Admiring the exquisite beauty in the full-length mirror, a vision like a lotus emerging from clear water, utterly devoid of makeup, Qin Zixin narcissistically spun clockwise, then counter-clockwise, behaving like a complete fool.
[Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?]
[You’re the most human-like dog, so slow; dawdle any longer, and you’ll be late for the first day of school.]
[If you’re calling me a human-like dog, I’ll take it as a compliment, hehe.]
Qin Zixin chuckled merrily, for the system had cursed her so often that any less potent insults had become utterly meaningless.
Before leaving, she selected a pair of blue, thin-soled, shell-toed football shoes, also a gift from the system.
Crafted from a blend of premium calfskin butt leather and fine canvas, these shoes, despite their exquisite workmanship, bore no brand.
Tang Yuyu, unversed in such luxuries, had no notion of the countless hours required to handcraft such footwear, thus she couldn’t possibly guess their true value.
Moreover, as her daughter had purchased them with her own pocket money, Tang Yuyu simply wanted her to be happy with her choice, and would never interfere with what Qin Zixin bought for herself.
With her backpack slung over her shoulders, the carefree, somewhat foolish girl gleefully skipped out the door.
Downstairs, Tang Yuyu was already waiting in her Great Wall SUV.
Early models of the Great Wall SUV were essentially covered pickups, offering rather mediocre passenger comfort; however, their generous space made them indispensable for Tang Yuyu’s hauling needs.
The interior perpetually carried a distinct market scent—an indistinguishable meld of raw meat and earthy vegetables—a smell Qin Zixin had long grown accustomed to.
Fastening her seatbelt, she spoke with a cheerful grin.
“Mom, don’t I look beautiful today?”
Tang Yuyu scrutinized her daughter, realizing Qin Zixin had likely last worn proper ‘girly’ clothes at a family dinner the previous month.
Throughout the holidays, the girl had been a veritable shut-in, spending her days in the tattered clothes left by her deceased husband, only bothering to change into a cheap, neutral-colored oversized T-shirt if she absolutely had to leave the house.
Today, however, Qin Zixin was impeccably dressed, and Tang Yuyu, upon a second glance, found her beauty truly dazzling.
Even after seeing her own daughter for over a decade, Tang Yuyu was still momentarily captivated.
Yet, Qin Zixin’s expression seemed to practically invite a slap, prompting Tang Yuyu to turn her head away, too disinclined to humor her.
“A human-like dog.”
In this regard, both her mother and the system offered the same assessment, and Qin Zixin, once more channeling the spirit of Ah Q, laughed like a fool.
Along the way, Qin Zixin chattered incessantly, recounting various racist ‘hell jokes’ she had found online, which elicited repeated, delicate peals of laughter from Tang Yuyu.
Still some distance from Nanshi High, the attention began.
From the moment they stepped through the school gates, the mother and daughter were subjected to an almost constant barrage of stares, a phenomenon that filled Tang Yuyu with a bittersweet mix of pride and apprehension.
It had been much the same for her in her youth, though her own looks back then were not quite as captivating as her daughter’s.
Admiration, she knew, was impulsive and easily extinguished; after she explicitly rejected a few suitors during her school days, most of those who harbored feelings for her naturally retreated.
Yet, there were always those persistent few, like stubborn plasters, who clung on.
Back then, however, Tang Yuyu had the support of her younger brother, Tang Longlong, and her late husband, without whom she would surely have been tormented relentlessly.
But now, things were different.
Tang Yuyu was a beautiful woman; even approaching forty, she remained stunning, her features elegant and clear, while the alluring grace that came with age only made her more captivating.
She understood precisely what an image a beautiful girl projected in the eyes of impressionable young boys, and even more so, how an overly attractive girl would be perceived by other girls.
Boys would privately ‘add drama’ to their fantasies, inventing non-existent hobbies for her, then seize any awkward opportunity to strike up a conversation.
Compared to the foolish and impulsive yearning of males for the opposite s*x, the animosity from other girls was far more scathing.
Her daughter was born with unparalleled beauty and a keen intellect; despite her mischievous nature, she had managed to get into an elite class, and Tang Yuyu would be lying if she claimed not to be immensely proud.
However, Tang Yuyu possessed no special skills or significant social standing, and their family’s financial situation was barely comfortable.
Nanshi High, being the finest public high school, certainly attracted the brightest and best students, yet a few exceptions were inevitable.
After all, a classroom was a microcosm of society, and any small society was bound to have its cliques; Tang Yuyu knew firsthand just how vicious girls could become when they banded together.
Furthermore, if some powerful scion were to coerce her daughter, or, perhaps more likely, if Qin Zixin succumbed to temptation and did something she shouldn’t, what could Tang Yuyu possibly do for her precious child?
Her husband had vanished without a trace, neither alive nor dead, and Tang Yuyu had long since resigned herself to believing he was utterly gone, his bones long rotted away.
