Chapter 4

The next day was Monday.

Wang Fang, our dorm representative, returned that morning.

Xiaorui was still asleep when she came in. I was already awake.

“How… how is Xiaorui?” she asked quietly.

I didn’t know how to answer.

“Yanan… what Yanan and the others did to her really was too much,” Wang Fang stammered.

I wanted to know what Xiaorui had been through, but Wang Fang only shook her head and said nothing more.

Wen Yanan didn’t return until noon, along with Guo Yingying and Liu Lingling.

Xiaorui was awake by then. As if nothing had happened, she sat in her usual place, reciting English vocabulary at the top of her voice.

Wen Yanan walked over and patted her shoulder. “Noble Consort Xi, did you have a good time on Saturday?”

I could hear the deliberate emphasis she put on “good.”

At the same time, Xiaorui’s shoulder seemed to give a small shudder.

“Yanan, what… what did you take Xiaorui to do this weekend?” I asked.

Yanan said nothing. Instead, Liu Lingling answered with a smirk:

“What do you think? Singing, drinking, clubbing. The usual stuff. We just wanted to show Xiaorui a bit of the world.”

I looked at Xiaorui. She suddenly turned around, a smile on her face. “Then I really must thank my dear sisters properly.”

The instant she finished, Wen Yanan and the others burst out laughing.

“Did we break the little bitch?” Yanan said between laughs.

Xiaorui suddenly stood up and walked over to them. Her voice dripped with contempt.

“Do laugh a little more gently, sisters. Those chins are fresh from the surgeon, aren’t they? They won’t stand such rough treatment.”

Their laughter stopped short.

“He Xiaorui, where did you find the nerve to mouth off at us?” Wen Yanan snapped.

Xiaorui smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare trouble your mouth. You have other uses for it.”

Wen Yanan’s face went white. Furious, she started forward to hit her, but Wang Fang caught her arm.

“You went far enough yesterday. What’s wrong with letting her talk back for once?”

He Xiaorui smiled at Wang Fang, then glanced at Guo Yingying, who looked ready to speak.

“I hear your biggest tipper is hunting everywhere for you, trying to get his money back. When he hacks you to death, let’s hope none of our other sisters gets caught in the way.”

Before Yingying could react, Xiaorui walked straight out of the room.

The others were left standing there, stunned.

After that, Xiaorui really did seem to become someone else.

She thought she was Noble Consort Xi. Every gesture made her look like an imperial consort who had stepped out of a Qing palace drama.

She no longer put up with Yanan’s verbal provocations. Every time, she answered in a peculiar mixture of old-fashioned court language and everyday speech.

At first, Yanan and the others mocked the change in her.

But later, they seemed to realize she wasn’t putting it on. Something really was wrong.

Had they actually driven this girl mad?

I could tell the change made them wary.

For one thing, they were afraid of what Xiaorui might do now that she seemed to have lost her mind.

For another, she carried herself with far more authority than before.

So Wen Yanan and the others began avoiding further confrontations with her, whether consciously or not.

That only made me worry more about what had happened to Xiaorui that night.

Yet apart from calling herself Noble Consort Xi, she seemed perfectly normal.

She went to class when she should and studied when she should.

And when Wen Yanan and the others were out, she would even wink at me. “Just wait and enjoy the show, Li’er.”

I remembered what she’d told me that night.

She was going to take her revenge.

But what was she planning?

All she seemed to do was photograph the designer bags and clothes Wen Yanan had bought whenever the others weren’t around.

What kind of revenge was that?

I ought to have been worried about her, but the way she carried herself made me feel that perhaps I didn’t need to be.

She seemed to have truly become Zhen Huan, quietly arranging everything, waiting for the day when everyone who had looked down on her and dismissed her would pay.

And that day really did come.

Three months later, Wen Yanan was in trouble.