On the way, Sheng Mingqi seemed to wake up once.
He saw me carrying him on my back and was so shocked he couldn't speak. Then he passed out again.
Nguyễn Niệm Niệm came along to the nurse's office, too.
After getting Sheng Mingqi into the room, I went outside to buy a bottle of water.
By the time I came back, Sheng Mingqi had woken up.
I hadn't even gone into the room when I heard Nguyễn Niệm Niệm say:
“Mingqi, thank goodness you're okay! It was worth all the trouble I went through to get you to the nurse's office!”
12
I thought it was kind of funny.
All she did was follow behind me. What was so hard about that?
Sheng Mingqi lowered his eyes to look at her.
He was so pale that you could see the tiny blood vessels in his eyelids.
“Nguyễn Niệm Niệm…”
“You don't have to thank me. We're classmates, so we should help each other.”
“Nguyễn Niệm Niệm, I only fainted. I didn't die.”
“Huh?” The heroine looked innocent.
“Giang Thanh Nguyệt was the one who carried me to the nurse's office, not you. Why are you taking credit?”
That was unexpected.
Sheng Mingqi could actually speak up?
I'd thought he'd believe anything Nguyễn Niệm Niệm said.
It felt great to know his intelligence hadn't taken a hit.
“That's right. I was the one who brought him to the nurse's office.” I pushed the door open, not giving Nguyễn Niệm Niệm a chance to say anything else. “You took credit for it while I was gone. What was that about?”
Nguyễn Niệm Niệm's little face turned red, then white, and finally she left with a dark look on her face.
I handed Sheng Mingqi the bottle of water.
“The doctor said you have low blood sugar. You'll feel better once you've finished the nutritional IV. After that, I'll take you to get something to eat and make sure you get a proper meal.”
Sheng Mingqi didn't take it. He eyed me warily.
“Giang Thanh Nguyệt, what are you up to now?”
“I want to apologize to you.”
Sheng Mingqi furrowed his brows in confusion.
I bowed my head in earnest before him.
“I'm really sorry. I bullied you before, and that was wrong. I'll change from now on.”
13.
The nurse's office was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Sheng Mingqi said nothing, and neither did I.
How should I put it… Even though I was the villainess, I still had principles and lines I wouldn't cross.
Bullying at school was unacceptable.
Even though I hadn't done those things, now that I had taken over this body, I had to make things right and take responsibility.
After a long while, Sheng Mingqi finally spoke. “What if I don't forgive you?”
“That's up to you. Apologizing is my choice; you have the right to decide whether or not to forgive me.”
“Of course I won't forgive you.” Sheng Mingqi curled his lip into a cold smile. “You trampled on my dignity. What makes you think you can ask me to forgive you?”
His words brought a fragment of memory rushing into my mind.
Sheng Mingqi had once written a love letter to Giang Thanh Nguyệt?!
It seemed that Sheng Mingqi had fallen head over heels for Giang Thanh Nguyệt back then.
It was the first time the boy had ever fallen for someone.
He'd written her a letter, awkwardly expressing his young, innocent feelings.
But Giang Thanh Nguyệt had read the letter aloud in front of everyone and mocked him.
After that, Giang Thanh Nguyệt avoided him whenever they crossed paths.
Sheng Mingqi's love for Giang Thanh Nguyệt turned to hate.
Later, Nguyễn Niệm Niệm was always kind to him, and little by little, he began to like her.
What a melodramatic mess…
I fell silent, and Sheng Mingqi said nothing more.
Just then, Nguyễn Niệm Niệm returned, breaking the silence.
She came in with several classmates and pointed at me.
“It was her! She beat Mingqi unconscious!”
I wanted to crack her skull open and see what was inside.
Hadn't she heard a single word of what the doctor said about his low blood sugar?
“Nguyễn Niệm Niệm, if you don't know what low blood sugar means, you can look it up on Baidu—”
Before I could finish,
Sheng Mingqi spoke up. “That's right. It was her.”
He raised his head and looked at me with eyes dark and lifeless.
“Giang Thanh Nguyệt was the one who hit me.”
14.
I truly regretted it.
When Sheng Mingqi passed out, I should've kicked him while he was down.
As a result, as soon as Sheng Mingqi recovered, he was assigned to sweep the school grounds.
I watched his frail figure struggle with the work.
I cursed him under my breath, thinking he deserved it, but still couldn't help walking over and grabbing him by the collar.
“Sheng Mingqi, what was that about back at the nurse's office today?”
“It was nothing.” His voice was flat.
“I know neither of us is exactly a good person, but I helped you. At the very least, we could be allies for now. So why did you turn on me so quickly?”
He said nothing and kept sweeping.
“Keep sweeping, then. Work yourself to death.” I turned and walked away.
“Nguyễn Niệm Niệm, bring those people along. They're always picking on me.”
He suddenly spoke, making me stop in my tracks.
“She naively thinks those friends of hers are good people, but she doesn't know they all hate me.”
I asked, “So?”
