Nana Toki: “…Seriously? I wasn’t even planning to spill what you did to Wenquan, and you still jumped to bite me first like stray dogs snapping at a shadow.”

She stared, speechless, at the four dimwit girls, four headless sparrows flapping in a box. Then she forced her head to turn, her voice drifting like mist, and told Class Four’s homeroom teacher, “How about you let Wenquan tell us what she did yesterday afternoon.”

She had nothing left to say; she’d meant to let it slide because they stood on the same villain side, a night tide covering tracks. But with this mess, her leniency was wasted; cannon-fodder villains had fogged minds, their IQ shedding like autumn leaves even when their target wasn’t the male or female lead.

“Then… Wenquan, tell the teacher—after school yesterday, did Lu Qiqi call you to the restroom and did anything happen?” The Class Two homeroom teacher, Teacher Jiang, was twenty-five or twenty-six, features clean as carved jade, glasses shining like a thin lake, the gentle-scholar type you see in dramas—popular in the school’s flock of girls.

He had a headache, a knot tightening like winter twine; he didn’t believe his own students would use campus violence to bully someone from another class, but since other students came with grievances like wind-blown leaves, he had to investigate, lantern raised in the dusk.

Wenquan, however, refused like a locked gate under frost. Her face was the same as yesterday, calm as still water and miles away, and both homeroom teachers were helpless at this glacier wall; no matter how they spoke, no matter how their words tried to warm like tea, she wouldn’t open her mouth.

They dragged it out until the break bell was about to ring like a cold chime; then both teachers, resigned clouds in their eyes, led their students back to their classes.

“Lu Qiqi! Don’t get cocky yet.” As they left the office, He Jiawen brushed past Nana Toki, her voice a cold blade under rain. “Don’t think yesterday’s restroom shots make you untouchable. If I remember right, your angle couldn’t even catch Wenquan. We’ll see.”

“…”

Nana Toki stood at her classroom door and watched He Jiawen’s group recede like dark birds into the corridor’s tunnel, her face lit by a thoughtful ember. These idiots didn’t get their pound of flesh from her this morning; that storm would likely roll back to douse Wenquan.

She hadn’t lived through this, but slipped into their shoes like stepping into muddy prints; seven parts of the shape felt clear.

Help her? Or sit tight, watch the clouds move, and hold the line?

She stayed calm not because she liked watching wolves circle Wenquan, but because she feared her step into the ring would throw oil on the fire, pain flaring like grass tinder. She was human, not a god, no way to guard twenty-four hours, no gaps, no sleep; they weren’t even in the same class, and comings and goings tangled like vines.

If she charged in now, Wenquan’s days might get harder, ice thickening over thin branches—unless she could solve it at the root in one cut, a clean spring from a clogged well. But she didn’t even know why Wenquan was being bullied; how could she fish out all the culprits roosting at Nesting Phoenix?

“Tsk… If I want to cure this rot, I need to find a time and talk heart-to-heart.” She glanced at her task interface, the numbers cold as stars; Wenquan’s favorability was still zero, and Nana Toki dropped a stone of resolve into her chest, ripples steadying.

When the afternoon dismissal bell fluttered like sparrows, Nana sent Song Qingtian home alone and rose at once, wind in her steps, heading for Wenquan’s class. Unlucky: Wenquan wasn’t there. The few students left said she’d slipped out with He Jiawen’s group minutes earlier, like leaves pulled by a stream.

Nana had expected that old shadow. She combed every corner of the school, inside and out, like a fox threading bramble; finally she found Wenquan locked inside a long-abandoned stadium storeroom, a rusted jaw around a lost peach.

These kids were cunning, moving like rats when the restroom turned unsafe; they shifted the battlefield without a whisper, costing her precious light. With a brick, Nana smashed the window, glass snow scattering, then swung in through the gap like a cat over a wall.

Kids this year really love hide-and-seek, foxes dodging lanterns.

Wenquan sat alone in the storeroom’s corner, knees hugged tight, quiet as a mannequin left in a dusty theater; from a distance, you’d swear she was something the school forgot, a silhouette under cobwebs.

