ATIBESLM 1

The first thing that made Ye Lingwei feel something was amiss was the irregular beating of his heart, sometimes weak and sometimes forceful. He was physically healthy and had never experienced such an abnormal heartbeat.

He lowered his head to look at his hands—fair and slender. These were not the hands that had worked through hundreds of exercise workbooks and practiced countless copybooks. The fingernails had an abnormally pale sheen, and the wrist bones were prominent. Just looking at these hands, one could tell how thin the owner’s figure was and how pampered they must be.

Ye Lingwei took a deep breath and opened the book on the desk. “Ye Lingwei,” the name was the same, written in extremely beautiful and exquisite characters, but the handwriting was different. The grade was a “D”. Leaving aside that Ye Lingwei had never encountered such a grading method, this “D” alone was not a score he should have received.

He had just run a fever in the dormitory, burning up until he was dizzy and disoriented. When he woke up again, he was here. 

Ye Lingwei…

This name is not common; growing up, Ye Lingwei never shared his name with anyone. However, there was just one exception. Precisely because he encountered the exact same name that he felt it was a rare occurrence, so inevitably, he paid attention to it.

It was a book he borrowed from the library a few days before the fever. The cover was yellowed and worn, sandwiched amidst a row of professional art books, making it very conspicuous. Ye Lingwei casually pulled it out to look, flipped through a few pages, and discovered that a supporting character inside had the same name as him, character for character.

He wasn’t interested in novels, but because it was so rare to encounter someone with his exact name, he read a little more.

This supporting character had the standard setup of a wealthy young master. However, his life followed an even more standard “cannon fodder”¹Characters that are used or sacrificed for a greater cause, often without regard for their well-being. trajectory. He had no parents and his two older brothers treated him with cold indifference and no affection. He had a few fair-weather²A friend who is only your friend when things are going well (when the “weather is fair”). As soon as you have problems, run out of money, or need help (when “storms” hit), they disappear. friends who were only after his money, and he was secretly in love with a boy whose heart already belonged to someone else.

This novel revolves exactly around the person he secretly loves, so naturally, it has little to do with him—he is just a tool meant to facilitate the emotional development of the main couple.

After confessing to the protagonist and being rejected, he suffered a heart attack during his nap that same day and died silently. His confession, however, served to greatly accelerate the feelings between the protagonists.

Ye Lingwei nearly had a heart attack himself reading this. This supporting character with his name clearly didn’t do anything wrong. When he confessed, he didn’t know the other’s heart belonged to someone else. He was always walking on eggshells around his older brothers, longing to be cared for. Because of his poor health, he was worried his friends would dislike him so he shared the best things he owned with them. Yet the final outcome was this?

Even though he rarely reads novels, Ye Lingwei still found himself genuinely projecting his own feelings into the character. The very night he returned from the library, he started to run a fever.

His roommates helped him request time off, but his fever refused to break, and he slept in a daze for several days. When he finally regained full consciousness, even before he opened his eyes, he heard the noisy clamor of laughing, horseplay, and turning pages.

He looked up toward the podium where a red banner with white characters was hung—”Battle through Senior Year, Chase Your Dreams!”

Ye Lingwei had a good memory, but not so good that he could remember every detail of a novel he had merely skimmed. However, he remembered this specific phrase because he had noticed at the time that it was the exact same slogan from his own senior year so it stuck with him.

The reason he didn’t think he was reborn into the past and instead struggled to accept that he had transmigrated into a book, was because in the bottom right corner of the banner, it read: Shencheng No. 3 High School, Class 7, Year 3.

Shencheng was the setting of the story in that novel. It was mentioned so many times that it would have been hard for Ye Lingwei to forget.

He was now inside the book. 

He was that cannon fodder with the tragic, miserable, and melodramatic ending. He was supposed to be dead by now.

Ye Lingwei slowly let out a breath. He was originally only nineteen years old, not much older than these high school seniors. He had never encountered such a bizarre situation, so to say he was calm and composed would be a lie.

Ye Lingwei looked at the familiar knowledge in the textbooks. Fortunately, the curriculum was the same; otherwise, he would really be doomed.

After confirming that the study material was no different, Ye Lingwei looked up to survey the classroom. The author had described the appearance of some classmates in the book. Since the protagonist knew the original host’s classmates, mentions were inevitable. However, trying to identify real people now based solely on text descriptions? Ye Lingwei admitted to himself that he couldn’t do it.

He silently lowered his head, paused for a moment, then turned to look to his right side—sure enough, there was that half-meter tall blue trash can. 

After seeing this trash can, Ye Lingwei was even more certain that he was indeed inside that novel.

The original host had poor grades. The homeroom teacher wasn’t a snob who cared about family background; she only looked at grades. If your grades were good, even if your family collected scrap for a living, she would treat you like a deity. If your grades were bad, even if you were the mayor of Shencheng, she would remain unyielding and impartial.

However, when it came to the original host, she made an exception. The original host’s grades were shockingly poor, though actually, if placed in another class, they wouldn’t be considered too bad. Although the original host’s class was Class 7, it was an “A-Class” in another sense, ranking first in average scores every single time. The class grades directly affected the homeroom teacher’s bonus and professional title. During the first monthly exam of the semester, the original host single-handedly dragged down the whole class. Their class fell behind Class 1 by a margin of 0.3 points. The homeroom teacher, face livid with rage, rushed into the classroom and told the original host to roll over next to the trash can and sit there.

Everyone was just a student—their minds were simple and grades were everything. The original host had dragged everyone down and lost face for Class 7. They signed a joint petition requesting to have the original host kicked out of Class 7 and sent to the worst class, Class 11. However, the principal refused with a chuckle, advising them that classmates should support one another.

