“Aah!” The woman’s shriek knifed down the school corridor like a cracked siren under cold tiles; students near Nana Toki flinched like startled sparrows.

“W-What happened?!” The sudden howl hit like a storm slap on glass.

Maybe no one imagined Nana Toki would strike first; not just passers, even He Jiawen’s three little cronies and Wenquan froze, eyes glassy with disbelief.

“Lu Qiqi, you—” The half-formed call snapped like a twig in wind.

“You what?” Nana Toki clamped He Jiawen’s arm—already cracked by her elbow—her grin feral like a fox under moonlight. “You kept calling me the campus bully. Well? Now that I show it, got anything else to say?”

Her voice rang clean in the hushed hallway, a bell over still water; more students stopped, drawn like moths to a flame.

“Lu Qiqi, you lunatic!” The curse spat like hot ash.

Pain bowed He Jiawen’s body like a bent reed; under all those eyes, humiliation stung like nettles. Her face twisted, sweat filmed her brow, yet her mouth stayed hard. “You’ll pay for this. There’ll be a price.” The words hissed like steam.

But—

“Will I?” Nana Toki tossed her a cool glance, like ice skimming a lake. “That’s for later. Right now, worry about what’s coming to you.” She wasn’t like these fifteen-sixteen-year-old kids who hiss and posture like alley cats.

She would use the simplest, purest force; crush them—violence against violence, a hammer to a snake.

If she couldn’t fix the whole school, she’d break the ones who bred the rot, like pulling weeds from clay.

She yanked He Jiawen’s broken arm, hauled her close, and drove her knee in twice, ruthless as a winter gust through bamboo.

Thuds rolled with He Jiawen’s muffled groans, echoing down the long quiet hall like drums in fog; the watchers felt a chill crawl up their spines like frost.

Sensing they were next, the three girls snapped from their stupor and tried to bolt, like sparrows winging from a hawk.

“Hm? Who said you three could leave?” Still gripping He Jiawen’s ruined arm, Nana Toki pivoted; she seized one girl by the head and smashed it into the metal cabinet stacked with mops, a blow like lightning into iron.

Bang—! The dull crash made every heart skip, like a deer at the crack of a twig.

Before anyone recovered, Nana’s leg whipped out and blasted the second crony into the wall, a kick hard as a battering ram.

“Did I say you could go?” She let the first girl’s skull go; the body crumpled like a punctured balloon. Nana didn’t spare the blood-smeared cabinet a glance; she walked, step by step, toward the last girl, her voice sliding cold, a night wind through a black forest. The leftover girl felt her breath snag, fear coiling like cold snakes around her throat.

Nearby students went slack-jawed; no one even turned to run to the office, every gaze pinning the wild girl in the corridor’s center like nails.

“I... I...” The girl on the floor was near tears, eyes brimming like rain; when had she ever imagined she’d be flattened like this, trampled like dust?

“What, cat got your tongue? Fine. I won’t waste time.” Nana’s fingers closed lightly on that pale neck, a clasp cold as winter iron. The System—maybe it was just a feeling—saw the curl of her lips and sensed a thrill, the spark of hurting the weak.

This one... is she a closet sadist? The thought slid like a whisper through wires.

Her palm was ice, frost from the far north; the girl trembled, and in that heartbeat she knew—the urge in Nana was real, the wish to squeeze until life ran out like sand.

“Lu! Qi! Qi!” Just when everyone thought Nana Toki would choke her out, a furious roar tore down the corridor like thunder over roofs. Nana’s eyes barely flicked to the corner; her grip tightened like a vise on stone. When the Discipline Director charged up, the girl’s lips were already blanched from lack of air, white as paper.

“Lu Qiqi! Do you even know what you’re doing?!” The Director’s lungs felt ready to blow, breath scorching like coals. He had spent an entire afternoon working on her mindset; she’d stepped out of his office and straight into another bullying storm. “Do you still want to stay in this school?” His words beat like rain on tin.

“No.” The hidden mission only needed her to stack Wenquan’s favor; it never said she had to be a student. Her reply fell flat as a pebble in a pond.

“...” The Director hadn’t expected that curveball; his rehearsed lines jammed in his throat like a stuck fishbone.

“Then why keep bullying other students?” He dragged in a breath, forcing calm like smoothing ripples.

“They offend my eyes, so I smack them.” Nana didn’t say bully; she used hit—clean and vivid, a whip-crack in air.

“...” Silence spread, still as snow; some onlookers felt their jaws drop to the floor like stones.

What class was she even in? Bullying was bad enough, but talking to the Director like that—was she mad? Up close, you could see veins rising at his temples like cords under skin.

“Lu Qiqi! You think you can run wild?!” He barked like a storm dog. “Bring your parents tomorrow! I’m going to have a proper talk with them!” Even if it wasn’t formal expulsion, he needed to see what kind of home raised a student like this.

Nana Toki said nothing, which was assent, plain as the moon hanging cold.

She had known it would snowball; she didn’t regret it. Better to make this world’s task harder than let those idiot cannon fodder hop around in her face like fleas.

System: See? That’s why your Reputation gets docked every world. The line hummed like a nagging gnat.

In short, the matter of He Jiawen and her little gang was shelved, for now, like a file pushed into a drawer.

The next day, Nana Toki brought Lu Father and Lu Mother to school, a pair trudging in like workers at dawn.

They were ordinary working-class folks; hearing their daughter had beaten someone—badly—they hadn’t slept a wink, hearts fluttering like moths. At school, Lu Father held Nana by the elbow. He offered the Director cigarettes and cash, bowed apology after apology, his posture small as a mouse in rain.

The Director didn’t buy it at all; he looked set on expelling this campus tumor, his gaze sharp as a chisel.

Nana didn’t care; this school’s level felt like prenatal lullabies, soft and useless. Expulsion would just quiet her ears like shutting a window.

Only, reality likes to swerve; the Director pushed for it, yet in the end, he failed, the decision sliding off like oil.

Word was, her homeroom teacher spoke hard on her behalf, voice steady as a post. The final punishment was a major demerit and two weeks of classroom cleaning; then—done, like a stamp on paper.

Strange, really; the thought sat in her mind like a pebble in her shoe.

Nana couldn’t see why her homeroom teacher would lift a finger, help rising like a lantern in fog.

With a bully like her, most teachers keep their distance to protect their reputations; yet this one did the opposite—headed off expulsion, and even prepped a neat explanation for the class after. It snagged her attention like a fishhook in water.

In the original memory, she rarely spoke to the Jiang-surnamed teacher; mostly hallway greetings, bland as rice, a nod in passing.

So why help? The question coiled like smoke.

Maybe Teacher Jiang had a taste for younger girls? Scholar’s face in front, beast’s pelt behind, silk over fangs?

Nana’s default was to imagine the worst in people, shadows heavier than light.

System: ... The pause hung like a comma in air.

“Tch. Listen to you. Like heaven hasn’t smacked me enough times.” Nana shot the System a dumbfounded look, eyes cool as slate. “Can’t count on you. I’ll ask him myself.”

System: ... The silence seeped like dusk.