1
On a white hospital bed lay a young girl in silence.
Three people surrounded the bed, a middle-aged couple and a handsome young man.
The man pointed at the young man’s nose and scolded. “I told you to care more about your sister! You always ignore what I say! If anything happens to Ning Ning, I’ll make you pay for it!”
The young man frowned, glancing coldly at his father. “What could possibly happen? This is already the third time this month. Last time, it was hanging and taking sleeping pills. This time, it’s cutting her wrist. When it comes to suicide, our little princess is quite measured, each time she turns the world upside down, making everyone worry themselves sick. But in the end? She’s perfectly fine.”
Slap!
The moment the young man finished speaking, a sharp slap landed on his face.
The man was trembling with rage: “You beast, look at what you’re saying! Is the person lying in the hospital bed someone else? That’s your own sister! Look at your mother, she’s crying like that, do you have any conscience at all! I’ve really wasted all these years raising you.”
The youth glanced coldly at the woman sitting by the hospital bed wiping her tears.
“She’s not my mother.”
Shi Zhanping was about to curse again when the girl on the hospital bed let out a soft moan and slowly opened her eyes.
“Ningning’s awake!”
Seeing her open her eyes, the furious middle-aged man instantly calmed down and leaned in close to the bed.
Shi Zhanping asked with concern: “Ningning, are you feeling better?”
Li Shining blinked.
What was going on right now?
Her memory was still stuck on the terrifying scene of the bus she was riding losing its brakes, crashing into a bridge, and plunging into the river.
Her name was Li Shining, a student from an impoverished eighteenth-tier county town. Through her own hard work, she had scored first in the entire county on the high school entrance exam. Just when she thought she had achieved her dream of attending the best high school in the city and would then get into Tsinghua or Peking University through her own efforts—
The accident happened.
The accident ended her young life in that world.
Memories of the original owner of this body kept flooding into her mind, and Li Shining finally realized that she had transmigrated into a book.
She had transmigrated into a melodramatic campus novel she had stumbled upon online after finishing her high school entrance exams, titled “The F4 and Their Little Fairy.”
The content of the book was just like the title, extremely melodramatic and Mary Sue-ish. It told the story of handsome men from four great families falling in love with the pure and poor female lead Tong Lu, four men competing for one woman.
But she hadn’t transmigrated into Tong Lu. Instead, she had become someone with the same name as her—Shi Ning.
In the book, Shi Ning was the eldest daughter of the Shi family, one of the four great families of Yangcheng. She had grown up with the four male leads and could be considered their childhood sweetheart. Among them, Shi Chen was even her half-brother.
The Shi family’s situation was complicated. Shi Zhanping and Shi Chen’s mother Cao Shu had a business marriage with no emotional foundation. Not long after they married, they had Shi Chen. A year later, Shi Zhanping and Cao Shu divorced due to incompatible personalities. Before remarrying Shi Chen’s mother, Shi Zhanping had a first love named Lin Xuemo. After divorcing Cao Shu, Shi Zhanping and Lin Xuemo had a lightning-fast marriage, and a year later, Shi Ning was born.
In the novel, Shi Chen was at odds with his biological father and stepmother, and had been rebellious since childhood.
But toward this little sister whom he had watched grow up, he had initially been very affectionate.
It was only later, as Shi Ning grew more and more willful, wanting her parents to dote on her alone and often stirring up conflicts between Shi Zhanping and Shi Chen, that Shi Chen gradually grew distant from her.
As the plot progressed, the several male leads in the book, including Shi Chen, all fell in love with the female lead Tong Lu.
Among them, the school bully of No. 1 High School, Nan Xiao—the son of Yangcheng’s richest man and one of the F4, was the person Shi Ning had secretly had a crush on since childhood.
In order to win Nan Xiao back and to regain the attention of her childhood sweethearts, Shi Ning made a huge scene, brought trouble upon herself, and did a series of unreasonable things.
She isolated and bullied the female lead at school. After the female lead was rescued by Nan Xiao and the others, Shi Ning felt that they were taking an outsider’s side instead of hers, so she ran over to the F4 and caused a huge scene.
At first, everyone still put up with her out of the bond they had shared since childhood. But later, seeing her go further and further, the other three stopped paying attention to her altogether.
