Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The class in the afternoon was still Chinese. The teacher handed out the 默写本 (dictation notebooks) she had collected and graded in the morning.

Since the notebooks were submitted in groups by rows, it was convenient to pass them out — she just gave them to the first person in each row to pass down.

When it was time to pass me my notebook, the girl in overalls just stretched her hand back, not caring whether the notebook would land steadily on my desk when she let go.

She let go of her hand, and the notebook fell straight onto my desk. Before I could check my dictation score, I passed the notebooks behind me.

"Emma Chen, your dictation result this time is not ideal. Considering you just transferred to our school and might not be up to speed with our curriculum, you need to put in more effort to catch up with everyone," the Chinese teacher said, looking in my direction.

How bad must my score have been for the Chinese teacher to single me out for criticism?

So, I opened my dictation notebook.

There, written in bright red ink, were the words "Failed." But even more noticeable than that was the long tear in the paper inside the notebook.

The tear was so long that even though the torn paper hadn't fallen off, the notebook was no longer usable for writing.

I didn't even need to guess who had done this.

But unlike my deskmate Chloe He and my sister, I was the type to get even for every wrong done to me!

This was the biggest difference between my sister and me in terms of personality. She was weak, timid, and had poor grades. But I was the complete opposite — I was bold, tough, and had excellent grades. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten into the only five-star high school in the city on my own merits, while my sister could only barely get into a three-star high school.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet. I didn't go to confront them about the dictation notebook, and they seemed to have vented their anger by tearing up my notebook, so they didn't come to trouble me either.

Because I had failed the dictation, after evening self-study, I stayed in the classroom and wrote down "Man Jiang Hong" (the poem from the morning) over and over again. But every time, I would make a few mistakes.

As my classmates left one after another to go home, only I remained, along with the two girls in front who were clearly waiting for me.

I watched as the lights in the corridor outside were turned off. I slammed my notebook heavily on the desk and let out a long, relieved breath.

Finally, I had memorized it!

"It's so late, aren't your parents worried about you? Or do you have no one to care about you?" I spoke up before they could say anything.

But instead of getting angry, the two of them turned around with strange smiles on their faces.

"Emma Chen, let me show you something," the girl in overalls said, rummaging through the hidden pocket of her schoolbag to take out a hidden phone.

"Hurry up and show it to her," the girl in white urged, eager to show me what was on the phone.

She snatched the phone, opened an app, and kept pressing the volume button until it was turned up to the maximum.

Before I even saw what was on the phone screen, I heard a crowd of people laughing.

"Look who this is," she said, holding the phone out in front of me.

On the phone screen, a female student in a school uniform was kneeling on the ground, her hands clasped together, begging for mercy repeatedly.

Her hair was messy from being slapped by the people around her, making it impossible to see her face clearly.

Then, a delinquent youth with yellow hair kicked her hard with his foot. She couldn't hold herself up and fell backward — that's when I saw that the girl in the video had a face exactly like mine.

At that kick, the people around laughed even harder, and some even cheered.

"Mike, keep going!"

"Look at how cowardly she is!"

"Haha, she doesn't even dare to fight back even if you slap her face swollen!"

"What does she look like under that school uniform?"

"Take it off! Hurry up and take it off!"

"What are you afraid of? We're underage!"

......

I couldn't bear to listen to the obscene remarks that followed, nor could I bear to watch the girl in the video — who had a face identical to mine — slowly take off her school uniform.

Even though I had watched this video countless times, I still couldn't bring myself to watch this part.

"Emma Chen, I never thought you'd be this kind of person. Look at your face — it's right here in my phone," the girl in overalls waved the phone in front of me, clicking her tongue as she commented on the figure of the person in the video.

"The person in the video isn't me. I'm sorry to disappoint you," I said calmly as I packed my schoolbag. Even though my heart was in turmoil, I forced myself to stay calm and not lose my mind.

The person in the video really wasn't me. It was my twin sister — Luna Chen.

