A luxurious private car drove through the bustling downtown area, entered an upscale residential compound, and finally stopped in front of a double-story villa.
Despite being located in the most prosperous district, the environment within this neighborhood was exceptionally quiet and serene, designed precisely for tranquility amidst the hustle and bustle. Everyone living here was either wealthy or noble.
For instance, the original owner and his good friend, Wu Hu.
Duan Xiyan, draped in the black sports jacket that Ms. Huang had brought him, felt a vibration coming from his jacket pocket the moment he opened the car door.
It was his phone.
With fingerprint unlocking, the screen lit up.
[Wu Hu: Back already, Xiyan bro? You okay?]
Standing by the car door, Duan Xiyan instinctively looked up toward the second-floor balcony of the opposite villa and indeed saw a boy holding a phone waving both hands at him.
“Stop looking at your phone, little treasure. Your dad and your brother are waiting for you, hurry up,” Ms. Huang called out to him.
“Oh, okay,” Duan Xiyan replied, hastily pressing a few times to tuck his phone into his pocket, and followed Ms. Huang inside.
[D: Mm.]
The television in the living room was switched on, broadcasting an interview with Mr. Duan, a successful entrepreneur from Rinzishi. The middle-aged man on the screen smiled impeccably, every gesture exuding elegance and poise.
Yet at this moment, the protagonist of the interview was drinking tea with a sullen face in front of the television. Upon seeing Duan Xiyan, he let out a cold snort. “You have really improved, going to the police station just by getting an IV drip.”
Duan Xiyan gave a start, his back instantly straightening.
At the same time, however, the original owner’s rebellious impulses flared up, giving him an urge to talk back.
“Dad, you are done with your tea, right? I will refill it for you,” his older brother, Duan Chaolin, signaled Duan Xiyan with a glance, telling him to slip away quickly.
Ms. Huang also chimed in, “Oh, let it be, old Duan. Fortunately, he is fine. Littlebao has to go to school tomorrow, hurry and go rest.”
Mr. Duan raised his eyebrows, glared at Duan Xiyan, but ultimately waved his hand and let him off.
Knowing full well that saying too much right now was unwise, Duan Xiyan wished them good night and turned to head upstairs, vaguely hearing a sigh from Mr. Duan behind him.
“You all just keep spoiling him. Given his health in the first place, if you let him keep acting so recklessly, it will be too late when something actually happens!”
After taking a shower, Duan Xiyan turned off the lights and collapsed onto the bed.
Having gone through a night of turmoil, his emotions finally calmed down as he stared blankly at the pitch-black ceiling.
The perceptions and emotions left behind in the original owner’s body gradually fused with his own. Unconsciously, Duan Xiyan’s sense of alienation from this world faded away, as if he had just survived a very special transition period.
He had transmigrated into an ABO novel world, becoming a rich second-generation Alpha—to be precise, a cannon-fodder, power-abusing, rich second-generation Alpha.
The original owner had been sickly since childhood, and everyone at home doted on him immensely. Although they would verbally discipline him, they never actually followed through, resulting in the accumulation of a spoiled, unruly, and wayward personality over time.
At school, he took pleasure in bullying a classmate with physical disabilities—an Omega named Yu Zhen. And as fate would have it, this classmate would later become the ultimate supervillain.
A few years later, the day Yu Zhen rose to power and turned the tables would be the very day Duan Xiyan’s family was completely ruined.
His father would commit suicide, his mother would die of depression, and Duan Xiyan himself would die God knows how many hundreds of years ago, leaving only his older brother to carry the heavy burdens alone.
A happy family torn apart.
Fortunately, things had not reached an irretrievable point yet. Following the tropes of transmigration novels, building a good relationship with the supervillain starting from now might not only prevent a tragic ending, but also allow him to follow the big boss to the pinnacle of life.
Duan Xiyan was full of fighting spirit regarding this; having finally gotten a normal chance at life, he had to live it well!
Yet, why did the name of this supervillain sound somewhat familiar?
Buzz, buzz.
