Chapter 2: The Kick on the Playground
“Li Xiang! Open up, you!”
The pounding on the door was louder than a debt collector’s knock. Li Xiang pulled his face out of the pillow, fished his phone from the nightstand, and checked the time: 9:40 AM. It was only his third day in this body, and he still hadn’t counted how many digits were left in his bank account, but the trouble had found him on its own.
He shuffled downstairs in his slippers. His step-sister was standing in the living room, her school blazer hanging open. One hand was on her hip; the other was shoving her phone screen right into his nose.
“Look for yourself.”
The video showed the school track. A guy was face-down on the rubber surface, his backpack zipper blown open, exam papers scattered everywhere. The camera angle was tricky, capturing just the half-second where Li Xiang’s foot went up.
Li Xiang stared at it for three seconds. The plot of the Original Book popped into his head on its own—Chapter 12. The Villain Li Xiang beats up the Protagonist in front of everyone, the video blows up on the school forum that day, two thousand shares in three hours, and “Campus Bully” gets branded into his forehead.
How did the Villain in the Original Book handle this? He snatched the phone and smashed it, then shoved his step-sister. Next, his Step-mother called his dad crying, dad flew back overnight, and slapped his son into the hospital.
He remembered the end of this storyline perfectly: expulsion in Chapter 37, juvenile detention in Chapter 40, and after that, he became a background NPC, eventually taking a blade meant for the Protagonist in the last chapter and dying without a shred of dignity.
Li Xiang pushed the phone back. “You recorded this?”
“Why would I have to record it?” The step-sister plops onto the opposite sofa and crosses her legs immediately. “The whole class, thirty-plus eyes, watched it happen. Li Xiang, don’t think just because your dad has money you can walk all over us.”
“What do you want, then?”
The step-sister blinked. She was clearly prepared for a furious Li Xiang, not a Li Xiang sitting there asking what she wanted.
“Three things.” She held up three fingers. “First, apologize to him in front of the whole class at morning roll call tomorrow. Second, back out of the Physics Competition slot; it was supposed to be his anyway. Third—” she paused for half a beat, “—the apartment your mom left behind, add my mom’s name to the deed.”
Li Xiang laughed. Not from anger, but from the absurdity of it.
The Original Book spelled this out clearly: these three outrageous demands from the step-sister were designed to make the Villain snap. The moment the Villain snapped, he threw hands, and everything was finished. This girl wasn’t here to negotiate; she was here to fish for a reaction.
“Was that third one taught to you by your mom, or did you figure it out on your own?”
“None of your business.”
“If you dare bring up that third item in front of me,” Li Xiang leaned forward, “it means your mom spent the whole night blowing that in your ear. What else did she tell you? Isn’t it that if I push you once, she calls the police immediately, and when they arrive, Dad has to fly back? And once Dad’s back, your mom can leverage him with demands?”
The smug look on the step-sister’s face froze.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Li Xiang leaned back. “See? My guess is pretty accurate.”
“You—”
“Who am I?” He cut her off. “Let me tell you, this house was left by my biological mother. Only my name is on the deed. How many years has your mom been eyeing it? Do you even have a clue?”
The step-sister’s hand jerked back into her blazer pocket.
That movement was too familiar. The Original Book had written it—she had a Voice Recorder in her pocket, originally intended to record Li Xiang cursing at her so she could clip a segment and send it to the parents’ group chat. The book even included the detail that her hands shook twice when she stuffed it in.
Li Xiang didn’t move, just watched her.
“Take that thing out of your pocket.”
“What thing?”
“Do I have to spell it out?”
The step-sister’s hand clenched in her pocket. “Are you insane, Li Xiang?”
“Take it out, and we can still talk like civilized people,” Li Xiang said slowly. “If you don’t, I’m calling my dad right now. Tell him we have a break-in and something’s missing.”
“This is my home!”
“The deed says otherwise.”
That statement was flawless. In the Original Book’s setup, this house was bought by Li Xiang’s biological mother before marriage, with the son’s name on the title. The Step-mother had been eyeing it for the entire book and never got her hands on it.