Luna Chen, Luna Chen... They treated you like this, and you still didn't dare to fight back. You didn't say a word about it when you got home. You only dared to appear in my dreams day and night after you died.

My sister was both pitiful and hateful — hateful for her cowardice.

"Luna Chen, that's you, right? Stop pretending. So you didn't die; you just changed your name to Emma Chen," the girl in white grabbed my schoolbag to stop me from leaving.

She continued, "If you were going to change your name, why didn't you change your last name too? You're still as stupid as ever."

"And you never thought you'd run into us again after transferring schools, did you? Hahaha!" She laughed loudly, and the girl in overalls joined in.

Their laughter made my head ache more and more, and I felt dizzy.

Gradually, their laughter merged with the laughter in the video.

I grabbed the girl in overalls — who was the closest to me — by the front of her clothes. She was so scared that she almost dropped her phone.

But after just a moment of confusion, she sneered and said, "Luna Chen, you've gotten bolder now, huh?"

She was sure I wouldn't dare to do anything to her. But she was wrong. Because I wasn't Luna Chen — I was Emma Chen!

With my other hand, I snatched her phone, turned off the screen, and threw it on the ground.

"Were you the one laughing in the video?" I asked.

"Yes, so what? Even if you break this one, I have a backup," she replied.

"Don't worry, I won't delete your video," the girl in white chimed in, taking out her own phone from the hidden pocket of her schoolbag to show me the backup the overalls girl had mentioned.

"First of all, you two need to get one thing straight — that person in the video isn't me. Second, you tore up my dictation notebook today," I said, turning my head and sneering.

"You didn't really think I was staying here to memorize the poem, did you? I was waiting for you two. I know exactly what you're up to. Olivia Wood, and you —" I glared sharply at the girl in white, emphasizing my words, "Sophia Zhang!"

Panic instantly appeared on their faces. It seemed they had thought of themselves as the hunters and me as the prey.

"We really enjoy this kind of excitement — setting a trap and then catching the prey," I said, letting go of the overalls girl's clothes, rubbing my wrists, and twisting my neck, which made a "crack" sound.

The "crack" sound was extremely loud in the quiet classroom.

"Do you want to fight me together, or one by one?" I got into a fighting stance, then glanced at their faces, finally fixing my eyes on the phone in the white-clad girl's hand.

They didn't seem scared by my challenge.

Fighting two against one — they probably thought they had a good chance of winning.

"Sophia Zhang, let's go together," Olivia said.

"Since you're both coming at me, I won't hold back either," I said, flexing my arms and standing in the aisle between the two rows of desks.

Before I could make a move, the two of them couldn't wait to pounce on me.

They used the same old fighting moves — grabbing hair and scratching.

I stepped back, my back hitting the desk behind me. I picked up the thick Chinese textbook on the desk and hit them hard on the head with the spine of the book.

The spine was the thickest and hardest part of the book.

They were so stunned by the hit that they frantically touched their scalps to check if they were bleeding.

"I've been wanting to try what it feels like to hit someone with this since this morning. I didn't expect to get the chance to do it tonight," I said.

"Tell me — is your head harder, or my book?"

Provoked, the two of them also picked up the books on the desk and threw them at me. But before the books could hit me, I firmly grabbed their wrists.

I held Olivia Wood's wrist with my right hand and Sophia Zhang's with my left.

They tried to break free, but the tighter I held on, the more it seemed like the capillaries under their wrist skin were about to burst.

To make myself stronger and more powerful, I had been learning taekwondo and Sanda for a year — and now was the perfect time to use those skills.

Seeing that they couldn't break free with their right hands, they tried to attack me with their left hands. But I didn't give them the chance.

I let go of their wrists, then kicked the closest one — Olivia Wood — hard to the side. She stumbled right into Sophia Zhang behind her.

"You can't even win a two-on-one fight? You're so useless!" I mocked.

"Oh, and by the way — there are no surveillance cameras in this classroom. So no one will find out what I do here. Is that right?"