Chapter 1

Studying had always come easily to me. Ever since I was little, I could top my year whenever I wanted.

I had also inherited my mother’s good looks.

Apart from being poor, I had practically no flaws.

When I was in middle school, my mother married a wealthy businessman. She left me a bank card.

“Don’t contact me again. I’ll send you money every year.”

She had told everyone she was single. She didn’t want my existence getting in the way of her second marriage.

I felt nothing. I took the card and told everyone I was an orphan.

I had always been emotionally detached. My mother didn’t like me.

She preferred a daughter who would sweetly call her Mom, even if that daughter wasn’t hers.

Soon, photos of a girl began appearing constantly on her social media. The girl was her new husband’s daughter from his first marriage.

Her name was Zhao Mingzhu. She was strikingly pretty.

My mother had an arm around her, while Zhao Mingzhu pouted, wearing a thoroughly reluctant, false smile.

For the first time, someone else’s smile hurt my eyes.

Life was bland and dull.

My only pleasure was searching for someone who could make me feel something.

So I moved, bought an apartment of a little over sixty square meters in the school district, and transferred to Zhao Mingzhu’s high school.

It was just as I’d sensed the first time I saw Zhao Mingzhu.

She despised me.

She and her little followers bullied me relentlessly.

I never argued with her. I simply stopped going to school a week before the joint examination for our eight schools.

Qing High had spent years in the shadow of No. 1 High next door. I consistently ranked first in my year. The school would never want me missing that exam.

When my homeroom teacher called, I worked up the courage to ask, “Could I transfer to another class?”

“Another class?” She quickly picked up on something wrong in my voice.

Her tone softened. “Is someone in your class bothering you? Don’t be afraid. I’ll stand up for you.”

“N-no. It’s just… I don’t get along with the others very well.”

Once I hung up, I dropped the show of unease and timidity.

I knew I’d never been a good person.

I always settled a score.

Two days later, my teacher called me into school.

There were security cameras throughout the school. She had spent an entire day reviewing the footage.

When she discovered that Zhao Mingzhu had spent two months targeting me, both openly and behind people’s backs, she reported it to the administration at once.

The school took it very seriously.

Zhao Mingzhu stood beneath the flag, her eyes red, choking her way through a public apology.

Humiliated in front of the whole school, she hated me to the bone from that day on.

“It’s all her fault! If her grades weren’t so good, the teachers wouldn’t protect her like this!”

“Fake bitch! Two-faced slut!”

“Li Changqing! Tell me! Are you going to help me or not?”

Outside a café on a street corner, Zhao Mingzhu clung to a boy, sobbing.

He comforted her quietly. “Don’t cry. Shen and I will help.”

“Really?” She lifted her head, her nose bright red.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find someone to take her virginity, then post the pictures in the group. Let’s see how that bitch holds her head up after that.”

Her voice was venomous.

The boy was tall and broad. He pulled her into his arms and smiled flippantly.

“Some ignorant little pauper has our princess crying like this? Once I’ve trained her properly, she’ll crawl on the floor and lick your shoes.”