Chapter 11: What the hell?! I got my thigh kicked out of school right at the start!.

“Linlin, so you were here…”

Xi Ran’s voice echoed softly in the empty stairwell, carrying a faint reverberation.

She stood on the landing, pitch-black eyes looking down, her face devoid of much expression.

Bai Linlin froze in place. Her mind held only one thought.

It’s over.

Her body reacted before her mind could catch up, starting to tremble uncontrollably.

The fear this body harbored toward the name “Xi Ran” ran bone-deep.

What do I do? What do I do?

Why am I even here?

Right—she had come to meet Jiang Jiaojiao to discuss… that failed “plan.”

But could she actually say that out loud?

She’d die if she did!

But… if Jiang Jiaojiao came back from the restroom and walked right into Xi Ran here, wouldn’t that be even worse?

Two people caught red-handed in secret collusion—it would be like driving a self-destructing truck straight into a wall.

Her mind turned into complete chaos. Then the schoolbag on her back suddenly shifted.

Schoolbag?

When did I start carrying a schoolbag?

What’s inside?

No—no time to think about that now!

Xi Ran began descending.

One step. Another.

The sound of her leather shoes on the concrete steps rang out unnaturally clear in the silence.

Pressure closed in with every footfall.

Bai Linlin’s breathing grew rapid. The string in her mind stretched to its breaking point—then snapped with a mental “crack.”

A reckless, self-destructive impulse, mixed with the deepest lingering desire left in this body’s original owner, burst out of her mouth.

“Xi Ran! I… I won’t bully you anymore!”

The words left her lips, and even Bai Linlin herself was stunned.

What was she saying?!

The effect was immediate.

Xi Ran halted mid-step.

The stairwell seemed to lose all sound at once. Even the air stopped moving.

An invisible, icy pressure spread outward. The temperature felt like it had dropped several degrees.

Bai Linlin could even see her own breath turn into faint white mist.

Xi Ran lifted her head.

Her expression barely changed, but those eyes… so black they seemed to swallow light itself.

“Heh…”

A very soft laugh escaped her throat.

Not an amused one—more like the cold exhale someone makes when hearing an absurd joke.

She continued downward. Not fast, but with an irresistible sense of oppression, until she stood right in front of Bai Linlin.

Bai Linlin wanted to back away, but her legs felt leaden, rooted to the spot.

Xi Ran reached out. Icy fingers gently brushed across Bai Linlin’s cheek.

The motion could even be called tender—yet it raised goosebumps all over Bai Linlin’s skin.

“Haha…”

Xi Ran laughed twice more. Her fingertip slowly traced along the cheek.

“Linlin is still so forgetful.”

She leaned closer. Her breath brushed Bai Linlin’s ear, voice low yet every word crystal clear.

“It seems I’ll have to make Linlin… remember properly.”

Before the words fully landed, the hand caressing her face suddenly tightened—gripping Bai Linlin’s wrist in a vise.

The strength was immense—nothing like what her fragile appearance suggested.

“Ah!”

Bai Linlin cried out in pain, stumbling forward as she was yanked.

Without another word, Xi Ran turned and dragged her up the stairs.

Bai Linlin struggled uselessly, but the other’s grip was like iron. Her own strength might as well have been an ant trying to shake a tree.

Hey!

Sister Ruan Yuan!

Where are you?!

Didn’t you say you’d protect me?!

Where’s the level-22 powerhouse?!

Why did you disconnect right at the start?!

Bai Linlin screamed internally, nearly in tears.

This is what a level-22 difficulty instance looks like?

Opening scene: getting dragged away by the yandere boss for “re-education”?

She was hauled along, stumbling and staggering upward.

In the midst of her struggle, at the edge of her vision, the friend-message icon began flashing frantically.

It was Ruan Yuan!

A lifeline in desperation!

Bai Linlin poured every ounce of will into opening it.

Ruan Yuan’s messages exploded in like cannon fire:

[Linlin! Where are you?!]

[Big problem! For some reason I ended up in the body of a girl also named “Ruan Yuan”!]

[But that’s not even the worst part! Right after I arrived, I found out “I” had been expelled from St. Marianna Academy for violently abusing a girl named Yuan Yiyi!]

[I did a quick investigation… and it seems a girl with the same name as you right now—“Bai Linlin”—was the one who reported me!]

“Damn it!!!”

Bai Linlin let out a mental wail of collapse after reading.

It’s over.

Everything’s over.

Her only thigh, her level-22 guardian deity—in this instance, her identity had been expelled right from the start because of “her own report”!

What kind of hellish opening is this?!

Where’s the promised protection?!

Where’s the “just a bit troublesome”?!

Xi Ran sensed her distraction and the sudden wave of despair. She turned her head, black hair sliding off her shoulder.

Looking at Bai Linlin’s instantly ashen face, the icy curve of her lips seemed to deepen just a fraction.

“Remembered something, Linlin?”

She asked softly, but her grip on the hand never loosened.

“It’s fine. We have plenty of time… to think slowly.”

She said no more. With force, she pulled Bai Linlin toward the door leading down to the lower floors.

Beyond that door lay a dim corridor—like the waiting maw of a predator.

Bai Linlin looked back in despair toward the direction Jiang Jiaojiao had gone.

Help…

This time, it seemed no one was coming to save her.