Liu Hanyan's breathing hitched; that light, rhetorical question struck like an invisible, heavy hammer, smashing against all the beliefs she prided herself on.
A doctorate degree? A teaching position at Yan University? These top-tier bargaining chips, which she could offer and which would make any ordinary student ecstatic and grateful, were utterly worthless in this man's eyes?
Then… what did he want?
Her mind raced, fear and humiliation intertwining into an impenetrable net, making it almost impossible for her to think.
She forced herself to calm down, and with her last shred of rationality, she threw out what she believed to be her ultimate trump card.
“Alright, Lu Xuan, you’re ruthless,” she gritted her teeth, her voice trembling slightly from the effort. “As long as you delete everything, I can promise that after you graduate, you can stay at the university directly, serve as a counselor, and enter an administrative position.”
“This is already the limit of what you, a student, can achieve in your life! I advise you to quit while you’re ahead, don’t push me!”
By the end, she seemed to have regained a sliver of confidence, and her eyes turned fierce: “Worst case, we’ll both go down! I’ll call the police right now and accuse you of trespassing into my office, molesting me, and tearing my clothes! Even if it’s not fully investigated, a student who assaults a teacher will absolutely be expelled!”
“At most, my reputation will be damaged, and I’ll spend a few years inside. Once the storm passes, Liu Hanyan will still be Liu Hanyan! By then, I’d like to see what you’ll use to fight me!”
Her words echoed in the silent office, sounding outwardly fierce but inwardly weak.
Lu Xuan listened, the playful smile on his face deepening. He even chuckled softly, shaking his head, as if looking at a child throwing a tantrum without any strategy.
“Teacher, did you forget something?” Lu Xuan slowly put out his cigarette, stood up, and approached her step by step. “You’ll call the police? Alright. What will they say when they arrive? Should they watch these videos?”
With each sentence he spoke, he took another step forward.
Liu Hanyan’s face grew paler with each step, and she subconsciously retreated until her back pressed against the cold door again, with nowhere left to go.
“You’ll spend a few years inside and still be Liu Hanyan when you come out?” Lu Xuan’s voice dropped, carrying a cold, dissecting cruelty. “But what about your father? Mr. Liu Jie, the Executive Vice President of Yanjing University. Can he continue to be a Vice President? How will his colleagues view him? How will the entire education community talk about him?”
“An educator who can’t even teach his own daughter, letting her become a female streamer on an overseas live-streaming platform? His face, your entire Liu family’s face, do you still want it?”
“So, Teacher…” Lu Xuan had already reached her, looking down at her. The playfulness in his eyes was gone, replaced only by the purest desire and control. “What I’m interested in has never been those things you mentioned.”
Liu Hanyan completely collapsed.
Every word from Lu Xuan was like a precise scalpel, dissecting all her pretenses and cutting off her last retreat.
She looked at the handsome yet demonic face so close to her, and at his undisguised, aggressively piercing eyes.
A thought that chilled her to the bone finally surfaced.
“What… what exactly do you want to do…?” Her voice was as thin as a mosquito’s buzz, filled with desperate trembling.
Lu Xuan smiled.
“Teacher, why are you covering yourself?” His gaze fell on her hands, which were tightly clutching her clothes. He shook his head. “I have all the recordings here, from your first live stream to the most recent one, from various angles, in various resolutions—everything you could want. In front of those unsuspecting students and colleagues, you are a high and mighty goddess.”
He paused, leaned close to her ear, and whispered in a voice only they could hear: “But in the live-streaming room, in front of those ‘big brothers’ who shouted for you to ‘shake it,’ what were you? And now, in front of me, why are you pretending to be a pure and virtuous woman?”
“Shut up! You’re talking nonsense!”
These words seemed to touch Liu Hanyan’s most sensitive nerve. Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, she shrieked suddenly, trying with all her might to push Lu Xuan away.
“It’s not what you think! That’s art! What do you know?! They are my believers, they prostrate at my feet, calling me goddess! I am their god!”
Her eyes were bloodshot, her emotions so agitated they bordered on madness, as if only by hypnotizing herself in this way could she maintain her crumbling worldview.
“Goddess?” Lu Xuan’s patience finally seemed to run out. The smile on his face vanished instantly, replaced by a chilling coldness.
He suddenly reached out and grabbed Liu Hanyan’s soft black hair, forcing her to tilt her head back and meet his fierce eyes.
“Ah!” The sharp pain from her scalp made Liu Hanyan cry out. All her madness and shouting were caught in her throat at that moment.
“You slut, you really think you’re a god?” Lu Xuan’s tone was filled with disgust. “Today, I’ll bring you, this goddess, down to earth and let you taste the flavors of the mortal world!”
“Get lost! You pervert! Lunatic!” Liu Hanyan’s tears streamed down her face from the pain. Her hands frantically clawed at Lu Xuan’s arm, but she couldn’t budge him in the slightest.
“A whore trying to act chaste?” Lu Xuan sneered, releasing her hair, but the words he spoke were more painful than grabbing her hair. “Do you believe me when I say I’ll package all these ‘artworks’ of yours into a free shared link and post it on Yan University’s campus forum? And then send a copy to your father, your mother, and your brother studying abroad, one by one? I’ll let all your relatives, all your friends, properly appreciate how you, Miss Liu, became a ‘goddess’!”
“By then, will you still have the face to live? Teacher, sometimes, social death can be ten thousand times worse than actual death.”
All the strength drained from Liu Hanyan’s body. She slid down the door to the floor, disheveled, her eyes vacant.
Lu Xuan looked at her in this state and smiled with satisfaction.
He leisurely walked back to the chair and sat down, his posture like a monarch returning to his throne.
“I don’t like to use force; it’s not elegant enough.”
He said indifferently, his voice regaining its playful and composed tone, “I hope Teacher Liu can be more proactive; that way, we both save face.”
After speaking, he extended his hand and lightly patted his thigh.
That gesture was full of unspoken humiliation and suggestion.
“Teacher Liu, what are you waiting for?” Lu Xuan’s lips curved into a wicked smile. That smile reflected in Liu Hanyan’s unfocused pupils, sending chills down her spine and making her hair stand on end.
“Do I… really have to send the videos to your family as entertainment for tonight?”