Finally, under the shocked gazes of the others, Li Nanzhu suddenly bent over, grabbed that heavy, broken wooden stool with both hands, and swung it with all her might!
"Bang!"
The wooden stool slammed hard against the shoulder of the person closest to her! The person let out a scream and staggered back.
"I don't understand!" Chaos! Screams!
Li Nanzhu brandished the object in her hands, that eerie smile fixed on her face as she swung wildly without any technique.
Her strength was surprisingly great, and her eyes were fierce.
At first, the others tried to snatch the stool, but Li Nanzhu's completely reckless stance and the unchanging, uncanny smile on her face made their skin crawl.
The advantage of numbers was unexpectedly difficult to leverage in the cramped space against her frenzied attacks.
In the chaos, one person saw an opportunity and lunged from behind, pinning Li Nanzhu's waist. Two others took the chance to pounce; one grabbed the arm she was using to swing the stool, and the other went to snatch it.
The wooden stool was wrestled away and tossed aside, but Li Nanzhu didn't stop. The smile on her face didn't fade at all; instead, it twisted into something even more gruesome due to the struggle and anger. A strange sound, neither a cry nor a laugh, escaped her throat.
"This lunatic!" "Don't let her laugh!"
In the scramble, someone was trying to force her mouth shut.
The string in Li Nanzhu's mind called reason finally snapped with a sharp crack.
Li Nanzhu bit down hard, using every ounce of her strength as if she wanted to vent all the grievances, fears, despairs, and anger of these past days through this single bite!
It was as if she wanted to bite through some unseen shackles, to crush this suffocating world!
"Li Nanzhu! What are you doing?"
In a daze, she heard someone crying and shouting for her to let go, but she simply wouldn't. She could feel the reactions of the others and even hear the terrified screams of those further away.
The adult world is just that cruel, let alone the cultivation world. Fighting is merely a means of survival, a way to prevent others from walking all over you.
Her eyes, however, were a complete blank. There was no fear, only a hollow vacancy that bordered on numbness.
The person holding her waist was so terrified they let go and collapsed to the ground. Looking at the wound and the horrifying sight of Li Nanzhu, mouth covered in blood yet still "smiling," their stomach churned with nausea.
She slowly turned her head, using those bright but fearless eyes to look at the remaining two people who were already paralyzed with fear.
As if they had seen a ghost, those two screamed and scrambled away on all fours.
When the director arrived after hearing the commotion, what she saw was a hellish scene: one person lay on the ground moaning in pain, while Li Nanzhu, covered in blood, stood in the pool of red. She wore a smile so calm it was eerie, her empty eyes staring straight at her.
The director gasped, her face turning deathly pale. Her legs gave way, and she staggered back, only staying upright by death-gripping the arm of the caregiver beside her.
In all her years, she had seen fights before. She had seen heads broken and blood flowing, and she had seen the most unruly of children, but she had never seen anything like this...
It was... abnormal!
It was terrifying.
From that day on, Li Nanzhu's existence in the orphanage was thoroughly "erased" in the conventional sense.
The director didn't lock her in solitary, nor were there extra physical punishments—those standard disciplinary measures seemed to lose all meaning when faced with Li Nanzhu.
She was simply isolated by an invisible wall.
Whenever there was an occasion to "showcase" the orphanage—charity visits, donation ceremonies, tours for prospective adopters—Li Nanzhu would be pre-arranged to help in the most remote corner of the backyard, or she would simply be told to stay in her room and rest. The director didn't want her to be "too tired."
The director's story to the outside world was consistent: this child is withdrawn and fearful of strangers; she isn't fit for guests.
She couldn't allow this time bomb to appear at any event that might affect the orphanage's reputation or the "future" of the other children. She even tried to minimize her contact with the other children in daily life.
Li Nanzhu also had a new place to live—a room of her own.
Everyone, young and old, avoided her like the plague. They took long detours to bypass her, their eyes filled with genuine fear. No one dared to bully her anymore; even glancing at her required a surplus of courage.
Li Nanzhu's world was finally completely quiet, and completely... lonely.
But she still "didn't understand."
She didn't understand why her efforts to smile and behave in the "correct" way she had observed led to even worse consequences.
She didn't understand why biting was wrong when those people were the ones who started it, the ones who wouldn't let her "smile" first.
She just wanted to protect herself. She wanted to practice the "correct" expression that might lead her away from here. She wanted to leave, to be accepted like a "normal" person. She practiced her smiles and studied the "rules," so why did every attempt lead to a worse ending?
She understood even less why, from then on, even the way the director looked at her was like looking at a dangerous piece of trash that needed to be disposed of.
But there was one thing she vaguely "felt"—after that bloody conflict, she seemed a bit more "safe."
And that set of "rules" she thought she knew regarding "smiling" and "behavior"... didn't seem to apply here perfectly.
Or rather, she had misunderstood them and used them incorrectly.
But it was okay.
Sitting in that dim, cold storage room with only a single small window, she watched the sliver of light filtering through the crack. Every day, facing that broken mirror, she practiced that smile day after day, as if it were the only meaningful thing in her bleak life.
Sometimes while practicing, she would suddenly stop. Looking at the girl in the mirror whose lips could now turn up into a gentle curve while her eyes remained dead, she would tilt her head, showing a confused expression.
Then, she would carefully resume practicing that "standard" smile.
It was okay, she thought.
Everything would be fine once she left this place.
As long as she could leave, go to school, and meet more people to learn more "rules," she would surely be able to figure it out. She would know exactly what to do to live "normally," to have a... "home."
She couldn't remember where this conviction came from.
Maybe it was from some tattered storybook, or from some volunteer passing through, or maybe it was just a phantom she had grasped in her desperation.
At school, everyone went to "learn."
Learning had textbooks. It had answers.
As long as she studied hard and memorized all the answers, she could do it right. And if she did it right, then... what then?
She didn't know specifically what would happen, but it would surely be better than now. There had to be a place where this "standard" smile she practiced so bitterly could be put to use, where it would be recognized as "correct."
There surely would be.
Rate on N.U.
