~~~
The next moment, Li Nian shook out her hand as she stepped around the corner.
She collided abruptly with Lin Yang and blinked in bewilderment. “What are you doing here?”
Lin Yang recoiled several steps, afraid the water dripping from Li Nian’s hand might splash onto her. Disgust twisted her features. “Were you the one inside just now?”
Li Nian hated stupid people even more than ruthless ones, and Lin Yang was a prime example.
But when both types collided, Li Nian despised them equally. She rolled her eyes naturally. “…Did your family buy out the bathroom or something? Do you have to police where I am too?”
Lin Yang’s brows knitted tightly in displeasure. “The auditorium’s locked. How did you even get in? Climbing through the window—that’s really something—”
“Lin Yang.”
The sight of Li Nian instantly cleared up the question Zhu Lexing hadn’t even voiced yet.
Where there was Li Nian, Yan Mian was sure to be. Their inseparable bond was like those stories where an elementary school kid shows up and someone drops dead—pure character design, a scripted plot kill.
With that mystery solved, Zhu Lexing saw no reason to linger. Her tone turned icy. “Didn’t you say you wanted to check out the auditorium? You’ve seen it now. Time to go, right?”
Lin Yang wasn’t finished venting. “But it’s obviously her—”
Zhu Lexing shot her a glance. “Still itching for a fight? Be my guest.”
She turned and strode away. Lin Yang had too much pride to bicker with Li Nian in front of outsiders—it would just make her look petty. But alone now, with no audience, she had no interest in ranting to thin air. She hurried after Zhu Lexing and started apologizing once more.
Only when their figures had receded into the distance did Li Nian whisper, “Mianmian, they’ve gone.”
Beside her, Yan Mian—pressed flat against the wall—finally exhaled softly.
Her fingertips trembled faintly. Without raising her head, she murmured suddenly, “Zhu Lexing wouldn’t talk like that.”
Prompted by Yan Mian, Li Nian realized that today’s Zhu Lexing hadn’t even tossed out a single barb. She’d left with brisk efficiency.
It was highly unusual, but Li Nian didn’t dwell on it. “Didn’t they say Uncle Zhu’s coming back soon? Forget her. Are you feeling okay?”
Yan Mian’s face was ashen, her demeanor utterly listless. It was as if every spark of life had been sucked out of her in an instant—like a frail willow bending in the breeze, stirring pity in anyone who saw her.
The flicker of suspicion had struck suddenly, but Li Nian’s interruption scattered it. Yan Mian didn’t pursue the thought further. After seeing Li Nian home safely, though, on the drive back to the Zhu Family, she spoke up abruptly. “Auntie.”
Qin Yun glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
Yan Mian chose her words carefully. “That day you said you saw Zhu Lexing—what was her expression like—”
She cut herself off mid-sentence, biting her lip. The notion struck her as ridiculous.
What was she doing? Dissecting someone’s everyday mannerisms just because of a few off-kilter words?
Zhu Lexing was an undisputed lunatic.
And lunatics were utterly unpredictable.
In the end, Yan Mian just offered a faint smile. “Never mind. Thank you.”
Back home, the routine unfolded exactly as it had the day before. Yan Mian dismissed the servant bearing desserts and forced aside those trivial nagging thoughts. She knuckled down to her studies in earnest.
Escaping this twisted world meant relying on nothing but her own hard work.
It was all chronicled in that day’s new chapter update.
After reading it, Zhu Lexing asked the System from the bottom of her heart: 【Next time something like this happens, can you warn me ahead of time?】
Just like yesterday, the System could’ve tipped her off before those two even reached the auditorium. But no—it waited until they were ten meters from Yan Mian, one heartbeat from a full-blown Shura Field, to flash that emergency alert.
Talk about malicious!
The System showed zero remorse. 【The System lacks precognitive abilities—】
Stubborn as ever.
Zhu Lexing had no outlet to argue with it, so she let it go and resolved to stay vigilant herself.
Today’s rehearsal had perfect attendance for once. Yan Mian sat tucked in the corner, with Li Nian at her side. When Zhu Lexing walked in with Song Yingying, Li Nian merely glanced up once.
Zhu Lexing barely had time to steal a look at Yan Mian before Qiao Qiao piped up in irritation. “Zhu Lexing, picked your role yet?”
