Chapter 3

Dai Jia was concentrating on her noodles, having eaten half a bowl. When she felt a little fuller, she slowed down and noticed that Zhang Yunyi hadn’t touched her bowl. She looked up and saw Zhang Yunyi smiling while propping her face up, so she casually asked, “What are you thinking about?”

Zhang Yunyi’s smile was as bright as a flower.

Zhang Yunyi had been feeling down since she woke up this morning, and while she wasn’t exactly beaming with joy now, she did feel much lighter. She knew it was a little pathetic—losing face as someone who had been reborn—but she really couldn’t help it. If she didn’t give herself a little reward, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to make it through her senior year.

She understood that according to textbooks, there were no shortcuts in life.

She wasn’t trying to take shortcuts, though—she just wanted to find a direct route. That wasn’t illegal, right?

“I wasn’t thinking about anything,” Zhang Yunyi said, suddenly feeling her appetite returning. She took a couple of bites and exclaimed, “This is so delicious!”

She had never thought the cafeteria chef was this skilled before.

A simple bowl of beef noodles could warm her heart, and the price was so affordable. The school cafeteria was subsidized by the government, so prices were well-controlled. There were no scams, and you didn’t have to sift through the noodles just to find a thin slice of beef like you were fishing for treasure in the sea.

It was so satisfying!

Dai Jia chuckled, “Maybe you just haven’t had it in a while?”

The weather was still a little hot, and after finishing a bowl of noodles, Zhang Yunyi was already sweating slightly. Dai Jia, being thoughtful, pulled out a tissue from her pocket and handed it to her. After eating, Zhang Yunyi felt like having something to drink. There was a small convenience store near the cafeteria, and there were also water dispensers in the teaching building. But in this weather, it would be much more refreshing to have something cold.

The two entered the convenience store.

There were quite a few students around.

“Class monitor!!” A high-pitched male voice suddenly called out.

Zhang Yunyi and Dai Jia both looked over. It was Chen Kuo, who had been warming up and playing basketball during the morning break. He had come to buy a drink as well. When he saw his classmates, he nodded and said, “Buying drinks? Wait, I’ll pay together.”

It was just the three of them.

“That’s too much trouble,” the boy laughed, saying that, but then turned to Zhang Yunyi and Dai Jia, saying, “Hurry up, the class monitor is treating us. Pick something expensive.”

Chen Kuo didn’t say anything in response.

He stood to the side, lowering his head, and pulled out his phone from his pants pocket, tapping the screen. The air conditioning vent above him made his hair flutter.

Dai Jia wasn’t one to be polite either, figuring she could treat him next time. A bottle of water wasn’t expensive anyway. She grabbed a bottle of cola from the cooler and asked Zhang Yunyi, “What would you like?”

Zhang Yunyi looked around and said, “Jasmine honey tea, I guess.”

“Okay,” Dai Jia, being closer, was about to grab it for her, but then hesitated, lowered her voice, and said, “Maybe don’t have it cold, just take it at room temperature.”

Zhang Yunyi was silent for a moment.

She didn’t even remember when her period was when she was 17.

It had been ten years.

Seeing Dai Jia care so much about the excuse she had casually mentioned, she quickly explained, “It’s not like that—I really don’t remember.”

“You’re so careless,” Dai Jia said, but she was sure Zhang Yunyi just wanted the cold drink. Her mouth moved a little but then stopped, as she recalled that the last time her period came, the weather had been so hot that she couldn’t resist eating an ice pop. Her mom had told her to eat less cold food, or she might have problems with fertility.

Dai Jia secretly thought to herself, “Fertility problems? Whatever.”

“Okay, so you want a cold drink?”

“Yes!” Zhang Yunyi could have told Dai Jia that ten years later, she would be the kind of person who drinks iced coffee every morning, but she didn’t feel like explaining. Besides, the drinks in the cooler didn’t seem like much compared to the ice cubes that would fill half her cup of coffee. After two math classes in the morning, she couldn’t live without ice-cold drinks.

Chen Kuo raised his eyes, briefly glancing over, but his gaze didn’t linger on anyone. Another boy had finished purchasing his items, and they all headed towards the checkout. Chen Kuo led the group, took out his wallet, handed over a twenty, and took back the change.

“Thanks, class monitor!” the boy said as the four of them left the store.

Chen Kuo nodded, casually twisted off the bottle cap, tilted his head back, and drank half of the bottle in one go.

“Thanks again, class monitor!”

Zhang Yunyi took a couple of steps towards him, smiling at him like Dai Jia had said, “Next time, it’s our treat.”

Unlike the enthusiastic class monitors from other classes, Chen Kuo wasn’t much of a talker. Besides the class committee, he wasn’t particularly close to anyone. When the class was divided into arts and science tracks in the first year, the homeroom teacher picked him as the class monitor because he was the top student, almost as if it was an unspoken rule. If his grades weren’t so excellent, his presence probably wouldn’t have been more noticeable than that of other subject representatives.

Chen Kuo simply took it as politeness and didn’t take it seriously, so he didn’t say, “No need.”

He glanced at Zhang Yunyi, nodded, clearly not interested in chatting, and tightened the cap on his bottle. “I’ll be going now.”

Zhang Yunyi quickly said, “Take care!”

Chen Kuo didn’t show much reaction, and after he and the other boy had walked a little further, Dai Jia whispered, “You better not be trying to get the class monitor to sign an excuse slip. He’s very strict.”

