Delinquent High

Chapter 42

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur for Wei Wuxian. Since he had missed nearly all of Saturday due to his fragile mental state and sleeping, he now had to make up for the lost time in redoubling his efforts to finish his homework. It was clearly stated in the rules that no school work or project could be turned in with delay or in unsatisfactory quality. Wei Wuxian did not dare to imagine what would he be sentenced to if he did not finish all his homework in time.

Luckily, he had been the given the proper environment to progress swiftly. Madame Yu's orders worked well in keeping the rest of the family from coming to disturb him.

Only Jiang Yanli had sneaked up the stairs at one point during Sunday and she had brought him her specially prepared soup. Wei Wuxian thanked her and sent her on her way with the excuse of having too much work to do. In reality, he had spent the next half an hour eating the soup and crying over how good it made him feel. The taste was of course excellent, as always, but more important to him were the intentions behind it.

His sister had not forsaken him because of what had happened at school. She must have known by then, he had after all finally handed his report card to Madame Yu. He was sure that she did not waste any time informing the rest of the family about how big of a troublemaker he was. But she came despite everything. Wei Wuxian could not believe his luck in having such a perfect older sibling.

Another thing which surprised him greatly was that Madame Yu had not insisted he went to eat with the family. He had been fully expecting her to order him to come down at least at mealtimes and rub the contents of the report card into his face in front of the everyone. Nothing like that happened however, on the contrary really. She was the one who was bringing all his meals up to his room. She even offered him to come down only if he wanted, assuring him that it depended on his own will.

Perhaps the weirdest thing was that she was not screaming at him, she had not come to punish him for fighting at school and tarnishing the good name of the Jiang family. She was acting oddly reserved and calm; Wei Wuxian would not go as far as to say that she was now treating him kindly, but it was the best she had ever done. It reminded him immediately of that dream he had had of her letting him cry on her shoulder. He refused to wonder whether it had indeed been a dream or reality.

The information about the adaptation period and the relief he had felt after it kept him going, motivated even. It was of course not that he was looking forward to Monday and another hellish day; he was sure that he would be punished for something regardless of how much he would be trying to stick to all 3000 rules. However, the knowledge that this kind of life was not for eternity, or for the year and a half of his high school, but just a few weeks, was giving him hope and keeping him from fully succumbing to his despair.

This weekend also made him realize just how deep he had fallen during the two days of school. Thinking back, he was now strangely ashamed of himself for letting everything get to him. He should have been stronger and simply ignored all the ostracization and subtle humiliation. In the end, it was not as if they could truly hurt him, unless he let them.

By Sunday evening, he had finished most of his school work, he had truly applied himself and was now proud of his achievement. No one would of course praise him for it, it was expected that he would be able to handle the same amount of homework as everyone else in the Delinquent High. It was in fact the other way around, if he did not succeed, he would be punished. However, it did not stop him from finally feeling better about himself and his hard work.

For almost half an hour, he was stressing over the question if he should go join his family for dinner. Even though he had not finished everything, he was pretty confident he would be able to before going to sleep. He longed for another normal moment.

He wanted to remind himself that despite feeling like his life was over and everyone and everything was against him, the world still went on as if nothing happened. He hoped it could help in further calming himself down and preparing for Monday. He was actually missing bickering with his brother and his sister's exasperated and kind interventions in those silly fights, the way Uncle Jiang asked all of them how they had been and what they had done at school.

But that was exactly what terrified him to the very marrow of his bones. He was not sure he would not crumble again if his family asked about his time at the Delinquent High. He could not tell them what was happening to him there and how he was all but destroying their family's reputation. How would he explain that what they had read in the report card had not been true? But it was the result of him not standing up against his teachers and not trying to defend himself when falsely accused?

No, that was not correct, Wei Wuxian frowned. It was not a completely false accusation. He had indeed been about to punch Jin Zixun in the face, he had just never been granted the satisfaction because Wen Zhuliu had stopped him. And now the whole school thought that he was a brutal criminal who would punch everyone upon meeting them.

Wei Wuxian's breath was becoming quicker and he could not help but to remember the punishment he had gotten to teach him not to stray out of line and think before doing anything. He had deserved to be put in his place, that much was clear, false accusation or not. He had almost caused real trouble; he could not forgive himself for only barely escaping having police called on him and shaming his family even further. It had been nothing short of a miracle that Madame Yu had not yet come to his room with her whip and had not reminded him herself about how he was supposed to act.

Wei Wuxian shook his head, dearly trying to find another topic to think about. He felt how he was slowly slipping back down into the stormy see of despair and panic. This would not do, his previous confident and mostly good mood was nowhere to be found, he was becoming a wreck again. So much for wanting to go enjoy a happy moment with his family. He did not deserve it, no leisurely dinners for him for a while.

With a deep sigh, he controlled his breathing. It would not help anyone if he broke mentally again. There was still some homework to finish, and then, he had to go to sleep, tomorrow would be another hard and painful day.

Once he closed his last notebook and ate the dinner Madame Yu had brought up to his room, he fell into his bed, utterly exhausted. He dearly wished tomorrow would never arrive, he did not want to go back to school. Even the thought of being able to see Lan Wangji did not make this any better, the anticipation was instead shrouded in fear of how his childhood friend would react to Wei Wuxian's tarnished reputation.