Chapter 8: Self-Destruction

"Hello, fellow student." The questioner is a male junior, dressed in a Daquan University upperclassman’s uniform on this sweltering day, with sporadic dandruff standing in his hair, a greasy nose tip, and a glaring red pimple. The same affliction, a pimple on his face, evoked a completely different feeling than one on Hang Yishao’s face. Su Ziceng moved her feet uneasily backward. Many people thought she had a peculiar temperament and didn’t like to greet others; in truth, she was not good at socializing. Except for trading barbs with vixens like Chang’s mother and daughter, most of the time, she was not good with words. She’d rather sport a ‘keep away’ expression. Su Ziceng felt an urge to flee, but miraculously, her feet halted. Unlike the paralysis she experienced in "Qiu Sheng Jewelry," right now, those bizarre red ribbons seemed to be dragging her forward. "Excuse me, where is the records room?" Su Ziceng swiftly finished her query, choking on her own saliva due to her fast speech, forcing her face to redden. The junior male student sneaked a glance at Su Ziceng, noting her plain T-shirt paired with frosted blue denim shorts, showcasing a pair of captivatingly long legs, and the shiny red pimple on his nose seemed to gleam even brighter. A freshman, he turned and exchanged glances with several senior students—a freshman of high caliber. For the boys enrolling in Daoquan, one draw was the university’s prestigious name, which could lead to direct employment at Mo City’s major companies after graduation, and the other was to hunt for romantic opportunities on campus, and not to forget, Daoquan University was adjacent to Kelly Women’s College, a breeding ground for heiresses; nabbing just one could save them twenty years of toil. "First, student, fill out a form and leave your personal information. If you get admitted by our school, I will call to notify you," the pimpled male student said, looking at Su Ziceng standing under the sunlight, somewhat out of place amidst the crowd. "Is the registrar’s office in the same old place?" The girl who was almost swooning at the sight of daylight suddenly made her way through the crowd, her voice tinged with impatience, saying, "North, south, east, west," her gaze growing colder, making it clear she wanted nothing to do with the loud questioning students and parents around her. The pimpled male was still puzzling over the meaning of her ‘same old place’ when he saw her slender figure drift into the building like a ghost. "Hey, student, there’s no one inside." The registrar’s office was a spacious office. Back then, computers were not widespread, and most student records were kept on paper. Su Ziceng loitered around outside for a while, the clock pointing to one in the afternoon, the relentless sun scorching her nape, turning it a heated red. Inside, there was no sound. She looked around, then moved behind the office, afterwards kicking off her flat shoes. She took aim at a window and smashed through it forcefully. The alarm didn’t sound, and she smirked proudly, "Just like before, there’s still a blind spot." After entering Quan University, she would, at the end of every semester, join her sly friends studying at City College to sneak into the material management room and steal examination papers. After stealing from them so many times, she even had all the blind spots of the school’s surveillance and alarm system figured out. Having taken off her shoes, Su Ziceng moved as lightly as a cat. Silently, she entered the archive room, gazing at the piles of document folders. Her fingers fumbled through the files for a moment, then drew out a piece of paper, on the upper right corner of which was a photo of a face laughing unrestrained. Hang Yishao was eighteen in the picture; his cheeks still retained some of a child’s plumpness, innocence shimmered in his eyes, and invariably a few unruly locks of hair would slip over his smooth forehead. The warmth from Su Ziceng’s hand transferred to the photograph, leaving a smudgy, warm fingerprint, spattered and rich with a sense of history. Business department, Su Ziceng muttered to herself, flipping back a few more pages; she saw the face of a valedictorian, with a pointed chin and bright red lips. Her brows creased involuntarily—Deng Jiani, the department belle of Business Studies. Su Ziceng folded the paper harshly—the pointed chin folded together. Hang Yishao always favored tall women with big eyes and a voluptuous figure. From Deng Jiani onwards, they all seemed to be like that. Rationality told her now was not the time to dwell on these things. The priority was to quickly locate her student ID card. Indeed, Su Ziceng was not here at Quan University to reminisce about her alma mater, for she held not much affection towards it. Besides the memorial stele outside the college that recorded how much Chairman Su donated, Quan University had no other significance to her. Those friends who played, smashed, cursed, and revelled with her disappeared collectively once they learned that she would no longer have real power over the Su Family and that Hang Yishao no longer took her to various events. The following four years would be the years Su Ziceng carried out her youthful folly and ignorance to the fullest, intense like the odor of strong alcohol, sharp and stinging. The words of the appraiser just now made it clear to her; Hang Yishao’s attitude towards her was no different from the little stars by his side. If the little star was a piece of cheap jewelry from a street stall, then she, Su Ziceng, was at most a fur coat, seldom worn out. Although not simply discarded, ultimately, it would just wait to be filled with moth holes, hung up in a closet. She had searched through the entire file folder but still hadn’t found her student ID card. Supposedly, Su Qingzhang had made arrangements, and there shouldn’t be any mistakes. Su Ziceng cautiously checked the camera’s blind spot; her eyes fell on the floor, where a piece of paper lay abandoned and alone. Every formal student entering Daojing University had several pages filled with "great achievements" from their journey in academia, sealed with red ink as proof. Su Ziceng’s, however, consisted of just one sheet of paper. She had no talents or awards records to speak of; the only thing she could flaunt was her "male label." Before marriage, her "male label" was Su Qingzhang, and after marriage, it was Hang Yishao. So, when both labels peeled away simultaneously, she reverted to being a lone sheet of paper, simply inscribed with Su Ziceng, female, eighteen years old. The paper shredder "rumblingly" chomped away, shredding that casually discarded sheet of paper, and Su Ziceng picked up her shoes, gliding out the window like an elegant Persian cat. As she passed the hall of City College, she still heard the greeting from the student with acne: "Classmate, I can help you look up your student ID card. What is your name?" Behind her, a burst of well-meaning laughter followed. She slid into the white silhouette of the car, and as she closed the door, Su Ziceng leaned on the window and said softly, "Goodbye, Quan University."