The boy gently pressed the top of the ballpoint pen in his hand. After battling away for over ten minutes, its tip finally received the signal to retreat and withdrew into the barrel, leaving only the neatly written equations on the desk as proof of its struggle.
He turned over the white answer sheet, revealing its heading.
"Totsuki International University spring semester entrance examination. Subject: Mathematics. Time allowed: 120 minutes."
Beneath the printed heading, black handwriting spelled out the examinee's name.
"Yan Huan."
It was an afternoon steeped in the colors of spring. Sunlight spilled through the second-floor classroom windows, illuminating the handsome profile of the boy who had just finished his paper.
Beneath his slightly long, wavy black bangs, his dark eyes glanced out the window, reflecting a broad stretch of green washed with crimson light: the sports field tracing the setting sun's path.
On the track, young people in running gear ran lap after lap, looking like Kuafu as they repeatedly chased the sinking sun.
In his previous life, Yan Huan had always pictured Kuafu as a strong young man, because he thought blindly chasing the sun without ever tiring had a distinctly youthful quality.
That was something only young people would do, and an enviable privilege of theirs.
Fortunately, this parallel world also had legends about Kuafu, allowing him to put sentences like that into his essays.
The other students around him were still hard at work. Only Yan Huan lightly set his ballpoint pen, warmed by his hand, down on the desk.
Propping up his chin, he exchanged a glance with the bald, middle-aged math teacher at the front, before they tacitly looked away from each other.
This kid finished it in no time again.
Zhou Bin, your bald head's reflecting the light again.
Their thoughts collided in the void, though neither knew what the other was thinking.
"Read the questions carefully and check your work."
That was his math teacher from last semester, Zhou Bin. It was a rather funny name; every time Yan Huan saw him, he thought of imported Japanese draft cola.
Utterly bored, he listened to the students beside him scribbling furiously, his thoughts drifting who knew where.
Isn't my transmigration missing a little [fantasy flair]?
As he spaced out, the thought suddenly struck Yan Huan with some frustration.
A cheat system implanted in his brain, a female monster who repaid his kindness at night, a foreign glutton in a warehouse saying something like, "Are you my master?"
None of it!
He had merely seemed to die young, suddenly dropping dead at his desk while working overtime, then reincarnated as a baby and begun another life in a completely unfamiliar place that appeared to be a parallel world.
He had lived with self-discipline for over a decade, and this year, he had entered young adulthood once again!
In truth, Yan Huan did harbor a tiny bit of hope. His sixth birthday wish had been for his life after transmigration to gain a touch of fantasy.
But contentment brought happiness. He had already died and come back to life in another world. What more could he ask for?
If Kobe could come back to life and reincarnate in another world, he probably wouldn't care about all the tired boomerang-and-elbow memes flying around the internet either.
Yan Huan thought this with contentment, but he really was bored, so he decided to actually follow Bin's-no, Mr. Zhou Bin's advice and pick up his paper to check it again.
And so, holding the exam paper, he picked up his ballpoint pen again and spent the remaining exam time apparently checking his work, but actually spacing out.
Soon, it was almost time to hand in their papers.
"There are twenty-five minutes left. Check your names, student numbers, and answer sheets carefully again."
"Tick. Tock. Tick."
On this most ordinary of afternoons, in this silent examination room full of furiously scribbling students, the ticking of a clock sounded at regular intervals, as though reminding the examinees how little time they had left.
But a second later, Yan Huan belatedly noticed something strange.
Wait, wasn't the exam clock digital?
He looked at the whiteboard at the front. The countdown above it was changing, but made no sound at all.
Just as Yan Huan was puzzling over this, a female voice as sweet as a lark's suddenly intruded upon his ears, almost like a hallucination.
"Hello, can everyone in examination room one hear me?"
Yan Huan's movements paused slightly. He instinctively started to turn toward the classroom door, but a piercing sound like a child's scream exploded in his mind, cutting him off.
[Do not answer! Do not answer! Do not answer!]
What's going on? Have the Trisolarans invaded?
Why didn't they invade in my previous life? Why now?!
As Yan Huan covered his ears and thought this, he suddenly caught sight of a small head slowly peeking through the examination room's open doorway.
Beneath lovely black bangs, pale hands were cupped around her mouth like a megaphone, confirming that the voice had come from her.
She was a beautiful girl whose looks deserved a perfect score, drawing the eye like a magnet and making it difficult to look away.
