She is the Side Character! — Watch Her Change her fate!

Back in her room, Ah Chen called Hui Yu and briefly went over what had happened today.

Hui Yu said she would coordinate with the Shen Family to besiege the Dai Family. Once business was done, she asked after Ah Chen’s condition, and only then hung up.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be gentler, to coax her like a little girl, but after these days of contact, Hui Yu felt that the owner of the Qiao Family wasn’t that fragile.

Her duty was to hold the Qiao Family, and she had plenty to deal with every day. Since Miss Qiao was fine, there was no need for her to be too distracted.

These days there were plenty of people secretly trying to trip up the Qiao Family. Even if the old man had only asked her to do her best, saying he had many arrangements and wouldn’t let his granddaughter end up impoverished, she still wanted to do more.

Only when Miss Qiao grew up and she could personally hand the Qiao Family over to her would her task be considered complete.

She knew about what had happened at the Qiao Family Villa some time ago—the butler had been changed, and the Shen Family had helped Miss Qiao a great deal.

The Shen Family had indeed had a good relationship with the Qiao Family in the past, and for now they hadn’t done anything to hurt Miss Qiao, so naturally she had nothing to say.

Besides, she had no right to stop Miss Qiao from coming into contact with the outside world.

There really were many wolves out there, but if you wanted to live in this world, you really couldn’t just hide away.

Glancing at her phone, Hui Yu let out a long sigh, then went back to her company work.

During that time, she got a concerned call from her husband at home; she told him to go to bed first, as she probably wouldn’t make it back tonight.

Hearing her husband’s concern, and her daughter saying goodnight to her, a softer smile appeared on Hui Yu’s usually serious face.

Her husband and daughter both strongly supported her career; that was what she was most grateful for, and it filled her with motivation.

She was guarding the Qiao Family, but keeping the Qiao Family safe was also beneficial to her; it was her own career as well.

Monday.

Jiao Yu didn’t come.

Some classmates’ gazes flicked between Ah Chen and the empty seat beside her, obviously knowing what had happened.

It was only during the break between classes that Ah Chen heard the latest news about Jiao Yu.

Apparently her parents had come to process a leave of absence for her, and the homeroom teacher hadn’t stopped them. The teacher was also someone in the ”circle” and knew the truth of the matter; he felt what Jiao Yu had done was far too vicious and honestly had no mind to persuade her otherwise.

As for what would happen to Jiao Yu in the future, you could only say she’d got what she asked for; every consequence was her own choice.

Ah Chen’s words that day had been very clear already.

”I really didn’t expect Jiao Yu to do something like that.” A familiar voice suddenly sounded in her ear. Ah Chen turned her head and saw Xuan Wenwen, who was sitting in Jiao Yu’s seat. Propping her chin on her hand, Xuan Wenwen gave a slight shake of her head. ”I was there that day too. Things were pretty bad at the time, you probably didn’t notice.”

Ah Chen nodded. In truth, she’d already spotted Xuan Wenwen in the crowd, she’d just pretended not to.

Xuan Wenwen was also someone the barrage had mentioned, though compared to Jiao Yu she had much less ”screen time.”

It was completely normal for all kinds of ghouls and goblins to flock around the Commissioner; there were especially many people who wanted to curry favor with her and get close.

It was precisely because there were so many people approaching her with an agenda that the Shen Family seemed all the more pure and out of the ordinary.

In reality, being driven by利益 isn’t necessarily a bad thing when people come to suck up to you; it depends on how you use it. But that’s something only people with a certain amount of experience can understand. As long as a person is alive, they’re after something; everything they do has a purpose—it just depends what that purpose is.

If they don’t mean harm and only want to cling and curry favor, they might not be unusable. Under the drive of利益, these intricate, tangled relationships can instead become a kind of protection, making others afraid to act rashly.

A girl still as blank as a sheet of paper, who hadn’t grown up receiving the Qiao Family’s kind of education, and who had lost all her relatives—even if she had money, inside she would still be anxious, insecure, and lonely. Naturally she’d be impatient with, even disgusted by, those who approached her with目的.

She would see everyone as having impure motives, and among them, there were indeed those who got hurt by mistake.

”You treated Jiao Yu so well, and to think she could do something this vicious—it’s really chilling,” Xuan Wenwen said softly. ”If she’d just confessed everything to you, it wouldn’t have turned out like this. Honestly, I’d long noticed she was jealous of you. Back when you two were close, we were just classmates, so it really wasn’t our place to say anything.”

Ah Chen asked, ”How could you tell?”

”That’s what they mean by ’bystanders see things clearly,’” Xuan Wenwen said with a grin. Seeing how serious Ah Chen looked, she hurried to explain, ”Actually I just noticed it by chance. When you weren’t paying attention, the way she looked at you was really off—that look, I know it all too well.”

”I used to have a good friend too. Her family situation wasn’t that bad, but her life at home wasn’t great because her mom had remarried and taken her along. Naturally, she couldn’t compare to her stepfather’s biological child in anything. As for me, I had two brothers who doted on me, and I never thought that would make her jealous.”

”A lot happened in between before I finally saw her true colors.”

”Back then I was stupid too, always sticking my neck out for her. But every time I helped her fight for something, she’d say she never wanted that, and even advised me not to be so impulsive, using it to show how well-behaved and sensible she was.”

”At first I didn’t notice anything wrong. Later, when I suddenly realized my popularity was getting worse, I found out what was going on. I waited for a chance to fall out with her completely, and finally things quieted down.”

”Now lots of people know what she’s really like and won’t hang out with her anymore. She even came to find me later, saying she had her苦衷—if she wasn’t more magnanimous and sensible, she wouldn’t be able to stay in that house.”

”It honestly made me laugh to death. I couldn’t be bothered with someone like that. She clearly wanted those things herself but used me as a gun, and she thought I was that stupid? Getting burned like that once is enough; if you fall for it a second time, you’ve got pig brains.” Xuan Wenwen had clearly been furious back then; even now, talking about it, she was still angry.

Ah Chen laughed. ”Looks like we’re a bit in the same boat.”

”Yeah, otherwise I’d have felt too awkward to come talk to you. We’ve been classmates for over a year now, and I also know about your situation, so I really was afraid you’d misunderstand me,” Xuan Wenwen said with a hearty laugh; she was obviously a very lively type.

[What Xuan Wenwen’s saying is true, but she has her own reasons for getting close to the heroine too. It’s just that she doesn’t hurt people, so she’s not much different from those who are after the heroine’s family fortune.]

[She’s going for a ’frank and straightforward’ persona, right? Bringing up both sides’ identities directly, looking all calm about it. It really does make a good impression.]

[Yeah, you can clearly feel the heroine’s warmed up to her a lot more.]

Ah Chen glanced at the barrage and laughed to herself.

She could still tell whether people coming close to her were sincere or fake.

It was just that the Commissioner, like a startled bird, had no way to do that. She was afraid of everyone who tried to approach her from the outside world—especially after a good friend like Jiao Yu had betrayed her—so she relied more and more on the barrage and the Shen Family.

That was exactly what the mastermind behind the scenes wanted: to make her afraid of the outside world.