TBTTSP - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Zhang Xu Has No Story (1)

I need to make one thing clear: this is absolutely not my story.

I've gradually gotten used to the fact that there's another soul living in my body.

This is her story.

About a month ago, she soul-transmigrated into me. She takes over for a day, then I do. We alternate shifts. I'd go to bed on Monday night, and when I woke up, it would be Wednesday morning.

Anyway, I have no idea how she adapted so quickly to soul-transmigrating into someone else's body, but she's done a pretty good job of it.

At first, she appeared in my homework notebook.

Beneath my ugly, ghost-scrawled characters, half a page of neat, standard script would follow. Turn the page, and it was semi-cursive. Turn it again, and a wild, unrestrained cursive script would whip through the rest of my copying assignment.

The teacher's comment: "Varied handwriting. Great improvement."

When it was my turn to do homework, my true form was revealed.

To be honest, I'm a bad student. There might be something wrong with my brain. I'm fifteen and still in primary school. I followed my parents as they moved around, got held back several times, and finally settled in at the town's primary school, waiting for the Middle School Entrance Exam.

My parents went out to be migrant workers, and later they kicked the bucket. My uncle takes care of me. The plan is for me to learn a trade after I graduate. The preliminary decision is hairdressing. All the girls in town go learn hairdressing. The barbershops are full of girls who've finished their apprenticeships but don't have enough heads to shave, so they just sit around bored. They have no choice but to mess with their own hair, dyeing it all sorts of colors, perming it, frying it—taking advantage of their thick hair to wreck it as much as possible.

Since she arrived, my life has gotten a little easier.

She took a pop quiz for me once. My English score was the best in the class. The teacher called me to the office to retake it. And sure enough, I couldn't do it.

What does my being a bad student have to do with her? Nothing. But I can't force her to pretend she doesn't know the answers. So sometimes I'm a good student, and sometimes I'm a bad one. In the teachers' eyes, I'm a genius playing dumb, a master hiding in plain sight, as mysterious as an alien.

Besides, we follow a principle of mutual independence. I don't ask who she is, and she figures out who I am from the clues of daily life. I don't dare to ask, nor do I have the interest. It's just that one day, on a whim, I searched online: "What to do if someone soul-transmigrates into you for twenty-four hours?"

An internet user replied: "What's the big deal? I got bitten by a spider."

I guess everyone has their own little secrets. I decided to keep this matter a secret and not tell anyone.

I don't have anyone to confide in anyway. So, after gradually getting used to "her" existence, I've been doing just fine.

The first time she interfered in my life was the week before last. I woke up to find a sanitary pad on my butt. I took off my underwear and confirmed I'd gotten my period.

Under the pillow, I found a note:

Record your period dates. Don't make trouble for me.

It seems she was caught off guard by my period, hence the note.

I spent three-fifty on a spiral notebook. The notebooks in town are ancient—the cover still had characters from My Fair Princess. I started recording faithfully. To make sure she'd see it, I placed the notebook on top of my textbooks.

The Chinese class representative must be blind. I went to the bathroom after class, and when I came back, the notebook was gone. The rep said she'd already handed my "diary" in to the office.

Most of the sixth-grade girls hadn't had their first period yet. At fifteen, I was quite experienced, but that's not exactly a diary topic you can show off. Besides, our Chinese teacher was pretty old and had already gone through menopause. Writing about this was probably asking for a beating.

Teacher's comment: "Poor. Biological phenomena are a good thing, but don't write about them in a diary."

The boys in class found out. Every time they saw me, they'd yell, "Zhang Xu, are you on your period today?"

A bunch of little kids. I couldn't be bothered to talk to them.

---

Yes, I am. If you're so tough, you get one too.

But still, shamelessly recording my menstrual cycle in a notebook made me a trailblazer. From then on, the little girls in my class kept their distance, and my desk was gradually pushed over next to the trash heap.

Being isolated for no reason... even with a heart of steel, I wasn't too happy about it.

I decided to communicate with the other soul who occasionally appeared in my body.

I bought another notebook. On the cover, I wrote: "To the Other Me."

I tried my best to organize my feelings into questions, but I'm basically illiterate. I stared at the notebook, trying to squeeze out the words. I was about to shit myself before I could even come up with an opening line.

Better not to communicate after all.

I closed the notebook.

Like I said, this isn't my story. So let's skip over my boring primary school life and go straight to the day she spoke for the second time.

Mid-term exams. Primary school students only have four subjects, so they're all done in one day. It happened to be her shift, so I respectfully wrote a note:

Mid-term exams tomorrow. Pencil case is in the schoolbag. Exam room is Grade 6, Class 1. Exam number is 250. Thank you.

Since I live alone, I just left the note by my pillow, not worried about anyone finding it. I went to sleep happily. I fully expected to be dragged to the office to retake the tests after getting first place in the class, but the thought of not having to do the papers myself made my mood dazzlingly brilliant.

The day after the exams, I went to the barbershop to learn how to wash hair. Most of the people whose hair I washed seemed unhappy. I later found out that the regulars had their own designated hair-washing girls. They'd exchange flirtatious glances, sparks flying. My two chicken-claw hands couldn't bring them true happiness.

