Chapter 01

“…Qin Xiaoxiao.”

“Qin——Xiao——Xiao——”

Her elbow was poked, and Qin Xiaoxiao blinked blankly. “Huh?”

“This time it’s your turn to clean the blackboard!”

Clean the blackboard…

Qin Xiaoxiao shook her still somewhat dizzy head and walked toward the podium.

“You’re acting strange all morning. What are you thinking about?” Her deskmate’s complaint was not quiet at all.

Thinking about what?

Thinking about why such an absurd thing could happen.

She woke up and found herself inside a novel she had read, becoming one of the characters.

Qin Xiaoxiao mechanically and absentmindedly cleaned the blackboard. As she reached the edge, she nearly stepped into thin air, but luckily, someone caught her in time.

Because of this minor accident, Qin Xiaoxiao’s scattered thoughts finally focused a bit.

“Thank you.” Out of habit, she politely thanked the boy who had helped her.

The delicate-looking male classmate froze for a moment, then hurriedly averted his gaze. “N-no need to be polite,” he stammered, blushing as he quickly walked out the front door of the classroom.

Qin Xiaoxiao: “?”

After finishing cleaning the blackboard, on her way back to her seat, Qin Xiaoxiao subconsciously glanced at Ji Wenchen’s… seat.

No one was there, just an empty seat.

Truly a high school student who disregards discipline and lives recklessly.

Qin Xiaoxiao’s thoughts naturally drifted to the plot of this novel.

This was a romance novel primarily set in a high school campus. The main plot was simple: in short, a rebellious and arrogant school bully meets a quiet and soft transfer student and transforms into a devoted “little wolf dog.”^[1]小狼狗 (xiǎo láng gǒu) = Little wolf dog, is an internet slang term that originally referred to an animal. Later, it came to describe young men who are handsome, cool, and charismatic. Despite … Continue reading

The male lead was Ji Wenchen, and the female lead… well, it definitely wasn’t her, Qin Xiaoxiao.

Judging from the screen time and importance of the characters in the novel’s chapters so far, “Qin Xiaoxiao” didn’t even qualify as the second female lead.

She confessed to the male lead, became his first love, and after the female lead appeared, was mercilessly dumped by him. The entire storyline of “Qin Xiaoxiao” in the novel added up to less than a thousand words.

Then, still harboring feelings for the male lead, “Qin Xiaoxiao” grew jealous of the female lead and tried to trip her up, doing some unpleasant things to her. After causing trouble for a while and angering both the male and female leads, “Qin Xiaoxiao” was “dealt with” by the male lead around chapter forty. Her ending was quite miserable.

When reading the novel, Qin Xiaoxiao had felt a bit uncomfortable sharing the same name as the supporting female character. However, with her friend’s recommendation and the fact that she had already spent money subscribing to it, she chose to ignore the name and continued reading.

Admittedly, the author’s writing was quite good. As she read on, Qin Xiaoxiao unconsciously immersed herself in the female lead’s perspective, growing to despise and disdain “Qin Xiaoxiao,” the heartless first love.

As a result, she became that heartless first love.

Heh.

The class bell rang, and a female teacher with straight bangs walked into the classroom.

The memories of “Qin Xiaoxiao” told her that this was the homeroom teacher of this 11th grade (Class 8) group. She was a very responsible teacher who liked to reason things out and often had heart-to-heart talks with students who were facing issues.

Having an innate sense of respect and fear toward homeroom teachers, Qin Xiaoxiao immediately pulled out her physics textbook from behind the upright book on her desk and opened it.

The original “Qin Xiaoxiao” was the physics class representative. Her overall academic performance wasn’t great, but her physics grades were one of the rare few that ranked among the top in the class.

“This class, we will learn about total internal reflection…” The homeroom teacher began the lecture directly.

She seemed accustomed to Ji Wenchen’s perpetually empty seat.

This responsible teacher had probably tried having countless heart-to-heart talks with Ji Wenchen, only to realize that it was impossible to influence or persuade him. Thus, she had given up.

Ji Wenchen was a thoroughly stubborn person who didn’t care at all about what others said. Even the advice and admonishments of teachers went in one ear and out the other. He would skip class when he wanted to and fight when he felt like it.

He was very skilled at fighting. Unlike the kind of “fighting” Qin Xiaoxiao had experienced, which involved groups of people shouting at each other without actually doing anything, Ji Wenchen would directly throw punches at people he didn’t like, wasting no time on unnecessary chatter.

The novel didn’t dwell much on Ji Wenchen’s fights—only twice—but each corresponding chapter would trigger a flood of comments:

“Whoa! Brother Chen is so cool aahhh!”

“Brother Chen from Second High, ruthless and not talkative!”

“Brother Chen is so fierce and badass! He beat them so hard they couldn’t even crawl!”

…

The comments were almost all in this style.

When adult Qin Xiaoxiao was reading the novel, although she wasn’t as exaggerated as these adorable commenters, she also found Ji Wenchen to be super cool and handsome, her heart fluttering with infatuation.

Now… having become the cannon fodder destined to be physically and emotionally tormented by the male lead, Qin Xiaoxiao’s girlish heart shattered with a resounding crack.

So what if he’s super cool and handsome? The sweetness wasn’t meant for her! All she got as cannon fodder were knives!

“Qin Xiaoxiao!”

Qin Xiaoxiao nervously stared at her textbook, thinking she had been caught daydreaming by the homeroom teacher.

“Come up to the podium.”

Qin Xiaoxiao braced herself and went up.

