After the last incident, William and the others finally understood one thing clearly.
In the County of Hainaut, the scariest people weren't rival gangs.
It was the traffic police.
So this time, they behaved.
The van wasn't overloaded anymore. Only seven people squeezed inside, while the rest took cheap electric tricycles and rattled their way to the entrance of Bakerwood Institutions, looking like a suspicious group outing.
When Rachel walked through the school gate, she glanced back and immediately caught the lost look in their eyes.
Like a pack of wolves being dragged into a zoo.
She stopped. "Have you found a place to stay?"
William shook his head.
Martin scratched his head, embarrassed.
They had sworn loyalty, but nobody had considered the boring details like food, shelter, and how to survive with a few hundred euros.
Rachel sighed, then pointed down the street.
"After the traffic lights, there's a night market on Trafalgar Road. There's also a food street at Trafalgar Square. Go look around."
Martin's eyes lit up.
"Miss, do you want us to collect protection fees?" he asked excitedly.
Rachel's expression froze.
Then she stared at him like she was looking at a hopeless medical case.
"Martin," she said slowly, "do you remember what I told you yesterday?"
Martin blinked. "What?"
Rachel pointed at the school sign.
"Knowledge changes destiny."
Martin's face brightened with sudden enlightenment.
"Oh! Miss, you mean… we should be polite when collecting protection fees?"
Rachel: "..."
She decided to stop wasting oxygen.
Instead, she turned to William.
"William," she said, voice firm, "I don't care what you did before, but from now on, you listen to me. Can you control them?"
William nodded immediately.
"Yes, Miss."
"Good," Rachel said. "Go ask around those markets. Find out seafood prices, especially lobster. When you have a clear number, come back and report."
William's gaze sharpened.
"Yes, Miss."
The others followed suit.
"Yes!"
Only Martin still looked confused, as if lobster was a code word for murder.
Rachel ignored them and went straight to the dorm.
She had barely put her luggage away when three girls blocked the dormitory door.
The one in front was Emma Scarlet.
Heavy eyeliner, sharp voice, and the arrogant posture of someone who had never met consequences.
Emma stretched out her hand. "Give it to me."
Rachel looked at her calmly. "Give what?"
Emma sneered. "You went home today. You brought money, right? Hand it over, or do you want to get beaten up?"
This school was a so-called key school, but it had ten thousand students, and the bigger the crowd, the uglier the corners. Emma wasn't smart enough to get in by merit, but she had been here since junior high and had family connections.
So she stayed.
And she bullied whoever she wanted.
Rachel was the perfect target: countryside background, quiet personality, and poor enough to never fight back properly.
In her first life, Emma had squeezed her living expenses month after month until she went hungry more often than she ate.
But this time…
Rachel didn't flinch.
She didn't beg.
She didn't argue.
Instead, she simply lifted her arms slightly.
"The money is on me," she said. "Take it yourself."
Emma froze for a second.
Then she smirked. "Finally learned."
She stepped forward and searched Rachel's pockets openly, like she was checking her own belongings, and quickly pulled out two hundred euros from the uniform.
Emma waved the bills.
"Hmph. Smart girl."
Then she left with her two friends, laughing.
When the dorm went quiet again, Rachel touched her empty pocket and sighed.
Two hundred euros.
Gone.
Dinner too.
But she didn't look upset.
She climbed to her bunk bed, pulled out a cheap phone, and checked the recording.
Perfect.
Emma's face.
Her voice.
Her threats.
Her hands.
The money being taken.
All captured clearly.
Rachel calmly stopped the video and put the phone away.
Then she sat on the bed and smiled faintly.
Two hundred euros wasn't enough to destroy Emma.
But it was enough to start building a file.
That night, Rachel went to evening self-study on an empty stomach, forcing herself to focus even while her head felt light. The questions on the page looked unfamiliar, and she realized bitterly that rebirth didn't magically restore memory.
In her previous life, she had memorized legal codes, not high school formulas.
Still…
One month.
She could manage.
At 10:30 p.m., the bell rang.
Students poured out like exhausted ghosts, dragging themselves back to the dorms.
Rachel didn't follow them.
She walked straight to the school gate.
William was already there, waiting under the streetlight.
Martin and the others stood nearby, shifting nervously like guards without a palace.
And in William's hands was a plate of fried rice.
Warm.
Greasy.
Heavenly.
Rachel accepted it without pretending.
She ate quickly, her stomach finally calming down.
William reported while she ate. "We checked. Seafood is expensive. Lobster prices vary, but the supply chain connects to wholesalers. If you want numbers, we can get you exact ones."
Rachel nodded, absorbing everything.
When she finished, she wiped her mouth, pulled out the phone, and handed it to William.
"Buy a USB drive," she said. "Go to an internet café. Copy the video onto it. Keep the original too."
William accepted it instantly.
"Yes, Miss."
Rachel's eyes narrowed slightly.
"After you're done," she continued, "come see me tomorrow."
Martin blinked. "Tomorrow? For what?"
Rachel looked toward the dark road outside the school, her voice calm.
"I'm taking you to the countryside."
The group froze.
Even William's eyes flickered.
Martin swallowed. "The countryside… why?"
Rachel smiled faintly, but it wasn't warmth.
It was a calculation.
"Because if you people insist on following me," she said softly, "then I need to know what kind of foundation I'm standing on."
Then she turned around and walked back into the school, her steps steady.
Her pocket was empty.
Her stomach had only just been filled.
Her enemies were inside the dormitory.
Her subordinates were outside the gate.
And her rebirth, which was supposed to be peaceful…
Had officially turned into a war plan.
