Yuan Shanxiao managed to adapt to the spatial layout of Tokyo Jujutsu High within a week of wearing bandages over his eyes. Now, he could navigate the school grounds without his sight, just as easily as he could with it. While he didn’t possess the all-knowing Six Eyes like Gojo Satoru, his dynamic perception was now sharp enough to let him function almost normally—though not quite.

Most of the time, he was either teleporting or on his way to teleport. His fear value remained high each day, and occasionally, a tap on the shoulder from behind was enough for the Tokyo Jujutsu High students to witness a skittish, frozen-faced Yuan Shanxiao—like a startled hamster.

And then—he would dash around the school as if it were his personal hamster wheel.

One time, right after returning to the school, Yuan Shanxiao suddenly knelt in front of Fushiguro Megumi, who had just appeared before him:

Fushiguro Megumi froze for a full thirty seconds before slowly retracting his hand, which had just dropped a water bottle in surprise. After a long moment of thought and just as he was about to say something, it seemed like Yuan Shanxiao only then realized there was someone in front of him, got startled again, and instantly fled.

Fushiguro Megumi, who had just taken a breath: …

Just then, his phone rang.

“Hello, Megumi, how is that guy—”

Fushiguro Megumi exhaled. “He’s very spirited.”

Gojo Satoru: …

————

Yuan Shanxiao could now support his daily life with his dynamic vision, as he was almost constantly in motion—between teleporting and his Schrödinger’s cat-like existence in his dorm room, life was a constant blur of activity.

However, Yuan Shanxiao was still somewhat oblivious to static details.

For instance, for a week straight, his classmates at Tokyo Jujutsu High managed to get him to wear skirts, taking advantage of his lack of sight.

Although deceived, Yuan Shanxiao seemed to lack defenses in this area, casually responding to the fabric’s feel with, “Is this just shorts?”

Then, not much caring, he would nod and continue touching—

No beetle shells, no slimy snails, no cursed spirits, no sharp sensations—

Safe.

So, he would comfortably accept the clothing.

Even though it felt slightly off when putting them on, when he touched the safety shorts inside the skirt, it seemed right again.

Watching Yuan Shanxiao lift the skirt to boldly check the safety shorts underneath, the Tokyo Jujutsu High students: …

Despite their silence, guilt, and reservations,

They still—

“Click.”

A week passed with Yuan Shanxiao living this peculiar life, but he didn’t know.

Because he never took off his bandages during that time, whatever clothes his peers handed him, he would sniff and touch them, and if he didn’t feel any beetles or smell any cursed spirits, he would comfortably wear them.

Tokyo Jujutsu High students: …

Maybe he’s a bit too compliant,

Making them feel slightly guilty—

Guilty enough to keep taking pictures and sending them to friends at the Kyoto school, and even forwarding them to Gojo Satoru.

At first, Gojo Satoru, seeing his usually distant students, who only contacted him to highlight the generation gap, began sending messages more frequently, chuckling as he clicked on them, only to close the images of black stockings and short skirts with a serious expression.

Gojo Satoru’s brain, enhanced by the Six Eyes, quickly ran through several possibilities.

Maybe they sent the chat images to him by mistake.

Maybe they were browsing some site and accidentally forwarded it to him.

…In any case, it was all accidental.

The first few scenarios were easy to deal with. He could save the screenshots and tease them when he returned.

But there was one worse possibility.

Gojo Satoru braced himself for the idea that his students might have strayed off the path.

Then he took a deep breath, clicked again, and after seeing the familiar bandages, Gojo Satoru: …

Alright, they did stray, but it’s just that other guy.

If it’s Yuan Shanxiao, it doesn’t really matter.

————

With one week left until Gojo Satoru’s return to Tokyo Jujutsu High, Yuan Shanxiao decided to head down the mountain to test his recent training progress.

Having gotten quite adept at tying his hair after a few days, he returned the hair tie to Maki and now naturally included his hair with his bandages at the back of his head, forming a sort of braid. Then dressed in a white shirt and dark skirt, at first, Maki and the others teased him by having him try on black thigh-high stockings, but after one try, Yuan Shanxiao refused.

