TBTTSP - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Shang Yi Has a Story (1)

Thirty-four days ago, Shang Yi realized she was swapping souls with someone every other day.

The word "swap" wasn't quite accurate, because the other soul didn't slip into her body to wreak havoc.

For instance, on a Monday, her soul would float out and she'd wake up in a strange place for a day. On Tuesday, she'd return to her own body to find she had simply been in a deep sleep for a day.

So she defined it as a partial soul transmigration, or "soul transmigration" for short—the same way a vice director is often just called "director."

The target of her soul transmigration was a fifteen-year-old primary school girl, a "left-behind child" whose parents were dead. She was raised by her uncle but currently lived alone, and on weekends, she'd go to a barbershop to learn how to wash hair.

After investigating through various channels, Shang Yi ruled out the possibility of a conspiracy and concluded she was just unlucky, forced to experience rural life every other day.

She decided to do as the locals do and reminisce about her childhood.

Flipping through the abysmal workbook, seeing that the original owner couldn't even solve a simple "chicken and rabbit in a cage" problem was one thing. She could even tolerate doing broadcast calisthenics first thing in the morning and jumping rope with a bunch of little girls.

But every time she had to wash hair at the barbershop, facing one greasy head after another and faces so oily they shone, she couldn't bring herself to extend her own delicate, slender hands. All she wanted to do was scrub those heads right off their shoulders.

She tolerated all of this, too.

Until the midterm exam. After writing the exam number, 250, on her math paper, she felt a wave of dizziness.

The world spun, as if someone had shoved her head into a toilet and flushed her down the drain.

After a moment of darkness, she was flushed back into her own body.

She opened her eyes. Ugly Boy was hiding on the balcony, smoking. Hearing a noise, he quickly trotted over. "Sister."

She still hadn't fully come to her senses. Her hands moved in a circle like she was practicing Tai Chi, trying to reel herself back to reality. She tapped her head and looked around. "Given chickens and rabbits in a cage, with 24 feet, and more rabbits than chickens—"

"Huh?"

"Oh." Shang Yi's soul was finally home. She got out of bed, grabbed her phone, and checked the time. "It was only for part of the day this time."

"Ten hours."

"Oh, right." Shang Yi thought quickly. "I need to go to Pingdu and see what's going on."

"Maybe you won't have to transmigrate anymore." Ugly Boy, despite his name, had a beautiful way of thinking. The words were barely out of his mouth before her glare sent them right back. He muttered some complaint as he followed behind her.

Old Girl was standing outside the door, leaning on a baseball bat. When she saw Shang Yi, she looked as if she'd seen a ghost, her eyes wide. She watched as Ugly Boy and Shang Yi left.

"Book the earliest flight to Pingdu," Ugly Boy instructed.

"What kind of backwater place is that?"

A direct flight from Hong Kong to some backwater was impossible. After a full day of transfers, it was past eleven at night when they arrived in Pingdu.

Tired of the chatter from her two companions, Shang Yi stepped outside the hotel to take a call.

Ugly Boy and Old Girl were arguing fiercely, red-faced as they placed bets on whether Shang Yi would soul-transmigrate into the little girl again.

Ugly Boy wasn't ugly; he was her assistant. Old Girl wasn't old; she was her bodyguard. The two of them sat opposite each other in the hotel lobby, bumping their fists together.

Shang Yi glanced at the two of them through the glass before continuing her phone call. "Right, it's fine if you can't get it done. Just leave it for now. There's no rush."

The call lasted half an hour. When Shang Yi pushed the door open, Ugly Boy came to meet her.

It was hard to say whether it was Ugly Boy's ugliness that did it or some other malevolent force, but her feet suddenly tangled. She stumbled, her left foot tripping her right, and her head spun. He had to help steady her for a moment.

"Should I call a doctor?" Ugly Boy suggested.

Shang Yi held up a hand to stop him. "No, don't. It's probably just bad luck."

"Call a monk?" Old Girl offered.

"A Taoist priest would be better," Ugly Boy countered.

Their bickering was like two parrots squawking—all noise and no action. If they ever did get physical, feathers would fly.

The bet between Ugly Boy and Old Girl was over a case of wine a foreigner had given Shang Yi. They'd split it, and each was eyeing the other's half.

Ugly Boy naively believed that Shang Yi would no longer have to work one day and rest the next. Old Girl thought the opposite.

On the third day, Old Girl happily called someone to move Ugly Boy's share of the wine to her place.

Shang Yi had once again fallen into a sleep from which she wouldn't wake. The thought that her soul was still suffering in that village made Ugly Boy feel that Old Girl's unbridled joy, so great she looked ready to set off firecrackers, was a sin.

The village was filled with yellow dust. Shang Yi pulled back the curtains and gazed at the cattle and sheep ambling slowly outside the courtyard gate, defecating as they went. Suppressing a surge of rage, she folded her quilt with wide, sweeping motions, shaking out a slip of paper.

The handwriting was clearly awful. It belonged to that little brat, Zhang Xu.

What's wrong with you.

Shang Yi didn't think there was anything wrong with her.

Nothing's wrong.

She shouldered her schoolbag, walked the two streets from the village to the town's primary school, opened the notebook to check the previous day's homework, and then did the little brat's assignments for her, diligently managing everything like she was her mother.

To maintain some semblance of order in her life, she went to the bulletin board next to the blackboard every day to check the cleaning duty roster.

Today, she was on duty.