Her hair hung wet like rain grass; a spreading patch of water glistened nearby like a shallow puddle. The stench told its tale: someone had dumped filthy bucket water over her again, cold claws to the spine. Nana wondered why bullying tropes aimed at girls always defaulted to hair-pulling, dirty water, and stolen photos; couldn’t villains choose raw-body pain without the sleaze, steel over sludge?

System: “…From a certain angle, host, that thought walks a thin cliff.”

Wenquan knew who had arrived; she’d seen Nana’s brick pop the glass, a bright crack in dim light, and the neat vault over the sill like a shadow crossing the moon. But curiosity stirred, a moth fluttering toward the candle: why would a girl who didn’t know her keep coming, even climb a wall for it? If she came just to gawk at misery, that was commitment bordering on madness.

“Ah… They soaked your clothes again? Figures. Here, change into a new one.” Like yesterday, the woman moved naturally, pulling a fresh, dry uniform from behind her back, a white fold like clean paper. Wenquan said nothing, her gaze resting on the coat, wondering why this woman carried a small wardrobe like a traveling sparrow.

And yesterday—there had been a fruit knife too, a gleam like caught moon.

“What, you planning to spend the night in drenched clothes?” Nana’s eyes curved, a smile like spring sun behind thin cloud, warm with kindness and—faint, blurry—something like love, mist in the valley.

“Why?” The word scraped her throat, hoarse as an old hinge; the effort weighed heavy, like lifting a pail from a deep well.

“Uh… why… Even if you ask me now, I don’t know how to say it.” She scratched her head, sheepish as a cat smoothing whiskers. “Maybe because I kinda like you,” a small flame against winter glass.

“…”

She was a strange woman. Wenquan’s dark eyes rippled, a pond touched by wind; her arms tightened around her knees, and she tucked her head down, a curled leaf. This woman wasn’t closing in for power or pity, but for liking?

No one had ever said that to her—a line never offered like lantern light—but warmth rose anyway, tea cradled in cold hands.

“You’re not someone nobody likes. I just got here late.” A gentle touch fell on her head, a palm soft as rain; Wenquan felt a sour ache bloom, emotions unboxed in one spill—joy, sorrow, hurt—all stirred together like tides folding under a moon.

She thought she’d grown used to pain and sneers, calluses like bark; yet the moment she felt love laid bare like sunlight, the scab cracked and the old ache pulsed, a child’s wronged heart.

“It sounds grand, sure, but no matter how harsh the world gets, I’ll take your side without conditions. So—can we talk?” An umbrella opened in a storm.

…

Nana Toki thought her earth-shaking move would jump Wenquan’s favorability like a spring flood, but the next morning she opened the task panel and stared: only five percent, a pale sliver of moon.

Five percent! Not fifteen—just five, a sparrow feather.

Her mood crumpled like paper under rain. She felt their distance shorten, a bridge laid plank by plank—so why only a pebble’s worth of change?

“Uh… Maybe some hidden metrics didn’t tick,” the System popped up like a cold notification bubble. “This plane is special. Even if you unlock all her favorability in an instant, if certain heart-knots aren’t loosened, that extra favorability won’t be counted toward your tally.”

Nana Toki: “…So I spent yesterday burning daylight for nothing?”

“Emmm, not nothing,” the System hummed like a wire. “Per our host criteria, five percent is enough to unlock your daily conversation tier, a small door in a wall.”

“Then let me ask bluntly—what am I in Wenquan’s heart right now?”

“Uh… a weird, blue-flag ‘nice person’?” the System answered, a question mark dangling like a leaf.

“…Why the question mark? And what on earth is a blue-flag nice person?” Her exasperation rose like steam.

She hadn’t made her fall in love with that one speech?

Of course not.

System: “…Not sure what you misunderstood, host, but why would Wenquan fall for you just because you climbed a wall, handed over two uniforms, and delivered a head-pat loaded with mixed motivational soup?” It crackled with dry thunder.

Just on the strength of the hundred-plus billion reputation points you still owe me?

Nana Toki: “…You don’t have to be that sarcastic, you know.”