Chapter 10: I Will Never Leave You Again

Su Ling was truly terrified.

He had never expected the original owner to actually seduce his own mentor.

When he woke up again and saw Jiang Hua’s concerned expression, Su Ling felt as if his vision were going dark.

What a sin!

“Darling, what’s wrong?”

In his memory, Jiang Hua had always been an ice-cold beauty—aloof, heartless, and someone who wanted nothing more than to work him to death.

But now, her expression of concern and her gentle, tender demeanor made Su Ling feel as if he were dreaming.

“Uh, that, I, I… well, I forgot to turn off the gas at home. I have to go now, haha…”

Su Ling was legitimately frightened.

Think about it—the mentor who used to exploit and manipulate you suddenly ends up in bed with you one day…

This was a damn horror movie!

Su Ling immediately made up an excuse. Panicked and disoriented, he scrambled to put on his clothes and bolted out the door.

He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he might actually go insane.

Once he stepped outside, he realized he was at the university’s Green Teaching Apartment.

Teachers were coming and going everywhere.

What bothered him was that these teachers seemed to recognize him, and the way they looked at him was a bit strange.

However, Su Ling was in no mood to worry about that now; he just wanted to go back.

The graduate dormitory was not on the main campus.

The university had purchased a residential complex nearby specifically to serve as housing for graduate students and international students.

The graduate dormitory was a suite with two bedrooms and a living room, designed for five people, one of whom got a single room.

Su Ling had been lucky before the semester started and managed to snag that single room.

When Su Ling took a taxi back to the dorm, his roommates happened to be there.

Their expressions, however, looked as if they had seen a ghost.

Ignoring them, Su Ling rushed into his single room and collapsed onto the bed.

He pulled the blanket over his head.

His mind was a mess.

His thoughts were like a tangled ball of yarn.

The Witch World, the seduced beautiful mentor, the transmigration from one month ago…

With so much information, Su Ling felt like his brain was about to explode.

The dormitory walls were thin, and the voices of his roommates occasionally drifted in from outside.

“Why is Brother Su back? Why isn’t he at Professor Jiang’s place?”

“Did they have a fight?”

“Please, no! I’m still waiting for Brother Su to get Professor Jiang’s final exam question bank.”

The roommates’ voices were intermittent.

But Su Ling suddenly threw off his blanket.

‘Wait, does it feel like literally everyone knows about this?’

As an Industrial Engineering Master, staying calm and collected was a necessary skill.

Otherwise, it would have been impossible to survive the endless cycle of research tasks.

Su Ling sat on the bed and began to organize the events of the past month.

First, the transmigration.

Looking at it now, was the transmigration actually real?

After all, the original owner had used his body to seduce his mentor, and he had no memory of the past month.

Did that mean the Witch World wasn’t just a fantasy?

Second, the original owner.

Su Ling felt a surge of irritation.

The fact that he was back meant the original owner had likely gone back as well.

This should have been a good thing.

He had been forced into that world in the first place, with the original owner forcibly swapping lives with him.

Given the original owner’s family situation, being back here should have been a massive blessing.

But now, he felt no sense of relief—only agitation.

He suddenly realized that if he hadn’t come back, today would have been the day to pay the debt.

Those debt collectors would be coming again.

And since the original owner was back now, it meant the one facing those debt collectors was the original owner.

“Whew! Calm down, don’t panic.”

Su Ling took a deep breath.

He had earned thirty thousand from Ji Lingyuan, which should be enough to stall for a while.

The problem was, did the original owner know?

Even if she found the bank card, she wouldn’t know the password.

Su Ling paced back and forth in the dorm, his anxiety growing.

He didn’t want to care about how the original owner had seduced Jiang Hua, nor did he want to know what the original owner had done over the past month.

He just wanted to know how the original owner was going to handle the debt.

And of course, the most important thing—Miao Miao.

“Aaargh!”

Thinking of Miao Miao’s adorable face, Su Ling frustratedly ruffled his hair into a mess.

He was truly afraid that the original owner would do something horrible to Miao Miao.

‘Breathe! Stay calm! Look on the bright side. Maybe the original owner found the bank card and happened to guess the password?’

