April, when orioles sing and grass grows tall.
Nanhua Girls’ High School was in complete chaos.
Early in the morning, a whole line of students stood in front of the Discipline Office.
Looking down the line, there were girls with dyed hair, heavy makeup, skirts illegally shortened, and a couple whose hair-pulling had left them looking thoroughly disheveled.
Every rule each of them had broken was written plainly across their rebellious young faces—except for one girl.
She carried a dark green portfolio tube, standing straight as a young coconut tree striving to grow tall, at the very end of the line. Her uniform was perfectly in order, her face clean and free of any makeup, and her hair was completely natural, tied up high with a blue hair tie.
Apart from a pair of eyes that kept darting around restlessly, she looked every bit the model student.
When she caught the Dean of Students’ sharp glare, she straightened up even more. Her wandering eyes snapped to attention in an instant, fixed firmly straight ahead.
But this did nothing to quell the Dean’s fury.
The next second, a stern scolding rang out over the sharp clack of high heels on the floor: “Fei Chaichai, you again! What are you doing climbing over the wall to the boys’ school next door every single day?!”
Fei Chaichai puffed out her chest, tucked in her stomach, pressed her hands tightly against her sides, and answered with resounding conviction: “Reporting, Teacher Wang! It’s to go see the boys that our school doesn’t have!”
“…I’m scolding you, not asking you!” The Dean hadn’t expected her to answer so smoothly and nearly got thrown off track. “And besides, is this something to be proud of? Who are you shouting that loud for?!”
“—”
Fei Chaichai opened her mouth, about to answer, then suddenly stopped. She leaned forward slightly and quietly confirmed with the Dean: “Are you scolding me right now, or asking me?”
She genuinely wanted to clarify.
The response was a thunderous “FEI CHAICHAI!” that snapped her back into perfect standing posture.
The Dean took her for a smart aleck, and her blood pressure kept climbing: “Fei Chaichai, don’t think just because you’ve been recommended to Yunxia Academy of Fine Arts, you can disrespect your elders and do whatever you please! I’m telling you, as long as you’re a student at Nanhua, you—”
“Have to follow Nanhua’s rules!” Fei Chaichai seamlessly finished the sentence for her.
Then, lowering her voice, she said with self-awareness: “So I’ll go write my self-criticism now?”
The Dean: “…”
In thirty years of teaching, she’d seen all kinds of students, but never a “dead pig” like Fei Chaichai who didn’t fear boiling water. She looked sweet and harmless, yet acted outrageously. She was always quick to admit her mistakes, but absolutely refused to change.
She couldn’t be bothered to waste more breath. She waved her hand, shooing the “dead pig” away.
Fei Chaichai didn’t linger for a second.
The moment the Dean’s hand went up, she’d already spun around and bolted toward the stairwell, as if afraid of taking up time that other sisters might need for their scoldings.
The office area was empty in the early morning.
Fei Chaichai walked through the first-floor corridor with the spring breeze, when a blinding flash of light suddenly cut across her vision like a blade, stopping her in her tracks.
Completely caught off guard, she slammed on the brakes, wobbled until she found her balance, and turned to look around.
Right next door was Peiguang Boys’ High School.
For various reasons, the two century-old schools were separated by just a single wall, and their administrative buildings were especially close.
But when she looked over, aside from rows of windows—some open, some closed—she couldn’t spot anything suspicious.
She figured it was probably sunlight reflecting off a mirror in one of the offices, so she didn’t think much of it and continued hopping along her way.
Little did she know, a moment later, a window on the top floor flashed again, like a shooting star streaking by.
Behind the window, the vast light came to a halt at the man’s feet.
He stood in the shadow sharply cut by the window frame, leaning lazily against the wall, his posture relaxed, his brows and eyes lowered as he looked down at the scenery below.
In the dimness, only the metallic buttons on his coat occasionally caught the light with a cold gleam.
That light sometimes fell on the climbing vines covering the opposite wall, sometimes cast into the corridor—like a camera shutter, snapping photo after photo of the girl as she ran past window after window.
The final frame froze on a breathless “President Li.”
The meeting room door was pushed open.
A middle-aged man who looked like a school administrator walked in, flattered and surprised: “What brings you here?”
