Dating Myself - Chapter 2

It rained often in Weicheng during the autumn. While other cities had their rainy season in June and July with a continuous drizzle, Weicheng’s didn’t start until late August.

Each autumn rain brought with it a chill. The peak of summer in August had just passed, and as soon as September and the new school year began, the temperature dropped by several degrees. Sitting in the classroom in short sleeves, a slight breeze would send a shiver down one’s arm.

Jian Yixi sat in the last row by the window, resting her chin on her hand and staring blankly outside. On the windowpane, there was a small snail, bravely climbing upward against the wind and rain. Little did it know that the higher it climbed, the more it would be surrounded by concrete, with no space to live—only a dead end.

Clang. The chair next to her was pulled out with a foot, and a person sat down, their bulky backpack placed on the desk.

“You’re Jian Yihu’s twin sister who just got found, right? I saw a picture of you on Jian Yihu’s Weibo.”

Jian Yixi turned to look at the girl who had spoken. The girl had a habit of smiling before she spoke. When she smiled, a shallow dimple appeared at the corner of her lips—just one, a single, tender one like a new green bud on a spring branch. Her eyes curved like a crescent moon.

“Yes, I’m Jian Yihu’s younger sister, Jian Yixi.”

She paused and then asked, “Is my sister very famous at our school?”

Since she had sat down, three people had already come to ask if she was Jian Yihu’s sister.

The girl arranged her books on the desk like a military formation, and replied with a cheerful smile, “Oh, what a question! What do you mean ‘our school’? She’s pretty famous across the whole internet, isn’t she?”

“The whole internet?”

Seeing Jian Yixi blinking her eyes in a confused manner, the girl looked puzzled too.

“What? You don’t follow your sister’s Weibo?”

Jian Yixi shook her head. “I rarely use the internet.”

The girl immediately understood and, with a look of shared suffering, put her arm around Jian Yixi’s shoulder.

“My parents are the same. They barely let me use my phone. Look, they bought me this special phone to prevent me from playing games. It can only make calls and has no other functions. It’s even worse than an old-person phone. We are so miserable.”

Jian Yixi wasn’t used to her easy-going friendliness. Before she could figure out how to get the arm off her shoulder, the girl had already let go and continued to take her books out one by one to arrange them on the desk.

“Putting the whole internet aside, let’s just talk about our school. Your sister has been a campus sensation since she first stepped through the school gates in her first year of high school. She’s just… incredibly popular.”

The girl’s tone was very distinctive, full of well-placed pauses and exaggerations. Even though Jian Yixi knew she was overstating things, she was still very engaging.

The girl chattered on, telling her sister’s story of fame, which was as exciting as a storyteller’s narrative.

Jian Yihu was very famous at Weicheng No. 2 Foreign Language High School. Besides the incoming freshmen, no one in the second and third years—including the graduated third-year students who had left—didn’t know her.

Her fame wasn’t just because of her beauty. Weicheng No. 2 Foreign Language High School was the most expensive private high school in Weicheng, and more than half of its students were the children of the wealthy or officials. There was no shortage of beautiful girls.

Whether these wealthy, beautiful girls were genuinely pretty or not was irrelevant. What mattered was that they were all masters of Chinese makeup art. As long as they didn’t lack a nose or eyes, at their blooming age, with a bit of makeup and a suitable hairstyle, how could they not be beautiful? And those with good features to begin with were as beautiful as fairies.

The main reasons Jian Yihu stood out among the crowd of beauties were:

First, her “no-makeup makeup” skills were excellent. It was impossible to tell she was wearing makeup, even for other girls.

Second, she was consistently in the top ten of her grade, making her the most beautiful student.

Third, she was the only daughter of the richest person in Weicheng, a true “rich and beautiful.”

Fourth, she was an excellent dancer, making her talented as well as beautiful.

Fifth, she was the “most beautiful twin flower.” As early as her second year of middle school, she had posted a photo with her twin sister and called for help in finding her missing sister. Through her heart-wrenching sibling bond and her highly recognizable beautiful face, she gained countless fans and became a new-generation internet celebrity.

A few days ago, Jian Yihu suddenly announced that her sister had been found. That Weibo post was quickly forwarded tens of thousands of times and even made it to the trending topics. Jian Yihu gained a lot of new followers from it and even got an endorsement deal, earning her first pot of gold. She successfully transitioned from being the “most beautiful sister” to the “most inspiring high school student.”

