Chapter 705: Li Feiya and Her Family Relations
“Not qualified to enter the Witch Academy?” I lifted my head, repeating the words slowly, and then looked towards Li Feiya.
This question was one that I held in contempt; it sounded as if I had ever been qualified to enter the Witch Academy, but… I got in.
Li Feiya was not qualified, but!
She also got in, even becoming a teaching assistant.
“Right.”
“Who said that? Who limited your qualifications to enter the Witch Academy? That’s the statement I trust the least.”
“It’s my family,” Li Feiya explained, “Perhaps you don’t know, not everyone in the family has the qualification to enter the Witch Academy, especially since the Witch Academy is one where students lose their fertility after enrollment, the restrictions imposed by families are even stricter because families need to carry on their lineage.”
“I see… I’ve learned a bit about this.” After hearing Li Feiya’s explanation, I recalled some information I had come across earlier, “It’s just because the family doesn’t allow it… but you still made it into the Witch Academy.”
“Yes, I still entered the Witch Academy. I came in against my family’s wishes; the academy welcomes every qualified person to enroll.”
“How does your family handle you then?” Now I was even more curious about Li Feiya’s story; since she was willing to share this with me at this moment, I naturally wanted to be a listener.
“Because I secretly changed my application. However, this is something that can’t be hidden for long; the punishment for going against the family’s arrangements is very severe, especially for something that contradicts family rules regarding the academy’s intentions…”
“So… they couldn’t stop you from entering the Witch Academy, but they punished your branch of the family?”
“No, they have plenty of ways to prevent someone from entering the Extraordinary Academy. There are many excuses, such as being taken away by another Extraordinary Academy or giving up oneself… these are all basic tricks. The family’s influence in the outside world is absolute; they can easily make someone who hasn’t entered the Extraordinary realm disappear from this world.”
“Okay, okay, now I have a deeper understanding of the family.” At first, I thought the family wouldn’t dare to go against the Witch Academy, but it seems they act like local emperors in places the Witch Academy doesn’t want to manage?
“From your tone, you seem to dislike your family too, but you’re not one of them.”
“You don’t need a reason to hate a person, a power, or a family; just a bad first impression is enough.”
It was like that world of players; my first impression of them was very poor, and at one point, I even said that I wanted them to be completely exterminated…
“Is that so? You really are free and easy… that’s nice.”
“But I’m curious how you made it to the Witch Academy; according to your words, you should have never even had the chance to go to the Witch Academy.” I returned to the previous topic.
“Okay…” Li Feiya pondered for a moment, then picked up the spicy dried fish I handed over and took a bite. “Actually, when my parents found out about my rebellious actions, they immediately dragged me to the main family to confess.”
“As long as I didn’t think about going to the Extraordinary Academy, I was still my parents’ good daughter… Perhaps you don’t quite understand how I, at that time, was still my parents’ precious little treasure. The next second, they slapped me across the face and told me what it felt like to say these words in a tone that was supposedly for my own good.”
“So you resisted?” I speculated.
“No, I complied. At that time, I still hoped to be my parents’ heart and soul, so I could ignore that slap they once gave me.”
“But many things cannot be gained at the same time; many caprices also require a price to be paid…”
“Because of my caprice, from the time the acceptance letter was announced to the deadline for enrollment, my life went from affluence to ruin within that short period, the family’s businesses entrusted to my parents were heavily impacted… I heard it was due to… I don’t quite understand the grading of the family’s industries, but in any case, the family became utterly disappointed in my parents’ branch, reclaimed their original power, and became a truly collateral side branch…”
“So how did your parents treat you?”
“Of course, they blamed me; otherwise, how could they continue to care for me? My parents don’t have only me as their child.”
“I will always remember they locked me in a small room, only considering letting me out after the enrollment ceremony was over. During that time, the food I ate… heh, it was countless times worse than what we eat now.” Li Feiya picked up another piece of dried fish and put it into her mouth. Although she was eating an ordinary dried fish, she seemed to be enjoying it very much.
“Locked up? What did you do afterwards?”
“After that, I called for help, and at that time, I realized my phone was being monitored.”
“Specifically monitored? That sounds outrageous?”
“Of course not; thinking back, it was probably keyword monitoring. At that time, I made many calls from that room without any issues, until I called my desk mate during my study period, and I knew she had also been admitted to the Extraordinary Academy…”
“And then someone came looking for you?”
