Reversed Life: Chapter 4 - The Model Student Girl’s Short Hair
Chapter 4: The Model Student Girl’s Short Hair
The Mu family’s living conditions were terrible. They didn’t even have blackout curtains on the windows—just an ordinary cloth curtain hanging there.
So before six in the morning, Qiao Nan was already awakened by the daylight streaming in from outside.
Sitting on the bed, he could clearly hear the noise of wheels and footsteps grinding across the ground outside. With his hair even messier after a night’s sleep, he once again became vividly aware of how drastically his life had changed.
Annoying as hell.
He got up while scratching his head. Even changing clothes made him blush a little, and he hurried through it.
Ten minutes later, Qiao Nan had changed into a simple long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. He tied his hair up carelessly, braved the freezing temperature that felt far too harsh for what he was wearing, opened the window, planted a hand on the sill, and lightly jumped out of the room.
He landed steadily in the patch of greenery outside the window.
What kind of school tyrant walks out properly through the front door? What a joke.
The “green belt” in the urban village was practically nonexistent. Stepping onto the yellow dirt beneath his feet, Qiao Nan stretched a little, then carefully avoided the scallions and garlic the neighbors had planted before starting to jog down the street.
At first, it was freezing. The subzero wind of the New Year season cut across his face painfully. But after five minutes, the blood pumping through his body gradually overcame the cold, and he even started to sweat slightly.
Feeling his heartbeat quicken and his breathing grow heavier, Qiao Nan’s face darkened. He truly hadn’t overestimated that bookworm girl even a little. Not even a little.
Less than ten minutes of slow jogging had already pushed this body to the kind of physical limit that, for him before, would have required at least six sets of seventy-kilogram bench presses to achieve.
The school tyrant, who once held a record of punching with 142 kilograms of force, calculated how long it would take to rebuild that level of strength and immediately felt like calling Mu Xiangxiang to extort more compensation.
So at exactly seven o’clock, the phone beside Mu Xiangxiang’s bed began vibrating repeatedly.
Mu Xiangxiang had stayed up until dawn doing homework. Half asleep, she struggled for a while, but out of concern that something urgent might have happened, she still reached out her hand and forced her sleepy eyes open. Then she saw a pile of nonsensical messages.
[Qiao Nan: “Hey.”]
[Qiao Nan: “Get up and go running.”]
[Qiao Nan: “Did you work out before bed last night?”]
[Qiao Nan: “Where are you?”]
Climbing upright with a dark expression, Mu Xiangxiang tapped at the keyboard—
[Mu: “……”]
[Qiao Nan: “…You forgot, didn’t you?”]
[Qiao Nan: “You forgot, didn’t you?!”]
[Qiao Nan: “Reflect on yourself!”]
[Mu: “I went to sleep at four this morning.”]
[Mu: “Because I was making up the homework you didn’t write a single word of.”]
[Mu: “So, the first lesson is Physics”]
[Mu: “How did previewing Physics Lesson One go last night?”]
[Qiao Nan: “…………”]
Expressionless, Mu Xiangxiang stared at the string of speechless ellipses. Seeing that the other side no longer seemed interested in chatting, she tossed out one final message—[Mu: “I’m going to shower.”] Then she threw the phone back onto the bed.
By the time she had finished freshening up without feeling particularly shy about it, and selected an outfit from Qiao Nan’s enormous walk-in closet, the topic of conversation had already quietly changed.
[Qiao Nan: “?????”]
[Qiao Nan: “Hey!!!”]
[Qiao Nan: “Don’t do anything weird to my body!!”]
Mu Xiangxiang drew open the curtains, smoothed out the blankets, and sat down on the sofa by the window, her feet sinking into the soft carpet warmed by the floor heating. Facing the morning sunlight, she silently reflected on what exactly had gone wrong with her taste back in her first year of high school.
But no matter how hard she tried to remember, what kept surfacing in her mind was still that first impression of him—that careless yet absurdly handsome face.
Back then, Qiao Nan had been the most talked-about figure at Yingcheng. He never lacked friends. Wherever he went, people surrounded him. No matter where he stood or how outstanding the people around him were, he was unquestionably the center of attention.
That kind of person.
Mu Xiangxiang lowered her head wordlessly to look at the screen.
For some reason, it felt like something had completely shattered at that moment.
There was another noteworthy thing that morning—Mu Xiangxiang ran into Qiao Nan’s stepmother, Luo Meisheng, once again.
She had no idea when the woman had woken up, but the dining table was already filled with breakfast. Yet when Mu Xiangxiang came downstairs, Luo Meisheng didn’t speak first. It was only because Mu Xiangxiang happened to glance up while changing shoes that she noticed the woman standing hesitantly by the dining room.
Mu Xiangxiang was startled at first, but quickly calmed down. Since she had already done some last-minute “research” about this person before bed last night, she no longer felt at a loss. While changing shoes, she naturally greeted her: “Morning.”
The moment the words left her mouth, the woman’s dim eyes instantly lit up.
After talking with her husband the previous night, Luo Meisheng had been so excited she hadn’t slept at all. She was both delighted by her stepson’s sudden change in attitude and terrified that the precious peace might only be her own misunderstanding.
After agonizing over it, unsure what to do, she finally decided to use the opportunity to get a little closer to him. So at five in the morning, she got up and rushed to the nearest market.
