From Broken Family to Life Winner: A Reborn Mother's Journey

Tattling to the professor was not Su Li’s style.

After she finished speaking, Su Li calmly packed her textbook and picked up her bag under the professor’s gaze. She then pulled Chang E to an empty spot in a front row and sat down.

The entire classroom fell silent.

Even the professor was speechless for a moment.

Qu An’s face turned pale, but in the end, he couldn’t utter a single word.

Only after a classmate pulled him back into his seat did he realize his legs were a bit weak and a chill was running down his spine.

The professor looked at the word ”whore” on the desk, then back at Qu An, his brows furrowing.

”After this class, the class president will go to the homeroom teacher to resolve this matter. And this desk—clean it up.”

Regardless of the reason, the professor couldn’t stand seeing a word like ”whore.”

Qu An’s chest heaved, and he didn’t answer right away.

The professor frowned. ”Where is the class president? Does this class not have one?”

Qu An held back his anger and replied, ”Professor, I refuse—”

Before he could finish, the professor cut him off with a shout.

”Refuse? Refuse what? What is this place? This is a school! A prestigious institution of higher learning that you should all be proud of! Should a word like that appear here?”

”Aren’t you ashamed looking at it? Do you think this is a wet market?”

The professor roared.

The students’ expressions all turned solemn, flashes of guilt on their faces.

Qu An’s face was a mixture of purple and green from rage and humiliation.

”Deal with it after class. Do you hear me?”

As the professor spoke, Qu An gritted his teeth and answered, ”Yes.”

”Alright, let’s begin the lesson.”

The professor started his lecture.

The way the other students looked at Su Li had completely changed. It was hard to describe, but it was incredibly complex.

The professor only got through half the planned material that class, because no one was paying attention.

Except for Su Li.

Chang E stared at Su Li beside her, her gaze a whirlwind of complex emotions.

It was the first time—the very first time—she had so clearly recognized the difference between Su Li and herself.

Su Li had always been an outstanding student, and she even ran a bookstore. Chang E had always known Su Li was capable and excellent.

But perhaps because Su Li’s usual demeanor was as gentle as a breeze, she and the other students from their work-study program, while respecting Su Li, had always just seen her as a friend.

Until this moment.

Chang E could clearly see the vast gap between herself and Su Li.

Su Li’s calmness in the face of conflict and her ability to react and handle the situation forced Chang E to see her in a new light.

She looked at the tranquil expression on Su Li’s face and took a deep breath.

’Su Li is a person with a past. Even though we eat and hang out together, she’s different from the rest of us.’

Many other students shared Chang E’s thoughts.

Whether what Qu An said was true or not, they were all stunned by Su Li’s reaction.

The one who spent the entire class simmering with rage was Qu An. He was about to die from anger and frustration, but he could only force himself to endure it.

When class was over, he had to swallow his anger and wash away the ink he had splashed.

The moment class ended, Su Li was called away by the professor. In the entire classroom, no one spoke except for the two students who had helped Qu An.

Qu An gritted his teeth as he washed the desk, his heart filled with even more hatred.

He didn’t feel he’d done anything wrong. To him, it was clearly Su Li who had skillfully hidden the truth and deceived him. It was his pure, innocent feelings that had been defiled.

’Su Li is a divorced woman. She was already impure, already a whore. What did I do wrong?!’

Qu An seethed with resentment. ’I’ll make Su Li pay!’

While Qu An was fuming, Su Li was meeting with her homeroom teacher.

The homeroom teacher had seen Su Li’s file and was the only one who knew from the beginning that she was divorced. As soon as the professor explained the situation, he understood what had happened.

He didn’t waste any words with Su Li, but got straight to the point.

”The other students will probably be talking about this for a while. Try not to let it get to you too much.”

”I’ll be fine. I just hope they don’t go too far. If they say things that are too insulting, I might not be able to pretend I don’t hear them.”

The homeroom teacher chuckled at Su Li’s reply. ”I will do my best to prevent what happened today from occurring again. It’s best that you can be so open-minded about it.”

The homeroom teacher was relieved he wasn’t dealing with a student who would cry, make a scene, and threaten to kill herself. With a typical student—forget a girl, even most boys—they probably wouldn’t be as calm as Su Li.

’This kind of student, I like!’

’Makes my life easier.’

After Su Li left, the homeroom teacher called Qu An in for a talk and gave him a harsh reprimand.

When Qu An came out of the homeroom teacher’s office, he was shrouded in gloom.

He toned it down a lot after that, but only on the surface. In private... it was a different story.

In the following days, Qu An did everything in his power to privately spread the ”fact” that Su Li was a divorced ”whore,” slandering and insulting her in every way possible.

Then, he very quickly found a new girlfriend. She had already been interested in him, so they hit it off immediately.

Qu An made a big show of their relationship, flaunted his wealth, and praised his new girlfriend’s purity, never forgetting to trample on Su Li in the process.

He said many nasty things in private and even calculated every cent he had spent on Su Li, from treating her to meals to buying her drinks. He didn’t let the cost of a single bottle of soda slide.

”I must have been blind! If I’d known, I would’ve just fed that money to the dogs!”

”A total whore, acting all innocent at school day in and day out. Ptooey!”

Many of the boys who had secret crushes on Su Li didn’t join in on the cursing, but they didn’t speak up for her either.

Although Qu An’s words were harsh, he wasn’t wrong.

They liked pure girls, not a...

In this conservative era, many of the boys felt that Qu An was right.

Qu An treated his classmates to drinks, and as he got drunk, his words became more and more out of line.

”I feel sick just thinking that I used to like her. She dared to call me disgusting? She’s the disgusting one!”

”A whore like her isn’t even fit to carry my shoes. I wouldn’t take her even if she was offered to me for free.”

A classmate chimed in, ”Isn’t that the truth? With Qu An’s family background and talent, so many pure girls are into him.”

Qu An laughed. ”My family is of a certain status. A woman like her... Ptooey... She’d better not fall into my hands in this lifetime.”

”She looks so pure, but who knows how many men she’s slept with? We’ve never heard her mention her family, yet she owns a bookstore and is always dressed well and eating well!”

Qu An slammed his hand on the table. ”She must have scammed that money from somewhere, just like how she tried to scam me! If I hadn’t been more vigilant, I might have been fooled by her long ago.”

Qu An continued his drunken tirade, turning Su Li into a woman who made money by scamming men, all based on his own wild imagination, slandering her in every possible way.

Three tables away, at a table of girls in the corner, one of them who had been eating with her head down finally couldn’t help but speak up.

”Isn’t he going too far...? I can’t even listen to this anymore.”

These were a few girls from the same class. They had finally come out to treat themselves to a nice meal, only to be subjected to Qu An’s ranting.

Many of the female students were very conservative. Knowing that Su Li was divorced made them feel uneasy as well.

But conservative or not, listening to Qu An slander her like this felt excessive.

The meal lost its flavor for them.

Starting the next day, the baseless speculations Qu An had spouted began to circulate quietly in private.

Many people started looking at Su Li through prejudiced eyes.

Of course, even more students simply fell silent.