"What's your pick today?"
"You go first!"
"Crispy chicken cutlet."
"New Orleans chicken leg!"
"Loser pays."
"Deal!"
In the fourth row by the window in Class Five, first year, at Ningjiang Middle School, Song Yunshen and Xu Zhuoyue were whispering to each other.
The two were betting on what meat dishes the cafeteria would serve that evening.
The school cafeteria followed a particular pattern: of all-meat dishes like crispy chicken cutlet and New Orleans chicken leg, basically only one would appear at a time. They were never served together.
Whoever lost the bet would have to pay for the meal.
"I really don't believe it." Xu Zhuoyue, who had just gotten a buzz cut, spoke through gritted teeth. "It's already been a whole week. Can you really be right every single time?"
"Why can't you just face reality?" Song Yunshen said calmly. "It's called skill."
"We just had crispy chicken cutlet three days ago. There's no way it'll be that today!" Xu Zhuoyue said with a determined look. "I haven't seen my favorite New Orleans chicken leg in over a fucking week!"
"Oh." Song Yunshen gave a quiet response, then straightened up slightly and looked at the blackboard with a serious expression. Casually twirling his pen in his right hand, he put on the appearance of someone paying close attention.
The next second, the English teacher's voice came from the lectern.
"Xu Zhuoyue, come on." The English teacher adjusted her glasses and pursed her lips, which were coated with light-colored lipstick. With a serious expression, she asked, "Which answer do you choose for this question?"
The moment Xu Zhuoyue heard his name, he jolted and slowly rose from his seat, looking a little stiff.
He turned and saw Song Yunshen looking perfectly earnest, and immediately cursed him under his breath in his heart.
The screen at the front of the classroom was showing the lesson slides, displaying yesterday's English homework. They were currently going over a multiple-choice question.
Unfortunately, Xu Zhuoyue was terrible at English and was completely in the dark. He glanced at the question, then immediately lowered his head and made faces at Song Yunshen.
Song Yunshen noticed his deskmate's signal and was left speechless. He looked down at his homework notebook, only to remember that he hadn't done it yesterday.
Their cute and pretty English teacher only occasionally had the class representative collect homework, so sometimes Song Yunshen couldn't be bothered to do it.
Since he was just as bad at English, all he could do was silently pray for Xu Zhuoyue.
Teacher Jiang was pretty and nice anyway, so being scolded a couple of times could be treated as a pleasure, Song Yunshen thought, sending his blessings.
But just then.
He didn't know if he was hearing things.
A somewhat familiar voice suddenly rang out in Song Yunshen's mind.
[Choose C.]
The sudden voice made Song Yunshen freeze for a moment.
But before he could think any further, Xu Zhuoyue secretly kicked him.
Urged on by his deskmate, Song Yunshen decided not to dwell on it. He simply made a C with his hand on the desk.
Having gotten the hint, Xu Zhuoyue immediately answered loudly, "C!"
"Mm, that's correct." Teacher Jiang didn't let him off just because he'd gotten it right. Instead, she continued, "Then why C? Explain it to us."
"Uh..." Xu Zhuoyue looked completely bewildered. How would I know?
So he lowered his head again and looked at his good buddy.
Song Yunshen, of course, had no idea why.
The two of them were both famously terrible at English in their class. Usually, they were doing well just to scrape a passing grade on an exam.
Besides, Teacher Jiang was watching. Even if he knew why the answer was C, he didn't know sign language.
But just then, that strange voice from before rang out in Song Yunshen's mind once again.
[A, B, and D don't work in this sentence structure. You could solve it by elimination, and besides, isn't the answer obvious at a glance?]
Hmm... That voice really does sound familiar...
As Song Yunshen thought this, he glanced at his good buddy again.
Speaking of which, does that count as an explanation?
What do you mean, the answer is obvious at a glance?
Song Yunshen shook his head helplessly, signaling to Xu Zhuoyue that he couldn't help him.
