Goodbye Fuyao

Seeing the girl puff out her cheeks, Ye Shuang found it rather amusing and reached out to poke one.

Unexpectedly, Chen Qin recoiled as if she had been shocked. Her face flushed as she covered the spot Ye Shuang had touched. “Y-you-you-you! What are you doing? Men and women shouldn’t touch each other! I’m telling Auntie you harassed me!”

Ye Shuang looked at the girl, who was hopping around in a fluster, and couldn’t help laughing. Chen Qin really had gone through three distinct stages—

As a child, Chen Qin had been a complete tagalong who had no concept of personal space. She would even insist on bathing and sleeping together with him.

As a teenager, she had become proud and tsundere, often saying one thing while meaning another.

As an adult, she had turned clingy yet gentle and sensible.

Ye Shuang reached out and touched the textbook. When he saw “Seventh Grade” written on it, he finally understood which point in time he was in. This was also the period when Fu Yao had happened to meet with trouble.

“What are you doing? You can’t get away with pretending to be stupid.”

“If you buy me a stuffed pancake from outside, I might forgive you. Make sure it has an egg.”

“I’m telling you…”

The girl beside him kept chattering away, but Ye Shuang’s attention was focused on the classroom instead. He searched for that familiar yet unfamiliar figure. After looking around and finding nothing, he turned back to Chen Qin and asked, “Where’s Fu Yao?”

When Chen Qin heard this, her eyes widened. She had just said so much, and Ye Shuang hadn’t listened to a word of it. The only thing he had asked about was Fu Yao.

“I’m not talking to you anymore! Go be with Fu Yao!” Chen Qin stomped angrily, grabbed Ye Shuang’s arm, bit him, and then ran off like the wind.

Ye Shuang watched her retreating back, then glanced at the bite mark on his arm before finally coming to his senses. “Huh? Did I just upset her?”

“Girls really are impossible to understand.”

After all, Chen Qin wasn’t Ye Shuang’s current concern. He patted his pockets, and when he realized he didn’t have a phone, he could only leave the classroom and try to find where Fu Yao might be.

Ye Shuang glanced at the clock. Its hands had barely moved, which meant that he needed to fulfill certain conditions before he could return?

The condition was Fu Gui’s regret?

Ye Shuang could more or less guess the answer. After all, that was how he had entered this place in the first place.

Having come here so many times, he was already quite familiar with the rules. Although that damned system still refused to explain anything, he had more or less figured it out. He simply had no idea why the clock had appeared.

Maybe it was regret. Maybe it was remorse… But none of that mattered right now. Finding Fu Yao was more important.

Ye Shuang patted his pockets. At this point in time, he apparently couldn’t bring a phone with him. More accurately, mobile phones simply weren’t available here. Even if he had one, it would have to be several years later. This timeline was from an era when full-screen smartphones didn’t even exist yet.

It was now time to leave school. As Ye Shuang looked around, the corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of a dark figure leaping toward him from the stairs!

Ye Shuang instinctively reached out and pushed. The dark figure fell to the ground, rolled several times, and finally slammed into the wall with a cry that sounded just like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

“Oof! Damn!”

Ye Shuang came to his senses and realized that the figure was Fu Gui. He was wearing his school uniform, with the jacket tied carelessly around his waist. Even his shoes were mismatched in the so-called “mandarin duck” style. Although they were both white sneakers, he had used different-colored shoelaces on the left and right to show off his individuality.

In Ye Shuang’s memory, middle and high school students really had loved comparing shoes and promoting sneaker culture. Once they reached university, however, such things became much less common.

“Ow, ow, ow! That hurts like hell. How are you so strong?” Fu Gui stood up in pain. He had originally intended to pounce on Ye Shuang from the stairs and perform a flying takedown, but after Ye Shuang pushed him, he felt as if he had slammed into a solid wall.

“Uh, maybe…” Ye Shuang looked at his palm. It seemed that his physical strength had been carried over from his original body as well. That was a good thing—it would make things easier to handle.

Looking at Fu Gui hopping around and crying out in pain, Ye Shuang smiled faintly. “You’re more pleasing to look at when you’re being your usual idiot self.”

“Huh?” Fu Gui had no idea what Ye Shuang was talking about. He reached out and threw an arm around Ye Shuang’s shoulder. “Hey, tell me—if I want to dye this thing of mine green, will you help me convince my old lady?”

As he spoke, he pointed at his explosive, Super Saiyan-like hair.

“…Do whatever you want. Just don’t get yourself killed.”

At this stage, the green-hat joke either didn’t exist yet or simply wasn’t widely known. After all, this was still the era of alternative fashion, when colorful, flamboyant styles were perfectly normal. Otherwise, Ye Shuang’s online name wouldn’t have been Ultimate Young Master Ye.

But that wasn’t the important thing right now. Ye Shuang looked at Fu Gui and asked, “Did you break something that belonged to your sister?”

“Break something? No.” Fu Gui was clearly taken aback. “What does she even have that I could break?”

“…”

Was this not the right time? Without a doubt, Fu Yao had not met with trouble yet. Had the system sent him several days early? After all, Ye Shuang didn’t remember the exact date of Fu Yao’s accident very clearly.

Ye Shuang wasn’t sure, but there was certainly no harm in looking for Fu Yao now. He asked Fu Gui where she was.

“You’re looking for her? I don’t know. Doesn’t Fu Yao usually hang around with you and Chen Qin?” As he spoke, Fu Gui seemed to remember something. “Oh, right. I think I know where she is. Go check the sports field. When I was looking out the window just now, I think I saw someone who looked like her.”

“Hm?” Ye Shuang thought for a moment before asking instinctively, “Which way is the sports field again?”

“Seriously? Are you stupid?” Fu Gui felt that Ye Shuang had to be messing with him.

“…”

Even so, Ye Shuang made his way to the first floor. After standing there for a moment and looking at the familiar buildings around him, he quickly remembered his surroundings and soon reached the sports field.

He swept his gaze around, and before long, it landed on a girl standing in a relatively secluded corner.

She was wearing a blue-and-white school uniform and crouching on the ground as if she were examining something. Though Ye Shuang could see only her back, the sight gave him an indescribable sense of familiarity and closeness.

Ye Shuang walked over.

Hearing the approaching footsteps, the figure swayed like a blue mushroom before slowly turning around and chirping in a birdlike voice, “Ah, Ye.”

She hurriedly stood up, still clutching something in her hand.

“Fu Yao.” After looking at her for a few seconds, Ye Shuang smiled.

Fu Yao was the sort of girl whose beauty grew on you. Though she wasn’t breathtaking, she gave people a comfortable feeling. More importantly, she was gentle and kind by nature.