Her daughter was now her sole reliance; she toiled from dawn till dusk to earn money, yet could only provide the most basic educational opportunities, leaving everything else to Qin Zixin’s own capabilities.
A humble dwelling might produce a peerless beauty, but such beauty was rarely a blessing for a humble home; her only wish was for her child to be ignorant and simple, to live a life free from disaster and hardship, and rise to prominence unhindered.
Walking to the first-year building, a crowd of dozens had gathered before the display board near the ground floor stairwell, where the class assignments for the new first-year students were posted.
The first-year cohort comprised twenty-four classes in total: classes one to three were experimental classes, class four was the ‘Rocket Class,’ and the remainder were regular classes.
The Rocket Class was mandatorily set to a Physics-Chemistry track from the first year, while experimental classes were only permitted to choose between Physics-Chemistry or Physics-Biology.
By the second year, there would be one Physics-Biology experimental class and two Physics-Chemistry experimental classes.
With a total Middle School Entrance Exam score of 780, regular classes required 685, while experimental classes demanded at least 729 or higher to enter—precisely Qin Zixin’s score, which at Nanshi High, placed her squarely in an awkward middle ground.
Yang Qichao, however, had scored a remarkable 768, and the top-ranked student, a veritable prodigy, had almost achieved a perfect score.
Too disinclined to join the bustling crowd around the regular class lists, Qin Zixin casually pulled at a nearby boy.
He turned, his face instantly flushing crimson, and stammered for a good half-minute before finally managing to disclose that the elite classes were on the sixth floor.
The first-year building stood six stories tall, with four classes on the ground floor, and no elevator.
Qin Zixin inwardly cursed, ‘Climbing stairs is the absolute worst, especially this many floors; I’ll be the last to eat lunch!’
“Mom, you don’t need to see me off anymore, I’m heading up now.”
Seeing her daughter’s perpetually carefree and somewhat naive demeanor, Tang Yuyu’s slightly subdued mood lightened somewhat, yet she couldn’t help but nag.
“Come straight home after school tonight, don’t dawdle on the way, and text me when you get back.”
“Mm-hmm, I’ll have Yang Qichao take me then. We already agreed; he has a car.”
Qin Zixin’s voice was neither too loud nor too soft, yet the name ‘Yang Qichao’ was heard clearly by the surrounding students.
Upon hearing that Yang Qichao would be giving her a ride, Tang Yuyu didn’t think much of it.
She genuinely regarded Yang Qichao as her future son-in-law.
“Alright, call me when you get home.”
She only departed once her daughter’s graceful, slender figure had vanished into the stairwell.
Tang Yuyu held Yang Qichao in high esteem: he was ambitious, diligent, upright in conduct, meticulous in his actions, and his personality was almost the antithesis of her own vivacious daughter.
She would wholeheartedly approve of him as her son-in-law.
But she doubted her daughter would ever agree.
Qin Zixin was simply too playful, her mischievous nature seemingly a factory setting stamped into her very being, impervious to any subsequent reprogramming.
Tang Yuyu harbored a vague premonition that her daughter’s character would, sooner or later, invite troubles she herself would be powerless to resolve.
****
Qin Zixin, her backpack slung over her shoulders, sauntered gracefully down the sixth-floor corridor of Nanshi High’s Xuehai Building.
The top button of her small shirt remained undone, revealing the alluring fullness of her voluptuous, perky form, which playfully jiggled with each step.
Her backpack straps further accentuated the exquisite contours of her chest.
A deep cleavage, subtly peeking through against her skin as smooth and lustrous as white jade, playfully danced and rippled with the beauty’s every movement, and even a mere glimpse of this ‘tip of the iceberg’ was enough to set hearts aflutter.
The weather was muggy, and having just ascended six floors, Qin Zixin’s fair face was flushed a delicate peach, lending her an air of satiated allure, as if after a moment of profound pleasure.
More than half the students had already arrived in Class 1-2, creating a boisterous scene; most had attended summer cram school, and after more than twenty days, they had all grown familiar with one another.
Students chatted in small groups, while the bolder ones even perched directly on their desks.
Qin Zixin paused at the doorway for a moment, catching her breath and confirming it was indeed Class 1-2 before stepping inside.
The immediate attention she garnered was undeniable; the chatter in the classroom instantly subsided.
Ignoring the gazes of astonishment and appraisal, she spotted an empty seat in the second-to-last row by the window.
A backpack adorned with a cartoon charm rested on the desk beside it, likely belonging to a girl who was temporarily absent, having simply left her bag there.
Qin Zixin walked directly to the seat and sat down, her slightly vigorous movement causing her ‘ample rabbits’ to jiggle, creating a ripple-like effect.
This sight caused the eyes of several observant boys to widen in a fixed stare.
She placed her backpack on the iron partition beneath the desk, then retrieved her phone from her pocket.
Unbeknownst to Qin Zixin, within minutes of her entering the school gates, candid photos of her had already become trending discussion topics on Nanshi High’s Tieba forum and BBS.
