Chapter 2

Transferring to Zhiting No. 3 Middle School was every bit as easy as Ling Yan had imagined.

Judging by her grades, to put it bluntly, she was overqualified for the school. The administration could not have been more eager for her to stay.

Yet her final class assignment was exactly as she remembered.

She was assigned to Class Five, where all the underachieving students were concentrated, because “Uncle knows the homeroom teacher, and he’s serious and responsible.”

In reality, he was a rigid male chauvinist—a lunatic who would circle the words “girls should be brave and bold” in a student’s assignment, add a huge red question mark, and write in tiny letters beside it, “Girls should be meek and gentle.”

Ling Yan did not refuse. Instead, she gladly accepted the opportunity, the corners of her lips curling as she packed her schoolbag and discreetly tucked the supplies she had prepared for fabricating injuries into a hidden compartment.

She would simply treat everything happening now as one long dream about her youth.

At the very least, before she died, she wanted to use this dream to demand some justice for the girl she had once been—the girl who had repeatedly found herself trapped among thorns.

–

“Qinqin, that girl has transferred here.”

It was not until mid-September, half a month after the school year began, that Si Chun finally heard the news from her mother.

“Really?!” Si Chun immediately bounded over to the computer and looked at the ​bailiantales.com​name her mother had circled.

[Ling Yan, Grade Seven, Class Five.]

“Why is she in Class Five?!” Si Chun had heard her mother complain about Class Five’s learning environment more than once, so she instinctively asked, “Yanyan’s grades are good enough to be in the same class as me. Teacher Yu would definitely like her.”

Teacher Yu was an elderly teacher who had watched Si Chun grow up. She was a kind old lady approaching retirement who looked after every student in her care with great attentiveness and treated them all equally. Whether in their studies or their personal lives, she was considerate in every possible way. Si Chun’s class would be the last she ever taught.

“Maybe it’s because she transferred in after the school year had already begun, or perhaps her guardian knows Class Five’s homeroom teacher. They might also have been in a hurry to get her enrolled so she wouldn’t fall behind. Whatever the reason, securing a place for her came first,” Si Jiao explained. “Still, if she performs well in a weaker class, all the teachers will probably revolve around her and do everything they can to give her the very best.”

Si Chun hummed in acknowledgment, but her thoughts drifted elsewhere.

Attracting the attention she wanted from a crowd had never been difficult for Ling Yan.

Her lover had always been so reliable, outstanding, and dazzling, like the pale moon in the sky, casting its cool light over everything around it.

If that was the case, why had the young Ling Yan failed to continue shining in her new environment? Why had she repeatedly kept such a low profile instead?

It was almost as though…being outstanding would become a shackle.

A thought abruptly surfaced in Si Chun’s mind, startling her, and she hurriedly smothered it.

What are you making wild guesses for?! Can’t you hope for something good?!

Although they had argued before she traveled back—and had gotten into more than one inexplicable argument—Si Chun could tell that Ling Yan was deliberately hiding something from her. She simply did not know why, this time, Ling Yan had not revealed even the smallest hint as she had [stolen content]in the past, giving Si Chun a direction in which to search for the truth.

No matter what, she hoped Ling Yan was doing well. No one was allowed to bully Ling Yan!

Despite telling herself that, the thought still set off alarm bells in Si Chun’s mind.

A person’s experiences during middle school played a crucial role in a child’s development.

She had to go and see Ling Yan as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, she had already arranged with Teacher Yu during military training to receive private tutoring in basic mathematics after school every day. By the time the lesson ended and she finished dinner, evening self-study would begin immediately afterward. Class Five did not have evening self-study, so Ling Yan would probably already be home by then.

There were not many opportunities during breaks, either. Or rather, Si Chun felt somewhat embarrassed to let the recently transferred young Ling Yan know that someone had specifically come to see and look for her.

To the young Ling Yan, she was nothing more than a stranger. If she accidentally left a poor first impression, there was a very real possibility that they would never end up together in the future.

Si Chun’s imagination ran wild all night. Once she had settled on a plan, she went over to Ms. Si Jiao before leaving the next morning, wrapped her arms around her, and pleaded in a sweet voice, “Mom, Mom, can you do me a favor?”

–

“Yanyan, your younger cousin really doesn’t have much talent for studying, but he isn’t stupid. You only need to be a little more patient with him. Why did you have to scold him?”