“Yes… at that time, my door was kicked open heavily. I naively thought my dad was going to let me out, but in the end, I was met with a beating while he shouted that it was for my own good and told me to quickly give up on the idea of going to the Extraordinary Academy…”
“That kind of atmosphere really does feel suffocating.”
“Yes… the family I belong to doomed me to many things I cannot do, and if I do them, I have to pay the price.”
“And then? What did you do after that?”
“Then, after I was beaten, I calmed down. I cried and begged them not to take away my phone; maybe they thought since the phone had monitoring it was safe, they ultimately relented and gave it to me, and my obedient days continued until the end.”
“But in the end… you still made a call for help? Who did you call?” I asked.
At that time, Li Feiya’s only breakthrough point could be her phone, so I reasonably suspected she ultimately called someone using her phone.
“I still called my desk mate, and this became the turning point of my life. At that time… the person who answered the phone was not my desk mate but a stranger. After understanding, I found out my desk mate was taken away in the last few days… taken to another Extraordinary Academy, and I heard she was taken to the Wizard Academy…”
“Oh? So that’s how it developed? And then?”
“Then the other party heard my call for help, and knowing I was a student admitted to the Witch Academy, they became very interested. What ultimately made the person decide to take me away was my scores…”
“Your scores must have been very high, right? I imagine at that time you were very grateful to your hardworking self.”
“Yes, I was excellent and deserving of the Extraordinary Academy; that is one of the fundamental reasons I longed for the Extraordinary Academy, right? If I were a waste or a poor student, I wouldn’t even have the determination to go against my family’s wishes.” Li Feiya spoke these words passionately, perhaps she hadn’t even realized the change in her tone.
“But if that’s the case, then you should be a student of the Wizard Academy, right?”
“Yes… but guess what? Which academy has the most severe incidents of freshmen being abducted in our world?”
“Witch Academy!” I blurted out.
“Correct, my desk mate and I ultimately were abducted to the Witch Academy…”
“The drama is really on full display~” I laughed.
“Mm, whenever I think back to this incident, I also feel that it’s unbelievable… only by entering the Witch Academy could I see the essence of this world. You know, in the first few years after entering the Witch Academy, I was afraid of being reclaimed by my family and having my identity as an Extraordinary Academy student stripped away…”
“But some things are beyond the family’s control, like the identity of being a current student of the Extraordinary Academy.” I continued.
“Yes, exactly. As my understanding of the Extraordinary Academy deepened, the more I realized how correct my initial resistance was, and how lucky that initial coincidence was!”
“What about now? You’ve now become a teaching assistant; you should have enough qualifications to cut ties with your original family, right?” I continued to ask.
“Cutting ties…” Upon hearing my inquiry, Li Feiya seemed to think of something, and then she showed a bitter expression, “I have heard someone say that family is an eternal shackle etched onto a person; no matter what I become or where I go… this shackle will always follow me…”
“……”
I listened quietly and didn’t speak. Perhaps it was hard for me to understand, but I respected Li Feiya’s words.
It was like those who had not experienced my suffering also could not understand what my past meant, and couldn’t empathetically know… how much was given up in that seemingly simple act of “letting go.”
“That shackle… whether I fall to the bottom or reach the peak, it will always find me and turn me back into that helpless little girl locked in a small room… it’s a form of subtle influence, a compliance etched into my bones from birth, that the family instilled as an education that penetrated my thoughts… obeying thoughts, conforming to ideals, family first… these things are not shackles that can be discarded just by understanding them…”
“I see…”
As Li Feiya said this, I began to understand her a bit more and also felt a sense of empathy. That kind of thought pattern ingrained in one’s understanding from a young age, regardless of whether one comes from a poor or rich family, reached a point of unity at this moment, just the ideologies ingrained since childhood were different…
“Can you understand my feelings?” At this point, Li Feiya was already impacted by her emotions, but she still held herself together without losing control too much.
“I can understand. Family and education are hurdles that both the poor and the rich cannot avoid.”
“I heard your past was also quite bad, with many ups and downs in your application process. I also heard this time you dealt with your issues concerning your birth family during the college entrance exam…”
“Yes, that is indeed the case.”
“I’m really envious that you can do it so straightforwardly…”
“Straightforward… are you really envious of such straightforwardness? Isn’t it irrelevant that I’ve never felt the sensation of being bl**d-related to someone since birth? If it were so, you could also be so straightforward, but… a terrible childhood perhaps requires you to use the rest of your life to heal.”
