The bodyguard received the order and immediately acted. Mr. Zhao, upon receiving the message, was terrified, fearing his daughter had offended the Gu family, which would be akin to seeking death. The Gu family in Jing City could crush him like an ant. He scrambled home and, without a word, severely beat his daughter, who had brought such disaster upon their family.
If not for Mrs. Zhao's intervention, Zhao Huiran would have been beaten to death!
Mr. Zhao sat on the sofa, carefully dissecting every word the messenger had conveyed. He needed to satisfy them; how could he achieve that? His gaze fell upon his daughter.
Zhao Huiran publicly apologized to Ye Wan in the school's broadcast room, stating that everything she had previously said was born from her jealousy and speculation about Ye Wan. She admitted she had no evidence and had never witnessed Ye Wan doing anything improper. All of it, she claimed, was her subjective and malicious conjecture about her classmate, Ye Wan. She sincerely apologized to Ye Wan and hoped for her forgiveness.
As soon as the broadcast content was released, the students erupted in an uproar, all deeming Zhao Huiran excessively cruel for fabricating rumors out of jealousy and nearly ruining a person's most precious reputation.
Simultaneously, the school issued a notice regarding the punishment for Zhao Huiran and her three followers. The notice explicitly stated that anyone who dared to spread baseless rumors about their classmates would face severe penalties and would not be tolerated.
Jiang Yan called Ye Wan to inform her of the matter. Although it was good news, Ye Wan noticed a distressed tone in Jiang Yan's voice and asked, "What's wrong? Did something happen to you?"
Upon hearing Ye Wan's question, Jiang Yan burst into tears, sobbing, "My new phone was snatched, and by the time I found it, it was smashed! Why am I so unlucky? With so many people on the street, why did they only snatch mine... Wuwuwu, it was the matching couple's phone with yours."
Ye Wan was also shocked. That phone had cost over ten thousand yuan, and it was snatched and then broken?
"Did you report it to the police? What did they say? Can they find the person who snatched your phone?"
"I reported it, but it was useless. They couldn't find anyone. Forget it, I'll just consider myself unlucky," Jiang Yan said, genuinely upset.
"I'll refund you the money, and you can buy a new one."
"No, no, no. It has nothing to do with you that the phone was snatched and smashed. It's just my bad luck. How can I take your money?"
"But you only used it for a little over half a day."
"That's my own business. We settled the money and goods transaction at the time," Jiang Yan explained. She had called Ye Wan to vent her troubles, not to ask for money for the phone. Ye Wan would be losing out too much.
After they hung up, Ye Wan was quite puzzled. The public security in Jing City was very good now, especially near schools, where police booths were set up. She had never heard of phone snatchings.
Ye Wan glanced at the money she had transferred to Gu Yunting and Lin Zehan. Neither of them had accepted it. She put down her phone and went to take a shower. After showering, she collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
Being treated like this by Gu Yunting every day, she suspected she would eventually be worn to death by him.
...
In the study, Gu Yunting received the bodyguard's report that the phone had been smashed. Despite this, his mood remained foul. The mere thought of Ye Wan selling the phone he gave her and keeping Lin Zehan's made a fire rage within his chest, threatening to burn him to ashes.
"Young Master, I inspected the phone before smashing it. It was not the one you gave Miss Ye," the bodyguard reported dutifully.