Reversed Life: Chapter 1 - Soul Swap
Chapter 1: Soul Swap
On the day of new semester registration, Mu Xiangxiang was once again locked in the restroom by her classmate Fang Lingli and her group.
Since this kind of absurd farce had already gone on for an entire semester in the first half of the school year, the moment Mu Xiangxiang realized the door wouldn’t open, she wisely gave up struggling.Fortunately, Yingcheng Foreign Languages School was the best-equipped private high school in the entire city A—even the restrooms were kept impeccably clean.
So Mu Xiangxiang felt no particular emotion about her current situation. Just like the previous times, she calmly opened her backpack and began memorizing vocabulary under the excellent lighting.
By the end of the third class period, she heard the cleaning cart rolling down the hallway outside. She knocked on the door, signaling the janitor to let her out.
Perhaps because this had happened so often during the first half of her sophomore year, the staff already seemed to recognize her. After thanking them, Mu Xiangxiang walked toward the classroom under sympathetic gazes—and, as expected, saw her brand-new textbooks scattered all over the floor.
Constantly bending down to pick things up was exhausting, especially for someone like her who almost never exercised. After gathering everything and tidying up, she noticed that two of the book covers had been scuffed. Even with her usual calm self-control, she couldn’t help but sigh in distress.
She had grown up indifferent to most things—except for books, which she treasured deeply.
It seemed she couldn’t leave her textbooks in the classroom like everyone else anymore. After wiping the dust off, Mu Xiangxiang hefted her oversized backpack—comically disproportionate to her frame—and staggered out, swaying as she walked. At the door, she ran into two classmates entering.
One of them looked at the scene and seemed a little uneasy, about to say something, but was pulled back by the other.
Mu Xiangxiang smiled at them and left, overhearing their voices behind her—
—How exactly did she offend Fang Lingli and her group?
—What do you think? Besides Jiang Hai, what else could it be?
********
It was the first lunar month. The festive atmosphere of the New Year still lingered on the streets, but the cold wind rushed in the moment she left the warmth of indoor heating. Walking along the wall, Mu Xiangxiang pulled her coat tighter and sighed.
She truly couldn’t understand why Fang Lingli believed she had something ambiguous going on with the school heartthrob, Jiang Hai. Aside from running into him a few times at competitions last year, she had never even spoken to him privately.
Yet rumors spread through the school as if they were facts, and everyone seemed to believe them completely. Then one day, Jiang Hai recognized her at school and greeted her first—after that, Fang Lingli completely lost it.
At first, Mu Xiangxiang felt wronged. She had liked a boy back in middle school—but first, that person had already transferred away in her first year of high school, and was definitely not Jiang Hai. Second, even back then, her rational mind had quickly suppressed that brief flutter of feeling, keeping it strictly at the level of a secret crush, never allowing it to develop further.
After all, before she could support herself financially, anything that might affect her grades was unnecessary.
Unfortunately, no matter how she tried to explain, Fang Lingli simply refused to listen, as if her brain were waterlogged. And someone like Mu Xiangxiang—mentally sharp but physically weak, unable to even run 800 meters without gasping for breath, socially awkward and basically powerless—stood almost no chance against a group of wealthy, delinquent girls.
She stared blankly at the dim, yellowing horizon for a moment…Forget it. Yingcheng’s scholarships were generous. After paying tuition, there was still money left to help support her family—that was why she had come in the first place.
At most, she just had to endure until the college entrance exams. Restraint and patience came easily to her.
And now, what she needed to do was head to her secret spot, tidy herself up, and avoid going home looking disheveled and worrying her parents.
Mu Xiangxiang attempted a brief smile—but it was interrupted by the roar of a motorcycle speeding past her ear.
She froze for a moment, watching from afar as the motorcycle roared away trailing exhaust. At the bus stop, people were already speculating about how outrageously expensive it must be. Mu Xiangxiang had no real concept of it, but it seemed to be a number people found endlessly fascinating.
*******
In a park on the west side of the city, one of the most expensive luxury residences stood to the south, while to the west lay the low, shabby rooftops of the urban village where Mu Xiangxiang lived.
She found a secluded pavilion by the lakeside. Even the music from the square dancers couldn’t reach here—it was perfect for zoning out, memorizing vocabulary… or even committing crimes, for that matter. At the very least, she had never seen a second person here before.
But today, less than half an hour after she sat down, a strange and powerful presence approached.