With a wealthy family and a stunning face, she was also a top-ten student in her school. How could she not be inspiring? She chose to earn money with her own hard work! Was there a more inspiring character?

And what’s more, this inspiring young woman was also kind.

The phrase “debuted at the peak” was probably made for a girl like Jian Yihu.

The girl spoke with an air of complete admiration, practically treating Jian Yihu as a role model.

Jian Yixi was also captivated, unable to believe that she had such an amazing sister. A faint sense of pride swelled in her heart.

Even though… she had only been brought over from Shunyi by her biological parents a few days ago and wasn’t very familiar with Jian Yihu, Jian Yihu was truly gentle. Today, to drop her off, she had specially walked up two extra floors just to see her to Class 11 before returning to her own Class 1.

She had a very good impression of this gentle and beautiful sister.

The girl was still talking about Jian Yihu’s rise to fame when the homeroom teacher, Old Hu, came in slowly, holding a stack of test papers.

“For our first class, ah, we won’t talk about all that fancy stuff, ah. We’ll follow the old tradition of Class 11, and have a little quiz first to ring the alarm, ah. There’s not much time, just one semester. I don’t need to tell you what not working hard means, do I? Ah, do you understand?”

Old Hu was a middle-aged man in his forties who liked to pepper his sentences with an upward-inflecting “ah.” The older students in Class 11 mimicked his silent “ah,” and a lot of whispering and giggling went around.

Old Hu scolded them for a few seconds. Just as he was about to hand out the papers, a student shouted, “Teacher, we have a new classmate. Shouldn’t you introduce her?”

Old Hu then remembered there was a person named Jian Yixi.

It wasn’t his fault for forgetting. It wasn’t uncommon for students like Jian Yixi to transfer in the middle of a semester, but most of them transferred into regular classes, not his “Probationary Class.”

Although Weicheng No. 2 Foreign Language High School was a private high school, in addition to the over half of the student body who were “second-generation,” the other half were students who got in through exams. They were some of the top students in Weicheng and enjoyed low or even no tuition fees.

To maintain its college admissions rate and reputation, the school divided its students into four parts.

One part was the elite classes, Class 1 and Class 2, where all the fee-paying students with the best grades were.

Another part was the excellent classes, Class 3 and Class 4, where all the top exam-entry students were.

The faculty for these two groups was exactly the same—the best teachers at Weicheng No. 2 Foreign Language High School, arguably the best in all of Weicheng. The only difference between the two groups was their extracurricular activities.

The elite classes’ extracurriculars were mostly international training, focusing on comprehensive development. The excellent classes’ were remedial courses taught by school teachers, cultivating them into “question-solving machines.”

Besides these four good classes, Class 5 through 10 were the mixed regular classes with both fee-paying and exam-entry students. They were ranked by performance each semester, and the lower the class number, the worse the grades.

Finally, there was the special Class 11, where Jian Yixi was.

Class 11 was the so-called “Probationary Class,” independent of the first ten classes, with the lowest grades in the school.

It was called the Probationary Class because students could only stay there for one semester with low or no tuition. If they couldn’t get into one of the top ten classes by the next semester, they had to pay the full tuition, or else they’d be forced to drop out or transfer.

For students who were already paying full tuition, this had no impact, but for the exam-entry students, it was enough to make them lose their hair. The full tuition was something most families simply couldn’t afford.

In short, the “second-generation” students were responsible for making money for the school, and the academic students were responsible for improving the school’s reputation. It was a perfect positive feedback loop, a surefire win-win situation.

Jian Yixi was a new transfer and a full-tuition student. Normally, she would have been placed in a regular class first, but for some reason, she was put in the Probationary Class.

Jian Yixi didn’t know the school’s class-placement rules, and no one had told her.

Old Hu called Jian Yixi up and told her to give a simple self-introduction.

She had been sitting in the very corner, blocked by a tall boy in front of her, and Old Hu hadn’t noticed her until now. He then noticed she wasn’t wearing her uniform.

“It’s the first day of school, ah. Never mind your grades, you at least have to have a good appearance. I’ll give you the morning reading time to catch up. You, Jian Yixi, come over here. Come with me to get a uniform and change into it.”

