Reborn to heal and take revenge

The next morning, Elara arrived at school before the bell rang.

The sky was still pale, and the air carried the scent of rain that never came. She climbed the steps with calm, steady steps — as if each one distanced her from the fragile girl she once was, and led her toward the woman she was becoming.

The moment she stepped into the classroom, silence swept the room.

Some glanced quickly and turned away. Others openly stared. The girls whispered behind their hands. The boys avoided eye contact.

She didn't acknowledge any of them.

Instead, Elara walked to her desk, sat down, and opened her notebook.

Her movements were slow, deliberate. Composed.

As if nothing had happened the day before.

But something had.

And they all knew it.

The girl they thought they could humiliate had walked into battle alone and come out untouched.

That wasn't weakness.

That was control.

---

She pulled out her notes for anatomy class. The page was half-filled with diagrams and medical terms — bone structures, nerves, acupuncture points.

She'd written them in a language she shouldn't know.

She paused, staring at the characters. Traditional Chinese.

A flash of memory surged in her mind.

A small candle-lit room.

A man with silver in his beard.

Wrinkled hands guiding hers across a wooden model of the human body.

"Start with the heart. Everything begins with the heart."

She blinked.

Gone.

The memory vanished like smoke in the breeze.

---

"Elara!"

She turned. Lina Zhou was approaching, all effortless grace and practiced charm.

The kind of girl who always knew how to smile without ever showing her real teeth.

"You did well yesterday," Lina said sweetly, sitting beside her uninvited. "I almost thought you were going to cry. But you surprised me."

Elara raised her eyes. Calm, unreadable.

"I could say the same about you."

Lina's smile twitched.

"Oh? How so?"

"You were smart enough not to involve yourself," Elara said, voice even. "That takes a different kind of strength."

There was a flicker in Lina's gaze — surprise, maybe even a trace of respect.

"You're sharper than I thought," she murmured.

"No. I've just stopped hiding it."

The two girls stared at each other — a silent evaluation.

The queen of the school and the girl who had once been its ghost.

Now, the game was changing.

And neither one would say it aloud… but both of them knew:

They were no longer on different levels.

They were on opposite sides of the same battlefield.

---

In anatomy class, Elara finished the exercise faster than anyone else. When the teacher checked her paper, he looked stunned.

"Excellent work," he said. "Have you studied this before?"

She offered a faint smile. "Something like that."

He moved on.

No more questions.

But she could feel the looks.

People were beginning to realize: she wasn't the girl they remembered.

And that made them nervous.

---

At lunch, she avoided the cafeteria and instead walked to the garden behind the science building.

There, under a quiet canopy of cherry blossoms, she finally let herself breathe.

It was one of the only places in the school that felt untouched by judgment.

She sat beneath the largest tree and closed her eyes.

For a moment, it was peaceful.

Until—

A soft voice echoed in her mind.

"When I get better, I'll come back for you. I promise."

Her heart skipped.

That voice…

It was a boy's voice. Young. Warm. Familiar.

"Don't cry, Elara. One day, you'll be a great doctor. You'll fix people like me."

She opened her eyes.

Her hand gripped the wooden pendant around her neck.

She didn't know how she still had it.

She didn't know why that voice sounded like it belonged to someone she once loved.

But she knew this much:

There was someone out there.

Someone waiting.

Someone she once swore to heal… and maybe love.

---

But for now?

She had enemies to disarm.

A reputation to rebuild.

A house full of vipers to tame.

Whoever he was… he would have to wait.

Because Elara Lin had just started reclaiming her life.

And she would not stop until everything — and everyone — who once destroyed her had paid in full.