that was the first time I heard him speak so much!"
Xiao Yun also cast a questioning gaze at Gu Xiqiao.