After My Rebirth, I Stole Away the School Genius - Chapter 2

A certain fool returned home, hesitating at the door for a long while before finally pulling out her keys and stepping inside.

“I’m back.”

Lu Zhenhong, seated on the living room sofa, looked up from his documents and glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’re thirteen minutes late today.”

Chai Ping was just coming out of the kitchen with a plate of food. At this time, Mrs. Chai hadn’t yet grown the white hairs she would later in life. Having spent years working in government offices, she carried an air of steady composure and experience. The sight of her made Lu Shinian’s eyes sting, only now, after being reborn, did she truly understand the saying, “A mother’s love is the greatest in the world.”

In her past life, after Chai Ping discovered she had secretly altered her college application preferences, they had a huge fight. Back then, young and headstrong, Lu Shinian refused to back down, eager to prove her choices weren’t wrong. As a result, their mother-daughter relationship remained strained for a long time.

It was also because of the college application incident that Chai Ping had strongly opposed her marriage to Li Jingming. Looking back now, Lu Shinian had to admit her mother’s judgment had been right, she had misjudged people, not only losing everything herself but also causing her aging parents endless worry.

This time around, she would make sure to be a filial daughter.

Noticing her dazed expression, Chai Ping walked over. “What are you standing there for? Why are you late again today?”

The Lu household had strict rules, everyone was expected to return home by a set time, with no loitering allowed. Lu Shinian snapped out of her thoughts and smoothly offered an excuse. “The teacher kept us late today.”

Chai Ping said, “Straighten your shoes. Why does your teacher always keep you late? You should come straight home after school, understand? Your dad’s institute just handled two cases involving girls who got into trouble. It’s not safe out there.”

“Mm.” In the past, Lu Shinian would have argued back, but now, with half a lifetime’s worth of hindsight, she found Chai Ping’s nagging oddly comforting. Obediently, she bent down and adjusted her shoes.

Chai Ping was a perfectionist, she couldn’t stand things being out of place. In fact, the entire family was full of perfectionists… except for her.

It wasn’t just outsiders who questioned whether she was really their biological child, she had wondered the same. Her older sister, Lu Shiyin, took after their father in temperament: quiet, reserved, and as meticulous and disciplined as their mother. From childhood, she had excelled in elite schools, never giving the family a moment’s worry. Lu Shinian, on the other hand, was the complete opposite, born rebellious. Though Chai Ping’s strict upbringing had kept her from major mistakes, minor ones were constant. Her grades were mediocre, and she had only managed to scrape into Yanning No. 3 High School thanks to an unusually good performance on her entrance exams.

As a child, relatives often joked that she was adopted. She would eagerly run to Chai Ping to ask if she was really her biological daughter. After one too many such questions, Chai Ping grew annoyed and took her to the hospital for a paternity test, effectively crushing any fantasies of finding her “real parents.” Later, Lu Shinian thought about it and realized it made sense, if she hadn’t been their own, Chai Ping and Lu Zhenhong would’ve long since abandoned her to fend for herself.

Lu Shinian held back her tears and promised, “Mom, I won’t embarrass you from now on.”

Chai Ping said, “I’m not falling for that. Being late means punishment.”

“……”

That night, while taking a break from her punishment copying passages from Family Maxims, Lu Shinian received a text from Xu Man.

[Xu Man: Lu, I thought about it today, and I realize my attitude wasn’t great. Don’t take it to heart.]

Lu Shinian twirled her pen and calmly typed back.

[Lu Shinian: We’re done.]

It was past midnight by the time Lu Shinian finished copying the punishment assignment twenty times. She flexed her wrist before pulling a notebook from her drawer to organize her thoughts, listing out every event she could recall in chronological order. Though many things and people had blurred with the passage of time, she could still remember the major events that would shape her future.

Rebirth was a gift from the heavens not everyone got a second chance. She had to cherish it and avoid the mistakes of her past life.

As she scribbled and revised, her thoughts gradually became clearer. Some things were still too distant for her now, and due to the butterfly effect, the future could change at any moment based on her present actions. The only immediate turning point before her was the college entrance exam.

In her previous life, she had barely focused on studying, pouring all her energy into romance instead. Her grades had been at the bottom of the class every year. Only after cramming desperately in the three months before the exam did she barely scrape past the cutoff for second-tier universities, ending up at a mediocre school with a business administration degree she didn’t even like. After graduation, her lackluster credentials led to countless rejections in her job search.

