In late September, the university’s Arts Department organized its first icebreaker gathering.
The university student union had several activity rooms reserved for its various departments, which took turns using them. The Arts Department had scheduled its gathering for Tuesday evening.
Li Xingchuan had been feeling perfectly relaxed at first. However, the moment he stepped into the classroom, he suddenly felt the urge to turn around and leave.
The reason was simple. Everyone seated inside looked young, fashionable, and full of vitality. Some favored an academic, preppy style, while others embraced the latest trends. Each person had their own distinctive way of dressing.
By comparison, Li Xingchuan looked like a software engineer who had accidentally wandered into Paris Fashion Week wearing a plaid shirt. He was practically the sort of person who could roll up his trouser legs and head straight into a field to catch a watermelon-stealing badger, just like Runtu from My Old Home. Surrounded by all these fashionable people, he seemed inexplicably plain and unremarkable.
Li Xingchuan maintained an expression of perfect composure, as though nothing in the world could unsettle him, and found the nearest available seat.
The young man sitting beside him heard the movement and turned to glance at him. Then he turned back around—only to turn his head again and take another look.
“Hello,” the young man said. “I remember you. We were in the same group during the interviews.”
He was a rather handsome young man with delicate, well-defined features and neatly shaped eyebrows. He had applied a tone-up base that suited his skin tone, though a straight man like Li Xingchuan naturally couldn’t recognize such things. The only standard Li Xingchuan used to determine whether someone was wearing makeup was the redness of their lips. Very red meant heavy makeup; not quite so red meant light makeup.
Consequently, all he noticed was that the other guy had fairly pale skin.
“Oh…”
Li Xingchuan put on an expression of sudden realization, even though he genuinely had no recollection of the other person. “…So it was you! I’m Li Xingchuan.”
“My name is Ai Ziyu,” the young man introduced himself.
The two chatted casually for a few minutes. There was something about Ai Ziyu’s friendliness and eagerness that made Li Xingchuan feel a little unaccustomed to him.
Gradually, everyone arrived.
The department’s leadership team gave a brief introduction to the activities planned for the semester. These included the university’s Top Ten Singers competition the following month, the Autumn Music Festival in November, the New Year’s Day arts performance, and various other events. As they spoke, they praised the Arts Department to such an extent that it sounded as though this department alone had descended from the heavens, while the rest of the university existed merely to fill the background.
The department members were exceptionally cooperative, too, applauding from time to time or letting out impressed little exclamations of “Wow!” A few outgoing young men occasionally interjected with witty remarks, drawing laughter from the others and gradually warming up the atmosphere.
“Next, let’s have everyone introduce themselves,” the beautiful department head said with a slight smile. “You can tell us your name, major, hometown, hobbies, special talents… Whatever you’d like to share. I’ll go first. My name is Hang Yun. Hang, as in Suzhou and Hangzhou, and Yun, as in the multitude of living beings. I’m majoring in Broadcasting, and I’m from Suzhou, right next door. Everyone is welcome to visit Suzhou…”
“I’m the deputy department head, Jin Rui, from the School of Mechanical Engineering…”
The seats had been arranged in a U shape. Starting with the department head, everyone introduced themselves one after another, like a game of passing the parcel accompanied by the sound of a drum. Li Xingchuan and Ai Ziyu happened to be seated near the very end of the line.
“My name is Ou Ruoyao.”
A sweet female voice rang out.
In an instant, every pair of eyes in the room turned toward the girl with cascading brown curls.
Her voice was sweet, and her appearance was equally striking. She had a pair of bewitching, captivating eyes that seemed capable of sending out electric sparks with a single glance. Yet her overall aura was remarkably pure and innocent, the kind of beauty that could instantly outshine an entire crowd of minor internet celebrities who relied on filters to look good.
“I’m a local from Yucheng. I went to high school in the capital, but because I missed home so much, I…”
Dozens of people in the classroom pricked up their ears and listened intently. Their gazes remained glued to her, as though they couldn’t tear their eyes away even if they tried. Some of them were practically mesmerized, their expressions revealing a fascination that bordered on infatuation.