So now, the classmates looked at the original host and found him an eyesore in every possible way. Even when throwing away trash, they would deliberately aim at him. The original host’s life could truly be described as days feeling like years.

“Bang!“

Ye Lingwei’s brain was still groggy when an empty water bottle thrown from who knows where smashed squarely into him. Ye Lingwei clutched his head and looked in the direction the bottle had flown from.

Ye Lingwei was a good student; he was hardworking and ambitious. In the college entrance exams, he was the top Liberal Arts scorer in his province. However, the obedient and sensible traits usually associated with good students had absolutely nothing to do with Ye Lingwei. His family was wealthy so he would skip class to travel, sleep during lessons, and do whatever he pleased. The teachers had a love-hate relationship with him.

Could it be that here, he was still expected to put up with this group’s abuse?

However, Ye Lingwei was never the type to argue or reason with others. He would simply stay silent and viciously tear a chunk of flesh off them.

He had been hit, yet no one in the class cared and instead, a few boys began to snicker in low voices.

Ye Lingwei curled the corners of his lips, but when he looked up again, his expression was one of blank confusion. The boy gritted his teeth, his spine began to tremble, and his five fingers clutched at his chest. His lips began to turn a cyan hue under his light chestnut hair. Ye Lingwei now looked just like a piece of glass that was about to shatter.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Surely that hit didn’t actually cause a problem?”

“It just barely touched him—it wouldn’t even hurt, okay?”

The words had barely left the speaker’s mouth when Ye Lingwei crashed to the floor, taking the desk and chair down with him. The boy curled up on the ground, brows tightly furrowed, looking as if he were in immense pain.

“Shit, what’s wrong with him?”

A girl with ear-length short hair came over from the front. She was shocked to see the person lying on the ground and shouted loudly, “He has a heart condition! What are you guys doing?”

Even so, no one really cared.

“Who can have a heart attack that easily?”

“What does it have to do with me? Whoever threw the bottle should deal with it.”

Ye Lingwei had long anticipated these people’s reactions. The most innocent people also possess the purest and most fearless malice.

He rolled his eyes back and fainted on the spot. The footsteps around him suddenly became chaotic, and before long, the sound of an ambulance rang out from the foot of the school building.

He was wearing an oxygen mask, and the boy who had hit him earlier followed alongside the medical staff with a face full of panic. He had only thrown a bottle—he didn’t even use any force, so how did it cause a heart attack?

Ye Lingwei hooked his finger around the hem of the boy’s clothes. The boy looked down, and Ye Lingwei smiled. The scene was too chaotic and noisy so no one noticed. Moreover, because he was wearing an oxygen mask with his eyelashes trembling, it was hard to detect even though his eyes were open.

You’re finished.

Ye Lingwei mouthed these words to the boy. As soon as he finished, he closed his eyes, tilted his head to the side, and ‘lost consciousness.’

The boy walked a few steps, his pace slowing down until he finally froze in place, watching the ambulance leave. He knew what Ye Lingwei meant. Even if he couldn’t pinpoint exactly which words Ye Lingwei had said, he understood the gist of it.

Ye Lingwei was faking it. He wasn’t having a heart attack. The reason he did this was just to take revenge on him for hitting him with the water bottle.

Is he out of his mind? 

Damn, how dare he?

It happened after the afternoon nap, just before class was about to start. The sound of the ambulance startled everyone in every class. In full view of everyone, a boy, pale-faced, lying on a stretcher, was carried out of the school building. Soon, quite a few people in the same grade knew that a boy from Class 7 had suffered a heart attack.

Although they were in different classes, because they were all on the same floor, there was a lot of interaction between them normally. You know my friend, I know your friend—everyone introduces each other so everyone is connected.

“No way, he just got hit by a water bottle? Are you sure there weren’t rocks inside the bottle?”

“Maybe he was startled. People with heart conditions can’t handle sudden shocks. If he can’t catch his breath, he’s done for.”

“Then how did your class still dare to target him like that? You guys are way too reckless!”

“Well, nothing ever happened before and he never had an episode so we all forgot he was sick…”

“You should be glad that you weren’t the one who threw that bottle.”

“…”

On the windowsill of Class 1, several boys were leaning; one of them, wearing a black short-sleeved shirt, gave a shove to the boy who was resting his chin in his hand while staring blankly downstairs. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” the boy asked in a flat tone.

“That guy from Class 7 who had the heart attack, he’s actually quite good-looking.”

The sun outside was intense and the window glass was baking hot. The boy squinted his eyes, yanked the school uniform from the desk and covered his head, blocking his eyes and leaving half his face exposed. No emotion could be read on his face. “Didn’t see.”

Gao Linhao sighed with great regret. “I thought he would be your type.”

The boy had a pair of extremely beautiful phoenix eyes, long and narrow, but his gaze was cold and indifferent; hidden within the shadows cast by his school uniform, like a stroke of matte black ink.

Gao Linhao: “…”

He almost forgot—although Fei Lan likes good-looking people, what he really likes are the ones with thorns, the kind that can sting you until you’re a bloody mess. That guy from Class 7 might look nice, but he had a heart attack just from getting hit once, and he gets bullied all day long. Being this fragile, he’s obviously not Brother Lan type.

• 1
  Characters that are used or sacrificed for a greater cause, often without regard for their well-being.
• 2
  A friend who is only your friend when things are going well (when the “weather is fair”). As soon as you have problems, run out of money, or need help (when “storms” hit), they disappear.