On How to Become Human (Continued)

"Think it over before you speak, four-eyed student." Lin smiled and stared at the bespectacled student who was shaking like a leaf.

Someone couldn't help but protest, "This is coercion! This is going too far!"

"Huh? This isn't coercion." Lin scratched his head in confusion. "It's a threat."

The bespectacled student's eyes rolled back; unable to withstand the pressure, he fainted on the spot.

"I just can't understand it, Kevin. Why did it fail? My plan was perfect, wasn't it?"

"That's probably because... you never make a plan."

Kevin, eating his fried noodles with bread, sighed, "Lin, what's wrong with you today...?"

"It just suddenly occurred to me, why doesn't someone as perfect as me have a girlfriend? Logically speaking, I should have enough girlfriends to line up from the classroom to the school gate, so why don't I have a single one?"

Lin held the coffee and milk in both hands, leaning over the railing to look down at the groups of men and women below, whispering sweet nothings during lunchtime.

Kevin replied helplessly, "You are indeed very good, whether it's your looks, cooking skills, grades, knowledge, talent, or wealth... but have you ever thought about changing your personality?"

Lin frowned in dissatisfaction and said, "Isn't my personality good? I hate evil and am sincere."

"No... sigh, why don't you try it? Change to a taciturn and aloof personality? I think you would have a lot of girls who like you that way."

"No. I am who I am, why should I become someone else?" Lin crumpled the can in his hand and threw it into the trash can downstairs. "There will always be a good girl who likes me, right? No, a good girl should like me!"

Kevin was at a loss for words to advise his friend. He had been like this ever since they met. To call him arrogant was an understatement; he wasn't exaggerating. A more accurate description would be that he was excessively flamboyant.

He expressed his inner thoughts too honestly, making him stand out from everyone else.

"Let me ask you, what would you do if you actually found it?" Kevin felt it was appropriate to stop Lin.

"..." However, this question caused Lin to fall silent.

"Could it be that you haven't thought it through?"

"..."

"So how are you going to find a girl who likes you?"

"Go and ask them one by one."

"... Then you're not just destined to be rejected."

Only the strong have the right to refuse!

However, during their almost nonsensical conversation, neither of them noticed that on one floor of another teaching building in the distance, a person was quietly spying on Lin, who was standing on the rooftop, with binoculars.

Special Feature: Love and Girls

"Forget it, I don't want to have a harem anymore."

"..."

Kevin glanced at the clock; Lin's harem dream had only lasted nine hours, from nine in the morning until six in the afternoon when school ended.

What a fleeting and fragile dream.

However, Lin is just the kind of person who only has a short attention span, so this is probably for the best, as it reduces the number of times he harms others.

"Thinking about it carefully, if all the good women like me, wouldn't all the other good men be all alone?" Lin Yanzhi declared with unwavering righteousness. "I'm not that selfish. Besides... don't you think that's very unfair to girls?"

"... I'm quite surprised that you were able to realize the problem so quickly."

Kevin picked up his bag and complained, "Lin, girls are very possessive. If you really find a girlfriend, she'll only want you to focus your attention on her alone. She'll be all hers. The kind of situation in TV dramas and novels where you can share the same lover with someone else is basically wishful thinking."

"No wonder you have a girlfriend, you've built a thick barrier between us."

"No, please." Kevin rubbed his forehead. "Lin, don't blame me for not warning you, your personality is a disaster that most people would avoid at all costs, but for some people it might be..."

Kevin suddenly stopped, as if he was thinking about something.

"Huh? What?" Lin asked, puzzled, when he suddenly stopped.

"No, it's nothing... I don't think that kind of thing will happen."

There probably isn't a girl who's so infatuated with Lin that she wants to do that to him every day. Although you can tell from close contact with Lin that his personality isn't actually like what he appears to be... but no girl would see through his overly flamboyant outward personality.

Kevin chuckled self-deprecatingly at his unnecessary worries.

Lin walked home alone. When he was alone, he would stop his noisy chatter and quietly think about some things.

He watched the falling leaves, soaked with mud, eventually being flushed into the sewer.

Sentimental?

He wasn't that sensitive. In fact, those traumatic experiences were so long ago that he had almost forgotten them and they didn't have much of an impact on him.

However, occasionally, after separating from Kevin, he would still sincerely lament that he had too few close friends around him.

People in this society like to wear masks, whether good or bad. Often, all people can see is the mask on their face. Over time, everyone gets used to the mask that represents a person, even if... it is not that person's true face.

"Sigh, why am I thinking so much! Anyone is fine, just tell me you like me, I'll accept anyone!"

Lin couldn't stand her own wild thoughts anymore.

I can't take it anymore! All I want to do right now is bury my head in the chest of that pink-haired older sister! I don't want to think about anything else!

"Okay, I like you."

A voice as beautiful as heavenly music rang in my ears.

Lin glanced uneasily at the gray-haired girl beside him. The usually eloquent Lin was now as if he had been choked, unable to utter a single word.

Someone confessed their feelings to me.

Someone confessed their love to me on the street.

Although Lin would say that he should have many girls liking him, he was at a loss for words when a girl actually said "I like you" to him without blushing or panting.

