Author Archives: Thandar

As soon as Xi Guanming said that, within less than five minutes screenshots of his words were wildly reposted across major forums and websites. Before this, the audience had stubbornly managed to rationalize all kinds of ambiguous moments circulating on Neverland, but now there was simply no way to explain it away.

No man punishes another man by telling him to take off his clothes—unless it’s in bed.

Oh. And he had indeed told No. 6 to get onto the bed.

The data for No. 6’s livestream shot straight from third place to an overwhelming first. Countless users flooded in, putting such pressure on the backend that it nearly crashed.

People had long been saying that No. 6 and the president had something going on, but most viewers never took it seriously. First, because based on how the president behaved in other streams, he didn’t seem like the type to have a campus romance. Translated on Hololo novels. And even if he did, it would obviously be with Jiang Yan—after all, insiders had revealed that her data had been adjusted multiple times by the project team, and the more powerful the NPC, the more they would be drawn to her. Second, everyone knew that shippers always talked nonsense. They could even claim a random frog by the roadside and a cat eyeing it hungrily had a destined love from a past life.

Who would’ve thought this time it was actually real?

How was that even possible?

No matter how you looked at it, it made no sense at all!

!!!

In many people’s minds, No. 6 was just a well-built but annoying lackey. Based on how the president acted in the streams they usually watched, No. 6 was obviously destined to be used up as expendable material. How had things escalated to getting into bed after just a few days?

Used up… in bed?

Oh my god, that was even more wrong!

Netizens turned into screaming chickens across forums, expressing their shock. “Holy shit” and “AHHHHH x n” became the most frequently used phrases.

That night, hospitals saw more cases of dislocated jaws than in the past half year combined.

The official account of Neverland was tagged countless times that night. Even the prosecutor’s office sent people to ask what on earth was going on. But they themselves were baffled. According to their design, the president was supposed to join the competition for Jiang Yan. How had his orientation suddenly changed? They checked the backend data over and over again and still found nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed “number one micro-expression analysis expert,” who had gained millions of followers by analyzing NPC expressions, had insisted that the president deeply despised No. 6, that all his behavior was just an act, and that No. 6 would eventually pay dearly for his stupidity. Now his posts were flooded with mockery—“Why don’t you analyze whether your wife loves you?”

The comments were so uniformly savage that the expert deleted his account overnight in anger.

Another group of sharper viewers went back and replayed No. 6’s earlier streams. Now that they believed the president and No. 6 had something going on, their interactions took on a completely different flavor. Discussions exploded across forums, with people saying that shipping the two felt as natural as breathing.

The livestream continued. Naive viewers who had never experienced the “camera facing the door” phenomenon sat in front of their screens rubbing their hands together in anticipation, thinking Neverland was finally about to show them something 18+. But soon they realized they couldn’t even see a single swan feather.

Their smiles slowly faded.

Sad cat face.jpg

…

Inside the dorm, Shao Ye thought he must have misheard. He looked up blankly at Xi Guanming and let out a short, confused, “Huh?”

“Do you want me to repeat it?” Xi Guanming asked.

His tone sounded perfectly calm—so calm that even someone as thick-skinned as Shao Ye couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

So he really hadn’t misheard. What kind of punishment required taking off clothes?

Maybe it wasn’t “go to the bed and take off your clothes,” but “go to the boat and scrub your clothes”?

…Actually, that sounded even weirder.

Shao Ye ultimately didn’t dare make Xi Guanming repeat himself. He let out a dry laugh. “N-no need.”

After returning to the dorm earlier, he had already thrown his shirt into the washing machine. Now he was wearing a gray-blue T-shirt and patterned cropped pants. He looked down at himself.

Then he gritted his teeth and stamped his foot.

Fine.

He’d strip!

Xi Guanming turned and sat down where Shao Ye had been writing his self-criticism. Seeing the bold words “Self-Reflection” at the top of the lined notebook, he couldn’t help but laugh. But the moment he lifted his head again, all trace of his smile disappeared.

In the short time it took him to turn around, Shao Ye had already pulled off his T-shirt. Now he hesitated over taking off his pants, repeatedly tugging the zipper down and back up, sneaking glances at Xi Guanming.

He thought his movements were subtle, but Xi Guanming saw everything clearly.

He didn’t rush. He casually picked up the glass of water on the table and swirled it in his hand like a fine glass of wine.

After much fumbling, Shao Ye finally took off his pants. Now he was left wearing only a pair of white boxer briefs. The dorm wasn’t cold, but he felt like every hair on his body was standing on end.

He pressed his lips together and asked quietly, “President… do I have to take everything off?”

Xi Guanming held the glass and looked at him silently.

Under that gaze, Shao Ye began doubting himself again. Had he misheard earlier?

Was the president actually telling him to wash clothes? Not bed, but… scrubbing?

Xi Guanming calmly admired the strong, healthy body before him, like a sculpture of a Greek hero from the hands of a Renaissance master. Every muscle was perfectly proportioned. Under the bright light, the white underwear was faintly translucent.

He raised the glass, took a sip, and asked lightly, “What do you think?”

Shao Ye gripped the waistband of his underwear tightly with both hands. After struggling for a long time, he still couldn’t bring himself to pull it down.

It wasn’t like he had never been to a communal bathhouse or been naked around other men. Translated on Hololo novels. The problem was he had no idea what was going to happen next.

He tried one last time, joking, “President, you’re not going to make me run naked around the track, are you? How about I just run a couple laps in the dorm?”

Xi Guanming raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Lowering his expectations, Shao Ye added, “If not… can I at least cover my face?”

Xi Guanming set down the glass and replied, “In your dreams.”

“Huh?” Shao Ye’s eyes went wide as he stared at him. “You really want me to run outside naked?”

Seeing that Xi Guanming still didn’t respond, he took a deep breath.

Fine.

If it’s naked, then naked it is.

Shao Ye bent down and, in a few quick moves, removed his underwear as well. At last, his body was completely bare, fully exposed before Xi Guanming.

Xi Guanming reached toward his shirt pocket, but found nothing. He remembered he hadn’t brought his glasses back tonight. A small oversight, nothing serious.

His tongue moved slowly inside his mouth, imagining the taste of licking that honey-colored skin.

The dorm room was extremely quiet. Even the sound of a needle dropping would have been clear. No one had passed through the hallway for a long time. Gradually, Shao Ye relaxed, treating it as if he were just bathing with the president in the bathhouse.

After a long while, he heard Xi Guanming say, “Turn around.”

Shao Ye gave an “oh” and slowly turned around. Xi Guanming’s gaze traced down from his neck, inch by inch along his spine. Shao Ye didn’t know what was about to happen. His eyes shifted uneasily, feeling as if the goosebumps that had just settled were about to rise again.

After a long pause, Xi Guanming finally withdrew his gaze. He glanced down at his own lower body, adjusted his sitting posture, and said in a low voice, “Get on the bed.”

There was a faint hoarseness in his voice.

Shao Ye let out a long breath of relief. It seemed he wouldn’t be made to run outside naked after all. He moved quickly, almost leaping onto the bed in one bound, afraid that if he hesitated, the president might change his mind and throw him out of the dorm.

“Lie face down,” Xi Guanming added.

Shao Ye didn’t think at all. More accurately, he didn’t think at all. He quickly followed the instruction and lay prone on the bed. It didn’t quite feel like he was about to wash clothes, more like he himself was about to be “washed.” Otherwise, it couldn’t be that the president, seeing how hard he fought today, wanted to give him a massage… right?

Wait.

Why not?

Shao Ye’s thoughts circled, only to lead himself into a deeper hole. He asked, “President, what exactly are we doing?”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

Xi Guanming stood up and walked to the bedside, loosening the blue-striped tie at his neck with one hand. His shadow fell across Shao Ye’s back, as if it reached him first, brushing his nape.

He lifted his right leg and knelt one knee onto the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight.

Shao Ye bit his lip, gripping the bedsheet tightly with both hands. Soon, a slightly cool hand landed on his shoulder, sliding slowly down along his spine, finally coming to rest on the wound on his back that had just begun to scab.

That hand was very, very light, like a feather, brushing him into a tingling numbness. He squeezed his legs together, suddenly feeling like he needed to go to the bathroom.

Xi Guanming noticed his movement, pressed his lips together in a faint smile, and then suddenly increased his strength, pressing down. Caught off guard, Shao Ye sharply inhaled and cried out instinctively, “President! It hurts, hurts, hurts!”

“So you do know what pain is,” Xi Guanming said leisurely, easing his strength.

He bent down, his thin lips close to Shao Ye’s ear, and asked, “You’re injured, yet you still disobeyed me and fought. I thought you didn’t know what pain was.”

“It didn’t hurt while fighting,” Shao Ye muttered softly.

“Talking back?” Xi Guanming asked with a smile.

For the first time, Shao Ye clearly sensed danger approaching. But before he could say he didn’t dare, there was a sharp smack as Xi Guanming’s hand came down hard on his backside.

Shao Ye was stunned. His mouth hung open for a long while before he came back to his senses.

So this was the punishment?!

Ever since elementary school, no one had spanked him like this. It didn’t hurt that much, but the embarrassment was overwhelming. His face and ears flushed bright red, as if they might bleed.

Full, round, and elastic.

Xi Guanming glanced at his slightly reddened palm.

“You like mango pudding, don’t you?” he asked.

Shao Ye didn’t understand why the topic suddenly shifted to food. His face was still buried in the pillow, his voice muffled. “I do.”

Xi Guanming chuckled softly at the answer, leaned down again, and spoke near his ear in a low, magnetic voice:

“What a coincidence. I like… eating it too.”

---

Author’s note:

[I’m speechless at the official side, they really won’t show anything at all.]

: What do you mean won’t show anything? After complaints, didn’t they send the two swans from the artificial lake to work overtime overnight?

: Swans: bad luck

: Swans’ lives matter too

: Where are the animal protection people now?

: Guess we can only laugh at the antis now

: They’re really stubborn. Even after the experts deleted their accounts, they formed a group called the “Neverland Sect,” saying they’re inheriting the experts’ will, protecting the president’s reputation, and exposing the shameless conspiracy between the official side and No. 6

: “President’s reputation”

: pfft

: The same reputation where he tells someone to strip and get on the bed?

: How far will things go tonight? I didn’t see the president place an order

: You have to take it step by step. The first time, you’ve got to let No. 6 get used to it

: What exactly is it that I, a distinguished VIP viewer, am not allowed to see? I’ll pay! I’ll pay!

: I have a friend with a terminal illness, only three months left. He says if he doesn’t find out what the president and No. 6 did tonight, he won’t die in peace

: I have a small idea

: Speak, my lord

: Last time, when the antis complained about fake scenes, the official side released screenshots to prove them wrong. So this time, if we also… you know

: hehehehehe

: Sounds promising

: Brilliant!

: Alright, I’m joining the antis

: No, wait, I’m now the most devoted believer of the Neverland Sect

≽^•⩊•^≼

Next

Shao Ye let out an “oh,” his whole demeanor drooping, like a piece of buttered bread about to go moldy.

He still couldn’t figure it out. He had clearly removed obstacles from the president’s path to love, so why was he being punished?

There was no reason at all.

He puzzled over it again and again. After walking several steps out of the office, he turned back, poked his head around the doorframe, and asked, “President, you’re really going to punish me?”

He put on a pleading expression, even clasping his hands together in a begging gesture. But with his tall, broad build, the gesture looked strangely out of place.

Xi Guanming picked up his phone from the desk, glanced at a message, then looked up and said, “If you don’t leave now, I’ll punish you immediately.”

Shao Ye gave a startled “ah,” pulled his head back, and shut the office door.

He didn’t leave right away. Instead, he paced back and forth in the hallway, trying to guess what kind of punishment awaited him.

Would he be made to run laps around the track? Or stand as punishment in the dorm hallway? Surely it wouldn’t be something like reading a three-thousand-word self-criticism in front of the entire school?

The last time he wrote a self-criticism was in sixth grade, when he got caught climbing the wall to skip class. It had been years. He’d already forgotten the format.

None of those punishments really worried him. What he feared more was that the president might grow tired of him. His great “career” might end right here.

Thinking it through, the only explanation he could come up with was that the president didn’t want any more fights happening on campus. Even if this one had been small in scale, with no serious injuries, and even if the president could benefit from it, he still refused to cover for him.

The president really was a selfless, upright person.

Though, honestly, Shao Ye kind of wished the president would bend the rules for him just once. It seemed his importance in the president’s eyes was still far from enough. He needed to keep working harder.

Following that line of reasoning, his mistake didn’t seem that serious. Translated on Hololo novels. After all, he hadn’t organized the fight, hadn’t chosen the location, and had even come to confess voluntarily, even if that wasn’t his original intention.

Maybe Jiang Yan could put in a good word for him? Not only had he helped the president eliminate rivals, he had also helped her drive away those annoying pests. She should at least give him that much face.

Shao Ye gave himself a silent thumbs-up, then crept back to the door. He carefully pushed it open a narrow crack and asked tentatively, “President, how about I set up a dinner with Jiang Yan for you? You two could go out and eat together?”

Xi Guanming’s gaze shifted from his phone screen to the face peeking through the door, wearing an obvious ingratiating smile. He curled his lips and repeated, “Dinner?”

Shao Ye nodded rapidly, like a pecking chick. “Yes, yes! It’s Friday. Jiang Yan must be free.”

At some point, the buttons of his shirt had come undone again, revealing a large expanse of his chest. Xi Guanming’s gaze lingered there several times, acutely aware that he was getting hungrier by the moment. Dinner, of course, was necessary—but what did it have to do with whether Jiang Yan was free?

Shao Ye only saw his lips move, without hearing any sound, and asked in confusion, “President, what did you say?”

“Nothing,” Xi Guanming waved him off. “Button up your shirt and go back. If you don’t leave now, don’t come looking for me again.”

“I’m going, I’m going!” Shao Ye slammed the door shut with a bang, his footsteps quickly fading down the hallway.

Xi Guanming set his phone down and pressed his temple. Still so dense—he hears the second half and forgets the first.

Not long after Shao Ye left, Si Xu stormed into Xi Guanming’s office, slammed his hand heavily on the desk, and demanded, “Xi Guanming, that Shao Ye—he’s your man, isn’t he?”

Xi Guanming looked up. Si Xu had clearly changed into fresh clothes before coming here, and even styled his hair, but the bruises at the corners of his eyes and lips couldn’t be fully hidden. It seemed Shao Ye hadn’t held back at all, completely disregarding his status as the son of the richest family.

A strange sense of pleasure spread through Xi Guanming’s chest, tingling and satisfying.

That beating hadn’t been wasted.

