The morning class was required English, and for once Class F usually rowdy was sitting quietly, waiting for the teacher to arrive.
The English teacher’s high heels clicked with extra pep as she walked in, gratified, only to find everyone looking dazed. Only one person, head down, was obediently holding the textbook and previewing the lesson.
So she coughed, called on the sole well-behaved child among the class of space cases to stand up, intending to give him a proper commendation.
Then she fell into the same dazed stupor as the others.
The English teacher was still wondering when such a strikingly handsome student had joined the class when the beautiful boy spoke up on his own:
“Teacher, I’m Cen Wan.”
The teacher was dumbfounded and mechanically told Cen Wan to sit down.
Even though the others already knew, hearing it confirmed from Cen Wan’s own lips made them doubt all over again.
Cen Wan that deranged mad dog who wore heavy makeup and bit people everywhere he really used to look like this??
If he’s this gorgeous, why did he wear such ugly makeup?
His skin is so pale his voice is so nice, I’m already about to forgive him for all the stupid things he did before, what do I do…
Every mind in the room was eerily in agreement.
The whole morning passed in agony teachers performing the exact same routine over and over, students steeped in a dead silence.
Cen Wan got called on so many times he went numb. At first he’d discuss it with 0813, but later he started preemptively announcing his own identity, to avoid wasting unnecessary energy standing up again and again.
[HOT] [My destined wife turned out to be…]
Posted at 11:23:03
1L [OP pics ×3]
2L [Even the candid shots are too beautiful to be real.]
3L [Wife looks like the type I could win over by shamelessly pursuing]
4L [No matter how many times, I can’t convince myself these are the same person [sobbing]]
5L [I can’t take it anymore. I’ve decided to forget everything in the past and follow the W-family army unto death from now on]
6L [I plan to fake a fall next to my wife, take the chance to breathe deeply under his skirt, then take it all the way to the lungs for the ultimate experience]
43L [What the hell is everyone above talking about? I can’t understand a word. Sure, he’s pretty, but isn’t this a bit much?]
44L [Checked… the sb above are acting insane… St. Rhodes really gets worse every year, they’ll take anyone]
45L [Pretty? He’s just average. St. Rhodes is never short of pretty faces]
46L [Hah, what would you ignorant fools know. I refuse to speak with anyone who hasn’t seen my wife. Cavemen, stay off the internet.]
47L [Is he the new student? But there’s only one transfer, right? I remember Jiang Xinian doesn’t look like this]
48L [Bet none of you can guess who he is. If you can, I’ll eat sh*t.]
3273L [Dazed and confused 10086]
3274L [I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes!!]
[Task 5: You have deliberately come to Orientation Night alone, because you’ve long heard that F3 Fu Xingjian is rigid and upright if something happens between you two, he’ll definitely take responsibility for you!]
[Please administer the prepared medicine to F3 before 24:00 tonight. Task success reward: +48h survival time]
[Task failure penalty: -48h survival time]
The crystal chandelier refracted cascades of brilliant light that poured down. Magnificent, enormous murals were embedded in the walls on both sides of the villa, and a red velvet carpet ran from the center of the banquet hall all the way to the front door. Uniformed waiters carried silver trays, coming and going as they arranged long tables laden with drinks and food.
On the high-ceilinged stage surrounded by carved railings, musicians lost themselves in weaving out melodious tunes.
Cen Wan fished a white suit out of his wardrobe, put it on, and arrived punctually at eight at the villa hosting the welcome party, stepping through the main entrance one foot at a time.
The waterfall of light spilled into his softly contoured eyes, then spread into a dreamlike halo around the strikingly beautiful youth. The slim-fit white suit made his skin look even fairer every inch of him was pale, and only his richly vivid lips seized the eye. His waist was slim enough to encircle in one hand, yet his proportions were exquisite, his legs improbably long.
At first, only a few scattered people in the noisy crowd noticed the beautiful youth, but soon first two or three staring at him in a daze.
Gradually it spread to a whole section of people, who finished whispering among themselves and turned to stare at him, and then another patch of people began to stare in a daze as well.
The silent atmosphere swept through the enormous ballroom like wildfire, until in the end all anyone could hear was the melodious music from the stage, and their own heartbeats.
At the same time,
In the long, narrow corridor, the figures of three tall men gradually came into view.
When the guests in the ballroom dazedly pulled their gazes off the youth, some were still flushed with excitement, patting their companions and whispering.
But by the time those three men handsome and magnificent as gods drew a little closer, the vast banquet hall had gone so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Even the orchestra on the stage had, at some point, stopped playing.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Their footsteps had fallen into near-perfect unison, the tapping of heels against the floor sounding as if, step by step, they were setting the rhythm of everyone’s heartbeats.
Tap.
The footsteps stopped, and immediately every heart began pounding wildly, far faster than normal. The orchestra erupted at just the right moment, in that most silent of seconds, with a burst of soaring, magnificent music! Layer upon layer of melody swept over the crowd like surging waves, and the dense drumbeats ignited the atmosphere of the entire hall in an instant!
When the three men finally came to a standstill on the main stage, wave after wave of shouts and screams rose from below.
Cen Wan quietly pretended to pick at his ear piercings, plugging his ears. He zoned out and chattered to 0813: 【Why are there only three? Where’s the F4?】
0813: 【The F4 are probably pretty busy. They don’t show up much in the original story anyway~】
Cen Wan made a couple of acknowledging sounds, and while his mind wandered, he keenly spotted the story’s protagonist shou, who had arrived at some unknown point, wearing an incongruous school uniform, standing in a dimly lit corner of the ballroom, seemingly looking his way. His expression was entirely swallowed by shadow, like a gaunt ghost lurking within the crowd.