Shi Ning, now neglected, resorted to crying, throwing tantrums, and threatening suicide. She forced her own brother to help her pursue his friend. When Shi Chen refused, Shi Ning went crying to their parents and even threatened to kill herself.
She single-handedly pushed away the brother who had once loved her.
In the end, even Shi Chen stopped caring about her. In a fit of rage, Shi Ning poured sulfuric acid on the female lead, disfiguring Tong Lu’s face… causing all of the F4 to detest and hate her.
Li Shining remembered that in the novel, after this incident, Nan Xiao held a knife to the side of the supporting female character Shi Ning’s face, his eyes cold and bone-chilling, his hoarse voice seeming to hide boundless hatred.
“This is what you owe Tong Lu. Don’t blame me.”
“Brother Xiao, no, I—I like you! Why do you only like that bitch! How is she worthy of you!” the original Shi Ning cried out in terror and fear.
“Like me? Are you worthy? In my heart, someone as vicious as you isn’t even worth a single strand of Lu Lu’s hair.”
If Shi Chen hadn’t rushed over in the end and saved Shi Ning, no one knew what would have happened that day.
Just as Shi Ning looked at her brother through tear-blurred eyes, wanting to pour out her grievances,
Shi Chen said coldly: “This is the last time I will ever concern myself with you. From now on, I no longer have a sister like you. You’re too wicked. You disgust me.”
And with that, this was the final fate of the supporting female character Shi Ning.
As for the female lead Tong Lu, although she had sulfuric acid poured on her, after plastic surgery her personality changed drastically. In the end, she turned dark and became a stunning, career-driven female powerhouse, clearing away all obstacles, falling in love with the male lead Nan Xiao again, and ultimately reaching the pinnacle of life.
When Shi Ning had read the book, she had felt quite sorry for this supporting female character Shi Ning who shared her name. She was clearly born into privilege, loved by her parents, doted on by her brother, how had she ended up like this?
She never would have imagined that, given another life, she would go from Li Shining to Shi Ning.
Fortunately, according to the original owner’s memories, things had not yet reached an irreversible point.
Tong Lu had just transferred over, and Shi Ning’s bullying of her was still limited to locking her in the classroom and daily mockery. She had not yet become that Shi Ning who had lost all reason and become vicious enough to pour sulfuric acid on someone.
Thinking of this, Li Shining let out a slight sigh of relief.
She looked at the three people by the bedside and smiled, saying: “I’m fine now.”
Li Shining looked at Father Shi’s loving, concerned expression, then at Lin Xuemo beside him, whose face still had tear stains.
And at her brother, who though he wore coldness on his face, still showed concern in his eyes.
They were all the people closest to Shi Ning. It was just that in the past, they had constantly been hurt by Shi Ning’s willfulness and extremism.
Since heaven had given her another chance, she would live well under Shi Ning’s identity. From now on, the original owner’s family would be her family too.
“It’s good that you’re fine, it’s good that you’re fine. Don’t ever do anything foolish again.” Her parents breathed a sigh of relief.
After exchanging pleasantries with her parents, Li Shining noticed that there was still one more person watching her.
It was none other than her half-brother, Shi Chen.
Shi Ning met his gaze. He said nothing, turned, and left the hospital room.
“Where are you going!” Shi Zhanping roared at his retreating figure.
Shi Chen ignored him and walked out without looking back.
“That little brat.”
Shi Zhanping chased after him.
“Ah, your brother and your dad’s relationship.” Lin Xuemo sighed.
Seeing Shi Ning’s thoughtful expression, she thought Shi Ning had become sensitive again and comforted her: “Ningning, don’t mind how cold your brother was to you just now. He actually cares about you a lot. During the two days you were unconscious, he stayed by your bedside the whole time and never left.”
Hearing this, Shi Ning remembered that in the original novel, Shi Chen and his father had an extremely poor relationship due to various misunderstandings accumulated since childhood. Usually at times like this…
She pulled out the IV needle from her hand, got up from the bed, and ran outside at top speed.
After searching around the hospital, sure enough, she saw Shi Zhanping and Shi Chen arguing at the entrance.
