My Girlfriend is a Cold and Aloof Sickly Beauty 173

Chapter 173: A Grasshopper After Autumn

“The president of the Traditional Chinese Music Club seems like a normal person, for now.”

After waiting for a while and not receiving a reply from Shen Xianyue, Jiang Xue first shared her opinion with Xiao Luohan. “I currently think she just has bad judgment, and since she’s a new president of a relatively new club, and that Crown Prince is putting on a good show, perhaps even with the Huang family backing him up… wait, that also fits!”

Wasn’t the Crown Prince in the ancient world also backed by the Daying royal family?!

Xiao Luohan listened quietly, watching Jiang Xue’s changing expressions.

She was grateful for the calming medicine in this world, which allowed her to face the modern-day Crown Prince calmly and deduce how he might use his disguise to manipulate the girl beside him.

“Then, if we give her a hint, will she see through his true nature?” she asked curiously.

“Not necessarily, relationships usually don’t start without a reason. Even love at first sight is because of being attracted by the other person’s appearance or temperament, a natural filter,” Jiang Xue shook her head. “As for relationships besides love at first sight, there are usually more complicated stories behind them.”

“However, the seed of doubt has probably been planted. Now it depends on whether Shen Xianyue is truly oblivious, or if she’s acting with the Crown Prince to deceive us.”

There were no quotas for club recruitment. They could recruit as many members as they could, even two people could form a club.

Being willing to spend time designing flyers and manning a booth under the scorching sun showed the club leaders’ dedication.

Because of this, unless they encountered truly unreasonable newcomers, every club was very welcoming during recruitment.

Inside the club classroom, Shen Xianyue pursed her lips, frowning as she read Jiang Xue’s messages.

Tao Wu’s attitude towards this new student… no, Xiao Luo hadn’t even been admitted to N University yet, so she should still be a high school student. Anyway, his attitude had indeed been inappropriate.

Although Shen Xianyue was usually tolerant, when it came to matters of principle, she was always fair and just.

In her opinion, Tao Wu’s attitude today had been atrocious, as if he had intended to disgust and drive people away from the very beginning. This was completely different from his usual easygoing and unassuming demeanor.

She couldn’t refute Jiang Xue’s accusations, and those words, which hit the nail on the head and stirred up her own accumulated dissatisfaction with her boyfriend, made her reconsider their relationship, and whether… she should end it soon.

“Yue Yue?” a soft voice came from the doorway, and a light blue figure approached her. It was Yun Chanchan. “Are you alone? Where’s Tao Xuechang (senior)?”

Shen Xianyue hesitated for a few seconds. “He has an anatomy class and is already preparing in the classroom.”

“So? He just left you with this mess?” Yun Chanchan’s voice was naturally gentle and soft, but at this moment, it was like a needle pricking Shen Xianyue’s heart. “It’s so nice to be a medical student, your class schedule is above everything else. Since he has such an important class later, why deliberately offend people during the recruitment fair?”

Seeing Shen Xianyue’s gloomy expression and silence, Yun Chanchan sat beside her and continued slowly, “I thought Tao Xuechang was acting strangely just now, so I searched for his and that ‘rising internet star’ Xiao Luo’s M-Station accounts. Xiao Luo’s follower count is twenty times his!”

“My roommates who are into fan culture are very familiar with this kind of thing. They followed some clues and investigated. They originally just wanted to see if he had used alternate accounts to smear Xiao Luo’s reputation, but they found that not only did he secretly donate to a fitness livestreamer using an alternate account, but he also used suggestive language during their interactions. Look, my roommate even found a clip made by CP fans—it happened last month.”

Shen Xianyue abruptly looked up at her, her face alternating between pale and flushed as she listened to the vulgar language from the phone.

“Actually, it’s very easy to find these alternate accounts. ‘Big data’ is terrifying now,” Yun Chanchan continued, seemingly oblivious to her expression, as the video played. “He has always maintained a ‘peaceful and quiet’ persona without any scandals, probably because he’s not popular enough? But with a little effort, it’s like stirring up a hornet’s nest, uncovering a whole bunch of dirty secrets.”

“…Have you been wanting to tell me this for a long time?” Shen Xianyue finally asked.

“Before investigating, I just instinctively disliked him, but I couldn’t explain why. You thought his looks and temperament were good, and you wanted to try dating him. As your friend, I had nothing to say.”

Turning off the CP fan’s video clip, Yun Chanchan looked into her eyes seriously. “But after investigating, my intuition and worries were confirmed, so I had to show you the evidence that ‘he’s not a good person.'”

She didn’t express her expectations or give any advice, just honestly stated her past and present feelings after presenting the evidence.

Jiang Xue asked her homeroom teacher for leave, saying that an important family member was seriously ill and needed her care, so she wouldn’t be participating in the final military training observation.

Even though the “welcome party” that night was something she had been looking forward to, Xiao Luo was more important.

