Chapter 3

As Qi Rui watched Jiang Wanxing stare fixedly at her, countless thoughts raced wildly through her mind.

That strange reaction… Had the girl’s brain frozen?!

If someone became mentally impaired from extreme cold, would Qi Rui no longer need to follow the plot and complete her missions? After all, if the female lead of an angst novel became an idiot, what kind of novel would it be then?

Wait, no. There actually seemed to be old-fashioned melodramatic stories like that on JJWXC?!

Damn it!

This was all her unreliable cousin’s fault! She had insisted on recommending this awful novel to Qi Rui, claiming that there was a disposable character with the exact same name as her. She had even said that if Qi Rui truly transmigrated into it, her intelligence would undoubtedly allow her to defy fate and change her destiny!

Well, she had transmigrated, all right. But instead of changing her destiny, she had become an unpaid laborer exploited by the system!

If she refused to follow the plot, it warned her about acting out of character. If she disagreed with it, it physically electrocuted her.

Dear heavens! Why was her life so miserable?!

[…Stop crying. The female lead ran away.]

The system’s mechanical voice drifted through her mind, sounding as though it could no longer tolerate her.

Qi Rui instantly snapped out of the tragic drama playing inside her head. She whipped around and discovered that the female lead, who had been sitting on the ground moments ago, had truly disappeared.

She narrowed her eyes and looked farther away.

At some point, Jiang Wanxing had climbed to her feet and slipped through the circle formed by the other children.

Such a tiny child was tightly hugging the oversized grayish-black padded jacket against her chest. Facing the knife-like wind, her thin yet stubborn figure walked step by step toward the school gates.

When the children who had been watching the spectacle saw Qi Rui suddenly turn her head and look around, they assumed that the young heiress was devising another vicious way to torment Jiang Wanxing.

They immediately crowded around her in excitement, chattering as they offered malicious suggestions.

“Boss, let’s grab her by the hair and tie her to a tree! We can come back tomorrow to untie her and see what happens! Hahaha!”

“Boss, Jiang Wanxing looked at you like that just now! Why didn’t you gouge out her eyes?”

As Qi Rui listened to the senseless [Read on BaiLianTales]yet extraordinarily pure malice spilling from these children’s mouths, the string of reason inside her snapped.

To hell with her disposable villain persona.

Her expression darkened. Without another thought, she reached out and tightly seized the ear of the chubby boy nearest to her.

“Ow!”

The instant she pulled, the boy shrieked in pain, the flesh on his face scrunching together.

“Boss, Boss! What’s wrong with you? Let go! You’re hurting me! It hurts so much!”

Not only did Qi Rui refuse to release him, but her grip grew even tighter.

Her young, beautiful face looked terrifyingly gloomy. Her slender fingers mercilessly twisted the boy’s ear as she gritted her teeth and coldly demanded, “How about I tie you to a tree right now and leave you to freeze for an entire day and night? Then I can come back tomorrow morning and bury your corpse!”

The boy had always been terrified of Qi Rui’s domineering temper. With an agonizing pain now tearing through his ear, he became so frightened that tears and snot streamed down his face. He immediately began apologizing frantically.

“Boss, it hurts! Please! I’ll never do it again! I swear I’ll never do anything like that!”

Only after the boy sobbed out his promise did Qi Rui give a cold snort and viciously release him.

Having suddenly lost her support, the boy stumbled backward from the momentum and fell awkwardly into the rough sandbox. Even after falling, he did not dare cry loudly for fear of angering Qi Rui. He merely scrambled backward on his hands and feet.

Qi Rui ignored him and remained where she was, coldly regarding the group of brats who had been so arrogant moments ago.

She crossed her arms over her chest with an icy expression. Although the arms of her childish body were so short that she could not even fold them properly, her excessively pretty yet expressionless face, combined with the undisguised hostility surrounding her, was enough to intimidate the unruly children into retreating several steps in unison.

Qi Rui swept a cold gaze over them.

“From now on, I’m the only one allowed to touch Jiang Wanxing. Anyone who dares to lay a hand on her is making an enemy of me!”

At that, she narrowed her eyes and fixed them with a piercing stare, emphasizing every word.

“Do you understand?!”

Under her glare, the children were already scared out of their wits. They immediately nodded as rapidly as chicks pecking at grain.

Seeing that her threat had worked, Qi Rui finally withdrew her gaze in disgust. Without hesitation, she turned around and strode across the hard, frozen ground toward her family’s private car.

All she left behind was a proud, aloof silhouette.

In reality, however, this child’s body had truly awful stamina. After forcing herself to walk only a short distance, her little legs were already aching and growing weak. Walking was surprisingly exhausting.

After finally climbing into the car, Qi Rui leaned back against the seat and panted for breath.

Just as the driver was about to press the accelerator, a young voice suddenly came from the back seat.

“Where did the girl I bullied just now go?”

The driver turned around and saw his family’s young miss leaning breathlessly against the seat.

Her large, watery eyes blinked as she stared at him. She was so adorable and beautiful! A moment later, the little girl slowly furrowed her brows. A child’s eyebrows naturally carried a light brown tint, and the way hers knitted together only made her appear even softer and more endearing.

Qi Rui watched the driver. When he merely turned around and stared at her without speaking for ages, she immediately concluded that he was useless.

She simply sprawled against the car window, pressing her face to the glass as she looked from side to side in search of Jiang Wanxing.

Ever since Qi Rui stripped off Jiang Wanxing’s coat, the girl had shown no unnecessary reaction. In weather this cold, anyone else would have been shivering uncontrollably.

But Jiang Wanxing had not.

Even when Qi Rui stomped on the padded coat with all her strength, and later picked it up, dusted it off, and hurled it back onto her, Jiang Wanxing had still shown no reaction.

