TBTTSP - Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Shang Yi Has a Story (3)
Shang Yi woke up, choking on a cloud of chalk dust.
The blackboard in front of her seemed magnified countless times. Next to her was no longer the trash can, but the class monitor, a formidable girl.
She thought she was in the wrong seat, but the desk before her, right down to the shredded eraser bits, was unmistakably Zhang Xu's.
Unbeknownst to her, the teacher had rearranged the seating.
She cursed her inadequate imitation of Zhang Xu, which had led the teacher to believe she was some dark horse, poised to break out.
This sudden transformation from ugly chicken to phoenix had landed her right under the teacher's nose, where every little fidget was in plain sight. Shang Yi summoned all her life's experience in the performing arts, trying to truly become Zhang Xu.
Her desk mate treated class like a battlefield. She sat with her back ramrod straight, her right hand gripping a pen, desperately battling the teacher's speaking speed on paper. Her language textbook was crammed with notes. Shang Yi glanced over and saw that even the teacher's outburst—"Useless! Can't even kick a fart out of a three-legged stool! It's infuriating!"—had been transcribed in shorthand. She glimpsed the thick callus on the girl's middle finger from holding her pen and sighed at the hardships of studying.
She suffered through two classes in her seat, was called on once to solve a brain-dead word problem about Little Ming filling and draining a pool, and was then pulled up during study hall to read the first page of the vocabulary list aloud.
With three parts composure and seven parts cold detachment, Shang Yi took things as they came, muddling through and doing as little as possible. The previous one on duty, Xu Wanqing, hadn't caused much of a stir, so no major problems had cropped up.
That composure shattered like a firework exploding her brain into mush the moment she pulled a pornographic novel from the schoolbag.
Who put this here?
Zhang Xu? Xu Wanqing?
She figured Zhang Xu wouldn't have the guts.
The instant she took it out, her desk mate, as if equipped with some kind of anti-porn radar, whipped her head around and shrieked, "Didn't you say this morning that the boys snatched it? Why are you reading it in secret? I'm telling the teacher!"
It really was Xu Wanqing.
It was Xu Wanqing?
Although Xu Wanqing was neurotic, Shang Yi's impression of her hadn't been entirely negative. Though one can know a person's face but not their heart—and Shang Yi didn't even know what she looked like—she had pictured a resentful, secluded maiden, poisoned by the dregs of feudalism.
She never expected her to be from the crude and unrestrained school of thought.
Her desk mate was a girl of action. If she said she'd tell the teacher, she'd tell the teacher. She shot her hand into the air with enough force to mend the heavens. "Teacher!"
Shang Yi's merchant-like shrewdness kicked in instantly. "If you don't tell the teacher, I'll buy you some crispy noodles."
The teacher looked up. "What is it?"
Her desk mate said, "I've already memorized the exercises on page 39."
As expected of the class monitor—quick on her feet.
After class, Shang Yi dug out some change to treat the little girl to crispy noodles. But school rules forbade children from eating such snacks, so the two of them stood at the school gate, gesturing for ages at an old woman outside.
"Grandma, we want the Little Raccoon noodles!"
"What? Tang Monk Meat? Alright, these spicy strips are delicious." The old woman handed over a pack of spicy strips.
Shang Yi suspected the old woman wasn't hard of hearing at all; she was just trying to sell more of her wares. A crooked merchant.
Spicy strips, crispy noodles, and bubble gum—she bought a whole bagful. Shang Yi handed it over. Zhang Xu's parents had left behind their salaries before they died, and her uncle had enough of a conscience not to take every last penny, so she still had money for small snacks. Even so, Shang Yi made a mental note of Zhang Xu's bank account number and had Ugly Boy quietly deposit a few small sums as compensation for her own generosity.
She had managed to placate the class monitor, but the book was still there. Shang Yi took another look. It was too vulgar to describe, filled with male fantasies and scientifically impossible positions.
Tch.
She wasn't some ancient prude; she wouldn't condemn all porn as feudal poison. It was just that no matter how she thought about it, Xu Wanqing's involvement was utterly baffling.
The bookstores in the county town were all filled with boring study aids and romance novels, nothing she needed.
Finally, she found a traditional-character edition of The Golden Lotus. It seemed to fit Xu Wanqing's style, so she used it to replace that lecherous trash.
But the book wasn't as full of erotic prose as its reputation suggested; it was actually more mundane. Still, its fame preceded it, so she tossed it into the bag.
To reinforce her impression, she took a closer look at the Three Hundred Tang Poems filled with tiny characters. The writing between the lines revealed Xu Wanqing's excellent literary cultivation.
Which was all the more reason she had to correct Xu Wanqing's aesthetic taste in this kind of literature.
Ever since coming face-to-face with Xu Wanqing's soul, Shang Yi had started paying more attention to her.
If she really was a psychopath, shouldn't she be taking some measures to solve the problem?
When she pushed open the door and entered the house, carrying firewood to light the kang, she saw a piece of paper hanging on the clothes rack at the head of the bed.
