The Little Match Girl

"...You must realize that the college entrance exam is your best path to changing your fate. You must understand that what you are about to face is a brutal battle without a wisp of gunpowder smoke. You must think carefully about whether you have given yourselves the most honorable answer for more than a decade of studying through cold winters!"

"Three days!"

"You have only three days left!"

"Students, I hope that all of you achieve good results in the exam three days from now. I hope that, after enduring trials and hardships, you will all meet the best versions of yourselves."

At the pre-exam rally for Class 17 of the senior third year, the old professor, who had been bald for years, summoned the spirit of the top scorer he had been in the college entrance exam many years ago and delivered a brilliant speech to perfection.

As applause surged like a tide, the bell rang out.

Professor Hou smiled and gave the students a slight nod. "Class dismissed."

It was Saturday, and whether they were day students or boarders, it was time to go home. This was also the last break of their long high school careers.

"How did I never notice before that Professor Hou was so handsome?"

"That's because you're ignorant. They say Old Hou was Suzhou's top scorer in the college entrance exam thirty years ago. He just cared little for fame and fortune. After graduating from university, he politely turned down high-paying offers from lots of foreign companies and insisted on returning to his hometown of Suzhou to teach. Then he became the only honorary professor at our Star Sea Senior Middle School. It caused a sensation across the whole country back then. A gentleman of modest grace, warm and polished as jade-that's Old Hou. He was truly handsome back then!"

"I never would've guessed Professor Hou was such a charmer when he was young!"

"He was a charmer, all right. Too bad what happened afterward was, well, a bit of a hair-raising surprise."

The students packed up the materials they planned to review, chatting among themselves, teasing and laughing.

"Fourth Bro, what are you spacing out for? Let's go together!"

Lu Ping leaned against the doorway and raised his chin at Su Bai.

Su Bai turned his gaze to Lin Xue, who was slumped over her desk not far away. He looked back and shook his head gently. "I'm going to wait a while. You go on ahead."

Lu Ping followed Su Bai's gaze and immediately understood. He chuckled twice, picked up his schoolbag, and came over to Su Bai. Leaning down, he lowered his voice. "I'd better tell you first. Second Bro said some things to Lin Xue during lunch break, and what he said was kind of..."

Su Bai gave an almost imperceptible nod. "I can guess."

Knowing what a playboy like Shen Fei was like, it would have been strange if ivory had come out of a dog's mouth.

Before long, Lin Xue and Su Bai were the only two people left in the spacious classroom.

The silence inside the classroom stood in stark contrast to the noise outside.

Su Bai walked over to Lin Xue and gently placed a packet of tissues he had prepared earlier on her desk.

Lin Xue suddenly raised her face, her eyes red around the rims. "Am I ugly?"

Su Bai thought for a moment, then shook his head.

On Star Sea Middle School's Tieba forum, an exceedingly bored individual had compiled photos of the girls at the school and put together a "school beauty ranking." Lin Xue was right at the top, and the post had even more likes than the "Star Sea Hall of Fame" posted by the principal.

Though the principal had been hunting the culprit down for years, the students had covered for him at every turn, and the principal had never managed to find out who the bored individual was.

"Why did Shen Fei say I was ugly?"

Lin Xue's voice was thick with tears. It was clear that she was truly heartbroken.

Su Bai shrugged. That question... really was hard to answer, and he couldn't answer it anyway.

Of course Shen Fei wasn't blind, nor was he stupid. In fact, his eye was remarkably sharp. He could pick out the prettiest girl in a crowd at a glance, and he could give a thorough appraisal of every girl's figure.

But Shen Fei had always treated girls like clothes, taking them off after putting them on and changing to a new one every few days. He passed through a garden of ten thousand flowers without a single leaf clinging to him. He was a born womanizer.

Frankly, though Shen Fei was a bastard, he was a bastard with principles.

Two years ago, he had thought about finding Lin Xue to play some not-so-innocent innocent games, but as soon as he learned that Su Bai was interested in her, he immediately gave up the idea.

If a girl was gone, he could find another. But losing a brother would be a huge loss.

So, as long as Su Bai was still Shen Fei's brother, Lin Xue could never be Shen Fei's "type."

Just then, a deep voice suddenly came from outside the classroom.