Previously, he would rarely refuse anything they asked him to wear, except for this—everyone thought it was because he could see, or perhaps he realized what they were giving him—

Until they heard his justified voice.

“These stockings are easy to snag, and they could slow me down if I need to run.”

Tokyo Jujutsu High students: …

At least his initial purpose hasn’t changed; it’s a constant, gentle flow.

But now that Yuan Shanxiao was heading down the mountain, they stopped teasing him and gave him proper men’s school clothes.

Partly for the dignity that Yuan Shanxiao himself didn’t care much about, and partly because his appearance in women’s clothes was indeed flawless, making him look docile and easily bullied—a quality that felt too exploitable if he encountered strange people off-campus.

…Although the sight of Yuan Shanxiao tightening his calf muscles, flipping the skirt, and sprinting away had indeed been striking…

After the others pointed this out, Yuan Shanxiao, not understanding why, went to change anyway.

He had no strong feelings about what to wear, nor did he think that a gentleman shouldn’t stand beneath a dangerous wall.

Rather—

“I’ve always been under a dangerous wall…”

“Wearing anything might lead to meeting strange people…”

“I’m going to die sooner or later…”

Inumaki, who was leading Yuan Shanxiao to change: …

The white-haired boy shuddered violently, feeling a chill down his spine that seemed colder than any Special Grade cursed spirit…

————

Just heading down the mountain. What could go wrong?

Yuan Shanxiao thought. In these days of blindness, he had managed to use his techniques both a kilometer above and a kilometer below ground, creating safehouses.

By teleporting different parts of his body, such as completing the action of a wave with a teleport, he created smaller spaces, and even smaller ones, like when Gojo Satoru had him bound on a hospital bed, he moved his fingers by teleporting to form a space thin as a blade, then used it to slice through the bandages.

So, Yuan Shanxiao was well-versed and skilled in creating spaces of varying sizes and even shapes.

If Gojo Satoru knew, he would probably be very proud. In just a month since the boy learned of his own techniques, he had developed them to an astonishing degree.

Such “conceptually penetrable” spaces, if used as weapons, were unstoppable. Small space blades could be used as hidden weapons to penetrate skulls, large space slashes could sever a city, and vertical spaces could fall like hammers from the sky—

For digging wells.

Yuan Shanxiao discovered that vertical spaces were indeed excellent for drilling!

He had dug a well a thousand meters deep behind Tokyo Jujutsu High. Then, using the space, he built a safehouse a thousand meters up in the air.

Large spaces could be walls, smaller spaces could be tiles, and then he used thin, small spaces to bind them together—constructing a safehouse that was secure as a fortress.

These space walls were accessible only by him. He could teleport at any time into the “space walls” and then into the safehouse.

So, Yuan Shanxiao used a slightly larger space wall as a “door” that allowed him to teleport into the space and pass through.

The only downside to this safehouse was that it wasn’t livable for humans; it lacked sufficient oxygen and had temperature issues. But dying in there seemed okay, too; that way, no one could take his body for strange experiments or extract his soul—

Though he couldn’t rule out the possibility of someone torturing his soul without needing his body…

So, he still needed to stay alive.

The next day, Gojo Satoru looked at the credit card charges linked to family expenses.

Oxygen respirators essential for climbing Mount Everest 1000

Gojo Satoru looked at the word “Everest” and fell silent.

“…”

It hadn’t been long, and he already had a secondary push.

It wasn’t exactly envy.

Could one person have so many stand-ins for their unrequited love?

So, it wasn’t envy…

————

Just heading down the mountain, what could go wrong?

Remembering the two heaven-and-earth safehouses he had built at Tokyo Jujutsu High, Yuan Shanxiao confidently walked out and down the mountain. He knew every step of the stairs, having measured them with his knees before. And now, he was about to step onto new land.

Just walking, what could go wrong—

Okay, seems I stepped on something.

Haha, not good.

Alright, tripped over something.

“Ah—”

In the 30 seconds before he fell, Yuan Shanxiao had to decide whether to blame the past—”Wasn’t there a stone here yesterday, what happened?”—or fear the unknown—”Ah? I’m about to fall, I don’t know the ground here, what if I smash my head right onto a cockroach carcass?”