Seeing that he couldn't answer, Teacher Jiang waved for him to sit down. Then she reminded him, "Pay attention in class. Don't whisper to each other. All right, let's take another look at this question."
Xu Zhuoyue breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly sat down. While Teacher Jiang wasn't paying attention, he whispered to Song Yunshen, "Would it kill you to say a little more?"
"I don't know how they got that answer either," Song Yunshen whispered back.
"Bullshit." Xu Zhuoyue looked indignant. "Didn't you skip the homework yesterday, just like me? You still knew the answer, but you expect me to believe you don't know how to solve it?"
"Oh." Song Yunshen nodded. "If you don't know anything, pick C. Don't you know that?"
Xu Zhuoyue: "..."
"By the way," Song Yunshen said, skipping over the subject, "did you hear anyone talking just now?"
"Huh? Wasn't Teacher Jiang talking?"
"I mean besides the teacher."
"No." Xu Zhuoyue looked puzzled. "Is your head okay?"
Song Yunshen shook his head and said no more. He merely rubbed his temples, once again feeling a little doubtful about his current mental state.
Why do these strange things keep piling up...?
As soon as the bell rang, several boys from Class Five, including Song Yunshen and Xu Zhuoyue, raced out of the classroom like the wind before Teacher Jiang had even finished saying, "Class dismissed."
As the bell rang, the entire school building began to hum and shake. Figure after figure headed straight for the cafeteria like piglets let loose through an opened gate.
Class Five's classroom was on the second floor, so they were at a bit of a disadvantage from the start.
After running downstairs, the two immediately joined the main group ahead of them and reached the cafeteria at a hundred-meter sprint.
At that point, only a few people were scattered in lines around the cafeteria hall, all students from classes with classrooms in especially advantageous locations.
Song Yunshen and Xu Zhuoyue hurried to join the shortest line. Only then did they have time to look up at the day's menu.
"Damn!"
As soon as Xu Zhuoyue looked up, he saw "crispy chicken cutlet" displayed on the electronic screen above the serving window, but couldn't find the "New Orleans chicken leg" he'd been longing for.
"Well?" Song Yunshen had clearly confirmed the answer too. Grinning, he rubbed his fingers together at Xu Zhuoyue. "Hand it over."
"Tsk." Speechless, Xu Zhuoyue pulled his meal card out of his trouser pocket and shoved it into Song Yunshen's hand, though he still looked unwilling to accept defeat. "Don't tell me you bribed the cafeteria lady?"
"Am I that bored?"
"Yes."
"Get lost." Song Yunshen rolled his eyes. Having won himself a meal, he got two meat dishes and a vegetable dish, then happily paid with Xu Zhuoyue's meal card.
After getting their food, the two found an empty table and sat down.
Halfway through the meal, Xu Zhuoyue poked Song Yunshen's elbow and made a face at him. "Look over there."
"What is it?" Song Yunshen glanced in the direction Xu Zhuoyue was indicating and easily spotted a striking figure in the crowd.
"It's Xia Yunuo." Xu Zhuoyue chuckled. "Doesn't the class study representative often come to you with math questions? I'd say you've got a real chance."
"I think you're the one who's pretty bored." Song Yunshen shook his head and was about to look away from Xia Yunuo's face when, the next second, that somewhat familiar voice rang out in his mind again.
[Ah... crispy chicken cutlet. Big sister must like this best. But the meat dishes are too expensive. I'll have vegetables instead.]
Song Yunshen paused as he was about to turn his head back. His gaze remained on Xia Yunuo's face, and a trace of realization and doubt flashed in his eyes.
Was that Xia Yunuo's voice?
At that moment, Xia Yunuo was standing in line alone. Her cheeks were fair and luminous without a trace of makeup, and her face was mostly expressionless, giving her a somewhat aloof appearance.
Song Yunshen really liked Xia Yunuo's eyes, cool and clear as water, and the faint mole at the outer corner of her right eye always drew his gaze.
