——
CHAPTER 3
[Intentionally Blank. Name of a podcast where the hosts couldn’t end up thinking of a name, in the hopes they would come up with a good name.
Now, it is their podcast’s official title.]
——
Fu Xin held the smile on his face, hoping— nay praying, that it was pleasant, for he was doing everything in his power to keep the edge of his lips from twitching.
'Uwa, he's totally giving me the death stare,' Fu Xin thought as he felt Lin Tian's stare in his periphery. Even though Fu Xin worded it as a 'death stare,' it was more like a hidden 'death glare,' that was breaking out on the surface. 'He's the protagonist, definitely; no two ways about it— this man's a gold-blooded protagonist.' But then Fu Xin took a moment to think about the situation— if he was talking with his crush, enjoying the moment when some other person came to interrupt what was turning out to be a great conversation— wouldn't he be pissed?
'I would be pissed,' Fu Xin thought.
Fu Xin looked at Lin Tian and politely nodded as he took a good look at the man. Nothing had changed about Lin Tian; he still seemed the same as the person he had watched earlier in the morning.
'Maybe I'm overthinking; he's just angry that I interrupted his time with Xue Lanfen,' Fu Xin thought and decided to get out of their hair as quickly as possible.
"Yes?" Xue Lanfen said to Fu Xin.
Fu Xin got straight to the point. "Teacher Hao has assigned us a task that we have to complete before we return home today. We need to get together after school so we can finish this as quickly as possible and leave for home."
"Okay," Xue Lanfen said earnestly, "what does she want us to do?"
"It's just some data entry, grunt work basically. Let's meet here after classes end," Fu Xin had relayed everything he wanted, and when he got the confirmation from Xue Lanfen, he gave Lin Tian another polite nod before walking away. Lin Tian, however, didn't return the nod, instead stared at Fu Xin's back with an indifferent expression.
The lunch break and the classes resumed with different subjects coming in, introducing themselves and the curriculum for the year, their expectations, rules, and more, then started teaching. For Fu Xin, everything seemed blurry as the scenery outside a running train; however, at the same time, time seemed to flow slower for him because every time he looked at his watch, only ten or so minutes had passed. That continued until the school day finally ended, and students headed out to their homes, the library, or coaching classes.
"Brother Xin, you're not going home?" Guo Qing asked Fu Xin as he headed out with Ding Tong.
"Not yet. I still have some work to do. You guys head out; I will see you tomorrow," Fu Xin said as he packed up his bag.
"... Is that so? We will see you tomorrow then," said Guo Qing and pulled Ding Tong along with him. Fu Xin looked at the two rushing out as if they had just robbed a bank and had to get out of the city.
Fu Xin looked towards Xue Lanfen's chair and found her sitting there. He spoke when she looked at him. "Should we change location, or is here fine? No, right? Let's just work here in the classroom." As he spoke, Xue Lanfen frowned at first, then it went away, and she looked embarrassed. Fu Xin was confused but didn't pay attention to it— he badly wanted to return home.
"Here you go, this is what Teacher Hao gave me," Fu Xin set the forms and documents on the two tables that Xue Lanfen had joined to create a larger working workstation. "We have to fill these fields with the data from here. It's simple copying work."
Xue Lanfen nodded as she read the table format. "This looks important; we have to be careful not to make any mistakes."
"Luckily, the table format is divided into two— we each can take half of the class," Fu Xin sat down and pushed one of the table formats to Xue Lanfen's side and divided the forms that had the date. He further explained how they should split the work before finally getting to work— till now, not a single moment of unnecessary conversation had taken place.
Fu Xin kept his head down and worked diligently on copying quickly but also carefully. The orignal's handwriting hadn't been transferred to him completely— the brain still remembered the handwriting, and so did the body, but the presence of a new owner created a complication. The original writing was neat, clean, and pleasant to read, but Fu Xin— the current owner— hadn't written by hand regularly for a long time, and most of his written work was done through typing digitally; as such, his handwriting had deteriorated a lot— the mixture of those two inputs caused a type of conflict. Fu Xin's current handwriting looked a lot like the original's but worse, and the current Fu Xin tended to make a lot of mistakes if he hurried where the handwriting would worsen towards illegibility.
Fu Xin had worked hard on his handwriting during the break to make sure no one would notice something wrong, but even with the practice he had put in, Fu Xin had to put in conscious effort to write to a level where no one would notice something suspicious.
"Fu Xin, when do you have your coaching classes? If you're getting late, tell me, I will finish the work on my own after you have to go," Xue Lanfen said.
"I don't take coaching," Fu Xin said, not looking up from his work or stopping.
"You don't?" Xue Lanfen sounded surprised.
Fu Xin looked up and found her staring at one of the forms. He looked at it, and it was his academic performance form for the second year. A bitter smile curled up on Fu Xin's lips. The original had worked hard to have excellent grades, much higher than anything Fu Xin had managed to score in his past life. And he had done so without going to a coaching class. Why didn't he enroll in a coaching class? It was a personal choice, something Fu Xin was quite happy to not change. He sighed internally. The original was a diligent student— he had no choice but to be so.
