Chapter 5 - She’s Ye… Ye Qiao?

"Cheng Dafei, who's the bumpkin that you're referring to?" Ye Qiao loudly clarified. Her head was already spinning with the turn of recent events and she was not in the mood to spend another minute arguing with this group of young lads. Swiftly, she turned around and left.

"Oh, damn!" Cheng Dafei exclaimed. "She… She's Ye… Ye Qiao?"

"Are you serious? Isn't the bumpkin a hideous looking girl? I thought she only wears her uniform all day long!?" One of the boys, Qiang Zi, added at the top of his voice.

"I cannot believe that Ye Qiao is even better looking than Ye Zhenzhen!"

Together, the boys placed their arms around each other's shoulders and watched as the sparse shadow of the beautiful girl disappeared. They were all mystified in Ye Qiao's beauty and forgot why they were there in the first place.

Li Yun, on the other hand, carefully took Shen Xichuan with her in a quiet attempt to escape. Unfortunately, Lu Beichi jumped out from out of nowhere and put a halt to their plan. "Cheng Dafei! Qiang Zi! What the hell are you boys gaping at?"

Cheng Dafei, Qiang Zi, and the rest of the boys quickly turned their attention to Lu Beichi. In a threatening manner, the group of boys quickly surrounded the intruders.

"Today, we must show these intruders that we are not to be messed with. Never disrespect the boys from this neighborhood!" Lu Beichi announced aggressively.

But soon, the man had suffered a mild humiliation from Lu Beixiao. "What was that? How could even you let those filthy boys get in and out of our compound at their own free will?"

Li Yun knew the storm was coming, but knowing that these boys would never hit her, she began to express her sympathy for Shen Xichuan's incoming misfortune. She also started to wonder what went wrong with Ye Qiao, for she had not been entirely cooperative with her today, which was unlike her usual obedience.

The whole purpose of them being in the compound in the first place was to steal the access keys to the ping pong room. Meeting Lu Beixiao on their way in was never a part of Li Yun's plan and yet she responded in such a silly manner. She would usually make a detour whenever she saw him but today was different.

Very soon, the two groups of young lads began to fight.

This building was in the most remote corner of the area which used to house dormitories that were abandoned. So, Lu Beixiao claimed the entire place as his own and turned the four-story building into a place of entertainment comprised of a ping pong room, a billiards room, a recording studio, a karaoke room, and more.

It was a popular place for people to either get into trouble or get entertained, but no one truly cared. Even the patrols on duty would keep their distance away from the building. After Lu Beixiao joined the force, Lu Beichi and his gang quickly marked the area as their territory.

From the third floor balcony, Lu Beixiao watched from a height as the two groups of boys came together into an exchange of physical blows. The 21-year-old had never been interested in a fight. It was like a children's game to him. He was more interested in the girl that he had just met.

He only knew her as the girl in the uniform who would always make a detour in order to keep a distance from him. But she behaved rather differently today. It was not just her attitude but her appearance, too, that had changed. Things got pretty interesting.

Ye Qiao was the first girl that managed to draw Lu Beixiao's attention. As the eldest son from the Lu family, Lu Beixiao had proudly committed all sorts of mischievous endeavors, but he never got himself involved with any girls to the point where his best friends began to wonder if he suffered from any sexual disorders. Ye Cheng even tried to take him to see a specialist before, but Lu Beixiao sternly disagreed.

Zhou Kai even wondered if he had a preference for men. For a long while, none of the boys wanted to join Lu Beixiao in the pool, for they were too uncomfortable to expose their bare body in front of him.

…

Somewhere in the woods, the giant redwood trees stood boldly upright as they stretched their branches further into the sky. Ye Qiao was sitting alone in the shade, grasping her head with both palms. She had yet to recover from the shocking fact that she was given a second chance at life; it was still all just a dream to her.

Wasn't she too dumb to deserve a second chance to relive her dull life? Whether she was deserving or undeserving remained to be seen, but one thing was for sure for now – she was alive. The burning heat on her skin and the ceaseless sounds of cicadas chirping in her ears were all so real.

Lu Beixiao was still alive too, as well as her foster parents and her siblings. She could not help but shed tears of joy at these reencounters.

Two decades had reversed in her favor, so it was a chance for her to start over. It was an opportunity for her to save Lu Beixiao and her foster parents. Many misfortunes could be reversed and undone.. Meanwhile, the wicked people who betrayed and deceived her could finally be settled.