In the next heartbeat, bright sunlight wrapped him in a warm embrace.

To Ye Weibai’s surprise, the moment he stepped into the senior-year White Building, the drifting gray motes in the air thinned like ash in rain, and a clear campus scene unfolded like a fresh-washed scroll.

In his [Demon King] state, Ye Weibai could hear it all with cruel clarity: sonorous reading rising from the upper floors like bells, chairs rasping the floor like dry leaves, pen nibs whispering against paper like insects in grass.

Sunlight poured in from behind him, flooding the foyer like molten gold. Railings cast crisp silhouettes upon the stairs, pale gleam on pale stone, while portraits of Newton and Einstein shone like stars rubbed bright by time. It was all so beautiful it almost rang.

But when Ye Weibai looked back, he saw only darkness, thick as ink spilled across the page.

The main doors were swallowed by fog, as if the exit had been erased by a careless hand.

The black-haired boy cupped that source-less light like water from a spring. Noon sun should’ve been warm as a palm, yet his fingertips felt like ice on glass.

“So fake it makes me sick,” Ye Weibai said, calm as a knife on a quiet table.

In this blooming tableau of flowers, he smelled only heavy blood, thick as rusted rain.

It wasn’t a metaphor. It was blood for real—the reek of red liquid surging from veins, pooling across the floor, iron turned sour like rot in the heat.

Boom—

Black hair snapped up like blades in wind. The black particles of the [Demon King]’s power kindled in Ye Weibai’s right pupil like cold sparks. To save strength, he opened only a fraction of the [Demon King] state, enough to lance through this painted lie.

His left eye stayed ordinary. Black flame bloomed in his right eye like ink catching fire, and “reality” unfurled in his sight like a torn curtain, with red sludge flowing at the bottom of his right iris like a sluggish river.

Blood and mud. The marble floor was crusted with thick, dark-red scabs, and red crawled down the stairs like a bruised tide, whispering a chill message—this blood might have poured like a waterfall from the rooftop, down the steps, staining the entire white building from crown to heel.

The normal world in his [Demon King] left eye and the blood-red world in his right eye braided and bucked, interlacing like oil and water that refused to mix, creating a grotesque sense of peeling layers. Ye Weibai felt himself unmoored from this time node, off this world-line, caught in a seam between two different worlds like a leaf trapped between two panes of glass.

That feeling hardened into truth when the black-haired boy took a single step forward, foot landing like a stone dropped in a still pond.

Whoosh—

A channel-surfing hiss scratched his ear like static.

For a blink the picture went black, then the world in his left eye flared bright, drowning the blood-red glow like day chasing out dawn.

Weightlessness hugged his whole body, soft as a deep sea.

...

...

“This feeling.”

When Ye Weibai opened his eyes, he found himself plummeting through a void woven from a thousand cerulean threads, falling fast like a star cut loose.

All around was silent—no wind, no voice—only stray flashes skimming past his sides like fish slipping through current, reminding him he was still dropping.

“What are those? And how long do I fall?” His thoughts floated like reeds, thin and taut.

Ye Weibai looked down into the depths. There was no bottom, only a blue that went on like winter sky. Then something tugged at his mind—a stuttering voice brushed his ear like a far bell.

“Bai... hurry...”

It was Lina’s voice, thinned by distance, as if carried from another [World] like a message in a bottle.

Ye Weibai moved on instinct. He threw himself into a shard of light that just skimmed past, like diving into a passing wave.

The next instant, he understood: those flashing bits were fragments of the white [World], scattered like glass across the dark.

Which slice of [World] did I just enter?

...

...

Fluorescent tubes blazed overhead like frost. The ceiling fan clattered like a loose wheel, stirring test papers into a restless rustle. Night breeze slid through the window, cool as water, lifting the hair of students bent over their exams. In that soft gust, short hair fluttered like grass, and Ye Weibai opened his eyes.

In a blink, he knew where he was: a classroom during night study hall, lamps bright as noon.

In the very next blink, he knew he wasn’t in his own body. He was in hers, like a shadow wearing another shadow.

Ye Weibai looked down at the slight swell of a chest, the curve not quite hidden by a loose uniform, the green-edged lines that belong to a young girl like spring branches.

Even Ye Weibai needed a heartbeat, then thirty, to steady himself, breath pooling like water in a bowl. He’d braced for worst cases—dropping into a highway and a heavy truck bearing down, or plunging straight into the open sea.

He hadn’t expected possession—to step into a girl’s body, soul-first, like crossing a thin membrane.

He didn’t know why he’d gone from a senior building thick with Misfortune particles, into that blue void, then here, into this [World] like a tossed seed.

But either way, the good news was simple: this time he’d dropped onto an actual battlefield, solid as dirt.

“Then who am I?”

Ye Weibai lowered his head and found a workbook, flipped the cover like lifting a veil, when voices brushed his ear like chalk dust.

“Again.”

“So who’s he even looking for?”

“No idea. Must be Zhiyao.”

“Guess so. Lots of boys sneak peeks in the daytime. But coming every night? That’s some stamina.”

“Yeah. Every night, and he plays it like he’s just passing by. Pfft—who ‘passes by’ three times in a row? Kinda cute.”

“Eh? You into that type?”

“I wouldn’t dare compete with the campus beauty Suzhi—Zhiyao. Right?”

Ye Weibai felt a bump on the shoulder, a light tap like a pebble on a window. The girl beside him smiled and called the name as if tossing a pebble into a pond.

“Zhiyao.”

Zhiyao... Suzhiyao—Suzhiaoyao?!

Ye Weibai’s body jolted, a thousand threads of information rushing his mind like floodwater through a gate. Something flashed—then the shock was swallowed by what happened next.

He—or rather she—this body began to change before the naked eye, petals opening on fast-forward.

First the hair lengthened, growing from an ear-brushing cut to shoulder length, enough for a clean ponytail like a black ribbon. The body turned more slender, lines smoothing like water over stone. The skin paled to porcelain, cool and fine, and even without touching he could feel the bones of the face shifting toward the memory he carried of Suzhiaoyao, like a portrait resolving.

Ye Weibai flipped the half-open notebook. The name on it blurred like ink in rain, then cleared, then set into three characters—Suzhiaoyao.

The handwriting was neat, with a hint of edge, like a blade wrapped in silk.

The original name had vanished completely, like a word erased and the paper pressed smooth.

Not just that. The text on other tests and notebooks changed in a rush, one hand turning into another, like a school of fish switching direction in a blink.

“This is—” A thought crossed Ye Weibai’s mind like lightning behind cloud.

His deskmate seemed blind to the miracle, only noticing that Zhiyao wasn’t answering. She laughed, voice light as wind. “Eh? Zhiyao, don’t tell me you actually caught feelings?”

Ye Weibai returned to himself, calm settling like dust.

He understood now—clear as ink on snow.

Why he’d told Lina before that the most bizarre, the most discordant, wasn’t Zhaomingming. Because everyone else—Zhaomingming, Mu Xiaowei, and the rest—no matter how strange their paths, could be explained, could be understood like knots that still untie.

Only Suzhiaoyao... dropped into the plot for no reason, neither past nor future, like a figure conjured out of thin air. Even a heaven-sent love interest doesn’t love or hate without cause. That’s not how a living world breathes.

It’s not like we’re writing a novel.

So... it really is like this.

He breathed out, a thin thread of air. His fine brows arched on their own, and in those clear, slightly sharp phoenix eyes, light rippled like a blade catching sun. He let two syllables fall, cool as rain.

“Boring.”