Exhausted, Ji Shu returned home, took a shower, dried her hair, and changed into a fresh set of clothes.
She lay down on the bed, sleepiness weighing heavily on her.
How she wished this were just a dream, if she could wake up, she could return to a normal life, back to the world she had so painstakingly escaped from hell.
Her extreme fatigue made her vision blur and darkness creep in.
When she woke again, it was the housekeeper knocking on the door.
“Dinner’s ready, Miss.”
Ji Shu rose, still a little unaccustomed.
She glanced at the clock, 8:38. She had slept for half an hour. She unlocked her phone hurriedly, then let out a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, there were no new messages in the pinned chat.
That sudden jolt had cleared her mind somewhat, though a wave of disappointment still rose in her chest.
—After all the fear and conflict, this world kept reminding her of its reality.
Ji Shu knew, perhaps she would never be able to go back.
Ji Shu’s family was very wealthy. Their house was luxurious, a three-story flat.
Her room was on the second floor.
She changed into a long-sleeved top to cover her scars and went downstairs to the dining table. The table was long, but only two people were seated.
Ji Shu pulled out a chair and sat down, nodding to the woman: “Sister Ying.”
The woman was under thirty, somewhat reserved, and smiled when she saw her come down. “I noticed you came home later than usual today, [1]“Xiao” (小) means “little” or “young” jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1746280_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1746280_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });Xiao Shu? And you went straight to your room alone…”
“School ended at four-thirty, and there were a few extra club activities,” Ji Shu explained. “I wasn’t feeling well today.”
The woman tensed. “Not feeling well? A cold, or…?”
“Just tired. I took a nap after coming back, and I feel much better now.”
The housekeeper also smiled. “Miss really was exhausted today. Came home, took a shower, and immediately fell asleep. She just woke up.”
He Ying asked, “Xiao Shu, your schoolwork must be heavy, right? No wonder it’s Flandre. A good school probably comes with a lot of pressure.”
She hesitated slightly before asking, “Do you need to attend a tutoring class? Sometimes when I go to tea parties, the other ladies talk about their kids’ tutors and classes…”
Ji Shu interrupted her: “No need, Sister Ying.”
After saying that, she lowered her head and began eating.
Cold grilled steak. Tasteless, dry in her mouth.
The woman pursed her lips and looked down as well, aware that she had overstepped slightly.
He Ying was Ji Shu’s father’s second wife. Ji Shu’s mother, his first wife, had passed away when Ji Shu was very young, leaving behind Ji Shu and her brother.
Later, when Ji Shu started middle school, the same year her brother went abroad to study, her father married He Ying.
He Ying was young and appeared even younger, so Ji Shu called her “Sister Ying” at home. Ji Nanlin was often away on business, returning only a few months each year. In the large house, it was often just her and Ji Shu face to face.
The atmosphere was somewhat awkward.
Fortunately, the television diverted her attention.
The evening news was on.
“Recently, the duke and his son attended a royal social banquet. The duke denied rumors of marital discord…”
Ji Shu looked up.
Lu Mingxi was wearing a dark gray patterned bespoke suit with a wine-red tie. The silver-gray tie clip gleamed under the lights. His broad shoulders and narrow waist made him appear tall and imposing, his flashy hair making him look like a playboy. The impatient smile at the corner of his eyes and the downward tilt of his lips were clearly captured by the camera.
Duke Lu Ruqing stood in front of him, half a head shorter, with neat short gray hair and a cold, stern expression.
She looked into the camera without flinching: “Although it is only a rumor, clarification is necessary. Cheng Anyu has been busy with company matters recently and rarely appears with me in public, next month is Lotus’s COB birthday celebration, which will be held at the duke’s mansion. We hope that media from all sectors can attend…”
As she spoke, Lu Mingxi stood slightly behind her, lips curved, chin raised, staring straight into the camera.
Watching that face, Ji Shu suddenly felt her stomach turn. Even the small amount of food she had just eaten threatened to rise.
But after about ten minutes, she set down her utensils.
“I’ve finished eating. I’ll go upstairs to do homework first.”
She trudged upstairs, leaving more than half of her food on the plate.