They looked like robots that had received a command from a remote control, faithfully executing the program labeled Fascination.
Everyone, that was, except Li Xingchuan.
Li Xingchuan was simply curious, although the train of thought that led him to recognize her took a few unexpected turns.
Ou. That’s a rather uncommon surname. It reminds me of a song.
This girl looks familiar. A little like someone I knew in middle school.
Wait a second. Looking more closely… Is that actually her?
Ou Ruoyao had been his middle school classmate, one year ahead of him. When Li Xingchuan was in his second year of middle school, she had been in her third year. Now, somehow, they had ended up in the same year at university. Perhaps Ou Ruoyao had repeated a year.
In a certain sense, she was Li Xingchuan’s “first love.”
Li Xingchuan had attended No. 9 Middle School, a school whose high school admission rate ranked near the bottom. Discipline was poor, and the academic atmosphere was weak, but the school was close to home.
At a middle school with such a dismal admission rate, it was only natural that most students didn’t have their minds set on studying. Fighting, skipping classes, and dating—none of these activities were ever missing.
Ou Ruoyao was the prettiest girl at No. 9 Middle School. Whenever she had physical education class, quite a few boys would sneak out onto the sports field as soon as their own classes ended, all just for the chance to “happen to brush past her.” It was no exaggeration to say that half the boys in the entire school dreamed of becoming her boyfriend.
For a period of time during his second year of middle school, Li Xingchuan had harbored a vague, youthful crush on her.
The feelings of adolescence were like poetry, though one could hardly remember the verses after reciting them. Now, Li Xingchuan couldn’t even recall why he had liked Ou Ruoyao back then.
Perhaps it was simply because she was exceptionally beautiful.
There didn’t necessarily need to be any particular reason for being attracted to a beautiful member of the opposite sex. Sometimes, it was simply instinct.
These thoughts passed through Li Xingchuan’s mind once before quickly fading away. He was, after all, a thoroughly straight guy. His mind had already wandered to whether he should try the late-night crayfish at the cafeteria the following day, and he lost interest in the matter entirely, turning his gaze away.
As a result, Li Xingchuan failed to notice that Ou Ruoyao, who had been the object of everyone’s fascinated attention except his, was looking at him in surprise.
For the first time, Ou Ruoyao’s otherwise perfectly fluent self-introduction faltered slightly.
“…So, I hope—um, I hope I can become good friends with everyone in the Arts Department.”
She finished speaking, and only then did the others reluctantly come back to their senses.
Ai Ziyu looked dazed. In a quiet voice, he murmured, “She’s really… such a beautiful girl.”
Li Xingchuan nodded in agreement.
Ai Ziyu muttered under his breath, “She’s so beautiful it’s almost like she’s cast a spell on everyone… I’m practically about to turn straight myself.”
Li Xingchuan hadn’t heard him clearly. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Ai Ziyu replied.
After everyone had finished introducing themselves, they moved on to a few icebreaker games.
The deputy department head, Jin Rui, was an expert at playing Turtle Soup, a lateral-thinking mystery game. He turned off the lights and built the atmosphere up to its absolute peak, scaring two girls into tears. In the end, they abandoned the game and switched to Truth or Dare instead.
Throughout the evening, Li Xingchuan kept feeling as though someone was watching him. Every so often, he would turn his head for a quick look, only to find himself making eye contact with Ou Ruoyao.
He smiled at her openly and pleasantly before lowering his head and continuing to message Ji Wangcheng.
By ten o’clock, everyone had gathered around a large cake bearing the names of all the department members. They shared it amid lively chatter and laughter, bringing the first icebreaker gathering to a perfect close.
Those who had gotten along particularly well paired off in twos and threes and headed back to their dormitories together.
Li Xingchuan volunteered to stay behind and help clean up the trash and straighten the tables, so he ended up leaving later than most of the others.
