"Then I'd rather drive you to school, young miss." The driver's mouth twitched as he declared this with righteous solemnity.
The young miss before him was clearly different from before.
In the past, Jiang Jinran had been quiet and withdrawn, refusing to communicate with him. The driver hadn't wanted to get on this little tyrant's bad side either, so they had always ignored each other without exchanging a word.
But now, to his surprise, the young miss had taken the initiative to break that pattern.
Jiang Jinran's lips twitched, and she suddenly flashed an especially radiant smile. "Uncle Driver, did you know? Calling someone 'young miss' isn't fashionable anymore..."
The driver frowned in confusion. "Then what is fashionable?"
Jiang Jinran curled her lips into a smile. "These days, it's 'princess.'"
"P-Princess?" The driver's eyes widened in surprise, but on second thought, the young miss was a little girl after all, still at an innocent and carefree age. What little girl didn't dream of being a princess?
So the young miss liked being called a princess.
The driver immediately caught on. He got out of the car and opened the rear door for Jiang Jinran, his manner respectful. "Princess, please get in."
Jiang Jinran nodded in satisfaction.
After she got in, the driver didn't forget to remind her, "Princess, please sit tight. We're about to set off."
Jiang Jinran snapped her fingers with a flourish. "Let's go."
The Rolls-Royce stopped at the mouth of an alley not far from the school.
The young miss disliked attracting too much attention, so the driver had never driven up to the school's main entrance.
Jiang Jinran put on her little schoolbag and hopped out of the car.
The driver escorted her to the school gates, then watched her go inside. "Young mi... ahem... princess, please go in..."
His manner made Jiang Jinran laugh. "All right, the princess role-play ends here."
She wagged a finger, a smile on her lips. "The princess is going back to being a commoner for now..."
The driver was a little bewildered. So she didn't want to be called princess anymore?
The young miss really was fickle...
Jiang Jinran glanced at the four grand, imposing characters at the school entrance-
Imperial Star Academy.
Who would have thought that she, Jiang Jinran, would journey away for half a lifetime, only to return still a student!
The last time she had been a student felt like eight hundred years ago.
Holding her schoolbag straps, she strolled into the academy.
Imperial Star was the Imperial Capital's most famous elite academy. Many descendants of prominent figures and genius top students studied there, and both its entry requirements and its prestige were second to none.
Imperial Star had numerous divisions, offering everything from kindergarten to university. Its main selling point was covering a person's entire educational career.
The original owner's older brothers had studied at Imperial Star from the time they were babbling toddlers all the way through university.
Using the name on a book cover, Jiang Jinran successfully found her seat in the classroom.
She hadn't arrived particularly early.
Quite a few people were already scattered around the classroom.
Almost the instant they saw Jiang Jinran enter, the students stopped talking.
In silence, they all looked toward Jiang Jinran with casually mocking eyes.
Jiang Jinran could clearly sense it-
She didn't seem to be welcome here.
When she had first transmigrated into the novel, quite a few of the original owner's memories had flooded Jiang Jinran's mind.
She had memories, but not many.
Only a little more than what she had read in the novel.
Many memories of minor details had remained missing, such as where that six-pointed star badge had come from, or exactly what sort of presence the original owner had been at school...
An ostracized freak?
With the original owner's withdrawn, cold personality, she couldn't possibly have been popular, whether at home or at school.
Being ostracized didn't seem all that strange...
"The pest is here..."
"Careful, don't let her hear you, or she'll pull that bitter-melon face at you, haha..."
Those lowered voices reached Jiang Jinran's ears.
Well, well. She had guessed right.
She really was someone the whole class hated.
Jiang Jinran pressed her lips together, put down her schoolbag, and plopped into her seat-
Squish.
Jiang Jinran's expression froze.
Crap. She seemed to have burst something by sitting on it!
In an instant, thunderous laughter erupted throughout the classroom.
Some people were even doubled over with laughter.
Laughter and mockery surged into her ears. Jiang Jinran gritted her teeth-
Fuck!
I let my guard down. I think I've been pranked!
At that moment, Jiang Jinran faced a difficult choice-
Whether to stand up.
If she didn't stand up and look, she wouldn't know what she had burst by sitting on it.
But if she stood up, the liquid that had leaked out of the burst object had already stained her trousers...
Those little bastards would definitely mock her mercilessly.
That was exactly what they wanted.
A nasty, childish prank, yet she hadn't been on her guard and had fallen for it immediately.
Don't get angry.
Jiang Jinran tried hard to breathe deeply, calming herself as she teetered on the edge of exploding. Finally-
She stood up as though nothing had happened.
Around her, thunderous laughter battered her ears, growing even more exaggerated.
She turned to look at her chair-
It turned out to be a small, easily ruptured ball. After she had burst it by sitting on it, red paint had leaked out.
Who knew which little punk had secretly put it on her chair!
Without even looking, Jiang Jinran knew that her trousers must now be stained with a glaring patch of red.
"Hahahahaha!"
"The pest's butt has blossomed!"
The piercing laughter battered her eardrums without end.
Jiang Jinran finally understood why so many people online wanted to beat and kill bratty kids and chuuni teenagers...
At that moment, she felt the same way.
Logically speaking, her soul was the ripe old age of twenty-nine, after all. She shouldn't have been quibbling with a bunch of students.
But Jiang Jinran's guiding principle in life was-
Rather than torment herself mentally, she would go crazy and ram everyone else to death.
Mental self-torment? Not a chance.
If someone pissed her off, she would go crazy and show everyone her "wonderful" mental state.
She might have decided to lie flat, but that didn't mean she would swallow every insult!
Jiang Jinran grabbed the broken ball from her chair, turned to face everyone in the classroom, and hurled it hard onto the floor.
Red paint splattered everywhere.
The entire classroom instantly fell silent.
None of them had ever seen anything like this. Their eyes widened, their faces full of astonishment.
Jiang Jinran was a solitary monster who disliked talking.
That was what everyone believed.
They collectively treated her as invisible and deliberately mocked her loudly, yet she had never shown much reaction.
She was incredibly annoying.
Today, on a whim, they had wanted to try something different.
They hadn't expected-
That Jiang Jinran wouldn't remain unresponsive as she had before...
"Who did it?"
Jiang Jinran glared, her expression cold and stubborn.
The way she questioned them in that icy voice was actually more frightening than an angry teacher.
Silence answered her.
Naturally, no one stepped forward to admit it.
Jiang Jinran gave a dry chuckle. "You had the guts to do it, but not to own up?"
"Hurry up and tell me you're just visiting Imperial Star. I can't believe Imperial Star's future stars have this little decency..."
The students held their breath, seemingly cowed by this uncharacteristic side of Jiang Jinran.