The school was still the school, but sirens howled like wolves and machines skimmed the sky like hawks on patrol.

A thin barrier lay over the grounds like morning frost, a barely seen film sealing everything in.

Ouyang stood on a rooftop like a lost scarecrow, his gaze pinned to a slate-gray horizon.

Here… a school? Memory tangled like seaweed; below, the soccer field, basketball courts, and library spread like a paper map.

Fact sat in the gut like a stone in water: it was a school.

His memories churned like mud; he didn’t know why he was here or what shoved him onto this roof.

This school felt wrong; the layout and facades were faces of strangers, not the campus near the orphanage.

Ouyang grew up in an orphanage like a small tree behind a wall; the principal had traded promises for tuition.

Kids from the orphanage could study free at that school, a warm lamp in their long winter.

To Ouyang, school and orphanage were two hands cupping his world; yet this place smelled like rain on alien stone.

Yesterday blurred like fog, last week smeared like charcoal; last month drifted away like leaves in a stream.

Why stand in a strange school, and what had he done in that vanished stretch?

Fear rose first like cold water to the chest; his heart fluttered like a trapped sparrow.

He was shy by nature, a head-down reed before strangers, trembling at voices that blew like wind.

In class and in the orphanage, he bent like grass; how could such a child stay calm here?

A meow cut the panic like a pebble rippling a pond.

A white cat spoke human words, walking upright like a tiny drunk swordsman; the sight struck Ouyang dumb.

“Hah? You gone soft in the head? We said I’d weave the barrier like a net, and you’d turn the school into fireworks.”

“Blow… blow the school—the question tumbled out like loose bricks.”

“Yeah, kid, your backpack’s stuffed with explosives like bricks of cold butter.”

Ouyang yanked the pack down like a lifeline, flipped it open, and found neatly wrapped blocks stamped TNT.

“TNT… the word flashed like lightning.”

Realizing what TNT meant, his fingers slipped like wet fish; a yellow brick thunked onto the floor.

He jammed his head between his knees like a turtle and covered his ears, waiting for the sun to end.

Seconds crawled past like ants; nothing blew.

“No explosion… the silence felt like rain after drought.”

He let out a breath like steam from a kettle, alive by a hair.

White Cat blinked like a puzzled owl; one ward later, what was that big Demon King up to now?

Had he sunk too deep into his play; the thought slid in like a knife.

Unhappy, White Cat said, “Ouyang, Demon King, what’re you doing; time’s burning, and you’re still lost in your self-directed drama?”

“Ouyang, Demon King?” Ouyang stared blankly like a cow at thunder; the talking cat called him Demon King.

What kind of joke was that; a shout could rattle him like a tin can.

At the orphanage, little tyrants often dragged him to ‘discuss life’ like wolves sharing a bone.

Even girls in his class made him do chores like sweeping, taking out trash, and mopping, a mop for a spine.

Yet a full-fledged cat demon called him Demon King; the title felt like a crown of thorns.

“Did I… transmigrate?” The thought rose like a bubble; he glanced around like a thief.

He saw a car drifting through the air like a lazy whale and people jetting about on iron wings.

“Okay, I’m sure I transmigrated; survival rule one in a strange world—keep your head down like a turtle.”

Ouyang muttered like praying to charcoal embers; White Cat stared, wondering if the act was too good.

Was it really that he didn’t recognize White Cat; the doubt fluttered like a moth.

“Ouyang kid, I’ll tell you something; this cat is the master of the Other Shore, a name that should strike like thunder.”

“Ah—the cry popped like a cork.”

Seeing Ouyang’s empty stare like winter fields, White Cat knew trouble brewed like stormclouds.

Even if he played dumb, the Other Shore’s honor should’ve lit a fire; he stayed blank as snow.

On a normal day, he’d hit first, talk later, like summer thunder before rain.

Was this guy really Ouyang; the doubt coiled like smoke.

White Cat could swear it; that soul-scent was familiar as old fur, impossible to forge without killing ease.

If someone could mimic it, they could crush White Cat like an ant; no need to wear Ouyang’s face.

And that ‘idiot look’ was Ouyang’s alone, a crooked stamp on wet clay.

“Ouyang kid, you really don’t remember me? Tell me, what were you doing before this; how’d you end up here?”

White Cat peppered him with questions like hail; Ouyang clutched his head and kept saying he didn’t know.

At last White Cat gave up like a sigh; every answer was mist.

He didn’t know the Other Shore’s roots or the gods behind it; to White Cat, ‘Earth’ was a blank map.

All he got were scraps of nonsense, leaves without branches; they spun like eddies.

“Forget it,” White Cat paced like a metronome across grass, “memory or not, first we blow this school.”

“Um… cat demon, why are we blowing the school; the question crept out like a mouse.”

“Why? Honestly, I don’t know, meow; you yelled about it before, so you must’ve had a reason carved like stone.”

“You lost your memories, but we’ll stick to your battle plan like a river to its banks.”

For a beat, White Cat looked almost cool, like a tiny hero; give him shades and he’d slay.

Ouyang crouched in the corner like a folded knife; he wanted to say he wasn’t that Demon King.

He’d mentioned Earth, and the cat looked blank as a cloud; that meant he wasn’t the cat’s Ouyang.

He was just a traveler from Earth washed ashore here like driftwood.

But the cat left no room; it snatched a yellow charge and leaped from the sixth floor like a comet.

“Cat demon, don’t do anything stupid!” The plea flew like a paper crane.

Reflex spoke first, then sense followed like a late shadow; this wasn’t his world.

That wasn’t a harmless pet; that was a wild cat demon with teeth like knives.

Ten minutes later, on the soccer field, White Cat and Ouyang crouched by the grass, staring at the explosives.

“No good, kid; this is too little, and the school’s a whale, not a shack.”

“Got any trick, kid; this stash is a puddle, and the school’s an ocean—how do we make it count?”

White Cat fretted, tail twitching like a metronome; enough to level a shed, not a campus.

For his own little life, Ouyang thought hard, sweat cool as rain.

He didn’t want to be a school-bombing terrorist, but refusing might get him eaten like a dumpling.

For this dog life, blow it then; besides, the campus felt empty as a husk.

“I’m a man carrying a Killing Book; I must guard my dog life and save my comeback for later.”

Ouyang muttered by himself like a cricket; White Cat plotted how to use every stick, missing the whisper.

Even if it heard, it wouldn’t grasp the meaning; the words would slide off like rain on oil.

While man and cat weighed TNT like pebbles, a boom rolled across the sky like thunder.

Ouyang looked up; shells hammered the school’s thin membrane, then blossomed into fire like cruel flowers.

“Got any ideas, kid? Those bastards are already shelling the barrier; the ward I wove won’t hold long.”

White Cat’s words cracked like a whip over Ouyang’s back; urgency burned like salt.

The cat was eerie, but it hadn’t tried to harm him; once the barrier fell, the barrage would grind them to ash.

“A way… the word stirred like a fish under ice.”

Suddenly, memory flickered like a match.

“Cat demon, maybe ‘blowing the school’ just means stopping class; to stop class, we blow the teaching blocks.”

“No classrooms, no lessons; goal achieved like snapping chalk.”

White Cat sprawled on the grass, thinking with ears flat like leaves; it only half understood.

Still, it felt right in the gut like ripe fruit; let’s go, kid, we blow the teaching building.

Man and cat headed for the block like raiders; Ouyang carried the pack heavy as wet sand.

“Um… Director Grandpa, I’m going to blow a school; the words tasted like ash, and I’m becoming the bad guy.”