“What do you mean, ‘my man’?” Xi Guanming said with a polite smile, the same one he wore when greeting teachers and students in the morning. “Student Si Xu, within the academy, every student belongs to themselves.”

Si Xu was sick of that fake, refined tone of his. Every time he spoke, it felt like he was being mocked.

“Cut the crap!” Si Xu snapped. “Whether he is or not, Xi Guanming, I’m telling you—I’m going to make him get out of the academy!”

Zong Xingze and Jin Feng followed in behind him. Though they didn’t speak, the fact that they came together already made their stance clear.

Xi Guanming opened the lower left drawer, took out a copy of the Academy Student Code of Conduct, and placed it in front of Si Xu.

“If you want to expel a diligent, friendly student, you’ll need a reasonable justification,” he said calmly.

Diligent? Friendly?

Who exactly was he talking about?

Si Xu almost laughed from anger. He was certain this whole incident had been orchestrated by Xi Guanming. He couldn’t touch Xi Guanming for now, but dealing with Shao Ye was no problem.

Leaning forward with both hands on the desk, he locked eyes with Xi Guanming and said through gritted teeth, “The Shao family goes bankrupt, can’t afford his tuition, and he withdraws voluntarily. Tell me—does that sound like a good enough reason?”

Xi Guanming’s smile didn’t change at all. He patiently analyzed, “Bringing down a well-running nationwide restaurant chain in a short time might be a bit troublesome. And generally, with sufficient capital, such a business can recover. Even if, as you wish, it truly collapses, if a kind benefactor appears willing to pay Shao Ye’s tuition, I believe he could still continue his studies at the academy.”

Si Xu narrowed his eyes, his expression turning vicious. No one dared interfere with someone the Si family wanted to destroy.

“So you’re going to stop me?” he asked coldly.

Zong Xingze added from behind, “President, that guy said he’s your man. None of us believed it. You’re not actually planning to protect him, are you?”

Jin Feng also looked at Xi Guanming with suspicion.

Drawing this much hostility all at once—impressive.

Xi Guanming smiled faintly. “Of course not. If the three of you join forces, even if I wanted to stop you, it would be difficult.”

Si Xu let out a cold laugh. “Good. At least you know that.”

“However…” Xi Guanming trailed off.

“However what?” Si Xu’s expression darkened.

Xi Guanming said to him, “It’s nothing. I’ve just always felt that the learning environment at the academy isn’t very suitable for Jiang Yan. Over the past few days, I’ve contacted several other schools, and they all said they’d be happy to accept her. I don’t think Jiang Yan would refuse.”

At this point, Xi Guanming seemed to realize he had misspoken. He paused and added, “Sorry. This has nothing to do with you, Si Xu. I shouldn’t have told you.”

Si Xu clenched his fists, the veins on the back of his hands bulging, breathing heavily as he demanded, “What do you mean, Xi Guanming? You’re going to transfer Jiang Yan to another school?”

Xi Guanming smiled. “It doesn’t mean anything. Just a small, immature idea based on Jiang Yan’s current situation at the academy.”

Si Xu’s face twisted with anger. “For that Shao Ye, you’re using Jiang Yan to threaten me?”

Didn’t Xi Guanming like Jiang Yan? What was he doing now? What benefit did he get from transferring her? Was he betting that they wouldn’t dare take a risk with Jiang Yan?

Xi Guanming looked surprised. “How could that be? What does Shao Ye have to do with Jiang Yan? Don’t mix them up, Si Xu.”

After a while, Si Xu loosened his grip, nodded, and once his breathing steadied, he raised a thumb at Xi Guanming. “Xi Guanming, well played.”

Hearing this, Xi Guanming pulled an A4 sheet from the drawer and handed it to him. “Thank you for the compliment, Si Xu. Here’s a student council satisfaction survey. Would you like to fill it out?”

“Fill your whole damn family!” Si Xu cursed and stormed off.

Jin Feng watched Si Xu leave, then glanced at Xi Guanming. The matter about transferring Jiang Yan didn’t seem fake. Jiang Yan hadn’t been particularly happy at the Academy. If Xi Guanming could offer her a better option, she probably wouldn’t refuse. But if she really left, it wouldn’t be easy for them to follow. Jin Feng didn’t dare gamble on this.

He greeted Xi Guanming briefly and left as well.

Of the three who had come to demand an explanation, only Zong Xingze remained. His eyes shifted as he stepped forward and asked, “President, can you tell me what Shao Ye is to you?”

Xi Guanming glanced at him, his smile fading into a colder expression. “I’m simply fulfilling my duty as student council president.”

Zong Xingze rubbed his arm as if brushing off nonexistent goosebumps and took two steps back. “That answer makes me sick.”

“Do you want to see the school doctor?” Xi Guanming asked with concern.

Zong Xingze twitched his lips. “I can’t deal with you. I’m leaving. You’d better keep a close eye on your little darling. Si Xu won’t let him off so easily.”

Xi Guanming said, “If he doesn’t care about Jiang Yan either, then what I can do isn’t limited to just transferring her.”

“Was that meant for me too?” Zong Xingze asked.

“Up to you,” Xi Guanming replied with a smile. “Want to fill out a student council satisfaction survey as well?”

“I’ll pass,” Zong Xingze waved him off, then imitated a TV drama tone and asked in a pinched voice, “So what exactly is the relationship between you two? It doesn’t look very normal to me.”

Xi Guanming chuckled lightly. “Not normal? I think it’s quite normal.”

Zong Xingze was speechless.

Under the heavy night sky, the quiet lake reflected the colorful lights along the shore like a giant pearl. Walking along the stone path toward the dormitory, Xi Guanming thought that tonight, he would have to get enough “compensation” to make up for his losses.

In the dorm room, Shao Ye sat at the bedside desk writing a self-criticism. After two hours, he had managed only five words, three of which were the title.

Hearing the door open, he threw down his pen and sprang to the entrance, putting on a flattering smile. “President, you’re back?”

Xi Guanming glanced at him without speaking, casually closed the door behind him, and walked inside.

Shao Ye’s heart jumped into his throat. He followed nervously, wanting to test Xi Guanming’s mood but not knowing what to say.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Maybe he should admit his mistake in advance. The punishment might be lighter.

Hesitating, just as he was about to speak, Xi Guanming suddenly stopped, turned back to look at him, his dark eyes deep and dangerous.

“Go to the bed and take off your clothes,” he said.

---

Author’s note:

[????????????????????????]

: ????

: ????????

: ???????????

: I really don’t understand this development

: President, you’re serious?

: This isn’t great… it’s late at night, even the two swans at the artificial lake have gone off duty. If something really happens, I won’t even get to see the swans

: I bet the president is making No. 6 take off his clothes so it’s easier to clean up after killing him (doge)

: Where are all the people who swore No. 6 would be eliminated today? Come out and walk it off!

: The experts all deleted their accounts overnight

: LOL, someone next door posted saying he has a junior who’s always acting smart but doing stupid things and making enemies. Translated on Hololo novels. Everyone told him to fire the guy, but he kept patching it up, saying he wants the junior to suffer a big loss later, so he won’t fire him yet and even stopped others from doing it. Then everyone replied saying “you love him a lot,” and when the OP suddenly decoded it as the president and No. 6, the whole thread went silent

: Can you people stop having such dirty thoughts? Taking off clothes doesn’t only mean that

: Oh? Then what’s your brilliant theory?

: Maybe he suspects No. 6 is his long-lost brother and wants to check for a birthmark or something

: True, the president’s parents seem to have left quite a few illegitimate children

: That makes sense! The logic checks out! I knew the president wouldn’t be into men!

: Ah, my heart can finally settle. I was scared they were about to get into bed

: Thank goodness, the fifty bucks I bet with my roommate is safe

: I’m going to contact the experts and tell them it can still be salvaged

: Wait, aren’t you all being a bit delusional?

: Let them be. With their mental state, even if they really did it, they’d say the president was giving No. 6 acupuncture

: How dare you! Calling the president a “needle”!

: President: I’m calling the police to arrest all of you

≽^•⩊•^≼

Previous

Bang!

After this message was successfully sent, not only Lin Wu, but Qin Weidong in the hospital room in 2004 also jolted violently. He shot upright so suddenly that his head slammed hard against the wall behind him.

“Hiss!” Qin Weidong clutched his head in pain.

All day, Lin Wu had been sending Qin Weidong messages every half hour, and Qin Weidong had been sending messages back from time to time. The messages had gone from “How did you know about the fire?” to “Who are you?”, then “Are you there?”, and finally shortened to just “There?”

Just like before, every single one had failed to send.

He had been about to try sending a question mark next, but to his shock, it suddenly went through!

Qin Weidong felt a lump rising on the back of his head, but he ignored the pain and immediately sent another message:

【Who are you? Why did you know the internet café would catch fire?!!!】

He had thought about it all day. His guess was that the other person might know the network admin, and the two had planned to start a fire together as some kind of revenge against society. But the admin from yesterday had seemed spineless, not like someone with the guts to set a fire. And the message itself was full of coincidences, with too many gaps in the logic.

In the hotel in Xuhu in 2024, Lin Wu stared at the message with his lips pressed tight. His face remained expressionless, but his heart was pounding violently as his mind raced through the entire chain of events.

The strange messages, the altered fire outcome, the extra set of memories…

All of it told him that something unnatural had happened to him. Through these messages, he had connected to a point in time twenty years in the past, and might even be able to change the present.

The moment he realized this, only one thought filled his mind:

On September 6, 2004, Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong had not yet met with disaster.

The fire had already changed… so did that mean he could rewrite their fates as well?

The idea grew wildly in his mind. Translated on Hololo novels. The more he thought about it, the more agitated he became. Then he realized the biggest problem:

He didn’t know when these messages would appear.
He didn’t know whether the person on the other side was always the same.
He didn’t know whether there were limitations to the messages, since before this, every single one he sent had failed…

Lin Wu analyzed rapidly, then made a swift decision:

While this connection across time was still open, he had to make the most effective move possible in the shortest time.

In the hospital room in 2004, seeing no reply, Qin Weidong frowned and sent another message:

【???】

Lin Wu looked at the new message and immediately began typing.

Although it seemed like he had taken a long time to think, only seventy-six seconds had passed since the first successful message. In that short span, he had to process the additional memories, deduce the other party’s identity, and analyze the implications of these messages. It was mentally exhausting. He had never thought this quickly in his life.

Back in the hospital, Qin Weidong assumed there would be no reply, but suddenly his inbox lit up—

Unknown number: 【You went to Xingchen Internet Café yesterday? Did you watch “Star Police”?】

Qin Weidong frowned.

【I went. The movie hasn’t been released yet.】

“Star Police” was a foreign film scheduled to release in early November 2004. Lin Wu mentioned it simply to confirm the timeline on the other side.

After replying, Qin Weidong felt like he had been led off track and asked impatiently:

【Your phone can’t be called and messages can’t be sent. Did you set it to airplane mode? Why do you know the café would catch fire!】

As someone raised under materialist education, he never considered the possibility of messages crossing time. The most reasonable explanation he could come up with was some trick involving inactive numbers or airplane mode, even though it didn’t really make sense.

Lin Wu replied quickly:

【Are you a high school student?】

This was something he had learned from the café owner, and also a key difference between the two sets of memories.

Qin Weidong: !!!

How did the other person know he was in high school?

“You were at the café yesterday?” Qin Weidong suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. “Were you there yesterday? Did you tamper with the admin’s water boiler when he wasn’t paying attention, planning to set the place on fire?”

“No wonder you knew the exact time of the fire. It was premeditated arson.”

“If my instincts hadn’t been sharp, me and everyone else would’ve burned to death!”

“Why did you tell me the time? Some twisted psychological urge before committing a crime?”

……

Qin Weidong had been trying to figure out the other person’s identity all along, but if the other party had deliberately set the fire, then everything made sense. As for why the culprit appeared in the café… even if he wasn’t the admin, he used a local Xuhu number, so he might have been waiting there for the chance to start the fire.

The more Qin Weidong thought about it, the more convinced he became that he was close to the truth. Aside from the coincidence of sending the message to the wrong number, everything fit perfectly.

At that moment, he wanted to call the police immediately.

Looking at the flood of messages, Lin Wu was momentarily stunned, then replied:

【I didn’t start the fire.】

【Then how did you know the time?】 Qin Weidong didn’t believe him.

Explaining the connection between twenty years apart would be too unbelievable. Lin Wu didn’t want to waste time on that, so he moved straight to the point:

“Please…”

He wanted the other person to find his younger self in high school and tell him the time and place of Wang Jiahui’s and his mother’s accidents. But that kind of warning would sound like a stranger suddenly claiming the world would end in a few months. No one would believe it.

At present, the serial murder case in Xuhu was still unsolved. The killer was unknown. Translated on Hololo novels. Over the years, Lin Wu had often gone to the police station to ask about it. All he knew was that the killer acted randomly and was likely a man in his thirties. There were no further leads.

He couldn’t tell the other person who the killer was, because he didn’t know.
He couldn’t directly say Wang Jiahui would be involved in a murder case either. The chance that the person on the other end was the killer was extremely small, but he wasn’t willing to risk her life by drawing attention to her.

After thinking it through, Lin Wu finally sent:

【For the sake of me telling you about the fire, please go to Class Five, Senior Year, Xuhu No. 1 High School, find Lin Wu, and tell him: at 8 p.m. on November 19, Xiao Hulu will be in a car accident. At 10 p.m. on December 15, Luo Xiaorong will be in a car accident.】

【Please make sure to tell him! Thank you.】

“For the sake of me telling you about the fire” sounded a bit awkward, even childish. Lin Wu wasn’t the kind of person to demand repayment for a favor. But Wang Jiahui and Luo Xiaorong were too important to him. Whether his younger self would believe it or not, he still hoped the message would be delivered.

At the same time, he also wanted to see whether, once the other person found him, his memories would change again.

As Lin Wu’s thoughts churned, in the hospital room in Xuhu, Qin Weidong suddenly shot to his feet, his face twisting.

He was already convinced Lin Wu had been lurking in the café to start the fire. Now the other person was sending him predictions of two car accidents…

A new set of crimes?

“!!!” Qin Weidong angrily typed out a long string of curses and hit send.

Half a second later, the screen displayed: message failed to send.

Qin Weidong: furious.

………

At the same time, in the hotel in Xuhu, Lin Wu’s message interface also showed a failed send.

He picked up a notebook and began recording:

September 5, 22:12 — received a strange message, discrepancy in Xingchen Internet Café fire.
September 6, 22:12 — new memory appeared.
22:15 — received another message.
22:27 — messages failed to send.

He didn’t know whether more messages would come, or whether new memories would appear again.