By the time he reached the entrance of the activity building, Ou Ruoyao was standing there.
Of course, he wasn’t so conceited as to assume that she was waiting for him. Nevertheless, she took the initiative and spoke to him.
Ou Ruoyao smiled brightly. “Li, we’re middle school alumni, aren’t we? We went to No. 9 Middle School, right?”
Li Xingchuan answered frankly, “That’s right. What a coincidence, haha.”
Then he crouched down to tie his shoelaces, preparing to leave.
Ou Ruoyao was momentarily speechless.
Every other guy she’d ever met, no matter how awkward or inarticulate he might be, would rack his brains trying to find something in common with her to keep the conversation going.
…What’s wrong with this guy?
Seeing that he was about to get up and leave, Ou Ruoyao folded her arms and desperately searched for something else to talk about. “It seems to have gotten colder tonight. It’s really chilly.”
Li Xingchuan glanced at her ankle-length skirt and the ultra-thin knitted cardigan she wore over it, then looked down at his own short-sleeved shirt and knee-length shorts.
It was immediately obvious which of them ought to be feeling colder.
“…” Li Xingchuan fell silent for half a second before tactfully replying, “Well, you should… make sure to keep warm. I’ve got something to take care of, so I’ll head off first. See you!”
He had arranged to watch a livestream of a competition with Ji Wangcheng.
And with that, he really did leave, striding away without so much as looking back. Ou Ruoyao was left standing there all alone, her limbs stiff and her expression frozen as though it had weathered the passage of centuries.
“Huh? How could this happen?”
She was utterly astonished.
The Arts Department had its own dedicated official account on WeChat, operating independently of the student union. For each post, several department members were assigned to work together, taking turns writing and producing the content. They published one article every two weeks. The first issue had been a special feature about the department’s icebreaker gathering, put together by the department head and deputy department head.
The members drew lots to determine their groups, and the first group was assigned to take over production of the second issue.
Li Xingchuan was in the first group. By coincidence, Ou Ruoyao was in his group as well.
One of the girls in their group ran her own fashion and outfit account on social media. It had been doing quite well, so she took the initiative to shoulder the responsibility of guiding the others. After making the decision, she announced that they would go to the university’s Swan Pond to take their photos.
The five of them made their way to the area around Swan Pond in a lively procession. Once they arrived, everyone began offering their opinions all at once, chattering away as they discussed different ideas. After spending two whole hours there, they finally managed to take most of the photos they needed.
Li Xingchuan spent the entire time hovering on the sidelines like a decorative wallflower.
If he had even the slightest sense of aesthetic appreciation, he wouldn’t have spent the entire year dressing like a stereotypical straight guy. His outfits relied entirely on his height and good looks to carry them off, with no actual sense of style to speak of. The only ability he possessed that could reasonably be considered an artistic talent was singing, and that had very little to do with aesthetics.
He knew his own limitations perfectly well. Rather than getting in everyone’s way, he simply stood to the side, nodding along and offering the occasional meaningless remark in agreement.
Even that was exhausting in its own way. It was mentally draining.
When he finally returned to the dormitory, Li Xingchuan collapsed into the lounge chair and let out a long, weary sigh.
“Brother Shan, confess everything!”
Somehow, he had no idea when it had started, but the nickname “Brother Shan” had spread throughout their circle and become firmly established. Standing by the window, Shan Bai held up a wooden stick and pointed it at Li Xingchuan from a distance. “I saw you on a date with a pretty girl this afternoon, right by Swan Pond! Is something going on between you two?”
The moment those words left his mouth, the gazes of both Ji Wangcheng and Li Xuanzhi shot toward Li Xingchuan.
Li Xingchuan yawned. “Why are you pointing at people with chopsticks?”
“It’s not chopsticks! It’s the Harry Potter wand I bought at Universal Studios!” Shan Bai protested.
“Oh.”
“Come clean! What’s your relationship with that girl?”
Li Xingchuan was perfectly honest. “We’re in the same department. We’re just ordinary group members working together.” He added, “And we went to the same middle school.”
