Boom!
Accompanied by the thunderclap, the sky lit up with two flashes of lightning before the downpour began, covering the sky and earth.
As the bell rang for the end of school, students whooshed out of the classrooms and into the corridors, lamenting the heavy rain outside.
"Song Jiawen, did you even take to heart what I said? After school today, go to your uncle's house, don't go back to yours."
Jiang Yan didn't care about the rain outside; he simply extended his finger to poke the back of the girl sitting in front of him.
Everyone else had run off, leaving just the two of them in that area.
The girl didn't respond to him, her elegant eyebrows and eyes looking cold and clear, her pale and slender fingers clutching a pencil and deliberately sketching on a piece of white paper.
She was drawing a house that looked somewhat ethereal and blurry, yet also a bit quaint.
Jiang Yan leaned forward to take a peek and noticed that she was drawing a house again, something she seemed to do often these days.
She had considerable talent and creativity in drawing, even better than those art students who majored in art at school. No, even the art teacher would come every so often to discuss techniques or seek advice from her.
If it weren't for the fear of being 'killed' by the principal and other subject teachers, the art teacher would have pushed her down the art path, no matter what.
Jiang Yan couldn't help but feel impressed; she was truly a future master in the art world, easily getting the gist of specialized lessons and outdoing her teachers, leaving them in the dust.
But now the master was in trouble, and he had to help her out; otherwise, how could he ride on her coattails in the future?
Jiang Yan moved closer to persuade her, "You don't really think that when your sister comes back, she'll take your side, do you? Don't be naive. If she really cared about you, why would she..."
"Jiang Yan!" Song Jiawen finally spoke up, cutting him off coldly, and threw him a warning glare.
Her sister was especially good to her—at least, that's how it appeared to outsiders.
So Jiang Yan thought she couldn't bear to hear even a single bad word about her sister.
Jiang Yan let out a "huh" and chuckled disdainfully, "Fine, don't believe me then. Go back to your house if you want, and see if your aunt really brings her in-laws' nephew over for a matchmaking visit tomorrow, and whether your sister will stand by you?"
Song Jiawen's aunt, who married into a family in the local county town, had a husband whose elder brother was the director of the county people's hospital. Last month, her aunt brought her child and the nephew from her husband's side to visit her maternal home, and this twenty-two-year-old nephew caught a glimpse of Song Jiawen and was struck by her beauty.
After returning, he pestered his parents to marry Song Jiawen.
Usually, no matter how beautiful a girl from the countryside was, his parents would not even consider her. However, Song Jiawen was no ordinary girl. In her second year of junior high, she skipped a grade to take the senior high school entrance exam and scored first in the entire county.
Her aunt took pride in this achievement, boasted about it to her in-laws, and even planned to have Song Jiawen live with her when she went to the county high school to study.
But unexpectedly, Song Jiawen chose not to go to the county high school, instead staying at Jianghai Middle School in the town.
This made the principal and teachers of Jianghai Middle School ecstatic.
But it annoyed her aunt, who thought Song Jiawen was short-sighted and lacked vision. She had paved the way for her, yet Song Jiawen did not cooperate!
Consequently, when her brother-in-law, the director, proposed that Song Jiawen get engaged to his son and thereafter arrange for her to attend the health school in the county, her aunt agreed without hesitation.
Yes, go to health school, but forgo the college entrance examination.
The director was well aware that his son was neither capable nor intelligent enough. If Song Jiawen were to take the college entrance exam, with her grades, she would surely get into a top university.
If she left, what would become of his son?
Therefore, if his son wanted to marry Song Jiawen, the first step was to clip her wings and prevent her from taking the college entrance exam.
Then arrange for her to study at the health school in the county, so that after graduation, she could work as a nurse in their hospital. In this way, they'd have her under their control, unlikely to cause any real trouble.
What he coveted was Song Jiawen's intellect, such a bright girl would surely bear exceptional offspring.
If his son was inadequate, he intended to nurture his grandson.
Thus, taking advantage of the four months remaining until the college entrance examination, his entire family mobilized to visit the Song Family to propose a match.
Jiang Yan remembered clearly, at this time in his last life, which was tomorrow, the entire Song Family had agreed to betroth Song Jiawen to the dean's son and had her give up the college entrance examination!
In the vast courtyard, there was only the girl, alone and unsupported, resolutely standing her ground and refusing to back down.
What was the final resolution?
The dean's brazen son dared to follow Song Jiawen into her room when she returned, and then found himself thrown out by her, followed by her smashing a brick against his head and body repeatedly...
The incident caused a huge commotion. Jiang Yan remembered when he arrived upon hearing the noise, he saw the blood-covered girl with her face swollen on one side, her burning red eyes fixed on the Song family and the dean's family, word by word she declared, "It's worth a life for a life, come on!"
In her eyes and on her face was a look of unprecedented despair and ferocity!
With things having reached such a stage, the marital arrangement naturally fell apart. However, the dean was not willing to let Song Jiawen off. How could he let her go unpunished after beating his son so severely?
He immediately dialed the Yunfeng County police department, and before long, Song Jiawen was arrested by the police on the charges of intentional injury and attempted murder.
After she was taken away, the Song Family members all cursed her as a lunatic, a madwoman, deserving of capture, and saying it would be best if she were executed by firing squad.
The Song family matriarch was particularly harsh on Song Jiawen's parents, ordering them not to intervene, to leave her to her fate, whether that meant prison or whatever else. After all, at this point, it was a situation of her own making.
Later, it was her uncle who, after hearing the news, managed to pull some strings; it turned out her grandmother's family was an influential one in Yunzhou City, and after her grandmother sought help from her own family, with many twists and turns, Song Jiawen was finally extracted from the Yunfeng County police custody.
Though she still finished the college examination and attended university, the event drastically changed her, casting a deeper shadow over her persona.
After high school, she left Jianghai Town, and Jiang Yan never saw her again.
Later, he occasionally heard from his grandmother that Song Jiawen had become a renowned painter, invited overseas for art exhibitions, described as incredibly talented and wealthy!
As for the innuendos from his grandmother that not a single girl could earn money, he purposefully ignored them.
Not long after that, he heard that Song Jiawen had been recognized by her biological parents and taken back by them. She wasn't really born into the Song family; she had been found by her sister at the age of three. But this "finding" wasn't ordinary; it seemed to involve some hidden circumstance.
Her sister, Song Xiran, was even taken away for an investigation because of this...
After that, Jiang Yan could only stay updated about her through the internet. It was said that her paintings were so sought after that they were described as exceedingly rare.
.....
This was a quick passing thunderstorm, coming swiftly and departing just as quickly, lasting not even ten minutes before the torrential downpour turned into a light drizzle.
The students of the class began leaving one by one; they hadn't had a day off in a month, and the boarders, with their bags already packed, were eager to get home, cherishing the rare two-day break that the school had granted to them—for a senior high school student, it was invaluable.
Thus, greetings were quickly exchanged, and they hurriedly departed, all except for the two people sitting motionless by the window.
"Jiajia, my mom brought two umbrellas. This one is for you. Be careful on your way home, I'm leaving now."
Yang Dan, Song Jiawen's deskmate, came back after leaving, handed her an umbrella through the window, and then scurried off in a rush.
Soon, only the two of them remained in the classroom.
"Have you decided? Where will you go?"
Jiang Yan twirled his pen with feigned indifference. Knowing in advance how things would unfold, even if Song Jiawen had to return to the Song family today or tomorrow, he had already planned a solution. He simply couldn't allow her to endure the same harrowing cost as in his previous life for the sake of the college entrance examination and severing ties with the Song Family!