Chapter 13

Ye Chengji calmly watched the brat wail her heart out. Only after she had cried enough did Ye Chengji speak.

“Are you finished? Once you are, you’re going to apologize tomorrow.”

Zhu Letao froze.

She raised her head, her eyes red and wide as she stared blankly at Ye Chengji, as though she no longer recognized her.

Wasn’t this person a softhearted fool who was far too kind?

How could she still say something like that after seeing Zhu Letao cry so miserably?

“What did you say?” she asked again after a long daze, unable to believe her ears.

“You’re going to apologize, and you’ll compensate her too.” Ye Chengji tapped the brat on the forehead. “I can help you pay for Lin Xiaoyu’s pencil case, but you have to apologize to her yourself.”

“You’re not going to help me?” Zhu Letao stammered. Her voice, hoarse from crying for so long, trembled slightly.

“I am helping you.” Ye Chengji continued tapping the scheming brat’s forehead. She ​stolen content​had only indulged her a little, yet Zhu Letao already thought she was easy to fool. She really was a foolish child. “You broke someone else’s belongings, so you should apologize. That’s the rule.”

“But she started—” Zhu Letao’s indignant protest caught in her throat.

“What did she start?” Ye Chengji looked at her. “She showed off, so that means you should destroy her things? Because she hurt your pride? But the fact that she has a rich mother is true. What she did was different from that chubby boy who tried to bully you last time. Even if she had bad intentions, all she did was state the truth.”

“Have you thought about what would happen if her mother found out what you did today? You know her mother is rich. Rich people can accomplish almost anything, and even if they get caught, nothing much happens to them. But what about you?”

As though imagining the possible consequences, Zhu Letao’s face slowly turned pale. Her lips moved for a long time, but she could not say anything.

Ye Chengji looked at her and sighed.

Still, she knew that she had to establish firm rules now. Before Zhu Letao’s roots became completely crooked, she had to straighten them properly.

If Ye Chengji always cleaned up the brat’s messes and covered for her, the result would be the same as last time. Not only would Zhu Letao fail to change in the slightest, but it would encourage her arrogance. As time passed, she would become increasingly extreme and reckless.

Then Ye Chengji’s time loops would never end.

Ye Chengji summoned all the patience she possessed in this lifetime and tried to explain the reasoning to the brat, appealing to both her emotions and her logic.

“If you were unhappy, you could have insulted her back at the time. You could have told the teacher or discussed it with someone and changed seats so you’d have a deskmate who made you happier. But bringing people to corner her and destroying her [Read on BaiLianTales]belongings went too far. You felt better afterward, but when you can’t bear the consequences yet, what you did was simply stupid.”

There were so many ways to solve a problem, yet Zhu Letao had chosen the most extreme one.

If Ye Chengji did not stop her this time, she would only go even further in the future.

“Will you apologize or not?” Ye Chengji asked again.

“I won’t.”

“She deserved it!” Fire burned in Zhu Letao’s eyes, filled with a stubbornness that seemed ready to consume everything. Her voice rose with agitation. “She showed off every day and waved those things in front of me every day. Didn’t she just want to see me jealous? Then I gave her what she wanted.”

“So you stepped on her belongings, and now you think you won?” Ye Chengji felt her irritation steadily climbing and drew a deep breath.

Zhu Letao was rendered speechless.

Ye Chengji’s expression turned cold as rainwater streamed down her temple.

“You crushed her pencil case, and she cried for a while. Tomorrow, her mother will buy her another one—an even more expensive one. What about you? You’ll be criticized by the teacher, forced to write a self-reflection, and have your parents called in. Tell me, what exactly did you win?”

Zhu Letao’s lips trembled.

“You were only giving up on yourself and making everything worse.”

Zhu Letao stared at her. The flames in her eyes gradually dimmed, and the tears that had already stopped suddenly began falling again.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Her voice abruptly became quieter. “Tell me. What should I do? I don’t have a mother, I don’t have money, and I have nothing. But I want a pretty pencil case too. I want a scented eraser and an expensive leather schoolbag… She shows them off in front of me every day. Am I supposed to just endure it? I refuse!”

Ye Chengji said nothing.

Zhu Letao lowered her head and buried her face against her knees.

“You don’t understand at all,” she said sulkily.

Rain was still falling, blown beneath the eaves and striking both of them.

After a long silence, Ye Chengji suddenly gave a cold laugh.

“I don’t understand?”

The suppressed fury in her [unauthorized copy]voice startled Zhu Letao. Her body trembled, but she stubbornly refused to raise her head.

“I’m poor too.” Ye Chengji viciously kicked a stone at her feet out into the downpour. “Zhang Lan can’t be bothered to take care of me. I miss five meals every three days. She often forgets there’s a child waiting at home. I almost starved to death in the house several times. I dug through rubbish bins for leftovers other people didn’t want. Because Zhang Lan acts like she can’t survive without a man, adults curse me every day, and children give me disgusting nicknames and laugh at me. They look at me as if I’m some contagious disease.”

“They said filthy things about my mother right in front of me, laughing as they threw spoiled food at me and treated me like an idiot. They thought I didn’t understand, but I understood everything.”

Zhu Letao’s shoulders shifted slightly.

“But I didn’t go around destroying other people’s belongings.”