"Miss, it's time to go home."

Su Bai turned to look.

Two burly men in suits and sunglasses stood outside the door, heads high and chests out, imposing and perfectly straight-faced.

"Okay."

Lin Xue hurriedly wiped the tearstains from her face, picked up her schoolbag, and stood. She gave Su Bai a weary smile, then hesitated for a moment before saying softly:

"Su Panda, thank you for delivering that letter for me, and thank you for comforting me. Otherwise, I really wouldn't have known how ridiculous I was. You're a good person."

Su Bai watched Lin Xue's retreating figure grow more distant. He closed his eyes and sighed softly.

From beginning to end, he hadn't said a word, so there had naturally been no comforting to speak of.

As for whether he was a good person, he had never needed anyone else to tell him that.

Only now did Su Bai finally understand that Lin Xue had seen through his feelings long ago.

Lin Xue was kind. She liked Shen Fei, but she didn't want to hurt the relationship between Su Bai and Shen Fei because of her.

By asking Su Bai to deliver that letter, she had probably been turning him down in a tactful way.

The words Shen Fei had once said still rang in his ears-there was no such thing as a secret crush in this world. If you liked a girl, she knew how much you liked her even better than you did. When she pretended not to know, you had already lost. Wake up, my dear eldest son!

Really, wasn't youth just a matter of wandering back and forth between absurdity and self-deception?

The bad news: their love had come to a complete end.

The good news: their love had never begun.

On the way home from school.

Su Bai found a post office, put the confidentiality agreement in a bag, and filled in the delivery address and Gu Jiuge's phone number.

"East Second Ring Road???"

The courier stared at Su Bai as if he had seen a ghost. "Young man, did you write the wrong address? You only have to go out, turn a corner, and pass two sets of traffic lights to reach East Second Ring Road. It's only a few hundred meters away, and you're mailing it?"

Su Bai nodded. "Yeah."

He didn't want to get involved with the supernatural. He just wanted to live a peaceful life, so if he could avoid meeting Gu Jiuge, he would do his best to avoid it.

"All right, but even if you want it delivered, the internet's so advanced these days. You could place an order on your phone and we'd come pick it up. You're the first person I've seen come all the way to the post office to send a package these days."

Su Bai pulled the knockoff keypad phone Gu Jiuge had given him from his pocket and held it up in front of the courier.

As for this knockoff phone, how should he put it? It was waterproof, drop-proof, and had plenty of battery life. Everything about it was good, except it couldn't connect to the internet. Annoying, wasn't it?

The courier scratched his head. "Express or standard?"

Su Bai raised his eyelids. "Express."

"Postage is two yuan."

Su Bai took the three yuan in change from the courier, turned, and went outside.

The first thing that met his eyes was a sky as crimson as blood. The evening sun enveloped the entire city, lending a touch of poetry and beauty to the streets bustling with traffic.

The only flaw in the lovely scene was probably the filthy little girl crouching beneath the bus shelter.

The little girl was about twelve or thirteen, with a pair of large, sparkling eyes. Those eyes were pure and flawless, full of curiosity about the world.

She curled up, holding out a small, dark box in her hand. Looking at Su Bai as he came out of the post office, she said softly, "Big brother, would you like to buy some matches?"

A light drizzle began to fall, and passersby quickened their steps, anxious looks on their faces.

Su Bai stopped and frowned slightly.

He wasn't stupid. In fact, one could say he was quite clever, and his maturity and experience far surpassed those of his peers.

In an age when lighters were commonplace, someone was selling matches by the roadside. The matter itself was foolish and unreasonable.

Even an idiot could see that something was wrong, so naturally Su Bai could see it too.

Who are you, and what do you want? Su Bai had no desire to ask such simple questions.

After what had happened yesterday, all Su Bai wanted to know now was whether the little girl in front of him was human.

But before Su Bai could ask, the little girl gave him the answer through her actions.

In an instant.

The raindrops pattering down toward the ground suddenly froze in midair.

All the vehicles and pedestrians stopped in place like a photograph.

The colorful world turned black and white in an instant.

The little girl smiled sweetly at Su Bai. "Big brother, if you don't buy any matches, I'm going to eat you."

Divine Oracle Sequence 97-Time Freeze.