The muscles in Mu Xiangxiang’s back suddenly tensed. She forcibly tore her gaze away from her study materials and turned to look—
A tall figure stepped onto the gravel path from around the bend. Beneath his unzipped black down jacket was the unmistakably ugly, color-clashing uniform of No. 12 High School. Yet the loose, unattractive uniform did nothing to diminish his striking presence. When the streetlight illuminated his handsome face, he was speaking on the phone, his brows sharp with hostility, his voice rich and textured.
“I’m fine.” His tone carried the same mocking edge as his expression. “I’d be happier if they never came back. It’d be best if they all just died.”
As if not expecting anyone else to be there, he paused slightly when his eyes met Mu Xiangxiang’s. His gaze quickly swept over her very recognizable Yingcheng uniform—the look one gives a stranger.
“It’s nothing,” he soon said into the phone. “Just ran into a student from Yingcheng.”
*******
“Yingcheng? Haha, wasn’t that your school in your first year…?”
His buddy on the other end kept rambling, trying to comfort him about being stood up by his father and older brother during the New Year. Qiao Nan held back from hanging up. Honestly, he was used to it. Thinking about the house that was cold and empty all year round, spending the holiday alone didn’t seem like such a big deal. Besides, before leaving, he had smashed the living room to pieces and then gone out for a few laps on his bike—his mood had calmed quite a bit.
In the corner of the pavilion, that figure had already silently stood up and begun packing, apparently preparing to leave. Qiao Nan didn’t care much and casually found a place to sit, his peripheral vision lazily taking in the other person.
Thin. Very ordinary long black hair. Glasses on her face. The half of her face that showed was pale and small, impossible to make out clearly. She was holding what looked like an English textbook? Coming to a park to study—definitely a hardcore bookworm.
The wrist pulling the zipper of her bag was smooth and snow-white, so slender it looked like it could snap with a single twist. Qiao Nan absentmindedly clenched his fist—he felt like he could crush two arms like that in one go.
But then, thinking about how his total score at the end of last semester hadn’t even reached 200, he figured being physically strong wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.
He had no interest in harmless creatures from a completely different world like her, but he still couldn’t help glancing at her a few more times. Partly because of a faint, strange sense of familiarity—and partly because of the way she carried herself: clearly lacking strength, yet somehow bearing a quiet weight.
She picked up that disproportionately large backpack and slowly stood. Aside from that first glance, she had avoided eye contact with him the entire time. Qiao Nan felt that air of keeping people at a distance seemed oddly familiar, but before he could think more about it, he heard an unusual splash.
He instinctively turned his head. In the glow of the setting sun, in the lake before the pavilion, a small figure was thrashing in the water.
A child had fallen in!
His friend on the phone was still chattering cheerfully about going out for drinks to cheer him up, but Qiao Nan didn’t hear a word. Almost on instinct, he vaulted over the railing. As he hit the water, he heard another splash—just a second behind him.
Half a minute later, the drenched child was hauled back to the surface with everyone working together. People on the shore shouted and panicked, chaos breaking out. Qiao Nan lay sprawled by the bank, half his body still submerged in the freezing winter lake. He gasped for breath, feeling as though all his limbs were about to give out—so exhausted it felt abnormal.
Was there starch mixed into the water or something? By the end, he could barely even lift his arms. What happened to the hundred kilos he could bench press at the gym—fed to the dogs?
Qiao Nan wiped the water off his face, trying to suppress his rising irritation. The next second, he spread his hand open—and his gaze froze in disbelief on the slender, fragile wrist before him, as if it could snap with a single bend.
Then he whipped his head around. Less than half a meter away—was a handsome face filled with confusion.
*********
There was no screaming, no panic. Before either of them could snap out of their daze, the park security had already dragged the two young people out of the lake. Staff of the opposite sexes helped these two seemingly frozen-good Samaritans change out of their wet clothes, then ushered them into the office and handed them ginger soup.
The image of the child’s mother kneeling on the shore, crying and bowing in gratitude, was still vivid. Just moments ago, an ambulance had roared in and taken them away. The park staff, still shaken, shared what they had witnessed, then gathered with reporters by the office window, cautiously observing the strange atmosphere inside—
—What’s wrong with them? They’ve been staring at each other nonstop. It’s kind of creepy.
—Probably frozen stiff? It’s minus five degrees outside today. When they were changing earlier, even the boy’s body was stiff as wood.
