Reversed Life: Chapter 5 - The School Tyrant! No Matter Where He Goes, He’s Still the School Tyrant!
Chapter 5: The School Tyrant! No Matter Where He Goes, He’s Still the School Tyrant!
Lantern Festival morning.
It was as if the entire city had awakened overnight.
Uncleared firecracker scraps and piles of snow were heaped messily along the roadside, trampled into muddy slush by the crowds that had suddenly reappeared after more than ten quiet days. The breakfast stalls that had gone back home for the New Year were all back in business, especially around the schools, where the rich smell of fried food filled the air everywhere.
School had started again.
As far as the eye could see, City A had become a world overflowing with every kind of school uniform.
Residential areas, sidewalks, bus stops, streams of private cars— In the chilly air, youthful complaints could still be heard:
“I’m freezing to death! I’ve been lazing around eating and waiting to die every day. I haven’t gotten up this early in almost a month!”
“AAAAAH why can’t school stay closed a few more days?!”
“Boss, add another egg to the pancake! Hey, did you finish your winter homework?”
“I still have two essays left. Whatever. If I die, I die.”
“Then let me copy your physics paper when we get to school. I’ll buy you sticky rice.”
“AAAAAAAH THE BUS THE BUS THE BUS IS LEAVING FUCK RUN FASTER DRIVER WAIT!!!!”
A group of teenagers who had just bought breakfast looked up and spotted the bus already pulling away from the stop. Recognizing the route number, they instantly erupted into shouting and started chasing after it together. Their bright cries echoed through the chaotically planned urban village.
And at that exact moment, the roar of an engine suddenly exploded through the air, instantly drowning out the noise.
The joking teenagers involuntarily looked up, turning toward the source of the strange sound. Almost simultaneously, a sleek motorcycle shot into view like a blade. Its streamlined body carried a suffocating gust of wind as it aggressively weaved through traffic, the glossy black paint reflecting blinding morning light before vanishing in an instant.
The young people by the roadside fell silent for a moment after the brief encounter. A few seconds later, the place erupted into excited shouting—
“Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit!!!!”
“NTT KMH? NTT KMH?” (You will see this phrase most often as text overlays on Douyin, TikTok, or Bilibili videos featuring motorcycle crashes, near-misses, or chaotic driving gameplay (like in GTA V or Cyberpunk 2077). If a player crashes a motorcycle into a wall at full speed, the comment section will immediately spam: "Bro was riding a solid NTT KMH.")
“Holy shit, I can’t believe I actually saw someone riding that monster bike worth almost a million yuan!!”
“That rider was so cool I’m about to piss myself—”
“No, wait! Wait!”
The discussion abruptly paused.
One of the boys desperately replayed the scene from moments ago in his head, and from that fleeting image he suddenly recalled a slender figure in a helmet leaning low over the motorcycle.
“The rider was a girl!!”
*******
In the southern district of City A—the most scenic area in the city—you could see the uniquely designed buildings behind the walls from far away.
Even in winter, the greenery remained lush, stretching all the way to the towering school gates over ten meters high. Beneath the domed entrance stood countless columns, grand enough to feel intimidating. Above the dome, written in bold, flowing calligraphy, were the words—
Yingcheng Foreign Languages School, City A
On the first day of school, it didn’t seem much different from any other school in City A. The entrance was crowded with students in uniforms and parents dropping off their children.
Yet this place also felt very different from anywhere else.
Because everywhere you looked, among all the vehicles in sight, if it had more than four wheels, it was guaranteed to be a luxury car.
City A Yingcheng Foreign Languages School was the only private school in City A whose teaching quality could rival the top public high schools. It was famous for its sky-high tuition fees and its unusual student body. Admission standards here were extremely strict. Aside from super top students like Mu Xiangxiang, who had been recruited because of her outstanding entrance exam results, nearly every other student came from wealthy or powerful families.
Worth mentioning was that Qiao Nan had attended middle school here as well. It wasn’t until his first year of high school that he had been forcibly transferred away for certain reasons.
Coming back to this place again left his feelings rather complicated.
The sudden appearance of the motorcycle caused quite a stir around the school gates. Groups of girls stopped to stare over at him. The school tyrant, who had spent his entire life being the center of attention, didn’t care in the slightest. Without even glancing at them, he twisted the throttle and rode straight past. Then, with a beautiful drifting turn, he brought the bike to a stop—and the gazes burning into him instantly grew even hotter.
He swung a long leg over the motorcycle and stepped down, pulling off his helmet and holding it casually in one hand. Qiao Nan shook out his hair and brushed back his bangs. Amid the faint gasps and exclamations drifting from the distance, he turned his back on the crowd, lazily leaned against the motorcycle with one foot propped on the frame, then took out his phone and made a call.
