The faintly noisy classroom fell silent at once.
Everyone widened their eyes in unison, gazing at this transfer student whose quiet demeanor nevertheless drew attention.
"Introduce yourself first," the homeroom teacher gently reminded the boy standing in the center.
The boy raised his eyelids slightly. The lights overhead reflected in his pitch-black eyes, like stars scattered through dark ink.
"My name is Lu Tingshen. I look forward to getting along with everyone."
The boy's words were brief, his voice like a breeze brushing past the ear at dawn, clear and crisp with a hint of coolness.
At his voice, Jiang Jinran's gaze paused ever so slightly.
Lu Tingshen?
Wasn't he the novel's actual male lead?!
Standing before Jiang Jinran at this very moment was the teenage version of the male lead.
Jiang Jinran carefully recalled the novel's plot-
Lu Tingshen had originally been the illegitimate son of the wealthy Lu family. His mother had become pregnant unexpectedly in her younger years and given birth to him, but she had no idea who his father was and no way to find any trace of him, so she could only struggle to raise him alone.
But Lu Tingshen was the male lead. Though his background was tragic, as the male lead, he was certainly no ordinary person.
He had originally attended a thoroughly ordinary school, but after shining in a competition and winning gold, he had caught the eye of Imperial Star's principal and transferred from his ordinary school to Imperial Star.
Although Imperial Star was a hothouse for the children of the elite, as a top-tier private academy, it also had academic performance KPIs.
Thus, Imperial Star had always welcomed genius top students with open arms and offered them generous scholarships.
For the male lead, who came from poverty, Imperial Star's scholarship was undoubtedly hard to refuse.
So the current point in the timeline was precisely when the male lead transferred to Imperial Star...
After arriving at Imperial Star, the male lead would grow at an ever-increasing pace while slowly uncovering the secrets of his origins.
The Lu family's current crown prince was none other than Lu Yunxiao, who had wanted to introduce his younger sister to Jiang Yuehan a few days ago. Lu Yunxiao liked fawning over the rich and powerful but had little real ability. After the male lead returned to the Lu family, he would pin Lu Yunxiao to the ground and grind him into the dirt.
Later still, the Jiang family would fall, while the Lu family, currently several rungs below them, would gradually take their place under the male lead's rule, becoming a dazzling, top-tier wealthy family in the Imperial Capital...
Jiang Jinran pursed her lips. Hmm, my poor Jiang family. What could possibly save you from your doomed fate?
But-
Speaking of Lu Tingshen, he actually had another awkward identity.
Namely-
He had originally been the original owner's fiancé.
After Lu Tingshen returned to the Lu family, but before he took power, his reputation as an illegitimate son was poor. Meanwhile, the original owner was an invisible nobody in high society who had a terrible relationship with her family.
Perhaps everyone else had thought they made quite a match...
An illegitimate son and an invisible nobody. Tsk, tsk.
And so, they had egged everyone on into arranging this inexplicable engagement.
Of course, the female lead who was living her life a second time-the true heiress, Sang Ning-knew the future plot. She knew that the male lead, Lu Tingshen, would emerge as the ultimate winner and rise all the way to the top...
So, after her rebirth, Sang Ning would snatch this engagement away and marry Lu Tingshen in the original owner's place.
Jiang Jinran nodded in satisfaction.
So, to put it plainly, this engagement had absolutely nothing to do with me.
The male lead naturally belonged to the female lead.
And her own destination, as Jiang Jinran, was naturally the psychiatric hospital.
She was merely a passerby, passing through the male and female leads' world.
As she thought about this, the sound of a desk moving reached her ears-
Jiang Jinran instinctively looked up, only to see Lu Tingshen moving his desk beside hers and pushing them together...
Wait, something wasn't right!
"You'll sit next to Jiang Jinran from now on." The homeroom teacher's kindly voice traveled across most of the classroom and reached Jiang Jinran's ears.
Jiang Jinran's eyes widened. She looked at the teacher, then at Lu Tingshen beside her, a trace of bewilderment showing in her eyes. "Wait, why...?"
The homeroom teacher said matter-of-factly, "You're the only person in the class without a deskmate."
"Teacher, I wouldn't mind swapping my deskmate for Lu Tingshen!" Someone eagerly raised a hand, a hint of yearning on their face.
"Teacher, I wouldn't mind either..."
However, Lu Tingshen had already sat down beside Jiang Jinran.
The boy arranged his books neatly and meticulously, then drew one out and opened it unhurriedly.
His gaze remained fixed on his textbook. Lu Tingshen never once glanced at Jiang Jinran.
Jiang Jinran could not be bothered to talk to him either.
Although she had always been a whirlwind of a chatterbox who could strike up a conversation with anyone, that did not mean she wanted to talk to everyone.
For instance, she would put Lu Tingshen, right here before her, in the category of people she did not want to bother with.
Subconsciously, Jiang Jinran regarded Sang Ning as a threat to herself and a danger she would have to face in the future, while the male lead, Lu Tingshen, was on Sang Ning's side.
It was hard for Jiang Jinran to feel any fondness for these people who would one day ruin her family, bring about their deaths, and have her sent to a psychiatric hospital.
So, faced with Lu Tingshen, she naturally could not be bothered to engage with him.
She wished they would never cross paths at all.
After school.
Lu Tingshen packed his schoolbag and left the classroom right on time.
As Jiang Jinran slowly put away the textbooks on her desk, Shi Hui's clear voice came from the back of the classroom-
"What did you say? The sports building is under repair?"
"Yeah, so we can't rehearse in the sports building today... Shi Hui, why don't we go to the arts building? It's spacious there too..."
At those words, Shi Hui's eyes suddenly widened as though she had seen a ghost. Her pupils even trembled for an instant. "The arts building..."
"I'm not going!"
Shi Hui refused immediately, her face turning unnaturally pale. The girl opposite her frowned in confusion. "Shi Hui, why are you so against going to the arts building?"
Every word reached Jiang Jinran's ears.
It could not help reminding her-
Ji Qingying had once told her that Shi Hui and Huang Junran had encountered an unspeakably strange danger in the arts building some time ago.
Huang Junran had not come to class for the past few days. Jiang Yuehan had already dealt the Huang family a devastating blow, so it was understandable that he had not been attending.
And now Shi Hui was so opposed to going to the arts building...
Jiang Jinran could not help wondering-
What exactly had Shi Hui and the others encountered in the arts building?
And what exactly was inside it...?
The academy had not sealed off the arts building as forbidden territory, which meant the school did not consider it a place of definite danger. Shi Hui and Huang Junran's experience had been treated as nothing more than an accident.
But clearly, Shi Hui had already developed PTSD over the arts building.
For some reason, Jiang Jinran suddenly felt a little interested in that mysterious arts building.
"But apart from the arts building, we don't have anywhere else to rehearse." The students participating in the Hope Cup gathered around Shi Hui, earnestly trying to persuade her.
"We can go to my house," Shi Hui said firmly.
"That's not practical, and it would be a lot of trouble." Her suggestion was immediately shot down.
"But... but the arts building..." Shi Hui opened her mouth, looking as though she had lost her soul, her broken words failing to form a single complete sentence.