Xia Miao listened to the screams echoing around her, her mind still in a haze.
[Your mission is simple: find the most dazzling man in this world and conquer him. Remember, the one who catches your eye at first glance is your target.]
She vaguely remembered curling up in her room to play video games when that mechanical voice suddenly echoed in her head. With a blink of her eyes, she found herself transported to this unfamiliar place.
The night was profound, with a bright moon hanging high in the sky. The towering academic building cast cold, rigid lines that, paired with the swaying shadows of the trees, made it look like a beast ready to devour any innocent soul at a moment’s notice.
In this vast campus, not a single light illuminated the night. Every now and then, strange movements echoed from afar, making the whole scene feel like something straight out of a horror movie.
Xia Miao stood frozen in place for a moment. As a gust of cold wind swept past, her mind snapped back to clarity.
Looking down at herself, she realized she had somehow been dressed in a uniform: a black blazer, a red pleated skirt, mid-calf socks, and little leather shoes—the exact same outfit worn by the students at the elite academy she had attended back in high school.
Wait a minute. She had graduated from high school ages ago. Why was she suddenly back in an unfamiliar high school?
Xia Miao’s quick mind started turning, and she swiftly arrived at a conclusion: she had time-traveled!
A disheveled middle-aged man rushed out of the teaching building in a panic. He was wearing a male student’s uniform, which looked utterly ridiculous on him.
The man appeared to be running for his life from something terrifying, completely losing his composure. Catching sight of Xia Miao standing there cluelessly, he yelled out, “Why aren’t you running? The slasher is coming!”
A flash of insight sparked in Xia Miao’s mind—she had dropped into a role-playing survival game!
Her feet sprang into action, following behind the man. Glancing sideways at him, she noted his utterly generic, forgettable face. Obviously not someone who would catch her eye at first glance, so he wasn’t her target.
Xia Miao asked, “What is this slasher you keep talking about?”
A look of surprise crossed the middle-aged man’s face, but there was no time to dwell on it. Dragging Xia Miao along until his legs gave out, he ducked behind a dense cluster of bushes and crouched down, gasping for breath. It took him a long time to steady his breathing.
Once he had a moment to really look at Xia Miao, astonishment flared in his eyes.
How did I not notice such a stunning girl at school during the day? Did I just miss her?
Assuming the young girl was simply out of her mind with terror, the middle-aged man hurried to explain, “The slasher is today’s executioner.”
Xia Miao tilted her head. “An executioner? Like a butcher?”
The middle-aged man choked on his own breath, unsure if Xia Miao was playing dumb or genuinely losing it. “The executioner is the killer and monster hunting us down,” he hissed. “Today’s killer is a slasher—a monster with exceptionally cruel methods!”
“He has bandages wrapped around his face. If he catches a survivor on their own, he’ll peel back that mouth of his, which splits all the way to his ears, and smile as he asks if he looks handsome. No matter whether you answer yes or no, he’ll use the knife in his hand to slice open your throat!”
“Anyway, if it were any other executioner, you might still have a chance to trade for a bit of escape time. But with the Slit-Mouthed Fiend? He won’t give you a single second or any chance to escape!”
If there were fifty survivors in the dead of night, running into another executioner might leave seven or eight survivors. But running into the slasher? The survival rate was zero.
No wonder the middle-aged man was terrified out of his wits.
Xia Miao reached out a finger. “Is that the executioner you’re talking about?”
A short distance away, a man covered in blood lay sprawled on the ground, clawing desperately backward as he shrieked, “Don’t kill me… Please don’t kill me! I’ll make a contract with you—I can help you lure in more prey!”
A tall, dark figure nonchalantly picked his ear, looking thoroughly bored by the plea. “Blah, blah, blah. It’s always the same nonsense. So annoying.”
He stepped down hard on the man’s chest. Because his back was turned, anyone watching from behind couldn’t see what he was doing; they could only watch as he leaned down. An instant later, a blood-curdling scream pierced the air, and a splash of bright red bloomed, staining the ground.
The figure bent down further, as if rummaging through the man’s chest cavity, before finally pulling out a beating heart. Abruptly, he turned his head.
The middle-aged man clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle a cry. Consumed by terror, he didn’t even hesitate: with a shove, he pushed Xia Miao straight out of hiding, using the distraction to bolt in the opposite direction.
Xia Miao stumbled forward, barely managing to catch her balance before a sudden, biting chill pressed against her neck.
A blood-stained hand gripped a blood-stained knife, its dripping tip aimed straight at her throat. She could vaguely feel the cold edge grazing her skin—just a fraction of an inch further forward, and her fragile neck would be gushing blood.
“Looks like you’re all alone.”
Raising her eyes wasn’t enough; Xia Miao had to tilt her head all the way back just to meet the face of this exceptionally tall boy.
He was thin, yet towering. Dressed in simple clothes, his blood-soaked sneakers tracked horrifying crimson prints across the ground. Beneath the dark hood of his jacket and a curtain of short black hair, white bandages swathed his face, leaving only a pair of pitch-black eyes exposed.
A sudden, surging wave of murderous intent flared in his eyes. Deciding that her heart might taste even better, he casually tossed aside the heart he had worked so hard to dig out. Freeing one hand, he reached up and pulled apart a gap in the bandages covering his face.
“Hey, do I look handsome?”
It was Xia Miao’s first time encountering such a terrifying situation, and she stood frozen in a daze, speechless.
A sudden shift crossed the boy’s gaze. Flicking his wrist, he hurled the knife in his hand sideways, pinning the thigh of a man who was trying to sneak away.
As it turned out, that man had been hiding in the bushes the entire time, too paralyzed by fear to move. Seeing Xia Miao—this unlucky girl—draw the Slit-Mouthed Fiend’s attention, he had tried to seize the chance to escape.