Yuan Shanxiao chose—

“Be careful, classmate.”

His out-of-control, gravity-pulled hand was suddenly caught, and Yuan Shanxiao stiffened from the unfamiliar touch, then instinctively tried to flee. But as his wrist was held and lifted, whether it was because his body was restrained or because his mind hadn’t caught up, Yuan Shanxiao didn’t teleport away for a moment—

He steadied himself, realizing that teleporting away now wouldn’t be appropriate.

Because the person holding him, helping him, preventing his fall, was a human.

A human body, warm temperature, a gentle male voice overhead, and a light, non-threatening cursed energy typical of a normal person.

“Thank you…”

The bandages obscured the young man’s facial expressions, visible only after he stood straight and quickly withdrew his hand, stepping back, whether his face was always this pale or it was just from the scare.

“Are you okay? Can you see the road with those bandages?”

It was a pleasant voice, the kind that would make a normal person remark on its clarity and gentleness.

Only, the person opposite wasn’t normal, and Yuan Shanxiao internally noted, “That voice is so nice it’s definitely suspicious.”

“Um, yes, it looks like you are Gojo’s student.”

Yuan Shanxiao and the strange man maintained a distance of about one to two meters. He first inwardly remarked that Maki and the others said he looked a lot like a Gojo Satoru accessory with his bandages on, and it seemed they were right.

But he didn’t obediently respond to this man who seemed to know Gojo Satoru. He backed away further, lifting his head, the bandaged eyes quickly aligning with the man’s face direction, though he still couldn’t see—

“Are you here to see Gojo-sensei—”

Yuan Shanxiao pretended to ask, paused for a few seconds, and without waiting for an answer, continued on his own.

“You’re here to see me.”

Yuan Shanxiao backed away even more. “Especially waiting outside the high gates of Tokyo Jujutsu High—the only place I might appear and not immediately teleport away from. When I appeared, you deliberately hid your presence to avoid scaring me off, I don’t know why I couldn’t use my techniques when you touched me, and then you brought up Gojo-sensei when I was slightly wary—”

Speaking aggressively, though his tone was still calm and slightly timid, he took another step back.

This distance was good; he tested his techniques while talking, and now they could be activated normally.

“So, it seems you are Gojo-sensei’s enemy.”

The man had been silent until now, pausing subtly before smiling, “Maybe a close friend?”

Yuan Shanxiao went along with it, “So first a close friend, then an enemy.”

He suppressed his desire to run, a multitude of information weaving through his mind, more than he let on.

It’s just a human… nothing to be afraid of.

Reason momentarily overcame fear.

His rational mind told him that facing a human, it was now important to take off the bandages and see this peculiar, but definitely Gojo-sensei’s enemy, to gather more information.

So, the young man’s hand slowly moved to the back of his head, unconsciously holding his breath as he sensed the man’s movements, beginning to undo the bandages, his hair falling loosely, trying to seem calm and unhurried.

“I want to know where your misunderstanding about me came from, little friend.”

Yuan Shanxiao paused at being called “little friend.”

It wasn’t that it felt strange, but it sounded like something a behind-the-scenes, smiling villain would say—but the man was probably just a human, right? Just a misperception, a misperception.

“You say you are Gojo-sensei’s friend, yet when you saw me, you said, ‘It looks like you are Gojo’s student,’ instead of ‘It looks like you are the new student Gojo recently took in.’ Gojo-sensei only has a few students, and the world of Jujutsu should know who they are, so the only new aspect could be me. But you didn’t—As Gojo-sensei’s friend, you don’t know about the new student he recently took in? Or was it a subconscious moment trying to hide your knowledge, yet wanting to use Gojo-sensei to close the psychological distance, your words not quite smooth, sir?”

A bandage fell. Yuan Shanxiao slightly tilted his head, letting the bandage slide down his nose.

“If you are Gojo-sensei’s friend, why would you do something at the start that made me wary—”

“I did lift you up nicely, didn’t I?”