Mu Xiangxiang answered quickly. In the background, noisy traffic horns could still be heard. “You there already?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll probably need a while longer,” Mu Xiangxiang said. “The old district’s traffic is jammed this morning. I’m still two stops away.”
Qiao Nan let out a scoffing laugh. “Told you I could drive you over this morning. You’re the one who refused.”
“…” Mu Xiangxiang paused for two seconds. “Qiao Nan, think about it carefully. Do you really want the entire school seeing you sitting on the back of a motorcycle, hugging a girl around the waist?”
Qiao Nan: “…………”
Mu Xiangxiang: “I can agree to it next time if you want.”
Qiao Nan: “…I’m going in.”
Mu Xiangxiang: “Remember to hand in the homework. Pay attention in class. Take notes. Record the lectures on your phone. I need them for self-study after school.”
“…,” Qiao Nan thought, Why the hell are there so many damn rules? “Do you honestly think that’s possible?”
Mu Xiangxiang replied calmly, “Your winter homework.”
Qiao Nan: “??”
“I stayed awake for two whole days,” she said. “I only finished the last test paper at six this morning.”
Qiao Nan: “…………”
“So,” Mu Xiangxiang continued, “hand in the homework. Pay attention in class. Notes. Recordings.”
“…Got it.”
Mu Xiangxiang hummed in satisfaction. “Thank you. You’ve worked hard.”
Qiao Nan instantly straightened from his lazy slouch against the motorcycle. It took him quite a while before he spoke again, his tone viciously gruff: “…Why are you being so damn naggy?”
Just before hanging up, Mu Xiangxiang suddenly remembered something and reminded him again: “And don’t forget what I told you. Be careful at school. Don’t let Fang Lingli and her group corner you.”
Although Qiao Nan still didn’t think some gang of delinquent girls was worth taking seriously, he had seen how unusually nervous Mu Xiangxiang had been yesterday—she had even repeatedly warned him and specifically searched up photos of them. To avoid another endless lecture, he simply gave a quiet hum of acknowledgment.
Qiao Nan hadn’t expected someone as cold and distant as Mu Xiangxiang to have made enemies at school. He found it pretty surprising. He had assumed she must’ve been a loner on campus. After all, from her personality to her whole aura, Mu Xiangxiang clearly seemed completely out of place at City A Yingcheng Foreign Languages School.
Thinking that, he casually asked another question: “Oh right, between you and that Fang… Fang-whatever-her-name-is—what exactly happened? What kind of grudge makes her target you for an entire semester?”
“Oh, that.” Mu Xiangxiang had always felt the origin of that misunderstanding was too ridiculous to bother mentioning, but since Qiao Nan specifically asked, she didn’t think there was any reason to hide it. “There’s a school heartthrob at our school named Jiang Hai.”
“Mm.” Qiao Nan nodded blankly. Of course he knew Jiang Hai. Before he transferred schools, that guy used to trail after him all the time too.
Mu Xiangxiang continued explaining: “Fang Lingli likes Jiang Hai.”
“Mm.”
“And then she thought Jiang Hai and I had something going on.”
Qiao Nan: “………………”
On the other end of the line, Mu Xiangxiang frowned slightly and looked at the phone in confusion after the call abruptly ended.
Qiao Nan shoved the phone back into his pocket. With his helmet tucked under one arm, he grabbed the huge backpack off the motorcycle, swung it over his shoulder, and slung it on one-handed.
Then, under the still-burning stares surrounding him, he walked toward the school gates with a dark expression, cursing under his breath as he went: “…Liar!”
Not far behind him, beside a black car that had been parked there for a while, several students in Yingcheng uniforms stood around with their arms over each other’s shoulders, watching in this direction.
“Damn, riding an NTT KMH here? That’s pretty wild.” One green-haired boy with slanted eyes clicked his tongue in amazement. “Ever since Brother Qiao transferred away, I haven’t seen anyone cocky enough to show off like that. New student?”
The chubby friend beside him rolled his eyes. “First of all, Brother Qiao only left last year. Don’t make it sound like it’s been ages since we saw the old man. Second, are you blind? That’s a girl.”
“???” The green-haired boy looked utterly shocked. “No way! Did you see the way she walks? She’s cool as hell! And those pants—and her hair’s so short!”
Yingcheng was the only school in City A where the girls’ uniforms were designed as skirts, so the girls there generally had a very distinctive style.
The chubby guy rolled his eyes toward the heavens. “So what if she walks cool, wears pants, and has short hair? Look at her nose, her chin, that tiny waist and those long legs. She’s so pale she’s practically glowing, and her build’s so delicate. Do the men in your family look like that? Are you actually blind?”
After saying that, he stared thoughtfully at the retreating figure. “But what’s going on? Why do I feel like she seems especially… familiar somehow?”
The green-haired boy replied in a mocking tone: “Maybe you’re just horny.”
