Banjaxed

Chapter 22 - Will bullying ever stop?

Chapter 22 

Will bullying ever stop?

"I lost years of my memory. I don't remember getting close to them, nor do I remember you other than being a fellow schoolmate. I'm told that I'm the one that harmed you, so then it's only right for me to stop it. I will do my best to help you," Lin Jiayi faithfully recited the reason she had carefully thought of to justify her behaviour.

"No wonder..." An Xuexi mumbled and her eyes, as she stared at Lin Jiayi, were complicated. Lin Jiayi guessed that she wanted to hate, but was unable to?

This Lin Jiayi that was currently standing before An Xuexi was one she had not seen many years ago. Before Jasmine took the lead to bully Lin Jiayi. She had the same clear eyes without polluted emotions that would make bad people feel jealous with the urge to destroy it.

What right do you have to remain clean when I don't?

"Why did you stop me earlier? If... if you tell the teacher, Melissa will stop," Lin Jiayi asked.

"And wave away my prospective job after graduating from school?"

Not everyone was afraid of the trio, and they also knew who they could bully and who they could not touch. Their choice of prey was orphans, who did not dare to report to the teacher because of the threats.

After all, it was the trio's parents who could influence their future when they needed to find a job, not the teachers who could only protect them as students. Teachers' recommendations for jobs were useless when they were not experts. The parents placed more belief in their child's recommendations, with the perception that their child has no reason to lie. Even if they did, the worst they could do was just not hire the child in question.

In her world, Lin Jiayi's future was considered half secured, as Lin Meili planned to introduce her to her workplace, the Shengzhang Public Library.

'Lin Jiayi' in this world was not the ideal prey as she still had a guardian, but she was still picked to be messed with after she stopped a bully once. Just as expected, 'Lin Jiayi' learned to fight back when the threat did not work on her. She was also not afraid of getting her hands dirty to punch and slap back. After almost two years of constantly fighting back, 'Lin Jiayi' did an extreme thing to be the top bully to end the fight once and for all. Yet her success required her to be constantly on her guard as she knew the trio were always waiting for her to reveal her weakness and use it to trample her again.

Her counterpart may think she could maintain this status quo, but she, being an outsider, could see things more clearly. In her opinion, Jasmine, the leader before 'Lin Jiayi' took over, had picked her 'friends' well. Sherly would help her speak, and Melissa would help her beat up someone. And now, 'Lin Jiayi' was the figurehead, the boss, to pin the blame on if things got bad.

Like committing arson or murder.

Lin Jiayi's back turned numb when she realized how scary Jasmine was, laying out the trap for 'Lin Jiayi', who was walking towards it blindly. Luckily, there was no big incident yet and Grandma Lin helped her to cut things off with the terrible trio. Now, she just had to make sure the cut was clean and tidy with no recurrence.

It was after Lin Jiayi stepped out of the school gate in a daze did she remembered she had not helped An Xuexi with her injuries.

Grandma Lin was waiting for her outside the school gate, and her smile dimmed when she saw her granddaughter looking out of sorts. "Jiajia? Did something happen?"

"Will bullying ever stop?" Lin Jiayi found it hard to speak about what happened and just asked a question. It was only after seeing An Xuexi being bullied did she ever questioned the system everyone had accepted without question.