That evening, after returning home, she asked Uncle Seuss to send her a monitoring plugin. As long as M-Station was open, it would notify her if any videos with specific keywords were posted.

Around 8:00 PM, during peak internet usage, the plugin notified her of a video titled “Click to see Xue Luo acting arrogantly” being quietly posted, with paid promotion already in effect.

“Such a clumsy smear campaign…” Jiang Xue muttered, seeing that the account that posted the video was newly registered, and clicked on it.

It was filmed from a so-called “passerby’s perspective,” the kind that would be labeled “illegally filmed” in the news. The editing was skillful, only keeping the part where Tao Wu had deliberately mispronounced “Traces” as “No Traces,” and the two girls’ subsequent apology, but the order of the audio and the actual events was deliberately reversed.

And in contrast, it showed Xiao Luohan turning around and pulling Jiang Xue away without saying a word.

The account that posted the video said in the description: “Just sharing, I’m a girlfriend fan of Luo Wife, and seeing Wife visit the Traditional Chinese Music Club at our school, I couldn’t help but record it, hoping to witness a historic moment, but then… I was shocked. The internet really gives some shameless streamers too much of a filter!”

Although the video had only been posted for a few minutes, there were already dozens of comments, clearly bot-generated, with nonsensical and incoherent sentences, yet it was still highly upvoted.

Jiang Xue was so angry she almost laughed. Fortunately, Uncle Seuss’s plugin didn’t require logging in, otherwise, she was afraid she would have started arguing in the comments section.

She directly sent the video link to the newly created group chat with her family and friends, asking for their help in finding the best way to deal with this.

Before they could even act, the plugin notified her that the official account of N University’s Traditional Chinese Music Club had reposted the video.

【N University Traditional Chinese Music Club Official Account: The complete content of this video actually shows our former president deliberately provoking and disrespecting a fellow enthusiast who came to inquire during the club recruitment fair. This video, however, uses selective editing to maliciously smear a popular new streamer on M-Station. This behavior is unacceptable, and our club will pursue this matter to the end. To prevent the spread of rumors and damage to the reputation of those involved, we have already submitted a report to M-Station.】

Jiang Xue: ?

She suddenly heard a series of WeChat notifications and hurriedly checked the group chat.

【XiXi Drifting North: It seems there’s infighting. They’re cutting ties~】

【Yu Mu: Good riddance! That gay jerk is deceiving girls at such a young age, criticizing his current girlfriend’s dizi playing, suppressing her passion, while acting all cutesy with a male fitness streamer, it’s disgusting!!】

Although Dr. Qi usually had a fiery temper, she rarely cursed. The fact that her message was automatically censored by the system showed how angry she was.

【Sword: What about Huang Qi?】

【Yu Mu: She probably doesn’t know yet. If she did, she would have already bombarded me with messages, telling me not to believe it.】

【Yu Mu: Oh, speak of the devil, she just found out and is trying to defend her dear disciple :）】

【AA Sui’s Hair Salon: [I saw people watching the drama unfold, so I went to take a look.jpg][And then my house collapsed.jpg]】

【Hermes: They’re making a fuss over such a small matter, this is true hatred. I wonder how long they’ve been waiting for this opportunity.】

【Hermes: I suggest we also investigate Teacher Huang, to rule out the possibility of a teacher-student relationship [dog head]】

【Mu Mu Loves Stargazing: No need to rule it out, it’s true, it started after Dr. Qi and Teacher Sui got engaged.】

【AA Sui’s Hair Salon: Oh?】

【Yu Mu: ???!!】

The new gossip about the Crown Prince unearthed by the family group chat shocked Jiang Xue.

She was grateful for her older sister’s foresight. Considering that they couldn’t let Xiao Luo be “hurt” again, Xiao Luo wasn’t in this group chat and wouldn’t see this disgusting gossip.

While Jiang Xue was reveling in the drama, Xiao Luohan was already livestreaming her guqin practice in the study.

The music sounded peaceful for now. She didn’t know if it was because the medicine was still effective, or if she had simply stopped dwelling on it.

Jiang Xue had two windows open on her laptop, one for the monitoring plugin and the other for the livestream. She banned any comments that seemed to be stirring up trouble.

And she also reposted the statement from N University’s Traditional Chinese Music Club. The public had a keen eye, and even those who had seen the promoted smear video and came to the livestream with doubts would be directed to “Yu Xue’s” personal page to see the truth after a civil discussion with the fans.

Xiao Luohan quietly practiced for two hours. She didn’t look at the comments section, only thanking the donors before ending the stream, as usual, and wishing everyone goodnight.

She hadn’t explained the situation in the livestream or in a post.

It wasn’t that she didn’t think it was necessary to explain, but she only wanted to tell everyone the true reason for her leaving, which she couldn’t reveal.

Since that was the case, she would just focus on her current endeavors.

She was sincerely grateful to her friends and family who had protected her, who had all told her that the bad guys were like grasshoppers after autumn, their days numbered.