It hurts so much…
Ji Shu opened her eyes. Her forehead throbbed with pain, her vision a blurry expanse of white, and something seemed to be fluttering down continuously.
She raised her hand and wiped her face. Fine, sticky powder dust coated her palm.
Mocking laughter flooded her ears.
“Look at her, she’s like a clown.”
“We gave her an [1]“SPA” is sarcastic slang, not a real spa. They dumped powder (likely chalk, putty dust, or whitening powder) on her head and are mocking her as if she’d received a luxurious beauty treatment. … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1674481_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1674481_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });SPA! Hahahaha!”
“The effect’s so good, whoosh, she’s white in an instant. She should be thanking us.”
“Oh wow, why is the powder still falling? Is she so shameless that even the putty won’t stick? Hahahaha.”
The moment the voices reached her ears, Ji Shu’s body tensed up instinctively.
Was she having this kind of dream again?
Just as that thought formed, the next second she heard a familiar name.
“Ji Shu,” a cold voice said. “Lu Mingxi wants you to meet him at the usual place.”
Ji Shu couldn’t see the speaker’s face clearly, but the moment she heard the name “Lu Mingxi,” her whole body jolted.
—Wasn’t this one of the male leads from the novel she had read just a few days ago?
The Heroine’s Character was a romance novel set in a noble academy, telling the love story between a poor yet resilient female protagonist and three male leads at Flandre Noble Academy.
At the beginning, what attracted Ji Shu to the novel was exactly what the title suggested. The heroine, Ruan Si’an, was not the kind, soft, old-school “white lotus” type. On the contrary, she was tough, independent, straightforward, and held grudges. Her personality was extremely vivid, and together with the author’s carefully constructed worldbuilding, Ji Shu quickly became immersed in the story.
However, as the plot progressed, the novel’s vicious female supporting character entered the readers’ view—
She happened to share the exact same name as Ji Shu.
As the daughter of a wealthy businessman, Ji Shu had been the heroine’s classmate in middle school. She was arrogant, isolated, and ruthless, anything she disliked, she would destroy. Unfortunately, the heroine became that unlucky target of her school bullying.
But after advancing to an elite high school, the power balance reversed. The three male leads, each from prominent families with high status, who had developed feelings for the heroine, began punishing this vicious supporting character to vent their anger on her behalf.
At first, it was only covert collective exclusion. Later, the targeting became increasingly obvious, ranging from small pranks to outright physical abuse. In a noble academy where students were guided by family background and status, once they saw how the three male leads behaved, they began bullying her even more openly, taking pleasure in it and currying favor with students of higher standing.
Gradually, bullying Ji Shu became an unspoken “rule” of the school.
And her ending was a complete mental breakdown the day before the entrance examinations, followed by jumping to her death.
But her death changed nothing. It was even dismissed lightly by one of the male leads:
“She deliberately chose this day, trying to mess with everyone’s exam mindset, I guess. Truly vicious.”
After the vicious supporting character died, Ji Shu didn’t continue reading the novel. No matter who it was, seeing a character with the same name die so miserably would kill any desire to keep reading.
Not to mention—
It was that kind of death.
A sharp pain shot through her arm. Ji Shu was forced back to her senses.
“Are you deaf? Or did getting hit by the blackboard eraser knock you stupid?”
The girl beside her, who was looking into a mirror while applying lip gloss, reached out and pinched her hard. Only after seeing Ji Shu’s pained expression did she withdraw her hand with satisfaction, then kicked Ji Shu’s desk. “If you heard me, then hurry up and go!”
Ji Shu stood up stiffly.
The background of this country was a constitutional monarchy. Above all stood a hereditary queen, a symbol of national honor, the cabinet, led by a prime minister, steered the direction of the state’s operations, below that, parliament regularly voted on decisions affecting citizens.
And Lu Mingxi was one of the novel’s male leads, the only son of a ducal family. His mother was the youngest duchess in history to inherit her title, her ancestors were related to the royal family, and he himself maintained close ties with the royals. His father was the successor toLotus, a world-famous luxury brand that had risen from niche salon perfumes. On top of that, he was handsome, cheerful, and at Flandre Academy he could be called a barometer of popularity, wherever he was, the wind blew that way.
