How to Make My Villainous Omega Stepsister Turn Over a New Leaf - Chapter 3

At last, the world before Ye Chengji’s eyes returned to normal.

As soon as the nausea subsided, she snapped her eyes open.

What she saw, however, was not the little brat who bit people like a wild dog, but an extremely familiar storefront.

The familiar old woman was reclining in her chair, grinning at Ye Chengji and revealing a neat row of white teeth. They were the dentures her daughter—the owner of the convenience store—had taken her to get fitted the previous year, and they gleamed brightly beneath the sunlight.

Ye Chengji instinctively raised a hand in greeting.

Wait.

Why was she here?

She had been at home just moments ago, wrestling with that brat. There should still have been bloody teeth marks on her hand…

She lifted her hand and stared in astonishment.

There was not a single bite mark on it. Her skin was smooth and unbroken, as though everything that had happened had merely been an absurd dream brought on by the heat.

Ye Chengji rushed into the convenience store.

“Here to buy something, Xiao Ji?”

For once, however, Ye Chengji did not immediately greet the shop owner. Her bright black eyes were fixed on the digital clock hanging on the wall.

Before the woman could say anything else, the girl, whose expression had turned grave, spun around without a word and left.

“Hey, where are you going?”

The shop owner watched Ye Chengji’s growing figure quickly disappear around the street corner and muttered to herself, utterly confused.

Ye Chengji ran faster than she ever had before.

All she could hear was the wind rushing past her ears and the chaotic pounding of her heart inside her chest. The thoughts in her mind resembled a ball of yarn tangled by a cat, and she struggled to unravel them one strand at a time.

What she remembered from earlier had definitely not been a dream. Besides, the dizziness had felt far too real, and the shop owner had reacted as though she were seeing Ye Chengji for the first time that day.

That meant time really had flowed backward.

But she was the only one who remembered what had happened in the future.

She passed through the alley once again.

The children at its entrance were still playing marbles, even holding the exact same poses as when she had passed them the first time.

She charged through her front door, raced up the stairs, and shoved open the bedroom door—

Zhu Letao was standing beside Ye Chengji’s bed, fiddling with her metal box.

Apparently, she had not expected Ye Chengji to return so much sooner than anticipated. Her delicate, doll-like face instantly tensed, like a small animal suddenly startled.

But she quickly relaxed again.

As though she had not seen Ye Chengji at all, she calmly returned to her own bed, sat down, and continued playing with the box.

This time, however, under Ye Chengji’s watchful gaze, she did not immediately put it back inside the rabbit doll.

Ye Chengji did not rush over to snatch it away.

A wild idea was beginning to form in her mind.

If the reversal of time had not been a one-time accident, then perhaps the reason for it was connected to Zhu Letao.

She merely sat on the edge of the bed and watched Zhu Letao’s face glow faintly with satisfaction.

What would happen if I made her return the money willingly?

“Hey, brat.”

Ye Chengji struggled to suppress the anger on the verge of exploding inside her. She tried to keep her voice calm, even managing to sound somewhat gentle as she asked, “Did you take my money?”

Zhu Letao paused for a second in the middle of idly spinning the box.

Then she licked the cracked corner of her mouth and asked innocently, “What money?”

“The money under my mattress. Forty-three yuan and seventy cents.” Ye Chengji stared into her eyes. “It might be inside your metal box right now.”

Zhu Letao’s pupils contracted.

It was an extremely subtle reaction, but Ye Chengji saw it.

That was the response of someone whose secret had been exposed.

“I have a name, and I didn’t take it. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zhu Letao said, though her voice lacked confidence.

“If you took it,” Ye Chengji continued through gritted teeth, “give it back to me now, and I won’t blame you. After all, I suppose I’m your sister now. We’re family, right?”

That was what her mouth said.

However, the fury flickering in her eyes and the corners of her lips twitching from restraint told a completely different story.

Zhu Letao was no fool.

The room fell into a silent stalemate.

Zhu Letao lowered her eyes to the metal box in her hands.

It had originally been used to hold candy and had never been valuable. After being used for such a long time, it had become dented from being dropped several times. Even though she had cherished it afterward, it had inevitably accumulated numerous scratches, making it look even older.

She raised her head and stared expressionlessly at Ye Chengji.

“Even if I took it, so what? Why should I give it back to you? Besides, you aren’t my real sister.”

Those words struck Ye Chengji like a slap across the face.

She took a deep breath and forced down the anger surging inside her.

“Because you took my money. Thieves get arrested by the police.”

This child was even more difficult to deal with than she had imagined.

Zhu Letao laughed, releasing a short breath through her nose.

“So what? Are you going to call the police and have them arrest me? It’s only a few dozen yuan. I’m still a child. The police won’t bother with you.”

Ye Chengji stared at the provocation and indifference in the nine-year-old girl’s eyes.