Shan Bai drew out his response suggestively. “Oohhh… An old flame that never burned out.”
“Don’t go throwing around words you’ve just learned without knowing what they mean. Go play with your chopsticks.”
“It’s a wand! You’re so hopelessly unfashionable!”
With that, Shan Bai dragged his chair over beside Ji Wangcheng, then grabbed two bags of potato chips and placed them on the table. He fixed his eyes on the computer screen with the intensity of someone preparing for battle.
“It’s about to start,” Li Xingchuan urged. “Hurry up and turn on the computer.”
Tonight was the semifinal of the world championship for a competitive video game. The team Li Xingchuan had supported for several years had finally managed to make it into the world’s top four, and he absolutely couldn’t afford to miss the match.
Ji Wangcheng’s computer was also a top-of-the-line setup. The tower alone had cost well over a hundred thousand yuan, and his desk could barely accommodate the enormous monitor.
With fifteen minutes remaining on the match countdown, the commentators at the pre-game desk were offering their predictions about how the match would unfold and how the players on both teams would perform.
Li Xingchuan sat with his legs tucked up, searching for something to talk about. “Oh, right! Did I tell you the other day? Ou Ruoyao is in the same department as me now.”
Ji Wangcheng clearly remembered that name. His eyes immediately turned toward Li Xingchuan.
The emotion conveyed by that single glance was enough to make one’s blood run cold.
Fortunately, Li Xingchuan didn’t meet his gaze directly.
Ji Wangcheng quickly lowered his head, disguising his reaction by reaching for something.
The side cabinet was stocked with all sorts of health supplements and medication. He picked up the nearest item, a vitamin C effervescent tablet, tore open the packaging, and dropped one into his cup.
The water was cold. When the tablet first hit it, the ripples were barely noticeable.
Half a second later, however, it began dissolving vigorously, sending a flurry of tiny bubbles fizzing and crackling across the surface.
“Oh.” After a long pause, Ji Wangcheng answered in a flat voice, “Do you still like her?”
Li Xingchuan had been captivated by an amusing anecdote the commentators were telling at the pre-game desk. He had spent several seconds laughing to himself before belatedly realizing what Ji Wangcheng had asked him.
Finding the question amusing, he replied frankly, “How long ago was that?”
Ji Wangcheng said, “…It wasn’t that long ago.”
“Second year of middle school! How is that not a long time ago?”
He had already forgotten the names of most of his middle school classmates.
However, the second year of middle school had been a rather significant turning point in Li Xingchuan’s life.
Until the second semester of that year, his grades had been terrible.
One reason was that Li Shuhui had never offered him any positive encouragement or guidance when it came to his education. Deep down, she simply didn’t care how well her son performed. The only reason she hadn’t directly forced him to drop out was that denying a minor the nine years of compulsory education required by law was illegal. Whether his grades were good or bad, she could always find a reason to berate him.
The other reason was that he simply loved having fun too much. At that age, he hadn’t yet realized the importance of studying.
The clearest memory Li Xingchuan had of Ou Ruoyao was the day he passed the honor roll displaying the final examination results and discovered that she had ranked first with a score of 696. The student in second place had scored nearly a hundred points less than her.
Later, Ou Ruoyao transferred to a school in the capital.
She had been a popular figure on campus, and there was no need to deliberately ask around to learn about her. The boys in their class naturally discussed her among themselves.
They said she had excellent grades and had received an early offer from a private high school in the capital. With such a promising future ahead of her, she was destined to rise smoothly through life.
Li Xingchuan had paid attention only to two things: a private high school in the capital and 696 points.
He dug out his own final examination papers and checked the scores on each one, calculating his total.
He had scored 550.
That was already a result that placed him near the top of his class, yet he was still a full 150 points behind her.
One hundred and fifty points.
The staggering difference hit him like a slap in the face. For the first time in his life, Li Xingchuan began to connect examination scores with things beyond the classroom.