Jian Yixi was in the last row, so she didn’t have to squeeze out. She just moved her chair and walked around the back. Her deskmate was writing her name in a new notebook, and Jian Yixi casually glanced over and saw it.

Xie Maomao.

It was the same name as her cat. How interesting.

She wasn’t the only one getting a uniform. All the freshmen were getting one. After getting the uniforms, the boys lined up to go to the gym to change, and the girls went to the swimming pool.

Jian Yixi finally understood why Old Hu had given her a whole morning reading period to change clothes. Just running back and forth would take at least ten to twenty minutes.

Weicheng No. 2 Foreign Language High School had a vast campus, with indoor and outdoor gyms, a separate swimming pool, and a complete set of facilities. The high school department was well established, and the middle school department was still under construction. It was said that they would start enrolling middle school students next year and would eventually develop a primary school department as well.

The rain had stopped, and there were shallow puddles everywhere on the ground. The flowerbeds were lush with green plants and blooming flowers, and the air was filled with a faint, earthy fragrance. Jian Yixi took a deep breath, hugging her new uniform as she walked under the camphor trees. Occasionally, drops of water slid from the treetops, dripping onto her fair, slender arms like drops of peppermint water, feeling cool and tingling.

She rubbed her arms and quickened her pace, following the stream of high school freshmen, and soon found the swimming pool.

The outside of the swimming pool was a layer of dark blue synthetic glass that was opaque from the outside but clear from the inside. It also filtered out UV rays.

Some girls were lining up to go into the locker rooms, while others were simply changing by the side of the pool. Since they were all girls, it was all the same whether they went into the locker room or not. The school had clearly put up signs stating that all cameras were off, hoping that they would change quickly and not be late for their first class.

Jian Yixi grew up in the north, accustomed to public bathhouses. She had been open with others so many times that she didn’t think much of it. Seeing many people changing on the spot, she also found a corner and ripped open the plastic bag of her new uniform.

The Weicheng No. 2 Foreign Language High School uniform was different from the loose, baggy blue and white uniforms. It was a white shirt, a dark red plaid skirt, a warm yellow sweater vest, and a dark blue blazer. The boys wore plaid trousers, and the girls wore bow ties while the boys wore ties.

The uniform was very much like a Japanese or Korean uniform, but the bow tie was a major mistake, making it look especially like a waiter’s uniform.

Two girls next to her were changing and complaining.

“This is worse than our old, safe uniform. It looks like we’re selling wine at a bar.”

“This school is all about appearances. Can’t we just change uniforms tomorrow instead of everyone having to crowd here?”

Jian Yixi listened to them complain and pulled out the white shirt first. For this season, she didn’t need to wear the sweater vest or the blazer, just the shirt and plaid skirt.

Jian Yixi unbuttoned the shirt and held it between her legs. She then reached behind her to take off her short-sleeved shirt. Just as she lifted the hem, a shadow flashed in front of her. A girl suddenly appeared from nowhere, grabbed her arm, and pushed her down hard, pressing both her arm and her clothes down.

Hiss!

Jian Yixi winced in pain. Her arm was almost broken.

What was this person doing? What kind of grudge was this? Why was she using so much force?!

Jian Yixi let go of her shirt hem and rubbed her red forearm, frowning as she looked at the newcomer.

Her long, honey-brown hair was loosely tied back, with a few curled strands framing her face. The girl had an extremely delicate face, with slightly sunken eyes, a high nose, and crystal-clear amber eyes. Her lips were naturally red and strikingly beautiful.

She was very beautiful, but Jian Yixi didn’t recognize her.

The pain made Jian Yixi’s voice a little sour: “Excuse me, do I know you? What are you doing?”

“My name is An Mu. I’m a new transfer student in Class 1 of the second year.”

So she was also a transfer student who had just arrived today.

Jian Yixi looked at the new uniform in An Mu’s arms, and her mood calmed down a bit.

“I’m Jian Yixi. I’m also a new student, in Class 11.”

An Mu nodded slightly, then looked around, her lips pressed tightly together and her expression inexplicably serious.

“Don’t change here.”

“It’s not safe here.”

Jian Yixi looked around at the groups of girls changing everywhere, then turned her gaze back to An Mu. An Mu was still scanning the area, as if some unknown danger was lurking in the swimming pool. This made Jian Yixi nervous, too.