But his desire to change the past had never been stronger.

He wanted to find a pattern in all of this, to increase his chances of altering what had already happened.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.

Next

Lin Wu was a science student, and he fit the common impression people had of science students: calm, composed, highly logical, good at analysis. Beyond that, though, he was more stubborn than most, and more inclined to trust his own judgment.

He ran through the memories in his head, then tapped apologetically on the front seat. “Sorry, I need to get out here.”

“Now?” The taxi driver was clearly unwilling, but Lin Wu had already ridden five kilometers, which still counted as a decent fare.

Lin Wu paid and got out. Crossing the street from the sidewalk, he walked up to the internet café. The door was open now, and everything inside had already been hauled away. A man who looked like he was in charge was directing workers as they knocked apart wooden cabinets and shelving. Lin Wu took in the surroundings and could confirm that this was the very site of the fire. According to the information he had seen yesterday, it should already have been converted into a convenience store.

“Looking for someone?” the man asked in confusion when he saw Lin Wu standing at the entrance.

“This internet café looks like it has some age to it. Has it been here many years?” Lin Wu asked with a smile. Whether sincere or not, years of deliberate practice had made him sound very earnest when he smiled and spoke.

“Twenty-one years. Opened in ’03.” Seeing that Lin Wu looked pleasant enough, the man answered casually.

“You’re the owner?”

“One of them. The café used to do pretty well. Not anymore.” The man had been in the business for many years, and his tone carried a trace of reminiscence.

Seeing that the man looked to be in his early forties, Lin Wu chose his words carefully. “Did there used to be a fire here?”

“How did you know?” The man was startled.

“I went to school nearby back then. I remember there being a fire in this area, but I wasn’t sure if it was here.”

“That would’ve been in ’04. The second floor caught fire because of a water boiler. Burned up a lot of machines.”

“It didn’t turn into anything serious?”

“No. One of the customers spotted it early, right when the fire started. They evacuated in time, so it didn’t turn into a major disaster. Quite a few people got scraped up, though.”

“Was it someone here using the computers?” Lin Wu had found the point where his memory diverged.

“I heard it was a high school student. This café was originally opened by my uncle with borrowed money. After the incident, he got hit with a big fine and had to renovate, so my family bought in as shareholders. I never really knew what else to do, so I just kept running the place all these years…” The more the man spoke, the more absorbed in memory he became.

“You’re closing it down now?” Lin Wu asked, looking inside.

“Yeah. The city’s replanning the area. This whole stretch is going to be turned into a food street…”

Even after leaving, Lin Wu still felt unsettled. The first thing he did after returning to the hotel was dig out the old phone. Yesterday’s chat history was still there. The other number still could not be reached, and messages still could not be sent.

He looked at the last message he had sent:

[Forwarded: September 5, 2004, 23:25…]

He had edited that message himself based on the news article. It was now eleven in the morning. He opened his laptop and searched again: September 5, 2004…

The results related to the news he had seen yesterday were gone. In their place was a forum thread:

[Another fire safety lecture! I even missed my TV drama because of it!]

It was a student complaining that the school’s fire safety lecture had run long, causing them to miss their evening drama. The post clearly stated that the lecture had been held because Xingchen Internet Café caught fire on September 5, and it even included photos taken in passing. Besides that, there were also official news reports from the time covering the fire.

The location of the fire was the same as in his memory, but its severity was not. The citywide fire safety lectures had happened, but only as a brief measure with more noise than substance. They lasted only half a day, not the full month of tension and alarm he remembered.

Lin Wu closed his eyes.

He realized he had no memory of the world after the fire had changed.

……

While Lin Wu was sorting through the matter of the fire, back in 2004, in a high-end hospital room at Xuhu Central Hospital, Qin Weidong lay half-reclined in bed with his right arm in a sling. Standing beside him was a burly middle-aged man with a large frame. He wore a white dress shirt under a black suit jacket and was currently speaking on a large mobile phone.

It was very formal attire, but the man carried a natural air of the underworld about him. Even a proper suit somehow looked less proper on him.

On the phone, he was talking about coal mines, workplace safety, and the like. Translated on Hololo novels. Qin Weidong was used to it. With his other hand he played on his phone, first checking his messages, and then, seeing there was nothing new, opening Tetris instead.

After three rounds, the man finally hung up and turned toward him. “Cutting class, cutting class, always cutting class! You think you’re in school just to skip it? Can’t you let people worry a little less…”

Qin Weidong was already annoyed and corrected him. “Didn’t cut class. I went after evening study hall.”

“Climbing over the wall and sneaking out of school is the same thing!”

“Yeah, yeah, next time I won’t climb the wall.” Qin Weidong answered casually.

Seeing the thick-skinned expression on his face, Qin Jianzhang’s head began to ache from anger. “School’s only been in session one week, and your teachers have already called me three times. Forget being late and fighting, forget sneaking out, but when other people skip class to go online, they come out fine. How is it that only you end up in the hospital from it? Even your truancy has to be different from everyone else’s…”

Qin Jianzhang normally lived out in the county and had only arrived in Xuhu the night before. He had a meeting today and had originally planned to speak to his son afterward about the fight at school. But before he had even gotten fully awake, he received a call from the school saying Qin Weidong had gotten into a fight and been hospitalized, bleeding.

He had been so alarmed he threw on clothes and rushed straight over.

Qin Weidong had indeed bled, but it was only an arm injury. A sling for a week would do. Still worried his son might have lasting issues, Qin Jianzhang had forced him into a three-day hospital stay.

After listening to all that, Qin Weidong lifted his head and corrected him unhappily. “I wasn’t fighting. I was helping people.”

The moment he thought back to what happened last night, his feelings turned complicated again.

After the staff room caught fire, he had immediately shouted for the network admin, then gone looking for a fire extinguisher. There was a whole row of them in the café, but they were all just for show, there to pass inspections, and none of them worked. The fire in the staff room spread too quickly and soon reached the doorway.

The network admin had frozen in fright.

Remembering the content of the message, Qin Weidong decisively gave up on trying to put out the fire and instead started pounding on the doors of the private rooms one by one. After that, he ran downstairs shouting. Maybe it was the look on his face, or maybe the thick smoke already pouring down from the second floor, but the others quickly understood and rushed for the exit.

There had been more than fifty people on the first floor. In the panic, someone soon fell.

By then, all the customers from upstairs had also come charging down, and the whole first floor turned into a crush of bodies. The smoke grew so thick that people could barely see.

It was in the middle of that chaos that he saw the yellow-haired kid sprawled on the ground.

At first he had not wanted to bother. But that kid had, at least, tried to strike up a conversation with him earlier. So just as he was about to pass by, he veered aside, grabbed the kid off the floor with one hand, and used his size advantage to force his way toward the exit.

The fire had spread with terrifying speed, but because it was discovered in time and the firefighters arrived quickly, the whole thing ended as more fright than harm. Aside from a few customers getting minor scrapes while fleeing, no real disaster came of it.

Ordinarily, once everyone escaped, they would either demand compensation from the café or go home shaken.

The trouble was that half of them were middle school students.

When the firefighters saw so many little kids, they immediately contacted the police. The injured were sent to the hospital, the uninjured were taken back to the station, and the whole thing turned into utter chaos.

Qin Weidong was among the injured.

He had slammed into a sheet-metal door while carrying someone out, and his arm had been cut in two places.

The police took him to the hospital and contacted the school. Somehow, by the time the story reached Qin Jianzhang, it had turned into him getting hospitalized for fighting.

He had lived seventeen years, and the one time he finally acted with courage, it still got reported as a fight. It was infuriating.

“Your teachers are something else, can’t even get the facts straight, judging with prejudice!” Qin Jianzhang was clearly unhappy that his son had been wrongly accused of fighting. After venting for a bit, he looked at Qin Weidong. “This kind of thing can’t happen again. If you don’t want to stay in the dorm, then commute. That villa on the east side has been empty. I’ll get you a driver to take you to and from school. It’s not far.”

His expectations for Qin Weidong’s academics were extremely low. He himself wasn’t cut out for studying, so it was only natural his son wasn’t either. He had only one goal: don’t get into trouble. Once Qin Weidong went abroad, got some kind of degree, and came back, it would be enough for him to live happily as a rich second-generation heir.

“We’ll see,” Qin Weidong said. He actually liked living on campus. Noticing how formally Qin Jianzhang was dressed today, he asked, “Aren’t you going to your meeting?”

“I am!” Qin Jianzhang snorted. As a mine owner, he had a municipal safety meeting to attend regarding enterprise production. If he lingered any longer, he’d be late.

He picked up his briefcase and was about to leave when he paused. “You have enough money?”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t spent much lately; there was still plenty left on his card.

“Eat what you want, drink what you want. Money’s meant to be spent!” Qin Jianzhang felt bad about his son being injured. After leaving, he thought for a moment and made a call to his assistant.

Back in the hospital room, Qin Weidong was halfway through a game when a notification popped up.

A deposit: 100,000 yuan.

Qin Jianzhang clearly had no sense of a high schooler’s spending habits. When he transferred money, he did it on a whim.

With the game interrupted, Qin Weidong lost interest. His attention drifted back to the fire message from the night before.

Aside from getting his wound treated, he had been thinking about it all day. Who had sent it? How had they predicted the exact time of the fire?

He had asked the firefighters. The fire had likely been caused by a water boiler.

The boiler had been used by the network admin. He had simply been trying to boil some water because he was thirsty. Judging by his reaction afterward, he genuinely hadn’t expected it to start a fire…

Before Qin Jianzhang arrived, Qin Weidong had borrowed a nurse’s phone to try calling. Just like with Hu Wei’s phone, the number was not in service, and messages couldn’t be sent.

Qin Weidong hated thinking too much.

Right now, he felt like his brain was about to burn out.

He put down his phone. Translated on Hololo novels. Just then, Hu Wei slipped into the room carrying a takeout meal. “Did your dad leave?” Hu Wei had met Qin Jianzhang twice and was a little afraid of him, so he had slipped out before Qin Jianzhang arrived.

“Yeah.” Qin Weidong hadn’t eaten much since last night. Without caring how the food tasted, he grabbed his chopsticks and started eating quickly.

Once he felt full, he asked, “You’re not going to class?”

All the underage students who weren’t injured had been taken to the police station the night before. Hu Wei had told the officer he needed to take care of an injured friend and had come to the hospital with him.

“I’m not going. The homeroom teacher said I can come back after I finish writing a self-criticism.” Thinking about the fire still made Hu Wei uneasy. “Brother Qin, if I hadn’t gone to the store, I might’ve ended up injured like you!”

He had been sitting deep inside. Based on what others described, he probably would have tripped while running and fallen hard. Just thinking about it felt dangerous.

“You’re lucky,” Qin Weidong said casually, then asked, “The number you gave me yesterday was the admin’s number, right?”

“Yeah.” Hu Wei didn’t understand why Qin Weidong was so hung up on it. Since he lived in the dorm, his family checked his call and message records every month. He didn’t dare use his own number to reserve computers, so he had asked Qin Weidong to send the message.

“There was something wrong with that number?” Hu Wei asked.

“Nothing major.” Qin Weidong thought for a moment, then continued, “Xiao Liu gave it to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Call him again. Confirm it.”

Qin Weidong didn’t like overthinking, but once he started, he had to get to the bottom of things.

“Alright.” Hu Wei dialed Xiao Liu, then half a minute later looked at Qin Weidong apologetically. “The number Xiao Liu gave me was correct… I just read it wrong when I told you.”

The number Xiao Liu gave ended in 0223, but Hu Wei had read it as 1223. That was how the whole mix-up happened.

“That number… is out of service?” Hu Wei remembered Qin Weidong had tried calling it using his phone the day before.

“Something like that…” Qin Weidong had already expected this after thinking it through all night. Now that it was confirmed the number wasn’t the admin’s, a new question emerged:

Who had he been texting?

……

In the hotel in Xuhu in 2024, Lin Wu had been organizing information about the 2004 fire. In truth, there wasn’t much to organize. Aside from a brief half-day of fire safety lectures, the fire was like countless others across the country: no deaths, nothing particularly unusual.

At ten that night, Lin Wu changed into his sleepwear, made a cup of coffee, and turned on both the old phone and his laptop.

On the phone were not only the chat records from last night, but also the messages he had sent during the day. Ever since returning from the internet café, he had been sending messages every half hour. Just like before, all of them had failed to send.

On the computer was the demolition news about Xingchen Internet Café. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Lin Wu was a physics professor, yet he had never encountered a problem as baffling as this.

As he thought it over, the time on the computer ticked from 10:00 to 10:12. Just as he was about to shut it down and rest, his mind suddenly went blank, as if a bell had rung somewhere.

Five seconds later, Lin Wu stared blankly at the screen.

There were now two sets of memories in his mind.

The first: on September 5, 2004, a devastating fire broke out at Xingchen Internet Café, killing 22 people and severely injuring 39.

The second: no one died at Xingchen Internet Café. That memory felt like a dream known only to him.

The two memories existed like two separate films. He could clearly distinguish between them, without interference. This was beyond anything his knowledge of physics could explain.

At that moment, the old phone lit up with a message notification.

Lin Wu stared at it for half a second, then opened it.

Unknown number: Are you there?

It was the same number from last night.

Timestamp: September 6, 2004, 22:15.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.

“Wang Gao’ang’s been running his mouth, saying he’ll beat us up every time he sees us. No idea who it was that got beaten like a dog last time…” In the taxi in 2004, Hu Wei rambled on about what had been happening these past few days.

There were three high schools in their area: Xuhu No. 1 High School, Lide High School, and the Xuhu Vocational Education Center. Xuhu No. 1 was the best high school in the city, and the students there looked down on others. They had little to do with that side.

Lide’s college admission rate wasn’t as high as No. 1, but its facilities were better, and it had many specialty students and students planning to go abroad. The students there were basically divided into two types: good students, and those who got in through money and connections. Hu Wei and Qin Weidong belonged to the second group. Hu Wei’s family had pinned all their hopes on him and scraped together money to get him in as a sports student, while Qin Weidong had paid a hefty school selection fee and planned to go abroad after graduation.

Qin Weidong was one of the troublemakers at school. Listening to Hu Wei go on from Wang Gao’ang to the group fight the other day, he said dully, “The school’s been cracking down hard lately. Let’s not stir up trouble for now.” He had just been called in by the homeroom teacher that afternoon over a fight, and he felt completely drained.

“Right, right, we’ll study hard! Violence doesn’t solve anything!” Hu Wei immediately changed his tone.

Qin Weidong barely lifted his eyelids, not in the mood to banter.

