When Yin Mei opened her eyes, it looked like she was inside some sort of room that she couldn't exactly name. The afternoon sun streamed in through the windows, illuminating the place, which almost seemed to sparkle.
It looked like a clubroom lounge for the rich and powerful, exceedingly elegant and noble like. She was sitting on a plush arm chair, in her hands a delicate tea cup that was filled with the most beautiful amber colored tea that she had ever seen, the aroma rich and pleasant.
It was both peaceful and luxurious.
There were a few people dressed in a white blazer school uniform with gold trim designs, either enjoying tea and snacks with others and chatting softly, or perhaps reading alone as they relaxed.
The memories of this body flowed through Yin Mei, and she checked the information as well.
This was a high school for the rich, wealthy, and talented, called Blue Cross Academy. And this room was the student council's private lounge room, where snacks were made by a Michelin star chef and butlers on call to serve the kids.
Yin Mei blinked with a blank face. She couldn't understand these filthy rich kids...
The body that Yin Mei was in, He Lanying, was the secretary of the student council and the daughter of an old noble family that had their hands in all sorts of businesses, though they primarily dabbled in politics and jewels. She came from very old money, and was highly respected among the students.
But it seemed that none of the bodies Yin Mei inhabited had a good fate, as He Lanying was another cannon fodder. Yin Mei absentmindedly wondered if she would ever get a body that had something other than a horrible bad ending waiting for it.
He Lanying had a crush on the male lead, Rong Sheng, and so when he got together with the female lead, Wen Hua, it immediately became a classic rich, arrogant young miss bullying the white lotus hard-working girl.
"How stupid," Yin Mei couldn't help but mutter under her breath, but she had to admit little kids bullying each other and fighting over a man was much better than anything else she had experienced before. Although, that also wasn't exactly true, as the methods that He Lanying had employed were way beyond the means of any average person - after all, she was the daughter of one of the richest families in the world. Hiring a few bodyguards or assassins to try and take care of a little girl was no big deal, especially since He Lanying's family wasn't exactly "clean".
It was just a pity that Wen Hua had the female lead halo, that would always bring either Rong Sheng or some other side male lead to her side in her times of peril.
In the end, He Lanying's family's corruption and dealings on the other side of the law were revealed by the Rong family, and she ended up on the streets with a mother and little brother to care for, while her father ended up in jail.
But how could a formerly rich and pampered young girl handle suddenly handle having to single handedly take care of the family? She ended up committing suicide only a few short months later.
She set down her now empty cup of tea, and a butler standing to the side immediately came up to refill it. She held her hand up to stop him. "Just take it away," she said in a cool voice.
The butler bowed slightly and picked up the teacup, whisking it away. Even though it was just butlers for some high school kids at a lounge room that wasn't even used during class times, the mannerisms and quality of these staff were all extremely high.
Yin Mei stood up, and immediately the few soft chatters of the other student council members fell silent.
"Will you be heading back to the student council room now?" A pleasant voice sounded out, and a mature and beautiful girl approached Yin Mei.
This was the student council treasurer, Liang Xiu. She was always gentle, kind, and polite, and exceptionally popular among the students, even though her family couldn't be considered particularly standout in this school of rich kids. It was slightly different from He Lanying, who was mostly only popular due to her family, though there were some people that were into her whole "ice queen" personality.
She was an ice queen, but lost all logic and bearings when it came to the male lead.
Yin Mei actually felt that these storylines were a little too stupid, right?
"Yes, I am," Yin Mei replied, her voice cool. He Lanying was almost exactly opposite of the kind and warm Liang Xiu, and had a strict and dignified bearing. She had been schooled in mannerisms from a young age, and each movement of hers was as if it was calculated, both precise yet filled with an inborn elegance.
It was almost contradictory, but in He Lanying, it came together to form an odd harmony.
"Then how about we walk together?" Liang Xiu suggested, with a practiced smile on her face.
If He Lanying's actions could all be considered calculated, then so could Liang Xiu's. In reality, Liang Xiu wasn't actually a very nice person. At this school, it would be hard to find someone who was actually nice without a goal, almost like those in the apocalypse, as they all came from rich families and had received special schooling from young. The kids here were already establishing connections - not making friends. Liang Xiu's family couldn't be considered particularly impressive among all the other family's that gathered here, and so she could only rely on a gentle and pretty appearance and personality to garner favor.
