The scent of lavender was actually quite pleasant. However, it was so overwhelmingly strong that it smelled cloying, prompting Li Wu to reflexively wave his hand in front of his face to disperse the sickly sweet aroma.
But it didn't stop there.
As soon as Li Wu stepped onto the sports field, he noticed the turf had been completely replaced. At the top of a basketball hoop hung a massive poster featuring a beautifully drawn 2D illustration of a purple-haired girl, fluttering in the wind.
Is it a new character from some game? Why is it displayed at school?
Li Wu highly doubted any gaming company could advertise directly inside Chiba Academy. Taking a closer look, he realized the illustration bore a ninety percent resemblance to Raiden Mei. It was essentially a stylized 2D portrait of her.
Around the base of the hoop, where the poster didn't cover, several students were scrubbing the pole with rags, working meticulously. Judging by the lack of expensive accessories on their uniforms, they were all commoners.
Li Wu recognized one of them—Sato Haruko, the girl with the stutter.
Strange.
It wasn't the designated cleaning period, and basketball poles didn't need to be scrubbed anyway. So why were so many students doing this?
Spotting a familiar face, Li Wu took the initiative to approach and ask. However, before he could utter a single word, the commoner students cleaning the pole looked at him as if they had seen a terrifying monster. They instantly scattered, avoiding him like the plague.
It was as if everyone had the same magnetic polarity as him—the closer he got, the more they instinctively repelled.
Fortunately, Sato Haruko saw him. She didn't run away, though she didn't step forward either.
She kept her head down, her lips trembling. She looked like she had a thousand things to say but couldn't force them out.
She was hesitating.
Li Wu's mind rapidly assessed the situation.
"Sato. What are you all doing here?" he asked smoothly. "If I recall correctly, it's not cleaning time right now. And you're cleaning the wrong area anyway. Your assigned zone is the empty lot next to the teaching building." He pointed casually toward the correct spot.
Dead silence.
No one answered. The remaining students exchanged nervous glances and quickly resumed scrubbing the basketball pole, determined to make the area around the poster spotless.
After a few moments, Sato Haruko gently placed her rag on the edge of her bucket. She stepped forward and reached out, but afraid of dirtying his clothes, she only pinched the very edge of his hem with her fingertips, leading him under a nearby tree.
She cautiously checked their surroundings. Only after confirming no one was eavesdropping did she finally speak, her voice trembling.
"L-Li Wu... a-are you still... still the same as b-before?"
Li Wu's eyes narrowed sharply.
How does Sato Haruko know I was in a dissociative state?
Just as he was about to interrogate her, her next sentence cleared up the misunderstanding.
"C-can you... can you s-still stand on o-our side?"
Li Wu pondered for a moment, adjusting his expression to look as approachable as possible. "I don't quite understand what you mean. Stand on your side? Tell me what happened at school while I was away. I want to know."
"Raiden-san... is back!"
Hearing his calm response, Sato's stutter noticeably improved.
Li Wu knew her stutter was primarily psychological, not physiological.
But when mentioning Raiden Mei, her pupils contracted into pinpricks. It was as if she were speaking of a taboo existence; she didn't even dare say her full name.
"Back? Hasn't she always been at school?"
"N-no, that's not what I mean. Raiden-san... she's become very different from before!"
Like a drowning woman clinging to a lifeline, Sato spoke rapidly, her enunciation finally clear.
"Li Wu! I know it's incredibly selfish to say this, and no one else dares to speak up. I'm taking a huge risk just telling you this... But only you. Only you can bring Raiden-san back to how she used to be!"
"Ever since you left, it's like she's become a completely different person. She's become so... so..."
"Take your time. I'm listening," Li Wu said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder to prevent her from reverting to a stutter.
Internally, he felt almost no fluctuation in emotion. Raiden Mei changing was within his expectations.
Then, Sato dropped a bombshell.
"Raiden-san has become really strange... The first two days after you left were fine. But starting from the third day, she completely changed. She started walking exclusively with the noble students and established a series of rules targeting the commoners."
"Right now, whether it's cleaning duties, classroom chores, or basically any hard labor at school, it's entirely forced onto those who haven't joined her 'circle'! Even the nobles aren't exempt. If a noble student doesn't join Raiden-san's faction, they get marginalized and subjected to a lot of... 'pranks', until they're forced to join."
