Chapter 3: Scum’s Self-Rescue – 3

By the time they left the police station, it was already nine in the morning. The autumn sunlight blazed generously over the tree-lined path of the greenbelt in front of the station.

Gu Xizhou pulled out her phone, opened the map, and headed straight for the subway entrance.

Being late on the very first day of school would definitely leave a bad impression on the teachers, and that meant unwanted attention.

Her mind was in complete turmoil. The girl following behind her, however, called out to stop her: “Hey…”

Gu Xizhou turned around and looked, slightly bewildered, at the girl who stood noticeably taller than herself. “Hm?”

Like Su Nanfeng, Su Zhiyi was a full half-year older than her. On top of that, with her family’s better circumstances, her height towered far above most of their peers.

Gu Xizhou was her polar opposite—thin, delicate, and small. After years of torment from Su Nanfeng, her once outgoing nature had shrunk into extreme introversion. Standing next to Su Zhiyi, she looked like a little pea sprout who hadn’t developed yet.

Su Zhiyi gazed at the pitiful little sprout in front of her, gently bit her lip, and after a long moment, said in a soft voice, “Gu Xizhou, thank you.”

Even though 0820 had crammed so much about that “future” into her head, right now, facing Su Zhiyi’s face—so frighteningly like Su Nanfeng’s—Gu Xizhou’s instinctive terror still took over.

Hearing the thanks, Gu Xizhou recoiled like a mouse spotting a cat, stumbling two steps backward. She stammered, “N-No… it was nothing…”

She clutched her phone, terrified of any further contact. She turned and started walking toward the subway station. “Be careful from now on.”

Su Zhiyi instinctively reached out, wanting to call to her. “Ah…”

But the moment Gu Xizhou heard her voice, it was as if she’d seen a ghost. She broke into a panicked run down the tree-lined path and never looked back.

Su Zhiyi stood in place, silently watching that thin, fleeing back, the schoolbag bobbing with each desperate stride. She stared for a long, long time.

It wasn’t until a breeze blew her long hair across her lips, sticking fine strands there, that Su Zhiyi lifted a hand and brushed them away, letting out a soft laugh.

After a long pause, she turned. She flagged down a taxi and headed toward the school.

Down in the subway station, Gu Xizhou clutched her backpack, sitting in a corner, earphones in her ears and stomach clenched in pain. The physical and mental agony was overwhelming, yet 0820 still chattered relentlessly in her head: “Why did Su Zhiyi end up at No. 1 High School? She’s supposed to go to Elan International High School!”

During the countless descriptions 0820 had given, Gu Xizhou had learned about the Su family situation.

When the Su sisters were ten, their Alpha mother, Su Tianyu, had an affair. Their mother, Mu Zhilan, filed for divorce.

The older sister, Su Nanfeng, stayed with her mother, Su Tianyu. The younger sister lived with their mother, Mu Zhilan, a pianist.

After Su Zhiyi differentiated into an Omega, Mu Zhilan had planned to take her abroad once she came of age, since the conditions for Omegas weren’t as tolerant domestically as they were overseas. That was why she enrolled Su Zhiyi in Elan International High School.

But during their senior year of high school, after Su Nanfeng was sent to the military, Su Tianyu began grooming Su Zhiyi to take over the conglomerate. She forcibly kept Su Zhiyi in the country and made her switch her major from sculpture to business.

Yet everything that had happened this morning was far from what 0820 had described.

Hugging her bag, Gu Xizhou closed her eyes and mentally retorted: “Obviously, as a hallucination of mine, all your assumptions about the future were wrong.”

“I didn’t run into Su Nanfeng at nine a.m. Su Zhiyi didn’t go to the international high school like you said.”

“My life has already changed. Can you please leave my head and stop torturing me?”

A whole week. A whole week of auditory hallucinations.

At this rate, even if Su Nanfeng didn’t get her thrown into a psychiatric ward, this 0820 would have her scheduling an appointment at the psych clinic.

But 0820 shot back, extremely agitated: “No, this only proves that my interference has started to cause slight shifts in the worldline.”

“As for exactly what shifts, that remains to be seen.”

0820 sounded thrilled. It shouted inside Gu Xizhou’s head: “Gu Xizhou, you have to form a contract with me. Otherwise, you’ll never escape Su Nanfeng’s claws!”

Gu Xizhou, enduring the pain wracking her entire body, gritted her teeth and retorted: “I already told you, I won’t contract with you.”

“And things didn’t happen the way you said. Nine a.m. came and went, and I didn’t run into Su Nanfeng.”

Everything was changing!

0820 instantly cut her off: “But you did run into Su Zhiyi, didn’t you?”

Gu Xizhou’s voice caught in her throat: “I…”

0820 pressed its advantage: “Before I bound to you, did you even know Su Nanfeng had a younger sister? Doesn’t that prove that at least some of what I told you is true?”

“That was your predetermined fate. But now, because of my observation, tiny changes have occurred.”

“Even so, I’m still certain you’ll encounter Su Nanfeng, and that tragedy will unfold.”

Gu Xizhou kept her lips pressed tightly together and said nothing more.

0820 saw through her blustering terror and continued its seductive work in her mind: “I’ve told you, I’m here to help you change your fate.”

“Contract with me… sign the contract, and you’ll be able to—”

Before 0820 could finish, the station’s broadcast cut it off: “The train is arriving at No. 1 High School Station. Passengers heading to No. 1 High School, please prepare to disembark from the left-side doors. Mind the gap between the train and the platform.”

Gu Xizhou forced herself to stand up, pushed through the crowd, and staggered toward the doors. “I told you, I don’t need it.”