But Ji Shu knew—
He was nothing short of a devil.
Leaving the classroom slowly, enduring the strange looks from students in the hallway, she walked to the familiar old place from her memories.
At the end of the third-floor corridor, beside the infirmary, was a storage room used for cleaning supplies.
The door was half open, thick shadows pooling inside.
Ji Shu wiped the chalk dust from her face and pushed the door open. Inside, she saw a tall, slender figure leaning against a stack of boxes piled high, head lowered as he fiddled with something in his hands, making repeated click sounds.
Beside him, two or three others stood around, heads down, absentmindedly scrolling through their phones.
When they saw her enter, one of them said, “You’re here,” in a tone as casual as drinking water or eating a meal.
A boy walked over, pressed down on Ji Shu’s shoulder to force her to kneel, then wrenched her arms behind her back and slammed his weight down onto her spine.
Thud!
The pain made tears spring to Ji Shu’s eyes, she felt as if her chin had been shattered.
At that moment, the tall shadow finally spoke.
“So slow.”
The tone was lazy, faintly complaining, like someone grumbling about how terrible the weather was today.
He tossed the object in his hand up and down as he approached Ji Shu. Then, unhurriedly, he lifted his leg and stepped on her shoulder, pressing down with a bit of force. After that, as if confirming something, he waved his hand to signal the people beside him to move aside, and crouched down in front of Ji Shu.
Ji Shu didn’t dare raise her head. She could only see a blurry human shape in front of her, until a small cluster of flame flickered to life.
That tiny flame illuminated the boy’s exquisite face.
His brows and eyes were sharply defined, his eyes long and narrow with upturned corners. The lines of his face were smooth and elegant, his lips were thin, and the shadow cast by his high, straight nose swayed across his cheek with the dancing flame.
In his gaze was undisguised disgust.
He brought the lighter’s flame close to Ji Shu, waving it beside her cheek in a show of intimidation. He watched her expression carefully, intently, and then let out a short, derisive laugh.
…What was he going to do? Burn off her hair?
Ji Shu trembled uneasily from head to toe, cold sweat seeping down her back. Her stomach was pressed against by a knee, waves of nausea surging up, her vision darkening.
Although none of them were saying anything at the moment, she inexplicably seemed to hear countless chaotic voices flooding her ears, shrill as a train whistle tearing through her eardrums.
“Young Duke, look at her shaking in fear!”
“Cowardly as a rat, filthy, absolutely disgusting.”
Lu Mingxi leaned in close to her, murmuring softly into her ear.
“Ji Shu, if you’re this timid, how did you dare bully people back in middle school?”
His warm voice was like a slender snake sliding into her ear canal. Goosebumps rose all over her body, and she trembled, trying to retreat.
But those iron-clamp-like hands easily pinned down her frail, fragile body, cutting off any path of escape.
Images from the past, no less harrowing than what was happening now, surfaced in her mind. Things she had finally endured and survived, things that at most should have appeared only in nightmares, were being replayed here once again.
Why…?
Lu Mingxi only saw her lips moving.
“What?” He frowned and leaned in closer.
It wasn’t me. I don’t know why I came to this place, why I became this hateful character.
Ji Shu desperately wanted to say it. But she closed her eyes.
“…I’m sorry.”
Ji Shu spoke.
Her voice was as faint as a mosquito’s buzz. Her face was deathly pale, her lips devoid of even a hint of color. Long lashes drooped downward, veiling her pitch-black eyes.
Lu Mingxi let out a soft scoff. A shallow breath made the little flame sway gently.
His tone was flippant, laced with faint anger and disdain. “Sorry? And that’s it?”
Ji Shu shrank back. She couldn’t help squeezing her eyes shut, lowering her head as cool black hair fell along the side of her face.
She could almost smell it, the imagined scent of flames scorching the tips of her hair.
Perhaps amused by her pathetic state, a clear, delighted low laugh spilled into her ears, one after another.
“You really should see what you look like right now.”
The boy leaned in close in front of her. The custom-made fragrance at his collar surged relentlessly into her nose, an overpowering, extravagant scent that seized every nerve of her senses and spread all the way down to her stomach.