Ji Wangcheng had been so far away from him all along.
There was the gap between their scores, and then there was the distance between Yucheng and the capital.
After that day, he threw away all the magazines stuffed inside his desk and stopped bringing his phone to school. For the remaining year and a half, he devoted himself to studying with an intensity he had never experienced before.
In June of the following year, he took the high school entrance examination and, with a score that broke the school’s historical record, successfully secured a place in the experimental class at Yucheng No. 1 High School.
Suddenly, something occurred to Li Xingchuan, and he asked curiously, “By the way, I still don’t know what score you got on the high school entrance examination. Did you get full marks or something?”
That summer, when he had received his admission offer from Yucheng No. 1 High School, he had rushed straight into Ji Wangcheng’s house to share his joy with him. But when he had asked Ji Wangcheng about his own results, the other boy had refused to say a word.
At the time, Li Xingchuan had guessed that Ji Wangcheng might have been keeping quiet because he didn’t want to discourage him by revealing how much better he had done.
So he hadn’t pressed the matter.
Now, three years had passed since the high school entrance examination.
Yet Ji Wangcheng was still trying to avoid the subject. He gave a slight cough and said, “…No.”
Li Xingchuan made a guess. “710? 720?”
Ji Wangcheng tightened his fingers around the cup. Maintaining his composure, he managed to squeeze out a few words. “I forgot.”
The match had begun, and the players were now exchanging their pre-game taunts. Li Xingchuan’s attention was immediately drawn to the screen, and he naturally stopped asking questions. Instead, he sighed with genuine admiration. “Student Ji, you really are humble.”
Ji Wangcheng fell silent.
“.”
It wasn’t humility.
…He hadn’t taken the examination at all.
While the two of them were immersed in the vast universe of esports or, more accurately, while Li Xingchuan alone was completely absorbed in it, Li Xuanzhi and Shan Bai left the dormitory building and took a series of shortcuts until they reached a secluded grove hidden away on campus.
The little woods scattered around universities were generally considered prime locations for romantic dates. This particular grove was an exception. Many years earlier, an unsolved murder had taken place here, and the killer’s identity remained unknown to this day. The atmosphere was consequently far more sinister than that of an ordinary patch of trees.
Shan Bai looked around cautiously. “Have I met the new team member before?”
Li Xuanzhi answered, “It’s not quite accurate to say you’ve never met her.”
They waited for several minutes before a figure appeared along the path. Moving with surprising agility, the person slipped into the grove.
As soon as Shan Bai saw her approaching, he raised a hand and pressed his palm against the trunk of a tree.
A white glow shot through the tree trunks at a speed almost impossible for the naked eye to follow. Gradually, it grew brighter and more concentrated, finally rising like fireworks into the sky between several trees. The luminous white burst open before vanishing completely, enclosing the small area where they would be talking beneath an invisible, transparent shell.
When the distance between them had narrowed to just two or three meters, Shan Bai finally got a clear look at the newcomer’s face.
He was utterly astonished.
“…Huh? Aren’t you the one who’s Brother Shan’s.. ”
“Quiet.” Li Xuanzhi cut him off coldly. “Her name is Ou Ruoyao.”
Shan Bai immediately switched to a formal greeting. “Hello, I’m Shan Bai. Welcome to the Alliance for Studying with Evil Dragons.”
Ou Ruoyao replied, “…Hello.”
Shan Bai looked around, then asked, “How many of us are there, exactly?”
“You don’t need to know,” Li Xuanzhi replied.
“I have a question. May I ask it?”
Ou Ruoyao adopted a very deferential posture, her voice gentle and unhurried, with an innate air of vulnerability that made her sound as though she were always on the verge of being wronged. “If it’s inconvenient, you don’t have to answer.”
…Unfortunately, neither of the two men standing opposite her was the type to go out of his way to indulge a beautiful woman. Neither of them had any appreciation for her charm.
Shan Bai couldn’t resist making a sarcastic remark. “Then you could just not ask.”