Back in her room, Ji Shu first reviewed the original owner’s homework. The other subjects were mostly similar, but the elective history course was slightly different. Besides that, there were many arts and ethics electives, which rarely had regular homework, mostly assessed through final essays.
By the time Ji Shu finished her homework, it was past eleven o’clock. After previewing the next day’s lessons, she took her phone to bed, curling up under the covers as if it could somehow bring her a sense of safety.
She opened LINE and first checked her own profile. Ever since the original owner had entered high school, no new posts had been made.
Her most recent post was still from the day of Flandre’s entrance ceremony.
In the photo, the girl held flowers and smiled brightly, black hair and a white dress like a pure lotus. Although alone, she still carried a hopeful longing for the future.
“If you want to survive… and live to atone.”
Ji Shu whispered silently in her heart.
To survive, there were three possible approaches.
First: transfer schools.
Easy to say, but extremely difficult in practice. Ji Nanlin had put in enormous effort to get her into this school, hoping she could make connections there. He would absolutely never agree to her transferring.
Then, could going abroad work?
The original owner’s brother had gone abroad before the college entrance exams to study clinical medicine and was about to graduate from Severin Polytechnic.
Ji Shu slid open LINE, tapped the contact labeled “Ji Cun” from memory, and casually scrolled through the messages.
The siblings appeared distant, rarely speaking. They only contacted each other or transferred money on holidays or birthdays. Occasionally, the original owner would ask, “Are you coming home this year?” and he would always reply, “No.”
Ji Shu hesitated, tentatively sent a message, then immediately retracted it.
Too reckless.
The summer vacation would arrive in a few months, she could ask then if he was coming home and mention this matter casually. Even going abroad would have to wait until her senior year, she still had one year left.
Since neither of these options could achieve her goal directly, she would have to work within the story itself.
The three male leads targeted her only because the original owner had bullied the female lead. Therefore, to get through high school safely, she first had to earn Ruan Si’an’s forgiveness.
She was the only breakthrough point.
In her mind, Ji Shu circled the name “Ruan Si’an” deliberately.
Before obtaining the female lead’s “pardon,” she had to endure.
Nothing like yesterday could ever happen again.
This was Ji Shu’s current plan. She had to comply with Lu Mingxi before the situation escalated into a school-wide bullying incident. At this stage, Lu Mingxi was the most directly hostile toward her, the other two male leads were merely bystanders, and the bullying was still confined to the class level.
She still had time.
Ji Shu thought herself into exhaustion and fell asleep without realizing it.
It wasn’t until the next morning that, groggily reaching for her phone, she was instantly jolted fully awake.
—Lu Mingxi had messaged her at two o’clock in the morning last night.
Three messages in a row.
She didn’t reply to any of them.
…What kind of sick joke is this!!!
Her heart racing, Ji Shu jumped out of bed, quickly washed up, ate, and dashed to the car to go to school.
On the way, she couldn’t help urging the driver to go faster. She kept swiping through LINE’s message page, silently praying that no new notifications would pop up.
When she arrived at school, she didn’t even pause to catch her breath and ran straight to her classroom.
But the moment she pushed the door open, an immediate sense of wrongness hit her.
Accompanying it was a sudden “whoosh—”
Cold water poured down, blurring her vision.
The piercing chill made her shiver violently, and her ears rang from the shock.
Her hair and shirt were soaked instantly. The rushing water clumped her hair into strands, and the shirt quickly stuck to her body.
Malicious gazes from the entire class shot toward her without the slightest pretense. Along with them came the “click click” of cameras and mocking laughter.
Her face went pale, and she froze for a few seconds, lips barely moving.
A few boys entering the classroom behind her mercilessly shoved her aside, hands in pockets, strutting in while turning back to laugh, openly scanning her from head to toe.
Ji Shu’s reason forced her stiff body into motion.
She pinched her palm, turned around, intending to use the few remaining minutes before class to go to the locker room and change her clothes.
But the next moment, the notification sound from her phone rang.
Ji Shu froze, her movements stiff as she reached into the pocket of her skirt for her phone.
The pinned message displayed a short, sharp notification:
【Do not change clothes.】
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