"This cafeteria is huge—the tables spread like a white plain, and even with teachers and staff, we’d never fill this field."

"It was built as a nobles-only academy, gold and jade in its bones; later they refit it for elites across the continent and widened it again—awoo."

"At Heavenly Melody Academy, each grade’s bells stagger like shifting seasons; seeing all three grades eat together is almost impossible, and they say it’s to keep the kitchen’s fire steady and the meals bright."

"I swear, Lan’er knows a lot—like an old willow that rustles secrets."

"I’ve got a cousin who studied here—she left footprints on these steps."

"By the way… Tangxue, how many plates of dessert did you eat?" Lan’er eyed the plates stacked into a little mountain beside me, voice trembling like a reed.

"Only ten plates!" I threw it out like a drumbeat under a bright sky.

"It’s ten plates of food in total, right… A single delicate dessert usually claims an entire plate, but each plate could hold four or five small sweets," Qianya’s voice drifted over like mist across water.

"I can eat, so what! Hmph!" I puffed up like a small cat fluffing its tail.

Qianya’s eyes flicked to my chest like a sparrow’s glance, then she murmured, "It’s fine. I think ordering in rounds is nice," soft as rain on tiles.

"Mm-hmm, yeah," I let the words fall like warm tea.

"Hey… you two…" a voice nudged in, thin as a breeze at the eaves.

…

"Thirty in total? Honestly, why not admit fewer…" Xuewei sprawled over the desk like a lazy cat in sun, sighing like wind through reeds. "What’s the point of that many—half can’t even pass my special entrance exam… And this year they forced me to be homeroom teacher. Too much."

"If these brats dare make me angry, I won’t mind letting them taste the world’s cold currents."

"Right, isn’t the army heading to deal with those Goblins near the cliffside village? Maybe…" Her words trailed off like a blade’s shadow at a cliff edge.

…

"Looks like you all managed to gather in the teaching district on time—good. I didn’t even tell you where it was, yet you still found it," Xuewei stood before the first-years’ building, face calm as ice, while the lines of students stood straight like spears planted in soil.

"Today you barely pass. Tomorrow you’ll have an entrance exam—heh. If you fail, your quality of life will dip, like winter slipping into your room."

"Top scorers get to choose their dorms freely—that’s tradition. And I’m adding one rule: if you fail this, pay for all three meals yourself. I’ll inform the school. Oh, and the academy’s ingredients are first-class jade grain; without parental coin, your wallets are empty gourds."

"One last thing: gather here after lunch tomorrow—when the sun beats like a drum."

Xuewei’s gaze swept them, frost over stone; some faces stayed flat like masks, some tight like knotted ropes, many wore indifference or a thin sneer like dry leaves, and only a few showed fear like shadows at dusk.

Then her single glare dropped like a predator’s stare from primordial night, and everyone’s guts knotted, blood stumbling hot and cold.

Anyone who truly knows Kerlinveil Xuewei never takes her words lightly; she hides a knife under silk, and then cuts deeper than promised. Will failure this time just lower dorm and meal standards? No—with her hand on the lever, forced expulsion isn’t off the table. Check the academy’s records, the rings of its years: every class she leads graduates few; forty percent counts as high. Yet the ones she forges leave like honed blades, ranking a head above their peers, courted by nations like prized falcons.

Xuewei turned and slipped into the building like a shadow behind a screen. Only after she vanished did the students exhale like bellows and start buzzing like summer cicadas.

"So scary—her aura pressed down like a boulder. I could barely breathe!"

"She’s quasi-divine, her name rolling like thunder; folks say she ranks top five on the whole continent…"

"Stop measuring her power and think about tomorrow. I heard from her grads—Xuewei’s moods shift like the monsoon; never take her words at face value."

"Tell me about it. They say she used to be gentle as spring, but after her brother left, she turned into dry winter…"

A male classmate clapped a hand over that motor mouth like a lid on a boiling pot. "You got a death wish? Talking about that behind Xuewei’s back? Aren’t you scared she’ll toss you into the sea to feed fish tomorrow?"

"Feed you? Fish don’t eat that…" A stray whisper flitted like a silver scale in water; with my sharp hearing, I always catch odd things, like that one.

Xuewei… did her temperament shift that much? My heart tightened like a knotted string. Was it because of me?

"Tangxue, what’s wrong? Are you worried about tomorrow’s exam too? Your face looks like a raincloud."

"It’s not that… Forget it. Lan’er, let’s head back," I breathed out like mist.

"This kind of exam’s no big deal. Just work like a straight road, and Xuewei won’t pick on you."

"Yeah… let’s go to the dorm. Qianya’s room is still a messy little nest."

"…I’d have forgotten if you hadn’t said it," she sighed, a leaf drifting down.

A prickle crawled under my skin, and I tugged Lan’er and Qianya away, slipping out like we’d escaped a swarm of gnats.

"Sister System, what do you think?" I sent the thought like a pebble into a quiet pond.

"[So-so. She’ll be stricter, but she won’t pick on people. With your current strength, you’re above most of the class; you should stay.]" The reply hummed like static under silk.

"I’m not talking about that. I probed a strange rumor—Xuewei had a brother who died. But when I first saw her, it felt off. She’s not the type to sand down scars by keeping busy; she feels like someone waiting at a window, a candle steady in the night."

"[…Kiddo, you’re oddly gifted at reading people—like seeing veins beneath jade.]"

"Heh, I was just kidding. My classmates used to call me a little romance saint!" I grinned, breeze through bamboo.

"[Pfft, you? A virgin whose system hard-crashes at a cute girl?]"

"That was an accident, an accident!" I barked a laugh, like tripping over a loose stone and hopping on.