It all began when a friend sent me an article online.
As it turned out, once the wound on her face healed, Tô Tích Thủy started making a scene online again, spreading lies about me: “The experts investigated and couldn’t find any evidence that I cheated. I’ve always been a good student—why would I ever cheat? Today, I got my acceptance letter from Qingbei University. I was forced into everything I did before! That Vệ Vũ girl used some kind of dark magic to deliberately make my face break out in sores. She struggled through school and barely got into college, so now she’s jealous of me! Everyone, please stop attacking her~”
Before I could even react, a mob online had already started viciously attacking me.
Ha! Some things never change!
The moment she recovered, she started dragging me through the mud.
I immediately realized what was going on. She definitely hadn’t destroyed Thắng Nam’s report card, or she wouldn’t have been able to get an acceptance letter.
No, I had to go to her house and check. Thắng Nam had to still be there!
As soon as I reached the Tô family’s gate, I saw Tô Tích Thủy standing in front of the cameras, giving an interview.
She still had that smug look on her face.
“Well, what brings the top scholar of our class, Vệ, all the way here?”
“I don’t have time to argue with you. What’s going on?”
“Online harassment? Don’t blame me. I already told those overzealous netizens not to go too far.”
“I’m talking about the score.”
“The score? I did what you told me to.”
“Are you sure you burned the college entrance exam report card?”
“I burned it. Do you think I could’ve become the province’s top scorer without really earning it?”
“If I hadn’t really burned it, do you think my face would’ve healed like this?”
I stared at her, sensing her carefully. Sure enough, not a trace of Thắng Nam remained on her.
Could it be… had she really been reincarnated?
When I got home, Grandpa told me, “The Chấp Nhiệm Sát hasn’t ended. If she still has unfinished business, she can’t move on.”
He looked at me and asked solemnly, “Are you sure Thắng Nam’s obsession was becoming the top scorer?”
That night, I was woken by my phone ringing incessantly.
I looked at the screen. It was Tô’s father.
His voice choked with emotion over the phone. “Tô Tịch Thủy… she’s gone crazy again! I blinked, and she was gone!”
“Gone? Doesn’t your gated community have round-the-clock surveillance? They’d spot a fly getting in!”
Something wasn’t right.
Was it Thắng Nam?
By the time I arrived, dawn was just breaking.
In Tô Tịch Thủy’s room, I saw the walls covered in crude drawings of a woman with a little girl.
And… there was also a trace of Thắng Nam’s resentment.
Tô’s father confessed, “She really did come to apologize the other day. But once the swelling on her face started to go down, the girl began having bad intentions again.”
“She really did burn the report card at Thắng Nam’s grave… But it was just a fake!”
The score had never been returned.
I was so angry I ground my teeth.
But now, finding her would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Just then, Tô’s father suddenly took out a stack of documents, looking a little embarrassed. “Here’s the information about Thắng Nam you asked me to find. I forgot to give it to you.”
I snatched them from him and hurriedly flipped through the pages. Her real name was Thư Cẩn. She also had a younger brother. But in her family, the son was everything, and the daughter was just a burden. She had never been treated well, even as a child.
All the hard work around the house fell to her. By the time she finished, it was already midnight, and only then could she study.
Even so, her mother never stopped beating and scolding her, simply because she was a girl.
And her younger brother?
He wasted his days partying and let his grades slide, yet their mother treasured him like gold.
Everything changed right before the college entrance exam.
Her parents divorced.
Her father took her younger brother and left without hesitation, leaving her with a mother who had already been unstable and had now become even more terrifying.
Her mother poured all her resentment onto her daughter, believing she was the one who had destroyed the family.
Just as Thư Cẩn was doing everything she could to prove herself… her mother secretly drugged her and knocked her out completely.
She couldn’t take the college entrance exam…
But worse than anything else, her mother forced her to marry an old man.
He was willing to offer a bride price of five hundred thousand.
Thư Cẩn’s mother believed that with enough money, she could win her husband’s heart back.
Driven to utter despair, Thư Cẩn chose to jump into the river and end her life.
It turned out she had given herself the name Thắng Nam, meaning “to surpass boys.”
She had been obsessed not only with becoming the top scorer on the college entrance exam, but also with earning her mother’s approval.
I immediately guessed that Thắng Nam had surely dragged Tô Tích Thủy to the place where she had once jumped into the river.
I told Tô Tích Thủy’s father to bring Thư Cẩn’s mother there, then raced toward the riverbank.
Sure enough, I saw Tô Tích Thủy standing there, wild-eyed and out of her mind.
Perhaps Thắng Nam was the one controlling her body now.
