Chapter 7

Monday was a school day.

Ye Chengji first escorted the brat to school, then headed to her own.

Although they were both in elementary school, Zhu Letao had previously lived quite far away and attended a different school from hers.

In class, the teacher lectured until her mouth went dry, while chalk danced briskly across the blackboard, leaving behind dense, orderly lines of writing. For a time, the only sounds in the classroom were the chalk scraping against the board and the rustling of students taking notes with their heads lowered.

Ye Chengji propped her chin on one hand, her eyes unfocused as she stared at an unknown tree outside the window. Her thoughts had long since drifted far away.

She could not sit still, nor did she enjoy listening to such dry and boring material.

Skipping class was routine for her. Rather than waste time sitting there, she preferred wandering around outside with her followers. At least that helped relieve some of the irritation in her heart.

That was why she had been so astonished when the novel revealed that she would eventually enter university.

No one understood her abilities better than she did.

She already hated studying this much as a child, and there was practically no chance she would suddenly fall in love with it after growing up. How could a habitual truant who ranked near the bottom of her class suddenly transform into a university student?

She could not figure it out.

After enduring half the lesson, Ye Chengji waited until the teacher turned around to write on the blackboard [bailiantales.com]and could no longer see the students behind her.

Under the accustomed gazes of her classmates, Ye Chengji slid one foot across the floor toward the doorway, slipped neatly out through the back door, and completed the entire sequence in one smooth motion.

It took only a few seconds and did not make the slightest sound.

By the time the teacher turned around again, Ye Chengji had already disappeared at the end of the corridor.

After leaving the classroom building, Ye Chengji breathed a sigh of relief. Some of the gloom faded from her face, and carefree high spirits spread across her raised brows as she strode toward their usual place near the school’s back gate.

That was where she and her followers gathered after skipping class.

Several of them had already been waiting there. The moment they saw her approaching, they immediately crowded around her, chattering noisily, joking, and roughhousing with one another. It was as lively and unrestrained as ever.

Ye Chengji leaned against the wall and watched them fool around and exchange pointless jokes.

The corners of her lips slowly curved upward, and the irritation in her heart did indeed fade somewhat.

But then, in a single instant, that familiar nausea swept over her.

The faint hope that had remained hidden in the depths of her heart was completely shattered.

The air abruptly froze.

The laughter and sounds of roughhousing around her stopped at once. The scene before her suddenly began moving backward, as though ​Read on BaiLianTales​someone had pressed a rewind button. Her followers’ movements became blurred and distorted.

That strange feeling of stagnation pressed down on her once again, spreading from her limbs throughout her entire body and making her scalp prickle.

Ye Chengji’s expression instantly darkened. Her lips flattened and curved faintly downward, all her former happiness replaced by irritation.

She clenched her fists until her nails dug into her flesh. The sharp pain immediately cleared her muddled mind.

Now her theory had been completely confirmed.

Whenever Zhu Letao did something bad, time reversed.

Last time, she had stolen money.

So what had the brat done this time, somewhere Ye Chengji could not see?

The moment she regained her balance, Ye Chengji lowered her head to check her watch and confirmed that she had returned to twenty minutes earlier.

The watch was a secondhand item she had scavenged from the recycling station after successfully escaping her first time loop. It was somewhat old, but its hands still moved.

She needed to be able to check the time at any moment.

Suppressing the anger that was close to overflowing from her stomach, Ye Chengji pushed aside the followers who were confused by her sudden change in expression. She casually brushed them off with a few words, then rapidly turned and headed toward the brat’s school.

Her steps were quick and heavy.

Her shoes struck the ground with loud thuds, as though venting the irritation and dissatisfaction inside her.

There were only two elementary schools in town. The other school was not far from hers, only a little over ten minutes away. If she moved quickly, she could reach it in ten.

Ye Chengji hurried the entire way and soon arrived near the brat’s school. She pushed off the wall, flipped over it, and silently entered the grounds.

It happened to be the long morning break, and students were playing everywhere outside.

