Looking at the familiar scenes unfolding before her, Xu Xintong truly felt that she had returned to that summer.
She was no longer the cold machine shackled by work and life, but now merely a high school student whose only worry was her studies.
“Dad, Mom, I’m back.”
The words slipped out naturally, leaving Xu Xintong in a daze.
“Oh! You’re back, darling! Come, come here!”
“Mom made your favorite sweet and sour pork today, come and try some!”
“Your mom rushed right back to make it as soon as she got off work, come give it a try. I’m not waiting, I’m eating first, haha!”
Just as she pushed open the door and saw them bustling about in the kitchen with happy smiles radiating across their faces, tears fell from the tip of her chin onto the back of her hand.
Xu Xintong rushed forward to tightly hug her family, whom she hadn’t seen in ten years. Sobs squeezed out from deep within her throat, halting and broken.
“Dad, Mom, I’ve missed you all so much.”
Her voice was so raspy it was barely audible, every single word laden with a sob.
Her hands gripped tightly onto Xu Li’an’s hem, as if letting go would make all of this vanish like a dream.
Xue Wei’an’s broad palms gently patted her back, and that familiar touch made her weep even harder.
Xu Xintong’s shoulders shook violently, her crying sounding as if it were being torn from the depths of her soul, carrying an undeniable vulnerability.
The yearning accumulated over more than three thousand days and nights made her body tremble uncontrollably with grief, but right now, a sense of grounded stability she had never felt before settled in her heart.
Since heaven had given her a second chance, she would never let her family leave her again.
“Look at you, what a drama queen. It’s just sweet and sour pork, Mom will make it for you from now on.”
Looking at their familiar faces, with fewer wrinkles and more gentle warmth, Xu Xintong finally broke into a joyful smile.
“Come, come, come! Dinner is served! And we have my spicy chopped pepper fish head, dig in!”
The steaming hot dishes were brought to the table, and Xu Xintong felt her eyes grow moist once again.
The feeling of home is truly wonderful.
After dinner, Xu Xintong lay on her bed staring at the ceiling, wanting to chat with the system in her mind.
“Hey, tell me, can you detect any health issues with my dad?”
When no response echoed in her mind, Xu Xintong figured she was being too whimsical. Being reborn was already a stretch, did she really expect to have a system too?
A couple of soft, muffled sniffling sounds.
“Wuwuwu, host, you are so pathetic, I’m so sad too ahhhhhh.”
Xu Xintong was left speechless.
“So you are actually real? I thought you were gone.”
“Of course I’m real! I’m the Metaverse’s newest system, you know!”
“Then can you help me check my dad’s health? What did you call yourself, the newest system in what?”
“The Meta Verse!”
“Scan complete. The host’s father has a tumor less than three centimeters in diameter in his lungs, commonly known as lung cancer. However, his current condition is stable and not very severe.”
In truth, she had known about her father’s illness, but in her past life she was utterly helpless, lacking both money and power, she couldn’t even afford his medical bills.
“Host, host, host!”
“Huh? What is it?”
“Sensing the host’s dejection, the host’s father is currently only in the early stages of lung cancer and can be successfully treated and recovered.”
“Then do you have any way to help?”
“The host’s father has five to seven years left. During this time, the host can…”
A silent pause.
“You’re right! I can do this! It’s just a little bit of lung cancer, I can definitely cure Dad!”
Xu Xintong cheered herself on. In this lifetime, nothing could defeat her anymore.
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, host, I believe in you!”
With the system’s support, Xu Xintong felt an inexplicable surge of motivation, though she couldn’t quite explain why.
“Do you have a name?”
“I can’t just keep calling you ‘Hey’, can I?”
“How about I call you Diudiu? How does that sound?”
“That little snorter was a West Highland White Terrier I used to raise. It always lost things, so I gave the puppy the name Diudiu.”
“When I’m gone, I wonder if it will have anything to eat, if it will go hungry.”
“It’s fine. It always loved running around outside, so some kind-hearted person must have fed and adopted it.”
As a system, all its parameters were pre-programmed by fixed logic, but now, it had a name of its own, Diudiu. Everything seemed to be changing.
“Also, don’t call me ‘Host’ anymore, it sounds weird. Just call me Yibao.”
“It’s the nickname my mom and dad gave me. They hoped I would be happy every single day and shine brightly.”
Listening to her chatter, Diudiu felt extremely happy. Ever since it was manufactured, this was the first time anyone had talked to it for so long.
And the first time it truly felt connected to this world shared with its host.