The homeroom teacher glanced at a large glass beaker on the podium. “Go fill it with some clean water.”

Oh, so it was just an errand. What a false alarm.

The classroom was on the east side of the building, while the girls’ restroom was at the far end of the hallway on the west side. Qin Xiaoxiao walked over, filled the beaker with water, and retraced her steps back.

After taking only a few steps, she caught sight of a figure near the stairwell ahead.

It was mid-spring. The wind was still a bit chilly, but the sunlight had already grown bright and warm.

The tall boy stepped into the hallway, half of his body bathed in sunlight.

White sneakers, jeans, a black-and-white varsity jacket. Perhaps noticing someone watching him, he turned his head slightly to the right and looked back expressionlessly. His forehead, nose, lips, and jawline were flawless. Qin Xiaoxiao silently praised in her heart, So handsome, even though she hadn’t seen his entire face.

With looks this striking, he truly lived up to being the male lead created by the author.

That’s right, this boy who wasn’t in the classroom during class time was none other than Ji Wenchen.

Qin Xiaoxiao noticed Ji Wenchen frown slightly. Just as she was about to offer a polite smile, he looked away and walked off.

…As expected, a bit cold indeed.

The timing of Qin Xiaoxiao’s arrival wasn’t ideal—five days had already passed since “she” confessed to Ji Wenchen, and they were now officially in a relationship.

The novel didn’t elaborate much on this part of the male lead’s first romance, nor did it explain why Ji Wenchen agreed to “Qin Xiaoxiao’s” confession.

In any case, she felt it wasn’t out of genuine affection.

With Ji Wenchen’s reaction just now, could it really be that he liked her?

Qin Xiaoxiao didn’t forget her task. While holding the glass beaker filled with water, she cautiously made her way back to the classroom.

Soon, that tall figure entered through the back door of the classroom.

Half a minute later, Qin Xiaoxiao walked in through the front door.

The homeroom teacher directed her, “Put it here—don’t leave yet. Help teacher with the experiment.”

Qin Xiaoxiao stood by the podium and obediently followed the teacher’s instructions.

“What phenomenon did everyone observe?” The homeroom teacher started from the previously learned topic of light refraction and patiently guided the class toward the main topic.

The teacher signaled to Qin Xiaoxiao that her task was done and she could step down, then raised her voice to guide the class, “What happens when the laser beam hits the glass block?”

Only a few students answered out loud; most just sat there, and it was hard to tell if they were even paying attention. Truly, it was tough on such a dedicated and enthusiastic homeroom teacher who put so much effort into her teaching and questions.

As for the person Qin Xiaoxiao had glimpsed in the hallway earlier, he was now reclining with his eyes closed on a completely empty desk, his posture lazy and unconcerned.

Qin Xiaoxiao returned to her seat and followed the homeroom teacher’s lecture, taking notes as she went.

The class passed in the blink of an eye.

During the break, Qin Xiaoxiao stayed in her seat, flipping through the earlier sections of the textbook. The content felt both familiar and unfamiliar—familiar because she had inherited the original owner’s memories and most of its knowledge, and unfamiliar because she had been out of her high school years for more than five years.

After revisiting high school knowledge, perhaps because of her different mindset, Qin Xiaoxiao found the textbook content quite interesting.

In the next two classes, she focused intently on the lectures and took detailed notes.

This left her deskmate utterly baffled.

“What’s gotten into you?” Her deskmate muttered softly before the last class ended. “You’ve been acting so weird all morning, Qin Xiaoxiao…”

Qin Xiaoxiao paused her note-taking for a moment.

In the original novel, the beautiful “Qin Xiaoxiao” was portrayed as a girl who only cared about fashion, appearances, and maintaining the image of a “rich, beautiful girl.” After meeting the transfer-student male lead, she gained an additional trait: being obsessed with romance. “Qin Xiaoxiao” neither cared about grades nor had any interest in studying.

“When did you start loving studying so much?” Her deskmate continued to tease.

Qin Xiaoxiao glanced sideways. Her deskmate was a girl with big eyes and a few freckles on her face. It seemed this character wasn’t mentioned in the novel.

With the original owner’s memories, Qin Xiaoxiao knew that her deskmate, Yang Min, had a lively and outgoing personality and was somewhat gossipy. The relationship between Yang Min and the original “Qin Xiaoxiao” was nothing more than a superficial “plastic deskmate bond.”

Qin Xiaoxiao responded with a simple “Hmm.”

Yang Min pursed her lips, closed the textbook she had been pretending to study from, and pulled a small wallet containing her meal card out of the desk compartment. She fixed her eyes on the clock above the blackboard, ready to dash out the moment the bell rang to grab food.

With so many students at the school, fried chicken legs and braised pork ribs were hard to get.

After finishing her notes, Qin Xiaoxiao casually completed two homework problems. When she looked up and glanced around, only three people, including herself, remained in the classroom.

Ji Wenchen’s seat was also empty.

Her stomach felt hollow.

Qin Xiaoxiao went to the cafeteria alone for lunch.

On the way, she encountered Ji Wenchen again.

To be precise, it couldn’t really be called an encounter. She was on one path, and he was on another, about a dozen meters away. At that moment, Ji Wenchen was walking with two other boys who were clearly prominent figures as well, heading toward the school gate without even glancing in her direction.

Qin Xiaoxiao couldn’t have been happier if Ji Wenchen continued to ignore her.

All she wanted was to live a peaceful and quiet school life. Who knows? Maybe one day she’d find a way to return to the real world.

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Author’s Note:

Merry Christmas!

Zha Kui impulsively started a new story!