Seeing that Shi Zhanping was about to raise his hand against Shi Chen, Shi Ning quickly ran over, blocked her brother, and forcefully grabbed Shi Zhanping’s swinging hand.
The grudge between this father and son couldn’t be explained in a short time, but hitting people was the method Shi Ning detested most.
The original Shi Ning would only willfully intensify the father-son conflict. She was different. When she had read the novel from the perspective of an outsider, the character she favored most was Shi Chen, and the character she felt most heartache for was also Shi Chen.
In the original novel, Shi Chen was actually quite pitiful. He appeared cold on the outside, but deep down he was extremely starved for love. Shi Zhanping and his mother Cao Shu had a purely business marriage. Shi Zhanping could never let go of the first love he had missed out on. An accident led to Cao Shu becoming pregnant, and only then did Shi Zhanping have no choice but to marry her.
It could be said that from the moment he was born, Shi Chen was unwanted.
After his parents divorced, his father quickly married his first love and had Shi Ning. Influenced by his mother, he believed that the fault for his parents’ divorce lay entirely with his father.
He longed for maternal love, and for his mother’s sake, he distanced himself from his father and stepmother.
Later, he was used by his biological mother, becoming a tool for revenge—a knife in Cao Shu’s hand aimed at Shi Zhanping to destroy the Shi family.
He was naturally solitary. Though deep down he truly cared for and doted on this only sister who shared his blood, because of his awkwardness and inability to express himself, and because the original Shi Ning was such an extreme and self-centered person who constantly hurt him, he was completely disheartened and lost his last attachment to this family.
Afterward, Shi Chen ran away from home. Shi Zhanping, in order to go out and find him, got into a car accident and became a vegetative patient. The Shi family, having lost its pillar, met the same fate as the original Shi Ning…
A century-old aristocratic family, a prestigious clan admired by all, had fallen into decline just like that.
Thinking of these things, Shi Ning felt terrified.
When she had been Li Shining, she had lived an extraordinarily bitter life.
What was there no shortage of in the countryside? Left-behind children. To support the family, her parents had gone to work elsewhere when she was still babbling, leaving her to be raised by her grandmother. Because they were too far away and a trip back cost too much money, she might not even see her parents during the New Year.
But from the tuition and living expenses she received every year, she knew her parents loved her, and that they worked so hard all for her sake.
So no matter how hard life was, no matter how backward education was in the remote rural area, she studied desperately.
All so she could rise above her circumstances and change the fate of herself and her family.
But before she could change her whole family’s fate, fate took control of her and left her no room to fight back.
Her parents died in a construction site accident just as she started middle school. A year later, her grandmother passed away from serious illness. She lived alone for a year, and just when she had finally gotten into high school, death came for her again.
It really was true that like attracts like—her whole family were spokespeople for tragedy.
In this new life, although the original owner’s ending was also miserable, it was still much better than hers.
Moreover, since she knew in advance what would happen in the future, there had to be a way to prevent it.
Since she was going to live on as Shi Ning, then she would change the fate of the Shi family and herself.
As long as she was alive, everything could still be salvaged.
“Dad.” Because she had the memories, calling him that didn’t feel awkward at all.
Shi Ning looked seriously at Shi Zhanping and said, word by word: “Hitting people is wrong.”
Shi Zhanping was stunned.
Shi Chen was even more dumbfounded.
Was this girl in front of him still that little demon who bullied him at every turn?
She had just woken up, her little face pale. Without her usual gorgeous makeup, his sister looked so plain and pure.
Completely different from her usual willful, arrogant appearance that demanded the whole world indulge her.
Her gaze was calm, yet very determined.
This was really strange.
He had actually lived to hear Shi Ning say those words one day.
Usually when his dad hit him, it was already good enough if Shi Ning didn’t cheer from the sidelines.
Shi Chen also noticed that on her freshly bandaged wrist, because she had grabbed their father’s swinging hand with too much force, blood had seeped through the gauze again.
She couldn’t even take care of herself, and she was still trying to meddle with him?
His brows furrowed, and he said coldly to Shi Ning: “None of your business.”
“Look at your own hand. The wound reopened, but that’s your own doing. Don’t go blaming me for it again.”
Shi Zhanping had originally wanted to keep scolding his son, but after Shi Chen’s reminder, he still felt his daughter’s injury was more important.