Her salary was far lower than Li Jingming’s, leaving her completely powerless in their relationship, little more than his dependent.

The thought made Lu Shinian sick. How absurd and laughable she had been back then! Love was worthless, how could romance ever be more important than academics?

Now that she had been given this chance, she couldn’t waste her life like that again.

She kept thinking until late into the night, finally circling one line in red as she set her goal: “Stay away from scumbags, study hard.”

Satisfied, she tucked the notebook into her drawer and locked it.

The next day was Saturday. Lu Shinian bolted upright in bed, immediately looking down at her hands before scanning the familiar layout of her bedroom. She let out a long sigh of relief, it wasn’t a dream. She was still alive.

She grabbed the alarm clock, just past seven, still within the wake-up time set by Chai Ping.

After throwing on some clothes, she headed to the bathroom. As she wiped her face after washing up, she studied her reflection: fair, unblemished skin, an oval face framed by shoulder-length hair, and wispy bangs, the trendy “air bangs” popular among high schoolers.

A small canine tooth peeked out when she smiled, giving her a vibrant, youthful energy. But Lu Shiyin had once said her face carried a “kind of pure stupidity,” a description she absolutely disagreed with.

Lu Shinian grinned at her reflection, her mood soaring.

Youth was wonderful, no wrinkles when she smiled.

Lu Zhenhong and Chai Ping were already at the table eating breakfast, an old-fashioned radio crackling with the morning news in the background.

Chai Ping glanced at her. “You’re up early today. Normally, you wouldn’t get out of bed until eight.”

Lu Shinian replied, “I just wanted to follow your and Dad’s example.”

Chai Ping chuckled. “No need to follow us, we’re in our forties. You should take after your sister more. Back in high school, she was up at dawn studying. If you were even half as diligent, you wouldn’t have scored so poorly last semester…”

Lu Shiyin had always been Mrs. Chai’s pride since childhood. The usually arrogant Mrs. Chai rarely showed warmth to outsiders, but whenever the topic of children’s education came up, she would inevitably beam with pride and praise Lu Shiyin a few words. At home, she often compared Lu Shiyin to Lu Shinian. Later, when Lu Shiyin became a city prosecutor with a bright future, while Lu Shinian remained a mess, Mrs. Chai couldn’t even be bothered to make comparisons anymore.

Most people would retort when their mother disparaged them like this, but Lu Shinian had a special skill, she could choose to ignore what she didn’t want to hear, letting it go in one ear and out the other. She waited until Mrs. Chai had finished her tirade before leisurely saying, “I’ll definitely strive to be as good as my sister.”

Mrs. Chai was about to say more when Lu Zhenhong intervened, “Why are you lecturing the child so early in the morning?”

Lu Shinian nodded in agreement. Mrs. Chai shot her a glance, and she smiled, not daring to push her luck, then lowered her head to continue peeling her egg.

After breakfast, Lu Shinian was about to return to her room when Mrs. Chai said, “Call your sister tonight. She asked you to.”

Lu Shinian rummaged through her backpack for the math workbook due on Monday, thinking that the morning was the best time to start the day and she should make the most of it.

The moment she opened the first page, her mind went blank.

What were trigonometric functions again? It sounded familiar.

Refusing to give up, Lu Shinian flipped through a few more pages, only for her brain to completely short-circuit.

She couldn’t solve a single problem, she didn’t understand any of it!

With a groan, Lu Shinian knocked on her own head, scolding herself for being too idealistic about studying. The harsh reality was that she hadn’t touched high school material in at least seven or eight years since the college entrance exam. Everything she’d learned had long been returned to her teachers. Now, her mind was empty, her knowledge level barely reaching that of a middle schooler, maybe even worse.

After taking a deep breath, Lu Shinian, determined not to give up, dug out her old textbooks from under the bed and decided to start from scratch.

But from morning until afternoon, she remained utterly lost, unsure where to even begin with the things she didn’t understand. The feeling of helplessness was overwhelming.

Frustrated, she rubbed her temples, a deep sense of defeat rising in her heart. It was as if a little demon had appeared beside her, pointing at her with a pitchfork and laughing mockingly, “You think this old lump of mud can climb a wall? What a joke!”

Lu Zhenhong and Mrs. Chai were going to a dinner gathering with old friends, and the housekeeper had taken leave, so Mrs. Chai left some money for Lu Shinian to buy her own dinner.

Lu Shinian studied a bit longer until her stomach growled loudly. Health was the foundation of all endeavors, and nothing was more important than not starving herself. She changed clothes, grabbed her keys and phone, and headed out to find food. In the living room, she reported to the security camera, “I’m going out now. I’ll be back by eight.”