She suddenly understood something.

It was not that Zhu Letao did not understand.

She simply did not care.

Stealing money was wrong?

She had been caught?

Ye Chengji was angry?

To Zhu Letao, all of it could be reduced to a single sentence.

So what?

That attitude of so what was even more infuriating than simple wickedness.

The world distorted once again.

She had failed.

Ye Chengji familiarly checked the time and ran back home.

…

She approached Zhu Letao.

Zhu Letao cautiously stepped backward and protected the metal box.

“Give me back my money,” Ye Chengji said. “I don’t want to repeat myself.”

“No.” Zhu Letao lifted her chin.

Ye Chengji reached for her wrist.

Zhu Letao began screaming and wildly swung her other hand. During the struggle, her nails scratched Ye Chengji’s arm open.

Pain shot through her, but Ye Chengji did not release her.

She twisted Zhu Letao’s wrist hard. The girl let go in pain, and the metal box fell to the floor.

Ye Chengji and Zhu Letao bent down to retrieve it at the same time.

The two girls began wrestling once again.

Although Zhu Letao was small and thin, she fought viciously. Her nails raked across Ye Chengji’s cheek, leaving it burning with pain.

Ye Chengji caught her wrist and twisted it hard.

Zhu Letao released the box in pain. It fell from above, and its loosely fitted lid rolled across the floor, scattering everything inside.

Glass beads rolled everywhere.

Coins clattered noisily.

And there were the banknotes.

All of them were Ye Chengji’s money.

“You said you didn’t steal it!” Ye Chengji shouted furiously.

She could not understand how someone so young could already be so infuriating. That deceptively adorable face was completely wasted on her.

“This is all my money!”

The two adults fooling around in the other room were far too absorbed in themselves. Even if they heard the children arguing, they had no intention of coming out to stop them.

Zhu Letao sat on the floor, her wrist still held tightly in Ye Chengji’s hand.

She raised her head.

There was no remorse on her face, only an almost arrogant indifference.

“Your money?” she sneered like a prickly hedgehog. “Does it have your name written on it?”

“Of course it has my name written on it!”

“How could it possibly—”

Before Zhu Letao could fully raise her lips into a mocking smile, she noticed Ye Chengji pointing matter-of-factly toward an inconspicuous spot on the banknote where the character Ji had been written.

“See? My name is written right here.”

“So what?” Zhu Letao interrupted after a brief pause.

She forcefully tried to shake off Ye Chengji’s hand but failed. Not only was there no remorse in her voice, but she even sounded fearless.

“It belongs to me now anyway. I’ll erase your name and write Tao instead.”

Ye Chengji stared at the money on the floor and Zhu Letao’s completely unrepentant face.

A wave of anger erupted from the bottom of her heart. She could not suppress it, and it burned until her eyes turned red.

Her temper had never been particularly good.

Otherwise, she would not have fought people everywhere, gathered a crowd of little brothers and sisters beneath her, and earned herself the title of their boss.

She had stolen someone else’s belongings, yet she still acted so self-righteous.

Ye Chengji had clearly been far too lenient with her.

After Ye Chengji snatched the banknotes from the brat’s hand, Zhu Letao’s expression changed instantly.

She glared viciously at Ye Chengji and launched another biting attack against her hand.

A sharp pain shot through the back of Ye Chengji’s hand, and a vicious anger rose inside her as well.

If time could keep flowing backward, why could it not simply take her back to when they first met?

Had she returned to that moment, she would have punched some sense into the version of herself who had thought Zhu Letao looked slightly pitiful!

Ye Chengji stared at the brat, who had already bitten her hand until it bled but still refused to let go.

Her eyes were dark, and her teeth were sharp.

She did not resemble a pitiful little child at all.

She looked more like a wild dog that would never learn how to behave.

The world twisted and overturned once again.

This time, Ye Chengji did not even have time to answer the old woman’s greeting before sprinting home as fast as she could.

The street corner.

The children.

The marbles.

The apartment building.

The stairs.

Everything was exactly the same as before.

Time had indeed reversed and returned to the moment before she discovered the missing money.

Her preliminary guess was that it had something to do with Zhu Letao.

Had it not been because of her, why had time never reversed before Zhu Letao appeared?

There was also that strange dream…

Now that she had a suspicion, her next step was to determine the exact cause.

Ye Chengji pushed open the door and looked at Zhu Letao, who was currently reaching into the mattress where Ye Chengji hid her money.

What exactly triggered the reversal of time?

Was it Ye Chengji discovering that the money was missing?

Was it Zhu Letao biting her hand until it bled?

Or was it the very act of Zhu Letao stealing the money?

There were many possibilities, and she needed to eliminate them one by one.

But that would have to wait until after she had vented enough of her anger.

Without saying a word, Ye Chengji charged forward and started hitting her.

