One month later.
The first day of primary school.
Primary school wasn’t like kindergarten, which had branches scattered all over Bo City.
There was only one primary school in the entire city, and every student was funneled into it once they turned six.
Hundreds of students were pouring through the front gates, and I was just one small face in the crowd.
When I was halfway down the main hallway, Wang Sanpang called out to me.
“I just checked the roster!
We’re in the same class this year, but Mu Bai got placed in a different one,” he panted as he jogged up beside me.
I hadn’t even checked the notice board yet, but Sanpang had just saved me the trouble.
“Were you waiting for me here?” I asked.
“Yeah, I wanted to walk to our new classroom together,” Sanpang replied.
We headed to our new room.
Ten minutes later, Mo Fan walked in and immediately gravitated toward us.
It looked like I would be sticking with the protagonist for this year, too.
Classes started shortly after morning introductions.
Looking around the room, I recognized a few familiar names from the novel, like He Yu and Zhou Min.
He Yu was definitely cute, but I had absolutely zero interest in her.
I had already made my decision about my future: if I was going to pursue romance in this brutal world, I would only choose a girl who had the potential to reach the Forbidden Curse level.
That way, I wouldn’t have to constantly protect her, babysit her, or worry about her safety while I was out adventuring in the dangerous monster zones.
School ended at 4 PM.
Mo Fan, Wang Sanpang, and I walked out the gates and inevitably bumped into Mu Bai and his little gang.
We were all walking down the street, talking about our new teachers, but it didn’t even take ten minutes for Mo Fan and Mu Bai to start bickering.
I stepped in and mediated for a few minutes, which bought us a brief silence before they were right back at each other’s throats.
I was about to intervene again when a blue car suddenly pulled up beside us.
It didn’t stop for us, but for the clothing store we were passing.
A woman stepped out of the vehicle.
She possessed a mature, devastating elegance that practically commanded the immediate attention of everyone around her.
Her face was flawless, as if the goddess Aphrodite herself had descended into the mortal world.
If I were currently in a body with peaking adult hormones, I might have proposed on the spot.
Since I was biologically six years old, I just stared along with the rest of the pedestrians on the street.
Even Mo Fan and Mu Bai completely forgot their argument, their jaws slightly slack as they watched the new arrival.
The driver hurried around to the trunk, pulled out a foldable wheelchair, and placed it next to the rear passenger door.
A frail, incredibly cute little girl opened the door and carefully transferred herself into the chair.
The stunning woman and the driver, who was pushing the little girl, walked smoothly into the clothing store.
It was only after the glass doors closed behind them that the street collectively exhaled and traffic resumed.
But there was one person on that street who was currently sweating bullets, staring at the empty doorway in absolute, primal terror.
Me.
When Mo Fan and Mu Bai finally snapped out of their daze and turned to me, they frowned.
“Are you okay, Monkey?” Mo Fan asked.
My mouth was as dry as sandpaper.
“I’m okay,” I choked out.
“Just…
need some water.”
I didn’t say goodbye to the others when we reached the intersection.
I just kept my head down and speed walked toward my house.
The moment I entered my bedroom, I locked the door and collapsed onto my bed.
My thoughts were a chaotic, swirling mess of panic.
Salan was here.
Ye Xinxia was here.
I forced myself upright into a lotus position, shut my eyes, and meditated intensely for a full hour until the frantic buzzing in my skull finally subsided.
I had arrogantly assumed that having Level 3 [Spiritual Strength] would keep me cool and collected in any situation.
But the sheer, existential terror of knowing what Salan was going to do to Bo City didn’t just vanish because a System stat ticked up.
Even Super-tier mages were terrified of the Red Cardinal.
Who was I to think I could just brush off her presence?
Thankfully, I hadn’t made direct eye contact.
If she had seen the recognition and terror on my face, she would have erased my entire bloodline before dinner.
At least the shock was out of my system.
It was like watching a horror movie: the first jump scare gets you, but if you rewatch it, the fear is manageable.
I would be better prepared next time.
After meditating for another hour, I collapsed into bed.
When I woke up the next morning, I was burning up.
I hadn’t realized that pure, concentrated psychological stress could literally give you a high fever.
When my mom checked my temperature, she panicked.
As a result, I was grounded in bed with a three day medical leave from school, one of which was Sunday.
I spent those three days lying in bed, meditating in a sleeping posture to harden my mental defenses.
When I finally returned to school on the fifth day of the term, I was hit with a second, reality shattering bombshell.
Mo Fan loudly complained to the group that his father, Mo Jiaxing, had suddenly married Ye Chang, the beautiful woman from the clothing store, and he now had a disabled stepsister.
As we were leaving school, Mo Fan invited our group and me over to his house for Sunday.
Every survival instinct I possessed screamed at me to say no.
But looking at him, and realizing every other kid in our neighborhood group was going, I forced a smile and said, “Okay.”
Four days later.
Sunday.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, violently trying to comb my unruly black hair.
It refused to cooperate, so I resorted to stealing a glob of my father’s hair gel to glue it down.
I needed to look as utterly harmless and presentable as possible.
I didn’t want to look unpleasant in front of Ye Chang.
Given her psychopathic tendencies, being mildly annoying might actually be a valid reason for her to feed me to a Dark Beast Monster.
My mom had helped me pack a few of my nicer, gently used toys into a gift box for Ye Xinxia.
It was a calculated move.
When she came of age, Xinxia would become the Goddess of the Parthenon, a Supreme-tier healer capable of literally resurrecting the dead.
I desperately needed to secure a positive impression in her mind right now.
In the original novel, her profound loneliness caused her to lean entirely on Mo Fan for emotional warmth, even when he was a bit of a jerk early on.
This time, I was going to be the pillar she leaned on.
‘Sorry, Mo Fan,’ I thought, sliding the gift box under my arm.
I’m taking Xinxia’s loyalty.
Don’t worry, I won’t meddle with Mu Ningxue she can be all yours.
I never understood why reincarnated protagonists always chased after “ice cold beauties” anyway.
That wasn’t my type.
If I was going to date someone, I wanted a girl who could actually open up and communicate, not a living statue who expected her boyfriend to decipher her mood based on the micro elevation of her left eyebrow.
After giving myself a final inspection, I grabbed my bicycle, the consolation prize I got for my birthday instead of a magical laptop, and began the long pedal toward Mo Fan’s house in the northern district.
To be continued….