The only comforting aspect of this transmigration for Qin Yuan was that she was about to face the start of high school, at least she wouldn’t have to make up for the original owner’s summer homework.
Min Qiu personally drove her daughter to register. Seeing her sitting in the back seat with her fingers intertwined and placed in front of her, looking serene, Min Qiu found it amusing. “Why that expression? School was bound to start sooner or later.”
To Qin Yuan, these words sounded almost the same as “You’ll die sooner or later.”
If she remembered correctly, in the original novel, she and Li Yue would be in the same class throughout high school.
With the distance shortened, the original owner became even more active, stirring up not just a little but a lot of resentment. Her frequency of courting death was practically higher than weekly and monthly exams.
In short, the original owner and the antagonist group almost accounted for all the setbacks Li Yue faced during high school. Although she was repeatedly put in her place by the brilliant male lead, she grew more determined with each failure, ultimately becoming a whetstone on his path to growth.
Qin Yuan had never dreaded the start of school so much in both her lifetimes. Over the past two days, she had been searching for a way back but found nothing. All she could do was take things one step at a time.
Madam Min Qiu was in a hurry to get to the beauty salon, so she dropped her daughter off at the school gate and left. As Qin Yuan dawdled her way into the classroom, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had forgotten something important.
But soon, she had no time to think about it.
Most of the students in the class had already arrived. Qin Yuan spotted Li Yue sitting by the window in the back row at a glance and immediately wanted to smoothly turn around and leave the school right then and there.
He had probably gotten a haircut before school started, revealing sharp, ice-like eyebrows and eyes. The small cuts on his jawline had already scabbed over, not only failing to diminish his looks but adding a touch of rebelliousness to his demeanor.
A gentle breeze brushed through his bangs, and Qin Yuan noticed two band-aids on his knuckles.
She forced herself to calmly avert her gaze, slightly raising her head as if she hadn’t seen him.
Standing by the podium was a middle-aged man who appeared to be their homeroom teacher, counting heads with a list in hand.
Written on the blackboard were the name and contact information of the homeroom teacher, Chai Yuanliang. The electronic screen in the middle displayed the seating chart, with bold letters at the bottom: “Attend the opening ceremony at the Sports and Arts Center at 10 a.m.!”
Qin Yuan found her seat according to the seating chart. It was in the third row of the first group, against the wall. Her deskmate was a girl with a high ponytail who stood up to make way for Qin Yuan as she approached, giving her a friendly smile.
Qin Yuan looked up and found her new deskmate’s name on the chart: Xing Baitao.
Homeroom teachers naturally commanded respect among high school students, so no one in the classroom spoke loudly, with only a few students whispering among themselves.
Teacher Chai on the podium answered a phone call and waved Li Yue out of the classroom.
As soon as the homeroom teacher left, the classroom immediately erupted in chatter.
“Holy shit! Li Yue is in our class! The academic god is right beside us!”
“He’s way better-looking in person than in the photos on the honor board downstairs. How can someone be so ridiculously good-looking and still so academically talented?”
“Hehe, I’m sharing a dorm with the handsome guy~”
“Who’s Li Yue? How do you all know him?”
Qin Yuan eavesdropped for a while and finally heard something she could relate to. Exactly! What kind of male lead halo is this? How do you all know him!
“Bro,” the guy who shared a dorm with Li Yue turned around and asked seriously, “What was your score on the entrance exam?”
The person probably didn’t expect such a private question right off the bat, pausing briefly before answering, “Over 660, why?”
With a perfect score of 700, and No. 1 High School being one of the best in Ninghe City, admitted students generally ranked in the top 2%. A score of 660 was already considered high.
“Li Yue got 690 raw score.” As the roommate of an academic prodigy, Wu Zhuoyuan shared in the glory, suppressing a smile as he patted the questioning classmate’s shoulder with a solemn expression.
The surroundings immediately erupted into chatter, everyone discussing whether such a score was even humanly possible.
Qin Yuan hadn’t known such details and gasped in shock, a sense of reverence for the academic genius welling up inside her.
Xing Baitao beside her had been eager to strike up a conversation with someone, but her new deskmate had been keeping a straight face, making her too shy to speak. Now, she finally found a topic.
“A friend of mine who was in the same middle school class as Li Yue said he got perfect scores in four subjects,” she whispered to Qin Yuan, sharing the gossip.
Qin Yuan also lowered her voice to reply, “I want to drop out.”
Xing Baitao thought she was joking and leaned affectionately closer to Qin Yuan. “Relax, the academic prodigy and us aren’t even in the same world, haha.”
Qin Yuan felt like crying but had no tears, thinking to herself, “He better be.”
In the hallway, the homeroom teacher had finished talking with the person at the center of everyone’s discussion, patting Li Yue on the back to send him back inside.
Everyone turned their heads like a row of sunflowers, watching Li Yue return to his seat, then quickly fell silent just as Teacher Chai stepped into the classroom.
Qin Yuan’s seat was close to the front door. She lowered her head, secretly observing the male lead as he entered the classroom. Seeing him walk steadily, she felt slightly relieved, but the next moment, she noticed the bandage on his right forearm.