The voice chased away the bouncing figure in the corridor.
The man’s expression tightened slightly, as if losing interest. He withdrew his gaze from the window and glanced back indifferently.
In the movement, an inch of skin at the back of his neck was exposed to the air—so pale it was almost translucent. It should have been flawless, but was instead occupied by a tattoo like an ink-wash painting.
In the image, a tree of withered branches grew out from behind his ear, threading through his hair, like crackle patterns on porcelain, running down the side of his neck and disappearing into his collar.
And there were a few ravens, carrying twigs in their beaks, wings spread, ready to take flight.
In the spring of long winds and abundant rain, it wasn’t just ravens that wanted to fly—butterflies too, in flocks, flew back to the teaching building alongside Fei Chaichai.
Morning reading had already ended.
Fei Chaichai slipped into the classroom through the back door.
She’d barely sat down when sharp-eyed classmates rushed over and surrounded her, all talking at once—
“Chaichai, did you deliver my love letter for me?”
“Chaichai, did you manage to sneak back my confiscated novel?”
“Chaichai, did you happen to see an insanely handsome hunk next door just now?”
“…Handsome hunk?” Fei Chaichai grabbed onto that key detail amidst the chaos, slamming the table as she stood up. “Did Peiguang get new stock? When did this happen, how come I didn’t know!”
“Just this morning! But he has quite a few tattoos, so he probably isn’t one of Peiguang’s students… that’s not the point! Here, check out the photo first!”
The moment she heard “tattoos,” Fei Chaichai instantly lost all interest, but the photo was already shoved in front of her face, so she figured she might as well take a glance.
However, the image wasn’t very clear.
In the background where details were lost, all the colors were blurred into flowing lines, like streams of light flowing toward the man at the center of the frame.
The crowd around him was bustling, all heads down moving forward, but only he turned back, looking at the camera.
Or rather, looking at the person who took the secret photo.
Even with the blurry quality, that glance was enough to send chills down one’s spine.
No wonder the photo was this fuzzy.
Luckily, Fei Chaichai wasn’t the one being photographed.
She just needed to look away to cut off that sense of fear, but for a moment she couldn’t tear her eyes away, feeling like she’d seen this “handsome hunk” somewhere before, even though she couldn’t even make out his face.
Fei Chaichai frowned, trying to recall.
At that moment, her class monitor and deskmate Qiao Xiaoyu squeezed in, urging her to hand in her homework, only to see her with a constipated expression on her face. So she went straight for her backpack and helped herself.
But she didn’t find the homework.
Instead, she pulled out a pile of kiss-flavored candies and interception spirits.
Before anything even more terrifying could be exposed, Qiao Xiaoyu quickly stopped, exclaiming in shock, “Chaichai! What are you doing carrying these things around with you?!”
That shout successfully snapped Fei Chaichai out of her thoughts.
She came back to her senses, looked around in confusion, and after seeing the pile of stuff on the table, it clicked. She let out an “Ah” and said, “Of course, it’s for my destined soulmates.”
Anyone overhearing that would think she was secretly living a wild life.
In reality, fate had given her a heart that was always thinking about getting dirty, but trapped that heart in a body that broke out in allergic reactions the moment she touched a man. Mild cases meant rashes all over; severe cases meant going into shock.
Yet she refused to give up, treating every crush as her destined soulmate and using them as experiments, trying to find the one who could make her immune.
As of now, that group had grown to a staggering 108 people. Half of them had already been struck off the list due to failed experiments.
Qiao Xiaoyu couldn’t help but worry, “Are you planning to gather all 108 destined soulmates and head to Mount Liangshan?”
“No no no.” Fei Chaichai raised her index finger, wagged it, and corrected with dramatic emphasis, “It’s—mount me.”
“…”
Crude but true.
But it was way too crude!
Qiao Xiaoyu was speechless.
Fei Chaichai was still quoting wisdom and holding forth: “The famous daydreamer—Fei Pin’s son, Fei Wu—once said, dreams don’t come true on their own unless you take action, and 108 times is just right.”
Sounded pretty impressive.
But, “Who are Fei Pin and Fei Wu?” everyone asked curiously.
