Chapter 2 — I Shall Never Set Foot in Nam Thanh Again

As for Meng Xia, that pitiful little girl who always managed to look teary-eyed after I bullied her, yet still insisted on speaking up in my defense—well, in this lifetime, I would not be going along with that game. I did not even bother to waste my keystrokes hurling insults at her. I simply saved the photo she sent and replied: “Nice shot.”

Perhaps Meng Xia had not expected such a response. A long time passed before she sent back a single question mark. I ignored it, took a screenshot of the entire chat, and saved it for later. Once that was done, I stood up and walked into the living room. My father, Nguyen Chinh Hoa, was still awake. He sat on the sofa, spectacles perched on his nose, engrossed in a report on sports rehabilitation. Hearing my footsteps, he looked up.

“Have you finished submitting your university applications?”

I nodded. “Yes, I have.”

“Nam Thanh University, then?”

I shook my head. “No, the Kinh Thi University of Languages.”

The pen in my father’s hand froze mid-air. Silence settled over the living room. I expected him to ask if I had quarreled with Tan Tu Bach. Everyone knew that from the time I was small, I had always trailed behind Tan Tu Bach like a shadow. When he practiced sprinting, I stood by the track to offer him water. When his grades in humanities faltered, I compiled notes and tutored him. When his chronic leg injury flared up, I begged my father to conduct a rehabilitation assessment for him. Both of our families had long assumed I would head to the same city as him; Auntie Tan had even begun preparing for a celebration, saying that once the acceptance letter arrived, she would invite friends and family to share in the joy. Share in what joy? The joy of me wrapping up my entire life and serving it to the Tan household on a platter?

My father studied me for a long time. Finally, he asked, “Have you thought this through?”

“I have,” I replied.

He closed the report. “Then you go to Kinh Thi.”

A sharp sting rose in my throat. In my previous life, my father had asked me that same question. Back then, holding the acceptance screen for Nam Thanh University, I had laughed and said, “I’ve thought it through, Dad. I want to be by Tu Bach’s side.” My father had been silent for a long while, but he had respected my decision.

My life in Nam Thanh had been miserable. My father came to visit me once and found me huddled alone in a cramped, dark apartment, organizing training logs for Tan Tu Bach while the kitchen stove remained cold and the table was buried under freelance translation contracts. He didn’t scold me. He simply cooked me a bowl of noodles. He said, “Thanh Chi, I once believed that as long as you followed the person you loved, you wouldn’t suffer too much.” I had eaten those noodles with tears streaming down my face. Before I could even finish the bowl, Tan Tu Bach had called, demanding I bring an ankle brace to the gym for him. I had dropped my chopsticks and left immediately. That was one of the moments from my past life where I most wanted to reach back and slap myself awake.

Now, I looked at my father and said softly, “Dad, there is one more thing.”

“Hm?”

“The rehabilitation tracking chart for Tan Tu Bach, along with the referral assessment for the Nam Thanh Sports Academy you prepared—please, do not give them to him.”

My father looked genuinely stunned this time. Tan Tu Bach had suffered a partial tear of his posterior thigh muscle in the eleventh grade. His recovery hadn't been stellar, but because of his natural speed, the Nam Thanh Sports Academy had kept him on their radar. My father had once been a consultant for the provincial team; in my past life, it was he who had performed the comprehensive evaluation for Tan Tu Bach and designed his recovery program. It was only after seeing that report that the Academy had placed Tan Tu Bach on their priority watch list.

But what happened later? In an interview, Tan Tu Bach claimed it was Meng Xia who had spent her days recording his data and guiding his recovery step by step. Meng Xia had taken the plan my father poured his heart into and the companionship I had sacrificed my youth for, wearing them like a badge of honor to play the role of savior before the world.