Awakening!

The bus slowly pulled into the stop.

The students got off one after another. Before stepping down, a few of them glanced back at Ayanokoji with lingering apprehension, feeling a chill run down their spines.

They were afraid he might beat them up once they got off.

Ayanokoji followed the crowd off the bus.

With dried tear tracks still on his face, he walked with his head lowered, giving off an incredibly gloomy air.

"He's so handsome~"

Even so, one or two girls were still won over by his actions on the bus and the aura of "keep your distance" he had after getting off.

After a few steps, they reached the imposing, grand entrance to the school.

Ayanokoji surveyed the scene before him, feeling nothing at all.

The students passing by chatted and laughed, their faces bright with smiles as they entered this nationally renowned Advanced Nurturing High School. He, on the other hand, had no interest in it whatsoever.

The gloom of his breakup refused to lift, and the fact that he'd been transported into a novel was right there before him. At that moment, his feelings were incredibly complicated.

Besides, as far as he knew, this school wasn't just any ordinary high school. It evaluated students based on their abilities—a Darwinist school that practically encouraged students to compete against one another, with failure carrying a price. He really couldn't understand why everyone was so happy.

Ignorance really was bliss.

Ayanokoji murmured to himself, his face, of course, still as expressionless as ever.

Perhaps it was because the original owner had maintained that expression for years. Ling Xiaolu felt that even making a facial expression was a bit of a struggle; the muscles in his face always seemed stiff.

"Excuse me, are you Ayanokoji?"

As he stood there looking around, a soft female voice reached his ears from behind. Ayanokoji turned his gaze toward her.

Standing before him was a pretty girl with a slender figure and a generous bust.

She twirled the ends of her orange-yellow hair with one hand, while resting the other on her smooth, pale thigh. Her eyes were clear yet occasionally evasive, and she looked rather shy.

"Who are you?"

Ayanokoji replied without expression.

"Um... I'm the girl who asked everyone to give their seat to the old lady on the bus," the girl said, looking a little dazed before explaining. "Thank you for what you did on the bus, Ayanokoji-kun."

She hadn't expected the boy to have such a poor memory.

"Oh..."

Ayanokoji furrowed his brow slightly, a hint of confusion between his eyebrows.

He didn't understand. He really didn't understand.

Was this some new way of flirting?

What a meaningless thank-you...

While puzzled, he glanced at the girl in front of him without making it obvious. Her cheeks were rosy, and her smile was lovely. The ample hills on her chest rose and fell, a little dazzling.

She must be under a lot of pressure in her everyday life.

When Ayanokoji didn't continue the conversation and merely stared at her for no apparent reason, the girl's gaze began to wander, and her cheeks flushed.

She hadn't expected striking up a conversation to feel this awkward, and the other person didn't seem to find it awkward at all.

It was as if she were the only one trapped in some kind of shame barrier.

She'd planned to chat a little longer before handing him the thing she was holding, but now she had no choice but to use it to break the awkward silence.

"Ayanokoji, this is something you dropped earlier. Here."

The girl took something resembling a brooch from the pocket of her pleated skirt. A butterfly was engraved on the front, with the initials of Ling Xiaolu and his ex-girlfriend carved into its wings.

There was also a line of tiny text on the back: "Your husband, Ling Xiaolu."

For some unknown reason, Ling Xiaolu's name had changed from Chinese characters into Japanese characters, and it was written just like Ayanokoji's name. Only Ling Xiaolu himself knew the difference.

This was the seventh-anniversary gift he'd given his girlfriend before being transported into the novel. It looked a little shabby, but he'd decided on it because he thought the two of them no longer needed material things to keep their relationship going.

It wasn't as if he hadn't splurged for their sixth anniversary. There had been the jade bangle he'd bought after working part-time and scrimping for an entire semester, the designer shoulder bag and skincare products he'd purchased at the cost of several months' living expenses, and plenty more besides.

And this butterfly brooch, which he'd commissioned because he thought he no longer needed expensive gifts to maintain their relationship—though the truth was, he really couldn't squeeze another drop out of himself—was the only gift that had been "returned in disgrace" because she disliked it.

Ayanokoji looked at the exquisite brooch in the girl's hand, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

In the end, after a low "Thanks," he took the brooch and slipped it into his pocket.

"Mm, you're welcome."

"Well... see you around school, Ayanokoji-kun~"

The girl walked lightly into the school, waving goodbye to Ayanokoji. She turned her head back toward him, letting out a sigh of relief herself.

Although she was completely confident in her social skills, for some reason she felt something hard to describe when she faced this boy. Was it a sense of pressure, or something else?

In any case, she felt that this boy might not be as dull as he seemed on the surface.

Meanwhile, Ayanokoji stared after the girl for quite a while.

Was her name Kushida, or something else...?

He murmured to himself.

He knew he'd been transported into the world of Classroom of the Elite, but he'd read the novel back in his second year of high school. After that, he'd been too busy preparing for the college entrance exams to keep up with it, and he'd forgotten most of the plot. He only vaguely remembered a few major characters and some of the events. He hadn't gone back to review the story after starting college, either. He'd basically read each new chapter when the author put it out, and he'd skimmed through it to save time, missing plenty of details. By the end, he'd kept reading the novel just for the characters.

In short, it was as if he'd read the script but remembered only the basic plot and a few character traits.

As people often said, he understood it—but not completely. The rice had boiled down into watery porridge.

Ayanokoji knitted his brows, feeling a little down. He couldn't blame anyone for not having done his homework.

Besides, he'd just gone through a breakup before being transported into the novel. How could he have been in the mood to reread it?

Still, who could have predicted that he'd be transported into a light novel and become the protagonist?

After making a few excuses for himself, Ayanokoji decided to head to his class first: Class 1-D.

Come to think of it, this school assigned students to classes based on their abilities, didn't it? He felt that he'd done quite well on both the entrance exam and the interview, so how had he ended up in Class D?

Baffling.

Whatever. It didn't matter.

Now that he'd been reborn as Ayanokoji, he would make good use of this body and the knowledge it held.

Otherwise, wouldn't that be a waste of a perfectly good opportunity?

From today onward, he was a Japanese high school student named Ayanokoji.

He'd come to this school to prove just how remarkable he was!

Because what was lost could never truly be regained.

Therefore, he would repay them with resentment!

From now on, he would no longer settle or bend to anyone. He would act only according to his own will.

He would never let himself end up in the same situation as in his previous life again!

His brother's betrayal, his girlfriend's affair...

"Die!"

Thinking of this, Ayanokoji clenched his fist. At last, a long-lost, 45-degree smile appeared on his face.