Even though Gojo Satoru and the others explained that this was Yuta Okkotsu’s contracted cursed spirit. Yuan Shanxiao still couldn’t get up.

He didn’t dare to look up. That… thing, which seemed big enough to fill the whole classroom, hovered above him. It didn’t look human at all, and its teeth, each one as big as his face, looked like they could swallow ten of him in one bite. The cold and eerie atmosphere around it felt like the kind of wind you’d hear in a horror movie when the main character sneaks into a basement late at night, only this time it was blowing at him at full force.

Dear God, is he about to die?

Death wouldn’t be so bad. Yuan Shanxiao couldn’t control the pounding of his heart. Each beat feeling like it was leaping toward the edge of a cliff.

Please stop scaring him. He could feel his soul being blown away by the cold wind.

Still, the boy tried to summon some responsibility, returning to his senses to deal with his teacher and new classmates questions.

“…I… I’m fine. I’m just… sitting on the floor because it’s cooler…”

God, he couldn’t see anything clearly anymore.

Yuan Shanxiao forced his eyes open wider but then his peripheral vision caught sight of the sharp gray-white teeth right next to him. He immediately shut his eyes again.

Gojo Satoru had no idea how the boy did it—sweating profusely, eyes closed, yet somehow he accurately located Gojo’s position and reached out toward him. Instinctively, Gojo extended his hand to help the boy up, and—

Yuan Shanxiao took his sunglasses.

Gojo Satoru: ……

The boy, looking completely natural yet with a determined air of someone facing death, put Gojo’s sunglasses on his own face. Only then did he dare to open his eyes a tiny bit.

Staggering to his feet while facing away from Yuta Okkotsu, Yuan Shanxiao managed to scrape together some rationality from his panicked mind and muttered, “Yuta-kun, I’m really sorry… It’s not that I have anything against you.”

“Your… your cursed spirit is lovely too.”

God, as soon as those words left his mouth, the chilling wind beside him seemed to intensify. As if the cursed spirit had pressed its huge head closer, staring at him with its inhuman eyes.

Yuan Shanxiao squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to steady his trembling legs.

“It’s just that I’m really cowardly, so it’s my problem… nothing to do with you.”

“Nice… nice to meet you.”

Still turned away, Yuan Shanxiao extended a friendly handshake toward Yuta, facing backward.

Gojo Satoru: ……

What is this? He’s heard of back-to-back hugs, but back-to-back handshakes? Really?

Oh, Yuta actually shook his hand—

Wait, why does Yuta look so moved?!

Zen’in Maki’s expression shifted from “How did someone this strong end up on their knees?” to “Oh, but he’s still pretty good with words, even when he’s scared stiff.”

Meanwhile, Yuta Okkotsu’s eyes twinkled, his lashes trembling. After a moment of stunned silence, he gently took the hand Yuan Shanxiao had extended behind him, saying earnestly, “Nice to meet you too, Yuan-san. I’ll send Rika back for now.”

Even Panda who had followed Yuta into the room stood next to Gojo and sighed in a long drawn-out voice, “What a good kid.”

Gojo Satoru, watching all this, No way.

His sunglasses were gone, so he really couldn’t understand why everyone was so moved.

————

Since the boy was officially enrolled now, Gojo Satoru promptly kicked him into the dorms.

Yuan Shanxiao didn’t seem to have any sort of attachment to Gojo, nor did he have the mindset of a baby bird needing constant supervision by an adult.

However, the boy’s fingers clung tightly to the doorframe, digging in deep. No matter how many times Gojo tried to pry him loose, he couldn’t. When Gojo tried to kick him inside, Yuan Shanxiao used his strange spatial technique to block Gojo’s foot.

Refusing to go inside, Yuan Shanxiao looked up with a pure and deep innocent expression. “Teacher Gojo, are you really not going to live with me?”

“No.”

This little brat, did he think of Gojo as some sort of nanny?

Rejected, the boy then looked up again, pitifully.

“Then, is there someone as strong as you, or, uh, someone as strong as you nearby to live with me?”

