Chapter 4

Yan Can had never felt time drag so slowly before.

By the time she finished her fifth cup of coffee, it was only just past eleven.

She couldn’t concentrate on TV, movies, or novels. In the end, she opened her computer and used a game to jolt her numb brain awake.

Five minutes later.

The character representing her in the game landed and was immediately sent back to the lobby.

Yan Can...

Just kill me already!

She had no interest in starting another round. Instead, she looked up at the clock again.

...

Tick by tick, the minutes crawled by.

The room was frighteningly quiet.

It was late at night; the cicadas and birds outside wouldn’t stop chirping.

So loud. So annoying.

But her heartbeat was even louder.

Three more minutes, and it would be time to witness a miracle.

...

The countdown on the phone on her desk showed one minute left.

Tick-tick-tick-tick; the second hand was inching closer and closer to twelve.

At last, the hour hand and minute hand overlapped...

The second hand kept moving forward...

!!

It was past midnight!

The marks she’d smashed into her phone screen at noon were still there!

Yan Can was swept up by a wave of overwhelming joy. She looked at the time in the lower-right corner of her computer screen.

September 5, 00:01.

Success! She had successfully moved into a new day!

Her mouth spread into a grin, and she excitedly flung herself onto the bed, rolling back and forth several times.

Just as she’d thought: the way to break the loop was to change the heroine’s death.

She was so overjoyed that she kept giggling like an idiot for a full three minutes. Only when her face started to stiffen and the corners of her mouth began to ache did she finally lie down under the covers.

.

Early the next morning, Su Ci got herself together and planned to say goodbye to Yan Can before leaving.

But when she went to Yan Can’s room, the door was open and the person inside was gone, so she simply went downstairs to try her luck.

And then she saw Yan Can on the first-floor sofa, dark circles under her eyes, eating breakfast.

Had she not slept last night?

Yan Can had drunk too much coffee the night before and stayed wide awake the entire time. By six in the morning, she was hungry, but still couldn’t sleep, so she got up early instead.

“Come eat breakfast with me.” Yan Can was in an excellent mood now; the corners of her mouth wouldn’t stay down.

Su Ci glanced at her, set down her backpack, and sat across from her.

She didn’t eat much; one bowl of wontons was enough to fill her up.

“You’re not eating anymore?” Yan Can had deliberately had people prepare a huge spread for breakfast: sandwiches, bread, porridge, youtiao, soy milk—a Chinese-Western fusion. “Eat a little more.” Otherwise it would all go to waste.

Su Ci didn’t move. She stood up and said, “I’m heading back.”

Thinking that she had finally broken the loop, Yan Can no longer tried to keep her there. She set down her chopsticks and stood up as well. “Okay, I’ll see you out.”

Su Ci refused, but Yan Can insisted on seeing her off.

So five minutes later, the two of them got into the car together.

The car moved at a steady speed.

Su Ci said, “You can’t drive any farther in. Just let me out at the alley entrance.”

This was an old residential area; the houses nearby were all shabby and worn.

Chen Shu looked surprised, apparently wondering why the young lady’s friend lived in a place like this.

Yan Can wasn’t surprised. Once Su Ci got out of the car, she followed too. “I’ll walk you in.”

She was planning to go into the alley with her.

Su Ci flatly refused. “No need.”

With that, she walked in without looking back.

Since she had said no, Yan Can didn’t chase after her.

Anyway, the loop had been broken, so she didn’t need to keep watching her anymore. Besides, after spending yesterday with her, this person didn’t seem like someone who would go back to trying to kill herself.

She should have changed her mind.

Thinking this, she yawned and, once she got back in the car, immediately told Chen Shu to take her home.

She hadn’t rested last night; she was exhausted and needed to go back and catch up on sleep.

...

On Monday, after lying at home for two days, Yan Can had a happiness on her face that she couldn’t hide.

Being able to feel time passing at all was wonderful.

When Zhang Ru saw her get out of the car, the corners of her mouth lifted. Smiling, she walked over and lightly poked Yan Can’s arm. “Yan Can, what good thing happened?” She looked so happy.

