Irreversible - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Scumbag’s Self-Rescue (Part 1)

Happy lives are always similar, but the ends of scumbags differ in every way.

Gu Xizhou woke up from a dream once again, this sentence echoing in her mind.

In the darkness, Gu Xizhou hugged her thin air-conditioning quilt, her frail body huddled on the bed, trembling. She clutched the quilt tightly against her chest, gasping for air, her back soaked in a layer of clammy sweat.

Too terrifying…it was simply too terrifying…

Everything in the dream remained vivid.

It was herself fifteen years in the future, bound to a bed by a woman gone mad, pinned beneath her, stabbed with a knife, one strike after another…

Every time the blade pierced her, blood flowing freely, it left her in agonizing pain. She lay on the bed, eyes drooping to watch the vast pools of blood staining the sheets, feeling only a surging warmth slipping away, her heartbeat erratic and rapid.

Am I dying? Is my short life going to end so pathetically at the hands of a woman?

She looked up dazedly, and amidst the intense pain, a cold, stunningly beautiful, crazed, and desperate face entered her vision.

“Su Zhiyi…”

Gu Xizhou hugged the quilt tighter, burying her face deeply into it, murmuring the name, her heart palpitating.

Boundless regret and loneliness engulfed her along with the night in that instant. Gu Xizhou hugged her knees, immersed in the chilly night, and only after catching her breath for a long while did she take a deep breath, push off the quilt, and walk toward the bathroom.

Click. The bathroom light turned on, and moments later, cold water cascaded from the showerhead, drenching Gu Xizhou’s face completely.

The freezing water poured over Gu Xizhou’s thick black hair. She tilted her head back, brushed the sodden locks from her face, and as if drinking nectar, gulped down the cold water, swirling it in her mouth to rinse, desperate to wash away the lingering taste of blood that remained from the dream.

Blood… there was blood everywhere… As long as she closed her eyes, all she could see was her own blood.

And that woman, kneeling on her, raising the bloodied knife to strike, crying out over and over: “Gu Xizhou…you devil in human skin…”

“You deserve to go to hell!”

What did she say back then?

She seemed to have endured the pain, blood overflowing from the corners of her mouth, staring back with ferocity: “Su Zhiyi, the one who should go to hell is your sister!”

“It’s Su Nanfeng, everything is Su Nanfeng’s fault!”

Recalling that name yet again, Gu Xizhou reached out to turn off the shower, wrapped a bath towel around herself, and walked out of the bathroom to the vanity mirror to dry her wet hair.

She lifted her eyes to the mirror and saw the youthful, immature face of a sixteen-year-old.

Long, straight black hair, deep pupils, a thin, pale, harmless-looking face, and…

Gu Xizhou looked down at the changes in her body following her presentation a week ago. She tapped her face, encouraging herself: “It’s okay, Gu Xizhou. You’ve presented as an Alpha. You’re at a new school after the start of the semester; you won’t run into Su Nanfeng again.”

“It was all a dream. Just a dream.”

Gu Xizhou wiped the excess water from her body and walked toward the bed wrapped in her towel.

She sat down listlessly, the soft mattress dipping slightly beneath her. Gu Xizhou turned her gaze blankly toward the alarm clock on the nightstand. The quartz clock’s hour hand pointed to the number “3”.

Year 22xx, August 20th, 3:25 AM.

She woke from her dream, unable to find rest.

In her trance, a cold, mechanical electronic voice sounded in Gu Xizhou’s head: “Gu Xizhou, you have five hours left before you reach the turning point of your life.”

“At 9:00 AM on August 20th, you will meet Su Nanfeng again and enter your inescapable destiny.”

“I am System 0820, here to help you. Please link with me!”

Help?

How to help?

No, she didn’t need help.

This was just a post-presentation sequela, a hallucination.

Besides, she had already been admitted to the First High School, so far away from the Songshan District. With Su Nanfeng’s dog-awful grades, it was impossible for her to attend that school.

This time, she would definitely be able to get away from her…

Seemingly able to probe Gu Xizhou’s thoughts, System 0820’s voice in her mind turned colder: “She also presented as an Alpha. She was recruited into that school as a music specialty student.”

“Just like the things I have repeatedly shown you these past few days, once you enter the same high school, her bullying of you will intensify.”

“In addition to her usual tactics, she will force you to commit many illegal acts…”

As 0820 recounted, Gu Xizhou’s mind began to rewind through all the bullying she had endured from Su Nanfeng in the past.

The malice of adolescents is very simple to come by.

In her second year of middle school, Gu Xizhou transferred to the City Experimental Middle School because of her Alpha mother’s job relocation.