The step-sister’s face flushed red. She fished the pen out of her pocket and slapped it onto the coffee table.
“Voice Recorder,” Li Xiang picked it up and checked. The red light was still on. “Oh, you’re recording. Are you trying to record an album for me?”
“None of your damn business!”
He pulled up the recording interface. There were already three clips on the storage card, named by date, the oldest from three days ago.
“Even a serial,” Li Xiang tapped the first one.
The recording was the step-sister’s own voice, sharp and clear: “...My mom said if he dares to touch me, this incident is settled. I’ve already looked into it. When the police arrive, they check who has injuries first. If he pushes me, they can even create an injury report...”
The step-sister went pale.
Li Xiang hit pause and set the pen back on the table.
“Listen,” he said. “If this gets out, which is bigger: me hitting someone, or you and your mom conspiring to frame me for money?”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Whether I dare doesn’t matter,” Li Xiang pushed the recorder toward her. “What matters is that I don’t need to do anything right now. Take it home, and we’ll pretend this never happened.”
The step-sister clutched the recorder, standing there, chest heaving.
“You’ve changed,” she said suddenly.
“Have I?”
“You’re not like this before.”
Li Xiang answered in his head: I certainly wasn’t. Before, I was just that unlucky guy who got written to death in the book.
“Fine, I’ll take it.” He said. “You done? If you’re done, close the door behind you. I haven’t even had breakfast.”
The step-sister didn’t move. She stared at him, then suddenly found some backbone. “Li Xiang, don’t get cocky. Lunch is at home tomorrow.”
“Who are we hosting?”
“You tell me who.”
The doorbell rang at that exact moment.
They both turned their heads. A face poked into the doorway from the entrance—white shirt, jeans, a canvas bag over one shoulder, holding a bag of fruit.
Li Xiang’s brain buzzed: The Female Lead.
Wait. In the Original Book, her first visit was in Chapter 23, coming to drop off notes for the step-sister. That time, she stood on the step-sister’s side, watched the Villain get kicked out, and even added, “You were right.”
The timing of this visit was eleven chapters early.
“How did you get in?” The step-sister spoke first.
“The door wasn’t locked.” The Female Lead dropped the fruit on the shoe cabinet and her eyes swept the living room. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Yes.” The step-sister said.
“No.” Li Xiang said.
The Female Lead smiled and held up her phone. “Before I say anything else—can I listen to that recording from earlier?”
The step-sister shrank back half a step.
“I was standing in the hallway for about two minutes.” The Female Lead flipped her phone screen around; the video timestamp was still ticking. “I started recording from the moment you slapped that table.”
The living room went silent.
“What do you mean?” The step-sister’s voice shook.
“I don’t mean anything.” The Female Lead pocketed her phone. “I just think trading a Voice Recorder for an apology, a competition slot, and half a house... if it were me, I couldn’t bring myself to make that trade.”
“This is our family’s business!”
“I know that’s what it is,” The Female Lead nodded, looking extremely serious. “So I just stood at the door. I didn’t come in.”
Li Xiang watched from the side, seeing it clearly. This was wrong. It didn’t match his memory at all. In the Original Book, this girl didn’t give the Villain a second glance. How come she was throwing jabs at the step-sister now?
“If you don’t keep that video?” The Female Lead suddenly turned to ask him.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Keeping that thing is like holding a gun to my own head,” Li Xiang flopped onto the sofa. “If I hold it, I have to watch my back. Watching my back is exhausting. Exhausting leads to mistakes. I hate trouble.”
The Female Lead looked at him for three seconds. “You’re a bit interesting.”
“I’m not interesting. I’m incredibly boring,” he waved his hand. “If you have no other business, take the fruit, the door’s that way.”
The step-sister used this opening to grab her bag and sprint out the door, then turned back at the threshold, gritting her teeth as she dropped a line: “Li Xiang, tomorrow at noon, family dinner. You must be there.”
“Who are we hosting?”
“You tell me who!” She glared at the Female Lead, then slammed the door.
As the door clicked shut, it was just the two of them in the living room.
