Unable to resist the urge to twist the knife deeper, I tossed my hair back and speared her with a look of pure disdain. "If you really must know, I moved out last night. Into my own place."
Song Yangyao's eyes went wide as saucers, mouth working soundlessly like a gasping fish.*
"You...you what?" She finally managed to choke out, voice trembling with disbelieving outrage. "You moved out? To live with some...some boy, no doubt!"
A raucous peal of laughter burst from my lips as I shook my head at her accusations. "Getting a little ahead of yourself there, Sis," I chided in a tone dripping with condescension. "Unless you're calling dear old Daddy my sugar daddy now? Because that'd just be all kinds of fucked up incesty shit, even for a backwater dynasty like ours."
The confused murmurs swelled once again at my mention of incest and bringing our father into the sordid fray. Song Yangyao looked two seconds from spontaneously combusting from the force of her mortified fury.
Waving an airy hand, I continued before she could splutter a rebuttal. "Don't get your overcompensating extensions in a twist, buttmunch. Daddy was fully aware and gave me his blessing for a little independence. You can check with him yourself unless, y'know...you two have some freaky Oedipus complex shit going on behind closed doors that I really don't wanna unpack."
A few titters and outright hoots of laughter rang out from the crowd at my brazen insinuations. Song Yangyao just stood there, mouth working uselessly as her whole face went beet red. Her henchwomen didn't fare much better - frozen in looks of scandalized shock at my no-holds-barred needling.
"Look on the bright side," I continued in a tone of saccharine faux-sympathy. "Without me around disrupting the household with my regrettable hoochie ways, you'll have Daddy's undivided attention all to yourselves now. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to make up for all that lost...quality time with his precious remaining daughter."
That did it - the dam finally burst as Song Yangyao exploded into a shrieking fireball of incoherent rage. Apparently my salacious jibes about her and our father's relationship had proven a bridge too far for even her admittedly lacking sanity.
"You...vile, vulgar whore!" She howled, literally stamping her feet like a toddler in the throes of a tantrum as spittle flew from between her blueberry-colored lips. "How dare you sully our family's reputation with your baseless, degenerate filth?!"
"Oh honey, there's nothing base about this luxurious figure," I countered without missing a beat, running my hands shamelessly down the lush curves of my hips and thighs. "This is premium, top-shelf filth of the highest pedigree you're dealing with. No bargain basement baseless about it."
Song Yangyao looked fit to burst a gasket right then and there. Jiang Mengmeng and Lin Siyu were tugging frantically at her sleeves, eyes wild with panic as they tried reining in their rabid ringleader before she did something unforgivable. Not that I was particularly concerned - those two were all gums and no bite in a scrap.
Before the debacle could escalate any further, the ringing of the warning bell cut through the tension like a shotgun blast. Shooting one last look of supreme disdain at my sputtering sister, I turned on my heel and sashayed off towards the entrance with Wu Ling and Yang Lixia in tow.
As we left the gawking masses behind, the sound of raucous laughter finally bubbled free from Wu Ling's lips.
"Oh my god, Yanyan," she gasped between peals of hilarity. "Did you...did you seriously just accuse your own sister of getting dicked down by your dad back there? I can't breathe!"
I shrugged, completely unbothered by the look of faint horror still lingering on Yang Lixia's face as she gamely kept pace beside us.
"Please, that dusty old tornado bait's been gagging for Daddy's approval since we were in eighties."
Wu Ling collapsed into a fresh gale of hysterics, clutching my arm as we weaved our way down the corridor. Behind us, I could feel the weight of dozens of eyes tracking our passage - shamelessly drinking in every lurid, scandalous detail of the drama that had just unfolded.
And honestly? I was completely fucking here for it.
If these rich brats wanted to whisper and gawk, let them bask in the twisted debauchery of my cochina aura for now. They were about to learn real fast that this "trashy" hood rango they'd somehow transmigrated into their pristine halls wasn't going to play by any of their stuffy, inhibited little rules.