He hadn’t expected that the moment he took a single step, a dagger would pierce clean through his thigh, sending him crashing heavily to the ground.
Compared to this man who kept trying to flee, Xia Miao—who stood there like a complete dummy—was much less of a moving target. Consequently, the terrifying bandaged boy chose to deal with the fleeing man first.
He planted a boot squarely on the man’s wound, instantly drawing a shriek like a slaughtered pig.
Seemingly inspired by a sudden wave of sadistic amusement, the boy once again revealed his bloodless mouth. The corners of his lips stretched almost all the way to his earlobes. Inside a maw that split open like an abyss, jagged, razor-sharp teeth gleamed—teeth that could undoubtedly crush any hard bone of his prey to pieces.
“Hey, do I look handsome?”
The man shook like a leaf in the wind, not daring to make a sound.
The boy applied more pressure with his foot, causing fresh blood to gush out from the man’s thigh.
“Speak up. Do I look good or not?”
The man screamed, “You look good! You look amazing!”
His response was met with a flash of cold steel. In broad daylight—or rather, under the pale moonlight—the man’s eyes were gouged out alive.
“A stinky man full of lies.”
Chuckling playfully, the boy pulled the knife out of the man’s leg, kicked the half-dead wretch straight into the bushes, and then turned his beaming gaze toward Xia Miao.
“Alright, now it’s your turn.” The boy asked, suppressing his excitement, “Do I look handsome?”
The boy looked like an absolute psycho. If she said he didn’t look good, she definitely wouldn’t meet a good end.
On the other hand, if she said he did look good, the miserable fate of the man just moments ago was the best possible lesson.
Xia Miao recalled the words of that ridiculous system:
[The man who catches your eye at first glance is your target.]
The boy had a bizarre getup, a bizarre mouth, and dripped blood from his weapon like some sort of plague god.
Just from this single glance, she knew she would never forget him for the rest of her life.
A sudden, brilliant light of profound wisdom sparked in Xia Miao’s eyes, shining brightly as if she had hidden a galaxy inside them.
The boy paused in surprise. He had never encountered anyone on the brink of death who could look so excited—she practically looked like a cat locking eyes with a mouse!
“Listen up! From today on, you need to work hard to keep me entertained. Make sure you don’t just captivate me at first sight—more importantly, make me fall in love with you for the rest of my life!”
The boy blinked in blank confusion. “H-Huh? What gives you the right to make me like you?!”
“By the mere fact that this young lady has fallen for you at first sight!”
His hand loosened its grip on the bandages, allowing the gap over his mouth to close. His deadpan eyes stared blankly. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Xia Miao stamped her foot in annoyance. “Don’t make a lady say embarrassing things out loud! Are you deaf? I said I fell in love with you at first sight!”
His eyes went blank. “Fell in love at first sight?”
Xia Miao furrowed her brows. Folding her arms across her chest, though she was short in stature, she adopted such a haughty, towering gaze that an overwhelming aura of superiority instantly surrounded her. “What’s that supposed to mean? The very first moment I saw you, I locked that image in my mind! For me to even harbor good feelings toward you is your absolute blessing!”
The knife in his hand trembled. “What nonsense are you spouting?! How could you possibly have good feelings for me?!”
“No way, are you seriously telling me you haven’t realized how utterly charming you are?”
“C-Charming?”
“That’s right! Your fingers are gorgeous. When you hold that knife, you exude such a strong sense of power, yet your bone structure is so delicate and refined. On top of that, you have broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Just now, when you swung your blade and bent down, the waistline you exposed was simply stunning! Oh, and don’t even get me started on these legs of yours—long, slender, and gorgeous. The fact that you sprinted over here from way over there in mere seconds proves your stamina and endurance must be top-tier. Plus, your skin is so pale. Is that natural porcelain-white skin? Were you born with it?”
His ears began to burn fiercely. “I-I suppose I was born with it?”
Xia Miao swept a lock of long hair behind her ear and offered a haughty, triumphant smile. “In this entire world, you are the very first man who managed to catch this young lady’s eye at first sight.”
She was the dignified young miss of the Xia family, adored by thousands ever since she was a child. If everyone else was just an ordinary star, she intended to be the one and only moon.
What kind of inexplicable system was this, trying to order her around to chase after someone?
Hmph, ridiculous!
In this world, people should be fighting tooth and nail for the privilege of pursuing her. There was no way she was going to lower herself by throwing herself at someone just to win their affection—that would completely ruin her pride!
The slasher was still utterly dumbfounded.
The arrogant, overbearing girl was still tilting her chin up to look at him.
Her long, slightly wavy hair cascaded like sea moss, looking as if black moonlight had been scattered across her shoulders. The crystal hair clip in her locks glittered under the moonlight, accentuating her exquisite facial features and fair skin. The uniform accentuated her slender figure to perfection, especially her calves encased in mid-calf socks, boasting smooth and graceful lines.
Her eyes were shining brilliantly with a kind of blissful, brain-cell-lacking ignorance and arrogance, as if she already considered him her personal possession, ready to unwrap and enjoy him as a gift at any moment.
Beneath the bandages, his face turned violently red. Unconsciously, he covered his face with both hands, trying to cool down his porcelain-white skin through the fabric, only to end up smearing the blood from his hands all over his bandages.
Hunched over and slouching, where on earth was his fierce slasher aura now?
Xia Miao planted her hands on her hips. “You better listen up and remember this: starting today, you’re going to have to try much harder! And your ultimate goal is to work hard enough so that we can eventually get married and have babies!”
“M-M-M… Have babies?!”
Piercing the stillness of the night, a sound remarkably like a boiling kettle’s shriek suddenly echoed through the air.