“We agreed upfront: I don’t have to play the princess, but if I do, it’ll be something with equal screen time to hers—”
Everyone knew a play boiled down to four core archetypes: hero, villain, and their respective lackeys. With the princess as the lead perspective, casting her was make-or-break.
Most of the attendees were hopeless slackers, but a few burned with competitive fire and loved the spotlight.
Take Qiao Qiao, for instance.
From yesterday’s interactions, Zhu Lexing had learned that Qiao Qiao’s parents were celebrated professional dancers. Qiao Qiao had followed in their footsteps, training in dance since childhood and boasting serious online fame.
Word from the school was that the whole event would stream live, and Qiao Qiao was their ratings magnet—key to pulling in viewers. No sense offending her.
Zhu Lexing suggested enthusiastically, “Why not go for her evil stepmother? No taking crap from anyone, and you’re the second-most beautiful person in the world. Knowing your place and chilling isn’t so bad.”
Qiao Qiao found the logic compelling.
Then there was Xu He, fidgeting shyly but blunt about her ambitions. “I want to play the princess.”
Zhu Lexing pondered for a few seconds. “The little dwarfs actually have tons of scenes, you know. The princess takes a beating upfront, but the little dwarfs? They just eat, drink, and lounge. Total bliss.”
Xu He flicked a glance at Qiao Qiao.
Qiao Qiao had inherited her mother’s tall, lithe build. By contrast, Xu He looked like a pint-sized good-luck doll beside her. “But they’re so short—”
Qiao Qiao snorted outright. To head off any drama, Zhu Lexing patted Xu He’s shoulder with sincere reassurance. “That’s no issue—it’s just a name. We can tweak it however.”
“Besides, short and cute is plenty adorable.”
Xu He: “…”
Zhu Lexing had no clue what images Xu He was conjuring, but her cheeks flushed pink, her expression turning bashful. After those two, Zhu Lexing went around assigning roles to the rest.
Li Nian as the hunter, Song Yingying as the Magic Mirror…
When only the roles of “Snow White” and “Neighboring Kingdom Princess” remained unassigned in the script, the auditorium backstage held just two people without parts: Zhu Lexing and Yan Mian.
Zhu Lexing’s selfish motives were laid bare in that moment.
Even earlier, when only a handful of roles were left and Yan Mian still hadn’t been called, whispers had already spread that Zhu Lexing might be saving one for her.
And sure enough, that was exactly what happened.
Before Zhu Lexing could speak, Yan Mian said, “Actually, I can play the Hunter too. Li Nian, we can switch.”
Li Nian wanted Yan Mian to have her moment in the spotlight.
But since Yan Mian had brought it up herself, she could only chime in: “I agree—”
Only then did Zhu Lexing’s gaze finally settle on the pair.
She fixed Li Nian with a stare, her voice cool and level. “Your opinion doesn’t matter. Besides, if you two switch and someone else wants to swap after that, how are we supposed to handle it? You want to sort it out?”
Li Nian was left speechless.
The entire story concept had come from Zhu Lexing herself, and as both writer and director, she naturally held the ultimate authority.
Those cold, cutting words hung in the air, and yet Yan Mian found herself unconsciously relaxing with a slow breath.
For the first time, she saw echoes of the old Zhu Lexing in her.
And with that, the roles were finalized.
Yan Mian’s Snow White part had come to her so suddenly and effortlessly. Once the bell rang signaling the end of class, Zhu Lexing and Qiao Qiao stepped out to discuss the script. Back in the wings, someone didn’t hold back at all. “Didn’t they say Zhu Lexing hates Yan Mian’s guts? And hating her means handing her the female lead?”
“It’s just a stage play. No need to get worked up over it.”
Yan Mian glanced up to see who was speaking: an Omega boy from Class Four who had already gone through differentiation. His name was Zhou Yang.
Zhou Yang had soft, feminine features. He probably nursed a crush on Zhu Lexing—when she’d asked what role he wanted, he’d stammered incoherently, his eyes glued to her the whole time.
So she’d given him one of the Little Dwarfs.
Right in front of Zhu Lexing, he’d stayed silent as a mouse. But the moment she left, his words came tumbling out like bullets from a machine gun, relentless. “Whether I get worked up or not depends on whether certain people do. Back when roles were just getting handed out from on high, it didn’t bother me much. But now familiarity gets you the lead? Folks in the know would call it classmates helping each other out, but anyone else would assume…”
“They’ve got some shady private thing going on.”