She had been the recognized goddess of her junior high, and while the few silly boys she befriended might not have seen her as such after getting close, her appearance and figure were a dimensional-level strike compared to her peers, absolutely beyond reproach.
During the summer cram school before enrollment, someone had already posted her photos in the class group, prompting many who hadn’t heard of her to exclaim ‘goddess’ in the chat.
Regrettably, it was rumored that Qin Zixin had family matters to attend to, which explained her absence, and no one had been able to get her to accept a friend request, thus she remained absent from the class group until now.
Now, with school officially starting, she had appeared, and the young boys in the class, whose affections had already secretly bloomed, discovered that Qin Zixin herself was even more stunning than in her photos, a divine temptress, a veritable siren.
Qin Zixin ran her fingers through her soft, smooth hair, and with a gentle tug, the elastic band holding her ponytail slipped effortlessly from her silken, flowing, ink-black tresses.
She tilted her head slightly to the left, one jade-like hand stretching the elastic, while the other, a delicate, supple hand, used fingers as a comb to casually tidy her hair.
She then angled her boneless, fragrant shoulder, resting the jade arm that held the elastic on the back of the chair, and turned her exquisite head to survey her new classmates.
Only three students from her junior high class had made it to Nanshi High; the other two were in regular classes, leaving her as the sole one who had barely scraped into an elite class.
While there might have been others from her junior high in this very class, she was certain she wouldn’t recognize them.
Though she had long known there would be no familiar faces in her new class, Qin Zixin still felt a pang of vexation.
She turned her head to gaze out the window, securing her ponytail with a hair tie.
The window, backlit and immaculately clean, vaguely reflected her lotus-like, jade-smooth face.
Below, on the basketball court, she watched several boys taking turns shooting hoops, each attempting a shot but failing to score, which made her chuckle involuntarily.
In that moment, Qin Zixin’s eyes, like silken threads, were utterly captivating, truly embodying the saying: ‘A lotus cannot compare to a beauty’s charm; her graceful posture and enchanting smile steal hearts.’
Qiao Hua and Fang Bixian, seated close behind her, were both affected.
Fang Bixian fared slightly better, merely swallowing hard, but Qiao Hua was quite overwhelmed, his eyes wide and vacant as a stream of nosebleed began to trickle.
Qin Zixin lost interest once someone below finally scored a basket, and she pulled out her phone to message Yang Qichao.
[Walk slower after class]
[Come find you for lunch]
After sending the messages, she switched interfaces to play a game; she had been playing ‘Tiantian Kupao’ these past few days, often passing the time with a few rounds when bored.
It was quite a while before Yang Qichao replied.
[Okay.]
‘Tsk, what kind of obsessive-compulsive replies with punctuation marks?’
Muttering inwardly once more, Qin Zixin, for reasons unknown, found herself prone to picking fights when vexed.
She was too lazy to reply to him and continued playing her game, but then a boy with slightly darker skin unceremoniously sat down in the seat beside her, the one with the cartoon-adorned backpack.
The boy was utterly unremarkable in appearance, rather chubby, with a pair of small eyes that fixated on Qin Zixin.
He seemed to have caught the faint, sweet scent of her post-exertion body fragrance, and greedily inhaled a deep breath.
His arrival caused Fang Bixian and Qiao Hua in the back row to grimace.
During the holidays, Zhao Jiajun, leveraging his family’s wealth, had relentlessly harassed Li Jinjin, the prettiest girl in cram school.
Now that Qin Zixin had arrived, this ‘dog-skin plaster’ had predictably sniffed her out.
Virtually all the classmates disliked Zhao Jiajun, but they were no longer children and largely understood social conventions.
One might detest someone, but they wouldn’t openly curse them to their face; at most, they would utter a few words behind their back.
Qin Zixin sensed Zhao Jiajun’s possessive and aggressive gaze; unwilling to engage with a stranger, she pretended to continue playing her game, yet subtly leaned her body away, trying to maximize the distance between herself and the boy.
Although this wasn’t her first encounter with such a situation, she felt profoundly displeased.
“Hello, classmate, my name is Zhao Jiajun. Can I add you as a friend? You’re the only one missing from our class group; I can pull you in.”
As he spoke, Zhao Jiajun ostentatiously pulled out a fifth-generation ‘fruit phone,’ clearly indicating he came from a family with some disposable income.
The iPhone 5 had only been released in the first half of 2013, making it an absolute luxury for students, and the sight of it only further irritated Qin Zixin.
‘This brat’s eyes are practically undressing me, yet he’s so good at finding excuses.’
‘Don’t provoke him too much. It’s fine to let him add your QQ; you can always block him later.’
The system, as usual, played the coward.
Qin Zixin pouted slightly, feeling quite indignant, but she was also a bit timid.
Exiting her game, she turned her head to look at Zhao Jiajun, her voice, that of a little witch, imbued with a soft, lingering tone.
“Classmate, give me your QQ ID. Remember to pull me into the group once I’ve accepted.”