Li Xuanzhi said, “Go ahead.”
Ou Ruoyao: “…”
Ou Ruoyao finally asked, “Is Li Xingchuan one of us, too?”
“No,” Li Xuanzhi denied, then reminded her, “He doesn’t have any special abilities, and he doesn’t know anything about this. You must strictly adhere to the confidentiality regulations whenever you’re around him.”
“…All right.”
Ou Ruoyao’s expression was tinged with doubt.
She possessed a rather special ability: she could make anyone who came into contact with her develop a favorable impression of her, although that didn’t necessarily mean romantic attraction.
As long as she wanted to, no one would dislike her. No one could resist her charm. Even stray cats would approach her voluntarily, begging to be petted. The cafeteria aunties would give her two extra spoonfuls of food, and even the monkeys on Mount Emei would become docile at the sight of her!
Ou Ruoyao’s ability wasn’t particularly useful, and there wasn’t much she could learn about the world through it. She obediently followed the arrangements made by the organization, withdrawing from her previous school, enrolling at Yuda, and joining the Arts Department. To be honest, she was still rather confused about what exactly she was supposed to do.
At a recent Arts Department meeting, Ou Ruoyao had used a little trick to win over the entire department with practically no effort.
Only Li Xingchuan had turned out to be a bizarre exception.
Even when she stood right beside him, he still treated her as though she were completely invisible.
“It’s hard to believe that someone could actually resist my charm,” Ou Ruoyao murmured to herself. “Could Li Xingchuan be a piece of wood that cultivated itself into human form?”
Unfortunately, Shan Bai heard this embarrassing little monologue.
He tactfully pointed out, “Actually, Li Xuanzhi and I can resist it, too.”
Ou Ruoyao retorted, “He’s a monk, and you have a barrier protecting you. What does Li Xingchuan have?”
Shan Bai answered without the slightest hesitation, “An evil dragon.”
Ou Ruoyao: “…”
If they were talking about that particular Calamity, then she certainly wouldn’t dare to provoke it. That explanation did seem to make sense. Suddenly, Ou Ruoyao felt relieved.
Judging solely by the current composition of their team, one could say that the situation was downright comical.
Their assigned target was the legendary “Humanoid Calamity,” and the three people responsible for monitoring him were a monk, an idiot, and a beautiful woman whose only assets were her youth and good looks. They had practically started the game on the highest possible difficulty setting, straight from the gates of hell.
The reason such a dysfunctional team had been assembled was that the organization was desperately short of manpower.
According to estimates, there were no more than fifty thousand people with superpowers in the entire country.
Among those fifty thousand, many possessed abilities that were utterly useless, serving as nothing more than decorative little gimmicks. For example, some people could win at rock-paper-scissors one hundred percent of the time, while others could peel an apple without breaking the peel one hundred percent of the time. Because these abilities were so ordinary and seemingly insignificant, the people who possessed them might not even realize that they were superpowered individuals.
At present, the organization had nearly ten thousand active superpowered personnel. However, fewer than two thousand of them possessed abilities that were genuinely useful.
Those two thousand people worked themselves to the bone, traveling all over the country to deal with superpowered crimes. They also had to rack their brains trying to conceal supernatural incidents and come up with plausible explanations for them, turning them into something that could be rationalized on programs like Approaching Science.
Under such circumstances, the organization still had to spare personnel of suitable ages and with appropriate abilities to keep an eye on the “Humanoid Calamity.”
The organization had a prophet who could see the future. The prophet had once made a definitive prediction: in a certain year, the Calamity would descend upon humanity, and it would eventually bring about the end of the world.
Later, they found Ji Wangcheng.
They had tried every possible method to eliminate him, exhausting every option available to them. Every attempt had ended in failure.
How could ordinary human beings possibly stand against a calamity?
In the end, Ji Wangcheng was placed under a form of soft surveillance. Fortunately, he was relatively well-behaved. He spent nearly the entire year in a dormant state, which allowed everyone to breathe a sigh of relief.
