Yang Zengyue was so busy she skipped lunch, and she didn’t go to her afternoon classes either, staying glued to the internet studying every kind of survival skill.
She downloaded a whole pile of videos on growing crops, so she could play them offline on her computer later.
What she searched for most, though, were documents and reference books. Even if there was no electricity in the future, she could still read them once she printed them out.
She also drew up a farm-planting plan. The map of Sikun Mountain was already in her head, and she divided up all the land there, detailed right down to the use of every single plot of field.
She worked at it with total concentration. The two other roommates who normally didn’t stay in the dorm came back to grab some things and left again, and she never even lifted her head.
These two roommates rarely crossed paths with her, and Yang Zengyue wasn’t the type who cared much about other people’s daily lives anyway.
She just focused on her own affairs.
Everyone left everyone else alone, and that was how they kept the peace.
Yang Zengyue tweaked and revised the plan until she was satisfied, then stretched, stood up, and moved her body a bit.
It was only when she raised her arm that she noticed something had inexplicably appeared on her wrist, a string of somethings.
She stared at the beads on her wrist. To be precise, it was three beads strung together on a black cord. The three beads sat close together, each separated from the next by a strange knot.
Yang Zengyue had never seen a knot tied that way. It looked a little like a character. But she couldn’t read it!
Once she’d traced its shape, she realized this “character” looked more like a talisman-glyph. It bore a slight resemblance to the ones her master usually drew.
She had no memory of ever owning this thing.
The three beads looked like black stones, very hard in texture, rven with her strength, she couldn’t crush one between her fingers. And her strength was enough to split open mountains and cleave rock.
So Yang Zengyue tapped one with her finger, and heard a crisp, clear sound ring out from within.
Finding them a nuisance, she tried to take them off, only to discover that what strung the beads wasn’t the black cord she’d assumed, it was metal, and a dead knot at that. There was no getting it off.
She gave up and left it, figuring she’d find some way to saw it open when she had time.
Shu Ranran had come back, and two other roommates returned with her. There were six people in their dorm, and Yang Zengyue only had any dealings with Shu Ranran, because they were the only two in the same class and same major, while the other four studied different subjects.
The two who’d come by earlier rarely showed their faces around the dorm, and the remaining two were always going after Yang Zengyue.
Her roommate Wei Linchun had barely set down her backpack before she suddenly sneered, “Yang Zengyue, you look pretty lively and full of pep for someone who’s supposedly sick.”
She’d already heard about the scene when Yang Zengyue walked into the classroom that morning. But as far as she was concerned, it just meant Yang Zengyue’s classmates had never seen real presence, it was nothing but the aloofness of an inferiority complex, mistaken by others for the commanding aura of someone who looked down on the world.
Ridiculous.
Yang Zengyue looked up, shot Wei Linchun a glance, then, as if idly, swept her eyes over the girl beside her. If she remembered right, the girl was called Bai Jingyou.
Surname Bai, the Bai family of Nanyuan?
At that thought, she replied absently, “I do. A heartache.”
What, is heartache something you’re going to ask about too?
These two always spoke in sly digs and barbed jabs. In the past Yang Zengyue wouldn’t have bothered engaging them, but today was not like the old days.
She’d lived seven years in the apocalypse, and by now she felt there was nothing wrong with settling scores freely and living by her own code. [1]repaying kindness and grudges as she saw fit jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2943101_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2943101_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
You jab at me, I’ll jab you clear up into the sky. Let’s see who’s tougher than whom.
She refused to believe that she, who had crossed the apocalypse alone, spear in hand, could be scared of these two little girls.
Even if Bai Jingyou really was one of the Nanyuan Bais, she still wasn’t afraid.
“Oh my, our high-and-mighty flower can tell cold jokes now. How rare.” Bai Jingyou’s tone was grating just to hear.
“Good that you know I’m cold and aloof, so stop showing off your quick tongue at every turn. I used to ignore it because it was pointless. Now, maybe not.” She could see through what these two were up to in a single glance.
Besides, Bai Jingyou had always singled her out. Could there be some other reason behind it?
Yang Zengyue decided to needle her a few more times in a bit.
Wei Linchun and Bai Jingyou exchanged a look, neither understanding why Yang Zengyue had suddenly switched styles.
But Shu Ranran was delighted inside. These two loved to team up and bully Yang Zengyue, and they didn’t expect to hit a wall this time.
Bai Jingyou, however, didn’t believe she’d actually do anything. No matter how ugly the things they’d said before, they’d never seen her react, so she’d suddenly dare to now? As if!
Bai Jingyou threw out another jab. “As expected, a village girl with no mom, no dad, from some backwater who’s never seen the world. No fear of heaven or earth.”
Yang Zengyue lifted her eyes. “Still better than you, who has both a mom and a dad and yet is all mouth and no substance, throwing your family’s little bit of money around all day to look down on people, and your looks are only so-so, your grades are garbage too.”
