The Gathering Storm

With that, Yun Lan pushed open the classroom door once more, holding the lunchbox that had been washed so thoroughly it felt almost cold to the touch. The afternoon sun slanted in, carving geometric patterns of light and shadow across the desks and floor. The chalk dust in the air seemed to have settled more than before, and the classroom was filled with the lazy atmosphere of a break that had just ended, not yet fully transitioned into study mode.

He walked back to his seat, gave a natural smile to Honami Ichinose as she looked at him, and shoved the lunchbox back under his desk. Honami returned a gentle smile, seemingly having set aside her previous doubts for the moment, and turned her attention back to the notebook spread out before her.

The afternoon classes began on time. The history teacher droned on about the Meiji Restoration in a flat tone, his writing on the board neat but devoid of passion; the math teacher derived complex formulas on the blackboard, the chalk making a rhythmic tapping sound against the surface; the classical literature teacher recited ancient Chinese texts in a long, drawn-out cadence. Everything proceeded by the book, so mundane it was almost tedious.

Clouds drifted slowly outside the window, and the light shifted quietly in their wake. Occasionally, a bird would dart past, casting a fleeting shadow. A student in the front row was secretly yawning, and from the back came the rustle of pen tips on paper, occasionally punctuated by the soft sound of pages turning. It was the most typical afternoon in the most ordinary of preparatory high schools.

Yet, to Yun Lan, this surface-level peace felt like it was separated by a thick pane of frosted glass. The teacher's explanations, the handwriting on the board, and the subtle movements of the students around him all seemed to come from another distant, blurry world. His thoughts simply could not stay on the textbooks or the blackboard.

Because according to the bone-chilling message he had just received, his three "good junior sisters"—or, in certain more complex contexts, his "good younger sisters"—were likely already on their way to Japan.

This realization was no longer an abstract worry; it had transformed into a concrete and urgent countdown. Yun Lan walked through the noisy campus after school, surrounded by students rushing to club activities, meeting up for shopping, or heading home, their laughter and chatter full of the vibrant energy of their age. But as these sounds reached his ears, they felt as if they were passing through an invisible barrier, muffled and far away.

His thoughts had long since flown past the school buildings, the playground, and the cherry trees, crossing the ocean to land on the three sisters he had taken in back in China.

Yi Jiang, that white-haired girl who always wore a sweet smile but possessed such stubborn eyes—was she currently resting her chin on her hand on the plane, her crimson eyes staring at the churning sea of clouds outside the porthole, calculating how much longer it would be until she saw her "runaway" young master? Given her personality, once she knew his whereabouts, she would never just sit and wait quietly. She would be the most proactive, the most likely to take direct action.

Yi Xuan, the lively sister, was perhaps sitting quietly beside her sister right now, eating something. Beneath her appetite lay a persistence that was not to be underestimated. Her arrival usually meant that she, too, was unwilling to let him go.

And then there was Ye Shunguang... the girl he had brought back from the orphanage to raise by his side. She felt even more dangerous than Yi Jiang and Yi Xuan.

Yun Lan's fingertips brushed the edge of the phone in his pocket unconsciously, as if he could still feel the vibration from the cold message sent by Fufu. The arrival of Yi Jiang and Yi Xuan might be a scorching and chaotic storm of emotion, but the addition of Ye Shunguang was like dropping a bomb into the center of that storm.

What kind of sane person writes a marriage contract in invisible ink inside a master-disciple application?!

This thought had churned in his mind countless times. This wasn't the shy love letter of a girl in the throes of first love, nor was it a token of affection born from a moment of impulse. This was a long-planned scheme; if he hadn't felt something was off and checked it back then, he would have been completely trapped by the little girl. When exactly did this girl's feelings turn into something so twisted?

Compared to Yi Jiang, who practically wore "the young master is mine" on her face, and Yi Xuan, who buried her feelings deep in her quiet eyes, Ye Shunguang's "danger" was more internalized, and more... institutionalized. No matter how intense the feelings of Yi Jiang and Yi Xuan were, he could hide, delay, or try to communicate and guide them.

But Ye Shunguang's feelings for him seemed even more pathological, even if she had looked like a well-behaved baby in the past.

He could imagine the scene of them converging here—three obsessions of different natures, all pointing toward him, colliding within this high school. Just thinking about it made the air in the classroom feel a little thinner.

He subconsciously slowed his pace, his gaze sweeping over the seemingly ordinary environment of the campus: the security at the school gate, the structure of the teaching buildings, potential blind spots for surveillance, and several paths that would allow for "accidental" entry. As a transmigrator, and even more so as a senior brother who knew the capabilities of those three "sisters," he habitually began to conduct environmental assessments and crisis contingency simulations.

The ordinary campus defenses would likely be non-existent in front of them. Yi Jiang's keenness and initiative, Yi Xuan's special talents in certain areas, the methods Ye Shunguang might have hidden... none of these were things that regular students or even ordinary teachers could handle.

"I have to prepare something..." Yun Lan muttered to himself, his voice dissipating into the cool evening breeze. It wasn't about confrontation—that was meaningless, and not what he wanted. It was about guidance, buffering, setting boundaries, and doing his best to keep this inevitable "reunion" within a range that wouldn't completely disrupt school order, expose too many anomalies, or let the situation slide into an even more awkward predicament.

He needed information, and even more, he needed time. Fufu's message only gave the result, not the details of the process. He needed to know their specific itinerary, their likely method of entry, and... just how many more "assists" his mother had given them.

Thinking of this, Yun Lan couldn't help but raise a hand to rub his brow. His mother's "care" was always so efficient and caught him so off guard.

He looked up at the sky. The setting sun was slowly sinking, staining the horizon a warm orange, but Yun Lan felt as if he could see the storm clouds of his personal life quietly encroaching behind that brilliant glow.

The peaceful campus routine was just like this sunset—beautiful, but fleeting. When the sun rose again tomorrow, what he faced would likely no longer be just textbooks, exams, and gentle classmates.

Those three "good sisters" on their way were bringing their own stories, their obsessions, and that tangled karma they shared with him, step by step turning a distant trouble into a reality right before his eyes. And Yun Lan knew he had no more time to waste on sighs or complaints.