Yuan Shanxiao’s eyelashes seemed to tremble, with the loose bandages pulsing slightly, as if ripples of mockery crossed his face, but they quickly merged into his restrained eyelashes. “You know that’s not what I meant. I have been diligently training my dynamic perception.”

“You deliberately repressed your presence, deliberately trying to ‘not scare me’ as you approached. I didn’t realize there was someone in front of me until you held me.”

“There’s something on you that prevents people from using their techniques—”

It was an affirmative statement.

But Yuan Shanxiao was also probing; he dragged out his words a bit, not waiting for a response before turning his elongated tone into a definite one.

“You came at a bit too coincidental a time. Just outside the high gates of Tokyo Jujutsu High, where I, who normally teleports away immediately after testing my techniques at the school gate, would appear.”

“Right in this place, do you naturally dislike entering Tokyo Jujutsu High, or can you [not]?”

“You know me well.”

The second loop of bandages fell. Each loop loosened, and his tied-up black hair fell a bit, scattering over his slightly drooping, seemingly lethargic gray-green eyes.

“This doesn’t match your initial recognition of me, ‘It looks like you are Gojo’s student.'”

“How did you get my information? From Tokyo Jujutsu High? Or Kyoto school—because Maki and the others would also send my information to friends at Kyoto school.”

The final loop of bandages slowly fell. Buying time until this moment, Yuan Shanxiao, while ensuring he had an escape route through his space techniques, also pondered how to extract more information from this unfriendly visitor.

“…You’re much more interesting than my kids.”

“I didn’t realize you were married young.”

A misperception… It always feels like this tone, this statement is also very much like a major villain.

Should be nothing. Just a human, what’s there to be afraid of.

“I’ve come to like you a bit. The sharpness you show in front of me is different from the information I have.”

“Thank you for liking but hold off on that affection.”

“…Perhaps, you interest me even more than Gojo Satoru.”

“Thank you for the interest but hold off on that, too.”

A bit of a mess, feels like those lines also seem like the bad flag a major villain suddenly sets on someone in the hero’s group…

No worries—it’s just a human, he’s not afraid.

Let’s see him—

The bandages completely fell.

Yuan Shanxiao’s gray-green eyes reflected the young man in front of him wearing a kasaya with distinctly non-human stitches on his forehead, as if his mouth were also stitched shut.

A kasaya that seemed out of place in modern society, like a cult’s, with a head that felt as if it could be opened, and those smiling fox-like eyes. If this were a comic book, probably every global commentator would point at this character and say, “This guy is definitely a mastermind behind everything.”

And although the cursed energy, presence, and body seemed human—seeing this man for a moment, that electrifying, tingling sensation almost instantly confirmed for Yuan Shanxiao that this guy was definitely not human.

As if he thought he was on the set of “There’s only one truth” but opened his eyes to see the boss from “Ju-On.”

Yuan Shanxiao: …

This wasn’t his scene.

Yuan Shanxiao’s hands behind his back were clenched white, his gaze drifting sideways, his soul already half gone, but he was afraid to show fear—historically in horror films, showing fear in front of the Boss means the background music is about to start, and you’re about to win a chase scene prize. Thus, although Yuan Shanxiao was without three souls and seven spirits, a thread of reason still supported his fluttering response.

“You look… certainly not like someone who married young.”

God, what was he saying.

“Is this someone else’s body?”

…God, sew his mouth shut.

The young man across seemed stunned, his smiling phoenix eyes fully opening, reflecting the pale face of the young man before him.

…

“Yes, oh.”

[In this world, maybe after death your body might still be used, huh?]

[Even your soul might be taken away for refinement by someone!]

Yuan Shanxiao’s heart and pupils shrank simultaneously—

The young man pursed his lips, his clenched fingers curling into fists, then he turned his head, confronting the intensely non-human long-haired young man. Taking a deep breath, his muscles tensed, his expression solemn, mentally prepared—

“I didn’t expect Gojo-sensei to have a friend like you; he never introduced us, and I was mistaken.”

“Oh, by the way, what were you saying just now? You came to Tokyo Jujutsu High to see Gojo-sensei, right? He’s actually here—should I call him for you—”

“Gojo-sensei—wait, wait, wait, no need to be so enthusiastic—”