Most striking of all were the bright, dewy eyes beneath her long lashes, glimmering like starlight. With her brows and eyes curved, she seemed almost angelic, making one want to linger.
A school badge bearing her name hung over the curves of her chest beneath her gray uniform jacket.
"First year, Class B. Bai Yi."
Thank goodness. Not a Trisolaran.
[Your life is about to end. Emergency worldline intervention will now commence!] [The correction plan has begun. Please maintain your current actions. Remember not to display any behavior suggesting you have discovered the modifier, or there will be severe consequences.] [Please allow me to explain the details later.]
Worldline? Modifier? My life's ending?
The voice sounded in his ears again, steadier and less piercing now, but the barrage of strange terms was every bit as powerful as before.
This time, Yan Huan truly followed the instructions of the mysterious voice in his head and made no rash movements. In fact, he went a step further: not daring to move at all, he cautiously tracked the girl using only his peripheral vision.
There was no other reason than that Yan Huan had discovered, to his horror, that the girl named Bai Yi was translucent, as though separated from the entire world.
In his peripheral vision, the translucent girl leaned her exquisitely beautiful profile into the examination room, where the students were writing furiously.
Then, instead of lowering her hands, she let out an "Ah!" in that lovely voice again, freely releasing her pent-up frustration like a climber standing atop a mountain.
Yan Huan blinked, but everyone in the examination room except him continued what they were doing as though they had heard nothing.
"They really can't notice me."
The girl covered her mouth and giggled, tucking a stray lock of black hair behind her head to reveal a small, rounded, pale earlobe.
As though completely relaxed now, she walked into the examination room and even waved her hands in front of Zhou Bin and the first-row students bent over their papers, watching with amusement as they remained utterly unaware of her.
"Hmm, hmm, hmm~"
Humming a tune Yan Huan had never heard, she paced across the platform with her hands behind her back, as naturally as an official on an inspection.
Then she frowned, as if suddenly remembering something, and turned toward Zhou Bin at the front with a displeased expression.
Yan Huan had no idea what she intended to do. He merely watched her search for something beside the platform.
A marker.
With the marker in hand, she approached Zhou Bin with ill intent.
As Yan Huan's eyes gradually widened, she stood on tiptoe and drew a huge cross on Zhou Bin's face with the black marker, then added several more wild scribbles.
Yet neither Zhou Bin nor any of the students below seemed to notice anything amiss.
Zhou Bin swept his gaze over the examination room, but could neither see the girl before him nor notice that his face was being turned into a graffiti wall.
Only Yan Huan witnessed this utterly absurd scene.
"Heh. That's what you get for calling my mom to tell on me."
The girl's lovely voice sounded like a little devil's, bringing out just how pleased she was with herself.
A ghost?
No.
I think I know her.
Only now did Yan Huan suddenly remember who this vaguely familiar girl actually was.
She was Bai Yi, in the same year as him. The reason Yan Huan could say he had seen her outside school as well was that she was a prominent figure at Totsuki Academy.
A young entertainer already signed to a famous international entertainment company, she had won over countless internet users around the world with her exquisite youthful charm and was known as "the wife a million people are waiting to see grow up."
She had already appeared in three films and had several hit songs, not to mention countless endorsements. Even when he shopped online, he occasionally saw her advertisements.
Though she was nowhere near a major star yet, she certainly counted as very famous within the school.
And now this youth idol who took the internet by storm was drawing on Zhou Bin's face with a marker?
And he was the only person who could see it?
What kind of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai plot is this?!
"Whoosh."
The wind outside suddenly strengthened, making the curtains sway and the exam papers flutter wildly.
The curtains, washed to a faded blue and white, rose and fell like waves, concealing half of Bai Yi's body. Yet neither her hair nor her skirt moved at all, making her look like a beautiful ghost standing apart from the world.
Fantastical. Exquisite.
But the moment the wind rose, Bai Yi suddenly turned toward Yan Huan as though she had sensed his gaze, just missing his cautious scrutiny.
"Huh?"
Oh no!
After staying hidden for so long, was he about to give himself away now?!
Yan Huan's mind raced, but his expression remained calm. He simply looked in her direction, which instead made Bai Yi uncomfortable.
She glanced at herself in confusion, then at the curtains settling back down around her as the wind stopped. Finally, she turned and looked straight at the handsome boy sitting beside the window.
Ah.
So it's you, student council president.