Fish porridge, soup dumplings, potstickers, fried dough sticks, pan-fried dumplings, egg pancakes—she wasn’t very good at cooking, so she simply bought nearly every kind of breakfast she could find and carried it all home. She truly, truly wanted even a little recognition. Yet after hours of effort, the moment she saw that figure appear, she still instinctively wanted to retreat.
The expressionless, icy look on her stepson’s face as he came downstairs was somehow even harder to approach than his old irritable temper. Thinking about it carefully, yesterday she had only received a few short sentences from him. Luo Meisheng was terribly afraid that if she had misunderstood his attitude, then this attempt to please him might completely backfire.
Standing awkwardly in the corner, watching her stepson walk past without even glancing sideways, she felt indescribably disappointed. Still, she could only comfort herself: It’s okay. At least this is a good start.
But just when she had already given up hope, she unexpectedly heard his greeting once again.
“M-Morning! Morning!” Luo Meisheng sounded almost panicked. Suppressing the surging emotions in her chest, she stammered, “…Going out?”
Mu Xiangxiang saw how pitifully cautious she looked. After hesitating for a moment, she nodded.
Then she heard the woman ask even more carefully: “…Are you hungry? I bought breakfast. Before you leave… maybe… have a little?”
After finishing two soup dumplings, Mu Xiangxiang headed out once again, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Qiao Nan’s stepmother’s overly attentive concern and warmth poured out almost unbearably behind her like a flood as she left the apartment. By the time she stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, her phone chimed with a new text message—
**[95588: Your savings account ending in **** received a transfer of RMB 100,000.00 on March 1 from account ending in **. Current balance: RMB 100,299.50. Please verify and confirm receipt. [Industrial and Commercial Bank of China]]
*******
Qiao Nan was equally baffled when he saw the text message. Mu Xiangxiang was currently using his phone and SIM card, so naturally, the bank account linked to it was his. After carefully checking that the sender’s account number was indeed familiar, he scratched his head. “Today isn’t allowance day, though.”
And it was such a large amount at once too—pretty rare.
Allowance…
Mu Xiangxiang recalled that long string of zeroes, put away her phone, and found herself speechless.
Qiao Nan pondered it for a while but still couldn’t figure out why his family had suddenly sent him spending money. In the end, he decided it was probably thanks to the lucky koi repost he’d shared on Weibo a few days ago. So he stopped talking about it and simply led the way, bringing Mu Xiangxiang to the barbershop he frequented.
The stylists immediately recognized their regular customer and hurried over to greet him. Surrounded by a group of strangers, Mu Xiangxiang instinctively frowned and pointed at Qiao Nan with an indifferent expression. “He’s the one getting a haircut.”
The head stylist, who called himself Tony, quickly swept his gaze over the messy ponytail tied at the back of that head, then smiled brightly. “Oh my, this young lady has such fair skin and such a small face. Honestly, any hairstyle would suit you.”
Not a trace of happiness appeared on Qiao Nan’s face at the compliment. He swaggered over to a chair and sat down heavily. “Cut it short.”
Then he gestured around his head. “To this length.”
“Wouldn’t that be too short? I think the bob style that’s popular lately is also very easy to maintain, and it would suit your face shape too—”
Before he could finish, he caught the look the girl shot him through the mirror. Stylist Tony instantly fell silent.
“I said cut it short. This short.” The girl in the mirror had removed her glasses, and the hostility on her face became immediately obvious. That once delicate and calm-looking face suddenly carried an indescribable pressure, making people feel that if they didn’t hurry up and satisfy her demands, they were about to get punched.
As the shop gradually filled with more customers, Mu Xiangxiang eventually couldn’t bear the noise anymore and went outside for some air. Sitting on a bench in the garden under the sunlight, she spaced out, her mind full of the image of Qiao Nan glaring impatiently at the hairstylist earlier.
That was her face. Mu Xiangxiang had looked at it in mirrors for more than ten years, yet at that moment it had felt so unfamiliar she hardly dared recognize it.
So such a powerful aura didn’t actually need a strong physique to support it?
Half an hour later, she got her answer from the figure stepping out of the salon.
The long hair was gone, replaced by a cropped cut with the sides shaved nearly flat. Above that was slightly longer tousled hair, lightly brushing against the forehead in natural curls, unable to hide the rebelliousness blazing in those eyes.
The already slender girl suddenly looked taller and straighter, as if she had mysteriously gained several centimeters in height. Even standing lazily at the salon entrance, her presence was overwhelming enough to make people uneasy.
Nearly every passerby entering the shop turned to stare at her. She didn’t look uncomfortable in the slightest. A few people stared too openly, and she immediately turned around and snapped: “What the hell are you looking at?!”
The group of tough-looking young men with brightly dyed hair were so startled they fled on the spot.
The entire scene felt dreamlike.
Sunlight poured down onto those impatiently furrowed brows, and then Mu Xiangxiang heard a familiar voice with an unfamiliar tone: “Hey, are you coming or not? Did you grow roots into the bench?”
A few seconds later, Mu Xiangxiang stood up.
Qiao Nan carried the glasses in one hand while ruffling his hair with the other, cursing as he walked. “Seriously idiots. I said shave it flat, shave it flat. None of them understand human language. Why’d they still leave that little tuft behind? For feeding chickens or what?”
Mu Xiangxiang pulled her dazed gaze away and looked down at the ground, emotions complicated. Then she suddenly spoke: “It actually looks really good. It suits you.”
The atmosphere fell silent for two breaths.
The next second, Qiao Nan abruptly sped up his pace. “W-What the hell is wrong with you?!”
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