Classmate Li Zhuangsheng doesn’t want to be reborn

Hu Mengdie bit her lip and looked directly at Xie Jiangqing: "What do you want to say?"

Xie Jiangqing gritted her teeth: "I'm asking what you're thinking now, about Li Zhuangsheng. Have you forgotten how you were rejected? Do you want to repeat the same mistake?"

"I feel safe as long as he's around..."

"So you don't like him, you just enjoy the sense of security he gives you? Or do you want to take advantage of his kindness to benefit yourself?"

"No, no!" Hu Mengdie screamed in denial. "I... I like him! I don't want to lose him!"

“If you continue to hold this thought, then forget it.” Xie Jiangqing took a deep breath, her voice trembling. “The outcome won’t change. You’ll still get scolded by Li Zhuangsheng, and you’ll still hurt him.”

Hu Mengdie, her eyes still wet with tears, stared at Xie Jiangqing in disbelief. How could she say such a thing? Wasn't she supposed to be on her side?
"What does Li Zhuangsheng really mean to you?" Xie Jiangqing scratched her head hard. "If you can't figure it out, you're definitely not good enough for him! You might as well let him go with Qin Luanyu; at least her understanding is much higher than yours!"

Damn it, damn it! That damned Qin Luanyu, why does such a person exist! Making her feel so guilty!

What could Hu Mengdie possibly do to be better than her, so that she could feel at ease believing that it was better for Li Zhuangsheng to stay, instead of feeling that she was hindering Li Zhuangsheng from achieving happiness?

"And... what about you?" Hu Mengdie murmured.

……

The next day, Xie Jiangqing drove Hu Mengdie home while Hu's parents were not home.

Hu Mengdie returned to her bedroom, searched for a while, and came out carrying a small box and a codebook.

"Is this what you're looking for?" Xie Jiangqing asked, puzzled.

Hu Mengdie nodded silently.

"What is the use?"

“It’s just what I want,” Hu Mengdie said softly.

Xie Jiangqing was speechless again. The two returned home and just as they opened the door, they ran into Qin Luanyu coming out of the study.

Hu Mengdie was stunned.

"Oh, isn't this... Sister Die?" Qin Luanyu blinked and said with a smile, "I heard you haven't been feeling well these past few days, are you feeling better now?"

Hu Mengdie looked the other person up and down. She was incredibly pretty, with a slender waist, long legs, and a tall figure, over 170cm… What a beautiful person. Hu Mengdie thought to herself.

So this is what Qin Luanyu looks like. No wonder Xie Jiangqing was so nervous. She's really beautiful, and has long legs too. It's just that she's wearing pants today, so I can't see her clearly.

"I...I'm much better," Hu Mengdie said softly.

"Really? That's good. But you still don't seem to be in much of a good mood. You should go back to your room and rest early!"

"What are you doing in the study..." Hu Mengdie couldn't help but clench her fists.

"I was in the study chatting with my brother about novel writing, what else could we be doing, flirting?" Qin Luanyu seemed to be joking, but then again, she was not, she just had a half-smile. "Sister Xiuyu is here, even if we're flirting, we should consider the occasion."

What are you saying? You know who I am! Don't you think it's going too far to make such a joke in front of someone's wife? Hu Mengdie's heart skipped a beat, and she was instantly filled with rage.

Xie Jiangqing tugged at Hu Mengdie, signaling her not to act impulsively.

"Oh...then you two, chat..." Hu Mengdie said, feeling ashamed and humiliated.

“I heard you have amnesia and aren’t feeling well right now. Why don’t you go to the hospital to get checked out?” Qin Luanyu said. “You look like you’ve lost all your color.”

"Need not!"

Hu Mengdie walked back to the bedroom step by step and gently closed the door.

"What does this woman do?!" Hu Mengdie was furious after closing the door.

"I already said, she's a rich second-generation from Hangzhou. A reader of Li Zhuangsheng, she drove over in a Ferrari." Xie Jiangqing's tone was cold. "She carries her property certificate, personal credit report, and medical examination report with her, so can you understand her level of awareness?"

……

"Who were you talking to at the door just now?" Li Zhuangsheng asked, turning his head as Qin Luanyu returned to the study.

"Sister Butterfly." Qin Luanyu smiled and sat down next to Li Zhuangsheng.

"She's out?" Li Zhuangsheng asked in surprise.

"Yes, Sister Xie is here too." Qin Luanyu blinked. "I haven't asked you yet. Didn't you and Sister Die get divorced because of irreconcilable differences? How did she become like this? You said before that it was because she said some bad things during the divorce. It wasn't anything like sexual harassment, was it?"