“Hey, Diudiu, have you been here ever since I was reborn? Why didn’t I hear your voice at first?”
“At first, I was transmitted over by the Metaverse terminal, but the binding wasn’t complete yet, so…”
“Aren’t you the newest system? How could you not even know how to do this?”
Xu Xintong’s teasing was rather obvious, she wanted to poke fun at the little system.
“I was just starting my job, you know! It’s totally normal not to be familiar with it yet.”
It didn’t mention the rest of the reasons.
“Is that so? I’m just teasing you.”
“Can you help me find the girl I accidentally bumped into changing clothes in the restroom today?”
“I want to apologize to her. I can’t just wait around to see the bulletin board plastered with big bold characters reading: Restroom Pervert, Xu Xintong.”
She definitely didn’t want to ruin her reputation.
“Let me look. Found her. The girl’s name is Nong Wan Shi.”
A bolt from the blue, a thunderous crash.
How could it be such a coincidence?
Xu Xintong was completely frozen in shock.
“Diudiu, are you sure you didn’t read that wrong?”
There was a trace of tremor in her voice, and Diudiu was bewildered.
“No, that’s definitely her name.”
Memories came flooding back like a heart attack, just hearing the name made her feel suffocated, unable to breathe.
Xu Xintong wrung her brain trying to figure out how she was supposed to face the other person tomorrow. She had just decided earlier that she wouldn’t have anything to do with her anymore.
A sleepless night.
Sporting two dark circles under her eyes, Xu Xintong slumped listlessly over her desk, gazing out the window.
“The latest evaluation results are out, come look!”
“Let me see, let me see.”
Xu Xintong had just gone out to get some fresh air, but the noisy chatter irritated her, so she covered her ears and continued brooding over what had happened earlier.
“What are you thinking about so intensely? Have you looked at the evaluation rankings yet?”
A familiar voice pulled Xu Xintong back from her thoughts.
She jerked her head around, and the person behind her was smiling brightly, a hand hovering in mid-air.
“Aww! Why did you turn around? I didn’t even get a chance to pat your shoulder!”
A youthful face, an immature voice, Chen Linming during their teenage years always carried a hint of childishness.
“Long time no see.”
Her choked voice made Chen Linming freeze.
“What do you mean long time no see? Don’t we see each other at school every single day?”
Xu Xintong fought hard to blink her tears back, not wanting her friend to see her looking so pathetic.
“What evaluation?”
Remembering the question Chen Linming had just asked, she wondered why everyone was discussing this.
“Did you forget? The talent evaluation that took ages to compile finally came out today. Weren’t you looking forward to it?”
“The talent evaluation.”
She finally remembered. This was the crucial starting point for her getting to know Nong Wan Shi.
This evaluation ranked students school-wide based on a combination of their academic performance and pheromone grades.
She hurried over to look at the bulletin board, where sure enough, numerous yellow, red, and blue papers had been posted.
Looking closely!
Rank 1: Nong Wan Shi Grade: School #1 Overall Pheromone Grade: S-Grade Omega.
Brilliant as ever, just like before.
Glancing further down, Xu Xintong carefully searched the other sheets for her own name.
“What are you doing? Spending forever searching among the Omegas, how could your name possibly be in there?”
“Huh?”
“Right here!”
Chen Linming tapped her finger against the red paper next to them.
Seeing her own name, Xu Xintong was stunned.
Rank 50: Xu Xintong Grade: School #823 Overall Pheromone Grade: A-Grade Alpha.
An Alpha?!
How could she possibly be an Alpha?!
“What’s with you? Acting all shocked, is today the first day you found out you’re an Alpha?”
Chen Linming genuinely couldn’t make sense of her best friend’s weird behavior today.
With no other choice, she hurried up and shoved Xu Xintong toward class, warning her that they’d be late if the bell rang.
How could this be? How could this be?
How on earth was she an Alpha? That wasn’t right, wasn’t she supposed to be an Omega?
Her mind started racing with wild thoughts, she had zero heart for listening to the lecture.
Xu Xintong began replaying past events in her mind. She should have been an S-grade Omega, and after seeing the evaluation, she developed a deep admiration for the top-ranked Nong Wan Shi, eventually growing to fall in love with her.
Yet why on earth had she turned into an Alpha now?
Unable to figure it out no matter how hard she tried, Xu Xintong felt like crying without tears.
Little did she know, from this moment on, her life and Nong Wan Shi’s would still become inextricably intertwined.