As a new transfer student, she saw the group of wealthy young misses maliciously pour milk over a chubby boy’s head and righteously intervened.

Naturally, the target of the small group’s bullying shifted from the chubby boy to Gu Xizhou.

At first, it was intentionally overturned lunch trays. Gu Xizhou was furious and went straight to the teacher to report it.

But she received a very surprised response from the teacher: “Nanfeng is a bit lively, but she wouldn’t do something like that to a classmate. She is usually very helpful.”

“I’ll ask her what happened.”

When the teacher called Su Nanfeng to the office, she saw the girl with long, straight black hair cover her mouth in surprise: “How can Gu Xizhou say such things? Her tray fell over, and I went to help her pick it up.”

“Ding Yi and the others can testify.”

With a crowd of classmates testifying, she became the “little liar” in the teacher’s eyes. She could only clench her fists powerlessly, full of grievances and anger with nowhere to vent, tears welling up in her eyes.

With that beginning, Su Nanfeng’s “pranks” became unscrupulous.

Graffiti scribbled everywhere, thumbtacks in the locker room, shredded swimsuits, soiled shoes, trash-filled bookshelves…

As long as it was something disgusting, Su Nanfeng did it to her once.

She endured…after just a month of enduring, the next time Su Nanfeng overturned her tray, she picked up the plate and smashed it hard against the other girl’s head.

The ambulance sirens wailed. Su Nanfeng was hospitalized, and both sides were called in to meet with their parents.

In the conference room, her mother, Gu Jing, bowed to Su Nanfeng’s Alpha mother, calling her “Director Su.” That was when Gu Xizhou learned that Su Nanfeng’s mother was the Chairwoman of the Star City Medical Machinery Company and also the investor in the laboratory where her mother, Gu Jing, worked.

The disputes and bullying of minors seemed so insignificant against the backdrop of the difficult social survival of adults.

Gu Xizhou ultimately bowed her head to Su Nanfeng, saying “I’m sorry” in a stifled, painful voice.

After that, it was another year and a half of endurance.

The teachers didn’t care, and the parents didn’t care; their attitude toward children’s “teasing” was always the same.

— Su Nanfeng just loves to play, she doesn’t have a bad nature. You broke her head, and she didn’t hire anyone to beat you up.

— Can I transfer schools? No. Mom’s work is too busy, I can’t take care of you if you transfer to another school.

— Boarding? Boarding won’t work either…

— Hey, Director Su’s daughter loves to play, just play along with her…

— It will be better when you reach high school. Everyone grows up in high school, they won’t play these kinds of pranks anymore.

Not a single adult cared about the torture she was enduring; all they cared about was that this child shouldn’t cause them unnecessary trouble.

Therefore, Gu Xizhou endured and endured, until she graduated from middle school, until she presented as an Alpha, until the day before she was to enter high school.

And yet, seven days after her presentation, she had an extra voice in her mind, along with so many dreams, telling her that those dreams were her future.

In those futures, only a few things appeared repeatedly.

On the first day of high school, Su Nanfeng appeared in her class as well. That evening after school, Su Nanfeng cornered her in the restroom, stripped off her clothes, and took photos of her lower body.

Su Nanfeng began treating her like a fun plaything, continuing to toy with her like a cat to a mouse.

Childish “teasing” turned into even crueler pranks.

Su Nanfeng made her write love letters to the Omegas she liked, forced her to set up dates with them, and made her use her own ID card to help them get hotel rooms.

Su Nanfeng made her hack the school system to change grades, and forced her to steal test papers.

It wasn’t until her second year of high school that Su Nanfeng changed her tune; after her birthday banquet, she forced herself upon her.

As those future dream sequences played out to this point, Gu Xizhou, sitting on the bed, thought of the image of the slender Alpha pinning her down and forcibly opening her up. Cold sweat broke out on her back, and she felt as if she were about to vomit.

Her throat surged. Gu Xizhou immediately stood up, clutched her bath towel tightly, and ran quickly to the bathroom, hunched over the sink, and retched.

The intense nausea made her vomit up bile.

Gu Xizhou arched her back, looking up at herself in the mirror—eyes filled with tears, corners of her eyes flushed red, as she heard System 0820 continue its cold and ruthless narration: “After your third year, because Su Nanfeng beat someone to death in a brawl, her mother sent her to the military to dodge legal judgment…”

“To take revenge on Su Nanfeng, you began a revenge plan.”

The cold mechanical voice echoed in her mind, chilling Gu Xizhou until she tightened her grip on the towel draped over her: “At Su Nanfeng’s seventeenth birthday banquet, you saw her twin sister for the first time—Su Zhiyi.”