The scenery outside the taxi window slid by quickly, and soon they arrived at the internet café. It was a two-story place with about 120 computers. Since it was Wednesday, there weren’t many people, and plenty of machines were free when they walked in.

“We texted earlier to reserve machines. Why didn’t anyone respond?” Hu Wei knocked lazily on the counter.

The cashier was a girl in her early twenties, watching a Korean drama. She glanced up. “Who did you text? I didn’t get anything.”

“Zhou Ping, the tall skinny guy from before!”

“The network admin took leave today. He probably didn’t see it. It’s quiet today anyway. You guys opening machines or not?” she asked directly.

“Two private rooms.”

“No private rooms left. Only the main hall.”

“Then the hall it is.”

After chatting a bit more, Hu Wei bought two cans of cola and went back outside to find Qin Weidong. “Brother Qin, all set. Machines 32 and 33!”

It was stuffy inside the café, so Qin Weidong had been standing at the entrance getting some air. Translated on Hololo novels. Seeing Hu Wei return, he casually opened his wallet, pulled out five hundred yuan, and handed it over. “Use this for the computer fees. If it runs out, we’ll talk later.”

“Thanks, boss! I’ll keep a record and give it to you later!” Hu Wei took the money smoothly, clearly not the first time.

“Whatever.” Qin Weidong didn’t care about small amounts of money. When he went out with friends, he rarely fussed over these things and wasn’t used to letting others pay.

They quickly returned inside. Their seats were in a corner on the first floor, far from the entrance, relatively quiet.

Hu Wei sat down and immediately launched Counter-Strike. Qin Weidong placed his phone on the desk, planning to find a few sci-fi movies to watch. But the moment he set it down, a message tone rang out.

He was using the latest Motorola phone, and the message tone sounded especially crisp in the café.

“Who’s that?” Hu Wei asked curiously.

“No idea.” Qin Weidong assumed it was from Qin Jianzhang, probably nagging him again about fighting and not studying. Thinking this, he opened the message—

But it wasn’t Qin Jianzhang.

It was the number for the café’s network admin.

Unknown number: 【Didn’t Xingchen Internet Café shut down twenty years ago?】

Qin Weidong: ???

He turned to Hu Wei. “The number you gave me earlier, that’s the admin’s number?”

“Yeah. I just asked. He took leave today, that’s why he didn’t reply in time. But it’s quiet today anyway, no need to reserve machines…”

At that moment, the game finished loading, and Hu Wei quickly immersed himself in it.

Qin Weidong stared at the message, then casually replied: “Oh? When did it shut down? How come I didn’t know?”

Xingchen had opened just last year. He figured the admin must have had some conflict with the owner and was just talking nonsense out of boredom.

After sending it, Qin Weidong felt like he was wasting his time. He was about to look for a movie when the phone lit up again:

【Forwarded: September 5, 2004, 23:25 — A major fire broke out at Xingchen Internet Café on Yueyang Road in Xuhu City, causing 22 deaths and 39 injuries. The fire was caused by improper use of electrical equipment by staff…】

“Getting creative now?” Qin Weidong frowned deeply. He found it tasteless. If the employee had a problem with the boss, then curse the boss. What did it have to do with the people just there to use the computers? There were over seventy people in the café right now. That message basically cursed most of them.

Already in a bad mood these past few days, Qin Weidong didn’t bother replying anymore and simply called the number.

“Beep. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check and try again.”

Qin Weidong: …Blocked me???

“What’s wrong, Brother Qin?” Hu Wei leaned over, noticing him staring at his phone.

“Let me use your phone.”

“Sure!” Hu Wei pulled out his phone, confused.

Qin Weidong dialed again. Same result. Number not in service.

He tried sending messages from both phones. Both failed to send.

“Who’s texting you?” Hu Wei asked, remembering Qin Weidong hadn’t said.

“The admin from before…” Qin Weidong felt that everything about this was strange. He glanced at the computer’s clock: 22:32.

There were still fifty-three minutes until the time of the fire mentioned in the message.

……

In the hotel in Xuhu in 2024, Lin Wu also found the message odd. After thinking it over, he guessed it might be a bug with the telecom provider, perhaps old messages being delayed and delivered now, or just some random prank.

As for why he had replied…

Lin Wu looked at his laptop screen. The fire report he had searched earlier was still displayed.

That fire had been so severe that their school had held a full month of fire safety lectures because of it. It was one of the few memories from his final year of high school that could be called relatively uneventful.

……

Back in 2004, at Xingchen Internet Café, Qin Weidong was still thinking about the messages when he suddenly felt two gazes on his back, followed by an obvious attempt at conversation.

“Is that a foreign movie?”

Qin Weidong turned around. Translated on Hololo novels. It was two middle school students. They wore oversized camouflage clothes, had streaks of dyed yellow hair, and smelled faintly of smoke. At a glance, they were clearly troublemakers.

“Yeah,” Qin Weidong replied casually.

Seeing that Qin Weidong also seemed like someone from “the same circle,” they took out a pack of cigarettes and tried to strike up a conversation. “What are you watching? Looks pretty good.”

Qin Weidong tapped the title on the screen. “If you want to watch, go open a machine yourself.”

They wanted to keep talking, but seeing the impatience on his face, they wisely left.

“Brother Qin, looks like you’re pretty popular with the younger kids,” Hu Wei joked after they were gone.

“They’re too young. Don’t know anything.”

Qin Weidong was the school bully at Lide. From his looks and demeanor alone, he seemed like someone who both caused trouble and could handle it. Many younger students liked to latch onto him, calling him “brother,” and some even asked whether he had a girlfriend. Standing next to him made them feel important.

Qin Weidong didn’t like that kind of atmosphere. He wasn’t bored enough to go looking for trouble.

It was now 10:40. Qin Weidong took a sip of cola and glanced around the café. “Why are there so many middle schoolers here?”

“The middle schools in the district have been doing military training these past few days. Probably the supervision’s a bit looser,” Hu Wei said.

“Mm.”

Qin Weidong glanced around roughly. There were more than seventy people in the internet café tonight, and about half of them were middle school students in camouflage uniforms. The café was clearly violating regulations, but he himself was underage, so he had no real standing to criticize it.

He finished the rest of his cola, then thought again about the message. If a fire really broke out here, more than half the people would be gone…

Irritated, Qin Weidong stood up.

“What’s wrong?” Hu Wei was startled.

“Nothing. I’m just going to take a look around.” Normally, Qin Weidong wouldn’t have paid any attention to a prank message like this, but the number had been out of service and still able to send texts. The more he thought about it, the stranger it felt.

It was now 22:50. Qin Weidong walked from the first floor to the second, then back down again. There weren’t many people staying overnight tonight, so he focused mainly on things like computer outlets and refrigerator plugs, while recalling the content of the message:

[The fire was caused by improper use of electrical equipment by staff…]

The message didn’t specify what equipment. He looked around, but everything seemed normal. Nothing stood out as a problem.

Qin Weidong wandered over to the counter.

The cashier had just poured hot water into a cup of instant noodles.

He stood to the side, watching.

The cashier was happily watching her Korean drama, but sensing his gaze, she looked up in confusion. “What is it?”

“Eating instant noodles?” Qin Weidong asked.

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead,” he said, tilting his chin.

Feeling slightly uncomfortable, the cashier started eating.

Qin Weidong stood there for seven minutes, making sure she finished without anything like noodle broth spilling onto the keyboard and causing a fire. Only then did he return to his seat, expressionless.

“What’s going on with you?” Hu Wei asked, completely baffled by Qin Weidong’s pacing.

“Nothing.” Qin Weidong felt like he was being overly suspicious, but the message still felt off.

23:15. There were ten minutes left until the fire mentioned in the message.

He thought about dragging Hu Wei to a nearby convenience store. That way, whether there was a fire or not, at least the two of them would be safe. But looking at all the middle school students in the café, if a fire really broke out, more than half of them would be doomed—

He couldn’t exactly stand up and shout that there was going to be a fire.

Even he felt like he’d look like an idiot.

“Did your dad call you or something?” Hu Wei asked, noticing how distracted Qin Weidong had been all night.

“Something like that,” Qin Weidong replied vaguely, then looked at his screen. “You finished that round?”

“Just did.” Hu Wei was about to start another.

“Don’t start yet. Go to the convenience store up front and buy me a chocolate bar and two cans of Red Bull.” Qin Weidong took out a hundred yuan.

“They sell stuff here…” Hu Wei started toward the counter.

“The chocolate here tastes bad. Go to the one up front. Hazelnut flavor.” The store up ahead was about 800 meters away. A round trip, plus shopping time, would take about fifteen minutes.

“Alright!”

Hu Wei often ran errands for Qin Weidong, so he didn’t mind. He happily headed out, though he didn’t take the hundred yuan from the table. Qin Weidong didn’t say anything and simply put the money away. As long as neither of them let the other take a loss, that was enough.

After Hu Wei left, Qin Weidong went over the messages again. Still uneasy, he muttered a curse and headed upstairs. If this really was a prank, he was determined to find that network admin and beat him up.

The second floor was the same size as the first, but without a front desk. Instead, there were five private rooms and two staff rooms.

Just like before, he focused on the outlets and plugs. Only one staff member was on duty upstairs, sitting in the hall playing games, while the other customers were inside private rooms. There were fewer people upstairs, so Qin Weidong’s footsteps echoed loudly.

He checked carefully. Just when he thought he would come up empty-handed again, he suddenly caught a faint smell of something burning.

It was coming from the staff room.

Through the crack in the door, he could see flames rapidly spreading.

……

“Hazelnut chocolate bar, two cans of Red Bull…” At Jia Jia Supermarket, 800 meters away from Xingchen, Hu Wei finished buying what Qin Weidong had asked for. Remembering that Qin hadn’t eaten dinner, he also picked up two cups of instant noodles and a couple of sausages.

After paying and stepping out of the store, he suddenly noticed a fire in the distance.

At first he didn’t think much of it. But two seconds later, it hit him—

The place on fire… was the internet café?!

……

“Thank you for your help. You’ve really assisted a lot these past few days.”

“No trouble at all. Your initial paperwork is already done. You’ll just need to sign a relocation agreement later. That should take about a week.”

On the morning of September 6, after completing the demolition procedures, Lin Wu left the municipal office building. The sun was shining brightly, and his mood felt a little lighter as well. He stood by the roadside for a moment, then casually hailed a taxi.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

After giving the hotel address, Lin Wu added, “Take Yueyang Road.”

Both Yueyang Road and Government Avenue led to the hotel, but Yueyang Road was a bit longer. Perhaps because of the strange message he had received the night before, and with nothing urgent to do, he wanted to pass by the area where he used to go to school.

“Sure thing!” The driver clearly liked passengers who asked for a longer route, and his tone became noticeably more enthusiastic.

The scenery slid past outside the window, and Lin Wu’s thoughts drifted back to the fire.

In his memory, most of the victims had been nearby students, many of them middle schoolers undergoing military training. After the incident, the entire city tightened regulations on internet cafés, and the person in charge had reportedly been sentenced to many years in prison.

Lin Wu let his thoughts wander until, as they passed a storefront, he suddenly froze. “Wait!”

“What’s wrong?” The driver quickly pulled over.

“That internet café… it’s still there?” Lin Wu stared blankly across the street.

“Which one?” the driver followed his gaze.

“Xingchen Internet Café.” Lin Wu felt that something had gone wrong. He had specifically looked up the fire the day before. After the incident, the café had shut down and, after several changes, had become a small roadside shop.

“It’s always been there. Old place, been around twenty years. I think it’s about to be demolished soon,” the driver said. Having driven all over the area for years, he knew the layout well.

“Twenty years…”

Lin Wu tried hard to recall.

In his memory, that internet café had been gone.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.

Lin Wu handled Wang Manshan’s funeral arrangements according to the same process as before.

When many of the colleagues who had attended Hao Shuqin’s funeral learned that something had happened to Wang Manshan as well, all they could do was sigh in dismay. Beyond that, quite a few also envied Lin Wu for inheriting a house. But envy was envy. Everyone still felt that the two families had suffered far too much.

After the funeral, quite a few people wanted to use the occasion to get closer to Lin Wu, but after some brief polite exchanges, he did not continue the conversation. Over the years he had become gentler than he had been in high school, but deep down he was still a loner. Back then, he had been unable to fit into the collective. Now, he simply disliked having anyone get close.

“How are things at home? If there’s still a lot to deal with, you can come back to school later.” On August 31, Lin Wu had hired someone to clean out Wang Manshan’s home, and during that time he received a call from a university administrator.

“The funeral has been taken care of. There are still some personal matters left.” The personal matters Lin Wu referred to were the demolition procedures. The houses in Section Three had now officially been marked for demolition, but there were still matters such as measurements of the property and signing the compensation agreement. It would probably take another half month to finish everything.

“You still haven’t used up the annual leave from the past few years, so there’s no rush to come back. Come back whenever you’ve finished handling things!” the administrator said cheerfully. The high-temperature superconductivity project under Lin Wu’s charge had just caused a major stir in academic circles, and he was now one of the university’s prized stars. The administrator was not calling to hurry him back, but was sincerely concerned about his life.

“Thank you.” Lin Wu smiled.

After he hung up, the cleaning staff sorted out a large pile of odds and ends. “Mr. Lin, should we keep these things or throw them away?” Most of them were everyday items such as clothes and ornaments, all very lived-in and domestic.

Lin Wu looked them over carefully and said, “Keep the clothes and decorations. Throw out the greens and bean sprouts and anything else that’ll spoil easily.”

“Got it!” Lin Wu had paid well for the cleaning service, so everyone worked with great care.

An hour later, Wang Manshan’s home looked completely renewed. The clothes had been folded neatly into the wardrobe, the other belongings stored away in plastic bins, and the entire place was bright and spotless, without the slightest trace of clutter.

“Mr. Lin, should we cover everything now?” one of the cleaners asked, taking out a stack of dust covers.

“Go ahead,” Lin Wu said.

With a swish, the dust covers were spread over the sofas and cabinets. Wang Manshan had left the apartment to him. Lin Wu could not bear to rent it out, nor did he have any intention of selling it. After thinking it over, he decided to leave the question of the apartment for later.

After leaving Wang Manshan’s place, Lin Wu went to the family compound in Section Three. The houses there had been built in 1980, with two households to a staircase landing and both households sharing one toilet. Following his memory, Lin Wu arrived downstairs at his old building. His family had lived in Building 26, Unit 1, on the third floor. The stairwell was dark and dim, carrying the musty smell that came with too many years. Now all the old steel factory residents had moved away, and the building was occupied by migrant workers from out of town.

Lin Wu soon reached the third floor and took out his key.

