Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The commotion in the cafeteria eventually drew the teachers over.

Qi Shan and I were both taken to the office.

The homeroom teacher and the dean of students were both there, their expressions grim.

Qi Shan pointed at the soup stains all over her clothes and burst into pitiful tears.

The dean said sternly, “Chen Wan, Shengpei is a private school with a fine tradition. We absolutely do not tolerate bullying on campus!

“Since this is your first offense, apologize to Qi Shan in person right now, then write me a five-thousand-word reflection. Do that, and we’ll consider the matter settled.”

I pointed at the bugs still clinging to my hair, not yet fully cleaned out.

“Dean, please take a good look. She was the one who bullied me first. I was only fighting back.”

Qi Shan shrieked, “Who saw that? Just because you say I did it means I did it? I could say you staged the whole thing yourself to frame me!”

The homeroom teacher spoke in a long-suffering tone.

“Chen Wan, it’s normal for classmates to joke around. Even if Qi Shan was playing a prank on you, dumping your food over someone else’s head was too extreme.

“Just lower your head, soften your attitude, and apologize.”

I tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Teacher, it’s only a joke if the other person finds it funny. If they don’t, then it’s bullying.

“As an educator, do you not even understand that much?”

The homeroom teacher choked.

The dean huffed angrily. “Chen Wan, don’t forget that you’re different from everyone else. We specially recruited you, and you signed a contract with us.

“The school waived your tuition and living expenses and even provides you with a scholarship, but you have to fulfill your promise too: you must maintain first place in every exam and competition to improve our school’s competitiveness.

“Now you’re refusing to better yourself and bullying your classmates. If word gets out, it will damage our school’s image. By then, you’ll be in breach of contract, and you’ll have to pay ten times the compensation.

“Think carefully about your family’s finances. Can you afford that?”

Realization dawned on me.

So my younger sister had signed a performance-based contract with the school to lessen the family’s financial burden, and that was how she’d gotten into this private high school with such strong faculty.

No wonder I’d been surprised back then. How could Mr. and Mrs. Chen possibly afford such expensive tuition?

Qi Shan stopped crying and broke into a smile. “Dean, you’re truly wise and fair. Isn’t the school planning to renovate the Ideological and Political Education Building? I’ll tell my dad to donate some more money later.”

The dean bent at the waist, his eyes narrowing into slits from smiling as he repeatedly praised Qi Shan for being a good student.

Qi Shan crossed her arms and looked at me smugly.

I looked at the dean and raised an eyebrow. “Dean, so at our school, whoever has more money is in the right. You should have said so earlier.

“The Ideological and Political Education Building, was it? I’ll pay for it. I don’t ask for much. You and Qi Shan just have to kneel before me, kowtow nine times until your heads hit the floor, and apologize.”

The dean’s face turned livid, and he drove me out of the office.

Through gritted teeth, he threatened to report my vile behavior to the principal tomorrow and have me expelled.

Qi Shan followed behind me, grinning. “Chen Wan, with those junk-collecting parents of yours, you can just wait to be paying it off in your next life!”

I asked calmly, “Qi Shan, do you feel no guilt at all for twisting right and wrong?”

Her eyes were full of contempt. “What’s guilt? How much is it worth?

“Sorry, but money really can let you do whatever you want. Too bad a broke loser like you will never get to experience it.”

She flashed the Patek Philippe on her wrist, arrogance written all over her face.

I narrowed my eyes.

Her wrist was slender and fair. Near the styloid process of her ulna, there was an extremely thin cut.

It looked like an accidental scratch from a fingernail.

Without letting my expression change, I quietly turned my wrist and flicked my fingers several times in the direction of that wound.

Last year, for fun, I’d used a rotting corpse to cultivate some Blood Fly Gu.

Thousands of flies had gone into the jar, but when I opened it, only two pairs-one male and one female each-had survived.

They weren’t lethal. They simply burrowed into flesh at the sight of an open wound.

Blood Fly Gu fed on blood, traveling through the entire body along the blood vessels.

Flies might seem insignificant, but their reproductive ability was terrifying.

A single female fly could lay around one hundred to one hundred and fifty eggs at a time.

Their growth rate far surpassed that of other insects too.

An egg became a maggot in one day.

A maggot became a pupa in seven days.

A pupa became a fly in five days.

In two weeks at the latest, the larvae would fully hatch.

Then they would continue reproducing, again and again, in an endless cycle.

Didn’t Qi Shan love comparing other people to maggots?

Then she could have a taste of what it truly meant to coexist with them.

I ignored Qi Shan’s provocation and only smiled faintly.

“You’d better take good care of your body from now on. Make sure you don’t get hurt and bleed too easily. Otherwise-

“Something incredible might flow out.”

Qi Shan gave me a confused look, then rolled her eyes. “Psycho!”

With that, she stepped away in her white Gucci sneakers, swaggering off without a backward glance.

I watched her haughty figure retreat and narrowed my eyes.

She was the first.