Why do I feel like I'm all bark and no bite?

No, no, it's just the first time someone else has taken the lead.

But... who is she?

Lin Ke couldn't remember ever having any contact with this girl. Judging from her school uniform, she was a student at the Chienyu Academy, but Lin Ke had no recollection of her at all. How could she possibly like him?

"Ahem, can you tell me your name..." Lin Yi wanted to slap himself as soon as he opened his mouth.

What is this? A cute romance among middle school students? It's unbelievable that I would say something like this.

"Prometheus." The gray-haired girl's voice was exceptionally bright and spirited, but her expression was so stiff that she didn't seem like a person, but more like a doll.

"Prometheus ..." Lin searched his memory again, but still had no recollection of the girl or her name.

Strange, such a cute girl, even if you don't know her, you should have some memory of her if you've been in contact with her.

"I've been watching you for a long time." Prometheus seemed to see Lin's confusion and she explained slowly, "It started when you hit that PE teacher who sexually harassed you at the entrance ceremony."

"Huh?"

It started so early?

"My older sister also graduated from the Chienyu Academy. She was sexually harassed by that PE teacher for a long time, but because the PE teacher had something on her, she could only endure it silently. It wasn't until after graduation that she quietly told me to be careful of that PE teacher."

"Oh~ so it's about repaying a debt of gratitude~" Upon hearing the whole story, Lin immediately returned to his own rhythm, grinning mischievously at Prometheus: "Is this really a good idea? We haven't really had any real contact, have we~"

His laughter grew increasingly wild, reminiscent of that of an ancient lecher.

"It's nothing, I made it up anyway," Prometheus said expressionlessly.

"Forehead..."

Lin's arrogant expression vanished instantly. He suddenly realized that there seemed to be something wrong with this girl.

For example, from the moment they met, she stared intently at him, and even though she didn't reveal any emotion in her gaze, Lin sensed something unusual in it.

"Do you need so many reasons to like someone? You've been doing things to attract attention since the beginning of your school years, and I've been your audience." Prometheus smiled faintly. "You're my type, is that so wrong?"

"And I can also allow you to have a harem, without bothering you or other girls, and I don't even need you to make any promises."

"I just wanted to tell you this."

After a few seconds of silent bowing, Lin raised his head and looked at Prometheus in a daze.

Isn't this the ideal?

"Really!" Lin stared at every muscle on Prometheus's face.

Prometheus nodded with the same unchanged expression. "Really."

"Phew... this..." Lin felt that happiness had come too suddenly. Suddenly, a glint flashed in his eyes, "Then... how about we try holding hands first?"

"..."

But upon hearing this, Prometheus shook his head indifferently.

"Forehead..."

That was indeed a bit too risky.

"May I visit your house today?" Prometheus asked.

"Sure."

Lin set off with Prometheus in high spirits.

He was completely oblivious to the look that Prometheus, walking behind him, revealed as he gazed at his retreating figure...

Special Feature: Girls and Love

Have you heard the story of the Child of Rain?

The boy stood in front of the rain, the wind howling and whipping his clothes, the cold rain falling on his face.

"..."

The girl stood in the classroom, watching his back shrouded in rain.

Who is he talking to?

Almost everyone had left the school. She hadn't brought an umbrella, so she was waiting in the classroom for the rain to let up. The legendary troublemaker also seemed to be without an umbrella, standing less than a meter away from the rain curtain, whispering something.

His tone was very gentle, not at all like the unrestrained and outspoken people described him to be.

Was he talking to her?

The sky was overcast, and the girl's mood was just as low. Loneliness clung to her, like her shadow, her breath, and her life.

Having grown up alone, she developed a habit of avoiding contact with others, perhaps out of fear of being hurt, or perhaps simply out of subconsciousness.

Yet she could still feel the sadness of loneliness, as if she were in a crowd, separated from others by a distance that could never be reached.

On this gloomy, rainy day, she felt even more terrified, as if she were the only person left in the world.

So when the boy spoke, she felt a strange sense of relief.

"Legend has it that in the beginning, only a single 'drop' of rain fell from the sky, descending like a meteorite, bringing water and disaster, before returning to the sky, and the cycle began again."

"It doesn't think there's anything wrong with it; it's just what it's born to do. A raindrop falls from the sky, then goes back, and falls again."

"But one day, it suddenly felt very lonely, so it wanted to talk to the people on the ground, but every time it fell, it only caused disaster, and no one was willing to communicate with it."

"It then split itself into countless tiny raindrops so that it would not harm people."

"But even after it falls gently, people are still unwilling to have any interaction with it, because... it is just rain, while they are people. Rain and people are not the same kind of beings, so there is neither a need for interaction nor a possibility of interaction."

"But the rain finds that after it is divided into countless parts, it is no longer lonely, because there are actually many rains similar to it, so why should it feel lonely because of people?"

A short story, like a fairy tale told to a child, with a bland tone and no dramatic twists and turns, makes the listener drowsy.

But the girl felt as if something in her heart had been opened up.

"Heh, I actually made up this story." The boy turned around, and Yu Luo chuckled softly.

"Lin, have you ever heard of Balance Bomb?"