Chapter 5

“Qiuqiu, do you like Yu Qi?” A’s voice came from above her.

Bai Nianqiu could feel someone toweling her hair dry.

She instantly perked up.

She was back at this point in the story again?

There was no time to wonder why.

Remembering that instant of death, she shuddered. No. She had to change that ending!

Knowing that Yu Qi was listening outside the door right now, she prepared her voice and bellowed,

“I don’t like him!”

Outside, Yu Qi’s eyes darkened.

“Don’t use such a cheap word to describe what I feel for Yu Qi.”

“I love him! Do you understand? No! Even love can’t describe my feelings for him!”

She snatched the towel from A. As B stared in shock, she swiftly clamped it over C’s mouth before the milk tea she was about to spit out could escape.

“I’d climb mountains of blades and plunge into seas of fire for him! I’d brave boiling water and flames, spill my guts and brains, face death, charge into battle, be smashed to pieces, take a knife in each side, bow and scrape, tear out my heart and lungs, and attain mastery in my field!”

Something strange seemed to have slipped into that list.

At last, Bai Nianqiu simply couldn’t think of anything else.

“Qiuqiu, when did you learn so many idioms?” A asked blankly.

With a solemn expression, Bai Nianqiu gripped her shoulders in both hands.

“Because of love.”

A, B, and C: Holy shit.

“But he’s always helping Ye Xinyuran. He won’t even look at me!” Bai Nianqiu gave her thigh a vicious pinch and spoke in a trembling voice.

After dying for the second time in her life, she had reflected on the danger of speaking carelessly.

She remembered a nobody in the original novel who had always secretly loved Yu Qi. For his sake, that girl had quietly targeted Ye Xinyuran, until Yu Lengye uncovered her actions and forced her to leave her home.

After Yu Qi became head of the Yu family, the first thing he did was bring that girl back and make her his secretary.

Below one person, above all the rest.

She was the only person connected to Ye Xinyuran who escaped the fallout.

And that girl hadn’t appeared yet.

So please allow Bai Nianqiu to claim that role first.

Outside the door, Yu Qi was dumbfounded. He raised a hand to cover his eyes, but couldn’t hide the faint flush on his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

So she liked him that much?

Bai Nianqiu kept up her impassioned performance for a while, until her meager vocabulary could no longer support her extravagant acting.

B reminded her it was time for class.

Only then did she stop.

As she blow-dried her hair, she carefully studied her eighteen-year-old reflection.

Even as a child, Bai Nianqiu had been a little beauty in the making. Her grown-up looks certainly befitted the original novel’s most formidable supporting character.

Her slim, oval face held a pair of bright, round eyes beneath crescent-shaped brows. Below her dainty, upturned nose was a tiny mouth as vivid as flower petals, making her look irresistibly sweet.

Damn, I’m cute.

Bai Nianqiu ran a hand through her long hair, soft to the touch and flowing like seaweed, then gave her reflection a playful whistle.

Qiuqiu, how can you be so beautiful and not even know it?

When she returned to the classroom with the ABC trio, she found a cup of milk tea on her desk.

With no memories to rely on, she couldn’t be sure it hadn’t been there before, so she kept quiet.

Sure enough, A noticed it too and gave a curious little “Huh?”

“Qiuqiu, another admirer left it for you, I bet.” B curled her lip.

“It was Yu Qi,” the usually taciturn C said with certainty.

Bai Nianqiu held out a hand toward C as though offering her a microphone.

C turned haughtily, her skirt swinging in an arc as she walked toward Yu Qi.

As Bai Nianqiu gaped, C bent down and sniffed Yu Qi’s long fingers where they rested on his desk.

“They smell like milk tea. He’s the one who gave it to her.”

C called back to them. A and B nodded in understanding and proudly gave her a thumbs-up.

Yu Qi: …

Their classmates, who had witnessed the entire thing: …

Bai Nianqiu wondered what the odds were of rewinding everything if she smashed her head into something and died right now.

“I gave it to her,” Yu Qi said calmly.

Their bewildered classmates sucked in a breath. As one, they turned to Yu Lengye, who was sprawled over his desk, sleeping soundly.

Dalang, wake up! Time for your medicine!

Bai Nianqiu’s current persona was a girl whose love went unreturned, who could only give up in pain and draw a line between them to heal her wounds.

“Thank you.” She nodded with restrained courtesy.

She signaled for A and B to drag C back.

Looking at the milk tea on her desk, Bai Nianqiu thought she would have to put it on an altar to show just how much Yu Qi mattered to her.

But the fact that he had bought her milk tea… did that mean he believed what she had said?

She cleared her dry throat. At least all that acting hadn’t been for nothing.