Ling Yan leisurely ate her bland, plain knife-cut steamed bun. Upon hearing this, she even took a sip of plain rice porridge before finally lifting her eyes to look innocently at the aunt who had come to demand an explanation. “What are you talking about? I know Xiaoshen isn’t cut out for studying, but I didn’t give up on him because of that. I kept teaching him until eleven last night before returning to my room.”

Having failed to receive the answer she wanted, her [read the original at bailiantales.com]aunt frowned and spoke bluntly. “You called him useless, didn’t you? Xiaoshen has always had a good temper. If you hadn’t scolded him so harshly, why would he have complained to us adults?”

“Then what am I supposed to do if he dreamed that I called him useless and blamed me for his dream afterward?” Finding the porridge too bland, Ling Yan peeled the shell from half a salted duck egg and regarded her aunt with perfect composure. “Aunt, you’ve been through plenty yourself and suffered many hardships. You should understand that people can confuse dreams with reality when they’re afraid.”

“If Xiaoshen is afraid of studying, then you should hire a capable, qualified teacher to tutor him one-on-one. First, resolve his psychological issues, then think about how to raise his grades. What could a child who has only just started middle school possibly do for him? Don’t you agree?”

Ling Yan effortlessly redirected the conversation and deliberately guided it elsewhere. Her aunt could find nothing to refute, and after a moment of silence, she made another demand as though unwilling to concede. “But Xiaoshen’s eyes are red from crying. As his older sister and part of this family, you should at least comfort him.”

Remembering how that idiot had cried after she scolded him the previous night, his eyes wide as he found himself unable to squeeze out a single word, all the filthy language he normally spewed caught in his throat, Ling Yan narrowed her eyes. “Of course. When I return from school today, I’ll be sure to comfort him properly.”

She would not mind becoming the dark cloud hanging over someone’s head, impossible to dispel for the rest of his life.

–

With Ms. Si Jiao’s help, Si Chun received permission to skip one tutoring session.

However, Teacher Yu still wanted a clear explanation of why she needed the break.

“You’re not feeling well? Are you sick? Are we moving through the lessons too quickly?” Teacher Yu pushed up her thick glasses and looked with concern at the child who had frequently appeared within her field of vision ever since she was a tiny little thing.

She had heard Si Jiao mention more than once that Qinqin had inherited her temper and was terribly stubborn. She never normally asked for anything and was always well-behaved and sensible, but once she particularly wanted something, no one could stop her.

For selfish reasons, Si Chun told Teacher Yu directly, “An online friend of mine happened to transfer into Class Five. Her grades are excellent, so I thought I’d scout out a promising student for you.”

Teacher Yu had heard about the transfer student and knew she was a young girl. Although she noticed Si Chun’s slightly unnatural expression and the restless little movements of the fingers at her side, she chose to ignore them and asked, half-joking ​stolen content​and half-serious, “What? If she really is an academically gifted treasure, you want her transferred into my class?”

Si Chun’s eyes curved with her smile. “Of course! Who could possibly know how to care for someone better than you?”

“All right, then. Go and take a look for me first. Those old fossils are still willing to do me a favor.” Teacher Yu readily patted her shoulder and approved her request.

And so Si Chun began waiting for school to end.

But when the final class actually arrived, she realized that if she was accidentally spotted, she would need an excuse to explain why she had appeared outside another class’s classroom. After thinking it over, she went to the gymnasium to borrow some sportswear and a badminton racket. When she passed the school store, she hesitated briefly before buying a bag of small bread rolls and a bottle of Ling Yan’s favorite jasmine honey tea.

Ling Yan should be hungry by now, right? Perhaps she could share the food with her and make a good first impression.

All kinds of fanciful pink bubbles floated through Si Chun’s mind as she quickened her pace.

Her spur-of-the-moment plan had delayed her for so long. Could Ling Yan have already left?

Class Five was on the third floor of the seventh-grade teaching building, in the room closest to the restroom. Si Chun climbed the stairs, panting, then paused in the corridor to catch her breath. Only then did she lighten her footsteps, quietly approach, and poke her head around to look inside the classroom.

…She could not see anyone in the front rows.

Si Chun did not actually know how tall Ling Yan had been at this age, so she could only crouch and edge forward. Her gaze soon landed on a head of jet-black hair in the back row.

