"Brother Ye, congratulations on getting out early. Welcome back."
Outside Tilan No. 1 Prison.
Chen Ye raised his head to look at the piercing blue sky and sighed. Twenty years.
He never expected his early release would be due to a terminal illness parole.
"Datou, thanks for coming to pick me up. Cough, cough..."
Datou's real name was Lin Feng. He hesitated, wanting to say more. "Brother Ye, long time no see. Your illness, is it really..."
Chen Ye waved a hand, pulled a pack of Double Happiness from the outer pocket of Datou's shirt, and lit one. It seemed this kid had been doing well over the years—he had reached the Supreme rank.
"It really is. Buddy, I can only pay you back in the next life. Datou, thanks for helping me take care of my parents all these years."
Click.
Chen Ye lit the cigarette and pushed down Lin Feng's hand.
"I won't have a chance to smoke them anyway. Might as well have this one."
Lin Feng paused. "Brother Ye, I... I heard something at a dinner party last month. Twenty years ago, you shouldn't have gotten such a heavy sentence at all. Su Lili helped the other side fabricate testimony, claiming you caused a death by intent rather than negligence."
"What did you say?!"
The cigarette Chen Ye had just taken two puffs from dropped straight to the ground.
If that was true, then who was the woman who had visited him all these years without showing her face, encouraged him to stay strong, and sent him clothes and money?
"Su Lili wasn't the one visiting me all these years? And she didn't help you take care of my parents either?"
Lin Feng gave a bitter laugh. "How could she? She married Wang Qiang, the guy who harassed her back then. If it weren't for that bastard of a chief prosecutor and the Wang family, I would have brought Uncle and Auntie to see you long ago."
"It was Luo Hongli. She frequently went to your house to check on Uncle and Auntie, but..."
Chen Ye had always thought his parents were ashamed of him and unwilling to visit. It turned out someone had been sabotaging him, blocking all visits?
Luo Hongli?
Shouldn't she hate him?
"But what?"
Lin Feng gave another bitter laugh. "She killed herself. All these years, most of the money for your food and clothing in prison came from her inheritance. She said you were the only one who didn't mind the smell of disinfectant on her, and you had helped her. Not long after you went to prison, her father also committed suicide in prison because of the pharmaceutical company scandal. She was left with only an old house. The story even made the legal news. She wasn't much of a talker, so the details..."
"Brother Ye! Brother Ye, wake up! Somebody help..."
***
Shancheng, No. 8 Middle School.
"Brother Ye, school's out. Wake up. The chemistry teacher said whoever falls asleep has to clean the lab. I didn't confess, so now it's just you left."
In his grogginess, Chen Ye seemed to hear Datou calling him.
It seemed he was beyond saving; Datou must have rushed him to the hospital. The smell of disinfectant was so strong.
As the chemistry teacher locked up the various toxic test samples, she glared with simmering annoyance at Chen Ye, who was still asleep.
Then she turned around and smiled. "Luo, sorry to trouble you. Kick him awake, hit him awake—whatever works. I'll be back in a moment to lock the door."
With a loud bang of the closing door, Chen Ye jolted awake.
He looked around. Experimental equipment? Beakers?
Safe experiments, clear-cut superpower cultivation?
"What the hell! Did I get reincarnated?"
He cursed reflexively, startling a young girl and causing her to knock over a glass bottle.
After a flurry of chaotic tidying, Luo Hongli bit her lower lip and peeked secretly at the newly awakened Chen Ye.
She carefully put a bottle of chloroform into her schoolbag, gently closed the reagent cabinet, and clipped her hair back in place.
Chen Ye's mind was still replaying everything Lin Feng had said.
Luo Hongli.
The girl who had dropped out of school because of him, and whom Datou said had killed herself?
He remembered it clearly. It had been during a chemistry lab class.
Because he had fallen asleep, Teacher Li had punished him by making him stay behind alone to clean up.
Even though Luo Hongli was the campus belle, Chen Ye's head at the time had been full of Su Lili and her slender waist and swinging hips.
He hadn't paid any attention to the belle at all—who could have guessed Teacher Li would make a surprise return?
Caught red-handed, Chen Ye only then learned that Luo Hongli had stolen "chloroform" from the lab more than once.
This was a restricted and controlled anesthetic; ordinary people couldn't buy it.
Although Chen Ye had been a bit of a delinquent back then, he never imagined that his offhand remark, "I can help teacher testify," would force a girl to drop out of school.
And drive her to commit suicide later on...
It wasn't until Luo Hongli came back to school the next day to pack her things that he felt a twinge of regret.
After asking around through various channels, he finally learned the truth: her mother had uremia and was in terrible pain, and she simply wanted to use the anesthetic to ease her mother's suffering.