Come on, you think I’m scared of you?
Her grades could always crush these two roommates flat. Even if she’d now forgotten some of her coursework, she was confident that one week of cramming would be no problem and she could win it right back.
“You…” On the subject of grades, Wei Linchun couldn’t argue back, because what Yang Zengyue said was simply the truth.
And Bai Jingyou had gone white with rage.
What she hated most was anyone calling her not pretty enough. Because in the Bai family, it was precisely her looks, inferior to her cousin from her second uncle’s household, that had kept her forever overshadowed.
Because of that, even the boyfriend the family had lined up for her had ended up going to her cousin instead!
This was Bai Jingyou’s reverse scale. [2]her one unforgivable sore spot jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2943101_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2943101_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
Seeing Bai Jingyou’s face change, Yang Zengyue knew she’d stepped squarely on the sore spot.
She watched the two of them with a smiling face, but there was a murderous glint in her eyes, as if the moment either of them spoke out of turn again, she would kill on the spot.
“Yang Zengyue, take my advice, be a decent person.” Bai Jingyou dropped this line and pulled Wei Linchun out of the room.
Yang Zengyue’s expression was truly terrifying, that feeling of someone just snapping back out of combat mode, and it sent the two of them fleeing.
But before the door closed, they still heard Yang Zengyue’s mocking words: “Oh my, I’ve never once seen you two be decent, and now you’re lecturing others on it? Feels pretty accomplished, does it?”
Hearing that, the two didn’t even dare look back.
Yang Zengyue’s tone was utterly cold, as if the moment things went sideways she’d make someone bleed.
Watching those two slink off, Shu Ranran couldn’t have felt more satisfied. The way they lorded it over everyone in the dorm, noses in the air, was as detestable as detestable got.
Because of the question mark over Zengyue’s background, these two had never stopped their cold sarcasm, not a shred of the friendliness sisters in a dorm ought to show.
Word was that both of them came from well-off families and looked down on Yang Zengyue for being from the mountains. And it wasn’t just her, those two carried themselves haughtily toward everyone.
Shu Ranran remembered how, not long after enrolling, everyone had gone around the room, as was custom, sharing their hometowns and families. Yang Zengyue had only mentioned her hometown and said nothing at all about parents or relatives. Everyone assumed she was an orphan, of humble origins, a poor fit for the group, probably some girl from a mountain nowhere who’d never seen the world, so they left her out of a lot of activities.
Shu Ranran thought the real reason was that Yang Zengyue was simply too beautiful, with an inborn, otherworldly air about her. She didn’t seem like a girl from some cut-off mountain region at all, and you couldn’t tell it from her speech or bearing either.
The other roommates would never admit it was because Yang Zengyue was too pretty, that whenever they went out together, the boys’ eyes always circled back to her, and that was why they never invited her to anything.
But Shu Ranran felt an inexplicable goodwill toward Yang Zengyue. She thought this girl was excessively beautiful and simply not good at communicating with others.
So she went almost everywhere with Yang Zengyue, becoming the first person to bring some warmth to Yang Zengyue’s college life.
And Shu Ranran was a grateful sort.
In their first winter after enrolling, she’d fallen ill on a weekend with a high fever. Everyone in the dorm had gone out, only Yang Zengyue remained, and Yang Zengyue was the one who carried her on her back to the school infirmary, brought her food, and looked after her all day. After that, Shu Ranran grew even closer to her, firmly convinced she was a kind and beautiful girl who simply didn’t like to talk.
Ever since, Shu Ranran had always wanted to repay Yang Zengyue’s care. But Yang Zengyue was such a self-reliant roommate that, basically, there was nothing Shu Ranran could help with at all!
Shu Ranran guessed the dorm’s tensions had been seeded at the very start, but Yang Zengyue had never paid them any mind, staying quiet in the dorm, so the six of them had gotten along well enough.
This time, for whatever reason, faced with those two women’s barbs, Yang Zengyue had chosen to fire back.
Maybe this kid had been holding it in too long and had finally erupted?
Shu Ranran guessed at it in her heart. And besides, Yang Zengyue had been a little off ever since that morning, something had definitely rattled her.
Still, this version of Yang Zengyue only made her like her more. Shu Ranran walked over and threw her arms around her all at once. “That’s more like it. You should fight for every inch. Look at those two peacocks, sitting on a family gold mine with their noses in the sky.”
Looking down on everyone.
Shu Ranran didn’t usually associate with them either, everyone minded their own business, so there wasn’t much conflict.
Yang Zengyue gave a soft “Mm.”
Then she buried her head again, searching for the materials she needed.
The Bai family matter could be looked into later, together with the Yan Lingjun business, there was no rush right now.
In her eyes, her master’s safety and Sikun Mountain’s safety were what mattered most. She had to arrange those two most-important matters first before she’d have the spare energy to deal with these families.
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