She was especially interested in making friends with this supposed ice queen, the eldest child of the prestigious He family. If she was on good terms with her, then she would only benefit from that relationship.
Yin Mei nodded, much to Liang Xiu's surprise. Though she had been trying to make a good impression on He Lanying for a while now, she had never really reacted much and never agreed to any of her invitations. Although it was just walking together to the nearby student council room, it was enough to make Liang Xiu feel extremely happy and excited. Perhaps her hard work was finally revealing its results.
Yin Mei didn't really care about that stuff, and didn't know what sort of complicated thoughts were going through the minds of these kids. In this world, she simply had no desire to think, and just wanted to relax while she could. The two of them walked quietly through the hall, not a word between them. Liang Xiu would occasionally warmly greet the students who passed by, while Yin Mei remained stiff and cold faced throughout the whole ordeal. Liang Xiu wasn't too concerned though, as this stoic and emotionless expression was He Lanying's normal expression.
The student council room was a clean and elegant meeting room with a large desk at the end, and other desks at the sides, making a U-shape that opened up at the door. Already inside was a beautiful looking man that had a familiar appearance. He had a gentle appearance, with drooping eyes the pale blue color of the sky, a small mole underneath his left eye, and soft, light brown hair that almost seemed to be asking to be touched.
Yin Mei blinked. She felt that he looked a little similar to the demon king and zombie emperor. For some reason, recalling this made her heart hurt, but she didn't know why.
She soon regained her bearings. Although he may look a little like those two, his aura was completely different. It didn't have the overbearing and lazy look that the other two had, but instead was like the warm and gentle spring sun.
This was the vice-president of the student council, Yao Heyan. Among the students, his popularity lost only to the student council president's. Perhaps it was because young girls like the bad boy emperor type more than the nice guy type.
Yin Mei personally had an immediate aversion toward Rong Sheng, so she personally preferred Yao Heyan. It wasn't because he looked kinda like the demon king and zombie emperor.
Well, Yao Heyan's personality wasn't really anything good either.
After all, he was this story's villain!
In other words, that gentle appearance, those soft words and warm voice... they were all fake as hell. He was secretly a sadistic yandere that had done all sorts of XX and OO things to the female lead all in the name of love.
Yin Mei expressionlessly greeted the vice-president in a polite and distant tone of voice, to which he responded warmly. "You two are already here? You're both always so diligent," he said with a smile.
Liang Xiu also replied kindly, and the two began chatting away in a very friendly manner as Yin Mei sat down at He Lanying's desk, taking out the work that she had to do. Yin Mei herself didn't really like paperwork, and nor was she particularly skilled at it, but she had gained an ungodly amount of patience after experiencing 500 years of imprisonment, and also had all the knowledge that she needed in He Lanying's head. So she efficiently went through and completed all the paperwork that she needed to very diligently, completely ignoring the existence of the other two in the room, who had finished talking to each other and were also now each attending to their respective duties.
Yin Mei had transmigrated in at the time when the female lead had just entered the student council under the invitation of the president. It was only a few months after the beginning of the new year, and she was a first year student, while both the president, vice-president, and He Lanying were in their second years.
Thankfully, He Lanying had yet to do anything to Wen Hua, though she had displayed some obvious dissatisfaction toward her on some occasions, resulting in her currently being bullied by a few kids who wanted to get He Lanying's favor.
Yin Mei didn't really have any interest in this scholarship student that was so stupid despite ranking top in all the tests and had a man saving her all the time.
She was only concerned with her own free time. Of course, she planned on completing whatever mission the system gave her, but to her, this world was her vacation - her holiday break. She was going to do this as leisurely as possible.
As the three of them worked quietly, several more of the student council members began to filter in. Wen Hua was the first one to come in after them. She had an appearance reminiscent of that of a small animal, looking very cute with her small face and big eyes. It was an appearance that made one desire to protect her, but Yin Mei didn't have such feelings.
People should be able to protect themselves.
She didn't need anyone's protection. Not anymore. She wouldn't let anyone protect her, this time.
She paused, wondering why she had thought "this time", blanking out a little, though her hands continued to move robotically to complete her work.
It was only when the male lead walked in that Yin Mei's attention refocused. Rong Sheng had a handsome face with raven black hair and the typical domineering aura that came from being a protagonist and heir to a major corporation.
He was the very last one into the student council room, as he always was. Yin Mei didn't even know what he came here for, when he didn't even do anything.