Damn, I was only thinking about the male lead’s leg and forgot his hand injury was also serious.
Qin Yuan sighed in frustration, wondering how long it would take for his hand to heal. Would it delay his studies? Would he still end up wanting someone to kill me because of this?
Others also noticed the academic prodigy’s injury, mostly out of curiosity, but Qin Yuan felt that bandage was like her own three-foot white silk noose.
Seeing that all the students in his class had arrived, Chai Yuanliang organized everyone to line up for the opening ceremony.
The new deskmate stood behind Qin Yuan, turning to look at the boys’ line and asking in confusion, “Huh? Why is Li Yue walking with us?”
Qin Yuan was overly sensitive to that name and leaned in to whisper, “Why wouldn’t he walk with us?”
“He’s supposed to give a speech as the freshman representative. He should go to the gymnasium early to prepare,” Xing Baitao said, happily leaning closer as her pretty deskmate took the initiative to approach her. “I know a lot of inside information.”
Qin Yuan stiffened and tentatively asked, “Then do you know how Li Yue injured his hand?”
“Ah, no, I only know things about the school.” Xing Baitao shook her head, not noticing Qin Yuan secretly sighing in relief as she smiled, her eyes curving. “My dad is a teacher in the sophomore year.”
The openly connected Little Xing and the secretly connected Little Qin quickly formed a revolutionary friendship. Qin Yuan held her hand as if grasping a future source of intelligence, her gaze earnest. “If you hear any gossip in the future, you must tell me.”
At this, Xing Baitao grew excited. “I won’t betray the organization’s trust.”
All the new students gathered in the gymnasium. Xing Baitao, who knew the inside story, saw Li Yue sitting in the Class 37 section just like them and grew even more puzzled. “Shouldn’t he be sitting in the front row with the principal and the others?”
This scene didn’t exist in the original book. After all, according to the original plot, Li Yue’s leg had just been broken and he was still lying in the hospital, so there was no opening ceremony at all. That’s why Qin Yuan had no idea what was going on either.
But she soon found out why. Xing Baitao craned her neck to look toward the front row and nudged Qin Yuan. “That girl looks so familiar… I think her name is… Guan Youyi?”
As fate would have it, Qin Yuan immediately followed Xing Baitao’s pointing finger and spotted Guan Youyi, who was bending over chatting with the principal. She wore a white dress, her hair loose, with a sweet smile on her face. In her hand, she held two pages of a script, looking as though she would be giving a speech later.
Qin Yuan understood now. No wonder she had egged on the original host and Zhu Yunle to gang up and beat Li Yue—she wanted to snatch the position of student representative.
She glanced sideways at Li Yue, who sat upright and expressionless in the crowd behind and to her side. Although he had come, the wounds on his hands were glaringly obvious. The short sleeves of his summer uniform couldn’t hide them at all, and standing on stage would have drawn too much attention. So, it was only natural that he had been replaced.
The ceremony proceeded step by step. On stage, Guan Youyi’s voice was clear and impassioned as she delivered her speech. Below, Qin Yuan leaned back in her chair, her mind drifting, growing increasingly worried about her precarious high school life.
In The Path of Legends, during middle school, only Zhu Yunle was in the same class as the protagonist, Li Yue. But this petty person deeply resented the poor boy who monopolized all the attention from teachers and classmates, so he decided to teach him a lesson.
It started with pranks, but these didn’t elicit the reaction he wanted. So, Zhu Yunle escalated, gradually progressing to spreading rumors, intentionally injuring Li Yue during P.E. class, and even gathering his lackeys to corner him after school.
The original host’s initial hatred for Li Yue was all absorbed from Zhu Yunle. Neither she nor Zhu Yunle were particularly bright, and with Guan Youyi deliberately stirring the pot, the two of them ignited like white phosphorus, determined to fight Li Yue to the death even at such a young age.
After entering high school, the original host became the one in the same class as Li Yue, and thus the primary executor of the bullying campaign against him.
Heaven knows, Qin Yuan really wanted to report Li Yue’s situation to a teacher.
Guan Youyi’s speech ended, and she bowed amidst a round of applause.
Seizing the moment, Xing Baitao beside her leaned over to whisper, “I heard Guan Youyi’s family is really wealthy. She’s so pretty, and her grades are good too. I wonder what problems she could possibly have in life?”
Qin Yuan looked up at Guan Youyi on stage, wearing her innocent and harmless smile, but didn’t respond to Xing Baitao’s comment.
Most ordinary students would never know about the family background or past actions of the person on stage. The wealthier someone was, the deeper these stains were buried.
In terms of assets, Qin Yuan’s family was actually the wealthiest among the trio of friends.
Thinking of the original host’s two troublemaking friends, Qin Yuan felt a headache coming on. Zhu Yunle acted without considering the consequences, his temper easily ignited. Guan Youyi merely used the other two as pawns, stepping away gracefully once her goals were achieved.
Regardless of whether she could eventually repair her image in Li Yue’s eyes, she had to distance herself from them as soon as possible.