The brat screamed and fought back.

Then the world turned upside down once again.

Time reversed and repeated itself fifteen times.

Ye Chengji tried patiently reasoning with Zhu Letao five times and failed all five times.

She spanked the brat twelve times.

The brat bit her until she bled fourteen times.

The brat refused to change her ways all fifteen times.

Ye Chengji unlocked the achievement: [Start All Over Again].

She truly deserved to be called a villain.

Even as a child, she was already this difficult to handle.

With each repeated attempt, Ye Chengji’s anger was gradually worn away.

There had to be some kind of rule behind it.

Otherwise, being trapped without reason in this endlessly repeating world would be far too absurd.

Ye Chengji remembered one of her little followers, whose family owned an internet café, mentioning something called a “bug.”

Perhaps this world also contained one of those “bugs.”

Unfortunately, the English word sounded like bage—a myna bird—to Ye Chengji. She believed that as long as she fixed this damned bird, the world might begin functioning normally again.

Ye Chengji, who skipped class all day and did not even know how many letters there were in the English alphabet, had remembered her follower’s English word as the name of a bird.

She did not think there was anything strange about that and naturally interpreted it according to her own understanding.

Perhaps her body was gradually becoming accustomed to the sensation of time reversing. At the very least, the violent churning in her stomach had eased considerably this time.

To make a comparison, it had gone from severe motion sickness to a mild case.

This time, Ye Chengji calmly opened her eyes.

Sure enough, she saw the familiar storefront, heard the familiar wind chimes, and found the familiar old woman grinning at her with a mouth full of large white dentures.

She immediately turned around and ran back as fast as she possibly could.

This time, to test the theory in her mind, Ye Chengji did not even use the door.

She climbed rapidly up the pipes outside the building instead.

When she leaped through the window, Zhu Letao was still sitting on the bed in exactly the same posture as before Ye Chengji had left.

This time, she had not wasted a single moment.

She had finally arrived before everything began.

Ignoring the brat’s comically shocked and bewildered expression, Ye Chengji walked over, crouched in front of her, and steadied her slightly hurried breathing.

From this angle, she could see Zhu Letao’s eyelashes trembling.

She could smell the fragrance of cheap shampoo on her body, along with a strange sweetness reminiscent of milk candy.

“I’m going out to buy snacks in a little while. Do you want to come with me?”

The brat hesitated briefly, then nodded with an almost imperceptible movement.

“Good. Then wait obediently for a few minutes. I’ll take you outside to buy snacks soon.”

The weight in Ye Chengji’s heart had not yet completely lifted.

She leaned against the desk and stared intently at the clock on the wall.

When she watched the hand move past that number and time did not reverse again, she nearly burst out laughing.

That was it?

It was really that simple?

To prevent time from reversing, she had to stop Zhu Letao from stealing the money before it happened.

Including this attempt, time had reversed sixteen times before Ye Chengji finally discovered the rule.

Fortunately, their home was not particularly far from the convenience store. Otherwise, no matter how desperately Ye Chengji ran, she could never have returned in time to stop Zhu Letao before the theft.

Was it merely a coincidence?

Or had someone behind the scenes deliberately restricted the reversal to that particular interval?

While indulging in conspiracy theories, Ye Chengji walked toward the mattress where she hid her money.

After thinking for a moment, she simply took out everything remaining inside.

Then she walked toward the door and waited for the brat to follow her voluntarily.

Suddenly, the loose tank top she wore sagged slightly downward.

Ye Chengji turned her head.

Standing behind her was the stubborn, vicious little wild dog who had bitten her until she bled fourteen times throughout sixteen reversals.

Although Zhu Letao was trying hard to appear calm, she could not completely conceal the corners of her lips, which had lifted slightly with excitement.

The brat’s thin, pale fingers tightly clutched the hem of Ye Chengji’s shirt.

She was gripping it with considerable force.

It made Ye Chengji feel as though an extremely heavy and troublesome burden had suddenly attached itself to her.

Earlier, Zhu Letao had stubbornly denied everything. Getting her to surrender the money from her box had been like trying to take her life.

Yet now she had suddenly become so affectionate.

Ye Chengji could not understand whether this brat was easy or difficult to appease.

“Little bra— Ahem. Little Taozi, what do you like to eat?”

“Milk candy…” Zhu Letao hesitated. “Actually, any kind of candy is fine.”

She was worried that Ye Chengji would consider milk candy too expensive and refuse to buy it, so she deliberately added the second sentence to make herself appear easy to provide for.

“We’ll buy it. I’ll buy you all of it.”

Ye Chengji did not notice the brat’s sensitive, complicated thoughts and readily agreed.

What a joke.

Compared with being trapped in an infinite loop of time, what did the small cost of some milk candy matter?

She only hoped situations like this would not happen often in the future.