"What about you? Don't you have coaching? What would you've done if I had left too early and you couldn't complete the work on time," Fu Xin asked. Xue Lanfen was kind, or at least compassionate; he had seen that from her offer to complete the work— but he wanted to gauge where it came from.
"I have private coaching sessions later in the day at my home, so I'm not in a hurry to return home," Xue Lanfen said.
Fu Xin nodded in understanding. Usually, coaching classes happened right after school without only a little gap as a relaxation gap. That was done so that the student would return home from coaching and still have ample time to do their homework and self-studying at night. In the country, high schoolers only had one job— that was to study. Private coaching classes at home meant that the student could schedule the lessons whenever it suited them and had higher flexibility, unlike the large classroom batches of the standard coaching classes.
'Her family must be rich,' Fu Xin thought, judging by their ability to pay for private coaching.
The conversation ended, and the two returned to work in silence with only the occasional question about doubt or problem that they sorted out with the other's help. Fu Xin appreciated the mindless work as it took his mind away. He didn't want to think about what he had experienced today yet; he had been using the lessons during the day to keep his mind from wandering— also, he needed to at least maintain the original's academic performance, if not improve on it, to avoid unneeded complications and trouble.
"This..." Xan Lanfen held another academic performance form and yet again looked at it with surprise in her eyes.
"Is something wrong?" Fu Xin asked.
"He said that he was serious about his studies... Are these scores of someone serious about his studies?" Xue Lanfen looked disappointed.
Fu Xin peeked at the document and saw Lin Tian's name on the top. Oops! Fu Xin winced. It seemed Lin Tian had bragged to Xue Lanfen, but now it had backfired. Fu Xin didn't make any comments, snarky or supportive, and returned to his work.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
It was a tiring task, but with Fu Xin and Xue Lanfen working without distraction and with great team effort, they managed to complete it.
"We are early, I think," Fu Xin said while looking at his watch. He smiled, "Good work. Let's get all of this to the faculty room and call it a day."
They went to the faculty room and handed the completed work to Teacher Hao. She gave it a cursory check and approved the work. After getting some appreciation, Fu Xin and Xue Lanfen left for the front gate.
"Have you called someone to pick you up, or are you going home alone?" he asked as they reached the front gate.
"Someone is coming to pick me up," she said.
"I see. Good work. I will see you tomorrow then," Fu Xin said. He had done his civic duty of asking if she had a way to reach home safely, and now he could finally. He gave her a final bow before crossing the road towards his car.
"How was your day, young master?" Uncle Bao asked when Fu Xin entered the car.
"It was a long... long day. Take me home, Uncle Bao," Fu Xin said as he put on his seat belt. He sunk into the comfortable leather and closed his eyes.
The Fu family residence was a gated property with walls covering the estate and trees lining the walls with guards on the wrought iron gates protecting the estate. To get to the sprawling mansion, one had to travel the large concrete paved road that cut through the lush gardens of the property that a team of hired gardeners took care of all year round to keep the flower gardens vibrant, even going as far as to use a corner of the vast grounds to home grow herbs and vegetables to be used for cooking. Upon reaching the residential area upon which stood the mansion with a mix of Western and Eastern architecture, leaning towards Eastern to highlight the country's heritage. On the back of the estate was another stretch of gardens big enough to throw a sizable party for the guests, with a tennis court on the side equipped with a top-of-the-line tennis ball machine. Beyond the back gardens stood a large inground pool accompanied by a roofed structure furnished with everything needed to have a fun day of swimming.
The property had been with the Fu family for generations, and it was only five years back that the ancestral house was demolished for the new home to be built in its place. It took three years to build, and it had been two years since it was the principal residence for the Fu family.
The car reached the manor and looped around the fountain in the front before stopping. Fu Xin stepped out of the car and walked to the large double doors that Uncle Bao pushed open for him. If the exterior was a mix of western and eastern, the mansion's interior had an entirely modern Western look to it.
"Uncle Bao, tell Auntie that I won't be needing any refreshments and inform the staff that I'm not to be disturbed until I come out of the room," Fu Xin gave his instructions. He climbed up the double staircase and went straight to his room down the corridor.
Fu Xin locked the door, threw his school bag aside, kicked his shoes off, and pulled his tie and blazer off before letting himself fall on the big double bed with his arm covering his eyes. The day had been a tough one for him. One of the top ten— no, top five toughest days since he had come to inhabit Fu Xin's body.
After laying there for a while in his thoughts, Fu Xin sat up.
"System."
He waited for the HUD to pop in front of his vision or hear the monotone fabricated voice in his head, but nothing as such happened.
"System," he said again. Again nothing supernatural happened.
"Status."
"Inventory."
"Mission."
