Morning sunlight poured weakly across the classroom windows, gilding desks covered in notebooks, crumbs, and half-finished assignments. Jiang Xiaoman sat hunched over her desk, chewing on her pencil and scribbling furiously into her homework book. Her hair was sticking up in a dozen directions, and a crumpled bread wrapper sat forgotten by her elbow.
Xueling set her bag down quietly and placed a neatly wrapped bun on Xiaoman's desk.
Xiaoman blinked at it. "What's this?"
"Fuel," Xueling said dryly, sliding into her seat. "If you faint from hunger again, people will think I poisoned you."
Xiaoman tore it open and took a massive bite, her cheeks puffed like a chipmunk. "Mmff—You're the best! Don't deny it."
"I'll deny it," Xueling said, turning a page in her notebook to hide the faint curve of her lips.
The bell rang, dragging the class into order.
By the second period, the room was stuffy, the teacher's voice a steady drone about complex functions. Xueling's head dipped, her long night of coding, strategizing, and Olympiad rounds catching up to her. Her eyelids slipped closed.
"Feng Xueling!"
Her head snapped up. The teacher's chalk paused mid-stroke at the board. "Care to explain this proof to the class? Or is sleeping your new specialty?"
A ripple of laughter broke out.
Xueling rose slowly, pushing up her glasses. Her gaze flicked over the board once. "Factor the terms first. If you substitute too early, the denominator collapses and you chase false solutions."
She picked up a piece of chalk and, with swift strokes, reduced the tangle of symbols into three clean steps. The final solution landed with a sharp tap.
The class went silent. Even the teacher blinked, caught off guard.
"…Correct," he said, clearing his throat. "Sit down."
Xueling returned to her seat, calm as though nothing had happened.
Xiaoman leaned over, whispering, "Unfair! How can someone solve math problems while half-asleep? You're not human."
"Neither are you," Xueling murmured back.
"Excuse me?!"
At lunch, the courtyard buzzed with chatter, sunlight glinting off trays and soda cans. A small circle had already formed around Feng Xueyao, who sat gracefully under the shade of a tree, pastel dress draped perfectly, her smile soft and demure.
"…the Robotics Expo will be such an honor," Xueyao was saying, lashes lowered, her voice sweet as honey. "Representing our school… I only hope I don't let anyone down."
The circle of admirers leaned closer, voices tumbling over each other."Yaoyao, you're amazing!""You'll definitely win!"
Xueyao gave a modest smile. "Oh, I couldn't do it alone. I'm lucky to have so much support. Especially from my sister." Her gaze lifted innocently toward Xueling, who was settling down beside Xiaoman. "She's always so good with details—debugging and fixing things. I'd be lost without her."
There was a ripple of coos. "What a caring sister you are, Yaoyao!"
Xiaoman raised her brows, tapping her chopsticks against her tray. Her tone was syrupy sweet, almost a parody of Xueyao's. "Ah, yes, our Xueling wouldn't dare to presume in front of the mighty Feng Xueyao. But tell me, if Sister Xueyao is already so brilliant, why does she need Xueling to debug at all? Unless… she doesn't actually know how to debug herself?"
The courtyard went quiet, gasps and whispers darting through the crowd.
Xueyao's smile faltered for a heartbeat, then returned, softer, more fragile. "Xiaoman, you always tease so cruelly. Debugging is just… tedious, that's all. My sister helps with the small things, but the vision and code are mine." She placed a delicate hand over her chest. "Is it so wrong to share my triumphs with family?"
The words were pitched perfectly, laced with hurt. Several students murmured, "Poor Yaoyao… she's so misunderstood."
Before the tide could turn, Xiaoman leaned forward, her smile sharp. "Share your triumphs, huh? Funny, because I don't see much sharing going on."
Xueyao blinked, startled. "What do you mean?"
Xiaoman ticked points off on her fingers, her voice deceptively light. "If you really want to share family glory, how about giving Xueling one of those diamond bracelets you wear to class? Or maybe that Cartier necklace you flashed at New Year's? No? Then at least one of those limited-edition bags? Hmm?"
