Chapter 364: Repaying the Money
Chapter 364: Chapter 364: Repaying the Money
Xu Xianhui didn’t know how she made it back to her dorm. She sat on her bed in a daze, her mind filled with Cao Dong’s humiliating words.
"Xu Xianhui, aren’t you so high and mighty? Didn’t you look down on me? Now you’re begging me, all for a little bit of filthy money?"
"Xu Xianhui, you’re so damn cheap!"
"Xu Xianhui, I look down on you now. To me, you’re no different from a maggot in a filthy gutter."
...
The words exploded in Xu Xianhui’s mind, one after another, and she clutched her head in agony.
Humiliation, indignation, rage...
All these emotions swirled inside her until she couldn’t stop herself from letting out a loud scream.
’Cao Dong was so obviously in love with me before. He would have torn out his heart to prove it. I could be arrogant and dismissive with him, but how did it all change in an instant?’
’How could Cao Dong do this to me?’
’And Su Qing. It’s all Su Qing’s fault. If Su Qing had just lent me the money, I never would have had to go begging to Cao Dong. And if I hadn’t gone to him, how could I have been humiliated and degraded like this?’
’That’s right, it’s all Su Qing. Everything is Su Qing’s fault. She’s the one who did this to me!’
At that very moment, Xu Xianhui wanted nothing more than to tear Su Qing to pieces.
"Hey, Xu Xianhui, what are you doing? Are you crazy?" A roommate who had just gotten back from class was startled the moment she entered the dorm, taken aback by Xu Xianhui’s agonized scream.
Xu Xianhui was not on good terms with her roommates. She had a habit of borrowing money and not paying it back, then trying to borrow even more. Whenever they pressed her about it, she would act like a victim who had been deeply wronged. It had gotten to the point where no one in the dorm wanted to deal with her. For her part, Xu Xianhui kept a low profile because of her debts, trying her best to go unnoticed. As a result, her roommates mostly just ignored her.
Today, however, Xu Xianhui had given them a real shock. Adding this to their usual frustrations, they couldn’t help but lash out.
"What’s it to you? I can do what I want. Who are you to tell me otherwise?" Xu Xianhui, heart brimming with rage, shouted back at her roommate.
"What is wrong with you, Xu Xianhui? You scare someone and you think you’re in the right?" one of the more hot-tempered girls retorted.
"How did I scare you? Did I scream in your ear on purpose? You’re the one who came over here and got scared. What’s that got to do with me? You’re the ones with the problem," Xu Xianhui said furiously.
"Look at her, just look. And to think we used to help her. We were helping an ungrateful viper," the hot-tempered girl said angrily to her other roommates. "We must have been blind to feel sorry for a treacherous snake like her."
The other girls were also furious, and they all glared at Xu Xianhui.
Not to be outdone, Xu Xianhui glared right back. "What are you staring at? Think you have big eyes?"
"If you’re so tough, Xu Xianhui, then how about you don’t owe people money? Why don’t you pay back what you owe us?" one of the roommates retorted angrily.
Money!
Xu Xianhui gritted her teeth. All told, she only had two hundred yuan in her pocket—money she’d obtained through incredible humiliation. She had to save it to pay back the high-interest loan; how could she possibly give it to her roommates?
"I don’t have it," Xu Xianhui said, gritting her teeth.
"Hah! The moment anyone mentions paying up, you say you have nothing." The hot-tempered girl had finally lost it. "I don’t believe for a second you don’t have a single cent on you. We were trying to be understanding of your difficulties, so we stopped hounding you for the money. We thought, we’re all classmates, we should cut you some slack. But look at you today! You really think we’re pushovers, don’t you? Fine, I’ll see for myself whether you have any money or not."
With that, she lunged forward to search Xu Xianhui’s pockets.
There was no way Xu Xianhui was going to let her. She had those two hundred yuan in her pocket! She immediately gave the girl a hard shove. "What right do you have to search my pockets?"
Xu Xianhui’s reaction pushed her roommates over the edge. They all swarmed her at once. "We’ll see about that! Let’s find out if you’ve been deliberately stiffing us on your debts."
"You... don’t go too far!" Xu Xianhui desperately clutched at her pockets, but there was no way she could fight off several people at once.
In no time, the two hundred yuan were fished out of her pocket.
"Well, I’ll be. You owe us so much money and refuse to pay, we really thought you were broke. Turns out you’re walking around with two hundred yuan while crying poor to us. You’ve got some nerve, Xu Xianhui." Seeing the two hundred yuan pulled from her pocket, the roommates grew even more furious. Since they all lived together, they had all helped her out as much as they could when she’d asked for money. Even the person who lent the least gave four or five yuan. Between all of them in the room, they had lent her nearly forty yuan.
They had never gotten that nearly forty yuan back. It would have been a miracle if they weren’t furious upon seeing two hundred yuan now.
"Give it back! I need that money!" Seeing the cash, Xu Xianhui looked like she was about to lose her mind. She lunged forward to snatch it back.
Her roommates weren’t about to let her get her way. One of them said, "Don’t worry, we won’t take any more than what you owe. We’re just taking back our own money."
The commotion between Xu Xianhui and her roommates had long since drawn a crowd. When the onlookers saw that she actually had two hundred yuan in her pocket, they were all stunned. Everyone knew she supposedly never had money to pay people back.
"Go get the others! Anyone else who lent Xu Xianhui money, tell them to hurry over and get it back!" someone in the crowd urged. "This is a now-or-never chance. Who knows if you’ll ever see your money again otherwise."
It was that time of day—not long after classes had ended, but not yet time for dinner—so many students had just gotten back to their dorms. Hearing the commotion, they all came running. Naturally, those who had lent money to Xu Xianhui rushed over as well.
The news spread like wildfire, from one person to the next, and soon, the story of how Xu Xianhui had money but refused to pay her debts was all over campus.
Meanwhile, Xu Xianhui was mobbed by the friends and classmates from whom she’d borrowed money. There was no way she could fend off so many people. Soon, the eighty yuan she had borrowed was taken back in full. Even for those who couldn’t make it in time, friends collected the money on their behalf to be passed on later.
"The rest is here." A roommate placed the remaining 122.80 yuan on Xu Xianhui’s bed. "We didn’t take a cent more than what you owed us; we only took back our own money. Count it yourself. You should know exactly how much you borrowed from us. You’ve paid us back today, so from now on, we’re even."
Xu Xianhui stared at the remaining hundred-odd yuan, her heart filled with grief and indignation. She shoved the money into her pocket and glared furiously at her classmates. "You’re all ganging up on me! Every single one of you! I hate you!"
With that, Xu Xianhui ran out of the dorm without a single look back.