After all, the password was just six zeros.

Anyone could guess that, right?

‘Besides, I’m just a poor soul who got dragged into this. I’m back now. I’m not a Witch anymore.’

Yes, he was back. He had returned to his original life path.

Everything in the Witch World had nothing to do with him anymore.

But…

Su Ling bit his lip so hard that a bit of blood trickled out.

He really couldn’t let go of Miao Miao.

He was an only child and had always longed for a younger sister.

For the past twenty years, he had been far too lonely.

His parents had constantly drilled into him the idea that only hard study offered a way out.

Consequently, he had spent every day dealing with nothing but knowledge, eventually ending up without a single friend.

He was lonely and craved companionship.

A month ago, when he first transmigrated to the Witch World and learned about the original owner’s family situation, he had been devastated.

But then he saw Miao Miao in the corner.

Those lifeless eyes and that thin, helpless, small figure—like a frightened little animal—had instantly struck his heart.

He had long since considered Miao Miao his own flesh-and-blood sister.

For Miao Miao’s sake, he hadn’t run away.

He had personally taken over the original owner’s mess and fought desperately to pull Miao Miao out of the mire.

But now, the original owner was back—the same original owner who was suspected of abusing Miao Miao.

“Hahaha… Miao Miao is her biological sister after all… I must be overthinking things…”

Su Ling gave a hollow laugh.

All he could do now was try his best to comfort himself.

*Buzz, buzz, buzz!*

His phone vibrated violently.

Su Ling looked at the screen tiredly.

It was Jiang Hua.

There were over fifty missed calls, almost all of them from her.

He hesitated for a moment before finally answering.

“Su Ling! Where the hell did you go! Have you lost your mind!”

As soon as the call connected, a frantic scream erupted from the other end.

The conversation of the roommates outside the door ceased instantly.

Clearly, they had heard it too.

“Um, Professor…”

“Ha! Professor?”

On the other end, Jiang Hua let out a cold laugh, as if she had heard something incredibly ridiculous.

“Last night you were calling me ‘darling’ and ‘baby’ nonstop, and now it’s ‘Professor’?”

“Professor… this is all a misunderstanding…”

Su Ling felt incredibly weary.

The original owner had left him a complete disaster to clean up.

“A misunderstanding! Su Ling! Tell me where you are right now!”

Jiang Hua sounded like she was losing her mind with rage.

Just listening to her made Su Ling’s scalp tingle.

“The dorm… Hiss!”

Suddenly, Su Ling felt a sharp ringing in his ears.

Immediately after, he felt lightheaded and dizzy, as if the world were spinning.

For some reason, his ears were filled with noise, as if many people were arguing right beside him.

Everything before his eyes began to flicker like an old film.

Su Ling blinked desperately and caught a few frames of flickering images.

The Witch World!

Su Ling was shocked.

Those few frames were actually scenes from the Witch World.

“Su Ling! What are you doing? Damn it! I’m coming to find you right now—”

Jiang Hua was still saying something on the phone, but Su Ling’s pupils shrank, his eyes filled with disbelief.

“Sister! *Waaah,* Sister… Sister, don’t sell Miao Miao…”

“Miao Miao!”

In a daze, Su Ling seemed to see a white-haired, cherry-eyed “Su Ling” dragging Miao Miao toward a group of people at the door with a frenzied expression.

Suddenly, that “Su Ling” seemed to sense something and looked back at him.

Those originally beautiful pink cherry eyes were now filled with madness, selfishness, and coldness—like a freezing venomous snake that sent a chill down to his soul.

“Stop!”

Su Ling lunged forward, accidentally bursting through his bedroom door.

This scared the roommates who were eavesdropping outside half to death.

“Uh, we were just…”

The roommates looked incredibly embarrassed.

But Su Ling had no time to worry about them.

In Su Ling’s vision, everything had returned to normal.

“Miao Miao, Miao Miao…”

Su Ling muttered frantically, while Jiang Hua screamed through the phone.

“Miao Miao?! Fine! So you’ve been having an affair! *Sob, sob,* I knew men were no good—”

Su Ling felt like he was going insane.

The searching gazes of his roommates, Jiang Hua’s crying, and the fleeting images of the Witch World…

“Sister!”

