Chapter 211: After School

Chapter 211: After School

Wen Xian grabbed his backpack and stepped out, slamming the door shut with a loud *clack*. 66 hurried after him.

Just on the other side of the door, the system halted again.

Wen Xian hadn’t walked away yet. He simply stood outside, placing his backpack on the windowsill in the hallway, propping himself up as he gazed into the distance.

This host had a strikingly sharp face—high cheekbones, a defined brow, and deep brown eyes reflecting the sunset, handsome and bold like a mixed-race model. He lingered alone in the corridor for quite some time, as if thinking where to go next, before finally grabbing his backpack and heading downstairs.

66 hurried after him.

Wen Xian made his way straight to the garage. Both he and Shen Zhao were loaded, and the space was filled with luxury cars that 66 didn’t even recognize—headlights and grilles all sharp angles.

Wen Xian unlocked one of them, flung his backpack into the back seat, and just as he was about to turn the key, 66 hastily activated the matching program.

A robotic voice echoed in Wen Xian’s mind:

*"Dear host, is your life stuck in hardship, full of regrets?"*

*"Do you desperately want to change the future but don’t know how?"*

*"Sign a contract with 66, return to the past, correct your mistakes, and get your perfect life back!"*

Wen Xian paused mid-motion.

He frowned. "Hearing things?"

66: "Nope, not a hallucination."

A screen projected onto Wen Xian’s retina, glowing blue text slowly appearing: *"Hello, this is Villain NPC Roleplay System, Model 66, sincerely inviting you to participate in system tasks. Complete them and you’ll receive one chance at rebirth."*

But rebirth didn’t interest Wen Xian. The system quickly added: *"You didn’t want to marry Shen Zhao, did you? He pushed you into it, right? Don’t you want to change that outcome? Just sign a contract with me, travel back ten years, complete the system tasks as agreed, and I guarantee none of what happened later will happen."*

Wen Xian: "I don’t need it."

Without sparing the strange system another glance, he turned the ignition. The engine growled to life, the 12-spoke rims spinning as the car started pulling out of the garage.

66: "Wait, you don’t need it?"

It shoved itself into Wen Xian’s view, taking over most of his sight: *"Being forced into a marriage with someone you don’t love—doesn’t that frustrate you?"*

Wen Xian replied calmly, "We’ve already agreed to divorce." He pointed toward the backpack in the back seat. "The agreement’s drafted and in there. I’ve signed it. All that’s left is Shen Zhao’s signature. Once the equity division is settled, we’ll be getting divorced."

66 leaned closer and saw it was true—the backpack really did contain a divorce agreement, already signed by Wen Xian in sharp, elegant strokes.

This laid-back rich kid actually had excellent handwriting.

Shen Zhao hadn’t signed yet, but both companies had stamped their approval, with no objections to the equity split. They were truly at the final step before divorce.

66: "..."

Was the mission dead on arrival?

Still, it pressed on: *"Wasting the most precious three years of your life—don’t you regret it?"*

Wen Xian remained unmoved.

*"With your wealth, you could’ve spent those years living it up, dating whoever caught your eye, right?"*

Wen Xian kept moving. The gate rose, and the sports car slowly emerged from the underground garage, merging into the city traffic.

66 found itself looking up toward Shen Zhao's residence. In its vision, the floor-to-ceiling windows reflected blinding sunlight, the balcony and infinity pool outside reduced to no bigger than a handspan in the distance—but it could still see Shen Zhao standing there.

The other man seemed cold. He had changed into a deep black windbreaker, a casual sporty style that was all wrong for Shen Zhao. But he pulled the coat tighter around himself and gazed in this direction, watching Wen Xian’s car disappear into the traffic.

66 persisted: “Host, aren’t you even a little curious? Ten years ago something happened—something that made Shen Zhao fixate on you, even though you didn’t know each other back then. Why?”

“You two were never supposed to meet at all. In my original story, he wasn’t meant to marry you. Don’t you want to know what went wrong—what sent both the plot and your life off course?”

Brakes screeched as tires ground against the pavement, producing an ear-splitting noise.

Wen Xian braked sharply and pulled over, finally giving it his full attention. “Fine.”

66, mid-speech, blinked. “…Huh?”

Wen Xian: “I’ll sign the contract. Let’s do it.”

Though confused by the sudden change of heart, 66 wasted no time pulling up the agreement, afraid he might change his mind. “Here are the terms. Please read them carefully. If you agree, just sign in the blank space.”

Wen Xian raised his finger and tapped the screen, signing his name with careful strokes.

The contract took effect.

66: “Phew—”

It exhaled in relief. “Mission begins. Preparing for dimensional leap. Host, please brace yourself—3, 2, 1—”

As the countdown ended, Wen Xian clapped a hand over his ear. Dizziness and ringing filled his head. Then, suddenly, a jumble of noises assaulted him—the sound of chalk scraping across a blackboard, rustling test papers, cicadas and birds chirping outside, and the distant din of the sports field.

Wen Xian opened his eyes. Before him was a blackboard covered in equations.

The familiar middle-aged balding homeroom teacher, the same desks and chairs, the identical tests and textbooks—everything felt weirdly familiar.

He was back in high school.

Nan City Foreign Language School was the best high school in town. There were only three types of students:

First were the rich kids who paid through the nose to get in. These students rarely took the college entrance exams; when the time came, their parents worked their connections to send them abroad. Grades didn’t matter much to them—they were only here because their parents wanted to keep them out of trouble, away from vices like gambling or drugs.

Wen Xian was one of them.

The second group came from middle-class families, with decent grades and regular tuition fees. They were the ones who brought up the school’s university admission rates.