Zhang Yunyi was confused for a moment but then understood what Dai Jia meant, and she was speechless.

The class monitor couldn’t just hand out excuse slips. In any class, the class monitor needed real authority. For example, if the homeroom teacher wasn’t around, the class monitor could approve reasonable leave requests, but that was only for school-related matters. The class monitor also arranged the weekly duty roster and had a notebook, which the students jokingly called the “Life and Death Notebook.” If someone caused trouble in class or was late or left early, the class monitor could record their name.

No one had a problem with Chen Kuo being the class monitor, because he wasn’t a troublemaker. The “Life and Death Notebook” hardly had any names in it—only a few students who had seriously disrupted class and made the subject teacher furious enough to raise their blood pressure.

Zhang Yunyi was silent.

Had she really become this fawning?

Indeed, in her second year of high school, Zhang Yunyi would occasionally ask Chen Kuo to sign excuse slips, but she had her reasons—she really didn’t want to run around the track during P.E. class!

Now, in her third year, she wasn’t going to be too mischievous. Though she had a feeling she’d be yawning through tonight’s evening study session.

“Okay,” she didn’t bother explaining to Dai Jia, as her “record” spoke for itself.

The two of them walked back with their drinks. There was a 40-minute break between morning study and the first class, allowing students time to have breakfast. During this time, the school’s radio station was still running. Except on special days, the school leadership usually didn’t pay much attention, and students could even request songs at the radio station.

In the morning and before evening study sessions, the campus was filled with the melodies of popular songs.

There were good friends walking hand in hand around the teaching building, some playing basketball, and immersed in this youthful atmosphere, Zhang Yunyi couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t all bad being a student. Though deep down, she didn’t think seventeen was better than twenty-seven, at least she didn’t have to deal with the pressure from her parents pushing for marriage!

She also didn’t understand what was so wrong with being twenty-seven and still unmarried. It seemed like such a carefree life could be off-putting to others.

Actually, her breakup with her ex had been due to this very issue.

At first, she really liked him—he looked good and had the right build according to her tastes. But after three months of dating, it had become dull. Then, he proposed to her, eager to enter marriage. After only three months? It wasn’t like it was a once-in-a-lifetime true love. She didn’t even know what kind of person he really was, let alone whether their personalities were compatible enough for marriage. It was insane!

Zhang Yunyi raised her head and took a few deep breaths.

It felt so good—at least she wouldn’t have to hear those annoying words for the next ten years.

Her smile gradually faded as she walked into the classroom, lowering her head and heading to her seat. She glanced at the time—there were still eight minutes before the first class started. She could afford to zone out for a bit. She opened her bottle and took a sip of her cold drink, her mood finally improving. She thought about reading but didn’t have the energy, so she just idly scanned the classroom.

There were forty-two students in the class, and the room was noisy. Zhang Yunyi felt a secret happiness rising in her heart. At least half of the students she knew, and she had a sense of what their futures would look like. Unfortunately, she couldn’t share this with anyone. At this critical juncture in their senior year, talking about these things would probably get her reported to the teacher. The teacher wouldn’t believe she was reborn; they’d just think the stress of the senior year had driven her mad.

“What are you looking at?” Her desk mate, Xu Shishi, walked over and threw a pack of corn sticks onto her desk. “Is your phone dead?”

Zhang Yunyi instinctively reached out and grabbed the corn sticks, tearing open the package. “…Right, you reminded me. I need to put it on silent.”

Though it felt like a decade ago, everything she needed was already available, like cellphones. Most of the class had them since they were boarders. The teachers usually turned a blind eye, but if someone was caught playing on their phone during class by a teacher hiding outside or a patrolling director, they were done for. It wasn’t just about confiscating the phone; their parents would also be called in.

The phones were smart devices now, though their memory and camera quality were nothing compared to ten years later.

“Then what about you? Are you meditating?” Xu Shishi sighed and sat down.

“Thinking about two math classes…” Zhang Yunyi pursed her lips. “I really can’t go on with this!”

“Did you see the afternoon classes?” Xu Shishi whispered dramatically, “Two biology classes, two physics classes, and I heard there’s a test during evening study!”

Zhang Yunyi almost burst into tears.

She couldn’t handle this kind of torture! She’d rather go back to her old job and work overtime!

Xu Shishi and Zhang Yunyi were close, both in the upper-middle tier of the class academically. It was an awkward position, because their grades fluctuated the most—while the top students and bottom students were pretty stable.

Zhang Yunyi couldn’t even eat the corn sticks anymore. She turned around and put them on the desk behind her.

The boy sitting behind her grinned and grabbed the snack, chomping down on it. “Thanks, Senior!”

Zhang Yunyi took out her math test paper and textbook. As she stared at the problems, her vision blurred, so she shifted her gaze to the class. Her eyes wandered until they landed on Chen Kuo. She couldn’t help but stare at him for a moment, and suddenly remembered something that made her feel a little bitter. She had been reborn on the 9th, but her salary would be paid on the 10th…

Why couldn’t she have just come back a few days later?

Sigh!

No, never mind. Let’s just blink and go back!

Chen Kuo was focused while solving problems, oblivious to everything around him. But when he put down his pen, he sensed a gaze fixated on him.

He turned his head and casually glanced around but didn’t make eye contact with anyone.

He shifted his gaze and, almost without meaning to, noticed Zhang Yunyi sitting a few desks away. It was hard to miss her because she was sitting there, eyes closed, hands clasped together as if praying. She looked so sincere.