The rusted iron door creaked open, revealing the inside: a passageway of about five square meters, cluttered with miscellaneous items and kitchenware. At the end of it were two rooms, one where he had slept, the other where his parents had lived. The entire home measured thirty-six square meters. It was where he had lived from birth through high school.

The room smelled too strongly, so Lin Wu opened the hallway window.

He had actually come back a few times after graduating from high school, but with no one left at home, and with both his studies and social life centered elsewhere, he had returned less and less often. Even when he passed through Xuhu, he would only stop by to visit Hao Shuqin and then leave. Thinking about it carefully, he realized he had not come back in seven years.

Lin Wu opened all the windows, and then received a call from the demolition office.

“I’m at the house now. You can come over. Yes, Building 26, Unit 1…”

The compound had already begun scheduling property measurements. Lin Wu had originally made his appointment for the twenty-seventh, but after Wang Manshan’s death, he had postponed it until today.

It was now three in the afternoon. After hanging up, Lin Wu waited inside the house. At 3:20, the measuring team arrived.

“We were just at Building Seven, and it took a little longer than expected,” they said apologetically as soon as they entered. There were three of them, and since they had arranged to come at three, they felt bad about being late.

“It’s fine. I only just got here myself.” Lin Wu opened a plastic bag nearby and took out three bottles of mineral water. He had bought them on the way over.

“Thank you!” The three were a little surprised by the gesture, but after being busy all day, they really were thirsty. They gulped down the water and then began measuring with their instruments. Strictly speaking, though, it was more of a formality. All the apartments in Section Three followed the same layout, and the property deeds were there as well.

“Property prices have dropped lately, but Section Three and Section One are part of the same family compound, so you should probably get the same rate as Section One…” the team leader chatted with Lin Wu during a break in the measurements.

“The government’s treating us pretty well,” Lin Wu replied with a smile. Though he said that, he did not really care how much compensation he would receive. It was enough for the process to proceed as it should.

The two chatted for a while when a voice came from the other bedroom: “There’s a box here. Looks pretty nice, maybe even like an antique…”

“What box?” Lin Wu and the team leader both went over.

“This one!” The staff member pulled out a square wooden box from under the bed, about thirty centimeters by thirty centimeters. The room was about fifteen square meters, and because the space was so cramped, the bed had been pushed right up against the wall. He had moved it slightly to get an accurate measurement, and only then found the box wedged in the gap underneath.

“Rosewood, maybe?” The team leader took it, examined it back and forth, then handed it to Lin Wu.

“Probably…” Lin Wu froze for a moment. Looking at the pattern on the box, he recognized it as Luo Xiaorong’s keepsake box.

Luo Xiaorong, Lin Wu’s “mentally ill” mother.

“This box is really well preserved. You should put it away carefully. It might even sell for quite a bit.” Over this period they had seen many people digging out old belongings from the past. Some were valuable, some were not, but many were full of the memories of their era.

“Thank you. If it weren’t for you, I might never have found this box,” Lin Wu said sincerely as he put it away. He had cleaned this room before, but it must have been tucked too far underneath. He had never found it.

“What’s there to thank us for? Even if we hadn’t found it, you’d have had to clear the place out before demolition anyway.” The team leader waved it off, unwilling to take credit.

After the measuring team left, Lin Wu opened the box.

Luo Xiaorong had suffered from an intellectual disability, with the mental capacity of a child between three and seven years old. Translated on Hololo novels. While she was alive, she liked things like paper stars and dolls. When Lin Wu opened the box, he found some folded paper stars, a folded sheet of drawing paper, a mobile phone, and a charger.

He unfolded the drawing paper.

On it were three stick figures, two adults holding the hand of one child. All three were smiling. Behind them were trees drawn in colored marker, and a bright red sun. The drawing was very childish, but it also looked very warm.

Lin Wu’s gaze shifted to the lower right corner of the paper:

Happy Birthday, Wuwu!

The line was crooked and uneven, as if it had been traced by copying something.

Lin Wu went still. He picked up the phone and saw that there was a “Happy Birthday” sticker on the back.

Luo Xiaorong had died on December 15, 2004. Lin Wu’s birthday was December 23. This had been the birthday gift she had prepared for him.

He turned the phone on. There was a SIM card inside, and the last four digits of the number were 1223.

It was not some rare or lucky number. It was his birthday.

In a sudden flash, Lin Wu remembered that before Luo Xiaorong’s accident, she had often come home carrying a huge basin full of beads to string together. They were beads from the bead-curtain shop at the entrance to the compound. Back then he had thought she was just fooling around. Now, looking back, he realized she had been saving money to buy him a phone.

At seven that evening, Lin Wu returned to the hotel full of troubled thoughts, the box from the old house held in his arms.

He had already tried it. The phone still worked normally, but the SIM card had long since been deactivated.

That was perfectly natural. After all, twenty years had passed. There was no way that card could still be in service. It had probably passed through several different owners in the meantime.

After plugging the phone in to charge, Lin Wu lay on the bed, staring blankly.

By 2004, mobile phones had already begun to become popular. He did not know why Luo Xiaorong had bought him one, nor could he imagine what it had been like for someone with an intellectual disability to save up money bit by bit, then go from shop to shop choosing a phone number…

Lin Wu closed his eyes. He realized that he could no longer clearly remember what Luo Xiaorong looked like.

In the following week, aside from handling the demolition procedures, Lin Wu spent the rest of his time wandering around Xuhu. It was a small, unremarkable city, but after years of urban development, it now had many high-rise buildings. Much of what he remembered had already changed.

He walked through every street and alley of Xuhu, and the city in his memories seemed to drift farther and farther away.

On the night of September 5, thunder roared and lightning flashed. Lin Wu was in his hotel room organizing work materials. The demolition procedures were almost complete now. Once he signed two more compensation documents, he could head back. He had already contacted his colleagues at Jianghe over the past couple of days. Everything at the university was normal, nothing to worry about.

Just as he was thinking about which train ticket to buy, an abrupt sound suddenly rang out in the room—

Ding ding.

It was a sound full of nostalgia, like the text message tone from when mobile phones had first become widespread.

Lin Wu looked around and only then noticed a phone plugged into the bedside outlet. It was the one he had brought from the old house. Since he had no need for that socket, he had ignored it these past few days.

Now the black-and-white screen was lit.

Puzzled, Lin Wu walked over.

He unlocked the phone.

A single unread message appeared:

【Yueyang Road Xingchen Internet Café. Help me reserve two computers. I’ll be there at 10:30!】

A flash of lightning illuminated the room, making the message glaringly clear.

Lin Wu froze, his gaze shifting to the timestamp:

September 5, 2004, 22:12.

……

At 10:15 p.m. on September 5, 2004, at the south corner of Lide High School in Xuhu, Hu Wei flipped down from the three-meter-high wall like a nimble monkey.

He was 1.8 meters tall but weighed only 120 jin, his body thin as a pole, which was why many classmates called him “Monkey Hu.”

After landing and dusting himself off, he grinned at Qin Weidong, who was waiting by the wall. “Brother Qin, did you book the computers? I’ve been practicing my aim these past few days. I’m definitely going to rack up kills tonight!”

Qin Weidong was seventeen, about 1.89 meters tall, a head taller than Hu Wei. Broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, with sharp, rugged features, he was currently playing Tetris. Hearing this, he frowned and switched back to his messages. “Can’t get through on the phone. No reply to texts either. Are you sure that’s the manager’s number?”

“I’m sure! Xiao Liu used to book machines through him,” Hu Wei said. Both he and Qin Weidong were third-year boarding students at Lide High School. Their school was located in the eastern district of Xuhu, near two general high schools and one vocational school. Internet cafés had just become popular, and many students would sneak out on weekends or even overnight to go online.

It was Wednesday, and they had planned to go play Counter-Strike at the nearby Xingchen Internet Café.

“No reply.” Qin Weidong was the top dog at Lide High. Just after the semester started, he had already been involved in two group fights with students from the nearby vocational school. Translated on Hololo novels. He had been scolded by the homeroom teacher that afternoon and honestly had no interest in going out.

“Probably a lot of people online right now. He didn’t see it. We can just go directly!” Hu Wei could see the impatience in Qin Weidong’s eyes and was afraid he might call it off.

“Let’s go.” Qin Weidong really didn’t want to go, but since they had already come out, he didn’t feel like ruining the mood.

“Should we take a taxi or walk?” Hu Wei immediately asked, eager to please. The ride would cost six yuan, and he would rather save that money for drinks.

“Taxi.” Qin Weidong raised his hand and hailed one without hesitation. Though he was a boarding student, he received ten thousand yuan a month in allowance and had a credit card with a limit of five hundred thousand. Among high schoolers, that was an enormous sum.

“Thanks, boss!” Hu Wei knew Qin Weidong’s family owned mines. He didn’t know exactly how wealthy they were, but the fact that they had a personal driver already put them in a completely different class from ordinary people.

After the two of them got into the back seat of the taxi, Qin Weidong checked his phone again. The message screen was still blank. There was nothing.

At the same time, in a hotel in Xuhu in 2024, Lin Wu was also frowning at his phone.

The screen still displayed the message from earlier. After reading it, two thoughts came to him.

First: this phone can still receive messages?

Second: the Xingchen Internet Café on Yueyang Road had been shut down twenty years ago after a major fire.

Lin Wu remembered it clearly because he had been a senior in high school at the time, studying just two streets away.

The fire at Xingchen Internet Café had resulted in twenty-two deaths and thirty-nine severe injuries. It had caused a major stir locally, and for an entire month afterward, their school had held fire safety lectures. The fire had occurred at 11:25 p.m. on September 5, 2004.

Looking at the message, Lin Wu felt something was off. He used the old phone to dial the number. Both his phone and the other number were out of service.

He stared again at the timestamp on the message:

September 5, 2004, 22:12.

So…

a deactivated number had sent a message to another deactivated number?

Lin Wu felt like he had stepped into something unreal.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.

【Yueyang Road Xingchen Internet Café, help me reserve two computers. I’ll be there at 10:30!】

【Didn’t Xingchen Internet Café shut down twenty years ago?】

【Oh? When did it shut down? How come I didn’t know?】

【Forwarded: September 5, 2004, 23:25 — A major fire broke out at Xingchen Internet Café in Xuhu City, causing 22 deaths and 39 injuries…】

……

On the evening of September 6, 2024, in a luxury hotel in downtown Xuhu, Lin Wu sat at the desk in his room, dressed in light brown pajamas, his expression serious.

In front of him were two electronic devices.

One was a black-and-white screen mobile phone produced in 2004, 11 centimeters long and 5 centimeters wide. A sticker was affixed to the back cover, and the phone looked almost brand new. The SMS interface was lit up, displaying a series of text messages exchanged the previous night.

Lin Wu studied it carefully for a while, then turned to the other device: a brand-new business laptop from 2024.

The search bar on the computer was open, showing a local news article:

[On August 26, the municipal government decided to demolish twelve internet cafés on Yueyang Road, including Changkong, Xingchen, and Feiyue. The former sites will be redeveloped into a food street…]

Ten photos accompanied the article. One of them showed a signboard photographed at the entrance by municipal workers. It had a distinctly old-fashioned design, and the two characters “Xingchen” were clearly visible.

Lin Wu closed his eyes.

He felt as if there were two separate memories in his mind.

The first: on September 5, 2004, a devastating fire broke out at Xingchen Internet Café, killing 22 people and injuring 39.

The second: no one died at Xingchen Internet Café. His memory of it was like a dream known only to himself…

……

Twenty days earlier.

Teacher Hao had committed suicide.

Lin Wu had just finished attending an academic seminar when he received the news. It was late August, the sunlight over Jianghe bright and clear. Around him were scholars and experts who had attended the conference, some discussing its content, others exchanging pleasantries and networking. Everyone wore the relaxed expression of having just completed something significant.

The atmosphere was so pleasant that when Lin Wu took the call, he felt momentarily disoriented.

It was as if his soul and body had separated. His soul was bewildered, while his body calmly asked, “When did it happen?”

“This morning at five. She jumped. They couldn’t save her. We’ve contacted the funeral home. They’ll send someone this afternoon.” Wang Manshan’s voice carried the exhaustion of someone utterly drained.

Lin Wu made a decisive choice. “I’m coming back now.”

“Will it affect your work?”

“No. I’ll check high-speed rail tickets. I can be there by seven at the latest.”

After hanging up, Lin Wu felt his right hand trembling. He didn’t bother with anything else. After briefly informing his colleagues of an emergency, he rushed back to the hotel to pack, then hurried to the train station.

Lin Wu was thirty-seven years old. His life had been full of twists and hardship.

His father was disabled, and his mother had moderate intellectual impairment. Compared to other families, his home life had always been somewhat abnormal. His father had worked at the Xuhu Steel Plant, supporting the family of three on a meager salary. Wang Manshan had been his father’s coworker, and Wang’s wife, Hao Shuqin, was a schoolteacher. The two families were closer than most.

When Lin Wu was in his first year of high school, his father died of illness. By then he was already half-grown, forced to attend school while caring for his mother. During that time, Wang Manshan’s family helped him greatly.

Though Lin Wu had not been good at expressing himself when he was young, he remembered everything.

Wang Manshan and Hao Shuqin had one daughter, Wang Jiahui, two years younger than Lin Wu. Back then, she used to follow him around, calling him “Brother Lin.” In her senior year of high school, she became involved in a serial murder case. She survived, but fell into a vegetative state. A month later, Lin Wu’s mother was killed in a traffic accident while crossing the street.

These two events dealt devastating blows to both families.

At the time, Lin Wu was about to take the college entrance exam. He lived in a daze, day after day. Wang Manshan and Hao Shuqin were overwhelmed with their daughter’s condition, yet they did not abandon Lin Wu. While caring for Wang Jiahui, they also paid close attention to Lin Wu’s mental state.

Under these successive blows, Lin Wu forced himself forward and ultimately became the top science student of his year.

Now he was a professor in the Department of Physics at Jianghe University. With age and experience came clarity, and he had come to deeply understand the kindness Wang Manshan’s family had shown him. Back then, he had been like someone standing lost at the edge of a cliff. It was that family who had pulled him back.

In recent years, he had come to regard them as his own family.

In a daze, Lin Wu thought of Wang Jiahui.

She had been a gentle and sensible girl, only in her first year of high school when the incident occurred. It was a series of murders targeting high school girls. Between 2004 and 2007, the killer committed five crimes. Of the five victims, only the second and third survived.

The second survivor moved quickly to another province. Wang Jiahui was the third victim. Though she survived, her brain suffered severe damage, leaving her in a vegetative state. Wang Manshan and Hao Shuqin cared for her year after year, until six months ago, when she died from complications caused by her long-term condition.

