The first few weeks of school flew by fast. Bai Long Qiang was still his normal overprotective shadow, but I was getting used to ignoring him. I would have to admit, the fact that socially, school was a lot easier on me than I originally thought it would be was because he had taken me under his wing.
I am pretty sure that it is also thanks to him that the cheerleader, also known as Ye Mei Hui, had given me a wide berth, and I had all but forgotten her existence.
My days were nothing but classes, parents, and studying… but they were the most carefree days that I could remember.
"Oh my god! Have you read this web novel?" asked one of the girls sitting behind me. We were technically supposed to be in a free study period, but I didn't really see anyone but me actually using it for study.
"Yes!" hissed her friend. "I loved it!"
"I am a sucker for anything with transmigration or reincarnation… and add the real heir and fake heir, and I am all over it," admitted the first girl.
Transmigration? Reincarnation? The terms really didn't mean much to me, but I had a general idea what reincarnation was.
I had no time back in Canada to read anything for fun… hell, even watching TV was so low on my list of things to do that I couldn't remember the last time I had even turned it on.
But I was ahead in all of my assignments, and I did have some free time. Maybe I would start reading some books for fun.
Taking out my phone, I quickly typed in the word 'transmigration' and waited for the Google equivalent to figure out what these girls were talking about. Would I make more friends if I read what they read?
Did I need friends?
I looked down at my phone. It had taken a fraction of a second to let me know what it meant.
'Transmigration is the movement of a soul into another body after death.' The exact definition. Word. For. Word.
Is that what happened to me? Did I transmigrate?
I frantically continued to search through the web, trying to find more information. I almost wish there was something that could pop up and say: 'Congratulations, you have transmigrated!' With balloons and streamers exploding from the screen.
There was no way that was what happened to me. I was a woman of science. A doctor, for fucks sake. I didn't prescribe to religious beliefs or anything along those lines. I only believed in what I knew.
Fuck.
I was a soul that moved into another body when mine died. I was in a completely different world, in a different body, living a different life.
For fucks sake.
I transmigrated.
Not knowing what to do with that information, I turned off my phone and tossed it into my bag in disgust.
I was not an idiot, nor would I cut off my nose to spite my face. I had already accepted the fact that I was living in a parallel universe; only now, the process that I took to get here has been defined.
Done.
Over.
Back to studying.
"Are you okay?" asked Bai Long Qiang as he turned around in his chair to study me. He had decided that the best way to protect me was to sit in front of me. That way, anyone who was a threat would have to go through him to get to me.
His words, not mine.
"Fine," I said, taking in a deep breath. "I am… having trouble answering a question."
Okay, so I was lying through my teeth, but he didn't need to know that. I, in my infinite wisdom and lack of a life outside of school, have caught up with all the homework and assignments in my classes starting from the beginning of the year, and now I was moving on to those due next month.
"Anything I can help on?" he asked, cocking his head to the side.
"I am trying to remember the correct way to say 'tchequ'affaire,'" I muttered, trying to come up with something off the top of my head.
He looked at me blankly for a moment. "Bless you?"
"Ha, ha, very funny," I grumbled. My French to 'actual' French was still a work in progress. I had spent a summer up in Clare, Nova Scotia, trying to perfect my French when I was a kid. But instead of me learning Quebecois, I learned Acadian. Now, my brain had to translate backward.
I needed to take the sentence in Acadian, translate it into Quebecois, and then finally into European French.
But since 'tchequ'affaire' was one of my favorite things to say… I had completely forgotten what it was supposed to be.
Frig.
Now, with my brain trying to sort out the different levels of French, the whispering conversations about novels and books were pushed aside.
"Something!" I breathed a sigh of relief as the word popped into my head. "Tchequ'affaire means something to do… so that would be quelque chose a faire."
I sat back in my seat, happy that I had managed to come up with my own problem, stressed out over something I created, and now, everything was resolved.
"Sure," muttered Bai Long Qiang as he pulled his textbook around and placed it on my desk. "Want to help me with this?"
I looked at the math problem and blinked a few times. "I still maintain that the second the alphabet joins math, we have issues," I muttered. "I once heard a joke that said, "Dear Algebra, please stop asking me to look for your X, she left you, and I don't know Y."
Bai Long Qiang blinked a few times before he burst out laughing. Capturing the attention of everyone in the class, he simply waved his hand in front of him, trying to get himself under control.
"Don't ask," he said, still laughing.
For some reason, I felt incredibly proud that I could make him laugh that hard. Maybe I should use my time looking up jokes… on second thought…
I'm not a fungi.
Get it? I do jokes.