Wang Yong

"Xu Ye, tell me, why do some people get to be born into wealth and privilege?"

Class One, Senior Year.

Wang Yong accepted a tissue from Xu Ye and murmured his thanks. After hesitating for a long while, he finally looked at this classmate who seemed to share some of his troubles.

"Uh..."

"Because of several generations of hard work?"

"Because they built Sky City?"

"Because their families worked day and night to accumulate capital?"

"Why should ten years of studying let us easily surpass generations of their hard work?" Xu Ye asked calmly, looking at Wang Yong.

Contamination began when intense negative emotions gave rise to a second personality, which then triggered aberration.

That was why Xu Ye had taken a rare interest in this unremarkable classmate.

"..."

Stab!

Wang Yong felt as though a knife had been driven into his chest. He stared at Xu Ye with a wounded look.

"Yeah, I can't compete with them. My mom works so hard to put me through school because she wants me to make something of myself. I'm exhausted, but I can't let her down. Studying is my only way out."

Xu Ye patted his shoulder and consoled him. "Don't overthink it. Sure, you study hard, but your grades are terrible. Look at all those people who are smarter than you and still work so hard. What's the point of you trying? You might as well give up and coast. You won't know how comfortable it is until you try."

Wang Yong felt another arrow pierce his chest.

"Xu Ye, that's wrong. We can't let ourselves go!" Wang Yong's voice rose involuntarily. When he noticed someone looking over, he immediately lowered his head.

Xu Ye caught every detail and waggled his eyebrows. "So you've got a crush on our class president Qin."

"Th-that's... perfectly normal... She's pretty, gets good grades, and has a nice personality... Who wouldn't like her..." Wang Yong stammered.

Xu Ye encouraged him. "Then you really do need to work hard. Make plenty of money so you can give our class president Qin a bigger cash gift when she gets married."

"..."

Silence.

"Thanks. I feel very comforted." Wang Yong's mouth twitched, his heart shattered into pieces.

"You're welcome. Ever since I was little, people have praised my emotional intelligence and told me to keep talking if I was so good at it." Xu Ye flashed a smug smile.

Wang Yong took a deep breath. If you didn't live inside Night Spirit City-if you were outside the city, or even in the refugee district-you'd have been beaten to death ages ago.

He composed himself and wiped the blood from his palm with the tissue, his expression turning solemn. "Xu Ye, do you think bad people get punished?"

Xu Ye twirled a pen in his hand. "You're talking about Zhang Xuliang, right? His grandfather sits on the school board, and his family owns a gold mine. Even if you'd started earning money back when you were still a monkey and kept going until now, you probably still wouldn't have as much as his family."

"..."

Wang Yong pressed his lips together and said slowly and distinctly, "But I believe bad people will get what they deserve. They absolutely will."

"This is a terrible era, but as long as our generation works to change it, and each generation keeps at it, things will definitely get better."

Xu Ye froze for a moment.

That much positivity?

During his conversation with Wang Yong, he had secretly checked his specially made phone. At close range, it could detect fluctuations in energy.

Xu Ye had just tried to provoke him through their conversation, but he hadn't detected any unusual energy fluctuations.

The Aberrant at school in the future shown by Heart Simulation wasn't him?

Just as Xu Ye was puzzling over this, his heart began to writhe on its own.

[One minute later, I received a call from my liaison.]

[Her name was Li Yunyao. She said my name.]

[Oh, my God. Those two simple syllables took only 0.00001 seconds to strike me right in the heart.]

[It was like the Matchmaker God had picked up Cupid's bow and fired an RPG at me.]

[I felt as though I had found my first love. I fell head over heels.]

[Because I was so lovestruck, I missed my chance to pursue the Aberrant. Three days later, the school fell, and thousands of students died.]

[I was nailed to the Ninth Team's historical pillar of shame. Too ashamed to face anyone, I spent my days weeping in misery.]

[On the day Li Yunyao got married, I ate instant noodles for a month and used the money I saved to give her twice the usual wedding cash gift.]

[Ah! Here's to my lost youth.]

"..."

This time, it was Xu Ye's turn to twitch.

This bizarre, ridiculous heart had not only humiliated him but also wasted one of his precious simulation attempts for the day.

Inside his mind, Alice covered her mouth and snickered.

[As for Iron Egg, there would never be a chance to wear women's clothes in this lifetime.]

Alice stopped laughing.

Xu Ye left the classroom and found a quiet spot. A few seconds later, a call came in right on cue.

"Xu Ye, I'm Li Yunyao, a member of the Ninth Team and your liaison." A slightly icy voice came through the phone.

Her voice really did sound nice.

"You..."

"There's no time for small talk. Just now, a student in your class named Zhang Xuliang called the Patrol Team and said he'd encountered a ghost. Then his signal disappeared. No one has been able to reach him since."

"The Patrol Team thought it was strange, so they passed the case to us."

"His phone's last known location was your school's newly built underground parking garage. Since you're already at school, go take a look. If anything unusual turns up, we'll send more people over."

"Don't hang up. Keep the line open. You're still new and haven't had any training, so I'll guide you."

"I'm going to contact the school now and get some surveillance footage."

Listening to Li Yunyao's rapid speech, Xu Ye unconsciously pictured a woman around twenty with her hair tied up, exposing the fair skin of her neck and her delicate collarbones.

Her fingers clattered across a keyboard as she quickly scanned the relevant information.

"Okay."

Xu Ye put on his wireless earpiece and was about to head downstairs when he noticed a commotion as he passed his classroom door.

A young married woman in a tight red dress, her figure as slender and graceful as a girl's, stood at the classroom entrance with a bag of fruit in her hand, peering inside.

"Mom, what are you doing here?" Wang Yong hurried out of the classroom and pulled his mother aside.

The classroom was full of whispers.

The woman glared at Wang Yong and pinched his arm. "I work so hard to earn money so you can study and make something of yourself, not get into fights with other people!"

"Mom, I wasn't causing trouble. Zhang Xuliang hit me first. I didn't fight back," Wang Yong said, aggrieved.

The woman shot him an angry look. Her high cheekbones and exaggerated eye makeup gave her a harsh appearance. "If Young Master Zhang wants to hit you, say something nice and put up with it. Can't you spare a thought for me? You're all I'm counting on. Just look at your grades..."

"But..."

"No buts. Take this bag of fruit and apologize to Young Master Zhang."

"I'm doing this for your own good. Can't you use your head for once?"