"Villain."
"Open Sesame!"
"Reveal"
"Link on."
No matter what he said, nothing worked. He even tried to issue mental commands and thought about the system really hard, but the words and voice didn't appear in front of him.
"That's not how systems are supposed to work," Fu Xin grabbed his head and groaned. He got up, walked to his study table, and picked a stack of multi-colored square post-its and a pen. Soon every sentence he could recall from his interaction with the system was on his bedroom walls.
"Attribute... Villain," Fu Xin stared at one of the post-its. What did that mean? He took another post-it and wrote on it: I am the villain? Then stuck it above the
Fu Xin looked at the post-it a distance from the attribute-and-fate cluster and saw the 'Response' post-it that said that if he didn't stop the identified protagonist, it would lead to his death. He looked between the 'Response' and 'Fate' post-it and formed a connection. Stop the protagonist from rising or fail to do so and die as an effect... that was his fate.
He was fucked. Fu Xin felt a painful throbbing rise in his head. Even if he did nothing and stayed away from the protagonist's way, he would still end up dying. He had no other option than to face off against the protagonist and win... at least that was what the system had said.
'Wait...' Fu Xin frowned. A supernatural system suddenly appeared, forcing order upon him and warning that failure was death. But who said that had to happen? What if it was a bluff, and this so-called system was trying to trick him into doing its bidding? Maybe the reason why it didn't appear before him when he called for it was that it was feeble and couldn't appear anymore, having used all its power to issue the mission to him.
Fu Xin pulled out more post-its and pasted all of his thoughts on the wall. Some included: what if the so-called protagonist didn't exist and the system was trying to deceive him into making an unrelated person's life hell because that would help the system regain its power. What if the system knew about his transmigration status and chose him as the host for that very reason, knowing that he would be more perceptive to its words because a system appearing out of nowhere was just as supernatural as transmigrating to a foreign otherworld, and he wouldn't doubt it.
"Or maybe I'm going crazy, and everything is my delusion," said Fu Xin, sighing. He took out another post-it and wrote that thought as well. Fu Xin didn't believe he was going crazy— but which crazy person believed they were going crazy?
Fu Xin stared at the cluster themed at the system tricking him. After looking at it all written up, Fu Xin realized that everything was his speculation, without not an ounce of anything validating even a part of it. At least, the fate and mission part of the post-it wall was tied down to reality by the system's appearance.
'It looks like wishful thinking that I'm hoping to be true.' Selective attention and selective retention were human tendencies which meant that people would only pay attention to and remember things that were related to them or were interested in. Fu Xin wanted the system to be an attempt at a con that the entire chain of thought seemed more and more probable to him. He was ignoring the facts that were clearly laid in front of him.
...He had to do what the system asked of him, or he risked dying.
Fu Xin clutched the pen in his hand and threw it hard at the wall. The pen bounced off the wall but left a streak of blue ink on the wall, floor, and on his clothes.
"Fuck!" Nothing good was going his way today.
Fu Xin stared at the ink streaks and stains unmoving for a moment before walking to the wall to weakly pull all the post-its off. Even though no one would understand what they were about without the context, if someone read them, they would definitely think there was something wrong with Fu Xin's brain. He shredded every post-it, crumbled them, then dumped them into the trash can.
Not caring if the ink on his clothes would stain the bedding, Fu Xin dropped onto the bed and closed his eyes for sleep to take over him. He was woken up by a voice calling him.
"...master ...young master ...young master!"
Fu Xin groggily opened his eyes and saw a middle-aged woman with gray strands in her black hair tied up in a bun. She stood by his bed, looking down at him. The woman was Auntie Cao, the caretaker for the Fu family. From Fu Xin's memories, Auntie Cao had been serving the Fu family since before his birth and had been a mainstay as a nanny in his memories.
He sat up on his bed and rubbed his eyes with his palms. "What time is it?" he asked.
"It's already eight, young master. For you to fall asleep at this time, are you feeling alright?" Auntie Cao placed the back of her palm on Fu Xin's forehead. "Mr. Bao told me you had a tough day. Is everything okay?"
Fu Xin pushed Auntie Cao's hand away. "It's nothing. I was feeling tired after the first day and dozed off without knowing."
"And what happened here?" Auntie Cao pointed at the ink stains on his clothes and wall.
"I had my pen in my pocket and was taking it out when it fell. The ink spilled out when it hit the ground," Fu Xin said in an excuse. He got up from his bed and asked to change the subject, "Is the dinner ready?"
"...Yes, it is ready."
"Then let's go. I'm hungry," Fu Xin said. "What about mother and father?"
"They will not be returning home."
"Hmm..." That was fine with Fu Xin; he didn't mind.
Fu Xin changed out of his ink-stained clothes and was dumping them into the laundry basket when he noticed the trash can with the shredded paper. There was no use in thinking about all of this; all it did was give him anxiety. Tomorrow was going to tell him more about what situation he was in.