She had merely stared at Qi Rui without moving.

Even after walking away, Jiang Wanxing had only carried the padded jacket in her arms. She had not put it back on at all.

A child’s body was particularly vulnerable to the cold and could not withstand prolonged exposure.

Qi Rui calculated that if she stayed in the car and ordered the driver to deliver a coat instead, it probably would not count as breaking character.

Unfortunately, no matter how carefully she searched, she could not find any trace of Jiang Wanxing.

The driver’s phone began vibrating repeatedly with incoming messages. It was obvious that someone from home was urging them to return. Seeing the driver repeatedly glance back at her with a hesitant expression, Qi Rui had no choice but to give up.

The freezing wind howled outside the window. Many pedestrians struggled to move forward against the powerful gusts.

Yet Qi Rui, sitting inside the warm car, could not feel even the slightest trace of winter’s cruelty.

But whenever she looked at the pedestrians outside, for whom even taking a single step against the [read the original at bailiantales.com]wind seemed incredibly difficult, the image of Jiang Wanxing’s tiny, solitary figure stubbornly walking into the gale resurfaced in her mind.

The car finally entered the Qi family’s underground garage.

The moment it came to a stop, the housekeeper, who had been waiting nearby for some time, immediately stepped forward and opened the door.

Seeing Qi Rui struggling to climb out, the housekeeper smiled and extended both hands toward her.

Qi Rui first glanced at the woman. When she met the middle-aged woman’s warm, gentle smile, she hesitated before silently pushing away the offered hands.

What a joke!

She was still an adult on the inside. If she needed someone to carry her just to get out of a car, she would become a complete laughingstock!

The housekeeper smiled faintly and obediently stepped back.

However, the moment Qi Rui lowered her head, she froze.

The underground garage was paved with luxurious marble tiles, but rings of light strips had been embedded beneath them. At that moment, the lights were illuminating one after another in circles, resembling a dazzling array of chasing lights.

From Qi Rui’s low perspective as a child, the ground seemed [read the original at bailiantales.com]to constantly shift in height, drifting up and down until it made her dizzy.

The short leg she had extended from the car inexplicably began to feel weak. She did not dare set her foot down.

The next moment, those familiar, warm hands appeared again at precisely the right time.

Qi Rui raised her head and saw the housekeeper smiling gently at her.

Feeling somewhat awkward, Qi Rui extended her small hand and lightly placed it in the woman’s palm.

A pair of large, warm hands then held her securely beneath the arms and effortlessly lifted her out of the car.

Afterward, the housekeeper slowly crouched in front of her and gently patted the cuffs of her trousers.

“Your trouser cuffs and shoes are dirty, Young Miss,” the woman said gently. “You should change out of these clothes before going inside. Otherwise, Madam will become angry again.”

The housekeeper’s words instantly made Qi Rui tense up again.

Even now, she still had no idea what kind of person the original Qi Rui’s mother was!

In the original novel, Qi Rui was merely a disposable villain who existed in the background. Her family had never been described in detail and was dismissed with only a passing mention.

Humans often feared the unknown far more than the familiar.

Thus, Qi Rui behaved exceptionally obediently throughout the journey to the changing room, following closely behind the housekeeper without straying even a single step.

The changing area was located inside a dedicated hall that also seemed to be underground. Long leather sofas filled the room, while firewood blazed inside a nearby fireplace, producing crisp crackling sounds throughout the quiet space.

Qi Rui obediently sat on a sofa. Following the housekeeper’s instructions, she removed her sand-stained trousers and thick coat, then handed both garments to her.

Only then did the housekeeper lead her into the living room.

However, the Qi family’s heating was so powerful that Qi Rui did not notice anything unusual about her appearance.

At that moment, she was wearing nothing but a pink set of thermal underwear and a pair of fluffy indoor slippers. She was utterly defenseless.

The instant the housekeeper led her into the living room, an earth-shattering scream rang out directly in front of her.

“Aah—!”

Qi Rui’s entire body violently jolted in fright.

The next moment, a huge white blur suddenly rushed toward her.

Before Qi Rui could react, sharp pain spread across both cheeks as they were vigorously pinched and kneaded. It took her stiffened mind a very long time to process what was happening.

A woman had scooped her up entirely and pulled her tightly into an embrace, unleashing a relentless barrage of squeezing and kisses.

This was exactly how Qi Rui had behaved when visiting cat cafés before transmigrating into the novel!

Back then, she would hold a kitten’s paws, bury her entire face in its belly, and release embarrassingly excited squeals.

Now, that exact behavior was being perfectly reenacted upon her.

The woman embracing her had completely abandoned any concern for her image. She covered Qi Rui’s face with kisses and saliva. Even Qi Rui’s little hands were firmly held as the woman repeatedly kissed both the palms and backs of them.

This was unquestionably the greatest shock Qi Rui had experienced since arriving in this world!

She stared blankly upward. Even now, she had yet to see the woman’s face clearly and could only make out the top of her head.

At last, the housekeeper spoke calmly from beside them.

“Boss, please don’t go too far. Young Miss may refuse to cooperate with you next time.”

Only after receiving that reminder did the woman finally restrain herself.

She raised her head and casually smoothed the hair that had become messy and frizzy from all the rubbing. Then she lowered her gaze toward Qi Rui, who was lying across her lap.

In the next second, every trace of doting affection vanished from the woman’s face.

Her expression darkened, and she asked in an extremely stern and serious voice, “What happened with that little classmate you specifically went to see today?”

One moment, Qi Rui had been drowning in this absurdly suffocating maternal affection.

The next, she was suddenly being interrogated.

The woman’s attitude changed faster than the pages of a book could turn, startling Qi Rui into a brief but intense panic.