People always reminisce about their primary school days, but for Shang Yi, it was no fun at all. For instance, there was cleaning duty. And during class, you had to sit bolt upright with your hands behind your back. When you raised your hand, you had to stretch it so high you looked like you were trying to poke a hole in the sky. When reading texts aloud, you had to draw out the syllables. She had absolutely nothing in common with this bunch of little brats.

It was like being in kindergarten and having to pretend to be cute. Shang Yi's ancient soul couldn't squeeze out a single innocent, lively smile. She just rubbed her face and muddled through the days.

She was erasing the blackboard, using her red scarf to cover her nose and mouth against the cloud of chalk dust.

Suddenly, the Chinese class representative, who was also the class monitor, the Young Pioneers squadron leader, the flag bearer for Children's Day, and the top student in the sixth grade—that girl with the rosy cheeks—strutted over, her chest puffed out proudly like a rooster's. "The head teacher wants you in his office."

"Where's the office?"

The little girl tossed her head. "You don't even know that? It's in the row of buildings behind us, third door on the left. Go in, turn right, and it's the second desk, the one facing south with a copy of The Education of the Heart on it."

Next to The Education of the Heart was actually a copy of Three Hundred Tang Poems. The head teacher stroked the book's cover and leaned forward. "Zhang Xu, I hear you've taken a liking to classical poetry recently. Well, you just need to read this one thoroughly. Also, you're hitting puberty now, so don't read any of those weird, trashy ancient-style romance novels. You've been talking strangely."

It couldn't be anything other than Zhang Xu losing her mind.

Shang Yi nodded, accepted the book of poetry, and returned to the classroom.

In the morning, around ten o'clock, she was in gym class. Because she was tall, the other girls had dragged her over to hold the elastic for jump rope. The fluttering ribbons and school uniforms bounced youthfully to the tune of "Little Rubber Ball," one, two, three, four. She stood there, distracted, when suddenly, the world began to spin again.

When she opened her eyes again, Old Girl was squatting by the bed, cracking sunflower seeds. The sound was crisp, and the shells were scattered all over the floor.

"Sister, what's the situation?"

"Ten hours." Ugly Boy walked over holding a tablet, as if to display his professionalism. He swiped down a couple of times. "I've recorded the time you wake up every time. We'll see what happens the day after tomorrow. While you were asleep, you had four missed calls. I told Boss Kuerban from Damu Media you were in the shower, playing tennis, out on a date, and attending a luncheon—I used those four excuses to deal with—"

"Stop." The jump rope rhyme was still echoing in Shang Yi's head. She gave her head a little shake before continuing to listen to Ugly Boy's report and deal with her personal affairs.

Ten hours, down from twenty-four. It seemed like a good thing, as it would interfere less with her normal life.

But the sudden change, without any apparent trigger, was as startling to Shang Yi as the media suddenly going silent when in reality they were already camped outside her door, waiting to snap a picture of her face, which would immediately wither without proper maintenance.

Shang Yi spent the rest of the day on edge.

Before the day she was scheduled to go to the countryside, she dragged Old Girl along for a massage. Once she was physically and mentally relaxed, she prepared herself as if heading to the execution ground and lay down on the bed.

With Ugly Boy and Old Girl standing guard on either side, she felt like a dying king on his pillow, announcing his successor to the entire court.

The hands of the clock had just overlapped at twelve when Ugly Boy pulled out a cigarette and Old Girl produced a bag of sunflower seeds.

Shang Yi stared at the ceiling.

"What are you two doing?"

"Why haven't you left?"

Shang Yi closed her eyes.

No soul transmigration.

Ugly Boy didn't dare to light his cigarette, and Old Girl didn't open her sunflower seeds.

"So you two just do whatever you want after I fall asleep—" Shang Yi took a deep breath and lay there for half an hour.

She fell asleep.

She woke up to Ugly Boy's voice. It was six-thirty in the morning; time to get up and go about her day. If she hadn't checked the calendar three times, Shang Yi would have thought it was just an ordinary day.

Today was supposed to be a countryside day. In the itinerary Ugly Boy had prepared for her, the only item left was "sleep."

Could it be, as Ugly Boy had said, that she wouldn't have to transmigrate anymore?

Old Girl said, "No way. Not possible."

Ugly Boy was on the phone, trying to get his wine back.

After the dust from their fierce argument had settled, they turned around to find that just after twelve noon, Shang Yi had silently slumped over at the dining table. Hot soup had spilled everywhere, scalding one of her hands.

The two of them shrieked back and forth like a pair of screaming chickens.

Shang Yi pushed herself up from the dining table.

She looked around. She was in the school cafeteria, with the unchanging daily lunch of rice and mixed vegetables in front of her. The Chinese class representative, who was also… anyway, that girl whose name she couldn't remember, was eating across from her, savoring every bite.

In front of her was a glass of plain water.

"I'll bring you the ink and brushes you wanted tomorrow," the girl suddenly said in a low voice, which prompted Shang Yi to nod along. "Ten yuan. Cash on delivery."

Ink and brushes?

Shang Yi returned to the classroom and, as usual, opened the workbook. Yesterday's homework hadn't been done. She pulled out Zhang Xu's menstrual cycle log, intending to add a reminder to do her own work, but she suddenly noticed a copy of Three Hundred Tang Poems tucked inside an English exercise book. She opened it. Inside the book, which had never been opened before, were annotations written in an unfamiliar hand.

They were written in a bunch of traditional characters.

Zhang Xu could barely write simplified characters clearly; writing traditional ones would be like pulling her tendons out. Shang Yi thought for a moment and came to a terrifying conclusion. There was a third soul in this body.

Who are you.

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