Back in the classroom, waiting for the textbooks to be distributed, Qin Yuan doodled aimlessly on scrap paper with her pen, trying to come up with the perfect plan to clear her name.
It was almost noon. Teacher Chai had assigned seven or eight students to distribute books simultaneously before being called away by the homeroom teacher next door, leaving the classroom in chaos.
Some were discussing what to eat for lunch, while others seized the opportunity to bond with new classmates. Ignoring the noise, the seven or eight free laborers weaved through the room, each carrying a stack of books and tossing one onto every desk.
No one noticed that an uninvited guest had slipped into Class 37.
Zhu Yunle quickly spotted Qin Yuan by the wall. With one hand in his pocket, he strode down the aisle and stopped beside Xing Baitao’s desk, rapping his knuckles on the surface. “Classmate, mind if I borrow your seat?”
Xing Baitao felt inexplicably annoyed by his slick demeanor but nodded blankly and stepped aside. “Huh? Oh, sure.”
Qin Yuan only noticed him when he knocked on the desk, and her expression instantly darkened. If Li Yue wanted her dead, Zhu Yunle wanted her dead faster.
“What are you doing here?” Qin Yuan asked, her face icy.
Completely oblivious to her anger, Zhu Yunle plopped down on Xing Baitao’s chair and turned to Qin Yuan. “Came to ask you to lunch. You haven’t replied to my messages in three days, and you’re not answering my calls.”
He didn’t lower his voice, and many nearby students overheard his somewhat ambiguous reply, shifting their attention toward them.
Qin Yuan noticed that even the chatter around them had quieted. Xing Baitao, still standing in the aisle, suddenly widened her eyes and flashed her a knowing, excited smirk, as if she’d just uncovered juicy gossip.
…Qin Yuan felt a faint urge to die.
“No. And don’t come looking for me in my class again,” Qin Yuan replied quickly, hoping to send this troublesome figure away as soon as possible.
Just then, Li Yue happened to enter through the front door. His imposing figure was conspicuous enough that Zhu Yunle, like a minor monster whose aggro had been pulled, immediately locked his furious gaze on Li Yue without even asking Qin Yuan why.
“Why is he in the same class as you? What lousy luck,” Zhu Yunle said, raising his voice as if afraid that Li Yue couldn’t hear him.
The classroom fell silent instantly. Qin Yuan closed her eyes, her desire to die now overwhelming.
Li Yue glanced at Zhu Yunle, then ignored him entirely as he walked up to the podium and copied the homeroom teacher’s instructions onto the blackboard.
Zhu Yunle immediately flew into a rage. He knew he was being looked down on, and the fact that he was sitting while Li Yue stood only amplified the feeling of being condescendingly scrutinized, as if he were being provoked.
Young Master Zhu promptly slapped the desk and stood up, pointing at Li Yue on the podium and shouting, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
The other students hadn’t expected the situation to escalate so suddenly. Qin Yuan already wanted to cover her face and pretend she knew no one.
She called out Zhu Yunle’s name, but whether he heard and ignored her or simply didn’t hear at all, he didn’t even glance back at Qin Yuan.
At the center of the storm, Li Yue completely disregarded the fuming, stomping Zhu Yunle, calmly picking up a piece of chalk and continuing to write on the blackboard.
How could Young Master Zhu tolerate such disrespect, especially from Li Yue, whom he had just taught a lesson three days ago? He immediately clenched his fist and charged forward, not forgetting to add a threat: “You got lucky last time! Today, I’m going to break your legs!”
Qin Yue was nearly fuming with anger, wondering why he was so fixated on breaking Li Yue’s legs. She raised her voice again, “Zhu Yunle!”
On the podium, Li Yue had already set down the chalk, his gaze sharp and fierce.
The atmosphere instantly grew tense and hostile. Zhu Yunle seemed completely deaf to the voice calling him from behind.
Qin Yuan saw that he was already close to the podium—a distance she couldn’t cover by leaping over two seats in an instant—so she grabbed a new book from the desk and hurled it at Zhu Yunle.
Her aim was too precise. The brand-new cover struck Zhu Yunle squarely on the side of his face, as if slapping him from a distance.
The first smack was Qin Yuan’s book hitting Zhu Yunle’s face; the second smack was the book hitting the floor.
It was as if time had been paused—the classroom fell so silent you could hear a pin drop.
That “slap” seemed to clear Zhu Yunle’s mind. He turned back, staring at Qin Yuan in disbelief.
Qin Yuan remained seated in her chair, but her anger felt almost tangible. She lifted her chin toward Zhu Yunle and said coldly, “Pick it up.”
Zhu Yunle didn’t know what had gotten into him at that moment, but he actually bent down, picked up the book that had fallen by his feet, and obediently placed it back on Qin Yuan’s desk.
“Get out.”
With her strikingly bold and radiant looks, her icy expression carried a chilling authority, like an arctic gale that could strip away all warmth.
Zhu Yunle left, and the classroom remained silent for a full three minutes.
After a long while, Xing Baitao stared blankly at her deskmate and murmured, “Queen…”
Author’s Note: