Chapter 4: The Legacy of the Future

If you were to ask Xu Mingsong what left the deepest impression on him in his prophetic visions of the future, his answer would undoubtedly be "death."

A blizzard rages. A young man grips a phone that refuses to connect, trudging through the frozen wasteland in his coat. Eventually, he encounters the Dragon-Headed Demon King beneath a snowy night—a being whose power to freeze the heavens and earth is akin to a ghost or god, impossible to overcome no matter how hard he fights.

The brave hero falls in a spectacularly pathetic fashion, a faint "noob" label visible above his head. Next hero, please.

—6, 18th Alley, Sui'an Street.

This was the destination Xu Mingsong was determined to reach even through the howling gale; it was also, one might say, his rather direct cause of death. Of course, in retrospect, he went, he lost, and the little dragon-person intended to turn Winter City into a block of ice. But even if he hadn't gone to Sui'an Street, he would still have been frozen solid by that little dragon-person from his vision, eventually crushed into rust-flavored shaved ice.

"Why are you muttering my address?"

Mei Qianyu narrowed her eyes, knitting her delicate brows as she looked at Xu Mingsong with deep suspicion. "Trying to come over to my place to hang out?"

"Thinking about saving the world," he replied.

Mei Qianyu couldn't help but laugh. "What dream are you having now? I’d love to hear how my house is connected to saving the world."

Xu Mingsong was also frustrated. "How should I know? Let's drop it."

"You seem burdened today," the girl sighed, then contentedly took a bite of her bread.

"You haven't had breakfast yet?"

"Didn't sleep well last night," Mei Qianyu said, her cheeks puffed out, her words muffled. "I think I had a nightmare. If Grandma hadn't called me, I’d probably still be buried under my covers, and it wouldn't be fun to get arrested by Officer Yi."

Mei Qianyu—the girl he’d known since he was a kid.

He vaguely remembered they started talking on a rainy day in the third grade. Back then, the other kids in the classroom either had umbrellas or were being shielded by someone else. He had been called to the office and was late getting back, and his buddies had already bolted without him. He found only the two of them left in the classroom. She was leaning on her arms, staring out the window, looking exactly like a girl with no one to pick her up, forced to wait out the rain in the school building.

His gaze caught her eyes. Kids can't hide their feelings; as the rain poured down, her eyes reflected the windowpane, mottled by raindrops—like a moldy fungus in the corner of a room, ignored by everyone.

Two of a kind, castaways in the same world—why bother with the formalities of an introduction when you've already met?

There is a truth to keep in mind: the rain won't fall forever, but the head will.

When his father, Old Xu, got off work, he brought an umbrella to the school. Amidst Old Xu’s stunned and indignant glare, he demanded his dad give the girl a ride home on the way.

It was during that rainy season that he learned there was a transparent, invisible girl in his class who had lost her parents and lived with her grandmother at 6, 18th Alley, Sui'an Street.

If nothing went wrong, this heroine was the reason for his frantic run through that snowy night.

The bus was exceptionally bumpy, and the air felt stuffy. Fortunately, Xu Mingsong didn't get motion sickness. His gaze swept over the increasingly crowded rows of seats before shifting up to the screen in the middle of the bus. Today, it was once again scrolling through news of incidents in Winter City: another religious conflict in the Outer District, another robbery by some petty thief in the Inner District.

Missing person notice, child lost, parents anxious…

Oh, Jiang District? Isn't that right here?

Soon, it switched to a pile of miscellaneous political news. The municipal government found it necessary to continue heightening and reinforcing the outer walls, with some even proposing a second wall between the Inner and Outer Districts to cope with the rampant crime and conflict in the Outer District, all to protect the lives and property of those in the Inner District. Proponents and opponents held their own views, and so on...

A fine Inner Wall indeed.

Xu Mingsong couldn't help but feel a twitch in his nerves.

If there was anything truly dissonant, it was the contrast between the moral virtues taught in school and what he saw and heard outside. His homeroom teacher, Officer Yi, always taught them that even if they were mired in the mud, they must not forget to be upright people, and that some things must be rooted deep within a person and never discarded. But for the teenagers, clearly no one cared for these lectures; the required "Daoist Studies" classes were merely a playground for students to relax.

