By the end of the week, XinYue stopped correcting people.
Not because the rumors were true—
but because they were too detailed to fight.
"She waits for him after class." "She changes routes just to see him." "She's desperate."
Each sentence carried confidence, like facts backed by proof. Like her silence was an admission.
Zhao Xia slammed her notebook shut one afternoon.
"They're rewriting you," she said. "And you're letting them."
XinYue smiled faintly.
"Let them," she replied. "They don't listen anyway."
The worst part wasn't the names they gave her.
It was how they questioned her character.
A girl whispered loudly behind her,
"Imagine being that shameless."
Another laughed.
"Poor Li Hanyan. Doesn't even know she exists."
XinYue kept walking.
She learned quickly—humiliation doesn't need an audience.
It just needs repetition.
Li Hanyan noticed when she stopped taking the longer hallway.
Noticed when Zhao Xia walked half a step closer to her than usual.
Noticed when teachers suddenly started separating certain groups.
One lunch break, as the same girls crowded near XinYue's desk again, voices sharp and careless, something shifted.
A sudden announcement.
A call for volunteers.
Names read aloud—not theirs.
The group dispersed, irritated, interrupted.
XinYue didn't see who spoke to the teacher beforehand.
But later, as she passed the notice board, she overheard someone mutter,
"He hates drama."
She looked up.
Li Hanyan was standing there, reading something else, completely uninterested in the chaos he'd quietly ended.
That evening, messages spread again.
"She thinks he saved her." "She's imagining things now."
XinYue stared at the screen, then locked her phone.
They could invent whatever version of her they wanted.
But one thing was clear now—
She was no longer alone in the silence.
And sometimes, protection doesn't look like confrontation.
Sometimes, it looks like someone choosing not to let the story go any further.