She felt her recently calmed heartbeat thump hard twice again. Instinctively straightening, she moved closer, hoping to see more clearly through the reflective window.

But what she saw next made her face change drastically in shock.

The girl’s black hair hung loose and disheveled, as though someone had just yanked it.

She was crouching alone in a corner of the classroom, picking up the books scattered across the floor and gathering them into her arms one by one. Not far from her, a chair had toppled beside the trash can, the schoolbag hanging from it fallen along with it.

Even though Si Chun had anticipated something like this beforehand—even though she had deliberately come to see the young Ling Yan precisely to rule out this worst-case scenario—her eyes still widened in disbelief.

The next instant, she felt someone’s gaze focus on her face.

The girl raised her deep blue eyes and stared coldly at her.

For some reason, Si Chun saw profound hostility within them.

“Ling Yan!” Without the slightest hesitation, Si Chun pounded hard on the glass window and loudly called the girl’s name.

She immediately tried the classroom door and discovered that it had been locked. She glanced at the windows and saw that every one of them was latched from the inside, then returned to her original position. “I’ll get someone to unlock the door right away! Don’t be afraid! I’ll be back soon!”

–

Ling Yan never imagined that Si Chun would come.

She had already planned the entire script and fabricated the injuries. All that remained was to wait until security discovered her trapped inside the classroom, then play up her suffering and escalate the incident to the grade director and the vice principal who would be making the rounds today. The bigger and more serious the matter became, the better. She wanted everyone involved to have a miserable night.

Si Chun had clearly been gone for a while, yet the girl’s clear, anxious voice continued to leave Ling Yan dazed.

…This had to be a dream.

She and Si Chun had never crossed paths during middle school. There was no possible way Si Chun could know her name at this time.

Because of her good grades, several underachieving students in her class had banded together to bully her. She had tried to seek justice for herself but gained nothing. Instead, everyone blamed her for being “too emotionally fragile,” and in the end, she chose to resist silently in her own way.

Everyone had to take the high school entrance examination eventually anyway. She only needed to excel once—during that examination—and earn admission to a key high school.

The young Ling Yan had thought that she needed to protect herself.

Her textbooks and notes had to remain neat and orderly on her desk or inside her schoolbag at all times. She could not allow her eyes to become swollen from crying again, because that would damage her vision. Nor could she injure the hand she used to hold her pen, or it would affect her ability to answer questions.

People always said that time diluted everything. Now twenty-three years old, she had long since escaped the environment she had been trapped in back then, and her state of mind and personality had changed drastically. Looking back on the past from an adult’s perspective, she found the bullies—and the uncle who had repeatedly paid children to help him—nothing more than stupid and laughable.

She had calmly prepared herself to face everything alone. The only person she had failed to account for was Si Chun.

Ten minutes later, a security guard unlocked the classroom door with a key.

Ling Yan had already straightened up her textbooks and herself. She did not want Si Chun to see the injuries she had fabricated, so she had vigorously rubbed away the red marks.

Yet the instant the classroom door opened, the girl still stumbled inside and pulled her tightly into her arms.

“It’s all right now! Everything’s all right! I’m here!”

The clean, familiar, faint fragrance of lavender lingered beneath Ling Yan’s nose. Ever since she began living with Si Chun in a rented apartment during university, she had often smelled this scent. It came from an old-brand laundry detergent Si Chun particularly liked, and over time, the fragrance had become something Ling Yan instinctively associated with her.

She could not stop her nostrils from twitching as she restrainedly yet greedily allowed the fragrance to fill them.

“I brought you some bread rolls and jasmine honey tea! Eat something to tide you over!” The young Si Chun stuffed the items into her hands. Then, seemingly remembering something, she hurriedly added after handing them over, “Come with me! We need to ask the school nurse to check whether you’re injured…”

Ling Yan tightened her grip on the cap of the jasmine honey tea.

Why was this happening…?

She had already decided to sever her relationship with Si Chun with her own hands, hoping Si Chun would stop caring about a thicket of thorns like her—something capable only of dragging others down into the abyss.

But…

Why, even in a dream, did she still long for Si Chun to save her?!

Almost shamefully, Ling Yan ultimately clasped the hand the young Si Chun held out to her. Carrying the bread rolls and her favorite drink, with her bulging schoolbag on her back, she silently followed behind her.

Even if it was only for a little while, that would be enough.

She wanted to stay with Si Chun.