"Who do you think I am?"

"King of Sexual Harassment?"

"Do you think I'm Sugisaki Ken?" Li Zhuangsheng shouted.

"The student council’s opinion has been over for many years, and the sexual harassment trope is too old."

"Don't change how I address you so smoothly! Besides, if you know this joke, then you're not old!"

“I know this reference because you recommended it to me.” Qin Luanyu shook her head. “Actually, I’ve only watched the anime, and I skimmed through some of the original novel, but I wasn’t very interested, so I didn’t read much of it. You see, I never force myself to do anything because of you. Everything I do is my own choice.”

"Ah... Oh, oh." Li Zhuangsheng was speechless for a moment, not quite understanding what Qin Luanyu was trying to say.

"My favorite light novel is 'Baka and Test, Summon the Beasts'," Qin Luanyu said. "It was also recommended by you, and I did laugh out loud while reading it."

"Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts must have ended a long time ago, right?" Li Zhuangsheng was slightly taken aback, then sighed.

"Yes, that's right, it's been over for a long time. And you've rarely talked to me about new anime in recent years, so I haven't watched many either."

"Why don't you look?"

"I usually only watch anime through your recommendations; I only become interested if you recommend something. Unfortunately, most of your recommendations are harem anime, but I remember the last harem manga I finished was 'To Love-Ru Darkness' from several years ago."

Li Zhuangsheng was stunned: "Do you think To Love-Ru is good?"

Qin Luanyu thought for a moment, then solemnly gave a thumbs up: "It was mainly because it was sexy enough. I was still young then, only about ten..."

"That's enough! If you keep talking, I'm going to get into the orange grove!"

Li Zhuangsheng quickly interrupted Qin Luanyu, cold sweat pouring down his face. "Recommending those kinds of comics to little girls—isn't that sexual harassment?"

Recalling the past, Qin Luanyu couldn't help but sigh, "Oh dear, that had a huge impact on my young and innocent heart."

Li Zhuangsheng covered his face: "I'm sorry!"

"It's nothing, I should thank you for broadening my horizons!"

"If possible, I really hope this kind of perspective isn't broadened," Li Zhuangsheng continued to complain.

But then he realized that their conversation sounded just like a light novel, and he was the male protagonist who always played the role of the sarcastic commentator.

"Oh, so you sexually harassed brother? May I ask what sexually harassing things you said to Sister Die that made her so angry?" Qin Luanyu coughed heavily.

"Why did you bring the topic back again!" Li Zhuangsheng sighed speechlessly. "I didn't sexually harass anyone, I'm definitely not that kind of person!"

"So, you and Sister Ke were caught in bed together?"

"Cough cough cough... He's not in bed!"

“But even if you caught them in the act, it wouldn’t be like this, would it?” Qin Luanyu tilted her head. “I have a rather immature idea… Sigh, never mind.”

She glanced at Li Xiuyu, but decided not to bring it up for now.

Li Zhuangsheng waved his hand, not taking Qin Luanyu's thoughts to heart: "Actually, it's not a big deal. It's mainly because of me. It's my problem."

"You always subconsciously attribute the cause to yourself. But that's not necessarily what you think. You just look down on people, are too lazy to explain, or think that the other person has limited understanding, so you simply back down. It's really arrogant, as if 'adults don't argue with children.'"

Li Xiuyu, lying on the bed, raised his head, his eyes deep and unfathomable.

Li Zhuangsheng was taken aback.

“You really know him well,” Li Xiuyu said.

"Hehe, I can tell from his novels that his protagonists are either arrogant like that, or the exact opposite, shifting all the blame onto others," Qin Luanyu laughed.

Li Xiuyu narrowed his eyes slightly and raised an eyebrow, saying, "Then guess whether this is his arrogance or his true feelings."

"I'm a little stumped by that..." Qin Luanyu shook her head, "Does Sister Xiuyu know?"

She can discern Li Zhuangsheng's thoughts from his writings, but she has had too little interaction with Li Zhuangsheng himself, so at least for now, she cannot accurately judge his thoughts solely from his tone.

"How would I know?" Li Xiuyu lowered his eyelids and smiled lazily. "I'm not a mind reader."

"You're much better than roundworms; at least roundworms can poop them out..."

Li Zhuangsheng couldn't resist making a rude remark, and then he was hit on the head by a flying copy of "One Thousand and One Nights".

"What are you doing!" Li Zhuang exclaimed angrily, "It hurts so much!"

“You have to trust our sibling bond of over twenty years; I have experience,” Li Xiuyu said with a leisurely smile.