“Get lost.” The chubby guy punched him, then turned to another companion whose looks were especially handsome. “Jiang Hai, what do you think?”
“She probably isn’t new. The patch on her sleeve says second year, and there weren’t any transfer students in second year this year.” As Jiang Hai analyzed the situation, he frowned slightly. A trace of confusion appeared on his handsome face. Some vague answer floated in his mind, yet he couldn’t quite grasp it.
Qiao Nan was stopped beneath the teaching building. At first he didn’t even react, since the person calling out had said “Mu Xiangxiang.”
But when he turned around and saw that bright, handsome face, his eyebrows shot upward immediately.
“Jiang Hai?”
When Jiang Hai saw him respond, he instantly smiled. His gaze was complicated, lingering especially on Qiao Nan’s short hair and the helmet in his arms. “From far away I thought it looked like you, but I didn’t expect it to really be you.”
The mystery of that familiar feeling from earlier seemed to have finally found its explanation. Yet even as he said that, meeting the increasingly unreadable look in the girl’s eyes, Jiang Hai still felt that something was off.
Jiang Hai couldn’t make sense of it, but Qiao Nan, on the other hand, was already getting irritated.
A school tyrant was a school tyrant no matter where he went. Qiao Nan had enrolled at City A Yingcheng Foreign Languages School in sixth grade and only transferred to No. 12 High School in his first year of high school. During all those years at Yingcheng, he had dominated everyone without a rival. However many years he had studied there, Jiang Hai and the rest of those guys had spent just as many years trailing behind him calling him “Brother Qiao.”
And now, after only this little time apart, face-to-face they were already… heh.
He gave Jiang Hai another once-over and instinctively started picking faults. Same weak-looking physique. So what if his eyes were a little bigger? He wasn’t even as handsome as Qiao Nan himself. Qiao Nan truly couldn’t understand what girls like Mu Xiangxiang even saw in him.
Shallow.
The thought immediately put him in a bad mood. Irritated, he asked: “What, you got something to say?”
“Huh?” Jiang Hai was so stunned by that glare that his brain practically froze. Like a sparrow encountering its natural predator, he instinctively shook his head. “No, no.”
Qiao Nan couldn’t be bothered with him. He turned and walked away.
The chubby guy rolled his eyes toward the heavens. “So what if she walks cool, wears pants, and has short hair? Look at her nose, her chin, that tiny waist and those long legs. She’s so pale she’s practically glowing, and her build’s so delicate. Do the men in your family look like that? Are you actually blind?”
After saying that, he stared thoughtfully at the retreating figure. “But what’s going on? Why do I feel like she seems especially… familiar somehow?”
The green-haired boy replied in a mocking tone: “Maybe you’re just horny.”
“Get lost.” The chubby guy punched him, then turned to another companion whose looks were especially handsome. “Jiang Hai, what do you think?”
“She probably isn’t new. The patch on her sleeve says second year, and there weren’t any transfer students in second year this year.” As Jiang Hai analyzed the situation, he frowned slightly. A trace of confusion appeared on his handsome face. Some vague answer floated in his mind, yet he couldn’t quite grasp it.
Qiao Nan was stopped beneath the teaching building. At first he didn’t even react, since the person calling out had said “Mu Xiangxiang.”
But when he turned around and saw that bright, handsome face, his eyebrows shot upward immediately.
“Jiang Hai?”
When Jiang Hai saw him respond, he instantly smiled. His gaze was complicated, lingering especially on Qiao Nan’s short hair and the helmet in his arms. “From far away I thought it looked like you, but I didn’t expect it to really be you.”
The mystery of that familiar feeling from earlier seemed to have finally found its explanation. Yet even as he said that, meeting the increasingly unreadable look in the girl’s eyes, Jiang Hai still felt that something was off.
Jiang Hai couldn’t make sense of it, but Qiao Nan, on the other hand, was already getting irritated.
A school tyrant was a school tyrant no matter where he went. Qiao Nan had enrolled at City A Yingcheng Foreign Languages School in sixth grade and only transferred to No. 12 High School in his first year of high school. During all those years at Yingcheng, he had dominated everyone without a rival. However many years he had studied there, Jiang Hai and the rest of those guys had spent just as many years trailing behind him calling him “Brother Qiao.”
And now, after only this little time apart, face-to-face they were already… heh.
He gave Jiang Hai another once-over and instinctively started picking faults. Same weak-looking physique. So what if his eyes were a little bigger? He wasn’t even as handsome as Qiao Nan himself. Qiao Nan truly couldn’t understand what girls like Mu Xiangxiang even saw in him.
Shallow.
The thought immediately put him in a bad mood. Irritated, he asked: “What, you got something to say?”
“Huh?” Jiang Hai was so stunned by that glare that his brain practically froze. Like a sparrow encountering its natural predator, he instinctively shook his head. “No, no.”
