“Exactly.”
Nolan continued, “Humans learn a language through prolonged exposure. If you go abroad for two years and interact with foreigners every day, you’ll learn Straonesh too. That’s the difference between you and Sarah.”
“But where am I going to find foreigners to talk to me every day?”
As soon as Elena finished her question, Nolan stared at her.
“You… you can’t possibly mean yourself, right?”
“Is it that strange?”
“…”
Elena felt a little embarrassed and touched her nose.
Yes… it is kind of strange.
“It’s not just me, but also Henry, Colton, and Lewis.”
Nolan said, “I’ll send them a message tomorrow and ask them to speak Straonesh with you whenever we meet. Naturally, you’ll learn faster that way.”
Hearing this, Elena was taken aback and asked, “Are their Straonesh grades really that good?”
“Elena, are you completely uninterested in your classmates’ grades in various subjects?”
Because of what Nolan said, Elena immediately took out her phone to check the rankings from the last monthly exam.
She was shocked by what she saw.
The rankings were quite surprising, Henry was sixteenth in the entire grade, Colton was eighteenth, and Lewis was eighth!
Elena was stunned.
I had never paid attention to their academic performance before, and they scored this good.
“Why are you guys, with such good grades, in Class Six?” Elena asked, puzzled.
They can easily thrive in Class One and won’t have to endure the disdain of the whole school in Class Six.
Nolan replied indifferently, “Not everyone wants to be in Class One. Besides, if we didn’t study, we’d corrupt the students in Class One.”
“So it turns out that the students in Class One should thank you guys?” Elena never expected that everyone in Class Six was so talented and had hidden strengths.
“Before the SAT, I’ll help you improve your grades, so until then, you have to stick with me every step of the way,” Nolan said.
His words stirred an unfamiliar emotion inside Elena. By the time she realized it, Nolan had already leaned back on the bed.
Meanwhile, inside the school’s study group chat, a heated discussion suddenly erupted.
Student 1: “No way, right? Is it true? They went to a hotel room?”
Student 2: “Of course it’s true. My uncle is the manager of the Season Hotel! He saw them with his own eyes last night!”
Student 3: “I knew it. How could both of them have a fever at the same time?”
…
Elena opened her phone and saw that people were discussing fiercely inside. She didn’t know who had the guts to tag her, but the group immediately became noisy and mocking again.
Student 1: “You actually dared to tag her! That’s hilarious. I bet the two of them are still in bed right now, aren’t they?”
Student 2: “People from Class Six are just dirty. They’re only in the second year of high school and already going to a hotel. They really should be arrested!”
…
Elena’s eyebrows furrowed.
The fact that I and Nolan were staying here should have been a secret.
She took a closer look at the sentence “my uncle is the manager of the Season Hotel” and then opened the avatar of the person who wrote it.
She immediately realized who it was.
This girl is a die-hard fan of Sarah. In my previous life, she had always been obsequious to Sarah, who merely used her as a little follower and played a fake, plastic sisterhood with her. As a result, this girl had repeatedly helped Sarah against me.
Elena didn’t hesitate and reported the group chat right away. Then she took screenshots of all the chat records and sent them all to Zayden without missing a single one.
Ding-ding–
On this side, Zayden’s phone received all the screenshots sent by Elena.
He just took a look and saw that every single one of them contained discussions about Elena and Nolan that were unbearable to hear.
Although Elena didn’t say anything else and only sent the screenshots, Zayden understood what she meant.
“Zayden… we should hurry back to school. It wouldn’t be good if the teacher called Madam Grace because you left without any reason,” Sarah said in the car, completely unaware that Zayden had already seen the screenshots from the study group chat.
Since Zayden was the second in his grade, the content of the study group was useless to him, and he also found it noisy, so he never looked at it.
“Sarah, did you tell people that Elena and Nolan were at the Season Hotel?”
Since a while ago, Sarah had been constantly using her phone to contact others. Although I didn’t know who it was, she had never been idle.
“What? Elena and Nolan at the Season Hotel? I don’t know anything about that.”
Sarah’s expression was a bit stiff as she tried to pass it off.
But Zayden’s gaze grew colder, and he put the screenshots on his phone in front of Sarah, saying coldly, “Only you and I know about this. Are you still going to lie to me?”
“But this person said that his uncle is the hotel manager. What does that have to do with me, Zayden? You can’t wrong me like this…”
Sarah looked very wronged, but Zayden’s eyes darkened, “How could her uncle possibly know Elena and Nolan? And why would he talk about it with his own relatives? Sarah, this lie is too clumsy.”
Sarah’s face turned ugly instantly, “Zayden, I…”
“Sarah, do you have any idea how much impact your actions could have?”
“Zayden, I just had a chat with this girl. I didn’t expect her to post it in the study group…”
Sarah lowered her head and said miserably, “Zayden, I really just made a mistake. Please don’t be angry with me.”
Zayden looked at Sarah in front of him, and his gaze darkened.
I had never thought that Sarah was bad before. I just felt that Sarah needed my protection more than Elena. But I never expected that Sarah would do such a thing. I don’t believe that Sarah doesn’t know how fast gossip could spread in the school’s study group.
“Sarah Delaney, you’ve really disappointed me.”
Zayden changed the way he addressed her, and Sarah was stunned. She looked up in disbelief and saw Zayden say coldly, “Stop the car.”
The driver stopped the car, and Zayden got out without any hesitation.
“Zayden!”
Sarah also quickly got out of the car and tried to follow behind Zayden, “Zayden…”
But Zayden scolded, “Don’t follow me!”
Sarah stood alone in the spot.
Zayden had never spoken to me in such a tone before.
Meanwhile, Zayden was in his thoughts.
I had never known before that Sarah actually didn’t like Elena.
I only knew that Sarah always protected Elena and would tell me things about Elena. I had always doted on Sarah like a neighbor’s younger sister.
But I had no idea that Sarah had been hurting Elena all along, with me as an accomplice.
He took out his phone, intending to call Elena. But after glancing at the sparse conversation history between them, his hand froze mid-dial.
In Elena’s heart… Did she see me as the same kind of person as Sarah?
That must be why Elena had sent me the screenshots without saying a word.
By Monday, Nolan was able to walk normally again, though he still couldn’t leave the hotel to rest.
Elena didn’t want to fall behind in her studies, so she went to school as usual. The schoolmates looked at her with strange eyes, their gazes almost blatant.
“Stop staring!” Henry suddenly stepped out from the side, shielding Elena behind him and frowning as he said, “If you keep looking, I’ll gouge your eyes out!”
Elena was taken aback.
Henry had never been so fierce in class before.
But the other students seemed to know how formidable he could be, and no one dared to look at Elena anymore.
After the other students in the hallway had left, Henry turned to Elena and asked, “Elena, how are you? Were you really sick these past few days? Are you feeling better?”
“Thank you for protecting me like this,” Elena said.
Seeing Elena’s usual expression, Henry seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and said, “We’re all friends. It’s only natural to look out for each other.”
Seeing Elena smile, Henry hesitated and then said, “Nolan…”
“You saw it too?”
Of course. The study group chat was almost entirely filled with discussions about me and Nolan. It would have been hard not to see.
Henry frowned and said, “They’re all just spreading rumors. One day, I’ll expose them all and give them a good beating!”
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