Sato paused, lowering her voice even further.
"I... I was replaced."
"Replaced?"
"As the class representative for the sports festival." Sato bit her lip, her body trembling slightly.
Li Wu noticed several band-aids patched over her knees.
"The sports festival is in half a month. The school only announced it after you left. I signed up for the relay race. Every day after school, my classmates and I stayed behind to practice. We were doing so well! If we competed, we would have definitely placed."
Sato looked around nervously again before continuing.
"But... the nobles in our class just brought their little clique and stole our spots. They never attended a single practice session. They just decided they were 'interested' the moment the roster was about to be finalized..."
Li Wu remained silent for a long moment. "If my memory serves me right, things were never this blatant before. Did the teachers not intervene?"
"No," Sato shook her head. "I went to the teachers to ask why. They said it was a 'collective decision by the student council' to let 'more students with potential get training opportunities.' But the girl who took my spot can't even hold a baton properly! And we practiced for so long..."
"Later, I compared stories with other classmates and found out the truth. Those specific nobles aren't exactly all-powerful in the Far East on their own, but because they're part of Raiden-san's inner circle now... the teachers are too terrified to interfere."
Sato looked up, her eyes red, though no tears fell.
Seeing this, a faint ripple spread across the dry, barren sea of Li Wu's consciousness. It vanished in a flash, leaving behind an indescribable, nascent emotion taking root in his heart.
"Keep going."
"Mhm!"
Seeing that Li Wu didn't try to make excuses for Raiden Mei and instead encouraged her to speak, Sato's pent-up frustration burst forth like a broken dam. She poured out every miserable thing that had happened during his ten-plus days of absence.
"It's not just me! The president of the Kendo Club was overthrown and replaced by one of Raiden-san's friends—a girl who comes to school wearing heavy makeup every day. My friend in the club said the new president doesn't even know how to put on the protective gear! She just wanted to monopolize the club's budget and use the equipment for photoshoots! It's a complete insult to the spirit of Kendo!"
"The public art supplies for the Manga Club are locked up now. They said only 'core members' are allowed to use them—and the 'core members' are just the people in her circle..."
"Even the cafeteria has 'priority lanes' now. The nobles don't have to line up. They just walk up and get their food immediately. The rest of us have to wait until they're completely finished before we can pick from whatever's left over. A lot of people couldn't take it and started going to the convenience store for lunch, but even there, they constantly cut in line..."
"Has anyone tried fighting back?" Li Wu asked.
"How could we?" Sato laughed bitterly. "The day before yesterday, Massive Electric announced a long-term collaboration with several major corporations and practically bought out every factory in the Far East. A few days ago, on payday, my dad's factory gave him a 'special bonus.' It was more than what our entire family makes in half a year. My mom was so happy she cried. She told my sister and me to get along well with Raiden-san at school..."
"But the condition for receiving that bonus was... my sister and I had to sign a 'Campus Conduct Pledge'."
She looked Li Wu in the eyes, her gaze filled with profound helplessness.
Sato didn't explain what the pledge entailed, but Li Wu easily deduced the reason—she didn't dare.
It was likely heavily enforced by NDAs. If she was caught breaking it, Sato's family wouldn't have a leg to stand on legally. Backed by ME Corp, Ryoma Raiden's legal team was not something a small, working-class family like Sato's could ever hope to challenge.
For the Raidens, crushing them would be effortless. But for a family relying on factory wages just to survive, being dragged into a protracted legal battle meant total ruin.
"Only you, Li Wu... It's not that everyone doesn't want to approach you. They're just terrified that you're the same kind of person as Raiden-san. They're afraid that if they complain to you, they'll just become her next target. But I believe in you! I know you're not like her. You're one of us!"
Sato spoke frantically, so desperate that she dropped all honorifics.
She desperately wanted Li Wu to fix this.
Because only Li Wu could.
When Raiden Mei was at her lowest, Li Wu had helped her regain her confidence and hold her head high.
Surely, when Raiden Mei lost her way, Li Wu could pull her back from the pedestal of false flattery and vanity.