She did not ask anyone for directions.

Relying on some inexplicable intuition, she headed directly toward an isolated corner at the back of the school.

A bad student like her understood better than anyone which areas of a school were suitable for causing trouble.

This particular spot was probably where the school’s troublesome students usually skipped class or fought. Accordingly, if the brat had caused trouble, there was a good chance she would be there.

It did not matter even if Ye Chengji guessed incorrectly.

As long as the brat remained unstopped, time would repeatedly reverse.

Sure enough, before she had gone far, she heard the sounds of a violent struggle. They were mixed with a boy’s angry shouting, a familiar shriek, and the piercing sound of paper being torn apart.

Hearing the familiar voice, Ye Chengji frowned and quickened her pace.

In the clearing, Zhu Letao was wrestling with a large male classmate nearly three times her size.

Calling it a fight was not entirely accurate.

For the most part, the boy was simply beating Zhu Letao one-sidedly.

Although the brat fought with reckless ferocity, malnutrition had left her thin, frail, and weak. The boy repeatedly shoved her backward.

The clothes Ye Chengji had carefully straightened before they left home had been pulled crooked. Zhu Letao’s hair was now a mess, and dirt covered her formerly pale and tender face.

Even so, she refused to admit defeat.

Her eyes reddened as she charged forward without regard for the consequences, like a small animal driven into a corner.

At last, she found an opening. She grabbed the open exercise book the boy had dropped on the ground and tore it apart with all her strength.

Riiip—

Pieces of paper fluttered everywhere, scattering across the ground. The once-neat exercise book instantly became a pile of rubbish.

The boy became furious. His face flushed bright red as he raised his hand and forcefully shoved Zhu Letao, who was still smiling.

His voice was vicious.

“Are you crazy? It took me forever to finish copying that homework! Pay me back!”

Zhu Letao lost her balance and fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

Her palm scraped across the gravel. The skin immediately tore open, and beads of blood seeped from the wound, bringing a piercing pain.

Yet she was unbearably stubborn.

Her dark eyes stared fixedly at the boy opposite her, making his skin crawl. She neither cried nor caused a fuss. Instead, she struggled back to her feet and, while he was distracted, suddenly lunged forward.

She sank her teeth fiercely into his arm with all her strength.

Even after tasting blood, she did not release him. Instead, like a wild beast excited by the sight of blood, she bit down even harder.

“That hurts!”

The boy screamed in pain, his face instantly turning pale.

He violently shook his arm, trying to throw Zhu Letao off. His voice was filled with agony and fury.

“Are you a dog? Let go of me!”

Zhu Letao’s body swayed as he shook her, but she still refused to release him.

Her teeth clamped down even tighter, as though she would not stop until she had torn the piece of flesh completely from his arm.

Only when the boy used his weight to shove her hard again was she forced to let go. She was pushed back onto the ground.

She stared at him fiercely.

Her voice was sharp and piercing, with a trace of hoarseness that might have come from exhaustion or excitement.

“What gives you the right to call me a worthless burden? Who do you think you are?”

The boy clutched his bleeding arm, furious and aggrieved. He stubbornly raised his neck and loudly argued back.

“I wasn’t wrong! Everyone says it! You don’t have a mother, and your dad is a gambler who owes mountains of debt. Sooner or later, he’ll sell you for money so he can keep gambling! Nyah, nyah! Worthless burden! You’re a worthless burden!”

Children at that age did not yet understand the meanings of many complicated expressions.

Most of them merely repeated whatever they heard their parents say.

Adults would hide such thoughts when they went outside and pretend to be friendly, but children had not yet learned that essential adult skill.

“You’re lying!”

Zhu Letao’s pupils trembled when she heard his words.

Nevertheless, she refused to weaken at such a critical moment and allow herself to lose the upper hand. She tried hard to make herself appear more intimidating.

At that moment, she suddenly remembered Ye Chengji’s face.

Ye Chengji already looked fierce when expressionless, and whenever she smiled, she became so terrifying that she seemed ready to devour children.