“Miao Miao!”

A shout completely jolted Su Ling awake.

He ran outside like a madman.

The thing he feared most had actually happened.

The original owner was going to sell Miao Miao!

‘No! No!’

Su Ling stumbled along, acting like a demon possessed.

He didn’t know how many people he bumped into along the way.

Ignoring their curses, he ran around like a headless fly.

“Miao Miao, don’t worry, I won’t leave you.”

His own past promise echoed in his ears.

“Su Ling! You just wait!”

Jiang Hua’s scream.

“What’s wrong with this guy?”

“Holy crap, does he have rabies?”

“Did he go crazy from studying?”

The people around him whispered.

Su Ling could no longer distinguish any of it.

He had only one thought now.

He had to go back!

*Honk—!*

Just then, a sharp blare of a horn suddenly startled him.

Without realizing it, he had run into the middle of the road.

But as he looked at the familiar scene before him, he suddenly smiled.

“Miao Miao… wait for me…”

—

“Stop hitting me! Stop hitting me! I already told you I’d sell this money-loser to you to pay off the debt, what more do you want?”

The beautiful girl with white hair and cherry eyes looked incredibly pathetic.

She was covered in bruises, and across from her stood a group of thuggish men covered in tattoos.

“Tch, how much can a little shrimp like this even be worth?”

The lead thug sized up the girl, his desire unconcealed.

“Ling Ling…”

Suddenly, a weak voice came from beside her feet.

It was Su Yao.

Su Yao was lying on the ground, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.

“Shut up! You old hag! This is all the fault of that wife of yours!”

*Slap!*

A sharp slapping sound pulled the white-haired girl back to reality.

“Look at her face—it’s not bad, right? If you raise her a bit more, she’ll definitely sell for a lot of money.”

After being slapped, the white-haired girl had a tearful, miserable expression, completely lacking her previous madness.

“Heh, you want us to raise her?”

The thugs laughed upon hearing this.

“Sister! *Waaah,* Sister, don’t sell me…”

Bai Miao was already crying her heart out.

She didn’t know what was happening.

All she knew was that when she woke up this morning, she smelled that scent on her sister that made her feel fear and disgust.

It was the scent of the old sister.

Before she could think further, the front door was violently kicked open.

Bai Miao knew the debt collectors had arrived.

But unlike the past month, her sister seemed terrified.

Then she heard her sister’s voice begging for mercy and her mother’s crying.

She wanted to go out, but her sister grabbed her.

Then she heard those words that filled her with absolute terror.

“She’s still worth something! She can pay off the debt! Stop hitting me! Stop hitting me! I really don’t have any money!”

Bai Miao finally realized that the old sister was back.

“*Waaah,* you’re not my sister! Give my sister back!”

“Shut up! She’s just a member of some low-level civilization. You actually consider her your sister?”

“Did I give you permission to speak?”

Another slap.

For some reason, the lead thug felt that this girl was even more annoying today than before.

Her appearance hadn’t changed, but looking at her just made him feel inexplicably angry.

The thug recalled that over the past month, although the family had no money, the white-haired girl’s attitude had been quite good.

Even when she handed over her measly cash, she had been neither humble nor arrogant toward him.

But now, this girl seemed like a different person—a total lunatic.

“Tch, I’ll let you off today. Let’s go!”

The lead thug didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

He grabbed Bai Miao and prepared to leave.

Bai Miao’s voice was already hoarse from crying.

She struggled desperately, but it was useless.

“Sister!”

In the end, she used every ounce of her strength to let out a frantic scream.

But there was no response.

“Sigh.”

The lead thug shook his head.

He felt some sympathy, but they were just debt collectors; they couldn’t go back empty-handed, or they’d have no way to answer to their boss.

“Miao Miao!”

At that moment, a white figure suddenly lunged forward.

Accompanied by a heart-wrenching cry, the force of the impact was so great that even the lead thug himself was caught off guard.

“Miao Miao, be good… don’t cry, don’t cry, I’m back… *sob*… I’m back… I’ll never leave you again… *sob*…”

Su Ling held the little girl tightly in his arms, his face already drenched in tears.