Jian Yixi hugged her uniform and looked around with her.

“Where is it not safe?”

Could she have found a man secretly watching from outside?

“You could get secretly photographed.”

“Photographed.”

Jian Yixi’s tense nervousness vanished. She suddenly felt like a fool.

“There are so many people here, and they’d only photograph me?”

“Your sister is quite famous.”

“Even so, they’d photograph my sister. Why would they photograph me?”

“There’s a saying… ‘Love the house and the crow on it.'”

Was that how you used that idiom?

Because you love a celebrity, you go and secretly photograph their dad changing clothes? Does that make any sense?

Even though she was the younger sister and not the dad, the principle was the same.

Jian Yixi felt that this transfer student’s logic was flawed.

But, regardless, she meant well.

“I see. I’ll go line up for the locker room now.”

She had just taken a step when An Mu blocked her again, saying with a serious expression, “The locker rooms aren’t safe either. Go to a bathroom stall.”

There were even more people lined up for the bathroom. The girls who cared about their privacy were all over there.

Jian Yixi’s deceptively gentle appearance often made people think she was delicate and meticulous, but in reality, she was a straightforward person.

She looked at the bathroom line that hadn’t gotten any shorter, then at the locker room line that was slowly moving. Finally, she looked at the huge clock hanging above the swimming pool.

Morning study was going to end in a little over ten minutes. She was different from these freshmen. Their first class would just be a bunch of things like changing seats. Her first class was a test.

“Maybe I’ll just change here. There’s no time.”

This was the herd mentality. Everyone was changing here without any issues, so why would she be the only one to have a problem?

And to be honest, she just had to change into the shirt, which would only take half a minute. She could just slip the skirt on over her pants, then take the pants off. It was fine.

Jian Yixi again tucked the uniform between her thighs and reached behind her to take off her shirt.

An Mu’s brows twitched slightly. She was a little incredulous. Was her past self really this carefree?

In her last life, Jian Yixi was extremely private. She didn’t trust anyone and would never change clothes in plain sight. In fact, if anyone got close, she would instinctively tense up and be on high alert.

To put it nicely, this was being “vigilant.” To put it bluntly, it was being “paranoid.”

This vigilance was accumulated from being hurt and trampled on again and again. She had forgotten when she had changed like this, only that by the time she noticed, this was who she was.

Looking back now, it probably all started with this incident.

She remembered that on the first day of school, when she was changing her uniform, she had been secretly filmed by a few of Jian Yihu’s fans, and the video was posted online.

At first, it was passed off as a video of Jian Yihu changing clothes and got a lot of traffic. Jian Yihu knew it was her, but she deliberately kept silent for a few days before coming out to explain. She claimed she wanted to protect the girl in the video and refused to reveal who she was, only providing her own alibi. But even a fool could guess that the girl in the video was her newly reunited sister.

Not only did Jian Yihu successfully get out of the situation, she also gained a good reputation for “loving her sister.” She even acted on behalf of Jian Yixi, the victim, to “forgive” the girls who posted the video, refusing to press charges and hoping they would turn over a new leaf.

Jian Yihu was praised by the entire internet for being beautiful, kind, and graceful, while Jian Yixi was mocked and cursed at.

The insults were incredibly nasty. It proved that when people are malicious, they will throw any kind of dirty water on you, especially online, where no one can see anyone else.

They called her indecent, saying that she dared to change clothes in public, that she was essentially a shameless hussy, and that if she was already like this in high school, what would she be like in the future? They said that she was a hussy, and that she was dragging her sister down into the mud. What were her intentions?

But so many people were changing there, and the school had even put up a sign for them to change. Why did they only curse at her?

Even more so, some people maliciously speculated that she had hired someone to film the video herself just to get attention from Jian Yihu. They ridiculed her for trying to gain fame by taking her clothes off and said that she came from a small town and was so jealous of Jian Yihu’s success that she went crazy trying to get famous.

She was ostracized and bullied starting from that incident.

It was also from then on that an online meme started: “They’re twins, but their morals are so different.”

The best sister, the most wicked younger sister.

This phrase followed her throughout high school, and people still brought it up in college. Even thinking about it now, her stomach churned and she felt a physical sense of disgust.