“We were mentally prepared. Huihui endured for so many years. In a way, this was a release.” When Lin Wu received the news, he had returned to Xuhu. At the time, Hao Shuqin, her hair graying and eyes swollen, had instead comforted him.

Worried they might not withstand the pain of losing their only child, Lin Wu had called them every week over the past six months. Most of the calls were answered by Hao Shuqin. She would talk about what she had eaten, whether the fish at the market was fresh, her tone calm, betraying nothing unusual.

Lin Wu thought they had made it through.

He never expected Hao Shuqin to suddenly take her own life. It came like a violent storm, completely without warning.

Outside the train window, the scenery sped past. For the first time, Lin Wu felt time move unbearably slowly.

At 6:50, he arrived at the Xuhu Funeral Home.

Before retirement, Wang Manshan had been a steel factory worker, and Hao Shuqin a high school teacher. Both were well liked. When Lin Wu arrived, the farewell hall was filled with relatives, friends, and colleagues who had come to pay their respects.

Wang Manshan, wearing a black jacket, looked haggard as he received guests. Already short in stature, he seemed to have aged years in just six months.

“Uncle Wang!” Lin Wu stepped forward after steadying himself.

“You’re here?” Wang Manshan’s eyes were bloodshot, his voice hoarse. He looked at Lin Wu, as if wanting to say something, but in the end he simply pulled him into a tight embrace. “Your Aunt Hao is gone.”

“This morning she said she couldn’t sleep and wanted to go for a walk. Before she left, she asked what I wanted to eat. I said two scallion buns and some soy milk. She said the buns at the entrance of the neighborhood sell out quickly, and if they were gone, she’d get fennel ones instead. I never thought… after she left, she would never come back. I checked the surveillance. She went up there alone… stayed on the rooftop for half an hour…”

Wang Manshan kept replaying the moments before Hao Shuqin’s death. Not even he could accept that his wife was gone.

“Aunt Hao must have had a moment of despair. Please don’t dwell on it too much. You have to take care of your health…” Lin Wu’s eyes reddened. With Teacher Hao gone, he was deeply worried about Wang Manshan.

“Is this Lin Wu?”

“Lin Haiming’s son.”

“He’s grown up so much.”

………

As they spoke, quite a few workers from the steel factory recognized Lin Wu. Back when everyone lived in the same compound, their impression of him had been that he studied well, was small and skinny, gloomy, and kept to himself. In the little they remembered, Lin Wu was always carrying his schoolbag home with his head lowered. He had no real friends and was often out in the yard washing clothes for his family.

The young Lin Wu had been far too easy to overlook.

Now, though, he had come straight from the seminar venue and was still wearing the expensive suit he had worn for the conference. His hair was slightly disheveled from hurrying, but his skin was pale, his features sharp and well-formed, and his bearing calm and restrained. At a glance, he looked like an elite professional.

“Is that really Lin Haiming’s son?” Lin Haiming had been lame, and his wife had been mentally ill. No one had expected their child to grow up like this.

“I heard he’s a professor at Jianghe University…” someone said, sharing what they knew about Lin Wu.

“Jianghe!” the others murmured among themselves.

Jianghe University was one of the top two universities in the country. For Lin Wu to be a professor there, he had to be outstanding even among the outstanding. Once they learned what he did, some people wanted to go over and strike up a connection, but Lin Wu kept too much distance about him. From the moment he arrived, he had spoken only to Wang Manshan, and the occasion was not appropriate anyway. After thinking it over, none of them dared step forward.

Lin Wu paid no attention to what the others were thinking. He did his best to comfort Wang Manshan, and once the man had calmed somewhat, he went to the ice coffin in the farewell hall.

Hao Shuqin had died by jumping from a building. The mortician had arranged her appearance, but after such a fall, her features no longer had the vitality they had in life. Lin Wu took one look and could not bear to look again.

Hao Shuqin’s funeral was scheduled for a week later. During that week, Lin Wu stayed by Wang Manshan’s side as family and accompanied him through every step of the process. During that time, Wang Manshan went out alone twice. Lin Wu was worried, but despite his concern, he did not press the issue under Wang Manshan’s repeated insistence.

A week later, everyone went to the Dongshan Cemetery in Xuhu. Hao Shuqin’s grave was right beside Wang Jiahui’s. Both headstones used their ID photos from when they were alive. In the photographs, their brows and eyes were gentle. At a glance, they looked exactly like a mild and cultivated mother and daughter.

Standing before the gravestones, Lin Wu burned some spirit money and once again realized that Teacher Hao was truly gone.

At seven in the evening, Lin Wu escorted Wang Manshan back home.

Wang Manshan’s apartment had been obtained through relocation compensation after demolition. When they first moved there, it had been because the building had an elevator, which would make it easier to take Wang Jiahui up and down. Who could have expected that in less than two years, Wang Jiahui and Hao Shuqin would both die one after the other? The spacious new apartment looked bleak and empty.

After seeing everyone else off, Wang Manshan took out a bottle of baijiu and two small liquor cups. Pouring Lin Wu a drink, he asked, “What do you plan to do from here on?”

“The work on my end at the university is wrapped up, and I don’t have much going on lately. I plan to handle the demolition paperwork for the old house, and once that’s done, I’ll take you back to Jianghe with me.” Lin Wu and Wang Manshan had lived in the same steelworkers’ family compound, one in Section One and the other in Section Three. The houses in Section One had been demolished earlier, and now the policy had finally come down for Section Three as well. Lin Wu intended to finish the paperwork, then bring Wang Manshan back to Jianghe.

He had a 120-square-meter apartment there, enough room for the two of them. They had already discussed it over the past few days. Otherwise, Lin Wu could not rest easy leaving Wang Manshan here alone.

“There’s no rush about going to Jianghe.” Wang Manshan took a sip of baijiu, then, in a tone almost like casual heart-to-heart conversation, asked, “How have you been these past few years in Jianghe?”

“Pretty well. My colleagues and the university administration are both good to me. The teaching load isn’t heavy. The students there are eager to learn and very polite…” Lin Wu did not usually drink much, but he could drink, and as he sipped, he talked about work.

Hao Shuqin had been gentle; Wang Manshan steady and composed. When Hao Shuqin was still alive, the two of them rarely sat face-to-face like this and talked. Now they drank together and spoke openly, as though the baijiu might drive away the gloom that had hung over them for so long.

With the alcohol taking effect, Wang Manshan asked Lin Wu many questions about his work. At the end, he looked at him with aching pity. “You’ve suffered a lot all these years.” With Lin Wu’s family circumstances, it could not have been easy for him to achieve what he had.

“It wasn’t that hard. If it hadn’t been for you and Aunt Hao back then, I never would have been able to sit for the college entrance exam in peace.” Lin Wu’s memories of high school had already blurred, but one thing was clear: without Wang Manshan and Hao Shuqin, he would never have been able to study in peace.

“We didn’t really do much. We only paid your first year’s tuition, and you paid it back in your second year.” Wang Manshan waved it off, then took out a bank card wrapped in a cloth pouch from his pocket. “This is all the money you’ve sent us over the years. We never used it. Your Aunt Hao saved it up for your wedding. Now she’s gone without a word. I thought it over, and it’s better if you take it back…”

After he had started working, Lin Wu had sent them money every year. Altogether, it had come to nearly three hundred thousand yuan.

“I don’t need it!” Lin Wu froze when he saw the bank card.

“If I’m telling you to take it, then take it. I have a pension. I don’t need this much money!” Wang Manshan stuffed the card directly into Lin Wu’s pocket, then clapped him hard on the shoulder. “What’s past is past. You’re still young. From now on, you have to live happily, truly live!”

“Not just me. You have to live happily too,” Lin Wu corrected him.

“Mhm. I’ll live happily too.” Wang Manshan gave a vague response, his mind already growing a little unfocused. As if recalling the past, he said, “Your Aunt Hao and I always regretted it. We kept thinking, if only we’d gone to pick Huihui up from school, or transferred her to another school, or never signed her up for evening study hall, maybe none of this would have happened…

“She was only fifteen when it happened. Your Aunt Hao and I always hoped Huihui would wake up, but twenty years passed, and even when she died, she never woke up… If we could choose again, it would have been fine for the two of us to trade our lives for hers. She was only fifteen when it happened. Only fifteen…”

By the end, Wang Manshan’s voice was thick with sobs.

Lin Wu drank his baijiu, his vision blurred by tears. He remembered that when Wang Jiahui had first become a victim, some people had urged them to have another child. They had refused. Many said they were foolish.

But were they really foolish?

They were only waiting for a miracle.

A miracle is called a miracle precisely because it is so hard for it to happen in real life. They had waited twenty years and never received theirs.

After Hao Shuqin’s sudden death, many of her personal belongings were still in the house, and it was inconvenient for Lin Wu to stay there. During this time, he had been living in a hotel. That day, he and Wang Manshan talked about many things. Lin Wu had already made up his mind to finish the housing demolition paperwork as soon as possible and take Wang Manshan to Jianghe at the earliest chance.

Wang Manshan also spoke of his hopes for the life ahead.

Just as Lin Wu began to think the two of them might finally emerge from the darkness, early the next morning he received a call from the police station.

Wang Manshan had killed himself.

He had jumped into the river at three in the morning, and this suicide had been planned well in advance.

Before his death, he had written a suicide note, notarized his estate, and even repaid all the ceremonial gift money he had received over the years…

Wang Manshan and Hao Shuqin had both been wage earners, but Wang Jiahui’s medical treatment had left them struggling financially for years. Their most valuable asset was a ninety-square-meter apartment. They had no close relatives, so Wang Manshan left the apartment to Lin Wu, while the one hundred thousand yuan in his bank account was donated to a charitable organization for patients in vegetative states. The will had already been notarized.

Lin Wu looked at the notarization date.

August 19, the day after Hao Shuqin’s death.

Even while making funeral arrangements, Wang Manshan had never planned to keep living.

Lin Wu cried then, cried until his heart felt torn apart.

He saw the final words Wang Manshan had left for him:

Live well. Live happily.

Everyone knows they ought to live well.

But for someone trapped in the depths of despair, living well is far too hard.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.

“Not that much of a pity,” Shao Ye said. He still didn’t really like that outfit.

“Then what will you wear?” Xi Guanming asked with concern.

Shao Ye scratched his head. “A wizard robe, probably. Our class monitor said the other witches will wear white, and I’ll wear black.”

“Not bad,” Xi Guanming said with a smile. “Then leave that outfit with me for now.”

Shao Ye nodded, not finding anything strange about that. As he was about to leave, he noticed Xi Guanming still sitting there reading and asked one more question, “President, aren’t you going to class today?”

“I’ll go in a bit,” Xi Guanming replied.

When Shao Ye arrived at the classroom, the bell hadn’t rung yet. The class monitor was complaining with the others about the notice the school had issued that morning. Translated on Hololo novels. They all suspected the neighboring class got jealous of their brilliant idea and secretly reported them to the administration.

Shao Ye listened for a couple of sentences without much interest, pulled out his English textbook, and after reading half a page, started yawning. He rested his head on the desk, eyelids drooping, and fell asleep again.

His schedule was packed today. For the upcoming sports meet, Shao Ye had signed up for three events: sprinting, relay, and shot put. During the only PE class in the afternoon, he needed to finalize the relay order with his classmates and get some guidance from the teacher on his shot put technique to see if he could improve. At night, he still had to go to the gym’s empty classroom to rehearse the play.

And not just today. Until the arts festival and sports meet were over, his life would be this full every day.

Shao Ye was playing a taciturn, sinister, vengeful yet deeply devoted-in-love witch. He didn’t have many lines. Aside from delivering a curse at the princess’s birthday banquet, he had a mid-plot Shakespearean-style romantic confession with the princess, after which he fell into a deep sleep.

The latter half of the story focused on the princess’s growth arc. Shao Ye just had to lie on stage pretending to sleep until the princess found her true love. Then, controlled by students backstage, a patch of green grass would sprout from his head, and his role would be over. The props team would then wheel him off the stage on a cart.

Shao Ye’s acting couldn’t be described as brilliant—it could only be described as complete garbage. His best acting came when he was lying on stage pretending to sleep. The class monitor objectively commented that it was truly a loss to the world of roasting that Shao Ye hadn’t entered the entertainment industry.

The girl playing the princess initially felt a bit guilty about the witch’s ending, but after rehearsing two scenes with Shao Ye, she no longer felt that way.

Not adding a couple more shovelfuls of dirt to his grave was already her kindness.

When the curse took effect and the witch collapsed, the relief on the princess’s face didn’t look like acting at all, making it hard not to suspect the whole thing was her scheme.

Despite all the stumbling, they managed to rehearse the entire play. Students from the neighboring class sneaked over to scout them out, only to end up laughing themselves into collapse at the sight of the grass-growing witch.

On Friday evening, Shao Ye skipped class early and went to the oak grove in the north of the campus. Si Xu and the others hadn’t arrived yet. To prevent the three of them from denying the outcome after the fight, he hung several cameras on the branches to record everything. If they later went back on their word and kept bothering Jiang Yan, he would release the footage and let them “shine” in front of the entire school.

When Si Xu and the other two arrived and saw Shao Ye jogging in place with an eager expression, they all showed the exact same look of confusion.

Seeing him reminded Si Xu of the frustration he’d been bottling up recently. He asked coldly, “What are you doing here? Don’t you know we’ve claimed this place tonight?”

Shao Ye replied righteously, “To fight with you guys.”

Zong Xingze frowned and asked, “Did Xi Guanming send you?”

“No,” Shao Ye said.

The president didn’t even know about this yet. He wanted to give him a big surprise.

Because Shao Ye had been sticking close to Jiang Yan recently, Jin Feng had some understanding of him and asked, “So are you also trying to pursue Jiang Yan?”

Shao Ye looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m not.”

“Then what exactly are you doing here!” Si Xu snapped.

“To fight, obviously. Didn’t we agree that whoever wins, the others have to stop pursuing Jiang Yan?”

Who agreed to that?!

Si Xu couldn’t help swearing. “And you’re still saying Xi Guanming didn’t send you!”

Shao Ye answered honestly, “He really didn’t.”

Unfortunately, none of the three seemed to believe him. Zong Xingze thoughtfully took out his phone and sent a message, while Jin Feng’s gaze carried a hint of caution.

Si Xu sneered. “Don’t think just because you’re Xi Guanming’s guy that I won’t touch you. Even if Xi Guanming were here today, I’d still beat you!”

Shao Ye impatiently urged, “Why so much nonsense? Are you fighting or not? I still have rehearsal later!”

“You’re asking for death!” Si Xu was the first to charge.