Zhu Letao attempted to imitate her.

Unfortunately, she merely bared her teeth and made a comical face that possessed none of the intended menace.

Ye Chengji stood behind a tree, watching the brat’s ridiculous attempt to appear vicious.

The fury filling her stomach abruptly went out.

For some inexplicable reason, her heart also gradually sank.

Before coming here, she had thought the brat had committed some unforgivable evil again.

She had not expected it to be only reasonable retaliation.

Had Ye Chengji encountered the same thing, she would have responded exactly as Zhu Letao had.

Given the choice, she did not want to stop the brat from taking revenge. She even wanted to rush forward and help her thoroughly beat the little bastard.

But unless she prevented the brat from doing something bad in the first place, her time would remain permanently trapped within this period, unable to advance.

Ye Chengji had never done anything against her conscience.

All she pursued in life was acting freely and following her heart.

Therefore, even now, she did not want to go against her own beliefs and teach the brat to ignore the insult or repay cruelty with kindness simply to pass this point in the time loop.

But if one repaid cruelty with kindness, what would one use to repay kindness?

Ye Chengji silently stood there for a while.

The force in her fingertips gradually relaxed, and some of the viciousness in her eyes faded, leaving behind only an indescribable irritation and helplessness.

Just as she was about to walk over, she saw Zhu Letao rapidly pull a utility-knife blade from her pocket. No one knew where she had found it.

She swung it forcefully forward.

A cold glint flashed beneath the sunlight.

The chubby boy, who had been walking toward her to continue the beating, suddenly received a bloody cut across his eye.

In the next instant, he clutched his bleeding bailiantales.comeye, collapsed to the ground, and began screaming miserably.

Already covered in injuries, Zhu Letao watched the boy curl into the pathetic shape of a shrimp on the ground.

She gripped the blade tightly. Its sharp edge had also sliced open her palm, causing blood to flow down her hand.

Yet she seemed incapable of feeling the pain in her own body.

The corners of her lips lifted happily, forming a radiant smile.

“You deserved it.”

Had one ignored the bloody, grotesque scene before her and looked only at Zhu Letao’s expression, one might have believed the little girl had merely been amused by an entertaining performance.

The world before Ye Chengji distorted once again.

Exactly twenty minutes had passed.

The second time reversal began.

When Ye Chengji opened her eyes again, she was greeted by the stupid grinning faces of her followers.

She immediately lowered her head to check the time.

To her surprise, she discovered that this reversal had taken her five minutes bailiantales.comfurther back than the previous one.

It was as though whatever controlled the reversal had realized that twenty minutes was not enough for her to prevent the incident and had deliberately adjusted the interval to grant her an additional five minutes.

How considerate.

However, this made it seem increasingly likely that someone was observing everything from a place she could not see.

Ye Chengji shook off the deeply uncomfortable sensation of being watched.

As before, she casually dismissed her followers with a few words and then ran as quickly as possible toward the other elementary school.

The brat was under her protection now.

How dare that little fatty hit one of her people?

Ye Chengji sneered.

Since she could not allow the brat to fight, she would simply do it herself.

If the boy’s parents refused to teach their child properly, Ye Chengji would kindly help them. She would make the foulmouthed brat understand which words he could say and which ones he should keep inside his mouth.

Her own brat was physically weak, a little stupid, and stubborn by nature.

She could not be beaten.

She could only be reformed through love, which meant Ye Chengji had to patiently coax her.

But that little fatty was different.

He looked thick-skinned and sturdy. He was ugly and had a filthy mouth.

Even if Ye Chengji struck him slightly harder, he would surely be fine.

Considering his size, even if she beat him until he swelled up, other people might simply assume he had overeaten and gained more weight.

As for the brat who had slashed the boy’s eye?

Apart from taking things slightly too far, Ye Chengji did not think there was anything wrong with what she had done.

She even felt somewhat gratified.

She had assumed Zhu Letao was a foolish child.

Unexpectedly, she was quite skilled at using tools.