It wasn’t until much later that she found out that the entire incident was designed by Jian Yihu from the very beginning.

Jian Yihu had no other skills, but she was an expert at promoting herself. They were twins, and their bodies and faces were very similar. Jian Yihu used the video to indirectly show off her good figure, and at the same time, disgusted her sister. She stepped on her sister’s blood and tears to gain followers, highlighting her own “greatness.” She was utterly shameless.

Thinking of the past, a vein twitched on An Mu’s forehead. She was losing control of her emotions.

Seeing Jian Yixi about to take off her shirt, An Mu also vaguely recalled the first-class exam and knew that trying to persuade her was useless and might even backfire. She simply pulled Jian Yixi and pushed her into the corner.

Jian Yixi had just lifted her shirt hem when she was yanked forward, stumbling. She scrambled to cover the new uniform between her legs, and when she regained her senses, she was already pressed against a wall.

An Mu was slightly taller than Jian Yixi. Jian Yixi was holding her uniform, her shoulders hunched. An Mu’s hand was braced against the wall, towering over her, making Jian Yixi look even thinner, smaller, and weaker, while An Mu seemed tall and intimidating.

“W-what are you doing?”

Jian Yixi had a sense of being cornered and extorted by a mean girl.

An Mu took out her new uniform, unbuttoned it, and shook it out. She used her body and the uniform to shield Jian Yixi.

“I’ll block for you. You change.”

Jian Yixi finally understood. Although she felt this student was a little too enthusiastic, she couldn’t take her kindness for granted. Even though she felt it was unnecessary, she gave a strained smile and said “thank you.”

The swimming pool was very clean, with no spiderwebs or dust in the corners. Jian Yixi took off her short-sleeved shirt and leaned against the wall, casually draping the shirt over An Mu’s arm.

An Mu clutched her uniform with both hands, bracing them like fists against the walls on either side, trying to block as much as possible to prevent a wardrobe malfunction. She was instinctively keeping an eye out for any malicious gazes from behind her when her arm suddenly felt a warmth. She subconsciously turned her head back.

Jian Yixi had just pulled the new uniform from between her legs and was reaching out to put it on when their eyes met.

It was one thing for everyone to be changing on the spot. It was another thing for her to be changing and have someone staring intently at her.

Back in Shunyi, her adoptive mother had bought her only pure cotton underwear from street vendors. It had no shaping effect, but it was very modest. After coming to Weicheng, her biological mother threw all her old clothes away and bought her a lot of new ones, including the lace bra she was wearing.

The bra was pretty and did shape her, but the half-cup design made her feel very insecure, as if it might slip off if she bent over.

When it was hidden under her clothes, Jian Yixi didn’t think about it, but now with someone staring at her so intently, she felt her face burn and her head steam. She instinctively crossed her arms.

“Hey… can you… not look?”

An Mu was indeed looking, and she was looking very carefully. She was thinking that when the time was right, she needed to remind her not to wear a bra to sleep, or it would sag, and the bra itself needed to breathe.

In her last life, Jian Yixi had a habit of sleeping in her bra, which later caused her to be unable to take it off. Even if she took it off for a little while to shower, she would feel a painful, heavy sensation and would have to put it back on quickly.

She had seen a doctor in her last life, who told her that because she had been wearing a bra for so long since puberty, the Cooper’s ligaments on her sides lacked the necessary elasticity. Taking off her bra would cause a feeling of painful heaviness, and if she continued to not wear one, the ligaments could be permanently strained. In short, there was no solution. She could only continue to wear it or risk it sagging.

The Jian Yixi in this life was still in high school, so there was still time. She couldn’t let the tragedy of her last life repeat itself in this one.

“Hey, I’m talking to you. What are you looking at?”

Jian Yixi was completely speechless at this An Mu whom she had just met.

An Mu finally came back to her senses and nonchalantly turned her gaze away.

“I just think your bra is very pretty.”

Because the bra is pretty, she was staring in a trance?

What kind of amazing bra is this?!

Jian Yixi looked down at her own bra. It was pretty, but most bras looked like this. There wasn’t any special design that would make it stunning, right?

She felt that this An Mu was a little strange.

No, no, don’t overthink it. She’s being kind by shielding you. It’s not right to speculate that she’s strange.