Bai Yi pressed her lips together and walked toward Yan Huan without a word. His heart gradually sped up, but his expression remained unchanged, and the ballpoint pen even continued spinning between his fingers.
"Can you see me?"
The girl standing right before him gave off a very faint but pleasant fragrance, as fresh and lively as flowers blooming in the morning light.
She bent down slightly, tilting her long black hair just enough for it to brush Yan Huan's temple, yet he felt nothing at all.
But Yan Huan became all the more certain that she was absolutely real.
Yan Huan remained perfectly still, looking ahead, his gaze passing through her chest as though he were admiring some beautiful scenery.
"..."
Receiving no response to her question, Bai Yi fell silent for a moment. Then that little-devil smile, so at odds with her innocent idol image, blossomed on her face again, and she picked up another gel pen lying on Yan Huan's desk.
Something miraculous happened. The gel pen she picked up instantly became translucent. More precisely, it was as though she had drawn its translucent soul out of the body of the pen on the desk.
One gel pen lay on the desk, while a translucent one rested in her hand, as though the worldline had split in two.
"That face of yours is as annoying as ever, President."
Huh? Me?
Wait, I barely even know you. We've never even met in person, have we?
But Bai Yi offered no further explanation. With a smile devoid of warmth, she pointed the gel pen's tip at Yan Huan as she spoke, apparently intending to write something just as she had on Zhou Bin.
Yan Huan's dark eyes slowly focused, and the voice from earlier echoed in his mind.
[The correction plan has begun. Please maintain your current actions. Remember not to display any behavior suggesting you have discovered the modifier, or there will be severe consequences!]
Even so, his arm was itching to move, seemingly already aimed at the pale wrist beneath her sleeve.
At that critical moment, a distinct "Tick. Tock. Tick." sounded from the girl before him, exactly like the clock he had heard earlier.
Then he heard other mysterious sounds coming from her.
[Current effect: Unnoticed.] [The fifteen-minute countdown is about to end. Please take note.]
Bai Yi abruptly stopped. She was still holding Yan Huan's gel pen up, but her face was already filled with resignation.
She lowered her head to check the time, seemingly not quite satisfied yet.
"Time's up? Already?"
Helplessly, she put the gel pen back in its original place, where it overlapped perfectly with the pen on his desk that seemed to belong to another timeline.
Turning back, she let her shining gaze linger carefully over Yan Huan's handsome face for a long while before turning away in annoyance, ready to leave the classroom.
"We've got plenty of time ahead of us, Yan Huan. Hmph."
"Tick."
"Tock."
The ticking from earlier spread once again, like machinery turning, or heavy droplets splashing.
Accompanied by those faint, illusory sounds, Yan Huan's gaze followed her swiftly departing figure as it gradually disappeared, until she was completely out of sight.
Several minutes passed, and everything seemed to have returned to normal.
But then, at a certain moment, Zhou Bin's body shuddered slightly at the front of the classroom, as though countless pen strokes had suddenly swept across his face in a burst of itching.
"Ah!"
He hurriedly slapped a hand over his face with a smack.
The sound made the examinees look up from their papers. They would have been fine if they hadn't looked, but once they did, everyone froze.
"What are you looking at? Have you all finished question two? Do you not want your grades? Hurry up and-"
"N-no..." A brave student shakily raised a hand to point at Zhou Bin and hurriedly said, "Mr. Zhou, y-your face!"
"My face?"
Zhou Bin froze briefly, then quickly pulled his phone from his pocket, opened the front-facing camera, and pointed it at himself.
The moment it opened, there was his bald head, thoroughly defiled by marker. Not only was there a pair of J-Q-K combinations, but there were also the words:
"Stupid teacher, stupid teacher, stupid teacher."
The handwriting was a mess, like the doodles of a three-year-old schoolchild.
The classroom fell completely silent. Only Zhou Bin, his face growing redder and redder, continued shaking violently.
"Who did this?!!!"
A second later, his anguished cry rang through the entire teaching building, probably disturbing the other examination rooms as well.
Only Yan Huan sat dazed in his chair, and only he knew what had actually happened.
And just like Zhou Bin, he finally felt a faint tickle at his temple, where the ends of the girl's black hair had touched him without sensation earlier.
It was as though that belated, tender moment from several minutes ago had only now struck him square between the brows, describing to Yan Huan the beauty the girl had left behind.
Arriving just as late was the birthday wish he had made when he was six.
That touch of fantasy.
Before you continue