Nana Toki surfaced in a sea of black, like a diver breaking water in a moonless cove.

As her mind bobbed up, pain slammed into her like a riptide, ripping through her body like nets biting skin.

The shock stole her breath like winter air knifing into her lungs.

It felt like a truck had launched her skyward, then the earth rose like an anvil and tried to scatter her bones like dice.

Crack, crack—the sound skittered like ice splitting on a frozen pond.

Silence pooled around her like fog over an empty graveyard.

Strength had leaked away, leaving her heavy as wet sand.

She pried her lids open like rusted shutters and let her gaze crawl like a snail across the dark.

An old amber bulb hung in front of her, flickering like a moth-eaten candle, as if some secret rite was still smoldering.

Around her, overturned dumpsters sprawled like fallen drums, their rot strewn like seaweed, the air reeking with a sour, stomach-turning stench.

By her ear, something buzzed—fly or mosquito—circling like a tiny saw that wouldn’t quit.

Irritation simmered under her skin like steam trapped under a lid.

Did someone smash my arms and legs and dump me like a dead stray in a ditch?

She tried to rise, like a fish thrashing at a net.

The instant she moved, pain tore through her limbs like cloth raked over nails.

The bone-deep throb dimmed her vision like curtains dropping on a stage.

She gave in, back to the clammy wall, slumping into the trash like a leaf sinking into muck, waiting for whatever tide would take her.

Nana Toki: "..."

I just got on stage and they cue the funeral band already?

What kind of sick carnival is this?

I’m out—cards on the table, game rigged.

Could you be any more deranged, like wolves starved in a drought?

System: "..."

The iron tang of blood laced the stink like a rusty wire.

She grew certain this body had been beaten to kill, like a drum pounded until the skin split.

No mercy here, just frost on a nameless grave.

If she hadn’t dropped into this shell, the corpse would be cold as river stone by now.

System: "..."

Host, maybe stop thinking like that and try not dying first, okay?

Then you come save me, why don’t you, like a lifeguard with a rope?

She slouched against the wall like a lazy stray cat, all bluff and no claws.

Can’t you see I’m pinned here like a bug on velvet?

She even twisted theatrically, a puppet tugging a frayed string, for no audience at all.

System: "..."

What are you waiting for, dew to turn into wine?

System: "..."

Uh, objectively, I can’t directly assist a host—like wind, I can’t hold a hand.

Huh?

Then what good are you? I request a refund—have your master ship me a new System, like swapping a busted kettle.

System: "..."

Please refrain from such rude requests.

Tch. Budget System, thin as cabbage leaves.

Anyway, let’s spool the plot, like tuning a radio in a thunderstorm.

She leaned on the wall and let the world’s script flood in like ink across paper.

It was a school romance, the kind written like a sugar-coated scroll.

The heroine, Chen Yiyi, transferred back from overseas by some crossed wires and landed at Tinglan High, the school with the lowest college-acceptance rate, like a crane in a flock of crows.

There she met the campus delinquent king, the male lead, Chongming Yan, a knife wrapped in leather.

Nana hadn’t caught every scene, but the outline stood like bones under skin.

The heroine would be that classic top-student, silly-sweet type, a sugar cube tossed into a vat of black coffee.

New to campus, she’d poke at the delinquents like a kitten swatting at tigers, and spark their scorn like flint to tinder.

Pranked and pushed, she’d still cling to the good-girl halo like ivy to a wall.

She’d say syrupy things like, “I’m going to save you,” words sticky as honey in summer.

That would catch the Protagonist Lord’s eye, like a moth finding a lantern.

Then came the daily loop: silly-sweet antics courting death, each stunt like a pebble plinking into a well of goodwill.

Of course, in any delinquent-male-lead story, the Protagonist Lord would have one iron rule carved like a seal: I don’t hit girls.

With that rule set like a gate, no matter how the heroine jumped like a firecracker, the male lead could only grit his teeth like a dog on a short chain.

At most he’d simmer, then...

Favorability +1, like a counter ticking in neon.

Favorability +1, like rain filling a cup.

Favorability +1, like dawn creeping over eaves.

Others would try to interfere, but the Protagonist Lord would snort, “A woman like that? Not worth your time,” words cold as a blade returning to its sheath.

After love-hate tangles with the second male lead, they’d end up braided together, rising into a famous university like a pair of swans on a clear lake.

They’d become a legend at Tinglan High, a story told like incense smoke at dusk.

But in such school romances, second females bloom like night flowers—you can’t run out of them.

The original, Suo Sen, was one of those supporting girls, a bright knife in the rack.

She liked the male lead and served as the big sister of Tinglan High, a banner flapping over the courtyard.

Before the heroine transferred in, everyone said she was the only girl who matched him, like flint to steel.

She was loyal and fierce, a person of honor, drinking and brawling like thunder rolling over a ridge.

The delinquents adored her; her popularity rose like kites in spring wind.

She was also one of the male lead’s closest confidants, a shadow at his shoulder.

Big events saw her at his side like a right hand; when fights sparked with other schools, she was first to the scene like lightning finding a tree.

It was the classic high-popularity loyal-dog setting, a collar with a hero’s tag.

Unfortunately, fame met the heroine’s halo like wax meets flame.

When the heroine arrived, Suo Sen’s popularity fell like leaves in late autumn.

