2024, Chang'an City.
Inside the resplendent Wuzhu Pavilion private room at the Jinhan Court Clubhouse.
Xue Rui lay on the soft foot-soaking sofa, his eyes filled with endless exhaustion.
An attractive young woman was carefully washing his size 11 feet, her long fingers fair and soft.
"President Xue, is the water temperature okay?"
"Mm." Xue Rui, reeking of alcohol, let out a long yawn that squeezed a few tears from the corners of his eyes.
Fighting off his drowsiness, he casually pulled out a dozen or so red bills from his bag and placed them on the table beside him:
"Huihui, the New Year is almost here. This is some gift money for your son."
"Thank you, President Xue! You're so generous..." The woman thanked him profusely.
Xue Rui was a high-level member of this clubhouse. He requested number 66, Wang Huihui, every time he came, which had become almost a habit.
He and Wang Huihui had actually been university classmates, but now, their social statuses were worlds apart.
"President Xue, you're almost thirty and still not married. Don't you get lonely?"
As Wang Huihui spoke, she applied a little more pressure to the foot in her hands.
"Marriage? You're divorced, you really have the gall to say that?" Xue Rui endured the ache in the sole of his foot, grimacing as he mock-scolded her.
Still, Xue Rui had to admit that Wang Huihui had a point.
Out of three hundred sixty-five days a year, he spent almost half of them overnight in the private rooms of various clubhouses...
Because whenever he sat alone in his 350-square-meter luxury apartment, an endless emptiness and loneliness would threaten to swallow him whole, suffocating him.
Besides, Xue Rui was all alone. It didn't matter where he slept. At the clubhouse, he could eat, bathe, and find a girl who knew how to listen and reminisce with him about their younger days.
BEEP BEEP BEEP. Xue Rui's phone rang. He pinched the bridge of his nose and, out of muscle memory, plastered on a fake smile.
"Ah, President Wang. Yes, yes, I'm at Bright Treasure Tower..."
He was swamped before the New Year. Many payments were waiting for him to settle, and round after round of social obligations left him utterly exhausted.
Before Xue Rui could finish his call, his other phone started ringing. He glanced sideways and saw it was a call from his mom.
"President Wang, you must do me the honor. In short, we're not leaving until we're drunk tomorrow night..."
Xue Rui rattled off some pleasantries with a smile, then set down his foldable phone and picked up his other one, an iPhone.
After taking a deep breath, he tapped the answer button. As if anticipating the mood of the person on the other end, he deliberately held the phone a little further away.
Just as he expected, a roar came through the phone:
"Xue Rui! The New Year is in a few days, and you're another year older! Have you found a girlfriend yet? It's always 'next year, next year.' I'd like to see if you can keep your word this year..."
It wasn't that Xue Rui didn't want to find someone. It was just that after leaving school, he discovered that the seed called love could only seem to take root and sprout in the soil of a campus. Planted in the outside world, it would only grow into copper coins reeking of rust.
"Xue Rui, are you even listening!"
Xue Rui was already used to it. He turned the volume down, placed the phone on the table, and let his mother vent her frustrations.
Suddenly, Xue Rui felt a palpitation. His chest felt as if it were blocked by something, and he struggled to breathe.
'This is bad!' Xue Rui had a terrible feeling. He often scrolled through TikTok and knew this was likely a precursor to sudden death.
"Quick! Call an ambulance." Xue Rui's chest heaved violently. He propped himself up and pushed his two phones forward.
Wang Huihui's expression changed drastically. She scrambled to take the phones from Xue Rui, but only heard two distinct SPLASHES.
The two expensive smartphones had both fallen into the foot-soaking basin, and Xue Rui completely lost consciousness.
With his last shred of consciousness, Xue Rui had disposed of his two phones.
He didn't know if he could be saved, but in any case—he had to leave this world with a clean slate.
...
...
"Xue Rui! Wake up! The teacher's coming."
His head groggy from being shaken, Xue Rui struggled to lift his head. 'I'm probably in a hospital bed right now,' he thought. 'Which one of my subordinates is this, being so rude? I'm definitely docking his year-end bonus, big time.'
CLACK CLACK CLACK. The rhythmic sound of high heels slowly approached.
Xue Rui instinctively raised a hand to block the light, letting his eyes slowly adjust to his surroundings.
When he slowly opened his eyes, he found his aunt, Xue Xiaying, looking down at him with a serious expression.
Xue Xiaying was dressed in a clean white shirt, her hair tied up in a bun, making her look very sharp. She looked much better than when he had seen her last year.
"It's the New Year, Auntie. What brings you to Chang'an?"
"You know, you look so much younger after divorcing that scumbag. You look just like you did back when you were my homeroom teacher," Xue Rui teased.
Xue Xiaying's expression grew even colder. She grabbed Xue Rui's ear and said in a mocking tone:
"Class, take a look at our class's sleeping champion. I've only been talking for ten minutes, and he's already off daydreaming in Chang'an City. Xue Rui, did you get to see Yang Yuhuan?"