Qiao Nan couldn’t be bothered with him. He turned and walked away.
Naturally, he drew countless stares along the way. But his mood was foul right now, and with that cold expression on his face, nobody dared stare too boldly. Even the staircase around him cleared out into a vacuum zone.
Just like that, he slipped into Class 1 of the second year. Pulling out the seating chart Mu Xiangxiang had drawn for him, he began looking for his seat.
But soon he realized he hardly needed to search at all. In the entire classroom, Mu Xiangxiang was the only person who had taken all of the new semester’s textbooks home over break. Among the desks piled high with books, the only completely empty desk was obviously hers.
Quite a few students were already seated in the classroom. Nearly every gaze converged on him. Their faces clearly screamed Who is this person? Yet at the same time, not a single person dared step forward to stop him or question him.
Qiao Nan tossed the motorcycle helmet onto the desk and sat down arrogantly. Then he opened the backpack and pulled out the stack of winter homework Mu Xiangxiang had reminded him countless times to hand in.
Resting one cheek against his hand, he casually rolled up one stack of papers and tapped it against the desk, signaling for the class committee member collecting homework row by row to come over.
The girl looked utterly confused as she cautiously approached him. Watching his expression carefully, she asked in a tiny voice: “…Um, classmate, you…?”
Qiao Nan stared at her. A few seconds later, he narrowed his eyes. He still looked as careless and unruly as ever, but the corner of his mouth slowly curled upward.
He raised a hand, tossed the homework onto the desk, and asked: “Don’t recognize me anymore?”
The class committee girl heard the familiar voice and froze for a second. Then her eyes darted to the name written on the papers, and her expression instantly filled with shock. “Mu… Mu Xiangxiang?”
The moment she spoke, all the nearby classmates who had been secretly paying attention whipped their heads around like sunflowers turning toward sunlight.
Qiao Nan tilted his head. The slightly curled bangs over his forehead brushed past his brow bone. The smile at the corner of his mouth grew wider and wider. Narrowing his eyes slightly, he stared directly into the girl’s eyes. A few seconds later, he flashed a mischievous, ill-intentioned grin. “What’d you call me for?”
The teasing upward lilt in that female voice sounded almost hooked.
The class committee girl, still dazed, instantly flushed bright red. She hurriedly shook her head, scrambled to gather the homework from the desk, and fled as though escaping for her life.
Heh—
A low laugh escaped Qiao Nan’s throat. Then he lazily sprawled across the desktop.
The little animals at Yingcheng really hadn’t changed at all.
Just like that, he slipped into Class 1 of the second year. Pulling out the seating chart Mu Xiangxiang had drawn for him, he began looking for his seat.
But soon he realized he hardly needed to search at all. In the entire classroom, Mu Xiangxiang was the only person who had taken all of the new semester’s textbooks home over break. Among the desks piled high with books, the only completely empty desk was obviously hers.
Quite a few students were already seated in the classroom. Nearly every gaze converged on him. Their faces clearly screamed Who is this person? Yet at the same time, not a single person dared step forward to stop him or question him.
Qiao Nan tossed the motorcycle helmet onto the desk and sat down arrogantly. Then he opened the backpack and pulled out the stack of winter homework Mu Xiangxiang had reminded him countless times to hand in.
Resting one cheek against his hand, he casually rolled up one stack of papers and tapped it against the desk, signaling for the class committee member collecting homework row by row to come over.
The girl looked utterly confused as she cautiously approached him. Watching his expression carefully, she asked in a tiny voice: “…Um, classmate, you…?”
Qiao Nan stared at her. A few seconds later, he narrowed his eyes. He still looked as careless and unruly as ever, but the corner of his mouth slowly curled upward.
He raised a hand, tossed the homework onto the desk, and asked: “Don’t recognize me anymore?”
The class committee girl heard the familiar voice and froze for a second. Then her eyes darted to the name written on the papers, and her expression instantly filled with shock. “Mu… Mu Xiangxiang?”
The moment she spoke, all the nearby classmates who had been secretly paying attention whipped their heads around like sunflowers turning toward sunlight.
Qiao Nan tilted his head. The slightly curled bangs over his forehead brushed past his brow bone. The smile at the corner of his mouth grew wider and wider. Narrowing his eyes slightly, he stared directly into the girl’s eyes. A few seconds later, he flashed a mischievous, ill-intentioned grin. “What’d you call me for?”
The teasing upward lilt in that female voice sounded almost hooked.
The class committee girl, still dazed, instantly flushed bright red. She hurriedly shook her head, scrambled to gather the homework from the desk, and fled as though escaping for her life.
Heh—
A low laugh escaped Qiao Nan’s throat. Then he lazily sprawled across the desktop.
The little animals at Yingcheng really hadn’t changed at all.
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