"If happiness were as easy to buy as..."

Wait, are you speaking Chinese?

Xu Mingsong was interrupted. He heard two guys in front of him chatting, their words shocking.

To prevent himself from hearing something that might shatter his worldview due to his over-active comprehension, he nudged Mei Qianyu with his elbow to distract her.

"What are you doing?"

"Let me ask you something," Xu Mingsong said, waving his hand.

Mei Qianyu clapped her hands, shaking off breadcrumbs, and crossed her arms. "Little thief, bring it on. If I can't answer, I’ll consider it my loss."

"There's no standard answer."

"Huh? You're cheating!"

Her crossed arms shifted into a cross-check as she glared at him menacingly.

"Listen to me—" Xu Mingsong raised a finger and said slowly, "If someone suddenly told you the world would end next year, would you—wait, what's with that expression?"

"Keep going, I'm listening." Mei Qianyu's mouth twitched slightly, then she coughed. "What kind of apocalypse? Asteroid impact? Volcano eruption? A super earthquake? Or maybe... BOOM, a Creeper explodes and we get blown into the sky?"

"It’s a 'New Ice Age' DLC update, and we’re getting turned into ice blocks!"

Xu Mingsong swatted away the paw she reached out to pinch his face. She withdrew it sulkily, then propped her chin in her hand, eyeing him. "Hey, are you having auditory hallucinations again?"

"When have I ever had auditory hallucinations?" Xu Mingsong was stunned.

"Didn't you have them all the time when you were little? You were always hearing someone calling you 'Brother, Brother'..." Mei Qianyu curled her lip.

"No, you're rewriting history!"

Xu Mingsong rolled his eyes, scoffing at the fake news Mei Qianyu was fabricating out of thin air. He had been healthy as a horse since birth—if not possessing a superhuman physique, then at least in perfect mental and physical condition. Where would he get any history of auditory hallucinations?

Mei Qianyu wrinkled her nose in dissatisfaction, pondering what else to say. But the bus arrived at their stop, and the boy and girl each grabbed their backpacks and hurried off. The school gate was bustling with people, and the two of them, caught up in the crowd, forgot about their previous conversation and moved on to other idle chatter.

In the classroom, the second and third rows were adjacent. Xu Mingsong, sitting on the left of the second row, and Mei Qianyu, on the right of the third, were quite fated to be together. He counted it up: ever since their ill-fated meeting in the third grade, he had been stuck with this girl who loved "petty thief vs. heroine" roleplay. From elementary school to middle school and now high school, the friends around them had changed, but their connection was stubbornly persistent.

"Here, take your cards back." Mei Qianyu shoved the cards into his hand, then pulled back as if electrocuted. "Your hands are so cold, just like your heart."

Cold! Like a dried fish straight out of the freezer!

She rubbed her palms for warmth and glanced at this "little thief," noticing he was sitting calmly with his leg crossed. A red tip of something was accidentally peeking out of his pocket. As if worried the heroine beside him hadn't seen it, he moved it from his left pocket to his right, but before he could finish the maneuver, his arm was seized by the female bandit!

"Did you go and sell your body?" she asked sorrowfully.

"Inherited from my parents," he declared loudly.

She looked beautiful when she laughed, her eyes blinking as if they contained little stars.

"Wow! A super rich guy! Rich guy, rich guy, can you keep me as your mistress? I don't have high standards, three meals a day will do! It would be even better if you could feed me snacks, milk tea, and coffee!" Mei Qianyu spread her index finger and thumb wide to form a heart on her chest, letting out a peal of laughter. "If you had some kind of romance system, maybe I’d see a prompt over my head saying 'Affection Level UP UP'!"

Xu Mingsong's mouth twitched, but he held his composure.

*Hiss*, damn, this woman can be so materialistic!

I'll be dragged down by her and become a loser sooner or later!