Lu Shinian rode her electric scooter through a few turns and out of the neighborhood. The streets were brightly lit and bustling with people. Not daring to go too fast, she gripped the handlebars and moved slowly, relying on memory to find a wonton shop she used to frequent.

She went in, ordered a small bowl of wontons, and ate before leaving. Even though it was September, the night was still sweltering. The moment she stepped out of the air-conditioned shop, the heat rushed at her, clinging to her skin, sticky and suffocating.

Lu Shinian turned into the neighboring bubble tea shop and happily emerged with a fruit tea in hand. Just as she was about to look for her electric scooter, she unexpectedly spotted a group of people exiting the police station across the street. They had the unmistakable look of troublemakers, definitely not the friendly sort.

Her gaze locked onto one particular figure among these “troublemakers,” someone who stood out starkly from the rest her classmate Yu He.

Ms. Chai had once warned her, “Don’t meddle in other people’s business out there. Your own safety comes first, don’t get yourself involved in trouble.” Yet at this moment, Lu Shinian had completely forgotten Ms. Chai’s advice. Almost as if possessed, she found herself walking toward the police station.

But she didn’t approach directly. Instead, she stopped under a streetlight some distance away, positioning herself slightly in the shadows to observe the situation first.

The police officer said something to the “troublemakers,” and though their expressions darkened, they eventually nodded. As they were leaving, one of them pointed at Yu He with a grim face.

Lu Shinian caught his words: “If you don’t pay up soon, you and your dad can just wait and see.”

When the man turned around, she got a clear look at Yu He. The dim streetlight cast a long shadow behind the girl, her profile sharply defined yet cold and somber in the interplay of light and shadow. Her narrow, dark eyes were lowered, their emotions unreadable. Even facing this much larger man, she showed not a trace of fear.

Just as Lu Shinian was about to step forward, she saw a middle-aged man emerge from the police station and quickly retreated back into her spot.

The man’s face was bruised purple and green. With trembling hands, he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and growled, “Who told you to call the cops? Did I ever say you could call the cops?”

Faced with his aggressive questioning, Yu He simply stared back silently. Her silence seemed to infuriate the man, who suddenly shoved her hard on the shoulder, sending her sprawling to the ground. “Just like your damn mother, worthless trash.”

Lu Shinian frowned. The man suddenly scoffed as if remembering something, cursed under his breath, then turned and walked away, leaving Yu He behind.

On this sweltering night, the girl pushed herself up from the ground, her fingers curling slightly, Lu Shinian guessed her hands must have been scraped by the pavement. The bustling crowd paid her no attention, and under the streetlight, her slender figure looked both lonely and stubborn.

Seeing this scene, Lu Shinian’s heart suddenly ached. In high school, her memories of Yu He were always of a quiet, reserved girl. After graduation, they’d lost contact until Yu He reappeared in her life as a renowned scholar. At the time, Lu Shinian had merely glanced at the news report, vaguely recalling this old classmate before casually remarking to someone nearby about how vastly different people’s paths could be.

The person before her now was hard to reconcile with that polished, aloof figure from her memories. She’d never imagined Yu He had experienced circumstances like these.

Pulling a tissue from her fruit tea bag, Lu Shinian hesitated. Was it appropriate to approach? Intruding uninvited on someone else’s wounds didn’t seem particularly polite and could easily cause embarrassment.

The street was filled with background noise, honking cars and chattering pedestrians. Inside a private car, a little girl leaned out the window, tilting her head to watch two young women on the street.

Suddenly, a pair of white shoes stopped right in front of Yu He, blocking her path. She looked up at their owner.

Their eyes met unexpectedly.

Yu He found the girl vaguely familiar.

She wore a simple white T-shirt with a cartoon tiger print, her eyes clear and bright, her expression open and unguarded, the kind of person whose thoughts were easy to read at a glance.

After a moment’s thought, Yu He remembered her name, Lu Shinian.

“Here, don’t be sad.” Lu Shinian handed her a tissue, offering what she thought was her most well-meaning smile.

Yu He lowered her gaze, her long lashes casting shadows downward.

Right in the center of the tissue was the logo of a bubble tea shop. Lu Shinian quickly noticed this and flipped it over, flashing an embarrassed smile.

Yu He glanced at the tissue, then studied the girl before her. A faint trace of mockery flickered in her eyes.

Was this pity?

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