Zong Xingze and Jin Feng exchanged a glance and joined the fray. Without needing to say it, all three chose to target Shao Ye first. Only by knocking this idiot out could they settle things among themselves.

Unfortunately, the outcome didn’t quite match their expectations. Although they had all learned combat, whether in strength or technique, they were inferior to Shao Ye. Especially Zong Xingze, who barely exerted himself at all and mostly just coasted.

Shao Ye had expected a one-versus-three fight to take longer and had even considered asking the class monitor for leave that night. He hadn’t expected to deal with them so easily.

“Remember this. Stay away from Jiang Yan from now on. Don’t make our president unhappy. If you make him unhappy, you make me unhappy. And then—hmph—I’ll make you regret it,” Shao Ye declared, tossing out what he thought was a very cool threat before running excitedly all the way from the oak grove to the office building.

He pushed open the office door and called out, “President! President!”

Xi Guanming looked up from a pile of books. Seeing Shao Ye grinning brightly at the doorway, covered in leaves and dirt as if he had just rolled around somewhere, he removed his glasses and asked, “What are you doing here? Don’t you have rehearsal later?”

Shao Ye rushed straight to the desk, his face full of excitement. “President, I have huge good news for you!”

Xi Guanming hadn’t yet realized the gravity of the situation. Translated on Hololo novels. With his fingers interlaced before his chest and a faint smile on his face, he asked curiously, “What good news?”

Shao Ye immediately said, “I just fought Si Xu, Zong Xingze, and Jin Feng in the oak grove. I won.”

Xi Guanming: “……”

The smile on his face gradually froze. He looked at Shao Ye and didn’t speak for a long while.

Shao Ye bared his white teeth, eyes sparkling as he looked at Xi Guanming, clearly waiting for praise.

The office fell into silence. Autumn wind slipped in through the half-open window, rustling the broad leaves of a potted plant on the sill. Their elongated shadows stretched all the way to Xi Guanming’s wrist. After waiting for Shao Ye to continue and hearing nothing, he finally asked, “Let me guess… does this good news come with some bad news as well?”

“Bad news?” Shao Ye thought about it carefully, then said uncertainly, “If there is bad news… Zong Xingze ran off halfway through the fight, and I didn’t catch him. Does that count?”

Xi Guanming took a deep breath, raised a hand to his forehead, and said softly, “…That’s pretty bad.”

Shao Ye didn’t quite understand what was bad about it, but since the president said it was bad, there must be a problem. So he suggested quietly, “Then, President, should I go find him and beat him up again?”

Xi Guanming lowered his hand. “First tell me, how did you end up fighting them?”

Shao Ye then recounted everything in detail. It started with the agreement Si Xu and the others made at the dance, and in the end, all three of them were defeated by Shao Ye.

“They definitely won’t dare to bother Jiang Yan again. I even have a video here. President, do you want to see it?” Shao Ye asked eagerly, rubbing his hands together.

As he listened, Xi Guanming was also searching for something on his phone. When Shao Ye finished speaking, he put the phone down, screen facing the table.

He lifted his head and carefully looked over Shao Ye’s face. His eyes were bright, his nose high, and he was still smiling. Xi Guanming couldn’t find even the slightest trace of lingering fear on that face. He stood up, walked around the desk, and came to stand in front of Shao Ye.

“Shao Ye,” he called.

His expression was serious, his voice low, and his gaze fixed directly on Shao Ye. His eyes were so deep they seemed like a bottomless well.

The air in the room seemed to freeze along with his steps. Even the leaves of the plant by the window curled slightly. Under his gaze, Shao Ye couldn’t help but feel nervous, his voice dropping. “What’s wrong, President?”

Xi Guanming reached out and gently brushed away half a fallen leaf from Shao Ye’s left shoulder. Translated on Hololo novels. His fingers slid down, beginning to straighten his collar, and he asked unhurriedly, “You really don’t listen, do you? Didn’t I tell you not to get involved in Jiang Yan’s matters again? What kind of punishment do you think you deserve?”

“I still have to be punished?” Shao Ye’s cheerful face immediately crumpled. That didn’t seem right. He had created such a good opportunity for the president. Shouldn’t he be praised instead?

He asked cautiously, “President, are you not happy?”

Why?

Xi Guanming didn’t answer. His slender fingers toyed with the buttons of Shao Ye’s shirt. Through the gaps between the buttons, the honey-colored skin beneath could be seen.

He said slowly, “Shao Ye, with this, you’ve offended Si Xu, Zong Xingze, and Jin Feng all at once. Are you planning not to stay at the academy anymore?”

“No,” Shao Ye said.

“Then how did you dare?” Xi Guanming asked, lifting one of his shirt buttons with his finger.

Without hesitation, Shao Ye replied, “I knew you’d protect me.”

Xi Guanming paused. He hadn’t expected such an answer from Shao Ye.

No attempt to hide it at all.

Xi Guanming laughed.

That somewhat cold and gloomy face seemed to return to spring in an instant.

He didn’t want to admit that he was pleased by such a bold and foolish statement, but at that moment, a sense of joy and satisfaction flooded his chest.

He lowered his hand, savoring Shao Ye’s words, and couldn’t help but laugh again. Then he said, “Alright. Go back to the dorm and wait for me. Before I get there, you’re not allowed to leave.”

“President, aren’t you going to punish me?” Shao Ye asked with a pitiful expression, blinking.

“Of course I will,” Xi Guanming said with a smile.

He just needed to think carefully about how to punish him in this situation.

---

Author’s note:

[Great news! The president finally can’t hold back and is going to deal with No. 6. No. 6 is definitely done for this time.]

I’ve never seen the president look this scary before.

: Gotta say, No. 6 really has a talent for getting himself into trouble, offending all of the academy’s F4 at once.

: Did you hear that, CP fans? The president said he’s going to punish No. 6!

: Even if the president doesn’t act, Si Xu and the others won’t let him off.

: I said long ago that shipping the president leads to no good end! They didn’t believe it!

: Don’t worry, CP fans don’t care whether the real people live or die. Even if No. 6 is gone, they’ll keep shipping.

: Scary.

: Why do I feel like the president is about to do something big? I just caught a glimpse of his phone screen. Let me try to reconstruct it with some tech.

: Hurry up, let me see!

: No. 6 is definitely finished. I bet my roommate 50 bucks on it. Thanks to the president.

: Did you see the survival prediction curve made by that expert? No. 6 is already dropping to the bottom.

: I told you the micro-expression expert wouldn’t be wrong.

: If nothing unexpected happens, No. 6 will be out tomorrow.

: After watching No. 6 for so long, I kind of feel reluctant.

: My reconstruction isn’t very clear, just a few words.

: Show us quickly!

: “Punishment”

: Wow!

: “Binding”

: Wow!

: “Restraint”

: Wow wow wow!

: No. 6 really can’t escape this time.

: Wait, why does this feel kind of weird?

: What’s weird about it? Those of us who kill people all the time know the president did nothing wrong.

: It says “split”… I can’t see clearly.

: “Dismemberment,” maybe? Is the president really that bloody and violent?

: He’s held back too long, maybe he’s gone crazy.

: Understandable. I’d lose it too if I were him.

: Idiot, it says “leg spreader.”

: ????

: What’s that for?

: Delete that quickly! Don’t let the CP fans see it!!!!!

: Wait, you guys who “kill people all the time” also use leg spreaders?

≽^•⩊•^≼

Next

During evening study period, Shao Ye went with his classmates to the gymnasium and found an empty classroom to rehearse their “strong female lead” version of Sleeping Beauty. A few of the girls had stayed up all night and had already drafted most of the script.

Looking at the vest and leather pants in his hands, Shao Ye muttered under his breath, “I still think this outfit isn’t very proper.”

The class monitor, who wasn’t very tall, heard him and immediately jumped up, slapping him on the shoulder. “That’s exactly the point! Your character is supposed to be an improper witch!”

The arts rep chimed in from the side, “What kind of proper witch would jump into the pit he dug himself?”

Shao Ye: “……”

Didn’t they move the pit somewhere else? That can’t all be blamed on the witch.

“Just put it on and try it,” the class monitor urged.

Shao Ye remembered what Xi Guanming had told him that afternoon in the office, that he should take the clothes back to the dorm and wash them first, so he repeated that to the class monitor.

The class monitor looked at him in surprise. “Oh? Since when are you so particular? Doesn’t sound like you.”

Shao Ye raised a hand to straighten his collar and said solemnly, “Don’t look at me with your old perspective. I’m not the same person I used to be.”

“What happened?” the surrounding classmates asked curiously.

Shao Ye lifted his chin, swept his gaze around, and said with restraint, “I’ve learned how to solve systems of linear equations.”

Classmates: “……”

The class monitor sighed and looked at him with a hint of pity. “Alright, I get it. I’ll have Xiao Huang cut down some of your longer lines later.”

Shao Ye didn’t quite understand, but he still said politely, “Thank you, class monitor.”

After reading through the script together, they made a series of edits and finalized it, then handed both the script and the costume to Shao Ye to take back and study carefully.

Shao Ye went straight to Xi Guanming’s dorm. Xi Guanming wasn’t there, so he busied himself alone. The clothes were leather and not easy to wash, so he wiped them down with wet wipes, then sat on the bed with a hair dryer, blowing the vest and pants for over half an hour until they were finally dry.

The vest had several leather straps crossing over the chest, along with a thin silver chain. The hidden clasps for the straps were all on the back, so without help, the only way to put it on was to pull it over his head. Shao Ye tried it, but the vest was too small, clinging tightly to his body. Halfway through, the straps tangled together and got stuck at his chest. He didn’t dare pull too hard in case he ripped it apart, so he ended up stuck—unable to put it on or take it off. The chain knocked against the silver buckles with a constant clinking sound, which only made him more irritated.

When Xi Guanming pushed the door open, he saw Shao Ye standing by the bed with both arms raised, twisting around in a mess. One of the straps was even looped around his neck, making it look like he was about to hang himself. Xi Guanming stood there watching him for a moment, then leaned against the door and laughed. “How did you manage to wear a perfectly good piece of clothing like that?”

Hearing his voice, Shao Ye turned his head and protested, “How is this a ‘perfectly good’ outfit?”

Xi Guanming walked over and pressed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t move. Let me see what’s going on.”

Shao Ye froze like a wind-up puppet with a jammed mechanism. As soon as Xi Guanming spoke, he obediently stood still. After examining him front and back, Xi Guanming realized one of the straps that was supposed to cross over the chest had been pulled to the back and tangled with another strap, which was why it wouldn’t go on.

He found the hidden clasps at the back of the vest and unfastened the straps one by one. Finally, Shao Ye could breathe normally again and managed to put the vest on properly.

When he saw it in pictures, Shao Ye already thought it was revealing. Now that he was wearing it, it felt even more so—his entire chest was basically exposed. Xi Guanming gathered the straps at his back, then brought them around to the front and fastened them. Before long, all the straps were pulled tight across Shao Ye’s chest, his honey-colored muscles pressing through the crisscrossed gaps.

Xi Guanming hooked a finger under one strap and pulled it outward, then let go.

With a sharp snap, the strap bounced back against Shao Ye’s chest.

Shao Ye looked down. His firm chest rippled slightly from the impact. Xi Guanming’s gaze darkened for a moment as he said, “Sorry. My hand slipped. Did that hurt?”

It sounded loud, but it didn’t really hurt at all. Shao Ye shook his head. “It’s fine.”

“That’s good,” Xi Guanming said with a smile, continuing to adjust the straps and chain across his chest.

Shao Ye actually felt like the outfit was already fine and didn’t need further adjustment, but perhaps the president was a bit obsessive and wanted every strap evenly spaced.

Snap!

Another familiar sound of the strap hitting his chest.

Did his hand slip again? Did he oil it or something?

Before Shao Ye could figure it out, Xi Guanming had already hooked another strap, pulled it, and released.

Snap!

Crisp and clear—definitely a “good chest” sound.

Even Shao Ye, slow as he was, began to sense something slightly off. He looked at Xi Guanming in confusion. “President?”

Xi Guanming met his puzzled gaze, smiling calmly as he explained, “I just thought of something. It’s better to test the quality of these straps in advance. If something goes wrong during the performance, that wouldn’t be good.”

Shao Ye gave an “oh,” easily accepting the explanation. “President, you really think things through.”

He hadn’t considered it at all. Even something this small, and he was already planning ahead—no wonder he was the student council president.

Shao Ye looked down and counted the straps on his chest. “There are still a few left to test, right?”

Xi Guanming looked at him, a lazy, satisfied amusement spreading through his whole demeanor. He praised, “Very clever.”

Shao Ye puffed out his chest cooperatively. “President, you can use more force if you want. It doesn’t hurt anyway.”

Xi Guanming’s fingers paused on the strap. He lowered his head and laughed softly for a while before saying, “Shao Ye… you’re really cute.”

Shao Ye: “?”

In all these years, this was the first time anyone had called him cute.

Could that word really be used on him?

Well, if the president said he was cute, then he was cute.

“Then I won’t hold back.”

Xi Guanming tested the remaining straps one by one before finally withdrawing his hand at a leisurely pace and commenting, “Not bad. They’re all pretty sturdy.”

But who knew whether he was talking about the straps… or the chest?

Shao Ye didn’t think in that direction at all. Seeing that Xi Guanming seemed finished, he said, “President, I want to go look in the mirror.”

He still hadn’t seen what the outfit actually looked like on him.

“Go ahead,” Xi Guanming said.

Shao Ye went into the bathroom and stood in front of the sink, looking at himself in the mirror. The black straps were pulled tightly into his flesh, and the spots where they had snapped earlier were faintly red. But since his skin was darker, it wasn’t very noticeable. He frowned, lifted his arms a little, still not quite used to it, and couldn’t help complaining, “Isn’t this outfit a bit too small?”

Xi Guanming happened to walk over and stood behind him, looking at the reflection in the mirror. “I think it fits just right.”

“Really?” Shao Ye looked down at his chest and tugged at the straps, still finding it strange.

“It looks good like this,” Xi Guanming said.

Shao Ye didn’t really have the taste to appreciate this kind of fashion, but since the president said it looked good, it would probably help their class performance at least a little during the arts festival.

After leaving the bathroom, Shao Ye needed Xi Guanming’s help again to take off the vest. Once he changed back into his white tank top, it felt much more comfortable. After applying medicine, he lay face-down on the bed and said to Xi Guanming, “President, you can sleep without worry. With me here, that person definitely won’t dare show up tonight.”

He continued declaring, “Even if he does come, I’ll make sure he understands why flowers are so red.”

Xi Guanming sat on the bed flipping through a book, smiling but saying nothing.