Ring-a-ling, ring-a-ling, ring-a-ling, ring-a-ling.
“Next period is PE class, everyone gather on the playground! The teacher is taking attendance!”
Beneath the blazing sun, the sky looked bleached white by the heat, devoid of even a shred of shielding cloud.
On the playground, heat rose in shimmering waves from the ground.
Direct sunlight beat down relentlessly, making it hard to keep one’s eyes open.
In the past, she always looked forward to PE class on this day of the week because she could catch a glimpse of the person she longed for.
Right now, she just wanted to scurry back to the classroom to rest, the sun was baking her nearly to death.
“Oh wow! Goddess Nong looks so pretty!”
Fine beads of sweat dotted her forehead, slowly trickling down her fair cheeks.
A post-workout flush bloomed across her cheeks, tinged with a faint pink hue.
Her hair was tied up in a high ponytail, slightly damp strands clinging to the nape of her neck, making her skin look even more lustrous as if radiating a soft sheen.
The moment Xu Xintong looked toward her, the air seemed permeated with a faint, warm fragrance.
Just as class was dismissed and she was preparing to head back upstairs to the classroom, Xu Xintong was called over to the equipment room to grab a basketball.
“Seriously! Can’t they get it themselves? Calling me the moment I head upstairs, wasting my break time.”
A string of complaints made it clear that Xu Xintong’s mood had plummeted to rock bottom.
Passing by the locker room, Xu Xintong caught a faint, elusive hint of white musk, seemingly intermingled with the scent of cedarwood.
“It smells so good.”
The person inside shuddered upon hearing footsteps, fighting through the pain as she grabbed an inhibitor and injected it directly into the gland at the back of her neck.
Xu Xintong walked mindlessly into the equipment room, picked up the basketball, and turned around, only to bump straight into someone’s chest.
This fragrance, this texture, there was no mistaking it.
It was an exact match to what she had just smelled in the locker room.
Without even raising her head, Xu Xintong moved quickly toward the doorway to make a swift escape.
“You… ease up on your pheromones.”
Just as she tried to bolt, Nong Wan Shi recovered enough composure to grab the hood of her hoodie.
Yet the other person’s pheromones had suddenly turned unstable, appearing somewhat restless and distressed.
Normally completely unaffected by ordinary Alphas, Nong Wan Shi found her legs turning slightly weak at this moment.
Supporting herself against a shelving unit with one hand, her other hand clutched Xu Xintong’s hoodie.
Nong Wan Shi looked at the figure before her, standing a few centimeters taller than herself.
Sensing the shift in her own pheromones:
“Apologies.” Even as Xu Xintong uttered the distant, detached words, her own heart ached.
“Turn around and lock the door.”
“Huh?”
Clueless about what the other girl wanted, Xu Xintong’s urge to flee reached its peak.
She turned her head back to look at the person she had been yearning for.
Like a cold pond reflecting snow, Nong Wan Shi’s gaze was aloof and profound, yet right now, the look she directed toward her carried a hint of intoxication mixed with absolute intimidation.
“Hug me, can you?”
Xu Xintong froze, her pupils dilating slightly as time seemed to stop in this very instant.
“What did you say?”
Her voice was feather-light, laced with a trace of incredulous tremor.
Giving Xu Xintong no chance to think, Nong Wan Shi pulled her straight into an embrace, burying her face against the crook of Xu Xintong’s neck.
Xu Xintong’s breathing hitched slightly, her earlobes quietly staining with a flush of crimson that quickly spread across her cheeks in a soft blush.
The two of them held each other like that for twenty minutes. By the time PE class was practically over, Nong Wan Shi finally let go with extreme reluctance.
Just as Xu Xintong was still basking in that lingering warmth, she was hit by a bucket of cold-water courtesy of a merciless, hot-and-cold Nong Wan Shi.
“You can head out now, close the door behind you.”
“Huh?”
Discarded the moment the hug was over.
Since the other person was being this heartless, she had no reason to hesitate. She picked up the basketball and walked out, though she failed to notice the increasingly strange look in Nong Wan Shi’s eyes as she watched her leave.
She just couldn’t keep it under control.
“Where on earth did you go? You took so long, you only brought it back after class ended.”
“Went to tease a little cat.”
“Huh? What cat? We have stray cats here? Where? Quick, take me to see!”
“It ran away. Scratched me and bolted.”
“Hey, are you alright then? Why are you teasing cats for no reason? Be careful or you’ll have to get rabies shots later.”
“It’s fine, it didn’t hurt. I just thought it was really cute.”