“Su Nanfeng’s parents divorced, and Su Zhiyi grew up with her Omega mother. Unlike the perverse and arrogant Su Nanfeng, Su Zhiyi was a gentle and compliant Omega.”

“Su Nanfeng cares very much about her Omega mother, and very much about her twin sister.”

“So you made a plan, you were going to get Su Zhiyi. After marrying her, you would torture and destroy her to take revenge on Su Nanfeng.”

What did the future her do?

She got admitted to the same Medical Technology University as Su Zhiyi and got close to her under the guise of being Su Nanfeng’s good friend.

Malicious pursuit, fake tenderness and thoughtfulness. After graduating, relying on her own excellence and passing the assessments, she became the “son-in-law” of the Su family.

She lay in wait, endured, and moved step-by-step, until she caused Su Nanfeng’s mother, Su Tianyu, to become a vegetable.

Then, she pretended to cheat, letting Su Zhiyi “catch her in bed,” which scared her into a miscarriage—losing the only child they had conceived in so many years.

Finally, she forced Su Nanfeng to ram her car into her, fulfilling her wish to send the scumbag Su Nanfeng to prison in the name of the law.

She forced the Su family into ruin and forced Su Zhiyi into madness.

One night, Su Zhiyi drugged her, tied her to the bed, and sliced her one knife at a time, lingeringly.

Fortunately, her secretary broke down the door in time and rescued her from Su Zhiyi’s blade.

For various reasons, she did not press charges against Su Zhiyi, only locking her in a villa.

And Su Zhiyi went completely insane.

Every night after being discharged from the hospital, Gu Xizhou would return to the villa, holding this innocent woman—who looked eighty percent like the Su Nanfeng who had harmed her most—in her arms, talking to her about their meeting, their child, and telling her she loved her.

She didn’t dare hope that Su Zhiyi could recover; she only hoped this Omega who could trigger her rut could survive.

As long as Su Zhiyi lived, her own life seemed to be able to continue.

But she never expected that the insane Su Zhiyi would jump from the window.

At the very end of the dream, it was an exceptionally gloomy afternoon. Thunder rolled in the lead-grey clouds, and amidst a series of ethereal songs, Gu Xizhou woke up from the dream naked.

She opened her hazy eyes, and within the curtains flapping in the fierce wind, she saw a figure as white as jade.

It was a woman…

The woman had her jet-black hair loose, dancing wildly in the wind. The gale billowed her loose white shirt, outlining her thin and frail silhouette.

She sat on the windowsill, facing the wind, looking up at the sky, humming an ethereal, uncanny song.

Gu Xizhou looked at her thin back, and her heart jumped to her throat in an instant.

Gu Xizhou’s chest tightened, her throat parched: “Zhiyi… what are you doing? Come down quickly.”

She got up cautiously and walked toward the woman: “It’s dangerous up there, come down.”

Su Zhiyi turned her head, the wind blowing her hair away, revealing a face purer than a lily: “Xizhou…”

Gu Xizhou hadn’t heard her call her name for a long time; tears instantly filled her eyes: “Zhiyi…”

A bolt of lightning streaked across, illuminating the pitch-black sky. Su Zhiyi’s eyes were filled with tears, like the brightest starlight: “In the next life, you must grow up well.”

Su Zhiyi spread her arms wide, like a bird with broken wings, and fell straight backward into the wind.

Boom!

The thunder startled her, the heavy rain fell in an instant, and the roaring rain covered Gu Xizhou’s sharp, miserable scream: “Zhiyi!”

She ran wildly toward the figure that had vanished. When she reached the windowsill and looked down, it was her broken-winged canary, stained with scarlet blood, lying in the bushes, looking up at the sky with hollow eyes…

“No!”

Thirty-two-year-old Gu Xizhou burst into tears instantly.

And this year, Gu Xizhou, who was only sixteen, thought of the last scene that appeared in her “dream,” two lines of clear tears falling from her dazed eyes.

Infinite pain and hatred echoed in her heart, piercing her sensitive heart, as if she had experienced all of this before—filled with regret, filled with despair.

Through her tear-blurred vision, Gu Xizhou heard 0820 say: “At thirty-two, you lost the love of your life.”

“Gu Xizhou, I will ask you one more time: do you want to link with me and let me help you?”

Gu Xizhou did not answer, only tightening her grip on the towel in her hand.

That voice followed like a shadow, sounding both pained and seductive: “For your own sake, for Su Zhiyi.”

“Sign the agreement with me.”