He couldn't help but hum, telling her to go out and walk around tomorrow to see how she performs.

There was nothing special about their studies today, just normal classes.

Xu Mingsong's mind wasn't on it. He slumped over his desk, while the students around him chatted about mundane trifles. A few hot-blooded guys were even openly debating politics, and as Xu Mingsong listened to them talk at length about the "Inner Wall" construction plan, he suddenly felt this world was nothing short of magical.

Such an ordinary daily life.

The storm and the monster knocking on his door last night seemed like nothing more than a hallucination. He knew what would happen in the future, but it was like telling that monkey at Flower-Fruit Mountain that he would become a disciple of a legendary master in a few hundred years and wreak havoc in the Heavenly Palace—the stone monkey wouldn't know what the hell he was talking about. Who to apprentice under? Why wreak havoc in the Heavenly Palace? Those things hundreds of years away were impossible to imagine.

You tell me this, but who understands?

Xu Mingsong was currently waiting for a future airdrop, thinking he should probably buy a book like an Encyclopedia of Monsters—preferably an e-book. If some web novelist were willing to collect stories of spirits and monsters and compile them into a web novel, that would be even better. Wouldn't it be exhilarating to read a web novel while reading popular science?

That’s a good idea. Why didn't I think of that last night?

*Knock, knock—*

A nightmarish sound.

Xu Mingsong gave a violent start, subconsciously staring at the classroom window. The sky was a clear cyan, the weather was fine, and the sun was bright.

It was the girl at the desk in front of him. She turned around, knocked on his desk, and called out, "Mingsong?"

The girl wore round-framed glasses and looked quiet and gentle.

He froze for a moment before snapping back to reality.

The girl before him was Xia Zhuyi, the student sitting in front of him and the leader of the second row, responsible for collecting and distributing homework. They were on decent terms, but she was quiet, didn't talk much, and was a down-to-earth "glasses girl"—the kind of literary girl who appeared in the corner of every teenager's life. An impressionist, perhaps?

"Ah... ah? Long time no see."

*Damn it!* Tongue-tied!

As soon as he said that, Mei Qianyu, sitting next to him, couldn't help but laugh. "Hey, what kind of mouth is that? 'Long time no see'?"

She leaned over to stir the pot. "Zhuyi, hurry up and hit him. He doesn't even have you in his eyes! If you're afraid of ruining your image and can't bring yourself to do it, let me! I've been looking forward to this for a long time!"

"Wait, there's no need to use fists to leave an impression!" Xu Mingsong protested.

"It's fine, this is part of understanding Armament Haki. It's called the Fist of Love," Mei Qianyu said, pretending to roll up sleeves that weren't there.

"I don't see any love in it at all! If you want to settle a personal grudge, just say so!" Xu Mingsong indignantly struck a starting pose, beckoning her with a hook of his finger. "Come on, dare to spar with me?"

Xia Zhuyi pushed up her glasses calmly, unmoved by the two troublemakers' lively interaction. "It's time to hand in the exercise books. You're the only one left in the whole row."

Xu Mingsong was stunned, then scratched the back of his head. "Oh."

I'm going to die next year, I just met a monster yesterday, but today, I'm still handing in my homework.

He respectfully handed the exercise book to Group Leader Xia, then slumped over his desk, resting his chin on his wrists, silently staring at the wall clock above the blackboard, until a white cat paw waved in front of his eyes. He paused, subconsciously brushing the paw away.

"Stop messing around."

"Who are you talking to?" Mei Qianyu asked, looking over curiously.

Xu Mingsong froze at her words. That's right, where did that cat paw come from?

"Meow!"

"Look down!"

A voice resonated from within his chest.

His eyes widened in shock as he watched white particles drift out from his chest, fluttering like snowflakes.

A pure white cat poked its head out from his chest, the rest of its body still stuck inside.

"Die next year?"

"You're too naive, kid."

She looked up, her sapphire-like cat eyes watching him with great interest.

"I see your forehead is darkened with the aura of death; I'm afraid you'll be hung from the rafters and turned into a dried salted fish by tonight."