The crowd shifted uneasily. Eyes flicked to Xueling, who sat quietly, her glasses slipping down her nose, her school uniform washed thin from too many cycles in the laundry.
Xiaoman's tone sharpened. "Fine, forget jewelry. How about a new set of clothes for her? Something that doesn't look like it came out of the discount bin?"
Xueyao's smile stiffened.
"And if even that's too much," Xiaoman added, her voice dropping to a mocking whisper, "how about textbooks? At least buy your sister some clean textbooks instead of letting her write in ones with torn covers and secondhand notes."
The words landed like stones.
The courtyard fell into silence.
It wasn't the comfortable hush of admiration Xueyao was used to. This was heavier — eyes flicking between the sisters, whispers barely restrained, a tension that prickled under the skin. A few students stared openly at Xueling's faded uniform, at the crack along the spine of her notebook, at the contrast between her and the sparkling "princess" under the tree.
No one rushed to speak. No one knew how to.
Even the breeze that stirred the courtyard seemed to hesitate.
Xueyao sat frozen, her hand tightening on her skirt, the faint tremor in her lashes betraying her.
And then —
"…I… I didn't mean…" she whispered, her voice catching. Her eyes brimmed with tears that glittered like jewels in the sunlight. "I only wanted to thank my sister. If I've made it sound otherwise, then… I've hurt her too, haven't I?"
Her voice broke, small and pitiful. She stood abruptly, skirts flaring, and fled the courtyard, shoulders shaking.
"Yaoyao!" her admirers scrambled to follow. "Don't cry, we know you're sincere!" "You're the best, don't listen to them!"
The courtyard emptied out, the echo of voices fading into the corridors. Xueling calmly picked at her rice, as though nothing had happened. Xiaoman fumed beside her, muttering under her breath about "green tea princesses" and "brain-dead fan clubs."
But Zhang Wei didn't leave. He stood at the edge of the courtyard, his jaw tight, eyes burning holes into Xueling's back.
Zhang Wei was not poor. His family's business supplied building materials across the province, giving him enough privilege to carry himself above most of their classmates. He wasn't on the level of the Fengs or the Gus, but he'd always been part of the circle that orbited them — close enough to taste, but never quite to touch.
And to him, Feng Xueyao was perfection. Sweet, brilliant, untouchable. He loved the way she laughed softly at his jokes, the way she let him carry her bag once in a while, the way she looked at him with grateful eyes when he fetched her a drink. He loved her with the fervor of a boy who mistook obsession for devotion.
So when Xiaoman's words sliced through the courtyard and made his beloved look small and vulnerable, Zhang Wei's pride snapped like brittle glass.
"No one humiliates Yaoyao," he muttered to himself, fists tightening. "Not her sister. Not anyone."
That evening, Zhang Wei ducked into a smoke-filled teahouse at the edge of town, his uniform jacket traded for a casual hoodie. In the corner, three local hooligans lounged over half-finished bottles, their eyes sharp and hungry.
"You want us to rough her up?" the leader asked, blowing a smoke ring into the air. "That quiet Feng girl? Doesn't talk to anyone?"
"She made Yaoyao cry," Zhang Wei snapped, slamming an envelope onto the table. "Teach her a lesson. Nothing that'll get me in trouble — just enough so she knows her place."
The men exchanged amused glances. To them, Zhang Wei was a rich brat playing at power. But money was money.
"Fine," the leader drawled, snatching up the envelope. "We'll handle it. She'll be crying by tomorrow."
Zhang Wei smirked, satisfaction warming his chest. In his mind, he was her knight, avenging her honor. Surely, Yaoyao would look at him differently after this.
It was twilight when Xueling finished self-study and headed back home. There were only a few weeks before the finals and everyone was ramping up their pace — including Xiaoman, who had insisted on an extra afternoon session that left both of them buzzing with equations and bad cafeteria tea. Xueling smiled at the memory as she walked: Xiaoman's stubborn questions, the way she crammed a sticky bun into her mouth and declared, "If I fail, you owe me dinner for life." In this life, she thought, it would be wonderful to go to college with such a friend. She would do everything she could to make sure they both reached Tsinghua.