That was what Sato Haruko firmly believed.
Li Wu looked at her coldly. His breathing didn't even hitch.
He understood everything perfectly now.
Anyone close to Raiden Mei was currently assumed to be part of her inner circle, meaning everyone was terrified of offending them.
The commoner students who had fled the moment they saw him weren't avoiding him—they were terrified he would leverage Raiden Mei's authority to make their lives even more miserable.
Sunlight fell on Sato Haruko's trembling shoulders, on the students desperately scrubbing the basketball poles in the distance, and on the massive poster fluttering in the wind above the sports field.
Li Wu stood frozen for a long time.
Boring.
He felt a wave of profound fatigue.
He had just surpassed the combat strength of an S-Rank Valkyrie, slaughtered an Emperor-class Honkai Beast in the highly dangerous Siberian zone, nearly morphed into an unrecognizable Lovecraftian abomination, confronted Overseer Otto, dealt with Kallen Kaslana, and used a cosmic system to lock the timeline's past and future.
To him, these petty high school squabbles felt like toddlers playing house. Inconsequential.
There was absolutely zero need for him to intervene.
As for Raiden Mei... did she have anything to do with him?
Honestly, if she continued developing this vicious personality, she might even conquer the Herrscher persona within her and prevent the Third Eruption entirely, sparing Nagazora from annihilation.
There was no better timeline than that.
But...
No.
Something's wrong...
Li Wu frowned unexpectedly. With his Divine Blood masked, his combat power had plummeted significantly, but the [Future Loan] system had locked in his S-Rank intuition.
Sensing a cold gaze from a high vantage point, Li Wu instantly looked up.
It was Kiana.
The wind rustled the treetops. Her long, snow-white eyelashes fluttered. Between her brows was a profound, almost poetic sorrow.
She was looking down at him with immense pity.
Why?
Li Wu didn't understand.
He reflexively thrust his hand into his pocket, trying to pull out the sticky note where he had written his wish.
It was red, quite festive. He remembered clearly that he had placed it in his uniform pocket. But after rummaging and pulling his pockets inside out, he found nothing.
Suddenly, he remembered.
He had lost that sticky note a long time ago. He was wearing his spare uniform now. His pockets were empty.
"Li Wu? Are you looking for something?"
Seeing him frantically turning his pockets inside out, Sato Haruko asked curiously.
Li Wu nodded, his tone completely flat. "But I lost it."
"Oh. Was it important? Can it still be found? How about I help you look? Don't let my clumsiness fool you, I'm actually really good at finding things! Just tell me where you last had it, and I'll help!"
"No need. It wasn't anything important anyway. If it's lost, it's lost. It doesn't matter."
"Huh? Really? But looking at your expression just now, I thought you were really anxious..."
Li Wu's hand stiffened. Slowly, he raised it and touched his own face.
His mouth opened slightly, but no words came out.
Was my expression... anxious?
But I wasn't anxious at all...
The sunlight today didn't burn with its usual scorching heat. Instead of making him squint, it felt cold and desolate, as if the sky had been draped in a thin layer of white gauze.
Even the wind seemed to be mocking him. A sudden gust blew an empty plastic bag right into his face, wrapping entirely around his head.
It was utterly comical. In any normal school life, the students around him would have burst into laughter, calling out his name while clutching their sides.
But.
This was no longer a normal school life. The rigid class hierarchy had already sunk its teeth in.
The only people paying him any attention were Sato Haruko standing right in front of him, and Kiana, who occasionally cast cold glances from a window above.
She was still sitting in the second-to-last row by the window... but in a different classroom.
She transferred classes, huh...
Although Sato Haruko was acting friendly, she was clearly restraining herself with all her might. Otherwise, seeing such a ridiculous sight, she definitely would have snorted, realized her mistake, and then bowed in apology—rather than standing there looking incredibly deferential.
"L-Li Wu! Are you okay? I'll get it off you!"
Sato Haruko hurriedly stepped forward and pulled the plastic bag off his head.
She couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't reacted at all. He had just stood there like a scarecrow, entirely unresponsive.
Shouldn't a normal person have shouted, "Damn it!", angrily ripped the bag off, and cursed their rotten luck?