—That girl’s from Yingcheng Foreign Languages—I recognize the uniform. It’s the best-looking school uniform in the whole city.
—The other one’s probably from No. 12 High. Kids these days are really warm-hearted!
Qiao Nan and Mu Xiangxiang listened to the drifting comments, staring at each other—at the dazed face that now belonged to the other person, yet was originally their own.
They had never imagined encountering something this surreal. But at this moment, no emotion seemed quite right to express the shock. Aside from staring blankly, neither of them knew what to do. After a long pause, it was the calm-headed Mu Xiangxiang who spoke first. She heard herself produce a deep, textured male voice, with an almost imperceptible tremor: “Something must have gone wrong in the lake just now.”
“…Should we call the police?” The moment the words left his mouth, Qiao Nan immediately felt like an idiot. He tightened his grip on the warm cup in his hand, resisting the urge to smash it, and irritably raked a hand through his hair—only to realize he’d grabbed a handful of long hair, which made him even more agitated. “No—then what do you think we should do?!”
Mu Xiangxiang watched her own face display that unfamiliar, fierce expression—and, strangely enough, almost felt like laughing. Under Qiao Nan’s astonished gaze, she thought for a moment, then answered softly: “We need to figure out first whether this… is temporary or permanent. There are too many people here. Let’s find somewhere safe.”
******
Using exhaustion as an excuse, the two of them left the park after exchanging contact information. Mu Xiangxiang checked their belongings and discovered that her old secondhand phone had stopped working after getting soaked.
Fortunately, Qiao Nan’s phone was waterproof. He sent a message on WeChat to a buddy nicknamed “Monkey,” asking him to deliver a set of keys to an empty property somewhere in the city A. When that equally carefree-looking boy arrived, Qiao Nan hid under the shade of a tree and directed Mu Xiangxiang to go retrieve them.
Recalling how fluently he had typed to his friend, and having no experience dealing with close friendships herself, Mu Xiangxiang carefully considered the situation: “He’ll probably talk to me later… won’t it be obvious something’s off?”
Qiao Nan realized that was indeed a problem. After forcing himself to think calmly for a moment, he spoke with forced composure: “It’s fine. If you can’t handle it, just curse at him. I’ll teach you a couple phrases: [censored], [censored].”
Mu Xiangxiang: “………”
On the day of new semester registration, Mu Xiangxiang was once again locked in the restroom by her classmate Fang Lingli and her group.
Since this kind of absurd farce had already gone on for an entire semester in the first half of the school year, the moment Mu Xiangxiang realized the door wouldn’t open, she wisely gave up struggling.Fortunately, Yingcheng Foreign Languages School was the best-equipped private high school in the entire city A—even the restrooms were kept impeccably clean.
So Mu Xiangxiang felt no particular emotion about her current situation. Just like the previous times, she calmly opened her backpack and began memorizing vocabulary under the excellent lighting.
By the end of the third class period, she heard the cleaning cart rolling down the hallway outside. She knocked on the door, signaling the janitor to let her out.
Perhaps because this had happened so often during the first half of her sophomore year, the staff already seemed to recognize her. After thanking them, Mu Xiangxiang walked toward the classroom under sympathetic gazes—and, as expected, saw her brand-new textbooks scattered all over the floor.
Constantly bending down to pick things up was exhausting, especially for someone like her who almost never exercised. After gathering everything and tidying up, she noticed that two of the book covers had been scuffed. Even with her usual calm self-control, she couldn’t help but sigh in distress.
She had grown up indifferent to most things—except for books, which she treasured deeply.
It seemed she couldn’t leave her textbooks in the classroom like everyone else anymore. After wiping the dust off, Mu Xiangxiang hefted her oversized backpack—comically disproportionate to her frame—and staggered out, swaying as she walked. At the door, she ran into two classmates entering.
One of them looked at the scene and seemed a little uneasy, about to say something, but was pulled back by the other.
Mu Xiangxiang smiled at them and left, overhearing their voices behind her—
—How exactly did she offend Fang Lingli and her group?
—What do you think? Besides Jiang Hai, what else could it be?
********
It was the first lunar month. The festive atmosphere of the New Year still lingered on the streets, but the cold wind rushed in the moment she left the warmth of indoor heating. Walking along the wall, Mu Xiangxiang pulled her coat tighter and sighed.
She truly couldn’t understand why Fang Lingli believed she had something ambiguous going on with the school heartthrob, Jiang Hai. Aside from running into him a few times at competitions last year, she had never even spoken to him privately.