The Humanoid Calamity was essentially a mobile nuclear bomb that could explode at any moment. Its emotional magnetic field could cause plants and animals to mutate, make human emotions spiral out of control, and produce all sorts of other disastrous consequences. However, compared with the superpowered criminal organizations that were currently running rampant and causing destruction everywhere, operations targeting him had to be pushed a little farther down the priority list.
To put it simply, imagine that someone might develop cancer ten years from now, but at present, they’re already suffering from acute appendicitis. Naturally, the appendicitis must be treated first. As for the cancer, all they can do is undergo regular examinations and try their best to prevent it. If they ultimately can’t hold it off, then all that’s left is to leave it to fate.
And so, Shan Bai, sixteen years old, had been hauled off to attend university.
Li Xuanzhi, twenty-eight years old, had earned himself an undergraduate degree after graduating with a master’s degree.
As for Ou Ruoyao, she had taken advantage of the special deal that amounted to getting an extra year of freshman life free when purchasing one year of freshman life. In other words, she was going through her first year of university all over again.
While Shan Bai and Ou Ruoyao were bickering, Li Xuanzhi methodically pushed the Buddhist beads along his thumb, deep in thought.
Half a minute later, he stopped moving his hand and looked at Ou Ruoyao as he stated a fact. “My Purifying Mind Mantra has no effect on Li Xingchuan.”
“Everything abnormal tends to be rationalized when it’s near the Calamity. In fact, the only thing we can confirm at present is that the Calamity unconsciously brings about disasters when it’s in an emotional slump. So far, we haven’t found any evidence whatsoever to support the claim that he possesses the ability to protect anyone. Therefore, we can’t rule out this possibility—”
“Li Xingchuan may be a superpowered individual.”
Meanwhile, Li Xingchuan, the person currently suspected of possessing superpowers, was on the verge of a complete breakdown beside Ji Wangcheng.
The glaring “2:0” displayed on the computer screen was practically stabbing him in the eyes. The team he had been looking forward to watching had delivered an especially bizarre performance today. They were playing so terribly that their fans could probably sit down and eat three entire bowls of rice just by watching them play.
The match had now reached the third game. It was a best-of-five series, meaning the first team to win three games would take the victory.
Li Xingchuan had been holding on to the hope that his team could pull off a reverse sweep, winning two games after falling behind. But the moment he saw the lineup for the third game, he realized that this was no longer a comeback story. It was a dream of a comeback that would never happen, and it was about to end in a rude awakening.
They were going to lose three games to zero! They were going to get completely shut out!
“If only I had superpowers,” Li Xingchuan said weakly. “Could I turn back time and make them play the match all over again? I’d even accept losing three games to one! Getting swept without winning a single game is just too embarrassing…”
He rested his head against Ji Wangcheng’s shoulder, occasionally knocking it against him as though he were banging his head against a wall.
Ji Wangcheng’s expression remained cold and indifferent, but his body had involuntarily grown tense.
He didn’t understand the game at all. He couldn’t even tell the characters apart by their hero names, so all he could do was watch the little figures on the screen chip away at one another’s health bars.
However, seeing Li Xingchuan so utterly dejected made his own mood sink as well. His brows knitted together, and for some inexplicable reason, he even felt a little guilty.
“Shanshan,” Ji Wangcheng said, hesitating slightly before explaining, “Superpowers can’t reverse time.”
Upon hearing this, Li Xingchuan’s eyes widened involuntarily.
He had never imagined that Ji Wangcheng would mock him at a time like this. His remark about turning back time and making the team play again had obviously been a joke! Did Ji Wangcheng really think he didn’t know that superpowers didn’t exist in the real world?
Li Xingchuan looked at him accusingly. “You’ve learned to be mean. Just look at what you’ve become.”
Ji Wangcheng: “…?”
Author’s Note:
Ji Wangcheng (earnestly explaining): “I tried. I can’t do it.”
Shanshan (furious): “Ah! This person has turned bad!!”