“…”

Gojo’s previously amused smirk instantly vanished. His cursed energy surged, bypassing the boy’s spatial barrier, slamming him into the wall inside the dorm.

“There isn’t.”

Gojo turned to leave, but after a few steps, his frustration made him turn back, gripping the doorframe so tightly that half of it crumbled to dust. “And there’s only one ‘strongest’—me!!”

Gojo stormed off.

Oh, so he thought of me as a bodyguard!

“So short-tempered…”

Yuan Shanxiao brushed the dust from his hands. A little shaken as he examined the wall behind him. After confirming the wall still held up, he finally let out a sigh of relief.

“Well, at least he’s human…”

———

The next day, when Gojo went to wake up Yuan Shanxiao, he found the boy floating in mid-air in a strange position.

Gojo Satoru: ……

Behind him, Yuta and Panda seemed to think Yuan Shanxiao had been attacked. Led by Yuta, they rushed forward to “rescue” him, but just as they were about to reach the boy, something invisible blocked them.

Gojo Satoru: ……

Yuta frowned. He tried from above, below, left, and right—nothing worked. It was like the boy was encased in an invisible space.

If Gojo could hear Yuta’s thoughts, he would have said Yuta was right.

Gojo hadn’t expected this. Yuan Shanxiao had wrapped himself in his own strange spatial barrier, all because—

Finally, disturbed by the noise Yuta was making, the boy slowly opened his eyes. His pale green gaze slowly focused and the first thing he saw was Gojo. He couldn’t help but boast, “Look, Teacher!”

“I made a high-tech mosquito net!!”

Gojo Satoru: ……

And this is why Gojo was speechless.

……

Yuan Shanxiao was really scared of bugs.

In fact, for someone as timid as him it was only natural that he had a bug phobia.

When he found out that Tokyo Jujutsu High was on a mountain, the boy became visibly uncomfortable. His mind was filled with images of black spiders weaving webs between branches, green mantises perched on leaves, and red cockroaches crawling out of rotting floorboards.

Yuan Shanxiao: Could he choose death over attending Jujutsu High?

When he instinctively dropped to his knees, ready to cling to his white-haired teacher’s leg and beg, Gojo Satoru being the strongest somehow reacted faster than Yuan Shanxiao, who was about to use his teleportation technique. With a blur of motion, Gojo effortlessly caught the boy mid-kneel in a graceful pose, like a benevolent ruler bestowing mercy.

Yuan Shanxiao: ……

Gojo smiled gently. “If you refuse, I’ll take you on a stroll through the Cursed Spirit Cave.”

Yuan Shanxiao: ……

Well, that was about what he expected, so he wasn’t too disappointed. However, he tried to hint at something, mumbling nervously, “Then… um, Teacher Gojo, since you’re so strong, is there… maybe something that can protect the dorms? Like a talisman or some protective charm?”

Yuan Shanxiao still didn’t fully grasp how strong Gojo was, but he used the softest tone he could muster—the kind you’d use when you ran into your teacher at the arcade after skipping out on homework, trying to sound apologetic and flattering.

Gojo had no idea the boy was trying to butter him up. But compared to the boy’s earlier helplessness, this was a relief. Gojo even felt a bit more at ease seeing the boy lower his head, acting obedient and timid. For a second, Gojo could almost imagine the boy as a black-and-white Border Collie with its head down—not a husky.

“There is.”

Gojo smiled, seeing Yuan Shanxiao’s eyes light up with hope.

Then Gojo casually pulled open a drawer from his bedside table. Yanked out a huge—seriously, it was as tall as the bed—a 190cm long life-sized poster.

Yuan Shanxiao’s brain struggled between, “Do normal people stuff life-sized posters of themselves in their bedside drawers?” and “Of course, jujutsu sorcerers are creative. The bigger the talisman, the stronger the power.”

Though he tried to convince himself with the latter, Yuan Shanxiao couldn’t help maintaining some skepticism about this massive poster that was taller than him.

“Is this… going to…”

Ward off evil spirits?

Before he could finish his question, Gojo casually said, “Oh, I forgot to draw the charm.”