That very night, Chen Ye had stolen his dad's secret stash of cash, tied it to a brick, smashed the window of Luo Hongli's house, and thrown it inside.
Thinking back, he had been far too naive. There were clearly plenty of better ways to help her, though at the time he fancied himself terribly righteous.
Chen Ye got up to admire this healthy, robust body of his, when a sudden realization hit him.
Wasn't this the laboratory?
Luo Hongli!
Could this be the year she was caught stealing chemicals from the school lab?
He looked back at her sneaky, guilty demeanor. No doubt about it.
As the saying goes, a thief has a guilty conscience.
"Hey, you're wiping tables and sweeping floors while wearing your schoolbag—is there gold in that bag?"
Luo Hongli clearly hadn't expected Chen Ye to talk to her.
Who in the whole school didn't know that Chen Ye was Su Lili's attached shadow, and that he never paid attention to other girls?
"Not talking? Hand the stuff over. Or do you want the whole school to find out tomorrow that the campus belle Luo Hongli is a thief?"
Luo Hongli's pretty face paled in shock, a blush instantly rushing up to her neck.
"You, you, I, I didn't steal... Ah, why are you snatching it..."
The moment Chen Ye made a move, she grew so flustered her local dialect slipped out.
She had clearly been keeping an eye on Chen Ye; he had been fast asleep just a moment ago. Did he have eyes in the back of his head or something?
"Don't!"
Swish.
Chen Ye looked at the bottle of "chloroform" in the schoolbag and sighed.
"Which cabinet did you take it from? Put it back."
Luo Hongli bit her red lip, kept her head down, and shook it. "I won't!"
"Then tomorrow during the flag-raising ceremony, I'm going up to the assembly platform and broadcasting that you're a thief."
"Why are you picking on me? I didn't even mess with you!"
Watching her lift her head, glaring at him with burning grievance while tears streamed down her face, Chen Ye almost laughed out loud.
Was this the usually aloof campus belle?
This damn girl was a total crybaby!
In his past life, he remembered her facing Teacher Li's interrogation with a fearless, nothing-can-touch-me attitude.
"Why are you shouting so loud? Are you afraid the students and teachers who haven't left yet won't hear you?"
At Chen Ye's words, Luo Hongli's mouth instantly flattened into a pout.
She couldn't figure out how she had offended Chen Ye. It wasn't like she hadn't pulled this stunt before using the excuse of "helping him."
In the past, he used to sleep like a dead pig.
Today, it was like he was poisoned—no, like he had eyes in the back of his head.
"Stop dazing out. Hurry up and finish the last bit of cleaning, then come with me."
Luo Hongli pouted, panicking inside, and reflexively blurted out, "What for? I'm not going!"
Hearing that, Chen Ye thought, *Oh ho, small stature, big temper. Today I'm going to cure that aloof campus belle attitude of yours.*
Watching his towering six-foot frame close in step by step, Luo Hongli retreated with her cleaning rag until her back hit the wall.
*Kabedon*?
A modern buzzword suddenly surfaced in Chen Ye's mind. During his years at Tilan No. 1 Prison, he had encountered all sorts of people. Even if he hadn't witnessed societal changes firsthand, he hadn't missed out on picking up new concepts.
Luo Hongli: *Do you realize how close you are to me?!*
Actually, this was also the first time she was looking at Chen Ye properly.
Without his rebellious, ultra-long side-swept bangs getting in the way, every time he spoke his Adam's apple bobbed up and down, the lines of his face were rather handsome, and he carried a unique, pleasant scent.
As she thought this, a rush of warm air suddenly hit her ear.
Chen Ye had actually leaned in close, his face almost resting on her shoulder!
"Or would you rather have tomorrow's flag-raising ceremony turn into a public expulsion for theft?"
Looking at Luo Hongli's soft, pinkish-white neck and her earlobes turning translucent in the sunset light, he felt an instinctive urge to smell her fragrance and taste her sweetness.
"I—I'll go with you, but if you dare bully me, I'll tell the head teacher!"
"That's a good girl. How nice is it to be obedient? Besides the chloroform, you didn't steal anything else, did you? I see something bulging under your school uniform..."
Luo Hongli immediately crossed her arms over her chest, her face flushing as red as boiling water. "You—you pervert!"
Chen Ye looked down at her from above, practically radiating the posture of *if you don't unzip your jacket for me to inspect right now, I'm turning you in*.
"I—I really didn't take anything else!"
"You—you're bullying me... Waaah..."
Clang.
Just when Luo Hongli thought she couldn't escape Chen Ye's clutches today, the heavy laboratory door was pushed wide open with a bang.
"Chen Ye! What are you doing?!"
Mediterranean Li?
Sure enough, the scene from his past life was repeating itself.