Whenever He Lanying had gone over to discuss something with him or hand him papers for him to approve, he had always been looking at other things on his computer, like the state of the stock market, or emails from the employees of his family's company. In other words, he had been taking care of personal business.
Well, after thinking about it, it didn't matter that much to Yin Mei anyways. The true boss of the student council had always been the vice-president, who took care of almost everything. The president was only there to approve proposals or something along those lines.
Yin Mei, from her position close to the president, could see that Wen Hua had been shooting the man looks since the moment he entered. She didn't think that there was any real thing going on between them yet, with the president only interested in her talent right now.
She briefly checked the mission, so that she could know if she would need to interfere in their little love story to complete it. She was in no hurry, but she also couldn't fail the mission.
"Main mission: Marry Yao Heyan."
"..." She felt that the system was getting more and more glitchy these days. She coldly set down her pen, opening up the student council QQ group on her desk computer. They also had a WeChat group, but their WeChat group was mostly used for socializing, while the QQ group was for business and discussing their work and student council duties.
(A/N: QQ and WeChat are both extremely popular and well known Chinese messaging/social media, QQ is for computer only, while WeChat was designed for the phone)
She sent a few files pertaining to the upcoming culture festival, and then browsed the internet for a little bit, doing some research and calculations. Though Yin Mei herself was tempted to play around and relax, she felt like she was affected a little by He Lanying's dutiful personality that refused to slack off. Just as she was about to close her window and power down the computer to finish for the day, she received an instant message alert for Yao Heyan.
She opened it up and saw that he was asking a few questions about the files that she had sent earlier.
"Why don't you just ask in person?" She typed out, feeling a little odd. They were only a few feet away, but he insisted on sending her a chat message instead?
She looked up and saw him glance toward her as well. He turned back to his own computer screen and typed something, another alert appearing on her chat message window
"I didn't want to bother anyone, since they all seemed so busy and diligent." Yao Heyan said, and Yin Mei glanced around briefly. Everyone was hard at work, and there was little chatting going on. The culture festival was coming up soon, so the student council was extremely busy. None of them needed to ask questions either, as they had all been together since middle school and some of them since elementary school as well.
Blue Cross Academy was an escalator school, and most of the time, those who were student council members in elementary would remain student council members up until high school, unless extreme circumstances prevented them from doing so.
That's why they could all quietly work together like this for long periods of time, almost like a well oiled machine.
The only one that stood out was... Wen Hua. She was like a wrench that had suddenly been thrown into their well oiled machine, completely destroying the harmony that the student council previously had. In the storyline, because of Wen Hua, several members in the student council had quit and the rest had begun taking different sides. She had almost completely split apart the student council with her arrival.
But, it had yet to get to that point. Currently, there were only a few people showing dissatisfaction toward her. The main reason was the fact that the members of the student council were all very elitist and the organization itself tended to be quite exclusive. To have a clumsy outsider that understood nothing of the school rules and traditions barge in upon them was offensive in their eyes.
He Lanying was included among those that thought that way.
The current Yin Mei didn't care, as long as she didn't do anything drastic.
Yin Mei turned her attention back to her computer screen, and proceeded to answer any questions that Yao Heyan had, her answers succinct and to the point.
After that, she noticed that the other members were all preparing to leave, as the day was almost over. Many of them began saying goodbye to each other politely, to which Yin Mei only briefly nodded at a few that she noticed. Since she herself still had some work left over, she stayed to continue working, and before she knew it, only her and Yao Heyan were left in the room.
The setting sun washed the room in a thin veil of golden-orange, as the two quietly sat, only the sound of typing or the scratching of a pen on paper could be heard.
For the first time in a long time, Yin Mei felt truly relaxed. She felt comforted that that person was by her side, despite the current distance between them.
(A/N: Because I really want to write something peaceful and not too overly filled with death, blood, and tension, that's what this world will be. Of there's going to be some drama, but not on the level of me killing everyone.
Let's teach pronunciation! The He in He Lanying and Yao Heyan's names are not pronounced with a long e sound, but instead a short e sound. For Yao Heyan's name, it's the character for lotus, and for He Lanying, it's the character for river.
The two novels I used for reference: Dominion's End and Quickly Wear the Face of a Devil. I recommend both. But the second one is BL/yaoi/danmei, to anyone who isn't comfortable with that genre.)