Fei Chaichai: “My second uncle and my cousin.”
“…………”
Qiao Xiaoyu pulled the conversation back on track: “So are you still looking for No. 108 today?”
That hit a sore spot for Fei Chaichai.
A month ago, on her eighteenth birthday, she rushed into the hospital carrying her pet pig that had suddenly fallen ill, and by chance ran into her 108th destined soulmate.
The afternoon garden was quiet and serene, and he was crouching by the flowerbed, feeding a kitten in his arms, his lowered eyes full of a captivating gentleness.
She fell for him in a second and immediately went to ask the front desk guy about his identity.
Unfortunately, he’d only managed to say “the director” before she was called away for her appointment. By the time she was done, her destined soulmate was gone, and to this day, her knowledge of No. 108 was limited to his official name card—she only knew he was called “Yan Ci.”
Though it was a pity, Fei Chaichai had a good sense of the bigger picture.
After all, there was still a whole forest waiting for her ahead, and she absolutely couldn’t lose sight of the big picture for the sake of one tree.
Even if that tree was a once-in-a-century find.
So—
“I’ll skip looking for him today.” Fei Chaichai gazed out the window with a profound look. “I have other plans tonight.”
“What plans?”
“Rescuing No. 71.”
Outside the window, there was a small alley.
During the day, people came and went through it.
At night, it was a different kind of lively.
The ground, already littered with trash, now had a few extra human-shaped pieces of trash lying around, each one beaten black and blue, groaning in pain.
Fei Chaichai retracted her right foot, which had just delivered the final flying kick, blew at her messy bangs, picked up the wallet from the ground, and walked over to No. 71, who had been extorted by the thugs, returning it to him with flair.
“Th-thanks.” No. 71 was still processing the fact that he’d just been saved by a heroine.
Fei Chaichai didn’t stand on ceremony, cutting straight to the chase: “No worries, no worries. Just let me touch you once.”
The overly casual tone caught No. 71 off guard. “Huh?”
“I mean,” Fei Chaichai thought he hadn’t understood, so she spread her ten fingers and clawed at the air, combining action with words to demonstrate vividly, “a touch.”
“…”
Well then.
The robber was gone, but now a molester had arrived!
No. 71 snapped awake instantly, tossing the wallet along with a “Pretend that never happened” to Fei Chaichai before turning and bolting.
“Hey, 7… junior!” Fei Chaichai knew well that being misunderstood was her fate, so she chased after him while explaining loudly, “Don’t be scared! I just want to touch! I won’t do anything else!”
No. 71 said nothing, only quickening his pace and turning into another alley.
Fei Chaichai followed closely, turning in after him, but a distant cry of “Boss” from behind pulled her attention from the end of the alley back to a few meters away.
In the cramped, cluttered alley, night had fully descended.
The only intact streetlamp flickered like a star, its brightness no stronger than a lighter’s flame.
That lighter was held in a man’s hand.
The flame wavered, faintly illuminating half his face as he lowered his head to light a cigarette, along with the tattoo that rooted behind his ear and scattered sparsely down the side of his neck.
Fei Chaichai: “…”
What a bunch of thugs with no honor—they’d actually arranged for their boss to ambush her here!
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Sure, she’d just single-handedly taken down a group of delinquent teenagers, but delinquent “teens” and a “man”… those probably weren’t in the same weight class, right?
Fei Chaichai never fought a battle she wasn’t sure she could win, so she decided to retreat first.
But she was too late.
The man had already heard the commotion. Biting the unlit cigarette, he glanced up at her.
At that moment, the streetlamp seemed to hold its breath, suddenly steadying.
Yet the night remained thick and heavy.
Under the dim yellow light, the man leaned against a utility pole. His cold, pale skin couldn’t be suppressed even by his all-black attire, making his eyes appear even darker and colder.
Just like the lighter in his hand—icy, dangerous, and full of aggression.
After two or three seconds of locked gazes, his thin lips still holding the cigarette suddenly tugged into a faint smirk.
The next instant, the streetlamp crackled and went out completely.
Darkness engulfed the surroundings.
But Fei Chaichai’s eyes went wide.
This face… was exactly the same as No. 108, the one she’d been desperately searching for?!