Zhang Qiang’s house smelled too pungent and Lin Xi did not want to go back inside. It was already darked outside and she had nowhere to go. Lin Xi stayed inside of Zhang Qiang’s yard until 3 or 4 AM. When it was about daybreak, she picked up her backpack and took off.

It was not her idea to stay at this godawful place for so long. She had booked a ride ahead of time but, this place was so remote that nobody would come. Early in the morning was the earliest time that she was able to book.

Zhang Qiang was still hanging from the doorframe and he was either asleep or passed out. One way or another, he had no idea that Lin Xi had already taken off.

When Zhang Qiang slowly regained his consciousness, he discovered that he was hung up on the door frame. There were no ropes on him, just two benches.

He had no idea how Lin Xi was able to do it but both of his arms where stuck inside the benches. He could bend them, retract them, thrust them forward, or pull them backward. If he only tried to move them just a little, his back and shoulder was painful like his arms were about to be ripped off.

With his upper body controlled, he wasn’t able to run away.

Lin Xi walked in front of him.

Zhang Qiang started shouting immediately. “How dare you tie me up like this. I am going to kill you…”

After just a little while, Zhang Cui couldn’t stand the dirtiness anymore. She took the opportunity when Lin Xi was outside and had Uncle Li helped get out the blankets and sheets from the trunk and put them on top of the bed board.

It wasn’t like the dust would bother her through the sheets.

Once she was done tidying up, Zhang Cui pulled Lin Xi inside and said, “You can start unpacking now. I am going to say hi to a few of our relatives. I gathered that you are quite tired so you don’t need to come with.”

-- Visiting relatives etc. was a lie. According to the novel, Zhang Cui wasn’t able to locate Zhang Qiang so she gave the money to the “referrer” and returned to City B.

The scene in her bizarre dream coincidentally overlapped with the scenes where “she” was strangled to death by the gangsters in the extras of the novel.

With the exception of the presence of Lin Yize.

In the novel, “Lin Xi” asked for it herself and the incident seemed to unbeknownst to Lin Yize.

If that was the case, why did she see Lin Yize in her dream? He was smiling in her dream but on him was a look more vicious that she had ever seen.

Fear crept back all over her again when she recalled the look on Lin Yize.

When she was all done, it was already the middle of the night.

Lin Xi was very tired already and fell into a deep sleep after she crawled into bed.

She had no idea how much time had passed when more bits and pieces of images made their way into her mind again.

In her dream, she seemed to be inside of a dark alley. She was running as fast as she could and there were a lot of noises coming from behind her.

Lin Xn went over the laboratory after she had left the classroom.

“Teacher, I had left some stationaries behind in the laboratory before,” said Lin Xi to the guard outside of the laboratory.

A teacher would never question the words of a good student and they let Lin Xi in right away.

Walking over to her own workstation, Lin Xi opened up the drawer. There were, indeed, a few pens that she had left there as backup. Lin Xi quickly put those inside of her backpack and, at the same time, grabbed a few additional electronic components and wires that they had been using for their experiment from the drawer.

Lin Xi started packing up her stuff when she arrived at the classroom. She packed up past examinations inside of her desk and the textbooks in the back storage area.

“Have you guys heard about what happened to Lin Anxin?”

Hearing a familiar name suddenly, Lin Xi stopped what she was doing for a second. Then she heard the few girls in the corners seemed to be talking about what had happened with Lin Anxin yesterday.

“Who’s Lin Anxin? The freshman year class flower.”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“What about her?” asked another girl dubiously.

Sure enough, looking at Lin Xi, Zhang Cui gathered herself and put a smile on her face.

She then dropped another big piece of fatty meat into her bowl.

“Aye, child, you shouldn’t just eat the rice. Here, have some meat.”

Pausing a little, Zhang Cui added, “I plan to pay the village that I came from a visit. Xiao Xi, you have never been, right? Come with me this time. You can even stay there for a little while.”

Here it comes.

Thought Lin Xi to herself. She had another mouthful of rice without giving herself away. Looking at Zhang Cui, she put on a baffled look, “Why do you want me to go visit there with you out of the blue?”

Zhong Cui saw that Song Kexin was already tempted so she carried on. “Keeping her here will only upset you and the environment is not good for the child either. Sending her to the village will be good for you, Yize, our XingXing, and this family.

“It’s good for her as well. She wouldn’t need to be envious of Xinxin without the contrast.

“As for over here. You just need to make something up. You can say that she had gone overseas or out of town. Or that her health hasn’t been good so she will be staying in the countryside for a while. In either case, there won’t be any rumors.”

--- That sure made sense.

Song Kexin nodded reflexively.

Her real dad turned out to be her idol the tech guru?!

Lin Xi smiled foolishly while sitting in bed.

Suddenly, her thought process was interrupted by an embarrassing growling noise. It was then when Lin Xi realized that she hadn’t eaten in over a day.

She felt nauseated as she hadn’t eaten in a long time.

Her fever had gone down but she still felt dizzy. She wasn’t sure that was an aftereffect of the fever or that she was just hungry.

Fighting her dizziness, Luo Xiu crawled out of bed.

Her limbs were weak and she almost fell when her knees almost gave in.

Lin Xi ran a fever that night.

When she was half conscious, she felt that she was being roasted on a rack and, in addition, someone was rotating her and brushing hot paste over her.

She felt awful.

She felt that she might die.

While she was half conscious, many crazy images entered into her head.

They became more and more clear.

Lin Xi had a very odd dream.

Lin Anxin, curled up in Song Kexin’s arms, shuddered: She was the one who lied. She had offended some hooligans at school and, this afternoon, Yan Xueqi brought her gang to pick on her and even asked her to meet by the artificial lake. She assumed they were just putting up a front but they were going to crop off her hair and throw paint on her. Lin Anxin, startled, started backing up from them and ended up slipping and falling into the artificial lake.

Lin Anxin dared not tell the truth right now. Had she said it, her mother and grandmother would, doubtless, asked about what had happened. She had always put up a front that she was a nice and docile child in front of her family. She didn’t want them to know that she had conflicts with other students and over that kind of issues no less.

SMACK!

Lin Xi smacked across the face.

“How are you so sinister at such a young age?

“She’s your sister and you tried to set her up? You can’t bully her at home so you bully her at school?”

Xu Jiaofeng held onto Lin Xi’s arm with one hand and smacked her with her the other.

“She fell into the lake by herself. It had nothing to do with me!” Lin Xi fought the pain and denied any wrongdoings.

Xu Jiaofeng got angrier. “How would Xinxin fall into the lake if you didn’t do anything to her?”