Nah, this was a whole new era where the crudest, crassest loudmouth instantly ascended to the throne as lead bitch in charge. And her name...was Amber.
The morning's dramatic hallway showdown quickly became a distant memory as Wu Ling, Yang Lixia and I settled into our usual seats for first period. I could still feel the weight of countless furtive stares tracking my every movement, but I paid them little mind. Let the rich punks gawk and whisper all they wanted - I'd just consider it my due payment for providing some much-needed freaky entertainment.
We were maybe ten minutes into the lecture when the classroom door opened, a hulking figure slouching through. It took me a second to place him, but when I did, a wicked grin split my face.
Well, well...if it isn't Zheng Mei's grossly overcompensating cousin - the one whose face I'd personally rearranged a few days back.
Zhao Ming caught my mocking stare and immediately bristled like a cornered mutt, shoulders hunching as he tried slinking to his desk unnoticed. No such luck, cagbling - everyone's eyes were glued to the awkward spectacle he was making of himself.
"Well, well, well..." I began in a tone of insincere welcome, not even trying to hide my taunting smirk. "Showing your punchable mug around school again so soon, Dumps? Didn't get your teeth solidly kicked in enough last time we danced?"
A ringing silence fell over the classroom as all eyes swivelled between Zhao Ming's blustering fury and my cool, unrepentant smirk. The poor bastard's face was roughly the shade of imported cabernet as he visibly fought to keep his composure.
"You...you foul-mouthed..." He sputtered, clenching his fists so hard I thought the knuckles might actually tear through his skin. "How dare you speak to me that way, you remone pig!"
Well now, he'd gone and stepped over the line calling me that kind of filth, hadn't he? A heavy stillness descended over the room, everyone seeming to hold their collective breath as they waited for my inevitable explosive retaliation.
But instead of blowing my top, I simply tossed my head back and unleashed a peal of full-bellied laughter sure to carry through the entire wing.
"Ohh, damn - struck a nerve there, did I, Sour Grapes?" I crowed between gasping guffaws, tears of mirth stinging the corners of my eyes. "But you gotta admit, the truth hurts sometimes. Especially when you're still sporting a recessed bowl-cut after your last involuntary face renovation, curtesy of yours fabulously."
The classroom erupted into a chorus of hastily muffled snorts and cackles at my brazen mockery. Even Yang Lixia was biting her dainty lip to keep her composure, twin spots of color burning high on her cheeks.
Zheng Ming looked fit to start frothing at the mouth, humiliated gaze swivelling wildly as he soaked in the fullness of his public degradation. We locked eyes again and I knew in that moment - so much more than mere childish bullying hung in the balance between us now.
This was about power. Dominance. Establishing myself as the undisputed queen bitch of this place, with the confidence and sheer ballsy bravado to back up all my incendiary bravado without flinching.
And Zhao Ming, for all his posturing bravado, had already lost before the battle even began. He could see the truth burning there in my eyes, searing down to the very marrow of his being.
I was no simpering, timid target to be cowed into silence and submission any longer. Every ounce of my very existence stood in direct, uncompromising defiance to the cowardly abuse these so-called paragons of high society so casually doled out against their perceived lessers.
No...I was the reckoning they'd unknowingly invoked upon themselves. A ferocious tempest of unrepentant feminine might, and I would not be satiated until every last alpha male urbilical had been permanently severed.
This was my world now. And in this world? The meek didn't just inherit the earth...they fucking owned it.
Seeing the fight drain out of Zhao Ming's defiant eyes was almost disappointingly anti-climatic. He wilted under the lash of my smoldering stare, turning away as shame washed over his features. The performance was over as quickly as it had begun.
I watched him slump into his assigned seat with a mixture of contemptuous pity and faint sense of deflated accomplishment.
One contemptible bully broken and put solidly back in his place. But the war was only just beginning...