The vibration of the phone beside his pillow interrupted Duan Xiyan’s train of thought. He picked up the phone and took a look; it was a message from Wu Hu.
[Wu Hu: Xiyan bro, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have egged you on to drink yesterday. I didn’t think you would be allergic to alcohol.]
[Wu Hu: Xiyan bro, are you asleep? I saw your room light go out. Not replying must mean you are mad, right?]
[Wu Hu: QAQ]
Several “Your subject deserves a thousand deaths” and “It is all this concubine’s fault” sticker emojis followed one after another, amusing Duan Xiyan despite himself.
Yesterday had been Duan Xiyan’s eighteenth birthday. At his birthday party, Wu Hu had spouted chuunibyou lines like “a mature man should drink alcohol in big gulps,” dragging the original owner into opening a bottle of champagne, only for him to end up in the hospital after barely a couple of sips.
[D: That sticker of yours is quite interesting.]
[D: I am not mad. Smile.jpg]
The other side instantly popped up with several crying emojis.
[Wu Hu: I get it, your anger is expressed quite subtly TT]
[Wu Hu: I really was wrong, Xiyan bro. To show my sincerity, I have prepared a surprise for you today.]
Duan Xiyan was a bit baffled. He did not understand through what tortuous mental gymnastics his two sentences had transformed into the exact opposite meaning over at Wu Hu’s end.
He had simply added a yellow smiling emoji.
Still, he followed along and asked: [What surprise?]
[Wu Hu: The monthly exams are next week. Tonight after school when nobody is in the classroom, I secretly slipped the monthly exam answer key inside Yu Zhen’s homework booklet. Just wait to watch a good show tomorrow!]
With a swipe of his hand, bam, Duan Xiyan’s phone smashed straight into his face, the screen going dark.
What an absolute giant surprise.
You are trying to hurry up and send your Xiyan bro to an early grave, are you?
Rubbing his bruised and aching nose, Duan Xiyan suddenly felt that trying to pull the plot back from its irretrievable trajectory might be a bit challenging.
Right now, his mind was entirely occupied with how to destroy the evidence and get rid of that incriminating answer booklet before anyone found out, forgetting to ask Wu Hu where he had even gotten the answer key in the first place.
The next day, Duan Xiyan woke up early.
The morning self-study at 7:20 was usually skipped by the original owner, who slept until nearly 8:00 every day. Therefore, when Duan Xiyan appeared at the dining table at 6:30, the whole family was thoroughly shocked, thinking he had suffered some sort of mental shock.
Amidst Ms. Huang’s surprised and concerned inquiries, Duan Xiyan realized he should first imitate the original owner’s persona to avoid raising suspicions among those around him.
Duan Xiyan casually tossed out an excuse about rushing to do homework at school, and Ms. Huang arranged for a driver to take him.
He needed to get there early, before anyone else arrived, to destroy that monthly exam answer key hidden inside Yu Zhen’s homework booklet.
The car cut through the hazy city. It was still too early, and breakfast stalls by the roadside were busy preparing, waiting for the rush shortly to come.
Duan Xiyan sat in the back seat of the car, feeling somewhat drowsy, but the thought of arriving at school soon perked him up.
In his past life, he had moved into a sanatorium early on and had not attended school properly for many days, so he still held some novelty toward it.
Yet waiting time is always boring, and he began idly playing with the cuff of his blue and white school uniform, suddenly recalling that the teenager harassed by petty thugs at the video game arcade yesterday was also wearing the exact same blue and white uniform.
Turns out they were schoolmates; perhaps he would run into him at school.
Duan Xiyan recalled those cold, amber eyes and inexplicably generated a sense of anticipation.
He could not quite explain why he had such feelings; clearly, the teenager’s attitude yesterday had been terrible and aloof. After Duan Xiyan helped clear a path for him, the other person had not even said a single thank you.
Thinking it over, Duan Xiyan was certain he must have been brainwashed by Ms. Huang’s remark about a hero saving the beauty.
Arriving at school, Duan Xiyan followed his bodily memory to the entrance of Class 3, Year 2. The lights glowing inside the classroom made his heart sink.