The only thing that could make this young lady, who usually never showed emotion, smile like that would be a family reunion. Yu Ting smiled and said, “Did your parents come back?”

Yan Can shook her head. “No.”

Zhang Ru said, “Then did the competition results come out?” She must have taken first place again; this academic maniac.

Yan Can blinked twice. Huh? She shook her head.

Now the two of them were confused and asked in unison, “Then what is it?”

Yan Can obviously couldn’t tell them the truth, so she casually brushed them off. “I carried a game.”

Yu Ting and Zhang Ru exchanged a look, both of them deeply confused.

Since when had Miss Yan become obsessed with video games?

But since she wasn’t explaining, the two of them didn’t ask further.

The three of them headed toward the building where the seniors’ classrooms were. As they passed a patch of flowers around the corner, they heard two girls talking.

At first Yan Can didn’t think much of it, until her sharp ears caught a familiar name.

“I saw Su Ci get out of a luxury car yesterday with my own eyes.”

“It’s not just once or twice either. Every time it’s a different model. Who knows how many men she’s been stringing along.”

“I heard her family’s pretty ordinary; getting into this kind of expensive school took a lot of effort, and it was all to hook a rich young master, right!”

“Exactly. If ordinary people want to climb the social ladder, they have to rely on methods like this. Too bad these people don’t get it; how could wealthy families and aristocrats ever easily get together with someone from a house like that?”

“I think those men are just playing with her. She’ll end up—fuck! Who the hell—”

The two of them yelped at the same time when someone suddenly shoved them hard from the side.

But when they turned and saw who it was, they instantly went silent.

The one who had shoved into them was none other than Yan Can, the daughter of this school’s board chairman.

“Can’t you speak properly? If not, then sew your mouths shut.”

Yan Can usually gave people a sense of distance and pressure; now that her face had gone cold, that pressure only intensified. “What grade are you in? Did you even pay attention in etiquette class? You think anything can just come out of your mouths?”

Facing Yan Can, the two girls lost all their earlier aggressiveness. Like students being scolded by a teacher, they stood there with their heads down, looking obedient and submissive.

Yan Can hadn’t wanted to interfere at first, but these two were so foul-mouthed that she couldn’t help suspecting whether Su Ci’s jump had something to do with campus bullying.

“This time I’ll let it go. If I find out there’s a next time, I don’t mind telling the principal.” Her words carried a thick, unmistakable threat, and the two girls didn’t dare breathe too loudly.

Right then, the warning bell rang. Yan Can glanced toward the teaching building, turned around, and walked off without looking back.

Behind her, Zhang Ru and Yu Ting stood there in a daze. After exchanging a look, they hurried after her.

Once they were gone, the two girls stomped their feet in place, unwilling to accept it.

“How impressive. Does she really think this school belongs to her family? So what if she’s the board chairman’s daughter? Big deal! And she won’t even let people talk; fine, I’ll talk even more!”

“What rotten luck, getting lectured just for saying a few bad words. It’s all Su Ci’s fault!”

After the two girls also left, in the spot where they had just stood, beyond the line of sight in a blind corner, Su Ci walked out from the shadows with a stack of books in her arms and looked toward the senior building thoughtfully.

On the other side, Yan Can was still annoyed by what had just happened.

The two people following behind her immediately fell silent when they saw her suddenly flare up like that.

After entering the teaching building and seeing that Yan Can’s expression had eased somewhat, Zhang Ru gave Yu Ting a look: you ask her.

Yu Ting: Why don’t you ask?

Miss Yan already had a face that kept strangers away; when she got angry, even more people wouldn’t dare get close.

The two of them silently hyped themselves up. Only after they sat down at their desks did Yu Ting quietly ask, “Yan Can, what’s wrong?”

Schools always had people who liked to chew over gossip. Though they too looked down on that kind of behavior, if it wasn’t someone they knew, they usually wouldn’t speak up for them. Thinking of that, Yu Ting said, “Do you know the girl they were talking about?”