Once the dorm lights were turned off, it didn’t even take ten minutes before snoring started again from the neighboring bed.

Xi Guanming got out of bed, walked over to Shao Ye’s bedside, and looked down at him sleeping soundly. He leaned down, pinched his chest once, then flicked it lightly with his finger.

Shao Ye remained lost in his dreams, mouth slightly open, long since forgetting his grand and difficult mission of catching the intruder.

After toying with him for quite a while, listening to the pattering of rain against the window, Xi Guanming murmured softly, “So dumb.”

Whether he meant how Shao Ye solved math problems that afternoon—following step by step and still getting the wrong answer—or how he could be taken advantage of without even realizing it, and even willingly offer himself up—

Someone that easy to fool would be deceived by him… and by others too, wouldn’t he?

Xi Guanming’s gaze darkened slightly. He hoped no one at the academy would be that blind.

The next morning, Shao Ye grabbed two pens and headed out for class. His textbooks were all kept in the classroom; he never brought them back to the dorm to preview or review.

For some reason, Xi Guanming was leaving later than usual today. He sat by the window reading, golden autumn sunlight falling across his upper body, giving him an air of quiet elegance. Seeing Shao Ye about to leave, he reminded him, “Don’t forget to take your costume. Don’t you have rehearsal tonight?”

Shao Ye waved his hand. “No need to bring it. Won’t be using it.”

Xi Guanming set down his book and asked, “What happened?”

Shao Ye stuffed the two pens into his pocket as he said, “Our class monitor just messaged me. She said the school released a document this morning with twenty new rules for the arts festival. One of them requires that costumes not be too revealing, so we can’t wear that one anymore.”

“Is that so?” Xi Guanming sounded as if he had no prior knowledge of it at all. There was a clear note of regret in his tone. “That’s really a pity.”

---

Author’s note:

[Breaking news—]

No. 3 has been eliminated!

: ??

: ????

: Why No. 3? Weren’t you all saying No. 6 would be the first to go?

: I bet all my points on No. 3! Why did he get eliminated? I don’t understand!

: Well… you know No. 3’s personality—he got along well with the main NPCs. He wanted to take it further, tried to cling to the president, and got used by him instead—became the trigger for another conflict and got expelled.

: What’s wrong with clinging to the president? Isn’t No. 6 doing the same?

: Who knows

: Rigged! This is definitely rigged! I’m reporting this! My points!

: Should I just bet on No. 6 at this point

: If you bet on No. 6 you’re really doomed

: If the officials find he cheated, he’s out next week; if he didn’t cheat, the president will take him out himself

: The president just sees him as a somewhat amusing toy. He’ll get bored in a couple of days. Don’t let those CP shippers brainwash you, this isn’t some pure romance story

: Remember, according to the official setting, all presidents are manifestations of the same consciousness. I was starting to think he might fall for No. 6, but after how decisively he dealt with No. 3, it’s clear—No. 6 will end up in his hands sooner or later

: That logic though?

: Did you watch No. 6’s stream? I checked—camera’s on the door again, but I heard slapping sounds. The president must’ve lost control and started whipping him, that’s why they won’t show it

: I didn’t watch closely, I don’t like No. 6. I just vaguely heard things like “don’t move,” “did that hurt,” “my hand slipped,” so I switched streams. Turns out it was that, huh. If I knew he was getting beaten, I would’ve listened longer

: Yeah! Later when No. 6 changed his tank top, I saw several red marks on his chest that weren’t there before!

: The president really couldn’t hold back anymore, even got hands-on

: And CP fans can still ship this?

: I was just casually shipping before, but somehow what you guys are saying makes it even more shippable now

≽^•⩊•^≼

Shao Ye went back to his own dorm to grab some clothes. The empty room was left with only Xi Guanming again.

He got up and walked into the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror as water rushed noisily from the tap. Xi Guanming lowered his gaze to his left hand. Between his fingers lingered a faint trace of red wine scent. For some reason, he suddenly felt like having a glass of red wine. He should prepare a bottle in advance.

Aside from the brief period when he had just enrolled and still cared a bit about his image, Shao Ye hardly ever wore proper sleepwear. In the dorm, he usually just wore a tank top and shorts, and sometimes not even the tank. But he thought he should at least be a bit presentable in front of the president, so he deliberately picked out a longer tank top with a less open neckline.

When Xi Guanming applied medicine to his back, Shao Ye swore confidently, “President, don’t worry. If that person dares to show up tonight, I’ll definitely catch him and beat him until he’s begging on the ground.”

As a result, less than ten minutes after the lights went out, Xi Guanming heard faint snoring from the bed beside him.

“Shao Ye?” he called once. As expected, there was no response.

Xi Guanming chuckled softly. What he had said earlier about not sleeping well at night wasn’t entirely a lie. He suffered from serious insomnia, rarely sleeping more than three or four hours a night, and even then he woke easily. But this had been his normal state for years.

Now that there was another person in the room, it didn’t seem much different. Besides, before this, Shao Ye had already stayed in the office building’s rest room.

After an unknown amount of time, Xi Guanming heard someone running down the hallway in leather shoes. The dance in the auditorium must have ended. He picked up his phone from the bedside and checked the time. It was already past midnight. A burst of laughter echoed from the hallway, but quickly faded. Shao Ye on the next bed let out a small sound, scratched his stomach, and continued sleeping soundly.

The phone screen went dark. Xi Guanming got out of bed and walked over to Shao Ye’s bedside. Pale moonlight draped over him. His eyes were closed, long lashes casting faint shadows. His soft lips were slightly parted. Perhaps feeling warm, he had rolled his tank top up to below his chest, and kicked the blanket aside. He lay sprawled in a loose “starfish” position, completely unguarded.

Shao Ye smacked his lips, as if tasting something delicious in a dream. Xi Guanming watched him quietly for a long time, then leaned down, his hand once again settling on Shao Ye’s chest.

If he woke up at this moment and saw him here, how would he react? Would he shout and run out of the room, or would he ask what he was doing, then obediently offer his chest again?

The latter seemed more likely. How boring. Xi Guanming thought so, yet couldn’t help the slight upward curve of his lips.

Still, no matter how much he kneaded his chest, Shao Ye slept on, completely unmoving.

Xi Guanming: “……”

And this was the one who said he’d help catch the “third person” in the room?

Even if three more people came in, he probably wouldn’t wake up.

Xi Guanming smiled silently, picked up the blanket from the side, and draped it over Shao Ye’s stomach, then returned to his own bed. Looking at Shao Ye, still oblivious, he suddenly felt that having two beds in this room was a bit crowded.

The next morning, when Shao Ye woke up, Xi Guanming had just come out of the bathroom after a shower. Shao Ye yawned and said, “President, I didn’t hear a single thing last night. I think that person must’ve known I was here, so they didn’t dare come.”

With how deeply he slept, hearing anything would’ve been a miracle. Xi Guanming didn’t expose him, just gave a soft “Mm” and said, “Maybe.”

Shao Ye continued, “Then I’ll stay here for a few more days. Even if I can’t catch him, I’ll scare him off for good.”

Xi Guanming smiled. “Thank you for your trouble, Shao Ye.”

After washing up, Shao Ye went to class. It wasn’t until after lunch that he finally had some free time. He was just about to go find out whether anything had happened between Jiang Yan and Si Xu at the dance, but before he could, Xi Guanming summoned him to the office building to sort documents.

Xi Guanming sat behind his desk and asked, “Are you still going to the gym at night?”

Shao Ye sat on the floor, arranging documents in chronological order as instructed, sighing as he replied, “Not these days. Our whole class has evening rehearsals for Sleeping Beauty.”

“Why Sleeping Beauty?” Xi Guanming asked casually.

Shao Ye explained, “Because Cinderella has two stepsisters, Snow White has seven dwarfs, The Wild Swans has eleven brothers, and Sleeping Beauty has thirteen witches.”

The school required more than half the class to participate in the arts festival performance, so the class monitor had tried to assign as many roles as possible.

Xi Guanming picked up his gold-rimmed glasses from the desk and put them on, then commented, “Then you should be doing Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”

Shao Ye seriously considered it, then shook his head. “…We don’t have that many people.”

“What role are you playing? The prince?” Xi Guanming asked while signing his name on a document.

“I’m playing the witch.”

Xi Guanming’s pen paused. He looked up. “Which one?”

Shao Ye made a fierce expression at him. “The most evil one.”

Not only was Xi Guanming not intimidated, he found it rather adorable. He chuckled. If that were the case, when Shao Ye went on stage, the audience would probably wonder why a witch like that even needed to curse the princess. He could just grab her outright, and the other twelve witches wouldn’t be able to stop him.

In fact, Shao Ye wasn’t even the one who cursed the princess. To make the story more original, the class monitor had completely rewritten Sleeping Beauty. The evil witch became an evil wizard, who cursed the princess at her birthday banquet so that her future lover would die at the moment they loved each other most. But by a twist of fate, the princess fell in love with the wizard instead. The wizard fell into a deep sleep, and when the other twelve witches learned of this, they happily traveled across the land to find the princess a new marriage partner. In the end, they chose a prince from afar, and from then on, the princess and the prince lived happily ever after.

After hearing the outline of the story, Shao Ye was speechless. So he was actually the Sleeping Beauty, and they weren’t even giving him a chance to be “saved.” That was way too much.

The costumes for their performance had also been decided. Most of them were fairly normal, but Shao Ye belonged to the minority—his outfit was extremely revealing. The arts committee member argued passionately that this costume fully reflected the male witch’s withdrawn and irritable personality, his out-of-place identity, and foreshadowed his tragic fate.

Shao Ye couldn’t see what kind of foreshadowing it was at all, but he was persuaded—mainly because too many people had come to convince him. Fine then. His physique was this good; letting everyone see it wouldn’t cost him anything.

After hearing this, Xi Guanming asked with interest, “What kind of outfit? Show me.”

Shao Ye handed over his phone. “I only have pictures. The actual clothes won’t be brought back until tonight.”

Xi Guanming took the phone and glanced down. The top was a black vest, somewhat like the one the Calabash Brothers wear, but with several black leather straps fastened with silver buckles across the front as decoration. The bottom was a pair of matching leather pants, along with a wizard hat.

Quite a fashionable witch. No wonder he stood out from the others. Xi Guanming’s lips curved slightly as he handed the phone back, smiling as he thoughtfully reminded him, “When you get the clothes tonight, don’t wear them right away. Take them back to your dorm and wash them first.”

“That’s not necessary, is it?” Shao Ye said. He’d probably only wear the outfit once for the arts festival and toss it afterward.

Xi Guanming, however, said seriously, “You’ll be wearing it close to your skin. It’s better to wash it.”

Seeing how much Xi Guanming cared, Shao Ye obediently nodded and gave an “oh.”

After Shao Ye finished arranging the documents, Xi Guanming somehow produced a test paper from nowhere and actually started explaining math problems to him. Shao Ye was stunned on the spot. Did being the president’s subordinate also require good grades?

“President, this…” He instinctively took a step back, trying to escape.

Xi Guanming gestured him over. “Come here. Your grades are too poor. I’ll tutor you.”

Shao Ye: “……”

It wasn’t until evening, when Xi Guanming was called away for a meeting, that Shao Ye finally escaped from that pile of math problems he couldn’t even read properly. At last, he had the chance to mingle and find out what had happened at the dance the previous night.

It turned out that Jiang Yan had attended the dance accompanied by the basketball team captain, Jin Feng. At the dance, he had gotten into a dispute with Zong Xingze and Si Xu, nearly leading to a fight. In the end, the three of them agreed to duel this Friday night in the oak grove, and the loser would have to withdraw from the competition.

Shao Ye was dumbfounded. He didn’t even have time to eat his mango pudding before slapping his thigh in shock. “Such a big deal—why didn’t anyone tell me?”

The classmate looked puzzled. What did this have to do with him? Was he planning to participate too?

Wait—who did he think he was? Did he not know his own status? How could he compare to Si Xu or Zong Xingze?

Of course Shao Ye wasn’t planning to participate himself. He asked, “Can I sign our president up too?”

“S-sign him up?” The classmate froze, then slowly said, “…Probably not.”

If that were allowed, some prankster would sign up the entire school. That would really be something to see.

“Then can someone fight in his place?” Shao Ye asked again.

The classmate: “？”

Did he think this was a ride-hailing service?

The classmate said nothing, so Shao Ye started thinking on his own. After some consideration, he decided there was probably no rule against it. Si Xu and the others hadn’t said substitutes weren’t allowed.

“Then I’ll go in his place on Friday,” Shao Ye said.

No need to tell the president—he’d just surprise him after winning.

Shao Ye happily made his decision.

Although he vaguely felt something about the logic was off. Why would they need a duel just for the right to pursue someone? Even if they won, it didn’t mean Jiang Yan would like them. And if she happened to prefer the one who lost, what then? Kill the winner?

But what did that matter? The important thing was, whatever others had, their president should have too.

Besides, something as profound as math problems would probably feel more rewarding for the president to discuss with Jiang Yan.

That afternoon in the office, every time he got a problem wrong, the president knocked him on the head. He’d practically been used as a wooden fish for the entire afternoon.

---

Author’s note:

【Honestly, watching No. 3’s stream is much more comfortable. They’re both subordinates, but some people are clearly way more capable than others】

: By “some people,” you mean?

: No. 6, who else

: What do you mean “both subordinates”! Stop forcing comparisons! Our No. 6 is a wife! (very loud)

: ……

: The president’s character is already falling apart, even the official side can’t control it. They said they’ll form a team to investigate and release results next week. I don’t even dare imagine what’ll happen to No. 6

: Judging by the president’s mental state, No. 6 might be eliminated on the spot

: Elimination would be merciful. The president will definitely torment him slowly

: Looking forward to next week’s results. I really can’t stand this perverted president anymore!!!

: When explaining problems, the president clearly looked disgusted, yet still kept teaching. He’s not perverted—he’s just being controlled by some indescribable force

: You mean the backend data got altered? What’s so “indescribable” about that? This is a school setting, not cosmic horror

: Honestly, I also think the president’s behavior today was a bit off

: That username looks familiar… are you one of their CP fans?

: Heh, it’s fallen apart so badly even the CP fans can’t ship it anymore, and the officials are still pretending

: Mm, today when No. 6 got a question wrong, the president shouldn’t have knocked his head. That’ll just make him dumber. The president shouldn’t make such a basic mistake—in that situation, a “super” would’ve been better

: ?

: ??

: ???

≽^•⩊•^≼

Thandar: Please give this novel a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on novel updates if you enjoy it so far. It’ll motivate this translator to release new chapters faster 🥲😘

Previous