Yet rumors spread through the school as if they were facts, and everyone seemed to believe them completely. Then one day, Jiang Hai recognized her at school and greeted her first—after that, Fang Lingli completely lost it.
At first, Mu Xiangxiang felt wronged. She had liked a boy back in middle school—but first, that person had already transferred away in her first year of high school, and was definitely not Jiang Hai. Second, even back then, her rational mind had quickly suppressed that brief flutter of feeling, keeping it strictly at the level of a secret crush, never allowing it to develop further.
After all, before she could support herself financially, anything that might affect her grades was unnecessary.
Unfortunately, no matter how she tried to explain, Fang Lingli simply refused to listen, as if her brain were waterlogged. And someone like Mu Xiangxiang—mentally sharp but physically weak, unable to even run 800 meters without gasping for breath, socially awkward and basically powerless—stood almost no chance against a group of wealthy, delinquent girls.
She stared blankly at the dim, yellowing horizon for a moment…Forget it. Yingcheng’s scholarships were generous. After paying tuition, there was still money left to help support her family—that was why she had come in the first place.
At most, she just had to endure until the college entrance exams. Restraint and patience came easily to her.
And now, what she needed to do was head to her secret spot, tidy herself up, and avoid going home looking disheveled and worrying her parents.
Mu Xiangxiang attempted a brief smile—but it was interrupted by the roar of a motorcycle speeding past her ear.
She froze for a moment, watching from afar as the motorcycle roared away trailing exhaust. At the bus stop, people were already speculating about how outrageously expensive it must be. Mu Xiangxiang had no real concept of it, but it seemed to be a number people found endlessly fascinating.
*******
In a park on the west side of the city, one of the most expensive luxury residences stood to the south, while to the west lay the low, shabby rooftops of the urban village where Mu Xiangxiang lived.
She found a secluded pavilion by the lakeside. Even the music from the square dancers couldn’t reach here—it was perfect for zoning out, memorizing vocabulary… or even committing crimes, for that matter. At the very least, she had never seen a second person here before.
But today, less than half an hour after she sat down, a strange and powerful presence approached.
The muscles in Mu Xiangxiang’s back suddenly tensed. She forcibly tore her gaze away from her study materials and turned to look—
A tall figure stepped onto the gravel path from around the bend. Beneath his unzipped black down jacket was the unmistakably ugly, color-clashing uniform of No. 12 High School. Yet the loose, unattractive uniform did nothing to diminish his striking presence. When the streetlight illuminated his handsome face, he was speaking on the phone, his brows sharp with hostility, his voice rich and textured.
“I’m fine.” His tone carried the same mocking edge as his expression. “I’d be happier if they never came back. It’d be best if they all just died.”
As if not expecting anyone else to be there, he paused slightly when his eyes met Mu Xiangxiang’s. His gaze quickly swept over her very recognizable Yingcheng uniform—the look one gives a stranger.
“It’s nothing,” he soon said into the phone. “Just ran into a student from Yingcheng.”
*******
“Yingcheng? Haha, wasn’t that your school in your first year…?”
His buddy on the other end kept rambling, trying to comfort him about being stood up by his father and older brother during the New Year. Qiao Nan held back from hanging up. Honestly, he was used to it. Thinking about the house that was cold and empty all year round, spending the holiday alone didn’t seem like such a big deal. Besides, before leaving, he had smashed the living room to pieces and then gone out for a few laps on his bike—his mood had calmed quite a bit.
In the corner of the pavilion, that figure had already silently stood up and begun packing, apparently preparing to leave. Qiao Nan didn’t care much and casually found a place to sit, his peripheral vision lazily taking in the other person.
Thin. Very ordinary long black hair. Glasses on her face. The half of her face that showed was pale and small, impossible to make out clearly. She was holding what looked like an English textbook? Coming to a park to study—definitely a hardcore bookworm.
The wrist pulling the zipper of her bag was smooth and snow-white, so slender it looked like it could snap with a single twist. Qiao Nan absentmindedly clenched his fist—he felt like he could crush two arms like that in one go.
But then, thinking about how his total score at the end of last semester hadn’t even reached 200, he figured being physically strong wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.
He had no interest in harmless creatures from a completely different world like her, but he still couldn’t help glancing at her a few more times. Partly because of a faint, strange sense of familiarity—and partly because of the way she carried herself: clearly lacking strength, yet somehow bearing a quiet weight.