Ji Shu’s face grew even paler. She tried to avoid the scent, attempting to shuffle backward on her knees, but she was pinned down so tightly she couldn’t move at all.
The discomfort in her stomach intensified. The invasive fragrance stimulated her stomach wall, drawing fine beads of sweat across her forehead and back.
Her vision darkened in waves, and she began trembling even harder.
The boy pressing her shoulder whistled. “She’s especially scared today!”
“In the past it was just small-time stuff, never enough to really punish her. Why doesn’t the young duke show her some real consequences today, make her pay for what she did before?”
Ji Shu heard a voice carrying a faintly contemptuous smile. “That’s enough.”
Lu Mingxi hooked his lips into a smile, tilted his head, rested his arm on his knee, and pinched her chin, lifting her face up toward his.
The girl had her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Her long, jet-black lashes trembled with fear, her lips pressed together as sweat rolled down along her delicate jawline.
Even with her eyes closed, Ji Shu could feel the rich, red-wine-like perfume surrounding and invading her, as well as the glaring firelight reflected against her eyelids.
“Open your eyes,” the young duke ordered casually.
“If you don’t, I’ll burn off your eyelashes one by one.”
Painful memories burst into her mind like lightning.
The memories of being cursed, bullied by that group of demons, of being dragged to an empty equipment room on the eve of a major exam, her eyeballs forced toward the flame of a lighter, resurfaced once more. The heat of the fire crept closer and closer, until at that terrifyingly close distance it felt as if it would burn straight through her retinas.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
She had finally, with so much effort, escaped from it, yet at this very moment, she had returned once again to that hell.
“I said—”
Lu Mingxi frowned. He sensed that something was off about the person in front of him, and a bad feeling suddenly rose in his chest.
The skinny girl, hanging her head like a drowned dog, suddenly seemed unable to hold on any longer.
“Ugh—”
She vomited onto his clothes.
The boy beside her was so startled that his hands loosened. The others froze for a split second, then instinctively began filming, as if watching a spectacle.
Ji Shu hadn’t eaten anything beforehand and was starving, so all she could throw up was sour bile. Even so, the spasms in her stomach wouldn’t stop. Using every ounce of strength she had, she clenched the uniform at her chest with both hands, her torso heaving as if she wouldn’t stop until she vomited up all her internal organs.
After a moment of shock, Lu Mingxi’s brows knitted tightly together, anger and disgust spreading across his expression.
He cursed, grabbed Ji Shu by the hair, and yanked her head up, expecting to see a terrified face.
Instead, he found Ji Shu crying with a blank expression.
Her pitch-black eyes weren’t even focused on him, showing not the slightest awareness that she had vomited on him.
“You f*—” Lu Mingxi shrugged off his coat and tossed it aside, sneering. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“Cigarettes.” He crooked a finger at one of the boys, and a pack of ICLUEX cigarettes was handed over.
Only then did the others belatedly realize what he intended to do.
Flandre’s school rules were strict. If smoking on campus was discovered, the lightest punishment was a public demerit, the heaviest was expulsion.
Lu Mingxi lit a cigarette and motioned for the others to restrain her. The boys stepped forward to pin her shoulders, while the girls prepared to pry her face open with visible disgust.
“…Don’t do this, please.” Ji Shu begged through tears, twisting her head to break free from the girls. She clutched the buttons of her uniform at her chest tighter and tighter, the blue veins on her arms standing out sharply, the rush of blood pounding in time with her heartbeat.
The boy turned a deaf ear.
His cold, slender fingers pressed against her lower lip, pinching her wet cheek without room for refusal, and he shoved the lit cigarette into her mouth.
After doing so, he withdrew his hand with clear disgust, turned away, and took a school uniform handed to him to wipe his fingers.
The faint tobacco scent of ICLUEX slowly spread through the narrow, dark room.
Before long, the nearby detectors would sound the alarm. Teachers and administrators would rush over and catch her red-handed.
“There’ll be a good show in a bit.”
“Young Duke, let’s go first. Club activities are about to start, we shouldn’t let anyone else see.”
