117: High Cold School Prince Forced Love 1

Lin Xi suddenly opened her eyes, and the dazzling white light made her instinctively raise her hand to shield them.

The rustling sound of chalk on the blackboard, and the buzzing of classmates whispering around her, reached her ears.

She blinked, finding herself sitting at her desk in a high school classroom, with a mathematics textbook open in front of her, still bearing a few unfinished practice problems.

"This… what's going on?" She looked down at her slender fingers, her nails neatly trimmed.

A chill ran up her spine; she remembered being twenty-five years old, and just now she was in a hospital...

"Lin Xi, please come up and solve this problem," the math teacher's voice pulled her back to reality.

Lin Xi stood up mechanically, her legs weak.

She had long forgotten how to solve the quadratic function problem on the blackboard, but when she stood in front of the blackboard, her fingers automatically wrote out the correct answer.

This was the type of problem Dr. Shen had repeatedly taught her; muscle memory was more honest than her brain.

After returning to her seat, Lin Xi finally confirmed it.

She had been reborn, returning to her second year of high school, back to when all the nightmares began.

When the bell for class break rang, Lin Xi rushed out of the classroom impatiently, heading straight for the restroom.

She stared at the youthful face in the mirror; her seventeen-year-old self had no fine lines around her eyes yet, but her gaze was no longer innocent.

She turned on the faucet, splashing cold water on her face, trying to calm herself down.

"In my previous life, this was when I started to fall under Dr. Shen's control..." Lin Xi bit her lower lip, memories flooding back like a tide.

Dr. Shen, the top Dr. Shen in their grade, a campus heartthrob, from a wealthy family.

In her previous life, he pursued her relentlessly; at first, she thought it was love, but later she realized it was just a pathological possessiveness.

He dictated her schedule, vetted every one of her friendships, and even installed tracking software on her phone.

After graduating from college, he used his family connections to interfere with her work, eventually imprisoning her in that luxurious villa.

She had endless money and resources to enjoy; at first, she enjoyed it, but later she realized she had forever lost her freedom.

That was the most desperate truth she discovered later; she didn't want to be controlled by this madman, so she ran away, only to fall from a building and end up in the hospital.

She was reborn the moment she opened her eyes.

"This time, I will never repeat the same mistakes," Lin Xi vowed to herself in the mirror.

When she returned to the classroom, she immediately saw Dr. Shen sitting by the window.

Sunlight streamed through the glass onto him, outlining his perfect profile.

He was looking down at a book, his long fingers turning the pages, exuding an aura of coldness that kept people at a distance.

Lin Xi took a deep breath and walked directly to her seat, which was right in front of Dr. Shen.

This was a position he had specially arranged to make it easier to "look after" her.

"Lin Xi," Dr. Shen called out to her without lifting his head, his voice deep, "Stay after school; I'll tutor you in math."

It wasn't a question; it was a command.

Lin Xi's fingertips trembled slightly; this was the beginning, exactly the same as in her previous life.

"No need, I have plans today," she tried to make her voice sound calm, then quickly sat down, her back ramrod straight.

The sound of turning pages came from behind her, with no response.

Lin Xi quietly breathed a sigh of relief; it seemed Dr. Shen didn't care about her refusal as much as she had imagined.

Throughout the morning, Lin Xi deliberately avoided any contact with Dr. Shen.

During breaks, she intentionally stayed with the lively girls in her class, laughing loudly.

To her surprise, Dr. Shen seemed completely oblivious to her unusual behavior; he was either reading or staring out the window, his gaze cold and detached.

At lunchtime, just as Lin Xi took out her bento, an exquisite lunchbox was placed on her desk.

Without even looking, she knew it was prepared by Dr. Shen—low-fat, high-protein, precisely calculated calories, and even the plating was meticulously arranged, exquisite and luxurious.

She had already enjoyed it in her previous life; now, she only wanted to stay away.

"Thank you, but I brought my own bento today," Lin Xi pushed the lunchbox back and opened her own simple lunchbox.

It contained only white rice and a few green vegetables, but she ate it with relish because it represented the taste of freedom.

Dr. Shen stood in front of her desk, gave her a faint glance, picked up the lunchbox, and turned to leave, his back as straight as a pine tree, showing no emotional fluctuations.

Lin Xi noticed that he didn't question or insist as he had in her previous life; he simply accepted her refusal indifferently.

In the first class of the afternoon, Class Monitor led an unfamiliar, beautiful girl into the classroom.

"Classmates, this is Wen Ci, a transfer student from Chengnan No. 1 High School. Let's welcome her."

The girl standing on the podium wore a neat school uniform, her shoulder-length black hair falling smoothly, and a warm, charming smile on her beautiful, radiant face.

She bowed slightly, gracefully and politely, her voice sweet, "Hello everyone, I'm Wen Ci. I hope to become friends with all of you."

Lin Xi took another look at Wen Ci, feeling a sense of unknown irritation in her heart; she didn't want to applaud at all, yet at that moment, she suddenly felt the air in the classroom seemed to freeze for a second.

She instinctively looked back and saw Dr. Shen, who had been looking down, now looking up at the podium, a strange light flashing in his dark eyes.

"Wen Ci, please sit in..." Class Monitor looked around the classroom, searching for an empty seat.

"Teacher, can I sit there?" Wen Ci pointed to the empty seat next to Dr. Shen in the last row of the classroom.

The entire class instantly fell silent, and several girls gasped.

Class Monitor hesitated, "There..."

"It's okay, I like quiet spots," Wen Ci had already started walking towards the back of the classroom.

Lin Xi couldn't help but look back, seeing Dr. Shen still looking up at her, his gaze almost abnormally focused.

When Wen Ci approached, he quickly lowered his head, but Lin Xi noticed his fingers clenching slightly, crinkling the corner of a book page.

Wen Ci sat down gracefully and said softly to Dr. Shen, "Hello, I'm Wen Ci."

Dr. Shen didn't look up, only nodding almost imperceptibly.

But Lin Xi noticed that the lines of his profile seemed to soften slightly, no longer as coldly chiseled.

When the class bell rang, several girls immediately gathered around Lin Xi.

"Oh my god, that transfer student actually dared to sit next to Dr. Shen!"

"I heard that last semester, a girl wanted to pursue Dr. Shen, and just touched his book, and she transferred the next day..."

"Lin Xi, aren't you on good terms with Dr. Shen? Should we warn that transfer student?"

Lin Xi looked towards the back of the classroom; Wen Ci was actively talking to Dr. Shen, and although Dr. Shen remained expressionless, his body was slightly turned towards her.

This scene inexplicably made Lin Xi feel a lump in her throat; in her previous life, at this time, Dr. Shen's entire attention would have been on her.