HAHAHAHA... The room erupted in a cacophony of laughter.
Pulled to his feet by Xue Xiaying, Xue Rui rubbed his eyes hard and looked at his surroundings.
He was surrounded by students in identical white short-sleeved athletic shirts with the words "Hedong City No. 2 Senior High School" on the back.
He glanced at the desk. There was a thick stack of new books, none with a name written on them yet. On top was a pink-covered "Physics Elective 3-1."
Xue Rui realized he seemed to have returned to his high school days. It must be late August 2012, the first day of his second year after the arts and sciences classes were split.
The surrounding students were clutching their stomachs and roaring with laughter at Xue Rui. Some were even slapping their desks, and the classroom was in chaos.
Xue Xiaying leaned close to Xue Rui's ear and said coldly, "Didn't I tell you not to call me Auntie at school? You're to address me by my title."
He knew about Xue Xiaying's short temper when she was younger. With no time to think, Xue Rui instinctively shouted, "Homeroom Teacher, I was wrong!"
His high school homeroom teacher was indeed his aunt, and it was under her "patient and persuasive guidance" that he had chosen the science track and "coincidentally" ended up in her class.
"Everyone, quiet down. Let's move on from this little incident." Xue Xiaying's sharp gaze swept across the classroom, and everyone instantly settled down.
It was an aura unique to a homeroom teacher. A single look, a single gesture, could create a pressure that students found impossible to resist.
"Xue Rui, come up to the front and introduce yourself," Xue Xiaying said as she walked slowly to the podium.
"Me?" Xue Rui pointed at himself in disbelief, then looked questioningly at his deskmate, Qiu Mengze.
To be honest, after more than a decade, Xue Rui had absolutely no memory of the classmates in front of him. There were very few he could even name.
But he did remember Qiu Mengze. His die-hard childhood friend, with whom he'd set off firecrackers to blow up toilets, skipped class to go to internet cafes, and goofed off catching fish and shrimp...
Qiu Mengze stared straight at the blackboard, his lips completely still, as if he had learned some clumsy ventriloquism. A tiny, hoarse voice emerged from his throat: "The whole class is doing self-introductions. It's your turn."
"Do I even need to introduce myself?" Xue Rui laughed nonchalantly.
He might not remember these classmates, but given the "fame" he'd stirred up during his high school years, there probably wasn't a single person in the entire school who didn't know him.
"Less talk, get up here!" Xue Xiaying commanded in a tone that brooked no refusal.
Xue Rui still hadn't fully accepted reality. He slowly trudged from the back row to the podium and, using the side of a piece of chalk, flamboyantly wrote the two large characters for "Xue Rui" on the blackboard.
Xue Rui wrote his name huge. Though it consisted of just two characters, he used up two entire sticks of chalk and took up a third of the blackboard.
Down below, some of the girls stared dumbfounded, while some of the boys nodded in admiration.
The one with the calmest expression was Qiu Mengze. He knew Xue Rui all too well; this was just his style.
"My name is Xue Rui. Anyone here who doesn't know me? We can have a good chat and get to know each other better."
Xue Rui clapped the chalk dust from his hands and said with a grin.
"You're making a fool of yourself! Go stand by the back door!" Xue Xiaying couldn't resist kicking Xue Rui, knocking him off the podium.
"Next."
"Hello everyone, my name is Li Lingling. I was in Class Six in our first year."
"My name is..."
In truth, most of these students already knew each other from their first year. The classes were just shuffled again after the arts and sciences split in the second year.
Xue Xiaying had organized this round of self-introductions to help the new class integrate more quickly.
Xue Rui stood at the very back of the classroom, his back against the wall, his head bowed as he tried to figure out what was happening and why he was back in high school.
A slender figure passed by in his peripheral vision. Xue Rui found it strange that someone would be wearing a long-sleeved school uniform in 36-degree weather.
"My name is Lin Ruoxi." Lin Ruoxi's voice was so soft that many students had to strain to hear.
"What was that? I'm in the second row and I can't even hear," a girl muttered.
"Lin Ruoxi." Lin Ruoxi's voice trembled slightly, but it was noticeably louder.
"What? Can't hear you!" a male student jeered.
Hearing that name, Xue Rui's head shot up. Standing on the podium was a tall, slender girl.
Even though it was the sweltering summer, she was wearing a baggy autumn school uniform that didn't fit her at all. The uniform was so large it looked like it could fit two of her. Her beautiful hair was like black silk, long, straight, and glossy;
But she kept her head down, her bangs completely covering her eyes, and the hair on the sides also hung low, making it impossible to see her face clearly.
Xue Rui stared intently at Lin Ruoxi on the podium, his heart unable to stop racing.
'Perhaps... this is the reason I was reborn at this exact moment.'