Chapter 4

Chapter 4

When I was in middle school, I was chosen for an arts performance because I was tall and had good proportions.

The dance teacher had been invited from the affiliated arts high school. After the performance ended, she came to find me in person.

“Little girl, you have real talent, and your physical condition is excellent. Would you be willing to learn dance from me? I won’t charge you tuition.”

That day, when I went home, I felt like I was floating.

Of course my parents didn’t want to see me learning some “messy” nonsense, but since it was free, they had nothing much to say.

But Chen Shuyan had been raised from childhood on the path of becoming a dance student.

She stared at my face and said sarcastically, “Maybe it’s a scam. They lure you in with the promise that it’s free, then once you start classes, they ask for money.”

“There are tons of scams like that these days. Otherwise, how could Chen Xi possibly have been chosen by a teacher?”

I deliberately waved the business card the teacher had given me in front of her eyes.

“But this is a teacher from your school. Why don’t you go ask her yourself, Sis?”

Chen Shuyan’s gaze fixed on the gold-embossed name on the card.

She recognized it.

It was a teacher who had recently become quite famous in the affiliated school’s classical folk dance program. Countless students were fighting tooth and nail to get into her class.

Chen Shuyan said nothing more. She only lowered her head and clenched her teeth.

The next morning, as I was going downstairs, someone suddenly shoved me hard from behind.

I tumbled down more than a dozen steps. The instant I landed on the ground, I happened to see a flash of pink dart past the corner of the stairwell.

It was the bow in Chen Shuyan’s braid.

I was diagnosed with a trimalleolar fracture, a cracked tailbone, and severe ligament damage.

Naturally, I couldn’t dance anymore.

The teacher came to visit me once at the hospital. She stood by my bed in silence for a moment, and in the end, she only gently touched the leg wrapped in thick plaster.

“It takes a hundred days for broken bones and torn tendons to heal. Even after you’re better, you’ll still need a long period of rehab. For the next year, I’m afraid you won’t be able to run or jump.”

Chen Shuyan came with my parents to pick me up when I was discharged.

Her eyes were red as she held Mom’s arm and said softly, “It’s all my fault for not watching my little sister properly.”

As she spoke, her head rested against Mom’s shoulder. The pair of pink bows swayed slightly with her movements, vivid and blinding in the sunlight.

My mom said unhappily, “This has nothing to do with you. Isn’t it because she likes showing off? She doesn’t watch where she’s going. If she’d fallen to her death, she would have deserved it.”

That night after I was discharged, I dragged my injured leg and crawled across the floor through the darkness, silently slipping into Chen Shuyan’s bedroom.

A dress hung beside her desk.

It was a rose-pink performance costume sprinkled with fine gold dust, with a long trailing skirt. Mom had specially spent a fortune to have it custom-made for Chen Shuyan’s competition next week.

I climbed onto Chen Shuyan’s bed.

Moonlight shone on her face. There was even a faint, innocent curve to the corner of her lips.

The instant she opened her eyes, I clamped one hand around her throat and raised the scissors in the other.

“You made it so I can’t dance. I’ll make it so you can’t compete.”

“That’s fair, isn’t it?”

Chen Shuyan dodged fast. The blade only grazed her delicate cheek, slicing open a long, shallow red line.

She screamed. My mom soon rushed in after hearing the commotion.

Seeing the scene, my parents flew into a rage. “Chen Xi, have you lost your mind?”

Chen Shuyan wouldn’t admit it anyway.

No matter what, I was the one in the wrong. What was there for me to explain?

When my dad tried to hit me, I grabbed Chen Shuyan’s hair with all my strength and refused to let go. In the end, the pain became too much for her, and she begged my dad at the top of her lungs to stop hitting me.

I still didn’t let go. With my head lowered, I asked her, “Do you still dare mess with me?”

The look Chen Shuyan gave me was both fearful and hateful, but with the beautiful hair she’d maintained for so many years still in my hand, she could only nod through her tears.

I smiled faintly, then, quick as lightning, brought the scissors down.

Chen Shuyan stared at the long severed lock of hair on the floor, stunned for a moment, before letting out a tremendous wail.

“Chen Xi, I’m going to kill you!!!”

I shook the scissors in my hand and grinned. “Sure. If you don’t manage to kill me, just wait for me to kill you.”

After that, my parents shut the door and beat me half to death, then threw me into a boarding school.

There, I only had a hundred yuan a month for living expenses.

To get revenge on me, Chen Shuyan even found some delinquent youths from outside the school and teamed up with a few little mean girls on campus. Day after day, they racked their brains for excuses to bully me.

They dragged me into the bathroom, jabbed my stomach with mops, stripped off my school uniform, and dumped an entire bucket of dirty water over my head.

Shivering with cold, I sat on the soaking wet floor, surrounded by people who had crowded in to watch the spectacle.

Not a single person dared interfere.

Day after day.

I lifted my eyes and looked at the arrogant, self-assured expressions on their faces, then pulled a sharpened pencil from beneath the hem of my uniform.

But in the next second, a boy pushed through the crowd and rushed in. He kicked the ringleader girl to the floor, then immediately shouted, “The teacher’s coming!”

The group collapsed at the first blow and scattered like birds and beasts.

He crouched down, wrapped his school uniform jacket around me, and asked softly,

“Can you stand?”