“But this is still very dangerous…” Qin Luanyu frowned slightly, picked up the book “One Thousand and One Nights” from the ground, and couldn’t help but scold her, but then she felt that it was a bit inappropriate. Why offend her sister-in-law now? So she added, “But you are also sexually harassing your brother. It’s really uncivilized to talk to your sister!”

"He has always been of low character."

"I'm much more civilized than you; at least I wouldn't stuff a sock into someone's mouth!"

"If you can get up in the morning without me having to wake you, I'm not that free. Or are socks no longer enough for you? Have you always wanted me to just put your feet in your mouth too?"

"Ptooey, ptooey, you're disgusting..."

During their bickering, Qin Luanyu suddenly noticed a bookmark that had fallen out of the book. She picked it up, intending to put it back, but then she noticed the beautiful, tiny characters on the back.

"Without learning, there is no worry. How different are 'only' and 'ah'? How different are 'beauty' and 'ugliness'? What people fear, one should also fear people..." This passage from the Tao Te Ching, a long and eloquent piece of over a hundred characters.

"Wow, this bookmark is amazing!" Qin Luanyu couldn't help but exclaim.

“This looks like the Tao Te Ching,” Li Zhuangsheng said, scratching his head. “But it doesn’t seem quite the same as the Tao Te Ching I’ve read.”

“This is the silk manuscript version, excavated from a tomb dating back to the Western Han Dynasty. It's generally believed to be closer to the original than the current version,” Qin Luanyu said, then sighed, “Who wrote this? It can't be your handwriting, can it? It seems you put a lot of effort into it. Which girl gave it to you? Hmm, is there any deeper meaning in this particular passage…”

The silk manuscript version of the Tao Te Ching is quite complex, usually using a mix of traditional characters and phonetic loan characters. However, the characters on this bookmark, although simplified, are quite accurate, unlike the simplified versions circulating online. It must have taken a lot of effort to translate the traditional characters into simplified characters while retaining the phonetic loan characters. For non-professional researchers, this is a considerable amount of work.

Of course, even disregarding these factors, writing over a hundred characters in standard small regular script on a small bookmark is a considerable challenge. Moreover, for many people, the *Tao Te Ching* is difficult to understand and pronounce, and the characters often lack logical connection.

“There’s more than just one; it should be in the entire Tao Te Ching,” Li Zhuangsheng couldn’t help but say.

It turned out to be a silk manuscript version of the Tao Te Ching, which he had heard of but never seen.

"Really?" Qin Luanyu asked in surprise, "You have eighty other bookmarks?"

"Pretty much... I've seen quite a few."

Li Zhuangsheng casually picked out a book, which contained another bookmark, still bearing a handwritten copy of the Tao Te Ching.

"This...this must be an enormous amount of work! Was it written by a writing robot?"

Qin Luanyu couldn't help but shake her head. Although it wasn't particularly difficult, it would definitely be complicated and tedious to do. Even for her, it would take several days to complete.

Besides, the person who made this set of bookmarks may not know these things.

Qin Luanyu sighed: "Do you know who sent this?"

Li Zhuangsheng shook his head: "I don't know. Now that you mention it, it seems like you put a lot of effort into it. At first, I thought there were just some typos or grammatical errors on it."

"Besides your wife, who else would write this for you?" Li Xiuyu said indifferently.

"What?" Li Zhuangsheng was taken aback.

“Hu Mengdie, who else could it be but her?” Li Xiuyu said without looking up. “One of your birthday gifts last year. I later heard that she secretly prepared it for a month. To prevent it from getting ruined, she prepared three sets of identical bookmarks.”

Li Zhuangsheng stared blankly at Li Xiuyu, his face filled with disbelief.

It was actually a gift from Hu Mengdie, but thinking about it carefully, there's nothing surprising about it; in fact, it should be taken for granted.

"Wow, Sister Die is so thoughtful," Qin Luanyu said.

Li Zhuangsheng was silent for a moment, then forced a smile and said, "It seems... we had a pretty good relationship before."

"What do you mean by 'not bad'? It means being as respectful as guests and as inseparable as glue!"

"How did they manage to be both respectful and inseparable?" Qin Luanyu asked curiously.

Li Xiuyu shrugged: "You'll have to ask the person involved... Oh, sorry, the person involved doesn't remember either."

Li Zhuangsheng put the book back on its original shelf, licked his lips, and tilted his head. A slender, beautiful figure involuntarily surfaced in his mind.

A strange feeling suddenly welled up inside him, a bittersweet mix of unrequited love and anger. (End of Chapter)