The third group were the smart ones—the top scorers aiming for elite universities through competitions or recommendations. These students got free tuition and scholarships covering their living expenses. Family background didn’t matter so much, but the pressure was intense. Fail to meet expectations, and they’d lose their scholarship and have to pay tuition like everyone else.

The math teacher was rambling on at the front. He had just finished conic sections and was now tackling the final problem on sequences. The blackboard was filled with formulas, crawling like ants.

Wen Xian sat at the very back of the classroom, lounging in his seat and staring out the window.

His grades had always been bad, and it had been nearly ten years since he last set foot in a high school. He was completely lost, so he gave up trying to listen. Instead, he thought, *Is Shen Zhao here?*

The Wen family was one of the most powerful in Nan City. Back in high school, Wen Xian had been the unquestioned king of the school, surrounded by a circle of rich kids. When it came to gossip, nobody knew more than he did.

Yet, there had never been anyone named Shen Zhao in this place.

If the Shen family’s son had gone here—whether by blood or not—Wen Xian would have known.

Thinking this, he glanced toward another corner of the classroom.

Directly opposite Wen Xian's seat was another equally out-of-the-way spot. While Wen Xian stared blankly out the window, the other guy buried himself in books and fell fast asleep. The two of them could be called the "Sleeping Dragon and Young Phoenix" of Class 4, Senior Year. Even from across half the classroom, Wen Xian could hear the guy’s snoring.

This was Shen Yuechuan’s actual son—Shen Zhao’s “younger brother,” Shen Jixing, who later died in a car crash in the middle of nowhere.

As for whether Shen Zhao was behind his death, Wen Xian didn’t know.

Shen Jixing had always hated his “older brother” Shen Zhao and never mentioned him voluntarily. Their relationship was terrible.

By the time Shen Zhao rose to power, Wen Xian had already been sent abroad by his father to study—though studying was a stretch. Wen Xian secretly formed a band at school. He was killer on guitar, rocking out with country and blues every day, just having a blast—until he heard Shen Jixing had died.

Wen Xian wouldn’t have even known about it if not for a rich kid classmate who was close with Shen Jixing and studying abroad with him. But the news had passed through dozens of hands, getting embellished with all sorts of wild details until it gave Wen Xian a headache just listening to it.

Wen Xian and Shen Jixing were just nodding acquaintances. Shen Jixing’s mother, Mrs. Ji, was distantly related to the Wen family. Strictly speaking, Shen Jixing was Wen Xian’s distant cousin. They’d even eaten together as kids.

The Wen and Shen families were roughly equal in status, with the Wens slightly better off—but not by much. The elders hoped the younger generation would support each other, so they deliberately put Wen Xian and Shen Jixing in the same class. They exchanged a few words now and then.

But Wen Xian just couldn’t get along with Shen Jixing. In fact, he found him irritating. Still, the thought of his cousin dying at someone else’s hands left him unsettled.

Thinking that the guy snoring next to him might end up pancaked by a truck in a few years, Wen Xian averted his gaze, plucked 66 off his shoulder, and frowned. “Spit it out. What’s the mission?”

66 flipped through the plot. “Hmm, today’s task is stupid simple. On your way home, you pass by the 33rd Middle School, right? Don’t look into the alley. Just walk straight past it.”

Wen Xian blinked. “Seriously? That easy?”

To escape a psycho as obsessed as Shen Zhao, he’d expected it to take way more effort.

66: “That’s it. That easy.”

The road outside Nanwai was under traffic control, always jammed. Cars lined up for hours, so Wen Xian always had his family’s driver drop him off a few blocks away. He’d walk home after school.

Along the way, he’d pass through an old, unrenovated urban village—littered with exposed wiring plastered with ads like “Drilling & Lockpicking” and “Rich Woman Wants Baby”—and next to it, the local middle school: Nan City’s 33rd Middle School.

Despite being just a ten-minute walk apart, the 33rd Middle School and Nanwai were night and day. The 33rd was small, rundown, and perpetually at the bottom of Nan City’s high school rankings. The teachers were all counting-the-days-to-retirement slackers who couldn’t even explain imaginary numbers, idling around with goji berries in their enamel mugs. The students weren’t much better—every few months, there’d be news of some kids bringing knives to fights.

Meanwhile, even though Nanwai had slackers like Wen Xian and Shen Jixing, their families still kept them in check. They would never form gangs and loiter in the streets.

66 hammered it home: “Don’t ask why. Just do as I say. Walk straight home and don’t look anywhere else.”

Wen Xian chuckled. “Fine.”

Math was the last class of the day. The others stayed for evening self-study, but Shen Jixing was still asleep. Wen Xian and a few others who didn’t need the college entrance exam slipped out early. Since they weren’t dragging down the school’s admission rate, the teachers didn’t bother stopping them.

It was dinnertime, so Wen Xian headed to the back gate for his usual egg pancake. His parents hated him eating street food, calling it unsanitary, but Wen Xian was starving and couldn’t care less. He added two sausages, took a bite, and ambled down the street.

66 drilled it in: “Remember, no matter what happens, don’t look. Don’t get involved.”

Wen Xian thought, *How hard can this be? Do you really need to say it three times?* He grunted noncommittally and kept walking.

But as he walked, he heard something unusual.

Someone was shouting—something about “enjoying love letters?” and “flirting with Yuanyuan.”

Fights were common at the 33rd Middle School. Wen Xian didn’t even blink, chewing his egg pancake as he prepared to walk past.

But beneath the shouting was another sound.

Faint sounds—muffled pain, mixed with quiet sobs and rhythmic thuds—fists hitting flesh.

Wen Xian’s gut clenched.

He stopped eating, tossed the egg pancake into his backpack, and kept his head down. But as the sounds grew louder and clearer, his eyes darted over.

What he saw made him snap.

Wen Xian flung his backpack aside. “Who the fuck are you beating on?!”