Returning to the Villain Omega's High School Days - Chapter 1

The blazing sun roasted the city. There was not a soul on the streets. The roadside trees on both sides had all wilted under the heat, great clusters of yellowing leaves hanging from the branches, dead yet still clinging on. There was no chirping of cicadas in the trees, and on the cracked concrete ground, even an ant was nowhere to be seen.

The weather bureau had issued six high-temperature warnings in a single day. The current temperature was forty-six degrees Celsius. For the locals, this was already nothing unusual.

Xie Ning had her legs crossed and propped up on the steering wheel, the soles of her plain espadrilles facing the windshield. Her ripped jeans had been washed until they had faded pale. She wore a blue tank top, her bra supporting breasts that were not exactly full, while a fold of flesh gathered at her stomach. Her skin had been tanned wheat-brown by the sun, but it still looked smooth and fairly pretty.

She smoked with the air conditioner on, her eyes fixed on the side gate of the residential compound at the street corner. Only when someone passed by did she sit up straight, push at her sunglasses, and take a closer look.

Beneath the sunglasses, her face had already begun to sag a little. Her eyelids were puffy. Only that high, straight nose bridge and those sharp brows and eyes still allowed people to find traces of the beauty she had possessed in her youth.

Her car had been parked here since seven in the morning. Now it was a quarter past eleven, and she looked as though she had gained nothing at all.

She went to a convenience store and bought a sandwich. By the time she returned to the car, she was drenched in sweat. Sweat slid from her cheeks into her chest, itching so badly it was unbearable. Even the soles of the cheap espadrilles on her feet felt as if they were about to melt from the heat.

Xie Ning was in an exceptionally irritable mood.

She did not even understand why she was wandering around this area.

She usually did not start work until the afternoon. Before that, she could have gone somewhere else to pass the time. There was no need for her to waste gas under the blazing sun, running the air conditioner while doing something this meaningless.

Last night, after finishing work and returning home, her half-paralyzed father had wheeled himself in front of her and reminded her, “In a couple of days, it’ll be your thirty-eighth birthday. I want to invite a few friends over to celebrate it with you.”

Xie Ning rejected the idea immediately.

In truth, Xie Ning did not have anyone who could really be called a friend. She was divorced now, in debt, and still had to take care of her father. Her life was genuinely not going well, so naturally, she did not want to see friends from the past either.

However, that did remind her of something…

It had already been a full three years since she had last seen her ex-wife.

Thirteen years ago, Xie Ning was twenty-five, in the prime of her life, and married a beautiful Omega. After that, they had indeed shared a sweet period together, but that sweetness… had truly been so brief.

Five years of marriage. Most of it had been spent in pain and torment. Their marriage wore away all their youthful spirit, until by the end, there was barely anything left worth remembering.

In the second year after their divorce, her ex-wife remarried a man and raised a son and daughter for him. As for this, nearly everyone who knew them supported her ex-wife and offered their blessings—

“A scumbag like Xie Ning was never worthy of the Su family’s second young lady. She practically ruined her whole life!”

“Who knew Xie Ning was that kind of person behind closed doors? The Xie family deserved to fall! I only hope that after leaving her, that young lady from the Su family can live a happy, peaceful life!”

“Exactly. The man she found now has a son and a daughter, and a mansion worth tens of millions. Isn’t that much better than Xie Ning?”

“If you ask me, finding a woman just won’t do… With all the debt Xie Ning owes, she’ll never pay it off in this lifetime!”

At six, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Xie Ning was woken by the snoring from the bed next to hers. All sleepiness vanished.

She lay in bed and looked at her phone for a while. The temperature showed thirty-nine degrees, but she still decided to go out.

Compared with staying at home with her father, she would rather brave the heat wave, sit in her car, smoke, sleep, and stare idly at the pedestrians by the road.

As if possessed, she drove her car to this street. Just like countless times in the past, every time she passed this corner, she would stop and look at the passersby a little longer, thinking that perhaps, if enough people brushed past one another, there would eventually be one time when she could run into her ex-wife by chance…

A few years ago, when she had mailed something to her ex-wife, the delivery address had been on this street.

But she must have moved away long ago. Even her phone number had changed.

In such a vast city, wanting to run into one particular person by chance was almost impossible.

Xie Ning finished a bottle of soda, casually tossed it out the window, and prepared to drive to work.

“Knock, knock.”

A figure had approached at some point and tapped on her car window.