She was still planning their imagined dorm room and study rituals when she felt footsteps fall in behind her, casual at first, then deliberate — the kind that belong to someone who has been following a route enough times to know the shadows. She slowed, folded her shoulders into a smaller silhouette, and turned the corner.
Three men spilled out of the alleyway into her path like a bad coincidence. Their jackets were cheap, their grins thinner than their faces. The nearest one stepped forward, the leader, and his voice was low and amused.
"My my my, what a quiet little rabbit," he said. "Too bad someone wants to rough you up tonight."
They closed the circle with too much confidence. The air smelled of wet concrete and cheap cologne. For a second the city's evening noises dimmed and all Xueling could hear was the slap of her own heartbeat.
She adjusted the strap of her bag, palms flat against the canvas, and let the smallest corner of her mouth tilt up. "If you want to try, then come."
The first thug lunged with the sloppy bravado of someone used to easy prey. He was met not with fear, but with precision.
Xueling moved like a thought taking shape. Her body remembered patterns faster than the men could register them — a shoulder feint, a twist of the wrist, a practiced foot sweep that came from muscle memory she hadn't had to relearn so much as recall. The first man's arm twisted painfully behind his back; he dropped to his knees with a curse.
The second swung a bottle. Xueling stepped inside his arc, palms guiding rather than blocking, and sent him off-balance with a judo-like pivot. He crashed into a chain of bins with a surprised howl. The third, bigger and meaner, charged with a growl; she met him with a low knee and an elbow that struck point blank into ribs. He doubled over, winded.
None of it felt theatrical to her — it felt efficient, economical, a sequence of small truths the body had catalogued in another life when there were only two options: fight or die. The moves were not foreign; they were old scripts she'd learned in blood and cold sweat. In her past life, she'd trained to protect herself and, later, to earn coin when the Fengs and others left her no other choice. Underground rings, fists in dim rooms, alias names on betting slips — those were the hard lessons her rebirth had not yet required, but the reflexes had settled into her like a language.
When the alley fell still, the three men were assorted ragged heaps and snarled curses. Xueling stood breathing quietly, sleeves dusted with grime, glasses slightly askew, as if nothing unusual had happened.
"You," she said, pointing to the leader who was trying to sit up. "Who paid you?"
He spat blood and swallowed bravado. "You—you don't know who you're messing with. Ask Zhang Wei. He— he'll pay us double. He said… he said you embarrassed his girl."
Xueling's jaw set. She pressed her heel into the man's shoulder until he winced. "Zhang Wei," she repeated softly. "Tell him I'll remember this." A hundred small calculations clicked into place in her head: the courtyard, Xueyao's flight, Zhang Wei's red face. Petty vengeance, yes—but useful information.
She walked away before they could apologize or threaten further, the alley's shadows swallowing her carefully measured stride. She didn't hurry; there was no rush. The night folded around her like a coat.
At her desk that night the bare lamp haloed a neat stack of notebooks and the laptop that had become her true window. She closed her eyes and let the adrenaline drain away into a slow, clean calm. Reborn, she wanted revenge on the Fengs and the Gus — yes — but more than vengeance she wanted a life that belonged to her: ordinary comforts, dignity, and the freedom to be herself without being exploited or erased. A small room of her own. Textbooks without other people's names scrawled in the margins. Clothes that fit without shame. Meaningful friendships and relationships that could give her the warmth she had long craved.
That did not mean she would take injury lying down. Anyone who harmed her — whether out of Xueyao's fragile pride or petty spite — would be repaid, tenfold if necessary. Those repayments wouldn't become her life; they were tiles on the path she was building, not the destination itself.
She opened her eyes, fixed a clear goal in her mind, and began to type. Her fingers moved with the same clean precision she'd used in the alley — shaping the first resounding lesson for anyone who thought to harm her.