December 14, 2021

Chapter 7: Snatch (Part 1)

The room was tidy and clean and the mess caused by changing clothes before going out had been cleaned up.

Yansheng took off the clothes she was on to attend the birthday banquet and went straight to the bathroom. She took a bath, wrapped a bath towel, and applied her skincare products. She paused and wiped the mirror.

The mirror was wiped clean, giving a clear view of a fifteen-year-old girl.

She looked at her reflection for a moment, pulled off the bath towel, and turned around in front of the mirror.

There was nothing on her nape, arms, hips, thighs, and ankles. She didn’t have any of those tattoos.

She was now a clean girl and had a life that started all over again.

She wrapped the bath towel again and returned to the bedroom, changed into her pajamas, and lay down. She couldn’t figure out why she was born again this year. Is there anything special at this time?

But she really couldn’t think of anything.

She couldn’t fall asleep even while lying down, so Yansheng got up again to find her cellphone and look through the information in it.

There was no significant information. Fifteen-year-old girls were both livid and resentful, those that tend to burst out at every turn could be seen from the information.

She dropped her cellphone and was dumbstruck for a moment. When she stood up, she saw a few books neatly stacked on a clean desk, so she walked over. Mrs. Luo had found all the textbooks of all subjects in her first and second years of middle school, and they were neatly organized according to subjects.

Yansheng pulled the chair and sat down, flipping through the books.

She didn’t need to read literature and language, so she flipped through other textbooks, but she couldn’t remember a single definition of any mathematical formulas and theorems—chemistry, physics, geography, biology—all of them.

She closed the textbook and let out a long sigh.

But as the saying ‘you’re here now’ went, she had returned to her fifteen-year-old self and was about to go to high school. She had to work hard, even if she didn’t want to.

Yansheng pushed the textbooks away, then had her chair slide in front of the computer, turned it on, and drew a timetable.

Mathematics, physics, chemistry, taekwondo, boxing, including the four arts—piano, chess, calligraphy, and painting—that she abandoned. One by one, she added them to the table.

Starting tomorrow, she would be a new person.

……

Huan got up early the next morning and went downstairs.

He was getting older, so he was no longer able to sleep so late as when he was younger, and his sleep was getting lighter and shorter now. This was a sign of aging.

The servants at home knew his schedule and got up earlier than him. When he got off the stairs, the morning newspaper was ready for him.

He was drinking coffee and reading the newspaper when he heard a loud noise outside. What is that person doing early in the morning?  

He carried his cup of coffee and saw that Yansheng had set up a target for her training in the courtyard. She looked good in her white training outfit.

She did a sidekick which accurately hit the target. It made a ‘pa’ sound that was loud and clear.

She doesn’t sleep late during the summer vacation? Why is she so hardworking now? Huan was a little puzzled and had a lot of questions as if something was wrong with his eldest daughter since last night.

He didn’t intend to interrupt her either. He glanced at her, took a sip of coffee, and planned to go back to continue his breakfast. He walked two steps away, but he went back again. This time, he looked at her carefully for a while.

He pushed to open the glass door and walked over. “Yanyan, why does Dad think that you now have a better posture than before?”

This was simply rubbish. The twenty-one-year-old Yansheng had six more years of training than the fifteen-year-old Yansheng.

And that was what made Yansheng so reckless to hang out with a gang of scoundrels outside. This was what you call a skilled person being audacious.

She couldn’t help but think of those bastards who did a lot of evil things and dared to give her drugs.

She thought about how she hung out with those bastards all day long, wasted her life, wasted her youth, and finally died. She really hated it.

Her leg rushed into the wind, kicked the target hard, and made a particularly loud noise.

Huan shrunk his neck instinctively.

“I am at the black belt level,” Yansheng answered concisely.

Black belt and red belt, isn’t that just a kind of stuff that coaxes students to spend more money? Huan had not been very cold about things like Yansheng learning taekwondo and boxing. This was what her mother insisted for her to learn.

But Yansheng was also interested in them, so she persisted with the training.

Huan nodded and smiled. “That’s good! You did not learn them for nothing.”

Yansheng was fed up with this kind of her father’s appearance. He always looked like this every time he tried to smooth things over. She was angry when she caught this sight.

Her early morning training was almost over, so she wiped her sweat and said, “I’m going back to my room.” Then, she left Huan and went upstairs.

Huan was slowly drinking coffee in the courtyard.

In the cool morning, his wife and two younger children had not gotten up yet, so no one was arguing and no one was making noise. It was so beautiful and quiet.

At this age, it was hard to find tranquility, finally.

After drinking a cup of coffee, he would go to the company; nevertheless, his office was surely quiet and comfortable.

Yansheng took a bath, washed away her sweat, and sat down at the study desk refreshingly.

She stared at the stacks of books for a long time and finally got the courage to start with mathematics. She took the book and opened it.

In fact, it was actually not that difficult. It was only later that Yansheng became bad, so she got bored and was afraid of learning. Now, she was copying formulas and theorems one by one, and her mind was very clear. Sure enough, the brain after the age of twenty cannot be compared with that of a teenager.

She gradually learned.

When she got tired of mathematics, she then changed to physics. The other people at home were getting up too.

Suddenly, there was a shout from the next door.

Heling yelled, “You put it down for me, that’s mine!”

Shuocheng was quite unreasonable. “Give it to me!”

“Go play on your own!”

“Mine is gone!” 

Yansheng had a headache now.

She walked over and closed the door of her room with a loud ‘bang’.