Ye Fan slumped in his seat. Beside him sat Pang Bo and a girl he did not know yet, though she would soon be his classmate.
Pang Bo had not killed Ye Fan by crashing into him. Regrettable—no, that was wrong. A pity—no, not that either. It was a relief.
But now Ye Fan radiated an air of having lost all hope in life. Why does the world treat me like this? Might as well die and be done with it.
The girl beside him shifted farther away.
He was so miserable it made her dizzy.
"Yezi, what's wrong?" Pang Bo asked worriedly, afraid he had injured Ye Fan when he ran into him.
"I want some quiet."
"Don't ask me who Quiet is. I just want it. No reason."
Pang Bo suspected that the friend he had just met and clicked with so well might have something wrong with his head.
I didn't ask who Quiet was.
Clap! Clap!
Pang Bo was about to say more when the counselor at the lectern clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention.
"Hello, everyone. My surname is Meng, and I'll be your counselor from now on. Over the next four years..."
Then came the usual formalities: they were all family now, they would weather the next four years together, and so on.
Counselor Meng took out the roll to call names. In an age of cultivation, he could have found out who was absent just by communicating with the classroom building's artifact.
But life still needed a little ceremony.
"Ye Fan!" Ye Fan was first. There was no escaping it.
"Here!" Ye Fan went from utterly dejected to perfectly alert in an instant. In a classroom, hearing that familiar call, he could not help sitting up straight.
The memory was etched into his