“You can go too.” Li Xiang said.
“I washed the fruit.” The Female Lead didn’t leave. She took the bag into the kitchen; the faucet splashed.
Li Xiang sat on the sofa, his brain starting to do the math.
The day he transmigrated, two things appeared with him. One was the full plot of the Original Book, crystal clear, like he had memorized it. The other was that set of numbers in his head; occasionally they’d click, report a number, and then go silent. Clicking was useless, no powers, no hints. When it was quiet, it was like the battery was dead.
The only thing that really worked was memory.
In the Original Book, the Villain Li Xiang died just before the final chapter, and the death was nasty—taking a blade for the Protagonist. If he wanted to survive to the finale, he had to make sure he didn’t die early.
The current problem was: First, the step-sister’s three demands happened today in the book, but they were due tomorrow; Second, the Female Lead wasn’t supposed to be here today.
The third problem was the biggest—that “family dinner” line before the step-sister slammed the door. There was no such meal in the Original Book. The family banquet in the book was in Chapter 15, hosting the Protagonist’s father, and it didn’t match the step-sister’s wording at all.
A bowl was placed on the coffee table in front of him. The grapes were washed clean, still glistening with water droplets.
“You just now,” the Female Lead sat opposite him. “From start to finish, you never denied hitting someone.”
“I hit him.”
“So why not apologize?”
Li Xiang looked at her. “Does apologizing help?”
“If it doesn’t help, you don’t?”
“Apologizing helps when it can settle the matter,” he picked up a grape and spoke slowly. “In my case, an apology can’t settle it. It only confirms one thing: this guy is easy to push around.”
The Female Lead laughed again. When she laughed, her eyes curved downward, completely unrelated to the “cold and reserved” description in the Original Book.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing.” She stood up, slung her canvas bag over her shoulder. “My mom told me to drop something off. I did it. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at noon.”
“Pick me up for what?”
“The family dinner. Aren’t you going?”
“When did I say I was going?”
“You just asked ‘who are we hosting’.” She pulled open the door. “Asking means you want to go.”
The door closed softly.
Li Xiang sat in the living room, holding half a grape, turning that phrase over in his head twice.
Asking means you want to go?
He popped the grape in his mouth and got up to head upstairs. Halfway up the stairs, his feet stopped.
When the step-sister glared at the Female Lead just now, that look was off. It wasn’t hate. It was panic.
What was she panicking about?
A seventeen-or-eight-year-old girl barged in with a Voice Recorder, got her scheme exposed, felt humiliated sure, but there was no reason to panic.
Unless she knew something he didn’t.
Like who else was sitting at that dinner table tomorrow noon.
Li Xiang turned and went up, pushed open the study door, and booted up the computer. He remembered the Original Book mentioned that the Villain’s father’s company was having cash flow issues around this time, negotiating a partnership. If it went through, they’d give up some equity, which later became the Protagonist’s startup capital.
And that negotiation dinner? It was held at home.
He tapped his fingers on the desk twice, and suddenly it clicked. His back went cold.
In the Original Book, at that dinner, the Villain got drunk and cursed the Protagonist in front of everyone. That line was recorded and leaked, his reputation collapsed on the spot, and all the trouble that followed rolled up from there.
He grabbed his phone and texted the step-sister: “What time tomorrow.”
No reply.
“I’m asking what time.”
Still no reply.
Li Xiang stood in the middle of the study, hearing his own heartbeat. He’d had it too easy these three days, just thinking about dodging, forgetting that the nodes in the Original Book came knocking.
He sorted it out line by line: He couldn’t dodge tomorrow noon’s meal. If he couldn’t dodge it, he had to go. If he went, he had to sit. If he sat, he’d have to talk. If he talked, he might step on that one line.
The abacus in his head clicked, reported a number, then went silent again.
Li Xiang took a deep breath, sat down in the chair, and flipped his phone face-down on the desk.
Survive to the finale, huh?
Fine. Then tomorrow noon, he needed to figure out one thing first—whether the Protagonist would actually be there. And if he was, how could he keep his mouth shut from start to finish without saying a single wrong thing.