He had thought he came early enough, but he still underestimated his classmates’ dedication.
Duan Xiyan did not charge in rashly; instead, he took two steps forward and peered inside through the glass window.
Only the lights in the back row of the classroom were switched on, dimness wrapping around that small patch of brightness as if trying to engulf it. And right within that radiance, sitting by the window in the back row, was a familiar figure.
It was the teenager from the arcade yesterday.
Today, he was dressed properly in his blue and white school uniform. Suddenly, he raised a hand to casually rake his hair backward; the knuckles of the hand half-hidden in his locks were well-defined, though the adhesive bandage on the back of his hand somewhat ruined the aesthetic.
Clean yet sharp.
Duan Xiyan skipped a heartbeat.
They were classmates. If so, why had the other person’s attitude been so bizarre yesterday, as if holding a grudge against him?
A trace of ominous premonition crept into his mind. Duan Xiyan abruptly remembered that there really was someone in this class holding a grudge against him.
Yu Zhen.
This time, his heartbeat did not just skip a beat; Duan Xiyan felt like his heart was about to stop entirely.
How could there be such a coincidence?
Not long ago, he had been racking his brains trying to figure out how to gradually reverse his relationship with Yu Zhen without breaking his persona.
Well, now he did not need to pretend anymore—his persona was already smashed to pieces all over the floor.
Duan Xiyan’s brain spun at high speed. Taking a deep breath, he walked into the classroom through the back door, marched straight toward the teenager’s seat, and pulled out the chair belonging to his seatmate to sit down.
The moment he sat down, Duan Xiyan spotted the signature written in dashing handwriting on the upper left corner of the textbook sprawled open on the teenager’s desk—Yu Zhen.
Duan Xiyan:
No wonder Yu Zhen had not appreciated his help at all yesterday; those thugs yesterday were probably hired by the original owner in the first place to harass Yu Zhen.
And the so-called hero saving the beauty might have looked to Yu Zhen like nothing more than a clumsy and tedious performance of a thief crying thief.
In an instant, Duan Xiyan lost all other thoughts, leaving only three big characters echoing in his mind: Time to rot.
Yu Zhen had been focusing intently on solving problems, a black gel pen spinning agilely between his slender fingers, but as Duan Xiyan drew closer, the pen-spinning motion halted.
He did not look at Duan Xiyan; he merely lowered the pen in his hand, his tightly pressed lips revealing a hint of tension.
Chilly morning light filtered in from outside the window, gathering into the teenager’s lowered eyes and shimmering with an amber glow. Duan Xiyan unbiddenly recalled Ms. Huang’s teasing remark from yesterday.
That kid is actually quite good-looking.
Truly an untimely thought.
After a prolonged stalemate—perhaps because Duan Xiyan’s gaze was too direct and he stayed silent the whole time—Yu Zhen’s brow and eyes revealed a hint of impatience: “Something the matter?”
Duan Xiyan felt a wave of unwarranted guilt, his scalp tightening slightly: “Yes.”
Yu Zhen turned his head to look at him.
Duan Xiyan was about the same height as Yu Zhen, but his sitting posture was slouching while Yu Zhen sat upright. Consequently, when Yu Zhen looked at him, his gaze tilted slightly downward, eyelashes drooping.
That face, which normally lacked much expression, was suddenly plated with a layer of illusory, tender radiance by the morning light.
Though it was merely a fleeting illusion.
Duan Xiyan stammered, “Can I borrow your homework booklet? I want to copy it.”
Someone who frequently bullied you suddenly coming over to ask to copy your homework—no matter how you looked at it, it reeked of ill intent. Yet Duan Xiyan could not think of a better excuse for the moment.
Having already braced himself for rejection and waiting unhopefully for a while, he unexpectedly received a cold response from the other party: “Which subject?”
Duan Xiyan was pleasantly surprised and blurted out without thinking: “Whatever!”
Whatever.
Yu Zhen:
As soon as that whatever left his mouth, the atmosphere plunged into a dead silence.
This homework copying was not very rigorous, nor very professional.