He quickly pulled Shi Ning back into the hospital to have her wound redressed.
As Shi Ning was being dragged away by her father to treat her wound, she kept turning back to glance a few times at Shi Chen.
Shi Chen narrowed his eyes slightly.
He suspected he had been hallucinating the way Shi Ning had looked at him just now.
There was sympathy in it, mixed with compassion.
It was a kind of merciful gaze that only came after enduring the hardships of the world, far too mature for a sixteen-year-old girl.
Shi Ning’s injury was not serious. She could be discharged as soon as she woke up, and by the next day she could go to school.
As one of the four great families, the Shi family was depicted in the novel as extremely magnificent and luxurious.
Only after moving in did Shi Ning truly understand what the life of rich people was like. A single bathroom could rival the size of her former home. If not for the original owner’s memories, there were many appliances and high-tech devices in the house she had never even seen before.
After drinking the nourishing soup stewed by the family’s personal chef, Shi Ning returned to her own room.
The first thing she did was dig out her textbooks.
She had only been fifteen when she died, right after finishing the high school entrance exams. The original Shi Ning was one year older than her and had just started her first year of high school two months ago.
According to the original owner’s memories, the high school she now attended, Yangcheng No. 1 High School, was the top-ranked private aristocratic high school in the entire province.
Every year, it sent more than twenty students to Tsinghua and Peking University, and enjoyed the nation’s top educational resources and teaching conditions.
It was a famous high school the former Shi Ning would never have dared to dream of.
Why had the original owner been so unable to think straight that she fell for a male lead like Nan Xiao, who fought people every day and thought he was the most badass person in the world?
Was studying not good enough?
Enjoying such excellent resources and not studying would simply be a betrayal of the life she had been born into.
That night, Shi Ning reviewed all the content already covered in several subjects. Fortunately, she had been blessed with photographic memory since childhood. In one all-nighter, she went through all the knowledge covered in the high school textbooks over the past two months.
The next day, she carried her schoolbag and was driven to school by the driver.
Because she had just returned to school, her family hadn’t woken her either. Shi Ning slept until noon and only went to school in the afternoon.
Getting out of the Rolls-Royce, Shi Ning immediately heard discussions all around her.
Everyone was looking in her direction.
“Hey, isn’t that the eldest daughter of the Shi family, Shi Ning?”
“Yeah, yeah, why is she at school? Wasn’t she trying to kill herself a while ago?”
“Tsk tsk, I heard it was because she confessed to Young Master Nan and got rejected, so she tried to kill herself.”
“I think it’s eighty percent likely she was trying to threaten Nan Xiao with suicide. Who doesn’t know the Nan and Shi families are old family friends? Old Master Shi is famous for spoiling his daughter. With her like this, would Old Master Shi not help her?”
“Really shameless, pulling this kind of stunt just because she can’t get what she wants.”
“She just relies on being born lucky. Other than being a bit pretty, she’s good for nothing. Her grades are at the bottom every year, and her temper is terrible. Would Young Master Nan ever take a liking to her?”
“How could she recover so quickly from a suicide attempt? She’s just faking it, trying to make Nan Xiao feel sorry for her. So shameless.”
…
Shi Ning heard these discussions.
Only then did she belatedly remember that this time, her wrist-cutting suicide attempt was because after Nan Xiao won the school basketball championship, she had publicly confessed to him.
As a result, she was cruelly rejected.
When she had read the novel, Shi Ning had already found the things she did utterly cringeworthy. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that she would end up becoming Shi Ning herself.
How embarrassing!
Shi Ning decided to pretend nothing had happened. She silently turned her head away and hurried toward the teaching building.
But in her haste, she ran straight into someone’s chest.
The impact was solid and unyielding. Unable to regain her balance, Shi Ning fell to the ground.
She looked up.
The person she had bumped into was tall and handsome, practically a standard walking manhwa-cutout pretty boy.
He was looking at her with an impatient expression.
It was almost as if the words “Don’t bother me, get lost” were written on his face.
Shi Ning was forced to remember.
Oh, the person in front of her was none other than the male protagonist who had caused her to attempt suicide not long ago.
Nan Xiao.
**