Jiaming and Lingjing

"Ha—ha—hey—"

As the sun rose, a little girl's crisp, energetic shouts rang out across the grass. Amid a large group of elderly people doing their morning exercises, a pretty girl with two pigtails was practicing a set of Wing Chun with proper seriousness. A little boy named Gu Jiaming lay on the slope above, boredly watching the crowd practice martial arts.

It had been two months since he had regained this child's body.

During that time, he had spent the first ten-odd days pretending to have amnesia, playing deaf and dumb. After that, he had gradually figured everything out. Jianghai City, where he now was, was one of the country's foremost major cities. Since the reform and opening up, it had benefited greatly, and its economy had developed rapidly. In general, Jianghai's upper class was currently controlled by several family enterprises. Most of these families had deep roots and extensive connections both in the central government and locally. They had not suffered much during those chaotic years, either. The Huang Family was one of them.

His mother should have been a direct descendant of the Huang Family. However, the Huang Family had a rule: any man who married a Huang woman had to marry into the family. His father had been proud and arrogant, and had eloped with his mother. Not long after giving birth to him, the two of them had both died in a landslide. The Huang Family had already disowned them, but seeing that he was still young, they had eventually taken pity on him and brought him back to raise.

With an identity like his, although the butlers and servants called him "Young Master," he did not truly have the status of a young master. The family considered his mother's affair a deep disgrace, and many children his age in the family knew about it. Thus, whenever they had nothing better to do, they would mock and bully him. His running away from home this time had probably been because he could no longer endure that treatment. Who would have thought that, after leaving, he would encounter two killers from Peiluojia who were seeking fresh blood?

Over the past half year, the only person he had become somewhat familiar with was the little girl named Ye Lingjing. Her family was also a distant branch of the Huang Family, related by only the flimsiest of connections. Back then, his father and Lingjing's father, Ye Han, who ran a martial arts school, had been good friends. After his parents died, the Ye Family had originally wanted to adopt him, but the Huang Family had a more legitimate claim to raise him.

Although he had lived with the Huang Family these past years, he had actually spent more time playing at the Ye Family's home. Lingjing was a girl, but whenever he was bullied or wronged, she would stand up for him like a guardian angel. Therefore, even after being reborn, Jiaming did his best to follow the little girl's arrangements and live the life of a child.

The feeling of going to school for the first time in his life was novel to him. There were no harsh instructors, no bloody slaughter accompanying every lesson, and no constant threat to his life. Everything was unbelievably free. The only restraint was that whenever he drifted off in class, Ye Lingjing, his deskmate, would always smack him hard and demand that he place both hands on the desk and sit properly. She was the Young Pioneers Captain at school and took it upon herself to supervise her classmates.

He worked hard to imitate his former handwriting and kept his exam scores hovering around the passing line. That was not difficult for Jiaming. Children's world was interesting, and he liked quietly sitting to one side and watching them. But children's world was also irritating, because they always enjoyed playing childish, frustrating games and taking part in activities maddening enough to drive one crazy. As a conscientious captain, Ye Lingjing would drag him along whenever there was a performance or an extracurricular game. Every time the other children had a wonderful time, Jiaming was on the verge of collapse.

As for family matters, he was not a child valued by the Huang Family. Aside from the other children thinking of him whenever they wanted to bully someone for fun, the adults basically treated him as air. He had no place at the large dining table every evening. He could only eat in the side hall or return to his room and eat slowly by himself. Every month, Butler Bai gave him an allowance equal to that of the other children, but it was always snatched away by them on the very night it was handed out.

For the current him, being ignored was exactly the state he dreamed of. As for the money being taken, he would retrieve it that night, then casually take their homework books and burn them. The next day, the entire mansion would be thrown into chaos. Of course, since those brats had always been poor students, adults generally only regarded missing homework books as an excuse to avoid doing homework, then gave them a vicious scolding. Jiaming would grin wickedly from the side.

Every day at three in the morning, he would get up and head to the outskirts to train. This ten-year-old body was still far too frail. Forget fighting—even firing a gun, if the recoil was a little too strong, might dislocate his arm. After completing a round of his former assassin training, he could return home around five-thirty and crawl back under the covers. At six, Little Lingjing, dressed in sportswear, would come in through the back door and knock on his window. Lingjing disliked the children who lived with him, and Jiaming's room was the last one on the first floor of the mansion. Once he was dressed, it was more convenient to jump out through the window. The two of them would then jog out to the suburbs again.