“As long as I'm the one who gets hit, you won't be ostracized by everyone because of me.”
I froze.
The night wind blew. The boy stood straight, like a tree on the verge of growing tall.
Sheng Mingqi lowered his cold eyes, as if he hadn't said anything at all.
“Were you helping me?”
He neither confirmed nor denied it.
I asked again, “Why are you helping me?”
He said, “Because you're not Giang Thanh Nguyệt.”
15.
His words left me standing there in shock.
“W-what did you say?”
“You're not Giang Thanh Nguyệt.” Sheng Mingqi repeated himself. “Your body is the same, but your soul isn't.”
“How did you…”
“I can tell that you and Giang Thanh Nguyệt are two different people.”
At this point, there was no point denying it.
“When did you figure it out?”
“In that little alley, the time you… ‘examined my body.’”
That had been the first day I transmigrated into this body.
According to the original story, Sheng Mingqi was extremely intelligent.
If he weren't smart, he wouldn't have become the main villain.
Now I could see that his powers of observation were razor-sharp.
We saw each other almost every day. If someone else had taken over her soul, he would've figured it out long ago.
Now I understood.
At first, Sheng Mingqi still wanted to scheme against me and provoke me.
But after that, he stopped treating me like an enemy.
I asked curiously, “So, aren’t you scared? This is all so strange.”
He shook his head. “What good would being scared do?”
That was true.
Things had come to this. Fear was the most useless emotion of all.
“Sheng Mingqi, now that you know everything, let’s work together.”
“Work together on what?”
“Do well in school.”
He scoffed. “Is that really necessary? I’m no top student.”
“You’re wrong. You’re very smart—smarter than anyone I’ve ever met. I’ll tutor you. All you have to do is work hard and become better than Sheng Ningye.”
“Why? What’s your motive?”
“I don’t want to marry Sheng Ningye.” I picked up the broom and helped him clean up. “I’m not the Giang Thanh Nguyệt you knew. I don’t like Sheng Ningye—in fact, I hate him. I don’t want to be used as a pawn in a marriage alliance, so I want to fight back.”
“You’re the same, aren’t you?”
I met his gaze.
“The truth is, you don’t want to be a good-for-nothing. You don’t want people bullying you, and you don’t want to go hungry and faint from low blood sugar again.”
“Becoming exceptional is your only way forward.”
Sheng Mingqi said, “Even so, the Sheng family won’t give me a chance.”
“How will you know if you don’t try? Chairman Sheng is a businessman. What he cares about most is profit.”
Besides, even if you don’t stay with the Sheng family, you can make your own way in the world. You won’t have to live at someone else’s mercy.
Sheng Mingqi was silent for a long time.
At last, he agreed to work with me.
Before leaving school, Sheng Mingqi said, “I have one last question.”
“Go ahead.”
I thought he wanted to hear the details of the plan.
Instead, he asked, “What’s your real name?”
The sunset shone in the boy’s eyes.
Like an orange-red flame.
I said, “My name is Giang Thanh Nguyệt.”
16.
As it turned out, Sheng Mingqi had deliberately ranked near the bottom of every school-wide exam.
He didn’t want to stand out or incur Mrs. Sheng’s resentment.
After we started working together, he finally showed his full potential. His test scores and rankings kept improving.
There were no evening study sessions at school.
Most of the students wanted to study abroad, so there was no need to work that hard.
Every day after school, I dragged Sheng Mingqi to the library.
He no longer had time to get into fights.
We studied until very late.
Sheng Mingqi walked me home and waited until my bedroom light came on before he left.
As for Nguyễn Niệm Niệm…
Her lies were far too clumsy.
Sheng Mingqi no longer believed a word she said.
Summer was approaching, and so were the exams.
I was doing practice problems in the library, nodding off.
When I woke up, I found Sheng Mingqi’s jacket draped over me.
He was watching me intently.
His gaze was gentler than I’d ever seen it.
When he saw me open my eyes, Sheng Mingqi quickly looked away and pretended to work.
“Is this your jacket?”
He answered stiffly, “If you don’t like it, give it back.”
“I do like it.” I wrapped the jacket tighter around myself. “It smells so good. Sheng Mingqi, do you wear cologne?”
“No.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s your body wash. It smells so good.”
He didn’t say anything, but his fingers unconsciously tightened around his pen.
Sheng Mingqi’s ears turned red.
Even though he was the villain, he was still just an ordinary high school student right now. How bad could he be?
I leaned close to his ear. “Sheng Mingqi, what kind of body wash do you use?”
“The cheapest one at the convenience store.”
“Then I’ll buy some too.” I said with a mischievous grin, “That way, I can carry your scent around with me.”
With a sharp rip—
Sheng Mingqi’s pen tore through the paper.
He really couldn’t be teased.
My unusual behavior had also caught my family’s attention.
Early one weekend morning, I finished breakfast and headed out to find Sheng Mingqi so we could work on our homework.
Mrs. Giang suddenly said, “Thanh Thanh, you’ve changed.”
Something stirred in my heart.