She picked up that disproportionately large backpack and slowly stood. Aside from that first glance, she had avoided eye contact with him the entire time. Qiao Nan felt that air of keeping people at a distance seemed oddly familiar, but before he could think more about it, he heard an unusual splash.
He instinctively turned his head. In the glow of the setting sun, in the lake before the pavilion, a small figure was thrashing in the water.
A child had fallen in!
His friend on the phone was still chattering cheerfully about going out for drinks to cheer him up, but Qiao Nan didn’t hear a word. Almost on instinct, he vaulted over the railing. As he hit the water, he heard another splash—just a second behind him.
Half a minute later, the drenched child was hauled back to the surface with everyone working together. People on the shore shouted and panicked, chaos breaking out. Qiao Nan lay sprawled by the bank, half his body still submerged in the freezing winter lake. He gasped for breath, feeling as though all his limbs were about to give out—so exhausted it felt abnormal.
Was there starch mixed into the water or something? By the end, he could barely even lift his arms. What happened to the hundred kilos he could bench press at the gym—fed to the dogs?
Qiao Nan wiped the water off his face, trying to suppress his rising irritation. The next second, he spread his hand open—and his gaze froze in disbelief on the slender, fragile wrist before him, as if it could snap with a single bend.
Then he whipped his head around. Less than half a meter away—was a handsome face filled with confusion.
*********
There was no screaming, no panic. Before either of them could snap out of their daze, the park security had already dragged the two young people out of the lake. Staff of the opposite sexes helped these two seemingly frozen-good Samaritans change out of their wet clothes, then ushered them into the office and handed them ginger soup.
The image of the child’s mother kneeling on the shore, crying and bowing in gratitude, was still vivid. Just moments ago, an ambulance had roared in and taken them away. The park staff, still shaken, shared what they had witnessed, then gathered with reporters by the office window, cautiously observing the strange atmosphere inside—
—What’s wrong with them? They’ve been staring at each other nonstop. It’s kind of creepy.
—Probably frozen stiff? It’s minus five degrees outside today. When they were changing earlier, even the boy’s body was stiff as wood.
—That girl’s from Yingcheng Foreign Languages—I recognize the uniform. It’s the best-looking school uniform in the whole city.
—The other one’s probably from No. 12 High. Kids these days are really warm-hearted!
Qiao Nan and Mu Xiangxiang listened to the drifting comments, staring at each other—at the dazed face that now belonged to the other person, yet was originally their own.
They had never imagined encountering something this surreal. But at this moment, no emotion seemed quite right to express the shock. Aside from staring blankly, neither of them knew what to do. After a long pause, it was the calm-headed Mu Xiangxiang who spoke first. She heard herself produce a deep, textured male voice, with an almost imperceptible tremor: “Something must have gone wrong in the lake just now.”
“…Should we call the police?” The moment the words left his mouth, Qiao Nan immediately felt like an idiot. He tightened his grip on the warm cup in his hand, resisting the urge to smash it, and irritably raked a hand through his hair—only to realize he’d grabbed a handful of long hair, which made him even more agitated. “No—then what do you think we should do?!”
Mu Xiangxiang watched her own face display that unfamiliar, fierce expression—and, strangely enough, almost felt like laughing. Under Qiao Nan’s astonished gaze, she thought for a moment, then answered softly: “We need to figure out first whether this… is temporary or permanent. There are too many people here. Let’s find somewhere safe.”
******
Using exhaustion as an excuse, the two of them left the park after exchanging contact information. Mu Xiangxiang checked their belongings and discovered that her old secondhand phone had stopped working after getting soaked.
Fortunately, Qiao Nan’s phone was waterproof. He sent a message on WeChat to a buddy nicknamed “Monkey,” asking him to deliver a set of keys to an empty property somewhere in the city A. When that equally carefree-looking boy arrived, Qiao Nan hid under the shade of a tree and directed Mu Xiangxiang to go retrieve them.
Recalling how fluently he had typed to his friend, and having no experience dealing with close friendships herself, Mu Xiangxiang carefully considered the situation: “He’ll probably talk to me later… won’t it be obvious something’s off?”
Qiao Nan realized that was indeed a problem. After forcing himself to think calmly for a moment, he spoke with forced composure: “It’s fine. If you can’t handle it, just curse at him. I’ll teach you a couple phrases: [censored], [censored].”
Mu Xiangxiang: “………”
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