Rewind

“Aaaah! How can there be someone so shameless in this world!”

9527 screamed at Yue Shi as if he had gone mad.

“Thank you for the compliment,” Yue Shi said nonchalantly. To a villain, any bad review was the ultimate praise.

“Although I said I wouldn't kill you just now, that doesn't mean I'll tolerate you forever. As long as you don't die, I haven't broken my promise.”

“I could gouge out your eyes, pull out your tongue, deafen your ears, chop off your limbs, and stuff you into a vase as a decoration. Would that satisfy you?”

9527 shuddered, his blazing rage instantly extinguished as if doused by a bucket of cold water.

His reason returned, and he finally remembered that the person before him was an evil god. Being the only one to survive was already a stroke of immense luck; he couldn't ask for more.

9527 lowered his head and huddled like a quail, saying no more.

Yue Shi ignored him as the ∞ symbols slowly rotated deep within his eyes.

He felt like he had been set up by this world. Since he already knew the truth, he planned to go back to the past and warn his past self, finding a way to ruin everyone—including this world.

Time Reversal!

Time collapsed around him like a piece of paper being folded in half; the distance between the past and the present suddenly shortened to zero.

He stepped toward a point in the past.

Suddenly, the world split open.

Not metaphorically, but literally. Heaven and earth shattered.

The sky looked like a sheet of glass struck by a heavy hammer, with countless cracks radiating from the center in all directions.

The earth rose and fell beneath his feet, buildings collapsed, and streets fractured.

Yue Shi was no stranger to such a scene. The room belonging to the boss of Deep Blue Route had collapsed in the same way after he used time magic.

Did the world within the Bewitching Beauty Painting Workshop resist changes to time?

Countless vortexes appeared around him, large and small, dense and packed, as if someone were carving out myriad doors in the void.

A force pushed Yue Shi toward the nearest vortex.

Again?

Yue Shi tried to struggle, but that push wasn't a physical force; it was a rule.

This world was rejecting him.

“Kicking me out without even saying thank you?”

Yue Shi sneered and pointed a finger toward the sky. Countless strands of pitch-black, filthy aura surged toward the rifts in the heavens.

At the same time, the mirror clone participating in the survival game dissolved into a streak of light and vanished.

Then, Yue Shi was shoved into the vortex by a sudden surge of force.

The world closed behind him.

The cataclysmic collapse stopped the moment Yue Shi left. It was as if a pause button had been pressed; everything that was breaking apart froze simultaneously.

Cracks hung in mid-air, rubble stayed suspended mid-fall, and collapsed buildings remained at an angle.

Then, everything began to flow backward.

The cracks closed, the sky returned to its original color, the collapsed buildings reassembled themselves, and the terrified humans acted as if nothing had ever happened.

A material reset, a time reversal.

The world was repairing itself to its original state—one without the Audience, and without Yue Shi.

...

Xia Xuanfeng opened his eyes.

A white ceiling, with morning light filtering through the window. He was lying in his own bed, the blanket pulled up to his chest, the pillow soft.

He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, blinking once, then twice.

Something was wrong!

Just now, he should have been...

What should he have been doing?

He sat up, the blanket sliding down to his waist. The room was quiet, with the occasional chirp of a bird from outside.

His schoolbag hung on the back of the chair, his school uniform was folded neatly by the desk, and his phone was by his pillow. Everything was exactly as it was every day when he woke up.

But he felt something was off. He couldn't put his finger on it; the feeling was subtle, like having a very, very long dream. Upon waking, the dream's contents were blurred, but the emotions from it lingered in his body.

He sat for a long time, long enough for the birds outside to stop chirping and then start again.

Then he shook his head and threw off the covers to get out of bed. The moment his feet touched the floor, he paused.

The floor was cool, the touch of the wood the same as every day. But in that instant, a flash of an image crossed his mind—something furry brushing against the back of his hand.

He looked down at his hand; there was nothing there.

“Do I want a pet?”

Xia Xuanfeng brushed aside that inexplicable feeling and walked barefoot into the bathroom.

While washing his face, he stared at himself in the mirror. Refined features, fair skin, hair a bit long—he was quite handsome.

But he always felt the version of himself in the mirror shouldn't have this expression.

What expression? He couldn't remember.

He just felt that the person in the mirror seemed... too relaxed.

He should be anxious.

As for why? He still couldn't remember.

Xia Xuanfeng cracked a grin, a standard, sunny, good-student smile.

He wiped the water from his face and walked out of the bathroom.

As he passed the living room, his footsteps paused again.

He felt like something was missing.

Thump!

A book suddenly appeared in his hand out of thin air. It had a deep blue cover with the word “Script” written in gold lettering.

He took the script naturally, opened the cover, and his eyes fell on the first line.

《My Campus Era》. Starring: Xia Xuanfeng. Character Persona: School Hunk · Top Student.

He froze, an inexplicably surprised feeling surging in his heart.

It wasn't “simp supporting male lead”?

“Wait, why would I think of a disgusting persona like ‘simp supporting male lead’?”

Xia Xuanfeng was bewildered, but the sense of déjà vu was incredibly strong. Especially when he thought of the term “simp supporting male lead,” he felt a physical revulsion that took a moment to subside.

Fortunately, the script hadn't given him such a terrible persona. He was now the school hunk and a top student, which perfectly matched his own attributes.

Xia Xuanfeng continued to flip through the script, faster and faster, his fingers moving across the pages and his eyes jumping between the lines.

In the script, he was high-spirited, surrounded by classmates, and standing on the podium under the spotlight. There was no unrequited love, no humiliation or bullying, and certainly none of that suffocating oppression.

He closed the script and stood in the center of the living room. Sunlight streamed through the window, falling on his shoulders with a cozy warmth.

He suddenly felt that empty feeling vanish, replaced by something else.

He couldn't say what it was, only that it felt quite nice.

His birthday was coming up; he could invite the whole class over for a celebration.

He placed the script on the coffee table, walked into the kitchen, took a carton of milk from the fridge, poured a glass, and stood by the window sipping it slowly.

Downstairs, people were walking dogs and jogging. The morning sun was bright, and on the other side of the sky, a faint moon stood opposite the sun.

The sun and moon shining together—this was normal. Everything was beautiful, everything as normal as it could be.

Xia Xuanfeng finished the milk, rinsed the glass, and went back to his room to change into his school uniform.

Passing the living room again, he glanced at the script on the coffee table. The deep blue cover reflected a strange light in the sunshine.