The heroine’s silly-sweet kindness, beside Suo Sen’s swaggering grit, was a mudslide through a canyon of rough men and women, shocking and new.

The crowd shifted camps like birds to a new tree, voices rising for the heroine.

The heroine scooped up all Suo Sen’s fans like a tide stripping a beach bare.

If that were all, Suo Sen wouldn’t be here half-dead, sinking in this trash like a star in ash.

The key blow was this:

During a secret move planned by the male lead, the heroine accidentally leaked it to a rival school gang, and the male lead’s power took heavy losses, like a ship losing masts in a storm.

To keep the male lead’s favor from dropping, the heroine shoved the blame onto Suo Sen, tossing the hot coal into her hands.

Wait—why would the heroine dump the blame on Suo Sen?

Aren’t heroines supposed to be silly and sweet, like rabbits in dew?

Ah… because of world-collapse faults, both leads have cracks in their settings, like glaze crazed by sudden cold. Don’t mind it, Host.

The System’s tone softened like cloth in warm water.

"..."

Suo Sen was an orphan, raised in an orphanage—no close bonds except the male lead, like a lone tree on a plain.

She was the perfect scapegoat, a goat led by a rope no one saw.

Branded a traitor, she became a target, curses raining like stones in a marketplace.

Old brothers spat words like knives.

Old sisters dragged her by the hair and doused her with filth, water and rumor mixing like mud.

They spread filthy tales out of thin air, saying she sold herself on compensated dates, gossip buzzing like flies over a wound.

Behind her back they called her a sow, words thick as sludge.

The male lead’s goodwill dropped like a cliff-edge, turning to disgust like milk gone sour.

The heroine crushed Suo Sen’s life piece by piece, like heels grinding a rose into brick dust.

Today was the end of that road.

The heroine’s fan club lured her to a bar, poured alcohol down her like rain into a gutter, then dosed her with drugs like poison petals in tea.

They dragged her to the hotel’s back-lot trash yard and beat her to death, fists falling like hail on a field.

“Tragic,” Nana murmured, the word drifting like ash.

Plot received, she sighed for the kid, a life tossed around like a shuttlecock.

System: "Host, don’t act like it’s none of your business—this is your first half of life now!"

Bull.

If my first half looked like this, I’d have no face left to show the sun.

Her heart bristled like quills on a cornered porcupine.

She lived strength-first—be kind and you’re kindling, a truth etched like scars.

If she had to suffer, she’d make the world suffer with her, fire for fire.

System: "..."

What a delightful maniac, like a spark in a powder room.

All right, script loaded like a cartridge.

Time to move my body, like oil waking in a lamp.

She tried to stand again, a spring straining to uncoil.

Tsss—

Pain slapped her down, ten times worse than period cramps, like hooks dragging under skin.

Nana Toki: "..."

System, if you keep this up, I’ll bite my tongue and clock out—no point in bleeding for free.

System: "..."

Okay, okay, stop the drama. I’ll patch you up.

Even a System knew bones can’t walk when they’re snapped like twigs.

A warm current wrapped her limbs like sunlight under water, soaking the ache until it loosened like thawing ice.

That’s more like it—a System acting like a System, not a weathervane.

“Complete the mission properly, or you’ll never go back to your original world,” the System said, voice ringing like a bell.

“The original’s wish is to finish three years of high school and get into college.”

Got it, got it—nag like a kettle, don’t you.

Standing amid the trash, Nana stretched like a cat along a sunbeam.

A delinquent dreaming of college—what a twisty vine. Tsk, what’s that smell? It’s rank, like a sewer in summer.

Only then did she fully clock the trash yard, a pit of stink that clung like smoke to cloth.

The sour-bloody reek felt like it would seep into her pores and plant roots.

She brushed the grit from her hair, flicking off trash like husks, then took her long legs and left the hotel’s reeking yard at a clip.

Hey! Host, where are you going? The System’s voice chased like a kite string.

Home, obviously.

She dusted off her clothes as she walked out of the narrow alley, each step shedding grime like a snake molting.

Just thinking about her body dumped in that trash made goosebumps ripple like scales.

Too gross, like slime on a river rock.

System: "..."

Once on the main street, she drew eyes like a torch in the dark.

Hard not to, given the outfit riding this body like armor.

She didn’t care; not her style to flinch, like wind skimming a cliff.

Still, a high school girl in a black heavy-metal jacket looked like stormclouds over textbooks.

A choker and a collarbone chain hung like steel ivy.

Her wrists gleamed with studded bracelets, metal spikes catching light like teeth.

Fishnet stockings kissed her legs like dark nets, and black studded knee-high boots stomped like drums.

On a night-lit commercial street, anyone would tag her as a nightclub regular, a rebel cut from leather.

“What’re you staring at? Keep it up and I’ll gouge your eyes,” she snapped, making a plucking gesture like a hawk’s beak.

The gawker flinched and turtled his head like a spooked turtle.

Host, don’t stir hate flags, the System whispered, worry fluttering like a moth.

Tch. You think I’m scared, like a mouse before a cat?

Hands in pockets, she curved her mouth and glanced aside, eyes catching on a girl stepping out of a café like a lily from shade.

“What are you looking at?” Nana asked, her voice cutting the night like a clean blade.