“Thắng Nam!”
“Don’t do anything reckless! Let go of your obsession!”
“Let go?”
“My whole body has been turned into a vengeful spirit by this obsession. She stole everything from me! I want her dead!”
As soon as she finished speaking, Thắng Nam’s fury erupted.
A bitter wind howled around us, and the temperature seemed to drop several degrees.
I quickly formed a hand seal, but I couldn’t restrain her.
A powerful wave of resentment knocked me backward, making my internal organs roil.
Thắng Nam stood atop a high cliff, ready to leap into the rushing water below.
In the moment of crisis, I shouted…
“Your mother is on her way. Your obsession was never really about becoming the top scorer—it was about earning her approval.”
Hearing that her mother was coming, Thắng Nam hesitated. Sorrow showed in her eyes.
“Cẩn Nhi, my foolish child… I was wrong. Don’t do anything reckless.”
At the crucial moment, Thắng Nam’s mother arrived. She was a woman in her forties, her hair already streaked with gray, her appearance disheveled and her face weary.
The moment she saw her, Thắng Nam became agitated. “Mom, look! I’m the top scorer in the province! I can be better than boys! Mom, why do you only love my little brother and not me? I want you to love me too!”
But then her gaze gradually turned cold, revealing a deep hatred. “She’s the one who stole the title of top scorer from me. I want her dead!”
Her mother suddenly collapsed to her knees and burst into tears. “Cẩn Nhi… I was wrong… I really was wrong…”
“It wasn’t until after you were gone that I realized how wrong I was. I failed you! Can you give me another chance? My stubbornness is what hurt you… You were always so outstanding, so strong… Can you come back to me?”
Those words gradually calmed Thắng Nam.
She hesitantly moved toward her mother, torn between doubt and hope.
At last, she threw herself into her mother’s arms and broke down sobbing, letting out all the hurt she had bottled up over the years.
But then I noticed… Her expression slowly shifted from grief to cruelty.
She was putting on an act!
I tried to stop her, but it was too late.
Her mother suddenly pulled out an exorcism talisman and slammed it against Thắng Nam’s forehead.
In an instant, Thắng Nam was wracked with unbearable pain and forcibly driven out of Tô Tịch Thủy’s body, her eyes filled with disbelief.
“Mom… Why are you hurting me?”
Her mother’s voice rang out coldly. “You’re already dead. Do one last thing for me. Mr. Tô agreed that as long as you stop bothering them, I’ll get three million.”
“Back then, you wouldn’t listen. Not only did I miss out on the betrothal money from that old man, I had to pay a few thousand more on top of it. Consider this your way of making it up to me.”
“Why? Why? Mom… I’m still your own daughter!”
“Enough with the questions. Hurry up and disappear so I can take the money home and get a good night’s sleep.”
There was nothing I could do but watch as Thắng Nam slowly lost all hope. Amid her resentful screams, she turned to ashes and vanished into thin air.
I never expected… the story to end this way.
Tô Tịch Thủy slowly regained consciousness, and her parents helped her into the car.
Before leaving, she turned to look at me and smiled triumphantly. “Vệ Vũ, I finally won. Before long, I’ll be attending Qingbei University.”
Had she really won?
No.
It had all been a game I’d set up to help Thắng Nam fulfill her obsession.
After taking over Tô Tịch Thủy’s body, Thắng Nam had accidentally uncovered a shocking truth: the person whose fate had been switched back then was her own little brother.
Their father was a gambling addict who had covered the whole thing up for money.
As for Thắng Nam’s mother, she believed her son had turned out that way because she hadn’t loved him enough.
So she spoiled him even more, until he was beyond redemption.
And Thắng Nam was the one sacrificed for all of it.
I understood that Thắng Nam’s obsession wasn’t about the title of top scorer, but about the familial love she had never received.
Only by letting her see the truth with her own eyes could she let go of her obsession.
And her mother was the most important link in all of this.
I had secretly tampered with the exorcism talisman Mr. Tô had given her.
For the wicked… their retribution had only just begun.
Tô Tịch Thủy had drained Thắng Nam’s little brother of his fortune. Now misfortune clung to him, while Tô Tịch Thủy had inherited that bad luck.
Before long, I heard that she had seriously violated school rules.
An investigation revealed that she had no real ability at all, and the school promptly expelled her.
For some reason, her face was disfigured soon afterward.
The Tô family’s business also went into a steep decline, until it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Best of all…
Thắng Nam’s mother took her enormous payout and went back to her ex-husband, quickly giving birth to a baby girl.
I knew…
Thắng Nam had returned for revenge.
-THE END-