After saying that, she realized it didn’t make sense. Yan Can’s circle of friends didn’t seem to include anyone named Su Ci.

Yan Can’s anger had cooled somewhat by now, but remembering the filthy things those two girls had said, she got angry all over again. She said coldly, “I just can’t stand girls talking about other girls like that.”

Yu Ting nodded. True; they really had gone too far.

She had thought those two were pretty contemptible herself.

Zhang Ru patted Yan Can on the shoulder. “They got threatened by you just now; they should have learned their lesson. There won’t be a next time.”

The first two classes passed very quickly, and the third was gym.

The weather was nice today, so after changing into their sportswear, the students gathered on the field.

After the usual two laps and a set of radio calisthenics, everyone was free to do as they liked.

Yan Can liked sports; in her original world, she had been the captain of the school basketball team.

When she saw people in her class playing basketball, she joined in too.

Yan Can played extremely well; she sank two baskets in a row, leaving the boys and girls beside her staring in disbelief.

Yu Ting and Zhang Ru, squeezed into the crowd, were also shocked.

This seemed to be the first time they had ever seen Yan Can play basketball, and she was actually pretty good at it.

But since when had Miss Yan’s stamina gotten so good?

Yan Can was already beautiful to begin with; playing ball only made her more pleasant to watch. Even girls who usually weren’t interested in basketball crowded over to look on.

In no time, the area outside the white boundary line was packed with people.

“Didn’t expect the young lady to not only have good grades, but also athletic talent.” A girl in the class said dreamily.

The girl next to her nodded. “She looks so cool playing.”

A lower-grade girl watching from the side glanced at the girl on the court, her hair tied in a high ponytail, revealing a slender, fair neck.

The slim, tall girl was wearing the school’s summer sports uniform. Her T-shirt was loose; when she jumped, a tight waistline flashed into view...

The girl looked down at her own stomach. Hiss... when would she ever have a body like that...

“Senior, what’s the name of that senior with the high ponytail who’s really beautiful?” Zhao Panpan asked the girl beside her very politely.

The girl glanced at her and thought, so there were still people who didn’t know who Miss Yan was. Then she lowered her gaze to the name tag on her chest; a sophomore. Her tone carried some disdain. “Yan Can. You don’t know? You’re new?”

Zhao Panpan really was new. She nodded. “I just transferred here.”

The girl choked, then stopped paying her any mind and turned back to her fangirling. “Yan Can, go for it!”

“Student Zhao Panpan, the homeroom teacher wants you to go to the office.” Just as the girl was watching excitedly, a clear female voice suddenly came from behind her.

“Huh, Su Ci, what’s up?” Zhao Panpan turned around, glanced at the person in front of her, then looked back at the tall figure in the middle of the court. She subconsciously compared the two women’s beauty. Mm, she still liked Su Ci’s type better; cool, hard to approach... looked like she’d be very hard to conquer...

Su Ci...

Was this person spacing out?

Suppressing a sigh, she said, “The homeroom teacher asked me to tell you that if you’re free, go to her office.”

The moment she heard the words homeroom teacher, Zhao Panpan jolted fully awake. “What does she want with me?”

Su Ci said, “I don’t know.”

She was just the messenger.

“Okay, I got it.” Zhao Panpan left reluctantly, looking back every few steps.

She still hadn’t had enough of the beauties.

After she left, Su Ci followed the direction of her lingering gaze, and with that look, she saw Yan Can just walking this way.

Perhaps for convenience, the hair at the front had all been tied back, revealing a broad, smooth forehead. On that delicate little face, those beautiful peach-blossom eyes sparkled with tiny flecks of light; the whole person was bright and energetic, radiating the kind of happiness unique to youth.

Seeing her look over, Su Ci averted her eyes, turned around, and left without looking back.

Yan Can hadn’t expected Su Ci’s class to also be having gym. The moment their eyes met, before she could even say anything, the other girl had already turned and gone.