Gloating, the group put away their recording devices and prepared to leave.
However, in the dim light, a faint click suddenly sounded.
It came from the girl kneeling and hunched on the floor.
Lu Mingxi followed the sound and looked over, only to see that the sobbing girl had stopped crying. Her dark, heavy eyes suddenly turned lifeless. She spread open her palm.
Inside lay a button, one she had forcibly torn off her uniform.
Lu Mingxi froze.
At that very moment, giving him almost no time to react, she clenched her right hand, already bruised and bleeding from being pinched, rose to her feet, and swung her fist. The smoke-laced breeze flickered briefly before Lu Mingxi’s eyes, and then he felt a sharp pain to his face and crashed to the ground.
The people who had been about to leave didn’t react at all at first. Only after a moment did shocked cries ring out.
“Young Duke!!”
“This crazy bitch—!”
They rushed forward to break it up, but their way was blocked by boxes that came crashing down with a loud bang, scattering across the floor.
“I said, don’t treat me like this.”
That was all Lu Mingxi heard, like the voice of a cold, sorrowful ghost.
The slender girl lunged like a mad dog at Lu Mingxi as he staggered to his feet. Their figures overlapped as they tumbled together into the pile of clutter. Ji Shu beat him like she’d lost her mind, blow after blow landing solidly. Veins bulged on the backs of her hands and along her slender neck.
The sound of fists striking flesh rang painfully clear in his ears. Before he could even process what was happening, pain had already surged into his mind.
Lu Mingxi was beaten senseless, until Ji Shu lowered her head, pried open his lips, and spat the cigarette that had long since gone out into his mouth.
The damp, faintly warm cigarette butt burned him, making him jerk violently, and only then did he come back to his senses.
Rage flared in Lu Mingxi’s eyes. He tried to spit out the cigarette, but Ji Shu blocked his mouth. She shoved her index and middle fingers into his mouth, pinning his tongue down along with the cigarette.
Her fingers were so cold they made him shiver, while his tongue was warm, perhaps from anger, so hot it felt almost scalding.
Lu Mingxi bit down hard on her fingers. Only when the taste of blood spread did she let out a muffled groan and release him.
The sickly-sweet taste of blood flooded his tongue, fueling the fire in his eyes.
Lu Mingxi spat out the cigarette, grabbed the hand she was swinging, and clamped his fingers around her slender throat, forcing her back toward a corner. Ji Shu looked frail, but she was stronger than expected. Struggling, she twisted his wrist instead and kicked at his leg.
The two of them rolled together down out of the pile of debris.
Lu Mingxi hit the ground first, grimacing in pain. When he saw Ji Shu’s pitch-black eyes blazing with fury, he laughed through the pain.
“You’re seriously f*cking sick.”
A faint smell of blood spread at his nose. The place on his neck where Ji Shu had bitten him moments ago had already begun to bleed.
He reached up and brushed at the wound, neat, damp teeth marks, then looked at the girl in front of him, at her lips stained a deep red with fresh blood.
In the darkness, that flash of red was startlingly vivid.
His heart was racing. A subtle, unfamiliar sensation slammed against it, sending wave after wave of dizzy, electric shock–like currents through his body.
He reached for the medicine bottle in his pocket, then remembered that he had already taken off his uniform jacket and had no idea where he’d thrown it.
“…Ha, Ji Shu.”
Gasping for breath, Lu Mingxi grabbed her thin wrist and yanked her in front of him.
He laughed coldly. Yet in his eyes burned a fire of anger and keen interest, like a starving leopard on a desolate grassland after a long rainy season, finally locking onto precious prey.
He enunciated each word slowly:
“You’re finished.”
After saying that, his vision spun, and he blacked out.
Ji Shu pulled back her wrist, which felt as though it had almost been torn off. She was straddling Lu Mingxi’s waist now, slumped forward, without even the strength to straighten her back.
Her strength was completely spent. She closed her eyes and panted for breath.
Like a rain-soaked, dying prey animal on the grasslands.
“…You don’t have to tell me. I already know.”
She murmured the words as the taut string in her mind finally snapped.
And then she toppled forward, collapsing beside Lu Mingxi.
References[+]