It was a portrait, signed "Lei Feng."
No matter how she looked at it, the portrait was of herself.
She snapped back to her senses, and the firewood she was holding fell to the floor.
Was there anyone in China who didn't know Lei Feng?
Someone who could read so many characters and was well-versed in poetry, yet didn't know who Lei Feng was?
Seeing that role model's name hanging beneath her own coquettish smile, she got a headache, tore off the two characters for "Lei Feng," and threw them into the firewood pile.
She sat on the cold kang for a long time.
The reason Shang Yi had achieved so much was because she dared to think what ordinary people would not.
Perhaps this Xu Wanqing was... an ancient female ghost?
Why would a ghost draw her?
Because she was too fierce and the ghost held a grudge?
She stood up abruptly, burned the drawing, and pulled out Zhang Xu's phone, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember Ugly Boy's name.
Under the cover of night, she slipped out of the house like a thief, took some money, and caught the next bus to the city. After several transfers, she finally met up with Ugly Boy and Fan Yaoyao.
She didn't believe in feudal superstitions and was a staunch materialist, but after experiencing something like soul transmigration, even the most hard-headed person would lose their nerve.
"Am I still alive?"
Ugly Boy: "..."
Shang Yi impatiently pulled the two aside.
On the bed, her own body lay as peacefully as a princess pricked by a spindle, the covers tucked in tightly.
"Sister, what's going on? Have you been discovered? Should I send some bodyguards over—"
"Don't."
This wasn't something bodyguards could handle.
"I need to find someone to perform a ritual." Shang Yi uttered the most anti-materialist sentence of her life, pressing a hand to her forehead as she heard the crisp crack of her worldview shattering.
"What's wrong, Sister?"
"That Xu Wanqing, did you find anything?"
"No."
"She... she might... she might already be... kaput, understand? Fan Yaoyao, you go. Find... find some kind of master, a fox immortal or something. Put out a tender. Hire whoever's got the skills."
The two of them froze in horror, standing stiffly like a pair of terracotta warriors.
Shang Yi sat beside her own body. Observing herself from the outside for the first time felt as strange as an out-of-body experience—which, on second thought, it literally was.
What a mess!
She thought for a moment, agitated, then remembered the drawing.
What did Xu Wanqing mean by drawing her?
And here she was, being nice enough to buy her a copy of The Golden Lotus.
The two finally came back to their senses. Fan Yaoyao left to carry out her orders, while Ugly Boy picked up his tablet. "Let's put the ghost thing aside for now. About that construction project we discussed—we've found the family of the worker who was crushed to death."
Shang Yi collected herself, nodded, and switched into work mode.
"Compensate them what they're owed."
"I think you should see this." Ugly Boy turned the screen toward her.
It was a photo of Zhang Xu, wearing a red Young Pioneers scarf, standing with a couple in front of a park entrance.
Karma really did come swiftly.
Shang Yi's breath caught in her throat.
"But there's something else I need to tell you." Ugly Boy swiped the screen to the next picture.
Several executives were inspecting the site. In a corner, Zhang Xu's family was sitting and talking. The image was small, but when magnified, you could make out a messy-haired and stubborn-looking Zhang Xu.
"When the accident happened, Zhang Xu was also at the construction site. And a witness said she was buried, too, but they don't know how she got out. Also, based on your description, she probably doesn't remember it." Ugly Boy finished, pausing for a few seconds to let Shang Yi react.
"And I went back and investigated thoroughly," Ugly Boy said, swiping to another image and zooming in. "There was nothing wrong with any of the equipment. Logically, it shouldn't have collapsed. I'm definitely not just trying to shift the company's responsibility."
"Stop." Shang Yi raised a hand to silence him and thought for a moment.
She understood the gist of it. There was something suspicious about Zhang Xu, and something suspicious about the accident itself.
"Investigate."
"And the family—"
"Compensate them. I'll send you the bank account number later."
Shang Yi stared at her own body, thinking for a moment. "Why isn't Fan Yaoyao back yet? What kind of master did she find?"
Before the master arrived, she fell asleep.
Waking up in her own body, she saw Zhang Xu staring blankly around the room. When Zhang Xu saw her, she let out a little "eep."
"Come here—" Shang Yi beckoned with a finger. Zhang Xu shuffled over and respectfully gave a Young Pioneers salute.
Shang Yi: "..."
Ugly Boy let out a snort of laughter.
Shang Yi was a capitalist. A capitalist with a conscience, of a sort, but to grow her business to its current size, she'd acquired some blood money along the way. It had always been accidental, and because it was distant, she'd never been too affected. This time, seeing Zhang Xu, coming face-to-face with the bloodstains beneath her wealth for the first time, she felt an unbearable scratching in her heart.
She cleared her throat, then felt like a hypocrite. She racked her brain for a moment.
"I have something to tell you." She threw back the covers. "I really can't go on scrubbing people's heads. How about this: you can be my daughter. I'll adopt you."
Zhang Xu: "Huh?"
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