Startled into a shiver, Cen Wan hastily snatched his gaze away.
The clamor lasted a few seconds before Loren narrowed his fox-like eyes and, smiling, raised a finger to his lips, signaling for silence.
The crowd below instantly quieted down.
F1 nodded to everyone in greeting, then approached the standing microphone on stage to speak:
“Welcome, everyone and welcome, new student.
We’re delighted that you’ve joined us. Saint Rhodes will always have order and opportunity.”
“This ball was held for you tonight. We hope you enjoy it.”
“However, right now, I have a small favor to ask, I’d like to pose the same question to our new student once more.”
“My apologies for taking two minutes of your time.”
Loren apologized with his mouth, but his tone carried not a trace of remorse. His gaze paused for an instant when it swept over Cen Wan in the crowd, then moved on to rest on the lone figure in a school uniform standing in the corner.
He asked from on high:
“So then, now will you be my dance partner?”
Everyone froze at those words, then their expressions shifted some twisted, some thoughtful, some gleeful at the coming show. Then, as one, they all turned to look at the specially admitted student who had been standing apart from the start, silent in the corner.
Apparently not expecting to be singled out so suddenly, the man’s brow furrowed, his expression turning colder still, his dark gaze lifted to stare straight at the blond man enthroned high on the platform.
Loren looked down at him from above, seemingly entirely indifferent to the commotion his action was causing.
Jiang Xinian pulled his gaze away in disgust and refused flatly: “No.”
The room immediately erupted. Blame, envy, suspicion, jealousy every kind of look was hurled at the specially admitted student who didn’t know what was good for him.
“Drop the act. You think you’re something special?”
“Who does he think he is?”
“He’s not even that good-looking. What gives him the right to refuse Young Master Loren?”
“I can’t stand this. Can’t someone just give him a red card already?”
“He has no idea what’s going on”
Those whispered remarks, thought to be quiet enough, carried word for word into everyone’s ears including Cen Wan’s.
On stage, the F1 driver showed no change in expression at being rejected, the curve of his lips not shifting by a hair, as if he couldn’t care less about the answer. Rejected in public, he simply responded with a faint smile:
“Is that so? What a shame. Well then, I hope everyone has a wonderful time tonight.”
“Now then, I hereby declare”
“The ball officially begins.”
[The game of exchanging partners after the lights go out is an old tradition beloved by Saint Rodd’s young nobles. Everyone picks their dance partner before the ball begins; once the game starts, they first dance with their chosen partner amid the lavish, dazzling lights.
Then, as the countdown sounds and the lights go out, these elegant high-society figures shed their disguise in an instant.
In the darkness, the low-status specially admitted students and the lesser elites become the game’s prey. If no one is protecting you, you may be groped, kissed, taken advantage of and you won’t even know who did it. All you can do is swallow the blood along with your broken teeth.
When the three minutes of darkness end and the lights come back on, those beasts in human clothing naturally have their skin back on.
But this is far from the end. The truly vicious part of the game only begins when the lights come on.
If, when the lights come up, anyone is left standing alone without a partner, they are issued a red card, which means that from that moment on, anyone in the school may torment them for their amusement.
So in essence, this game is a vicious trap set by these young nobles, resentful that the specially admitted students had come to Saint Rodd to take what they hadn’t earned.
Because it’s usually the newly arrived special admits who have no acquaintances, no backing, no way of knowing these unwritten rules and thus no way to prepare in advance.
If a newcomer plays along and quickly attaches themselves to the old hands, they generally won’t be mistreated. But if they try to rise unsullied from the mire, these people only get more riled up, just waiting to see when that person’s proud spine will finally be snapped.]
What’s worse, some rich young masters, just to toy with the special-admission students, would pretend to offer protection, only to choose another dance partner when the lights came on all to savor that moment of disbelief, humiliation, and fear on the special-admission student’s face. To these people, others’ dignity and sincerity were nothing but playthings for their amusement.
So from the moment Loren Louis arranged this welcome night, and Jiang Xinian refused the invitation and took that one wrong step, he was destined to suffer endless humiliation at this banquet.
But no one dared refuse this game countless people were only too eager to rack their brains for those at the top of the pyramid.】
After System 0813 finished explaining the original book, Cen Wan clutched the special drug the original owner had paid a fortune to prepare well in advance and huddled in a corner of the banquet:【Ugh, the protagonist bottom is so unlucky, running into a bunch of lunatics. System, let’s bully him as little as we can get away with, okay?】
【Wanwan, how about we first think about how to slip the drug to the F3?】
According to the original plot, after Cen Wan drugged them, he’d planned to spend a night of passion with the F3 and use the opportunity to climb the social ladder. Instead, he ended up making a wedding dress for the protagonist bottom. even drugged out of his mind, the F3 refused to have any contact with the minor cannon fodder, stumbled out of the room, and ran into the protagonist bottom in the bathroom. The next day, he couldn’t remember who had actually helped him.
The protagonist bottom hated these people to death, so of course he wouldn’t come forward and admit it.
Furious and flustered, Cen Wan quickly marked up his own body to fake the claim, only for Fu Xingjian to agree only to material compensation, apparently still harboring some suspicion.
To avoid closer scrutiny, Cen Wan had no choice but to suppress his impatience, and afterward spent a stretch of days swaggering around under Fu Xingjian’s name, living high on the hog.
In short, he’d offended plenty of people especially the protagonist bottom.
Cen Wan knitted his brows and pondered for a while, realizing that no matter how he did it, a minor cannon fodder like him approaching the F3 would be discovered one way or another.
He had no idea what method the original owner had used to pull it off without being found out.
But the most pressing problem now was that Cen Wan was a little scared of the F3.