MCFEM C31

Chapter 31 – These Two Old Fools Are At It Again…

He didn’t know how long he had been staring quietly at the ceiling before Song Yinxing finally straightened his body.

The familiar scent of disinfectant lingered. His body ached fiercely, though he wasn’t sure where he had struck himself.

“Ah, classmate, you’re awake!” A nurse who had just come in exclaimed with surprise. “You were unconscious for quite a while.”

Classmate?

Song Yinxing frowned slightly. It had been eight years since he had given up on retaking the college entrance exams and gone out to work. No one should be calling him that anymore.

Suddenly, his body went stiff. He looked down in disbelief at the clothes he was wearing.

The uniform of Guanli High School.

Panicked, he searched the bed and found the battered secondhand phone he had used back then, its screen scarred with scratches. He saw the date displayed.

Yanking the blanket off, he ripped out the IV in his hand with rough force, not even bothering with shoes as he ran into the restroom.

The face reflected in the mirror was startled and still held a trace of youth. Song Yinxing pressed a hand against the glass.

At first, he thought this was another one of Nie Ying’s sick games. But now, staring into the mirror, it didn’t seem that way.

Clothes could be swapped. Phone dates could be faked. But a face—this face—was impossible to alter.

Closing his eyes, he turned away from the mirror.

He really had gone back. Eight years back.

The nurse rushed in, flustered, asking whether he was unwell.

He had come back.

Song Yinxing repeated it silently in his heart.

He had returned to his most miserable, most wretched, and most desperate time—to high school.

After dropping out, without a diploma, he couldn’t find decent work. He bounced between convenience store shifts and odd jobs, struggling to repay the debt he had incurred at Guanli High.

Society and school ran on entirely different rules. It had taken him a long, stumbling struggle to barely adjust.

In those bleak years, he had often thought—if only he had never gone to Guanli.

But more than that, he had hated.

Hated everything Nie Ying had inflicted on him.

His scattered awareness slowly anchored back to his body, and he finally heard the nurse’s words.

“The boy who fell down the stairs with me—where is he?”

“Do you mean your classmate?” the nurse asked, unaware of what had happened between them. “He’s fine mentally, just fractured his shinbone. He’s upstairs in orthopedics.”

“As for you, we checked—mild concussion. Do you feel dizzy? You’d better lie back down.”

Song Yinxing shook his head, saying only that he was fine. He changed shoes and went to find him.

Lying in the hospital bed, Ding Ziyu looked up to see Song Yinxing walk in. His face betrayed guilt instinctively.

He knew he had been too rash on the stairs—his impulse had even cost him his own leg.

He hadn’t expected Song Yinxing to collapse unconscious after just half a flight of stairs.

His own situation was already bad enough. If Song Yinxing had actually died, he would’ve been finished.

But seeing him here alive, Ding Ziyu thought: What’s done is done. What can he really do to me now?

Trying not to lose face, he forced himself to meet Song Yinxing’s gaze with feigned calm.

But one look, and his heart skipped a beat.

Something was different.

It was still the same cold, aloof face that held others at arm’s length. He stood silently, but those shadowed eyes bore into him with unnerving weight.

He said nothing, yet Ding Ziyu felt goosebumps prick his skin.

Of course, he refused to admit fear. Instead, irritation flared up.

Just a pauper who can’t even afford tuition, living off stipends. Who are you pretending to impress with that holier-than-thou act?

He sneered, “Lucky you didn’t die. Shame.”

Song Yinxing still didn’t answer. Step by step, he walked closer.

He had rushed up at first. But as he neared, his heart grew strangely calm.

He stopped in front of Ding Ziyu.

If Nie Ying was the root of his tragedy, Ding Ziyu had been his greatest accomplice.

In school, Ding Ziyu had already shown his hostility—constant petty harassment, which he managed to endure.

Until that day when, after calling the police, Ding Ziyu found his nametag and told Nie Ying.

From then on, every act of bullying came with Ding Ziyu’s hand in it. Nie Ying seldom dirtied his own hands. Ding Ziyu did the grunt work.

It had been that way in school. Later, even after dropping out, struggling to heal, the nightmare returned when Ding Ziyu stepped into the convenience store where he worked.

His nightmare had begun again.

Sometimes he wondered if he had sinned in a past life to deserve this vengeance.

But each time he wavered, he reminded himself—it was the abusers who were wrong.

And so, in the end, he had driven the knife into Ding Ziyu’s gut himself.

He had paid a terrible price for it.

Blood soaking his clothes. That man’s stunned face. His body collapsing.

At least in that moment, he had not regretted it.

Now, his vision shifted back to this world—Ding Ziyu still whole, lying in a hospital bed.

That same chilling aura crept over his skin, even stronger than before. Ding Ziyu stared at him uneasily.

“You… what are you planning? You think you’ve won?”

“Don’t get cocky. Even if I really get expelled, I’ll just switch schools. My family’s rich. You’ll never earn in a lifetime what I have.”

“I don’t know about winning,” Song Yinxing said evenly, his gaze unwavering. “But you, Ding Ziyu—you’re already finished.”

Ding Ziyu’s eyes widened.

“Leave Guanli, and you’ll never again be Nie Ying’s dog. And then, your family will cast you out entirely, won’t they?”