Xie Ning rolled the window down a crack, pushed her sunglasses lower, and lifted her eyes. She saw a big boy in a white T-shirt holding the empty drink bottle she had just thrown out. He accused her, “Auntie, littering in this kind of extreme heat—have you considered the sanitation workers at all?”

The boy’s eyes were pure. His short hair was damp with sweat, and he wore an expensive watch on one wrist.

Had a rich family’s child like this never seen the dangers of society?

The hot air rushed into the car. Xie Ning lowered her glasses and rolled her eyes at the boy. “Why should I consider them?”

The boy choked. “What… what do you mean?”

“I mean I like throwing trash. Can you do anything about it?”

The smell of smoke drifted out of the car. Xie Ning’s gaze was sharp as she looked at him with a cold sneer.

Reflected in the dark-red lenses of her sunglasses was the boy’s helpless, distorted face.

“You… how can you be like this?” The boy sensed danger and began to stammer, both angry and afraid. “You… what you’re doing is wrong…”

As he spoke, he gathered his courage and tentatively tried to stuff the empty bottle back through the gap in the car window.

The instant his hand reached inside, Xie Ning pressed it down. Immediately after, there was a click. Before the boy could react to what had happened, he cried out in pain purely on instinct.

“Ah!!!”

His finger was broken?!!

At that thought, the boy’s pupils shrank sharply, and all color drained from his face. His arm was forced to remain trapped against the car window glass, his wrist easily gripped by the woman. One of his fingers had already bent out of shape and turned outward. He cried out in agony, “I was wrong, Auntie—Sister! Sister! I’m apologizing to you! Let me go!”

At the sound of shouting, another figure appeared. A voice came through the hot wind, and in that instant, Xie Ning felt as though she had been struck by electricity. The blood in her whole body froze, and she went rigid in place.

“What happened, Xiang Tao?”

The woman’s voice was like sugar strands blown apart by the wind, tender as honey, each thread sharp as a blade, enough to tear a person’s heart and guts to pieces.

This boy was Xiang Tao? Then she was… Su Wan?!

“Mom, save me! Hurry and save me!” Xiang Tao cried.

Footsteps quickened behind the car. The sound of high heels stepping on the concrete was brief and rhythmic. A white figure appeared in the rearview mirror. The woman held a sun umbrella, and that calm, unruffled, composed bearing was almost exactly the same as before.

Xie Ning’s breathing stopped. She immediately released Xiang Tao’s hand and gripped the steering wheel tightly. Her hand was trembling a little, and she did not dare look in the rearview mirror.

Just from that bearing alone, Xie Ning was certain of who had come.

The blood in her whole body surged upward. Her scalp went numb. When she looked again at the big boy from moments ago, regret filled her heart—

She actually had not recognized this child, Xiang Tao? And she had even twisted his finger badly?

“What happened?” Su Wan walked over and asked Xiang Tao, who was clutching his arm and crying out in pain.

Xiang Tao backed up a few steps and threw himself toward Su Wan, crying with snot and tears all over his face. “Mom, I want to call the police! This person hurt me!”

“Let me see.” Su Wan wore a white dress, her green umbrella resting against her shoulder as she tilted her head to look at Xiang Tao’s hand.

After walking all this way under the blazing sun, she had not even broken a sweat. Her makeup was elegant and exquisite, making her look as if she were still in her twenties. Her long black hair was gathered low and fixed in place with a jade hairpin. She frowned slightly, then looked toward Xie Ning.

Xie Ning immediately turned her face away, rolled up the car window, and hurriedly started the car. The hand gripping the gearshift was still trembling.

“She’s going to run!” Xiang Tao shouted. “Don’t let her run!”

Su Wan calmly stopped him. “Forget it. The injury isn’t very serious.”

“But… my finger…”

“Your finger isn’t broken. It’s only dislocated. I’ll take you to the hospital.” Su Wan’s voice gave away no emotion. She looked at the license plate at the back of the car and said each word clearly. “That is a scumbag. Getting involved with a scumbag will only make your life unfortunate.”

Xiang Tao hesitated, but in the end, he still chose to believe Su Wan.

Inside the car, Xie Ning’s gaze went cold. She floored the accelerator and fled in panic.

Scumbag.

Those two words were like the label fate had branded onto Xie Ning. After receiving Su Wan’s confirmation, they were seared firmly onto Xie Ning’s body.

Author’s Note:

The plot before the rebirth will probably be around ten to twenty thousand words, because I feel it’s necessary to portray the protagonist’s state in middle age.

Starting a new story. Thank you for your support.