When I got home that evening, my uncle and my homeroom teacher were standing on either side of my front door like a mismatched pair of door gods. One's face was dark red, like a monkey's ass; the other's was pale white, like the principal's ass.

One said, "You little rabbit, you didn't take your exam properly? You caused a disturbance in the exam hall?"

The other said, "Don't scold the child. She's under a lot of pressure. Crying during an exam is normal for a child her age. I just came to ask, is the family having difficulties recently? Did her parents die again?"

Listen to that. What kind of thing is that to say? How many parents do I have?

"Is your family sending you to learn hairdressing? Are you unwilling? If you don't want to go, just tell me. If you study hard, you can finish middle school."

The fact that I cried during the exam caught my attention more.

She cried?

Given her style of conquering my homework and getting full marks, she probably wasn't crying because the questions were too hard.

The top-ranked girl in our class always cries while doing her tests, afraid her number-one status is in jeopardy. But she always scores exceptionally well and loves to fixate on the single question she got wrong, saying she'll definitely get a beating when she gets home.

The one who soul-transmigrated into me shouldn't be that melodramatic.

After sending the two door gods away, I thought of an opening line.

I wrote it neatly in the notebook:

What's wrong with you.

When I woke up again, another line of text had appeared in the notebook. It was her handwriting.

Nothing.

Since she was fine, I didn't ask any more questions. I closed the notebook and put it by my pillow. When I woke up after that, another line had appeared:

Who are you?

Huh?

She's been renting space in my body for so long, she could probably do our "Eaglets Take Flight" calisthenics routine by now. Asking who I am now, isn't that like taking off your pants to fart—completely unnecessary?

I didn't answer.

When I went to class, my homeroom teacher asked me again if the academic pressure was too much, causing a mental breakdown, and told me to go see the school counselor.

"Reporting—" I said as I entered.

I couldn't reveal the existence of another soul in my body, just like how a bull-masked wrestler never takes off his mask. So I made something up, saying that because I had to go to the barbershop soon, I wanted to study but felt bad about it.

The counselor let me go. Her report to my homeroom teacher was: "The student is in puberty. Emotionally unstable."

I still wanted to know what I did in the exam hall.

After asking around, I pieced together the scene.

It was the math exam. Everyone had just finished writing their exam numbers. I suddenly stood up and walked straight out. The proctor grabbed me and asked where I was going.

I said, "Might I ask, sir, what place is this?"

"You're in an exam, sit back down!"

So I wilted and sat back down. Wiping away tears, I looked the test paper over and over from every angle, as if I wanted to devour it with my eyes. Finally, I seemed to have an epiphany, picked up my pen, and wrote: "Did Zhou dream he was a butterfly, or did the butterfly dream it was Zhou?"

In traditional characters, no less.

The papers were handed back that day. Four subjects. Full marks in Chinese. My essay was a magnificent, flowing description of the school sports meet. But our school has never held a sports meet.

The other three papers were blank, except for that one sentence on the math paper. I looked it up online but didn't understand what it meant.

The next time I woke up, I opened the notebook. Below "Who are you?" was a new line written with a brush pen.

This concubine, Wang Xu, is from Luoyang.

Another line in the familiar handwriting replied:

Bullshit. What's your name?

I closed the notebook and searched online:

What to do if two people have soul-transmigrated into you?

No one replied.

Another day passed. My notebook was like a message board, with two more lines of Q&A.

Brush pen:

Xu Wanqing, courtesy name Yijiu. Might you be Miss Zhang Xu?

Fountain pen:

Shang Yi. Go ask around about me. Playing some ancient-meets-modern drama in front of me? Where's your real body? April 10th, 12 PM. See you at Xieyu Building, Tower A, Room 1209, Pingdu.

There was another person in my body. If no one was lying, one was named Xu Wanqing, or Xu Yijiu, and the other was Shang Yi.

Shang Yi?

I searched online.

Hmm.

Amidst a pile of gossip news, Shang Yi had ambiguous relationships with a group of celebrities. She was said to be the mistress of some big boss.

There was a blurry photo online. This woman named Shang Yi was turned sideways, dressed all in black, revealing a pale white back. She was stepping into a very expensive-looking car in high heels, smiling at the camera. A very seductive smile.

According to recent news, she was in Hong Kong last month. This month, she'd arrived in Pingdu.

I closed the notebook and fell back onto the bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the ink and brush pen next to my schoolbag, proof that this Xu Wanqing really existed.

The one who turned in blank papers for me during the exam was Xu Wanqing.

Shang Yi came before Xu Wanqing. She was domineering and bossy, telling Xu Wanqing to find her so they could talk.

I exhausted all my brainpower analyzing that note.

The two of them together occupied a full day of my time. Judging by the writing order, Xu Wanqing came first, then Shang Yi. That's why the question-and-answer note was still here, not yet crumpled up.

I wanted to study it some more, but the kid next door yelled for me to come watch a video, so I put the note aside.

There was no point in me thinking about it anyway. When I'm not around, even if the two of them get into a fight inside my body, it's not like my ass will get kicked. Out of sight, out of mind. I tucked the note under my pillow and went out happily.

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