But at the moment, he was only thinking about why Xia Yunuo's voice was ringing out in his mind.
He had already thought the voice sounded familiar. Now that he had someone in mind, it sounded even more like hers.
"Hey, hey, hey! Are you mesmerized?" Seeing him staring at her, Xu Zhuoyue couldn't help waving a hand in front of his face. "Was I actually right?"
Song Yunshen came back to his senses. After turning his head back, he shook it. "I was thinking about something else."
"Don't tell me you're already imagining getting married and having kids together?" Xu Zhuoyue teased with a grin.
"You're overthinking it."
"I'm telling you, plenty of guys in our class like Xia Yunuo, and there are even some in other classes," Xu Zhuoyue whispered. "If you really have feelings for her, why don't you hurry up and win her over?"
"I'm not that interested in this sort of thing." Song Yunshen calmly lowered his head and ate, ignoring Xu Zhuoyue's prodding. "Eat."
"Tsk, keep pretending."
That night, after evening self-study ended, Song Yunshen and Xu Zhuoyue quickly slung on their backpacks and raced out through the school gates.
Song Yunshen rode his bicycle all the way back to his residential compound. As soon as he ran home, he rushed into his bedroom, took out a key, and opened the first drawer beneath his desk.
Inside was a diary.
He opened the diary on his desk and quickly turned to the page he wanted.
[Friday, June 20, 2025]
[There was steamed egg with meat patty, which I love, for lunch today, and crispy chicken cutlet for dinner. Unfortunately, I've already used up my meat allowance for the week, so I had to eat vegetables.]
[I'd better be a little more frugal in general, so my younger sisters can eat a little more.]
[Summer vacation is almost here. I wonder if I can find a suitable part-time job without any trouble. It would be great if I could help ease some more of Mom's burden.]
Looking at the unfamiliar handwriting in the diary, Song Yunshen let out a long sigh.
"It matched up again..."
He had only bought this diary a little while ago.
But before he had even started using it, he discovered that entries written by someone else had already appeared inside.
At first, Song Yunshen thought the seller had sold him a secondhand notebook.
But later, he realized something was wrong.
Less than two days later, new entries appeared in the diary.
Most importantly, all the dates written in it were times that had yet to happen.
For example, the entry Song Yunshen was reading now was dated June 20, 2025-that very day-but he had seen it the day before yesterday.
Diary entries like this had been appearing for nearly half a month.
Song Yunshen couldn't find any reasonable explanation for such a supernatural phenomenon.
But after checking for more than a week, he could more or less confirm that everything written in the diary would actually happen in the future.
After all, he had already been winning meals for a whole week.
In other words, this was a diary from the future!
But the strangest thing was that it wasn't written by a future Song Yunshen himself. It was a future diary written by another, unfamiliar person.
Because Song Yunshen didn't recognize the handwriting in it at all.
In any case, it definitely wasn't his own.
"This isn't really a bad thing, but..." Looking at the entries in the diary, Song Yunshen couldn't help muttering, "You could at least write something useful."
For example, major national events or stock market trends might have helped him make some money.
Instead, over the past half month or so, it had all been trivial little things.
The only thing Song Yunshen could be certain of now was that the diary's owner was also a student at Ningjiang Middle School.
Other than that, there weren't many useful clues at all.
"I need to think of a way to find the person who wrote this diary..." Thinking this, Song Yunshen unconsciously rubbed the diary with his fingers and casually flipped farther through it.
The next second, his expression froze.
A new entry had appeared on a page that should have been blank.
"Don't tell me it's what the cafeteria serves on some other day again?"
Muttering to himself, Song Yunshen lowered his head to read.
But his face quickly went blank.
There, plainly written in the entry, was:
[October 27, 2036, overcast]
[They got divorced.]
[Song Yunshen, that idiot, didn't even know to hide those albums and photos properly. They actually got discovered.]
[But things have already come to this. Can I really get back together with him?]
[Or perhaps he'd rather choose her?]