“That… okay, it seems I’m still thinking too simply…” Li Feiya chuckled lightly, then shook her head, “This damned and terrible world…”
“Think more positively; at least now, you’ve become a teaching assistant through your efforts, haven’t you? At least you have taken your fate into your own hands.” I continued to comfort her.
“Effort… teaching assistant… heh… actually, neither is true. Xiao Han, you’ve been a teaching assistant too; you should understand that becoming a teaching assistant is always more about luck and opportunity than one’s own ability and effort.”
“Is there a story behind this?” My curiosity was piqued again.
But I knew clearly from what she said that teaching assistants were indeed such a group; they did not have the qualifications to represent the power pinnacle of non-extraordinary individuals of the Witch Academy. Their existence served two purposes: one was to reduce unnecessary trivial matters for extraordinary mentors, and the other was to carry the mentors’ hopes for this student to achieve the extraordinary.
“It’s not really a story; the process of me becoming a teaching assistant is… much more dramatic due to my experience, my enrollment experience, and my rebellious journey…”
“The family doesn’t give me qualifications; I fight for it myself. The family becomes my shackle, and I will break it myself… because of my experiences, the mentor I currently follow is very confident that I can resist the sense of belonging imposed by the Earth Vein Shackles, and she also promised to be my strongest support before I achieve being an Extraordinary Witch…”
“So that’s why you go around causing trouble in the academy, but your mentor is still willing to help you settle everything?” At this point, I understood.
If the issue of belonging due to the Earth Vein Shackles is resolved, nurturing a student who is unlikely to be hindered by the Earth Vein Shackles would greatly increase her probability of achieving becoming an Extraordinary Witch, second only to me, who has already severed the Earth Vein Shackles…
“Actually, it’s not really causing trouble… you should also understand that many students and teaching assistants in the academy actually represent the interests of their respective families. When acting in the academy, it’s inevitable to come into contact with them… if I don’t want to integrate into their group, then I will be ostracized by them…”
“I can empathize; if you’re not in the same group, you can’t play together~”
This kind of chat atmosphere continued as Li Feiya and I took turns narrating.
Even though I could sense the topic seemed to have drifted from the initial question, but understanding a person’s past allows me to guess her future, and know more clearly the underlying logic driving her choices.
……
“So they gave you an opportunity… an opportunity that completely allows you to cut ties with your family in name, as long as you cooperate with this assassination against me?”
“Yes…”
“Why?” I looked at Li Feiya, and the question was why she had given up.
“Because… you showed me through your actions, and helped me realize… cutting away from the past and bloodline doesn’t require anyone’s charity.”
“……”
“In fact, I should have seen through their true faces long ago, and you are the turning point for me to make a change and a decision.”
“The decision has always been made by you.”
I knew very well that what I did didn’t enlighten Li Feiya much; whatever she wanted to do inside her, any unreasonable excuse could become her firm anchor, while I just happened to be the excuse she mentioned…
“No, I’m very sure that you gave me the courage to make a change… but I’m sorry, I can’t give you a commensurate return.” Li Feiya sighed, showing a hesitant expression as if struggling with whether to say something.
“What’s wrong? From the looks of you, it seems like you didn’t finish what you were saying. If it’s some so-called return, then let’s forget it.”
“No… I don’t know how to say it because I can’t be sure, but I hope you don’t take too many risks in the coming days, and don’t get into conflicts with those teaching assistants, and definitely don’t… think that dying at their hands is no big deal.”
“What do you mean?”
“What should I say… while listening to their plans, although they didn’t say it explicitly, I could tell they wanted to k*ll you once, and the mission would be considered completed… perhaps, they possess a method of killing that even a resurrection spell can’t revive you from…”
As Li Feiya reached this point, she seemed to think of something again: “Do you remember when we talked about the contract issue before this joint examination? The forces of the world cannot be completely forbidden, and perhaps there’s some unknown power that can bypass the loopholes in the contract…”
“Really? In any case, thank you for your reminder.” I silently kept Li Feiya’s words in mind, then changed the subject, “Let’s not talk about these heavy topics for now; let’s resume the live stream. We have so much good food now; it would be such a waste not to tease those watching the live stream~”
“Hm? Sure~” Li Feiya was momentarily taken aback, then followed my lead, saying nothing more and started the live stream.
