A piercing, bone-deep pain...

The agony spread along his nerves and surged into the center of his brain. Every inch of his muscles began to spasm.

Su Yu clutched at his heart with his left hand. His fingers curled into a fist on instinct. A violent stabbing pain slammed into his nerves, twisting his face in torment.

“Hah... hah...”

Then the pain suddenly receded like a falling tide. Su Yu breathed heavily and pulled open his collar. There was nothing there. No wound, no blood. The only thing left was the image in his mind of a girl’s face, written all over with madness.

“Xia Qiange.”

Su Yu slowly breathed out a familiar name. He looked around. Nothing here was unfamiliar. Quite the opposite. He knew everything in this room. Every tiny decoration, every insignificant detail. He knew them all too well. From the day he was born until the year he graduated high school at eighteen, he had lived in this room.

The old secondhand phone his dad had left behind was in his hand right now. Su Yu pulled down the notification bar. The date on the screen was from his senior year of high school.

The year he created a miracle.

He had been reborn. Reborn into his senior year. Everything felt like a dream, but the truth was right there. He hadn’t died... he was alive again, starting from his final year of high school.

Wait... today was the fifth?

Su Yu’s heart skipped a beat. He closed the notification bar. The screen was still on a chat window. The contact name had only two characters: Qiange.

There was a very long message in the chat box. He had written it himself, not long ago. When the pain hit and he clenched his phone, he had accidentally sent it.

“Qiange, I’ve thought about this for a long time. Today, I want to tell you something very important. Actually, I’ve liked you for a long time. Ever since the first time I saw you. This definitely isn’t some momentary impulse. My love for you is like...”

A whole essay?

He wrote this?

Su Yu read the entire message. His bare toes curled hard against the floor, but even that couldn’t ease his urge to smash the phone on the spot. Had he really loved doing this kind of cringe stuff back then?

There was still a chance to fix it. Su Yu frantically pressed and held the message. But when the options popped up, that one option wasn’t there.

Recall.

Too much time had passed. He couldn’t take it back anymore.

That was right. He had been reborn. Half-dead and half-alive, reborn at the exact moment before he confessed to Xia Qiange.

This year, he was in senior year. Going by the timeline, he had secretly loved Xia Qiange for a full two years. And today was the day he confessed to her. It was his first confession. He was no longer willing to stay a nameless foot soldier. He had chosen to charge.

And Su Yu already knew the result. Xia Qiange rejected him. He failed.

He failed miserably.

So this time, the outcome probably wouldn’t change either. Xia Qiange would reject him. Then he’d refuse to give up, get into the same university as her, and chase after her for another full year. Only in freshman year would they truly end up together.

Still, this confession wasn’t completely meaningless. After Xia Qiange got together with him, she once told Su Yu that his confession back in senior year was the key reason she was willing to say yes later.

So if things followed the same timeline, even if he failed now, Su Yu could still win Xia Qiange’s favor again in college. They would get together. They would become boyfriend and girlfriend.

And then...

Repeat the same mistake.

Su Yu and Xia Qiange were just too different.

From high school onward, Xia Qiange had always been outstanding. She never stopped moving forward. She kept going farther and farther, so far that even when Su Yu gave it everything he had, all he could see was her back.

Su Yu, on the other hand, was the kind of person who went with the flow. He could push himself once for someone he liked. But he couldn’t spend his whole life chasing after Xia Qiange’s footsteps.

It was too exhausting.

He... couldn’t do it.

“Sorry, haha. I was just playing Truth or Dare with my classmates. I lost, so I had to confess to one of the girls in my contacts. I accidentally picked you.”

Su Yu’s fingertip hovered over the send button. He hesitated for a long time.

In the end, he still pressed it.

Then Su Yu slammed the phone down onto the desk. He was afraid... afraid he would regret it. This time, he was going to let her go with his own hands.

Ding-dong.

Su Yu turned his head. The doorbell rang.

He hurried to the door and pulled it open. The moment he saw the girl outside, he froze.

“Hey... what are you staring at? My parents told me to call you over for dinner.”

The girl looked a little uncomfortable under his gaze. She folded her arms and looked at him warily.

“He Muqing...”

“Hm? Why are you suddenly calling me by my full name? And what’s with that look? Did you take the wrong medicine today or something?” He Muqing’s pretty brows drew together. She reached out and touched Su Yu’s forehead. Her pale little hand was soft to the touch. “Did blasting the AC in the middle of summer give you a fever? Your college entrance exam is coming up.”

“I’m fine...” Su Yu instinctively grabbed the arm she had reached out with. “Seeing you... is really nice.”

“Su Yu, what are you doing?!” He Muqing jumped in shock. She yanked herself free at once, her eyes practically spitting fire.

“I know you’re under a lot of pressure because of the exam, but that doesn’t mean... doesn’t mean...” A blush rose on He Muqing’s face. Her voice got softer and softer, until it was almost a mumble. “It doesn’t mean you can act like a pervert.”

“No, I just...” Su Yu realized his behavior had crossed the line. He opened his mouth, trying to explain.

“Alright, alright. I won’t tell my mom. Just come eat already. If you don’t, the food’s going to get cold.”

He Muqing turned and went back. Her home was right upstairs from Su Yu’s.

Su Yu fell silent. He really had gotten a little too excited. He had been reborn, and He Muqing was the first familiar face from his past that he had met. The two of them were childhood friends. When he was one year old, He Muqing was born. She was a year younger than him.

Su Yu came from a single-parent family. His parents had divorced, and he stayed with his dad. The old man was hardly ever around, maybe seen a few times a year at most. Still... he did send living expenses to Su Yu’s account every month. The old man always said he was busy with work, and sure, work probably was busy, but not so busy that he couldn’t even come home. As for where the old man was off enjoying himself, Su Yu didn’t care. Going by the timeline, in less than a year, the old man would probably bring him a stepmother.

Su Yu raised his head and looked at He Muqing’s retreating figure. Beneath the white skirt, her slender calves drew a tempting curve, and...

A faintly visible little bear pattern.

“Su Yu, where are you looking?!”

The girl’s embarrassed, furious shout shattered Su Yu’s artistic appreciation of beauty. He hurriedly turned away and explained, “Didn’t see anything, okay? Besides, ever since we were kids, you’ve always had the same few patterns. If it’s not strawberries, it’s little bears. No creativity at all.”

“Heh.”

He Muqing was so mad she actually laughed. She pressed down the hem of her skirt, cutting off every possible angle for peeking. “Su Yu, I seriously didn’t think you were this kind of person. You’re getting more and more perverted. You damn pervert! You hooligan! Go die!”

Su Yu looked at the flush on her earlobes, half-hidden beneath her hair, and couldn’t help but laugh.

He laughed happily.

The girl’s scolding made everything feel real instead. He, Su Yu...

really had been reborn.