He spoke slowly. “After all, your stepmother won’t let you inherit anything from your family’s business. Isn’t that right?”

Shock. Shame. Rage.

Emotions tore across Ding Ziyu’s face. “How do you know about my family? Who told you? Who was it?”

He tried to lunge for Song Yinxing’s collar, but his leg was in plaster. He stumbled and fell hard to the ground, humiliated.

From above, Song Yinxing stared down at him.

It was ironic. In his last life, he had been blocked from taking the college entrance exam and forced to drop out. Now, it was Ding Ziyu being expelled.

Looking at his pathetic state, Song Yinxing no longer wished to waste time. He turned to leave.

Disgusting as Ding Ziyu was, he hadn’t forgotten the true culprit.

“Song Yinxing, don’t think clinging to Gu Yang will save you. Do you even understand how deep the waters of the Gu family run?”

Ding Ziyu, utterly unraveling, shouted after him. “Gu Qingxu won’t let you go! Let’s see how long you can laugh!”

Gu Yang.

Song Yinxing paused, his expression finally shifting.

Up to this point, many things should have happened: his forced kneeling, the debt to Ding Ziyu, Liu Hua’s suicide.

But none of them had.

And all the changes traced back to one person.

…Could Gu Yang have been reborn as well?

Lowering his gaze, he recalled.

In his past life, he and Gu Yang had never crossed paths directly.

But among Nie Ying’s crowd was someone named Gu Qingxu, so occasionally he had heard the name.

His expression turned complicated.

And the last time he’d heard of him was the news—Gu Yang had slit his wrists in his bathtub.

If Gu Yang had also been reborn, why hadn’t he saved himself? Why, instead, had he repeatedly saved him?

—

Gu Yang lounged lazily on the sofa, a long-haired ragdoll cat with silky fur nestled in his arms.

“Oh, young master, why are you just sitting in the living room in only a shirt? You’ll catch cold—it’s freezing outside,” Xiao Huang exclaimed, just returned from searching for the cat.

Before she even finished, Gu Yang gave a small sneeze.

Catching him red-handed, she smirked knowingly and hurried off to fetch a blanket, draping it over him.

Gu Yang drawled, “Couldn’t it just mean someone’s thinking of me?”

Though he said it, he made no move to resist.

“I was searching everywhere, and it turns out Berlin’s with you. She really loves you, young master,” Xiao Huang sighed.

Berlin was the cat’s name. Fed far too well, her glossy coat gleamed, her body nearly twenty catties heavy—plump and irresistibly soft.

Xiao Huang felt proud—her care had produced this tangible result.

Her job was to take care of the cat.

She’d studied a useless major, graduated unemployed, until her uncle found her this position in a wealthy household.

Eight thousand a month, with food and housing, just to feed the cat, scoop its litter, take it to baths and checkups.

She often wondered how her uncle had conned them into creating such a cushy job.

Out of boredom, she sometimes pitched in with small tasks—pouring water, slicing fruit, fetching blankets for the young master.

Nothing more. She was simply shallow—a slave to beauty.

Gu Yang leaned his head against the cat’s rounded back. Berlin meowed and flicked her tail.

Xiao Huang stared openly, marveling again at her heavenly job.

But the peace didn’t last. Visitors arrived.

Peeking out, Xiao Huang recognized them vaguely—relatives of the household. Sensibly, she withdrew.

Two or three elderly men came in, each a generation older than Gu Yuhui.

So when Gu Yuhui welcomed them, he was deferential.

Gu Qingxu greeted them politely: “Grand-Uncle, Second Grand-Uncle, Third Grand-Uncle.”

The three elders smiled benignly in return.

But when they stepped into the living room and saw Gu Yang on the sofa, their expressions soured instantly.

Feigning ignorance, Gu Yuhui said, “Xiao Yang, your uncles have come to visit. Come greet them.”

Before Gu Yang even looked up, Second Grand-Uncle snorted coldly. “I don’t deserve to be called that.”

He had always treated Gu Yang coldly. Years ago, when Yu Zeng returned from overseas studies with a woman, declaring marriage, only to die in a car accident days later—

They thought it over then. But a month later, the woman turned up pregnant.

The timing was suspicious. Even worse, Yuhui had insisted on keeping her, refusing a paternity test to confirm the father.

Rumors spread that Yuhui coveted his widowed sister-in-law, complicating matters further.

Third Grand-Uncle shot him a look, signaling him not to say such things in front of the child.

But Second only sneered. “What, the whole mess made headlines, the entire world laughing at our family—and I can’t mention it?”

First Grand-Uncle stroked his beard, nodding, his eyes filled with disdain.

Gu Yang stroked the cat in his lap and yawned lazily.

These two old fools are at it again.

Third Grand-Uncle tried desperately to signal them. Choose your words—you know this brat—

Before they could catch on, Gu Yang looked up at Second Grand-Uncle, his lips curving slowly.

“At your age, still rolling in the hay with your first love last night? Quite energetic, aren’t you? Going senile with style?”

Second Grand-Uncle: ???

First Grand-Uncle: …

Third Grand-Uncle: See? Told you. This brat really has no respect for the elderly.