Ye Chengji paused with a slight trace of guilt.

In truth, she had told a small lie.

All the adults and children who dared treat her like an idiot had received fierce retaliation. She had thrown firecrackers into latrines, secretly climbed over walls in the middle of the night to smash windows, shaved children bald, and stuffed live rats and insects into their blankets, among other things.

However, her plans had always been thorough, her movements efficient, and her running speed even better. She had never once been caught.

Seeing that the brat was listening carefully, Ye Chengji hurriedly restored her grave, respectable expression and continued.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It was because I knew it would be useless. So what if I [bailiantales.com]destroyed one of her things? Her mother would still buy her another one, and I would still be poor.”

Zhu Letao raised her head. Mud and tears covered her face, making her resemble a dirty little cat.

“Then what should I do?”

Ye Chengji nearly failed to suppress her laughter. She reached up to brush a strand of wet hair away from her face, conveniently using the gesture to hide the corners of her lips, which were threatening to rise.

“Don’t limit your perspective. You have to look toward the future.”

“Study hard. Leave everyone who looks down on you far behind, enter a good university, find a good job, and earn lots and lots of money yourself. When that happens, you can buy any pencil case you want. You can buy as many as you like. Then you can look down on the people who once looked down on you and show off right back at them. Wouldn’t that feel much better than this petty nonsense you’re doing now?”

The foolish child seemed to have been persuaded and nodded blankly.

“And even if you don’t get into a good university, I’ll definitely become rich someday.” Ye Chengji possessed an inexplicable confidence in herself. Her voice was not loud, but it was exceptionally firm. “I’ll establish an enormous company and earn more money than I could ever spend. Then I’ll buy you the prettiest clothes. Whatever you want, I’ll buy it for you!”

Ye Chengji vividly painted the foolish child an extravagant picture of the future.

Zhu Letao stared at her.

“So you need to learn how to endure things for now,” Ye Chengji continued, becoming increasingly read the original at bailiantales.com impassioned. “The most important thing now is studying properly so you can reach that future you dream about! I promise you, no matter how much money I eventually earn, your Sister will definitely buy you whatever you want!”

Zhu Letao remained silent, but her eyes lit up when she heard the final sentence.

“Really?”

The rain slowly weakened.

Zhu Letao suddenly moved closer to Ye Chengji and rested her head against her shoulder, rubbing against her like some small, fluffy animal.

“…Then let’s make a pinky promise.”

The brat raised her soft little finger.

Ye Chengji stiffened briefly. Then she put an arm around her, hooked their little fingers together with her other hand, and shook them up and down.

“Pinky promise, seal it tight. No changing for a hundred years. Whoever breaks it drops dead.”

The ritual was completed in the childish voices of two children.

Ye Chengji felt that the ending sounded a little wrong. Wasn’t it normally [read the original at bailiantales.com]something like whoever broke the promise became a puppy or a pig? Why had they wagered their lives directly?

Before she could ask, however, the brat’s muffled voice came from against her shoulder.

“Sister, when I said I hated you earlier, it was actually a lie.”

Ye Chengji did not speak.

“Are you…angry?” Zhu Letao mumbled quietly.

She raised her head to glance at Ye Chengji uneasily, then quickly lowered it again.

“No,” Ye Chengji said.

Zhu Letao timidly lifted her head. Her eyes were still red and contained faint traces of tears.

“Will you still help me in the future?”

Her voice was as quiet as a mosquito.

Ye Chengji looked at her, her heart softening slightly.

“I will.”

Zhu Letao lowered her head again. Ye Chengji could not tell whether she was reassured or remained doubtful.

After a while, she abruptly looked up.

“Then carry me home.”

Ye Chengji froze.

“My knee hurts. I can’t walk.” Zhu Letao pointed toward her knee.

The skin really had been scraped away, and a little blood seeped from the dirty wound.

“I’ve been enduring it this entire time. It hurts so much, Sister.”

The brat seemed to have learned how to act pitiful and sweet.

Ye Chengji looked at her miserable little face. She clearly knew the child might be pretending, but she stilstolen contentl could not harden her heart.

There was no helping it. She was hopelessly weak to pretty faces.

“Fine, fine. Hurry and climb on.”

Zhu Letao immediately scrambled onto Ye Chengji’s back after she crouched down. She moved far too nimbly for someone who claimed to be injured.

Her arms wrapped tightly around Ye Chengji’s neck, squeezing so hard that Ye Chengji nearly could not breathe.

Carrying her on her back, Ye Chengji stood and began walking home, stepping through puddles one at a time.

“Sister, I want candy when we get back.”

Thinking of the sweet-and-sour fruit candies and fragrant milk candies, Zhu Letao suddenly felt hungry, and saliva filled her mouth.

She tilted her head back and opened her mouth to catch the fine drizzle falling from the sky.

Somehow, even the rain tasted faintly sweet.

“You’re taking a bath first when we get back. You’re filthy.”

Ye Chengji shifted the restless brat higher on her back, feeling even more exhausted than she normally did after spending an entire day running around outside.

Summer showers arrived swiftly and violently, but they passed just as quickly, leaving behind a fresh, drenched world.

Light slipped through the cracks in the broken clouds.

The sky was about to clear.

Summer was a season made for telling lies.