Then the young man brought his fingers together, used a technique to pull a gold marker from his bedside drawer—wait, do normal people really keep gold markers in their bedside drawers?—flipped off the cap in one smooth motion, and in the coolest way possible, bent down to sign his name at the bottom of the poster.

Gojo Satoru

In big, shiny gold letters.

Yuan Shanxiao: …… Wow.

The boy would rather think, “Oh, so charms can be drawn with regular markers,” than suspect his teacher of messing with him.

Yet, as Yuan Shanxiao continued to stare at the poster, Gojo, with a cool flip of his hair, seemed to misunderstand something.

“Tsk.”

“Want me to sign it ‘To’ as well?”

“So greedy?”

……

After rescuing the boy floating in mid-air, Yuta Okkotsu and the rest of the Jujutsu High students finally noticed the life-sized poster across from Yuan Shanxiao’s bed.

Everyone stared in silence at the gigantic image of their teacher striking a pose, with Gojo Satoru, followed by the words “Above the Heavens, I Alone Reign Supreme”, written in shiny gold.

Everyone: ……

Yuan Shanxiao: ……?

Yuan Shanxiao suddenly realized—

They must think leaving the talisman unprotected like this would reduce its effectiveness.

So he hurriedly explained, “Uh, I’ve ordered an acrylic board to preserve it. It’s just too big, so it’ll take a while to arrive.”

His new classmates stared at him, speechless. The ellipses in their eyes seemed to gain a few extra dots as they gazed at him with a mix of regret, disbelief and pity.

Confused, Yuan Shanxiao turned to look at his teacher.

The white-haired teacher’s lips curved into a pleased “w” seemingly satisfied.

————

The students of Jujutsu High had a mixed reaction to Yuan Shanxiao displaying a life-sized poster of their teacher across from his bed. Though they didn’t understand it, they tried to respect it.

Even if Yuan Shanxiao didn’t sleep on his bed but chose to float in mid-air. At least he wasn’t staring directly at the poster at night.

Well, okay, this part was hard to understand or respect.

Come to think of it, this weird behavior kind of matched Gojo Satoru’s eccentricity.

The students couldn’t quite comprehend Yuan Shanxiao’s apparent admiration for Gojo—who would go so far as to ask for a life-sized poster of this flamboyant teacher, complete with a signed “To”?

They could only guess that maybe both of them had some sort of forward-thinking, avant-garde mindset that bonded them.

Gradually, they came to understand everything.

And yet, they understood nothing.

Finally, someone asked directly.

“Yuan-san… do you like Teacher Gojo a lot?”

The one who spoke was Yuta Okkotsu, who had been pushed forward by his classmates after receiving a series of hints.

Yuan Shanxiao’s brain froze for a second at the unexpected question.

But he quickly sorted out his thoughts.

He didn’t have strong feelings for Gojo.

But!

Gojo was one of the rare humans—not a bug, not a cursed spirit, didn’t look terrifying, and wouldn’t kill him.

“I guess I do.”

The boy thought for a moment, smiling as he answered.

Gojo Satoru, who had been trailing behind the students while snacking on a bag of chips he’d snagged from Yuan Shanxiao’s room, overheard the conversation. Although he understood the real reason behind the poster incident, he had no intention of explaining. Hearing Yuan Shanxiao’s answer, he couldn’t help but smirk.

Hmm, there are parts of this kid that are quite satisfying—

“I like people.”

Yuan Shanxiao finished his thought honestly.

Like hell he does!!

Just as Yuan Shanxiao was about to take a step forward, a half-eaten bag of chips smacked him in the head.

Dazed, he caught the bag before it hit the ground and realized—it looked like the chips he had bought last night?

Confused, Yuan Shanxiao turned around to see his teacher glaring at him fiercely.

“What are you looking at?!”

“If you have time to chit-chat, you’re clearly not training hard enough.”

“Everyone, to the training grounds!”

Yuan Shanxiao: ……

He watched as his teacher’s expression shifted from satisfaction to extreme displeasure.

Silently, Yuan Shanxiao added a new label next to “Short-tempered”: Moody.

But.

Yuan Shanxiao still generously thought to himself.

At least he’s human.