*
After two morning classes, the loudspeaker finally crackled to life, spitting out the familiar yet irritating announcement for morning exercises, and Rachel, dressed in her stiff school uniform, followed the flow of students out of the classroom like a fish swimming downstream.
The playground was packed.
So packed that from a distance, it looked like the entire school had been poured into one container, students standing shoulder-to-shoulder in neat rows, heads bobbing slightly as they adjusted their positions.
Rachel stood in the crowd and suddenly felt something strange.
Even though almost everyone around her was a stranger, they all looked like people she knew.
Not because she recognized their faces, but because the fashion was so painfully uniform that it gave her a ridiculous sense of déjà vu.
The girls had thick, straight bangs like curtains.
The boys had long side-swept bangs, hair almost covering their eyes, as if hiding their grades would make them higher.
Even Rachel herself had bangs and a ponytail tied low, looking like she had been stamped out of the same factory.
If she wasn't sure she could recognize faces, she would've thought the whole county had only three hairstyles.
Then the music started.
"The third set of national high school broadcast gymnastics…"
Rachel's body stiffened.
Her mind went blank.
She had completely forgotten the movements.
She tried to follow the rhythm anyway, lifting her arms a beat late, stepping half a beat wrong, and quickly realized she wasn't the only one.
Half the students looked like zombies doing a ritual.
No emotion.
No soul.
Just limbs moving because they had been ordered to.
But there were always exceptions.
During a break in the routine, a hand suddenly reached out and yanked the hair of the girl standing in front.
A foot kicked her calf.
The girl stumbled forward and almost fell.
She bit her lip and lowered her head, refusing to make a sound even as tears gathered in her eyes.
Her name was Lena Cooper.
Like Rachel, she came from the countryside, grew up with her grandmother, had no support, no confidence, and the kind of quiet personality that made bullies smell blood from ten meters away.
And just like Rachel, she was one of Emma's favorite toys.
Emma stood behind them, expression bored, using bullying as entertainment to pass time between boring movements.
Today, she hadn't bothered Rachel much.
Maybe because Rachel had been too obedient yesterday.
Maybe because she hadn't found a reason yet.
But Lena wasn't as lucky.
When the morning exercise finally ended, students began loosening their lines, ready to return to class, and Emma immediately pulled out a piece of red chalk as if she were holding a weapon.
Lena's eyes widened.
She tried to step back, but Emma's two lackeys blocked her like walls.
Emma leaned closer, smiling.
"Don't move," she whispered. "Or I'll beat you until you can't sit for class."
Lena froze.
Her lips trembled.
Then she shut her eyes.
The chalk touched her face.
One line.
Then another.
Emma giggled as she drew, her friends laughing as if this was the funniest thing in the world.
They weren't drawing random lines.
They were drawing a turtle.
On her face.
Lena's tears finally fell, silent and humiliating, sliding down her cheeks as she stood there like a statue, letting them ruin her.
Rachel stood nearby, expression calm.
Her hand was in her pocket.
And her spare phone was recording everything.
She didn't step in.
Not because she didn't want to.
But because she knew what would happen next.
And sure enough, a voice cut through the laughter.
"What are you doing?"
A boy stepped forward.
Andrew Russel.
Clean uniform, neat hair, the type of student who actually looked like he belonged in a classroom instead of a police station.
The moment Emma saw him, her expression changed instantly.
She hid the chalk behind her back like a thief hiding stolen goods.
"N-Nothing," she said quickly, forcing a smile. "We're just playing."
Then she turned her head sharply and stared at Lena.
"Lena, right?" Emma's voice turned cold. "We're just playing, aren't we?"
Lena's body trembled.
She was terrified.
Terrified of what Emma would do after Andrew left.
So she nodded quickly, voice shaking.
"Yes… Emma was just playing."
Andrew's gaze swept over Lena's chalk-covered face.
His expression darkened.
But instead of arguing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper shaped into a heart.
Then he tossed it casually toward Emma like he was throwing trash.
"Don't let anyone hand me this again."
The paper landed in Emma's hands.
For a second, her face went blank.
Then it turned red.
Not the shy kind of red.
The humiliated kind.
Everyone in the class knew Emma liked Andrew.
It was obvious.
She acted like a queen, but in front of him she suddenly became loud and nervous, always pretending she didn't care while caring the most.
Yesterday, she had finally gathered the courage to have someone deliver a love letter.
And now…
Andrew had thrown it back in front of everyone.
In front of her lackeys.
In front of Lena.
Like she wasn't even worth reading.
The laughter around them stopped.
The air grew awkward.
Emma's fingers clenched around the heart-shaped paper so hard it wrinkled.
She didn't dare explode at Andrew.
She didn't have that courage.
So she turned her rage toward the easiest target.
Lena.
That bitch.
Andrew always protected Lena.
And now he was rejecting Emma's love letter.
Obviously, Lena had said something.
The more Emma thought about it, the uglier her expression became, until her anger turned into something sharp and poisonous.
Fine.
At school, she couldn't do much.
Too many eyes.
Too many teachers.
But outside the campus?
Outside the gate?
Nobody cared.
And once she got Lena alone…
Emma's smile slowly returned, but it was no longer playful.
It was cruel.
Soon, the crowd began dispersing, and students returned to their classrooms.
Rachel walked back to her seat like nothing had happened.
She had barely sat down when Emma brushed past her and deliberately kicked her leg.
Rachel's knee jerked slightly.
Emma leaned down close, voice low and threatening.
"Rachel," she whispered, "we're going to the internet café later."
Rachel lowered her gaze, pretending not to understand.
Emma's eyes narrowed.
"You're going to pretend you're sick," she said. "Go ask for leave. Tell the teacher you need to go to the hospital."
Her voice grew colder. "Make it convincing."
"And if you don't listen…"