Getting help from anyone came with a price.

This 0820, this figment of her imagination, came from who-knows-where. For all she knew, it was a demon straight out of hell. Besides, she had already passed the stage of needing someone’s help.

She had differentiated. She had grown up. She could take care of herself.

It was only Su Nanfeng… Even if she met her again… even if she met her again…

Gu Xizhou stepped off the train, enduring the pain in her body, and watched the crowds surging all around. She clenched her fist and thought fiercely: This time, she would learn to fight back.

By the time Gu Xizhou sprinted onto campus, the second period was already in session.

Because she was late, a teacher hauled her to the Academic Affairs Office, where she was thoroughly scolded.

The Dean of Students was a sharp-featured Beta woman, her hair swept up into a severe bun as austere as a nun’s habit. She lit into the frail Gu Xizhou without hesitation.

Gu Xizhou clutched her backpack strap, kept her lips pressed together, and quietly explained why she was late.

Once she heard that Gu Xizhou had been delayed because she’d heroically intervened and then had to give a statement at the police station, the director’s demeanor softened.

The stern woman’s tone eased. “We’ll let it go this time. You’ve already missed the opening ceremony, but all new students still need to introduce themselves to their classmates.”

“Head to your homeroom first.”

Gu Xizhou nodded. “Mm.”

Seeing how fair-skinned, gentle, and not at all outgoing the girl looked, the director added with a trace of concern: “You do know what class you’re in, right?”

Gu Xizhou replied, “Mm,” and said evenly, “I know. Class 17.”

Hearing “Class 17,” the director couldn’t help giving her another once-over before finally saying, “Then go on back to your class.”

Gu Xizhou dipped her head, lightly scuffed the heel of her shoe on the carpet, and said in a small voice, “Thank you, Teacher.”

After thanking her, she clutched her backpack and fled the Academic Affairs Office as though her life depended on it.

The moment she stepped out of that heavily air-conditioned room and into the scorching autumn heat, Gu Xizhou felt like she could finally breathe again.

She exhaled deeply and followed the signs toward her classroom.

Bright sunlight poured over the corridor. Gu Xizhou’s footsteps grew lighter and lighter.

Inside her mind, 0820 detected her improved mood and laughed softly. “Feeling good just because you didn’t get yelled at? Gu Xizhou, why did you become such a coward?”

“You behaved just like a rabbit just now. If you act like that when you face Su Nanfeng, she won’t let you off.”

Gu Xizhou ignored it. 0820, unbothered, kept rambling: “The ABO world is a world built on pheromone hierarchies, where people crush and violate each other—a world where the strong prey on the weak.”

“If you don’t get stronger, you’ll only follow the fate already laid out. You’ll become a sacrifice on Su Nanfeng’s altar, carved up and consumed.”

“Violated, marked, destroyed…”

Gu Xizhou didn’t stop walking. She had left the administrative building and entered the teaching block. Nearby, newly arrived students milled around, grouped temporarily into class after class based on their high school entrance exam scores.

Gu Xizhou glanced sideways into one of the classrooms. A girl, chest puffed with confidence, was finishing a self-introduction full of self-assurance. The freshmen listening clapped enthusiastically; the applause was thunderous.

Gu Xizhou thought for a moment, then asked inside her head: “0820, what do you think ‘strong’ means?”

Seeing that she was finally wavering, 0820 poured out a stream of words: “Take how you were placed into classes. Your grade has nineteen classes altogether.”

“Class 19 is the legendary advanced class. Anyone who gets in there has extraordinary academic talent. That’s one kind of strength.”

Gu Xizhou nodded, stepping onto a stair. “Mm.”

0820 kept explaining: “Look at gender. Alphas, as the dominators of pheromones, are inherently strong.”

“Physical resilience, extraordinary athletic ability, exceptional talent—those are all markers of strength.”

“Only by becoming strong can you survive properly!”

By now, Gu Xizhou had reached the third floor. Emerging from the dim stairwell into the sunshine, she walked step by step toward her classroom, her expression focused and serious. “But I don’t think the world should be that way.”

“In this world, plenty of people aren’t Alphas. Plenty of people aren’t in Class 19, with no exceptional talent at all.”

“Do those people not deserve to live decently?”

Like a screeching chicken suddenly grabbed by the throat, 0820 went utterly silent.

Gu Xizhou was now almost at the classroom door. Then, she heard a very familiar voice.

She raised her head and saw Su Zhiyi, her waterfall of smooth black hair cascading down her back, standing at the lectern. She was introducing herself with poised ease to the class: “I like track and field. I like tennis… I like everything vital and living…”

The morning light, close to nine o’clock, fell through the door and landed on the girl’s face, draping a soft golden glow over her silken hair.

Gu Xizhou gazed at her profile and suddenly remembered that speech the woman had given many years later—a speech for a child bullied to death.

The sunlight that day had been like this too, pouring itself madly over her, as if terrified that this young woman still wasn’t shining brightly enough.

Gu Xizhou had sat in the audience, watching that gentle, graceful lady who had blossomed into full elegance, and listened as she said: “In a world of predators, weakness may be an original sin.”

“But in a society that calls itself civilized, when the strong bully the weak, that becomes the shame the entire society must bear.”

Gu Xizhou’s heart seized. She bit her lip, wrestling with herself for a moment. Then she cast the very last question at the 0820 in her head: “The world is so vast, and people so diverse. Can it really not make room for people like us? Must we all be forced into the same mold?”

If that’s what the world demands, then what kind of civilized world can it even call itself?