At that time, Jianghai City had few leisure parks, so this grassy slope on the outskirts was popular with people doing morning exercises. Jiaming would usually lie on the grass and rest while Little Lingjing practiced her forms properly nearby a couple of times.

Lingjing had practiced martial arts with her father since childhood. She was most proficient in Wing Chun and Tai Chi, and had even won regional championships in martial arts competitions with those two styles—of course, the kind of competitions that only valued appearance. On the way back after morning exercise, they would often meet an uncle selling Mantou from a bicycle. Lingjing would take a dime from her pocket to buy two, and they would munch on them all the way back to Lingjing's martial arts school.

Although Lingjing's father, Ye Han, had a refined-sounding name, he was actually a burly man with a face full of beard. In those days, a martial arts master like that was better able to command respect. Mom Ye was named Duan Jingxian, a renowned surgeon. She was as beautiful and gentle as her name suggested. One specialized in fighting, the other in treating injuries. They complemented each other perfectly. Both were kind and warm people. In a sense, perhaps this family alone was Jiaming's true family in this world.

Time slowly passed, and the weather grew colder. As the year drew to a close, Hongxing Primary School had already begun its winter break. Lunar New Year's Eve that year was February 3rd. Jiaming and Lingjing finished their exams on January 23rd and went to school on the 27th to collect their report cards. This time, Jiaming scored seventy in Chinese and seventy-five in math, a great improvement over his previous grades. Little Lingjing was even happier than if she herself had earned two perfect scores. She believed it was because she, the captain, had taught him so well that this backward fool had finally caught on. Ye Han's family was also delighted. Ye Han thought that Jiaming had become smarter after getting injured, implying that he ought to get shot a few more times. Duan Jingxian scolded him for an entire evening before he finally said that he merely wanted Jiaming to come learn martial arts during the winter break.

Naturally, Jiaming hurried to come up with excuses to refuse. He said he had too much winter homework, that the Huang Family's fat brats came looking for him every day, and so on. Inwardly, though, he thought that the students training here now were all children from wealthy families, perhaps young masters and heirs of influential clans. In the past, he could only be bullied. Now, he had to guard against seeing too many openings in them. If he made the kind of mistake from The Eagle Shooting Heroes—"Your position was just too perfect. I couldn't help kicking you. It's been a long time since I kicked someone so satisfyingly"—there would be another heap of trouble. All he wanted now was an ordinary life.

So what would an ordinary life be like for Jiaming?

It should be a life like anyone else's, he thought. He should attend elementary school, middle school, high school, and college like an ordinary person. He should date a few times in high school or college, enter society afterward, find a middling job, and a few years later find a wife suited to him, then continue on like that. There might be one or two dreams in his life, and he would work hard to achieve them. Of course, as long as he had tried his best, it would not matter if he failed. When his children and grandchildren filled the house and he reached his sixties or seventies, he would quietly die. Some people would cry, but soon forget him. Some people would be happy, but soon forget him as well. Though it was difficult for him now to imagine what it would be like to have a troublesome child who only knew how to cry and make a fuss all day, wasn't this the kind of happy life described in so many books?

With such thoughts in mind, the year-end festivities arrived in the blink of an eye. He still failed to avoid learning martial arts, because Ye Lingjing could see through his excuses without even using her brain. On February 2nd, Jianghai City was hit by a heavy snowfall. The television station said it was an auspicious snow that foretold a bountiful year.

The 3rd was Lunar New Year's Eve. That morning, as usual, he and Lingjing went out through the back door to exercise. When they returned, cars streamed in and out before the Huang Family mansion, many of them Audi 100s. At the time, it was an extremely flashy model, because government officials all rode in them. People flowed in and out of the main hall without end, coming to offer New Year greetings or cultivate connections. It was enough to show the Huang Family's status in Jianghai City. The children chased and played in the garden nearby, throwing snowballs or setting off firecrackers. Jiaming and Lingjing watched for a while. Looking at those children with disgust, Lingjing said, "We're not staying here. Come on, let's go back to the martial arts school. Dad secretly bought lots of firecrackers."

At the thought of setting off firecrackers with a child for another boring morning, Jiaming felt like using firecrackers to blow up the entire planet. Just as he was considering how to get away, several voices suddenly called out to him from the yard. Then a group of little fatties came charging toward them with astonishing ferocity.