After morning study, people started privately discussing what had happened with Jiecheng Yuan earlier that morning.

“Did you hear? Jiecheng looked like she had dark circles under her eyes this morning, and her hair was a mess. She couldn’t even find her seat, and she kept getting startled by everything.”

“Yeah. She’s always so gentle and careful about her appearance. How did she end up like that? Maybe she’s sick?”

At first, the talk was still mild enough that Jiecheng Yuan could easily tune it out. After all, what they were saying was true, and Yuan had already learned her lesson the hard way by being made to stand as punishment.

To make sure it didn’t happen again, all she had to do was spend some time after school practicing how to brush her hair and tie her bow. Jiecheng Yuan thought it was that simple.

By lunchtime, the rumors had already made her restless. After simmering all morning, Jiecheng Yuan’s strange behavior had become the whole grade’s latest topic of conversation on this dull Monday. Students from other grades had joined in, too, and the rumors were getting more and more outlandish.

“Did you hear? Jiecheng Yuan from the class next door got possessed by a tanuki. Apparently, someone saw her crawling around gloomily in Moonsea Park yesterday.”

“Quit joking. There aren’t any tanuki in Moonsea Park. She got possessed by a fox, if anything.”

“Possessed? It’s not that simple. I heard the Dark Lord cast a soul-stealing curse on Jiecheng.”

“You’ve been reading too many novels. If you’re going to make stuff up, you might as well say she’s a Magical Girl. She ran into a mind flayer.”

Jiecheng Yuan pretended to stay calm and ignored the whispers around her as she pushed through the crowd, making a beeline for the cafeteria.

Whenever Jiecheng Yuan approached, the girls gathered in little groups would all fall silent and wait for her to pass. But before she’d even gotten far, they’d eagerly start chattering away again.

Somehow, parts of these ridiculous rumors had hit the mark. She really was a Magical Girl, and somehow becoming Jiecheng Yuan did kind of count as being possessed.

How could Jiecheng Yuan not hear them talking so loudly? She didn’t have the energy to explain things to everyone one by one. Besides, she couldn’t explain it even if she tried.

In fact, Jiecheng Yuan’s whole morning had been one thing after another.

Going back to school, using all your life experience and knowledge to change the past, rewrite your life, and rise to the top. A lot of people have probably fantasized about that, right?

Jiecheng Yuan was no exception. She’d naively thought she wouldn’t need to put in any effort to learn middle-school material—she’d be able to pick it right up. No, review it.

But with every class that passed that morning, a little more of Jiecheng Yuan’s confidence crumbled.

First came English. Easy-peasy. You studied English in college, too, right? Middle-school stuff would be no problem!

Next was math. So-so. Couldn’t she use the all-purpose differential equation to solve this? They hadn’t learned that yet? Then how was she supposed to do it? Better take another look at the textbook.

Then came language arts, and she spent the whole class in a daze. Why did she still have to study passages in another world? What was the author even trying to say?

Then came the baffling home ec class. Jiecheng Yuan had assumed home ec was all baking and sewing. Why were they in the home economics classroom for a theory lesson about economics?

Since graduating from high school, Jiecheng Yuan had never sat through a class for this long. By the middle of the morning, her back and waist were already aching. She started wondering how she’d ever endured such a terrifying environment before.

And it was the middle of summer. Even with the desks spaced pretty far apart, the heat didn’t seem to let up. Just sitting there made her feel like her body was radiating heat, and the tiny beads of sweat on her skin made it even harder to focus.

Jiecheng Yuan was a girl now. She couldn’t casually pull open her collar like she used to and let the heat trapped under her clothes out. All she could do was grit her teeth and secretly fan herself with her textbook.

Worse still, for some reason, the underwear that had fit perfectly at first now felt horribly uncomfortable. Even the slightest movement made it dig into her ribs and ache.

Those were all physical problems. She could overcome them if she tried hard enough. But keeping her mind so intensely focused had left Jiecheng Yuan utterly exhausted.

In college, most professors would turn a blind eye if you secretly napped or played on your phone. Here, you couldn’t even openly zone out. The moment you looked like your mind had wandered, the teacher would call on you.

So Jiecheng Yuan urgently needed to head to the cafeteria and let a hot meal soothe her wounded soul.

“Jiecheng, wait up!” Quanshan Baqi chased her through the crowd, as nimble as she was when leaping across rooftops after transforming. Every time, she found a gap with perfect precision without bumping into anyone.

Oh, right. This girl was another huge reason why her morning had gone so badly!

When the first class ended, Quanshan Baqi had been surrounded by classmates asking her all sorts of questions. They were mostly pointless things like what school she’d attended before and why she’d suddenly transferred here.

Anime and games really love that trope where everyone crowds around the transfer student, don’t they?

If she wanted to clear her name, she couldn’t get involved with a Magical Girl who’d fallen to darkness. She’d pretend not to know her and make sure they didn’t get involved again. That was Jiecheng Yuan’s plan, as she lay face-down on her desk with her eyes closed, resting without even looking up.

“Why I transferred here?”

Jiecheng Yuan heard her say that, and she was curious, too. What was the point of transferring at this point in time? She was still lying at her desk and hadn’t gone over to them, but she perked up her ears to listen in.

“Because the person I like goes to school here.”

“Pfft—”

Jiecheng Yuan nearly choked on her own spit. How had the gossip somehow become about her?

Calm down, calm down. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. It has to be. Yuan and Baqi had only just met. They’d happened to meet the day before Baqi transferred, that was all. That had to be it.

Jiecheng Yuan kept repeating that to herself. Luckily, the classroom was so noisy that no one noticed what she’d done.

“Woooow!” The girls around them burst into excited exclamations and chattered even more loudly. Before they could ask who Baqi liked, the bell rang right on cue.

At the time, Jiecheng Yuan thought that was the end of the topic. Little did she know it was the beginning of a nightmare.

By the next break, no one was asking Quanshan Baqi who she liked anymore.

Baqi had given everyone the answer herself by chasing Jiecheng Yuan right out of the classroom.

During the second break, the third break, and every free moment right up until noon, Jiecheng Yuan desperately tried to escape Quanshan Baqi’s clutches.

As a result, the people who loved gossiping about Jiecheng Yuan had a brand-new topic to discuss.

The most convincing version so far went like this: The super Trashy Pink-Haired Girl, a shameless flirt, got cursed; a lovestruck girl transferred in to charge headfirst into love.

Great. Say whatever you want. Rumors stop with the wise. Xiao Yuan just wants to eat.

They could already hear a commotion coming from the cafeteria before they even reached it. It sounded like someone was arguing, and the crowd gathered at the entrance had completely blocked the way.

Jiecheng Yuan realized this meal might not be so easy to get after all.