As dawn broke, Feng Yao quietly opened her eyes in the warmth of her blanket.
The bedroom contained only two beds. Due to their smaller sizes, she and Zhang Lu shared one, while Peng Xuan slept alone in the other. Lying flat on her bed, she cautiously stole glances at Zhang Lu’s exquisite and stunning face in the dim light.
She was still asleep.
Zhang Lu remained in slumber, the excessive fright seemingly having kept this girl, who had grown up with her, tossing and turning for most of the night. It was only with the help of medication that she finally fell into a deep sleep.
She wouldn’t wake up. Feng Yao thought, because she was just that kind of fool—vain, arrogant, and relying on her beauty without using her brain, acting haughty and overbearing—
Fool.
Feng Yao was an utterly ordinary high school student, with an ordinary appearance, an ordinary family background, and ordinary physical abilities, making her nothing more than a backdrop in the vast landscape of youth campus dramas. She was like that kind of girl you could see everywhere, wearing black-framed glasses and a blue-and-white school uniform. Her only source of entertainment was reading novels on a phone worth less than a thousand yuan on weekends, and even that phone could barely handle a game that took up a little memory before crashing.
The city she lived in was a large metropolis, with a gradient of economic levels from the financial center to the alleys. Taking the bus home from her school, she would pass through the most bustling streets. Looking at the dazzling lights, she sometimes fantasized about carrying the latest Chanel handbag, indulging in limited-edition cosmetics under the flattering gazes of sales assistants, rather than wearing a shabby school uniform, riding a dilapidated bus, and listening to her parents argue at home over a few yuan increase in vegetable prices. Meanwhile, she could only sit at her desk, with a boutique eyebrow pencil bought with a few days’ worth of breakfast money, secretly reading txt files hidden between test papers and books.
Feng Yao loved reading novels, especially those with a system theme. The ordinary female protagonist always received a system and transformed into an unparalleled beauty, traveling through various worlds. She didn’t have to do anything to make all the male leads see her as the only irreplaceable treasure, standing at the pinnacle of the world.
Other girls liked reading such novels, perhaps out of a fantasy for beautiful love. But Feng Yao only found them vulgar.
She was different from them.
The plot she loved most was when those girls, far more outstanding than the past female leads, had everything destroyed due to the female lead’s golden finger, leading to betrayal and isolation. With the help of the male leads, those girls had their pride and talents shattered, kneeling before the female lead, begging for pity, or even facing death.
She fantasized about being the female lead, destroying everyone who had once ignored her. Those girls would kneel on the ground, no longer able to look at her with their lofty gazes; their faces blurred, yet each one would be streaming with tears.
The faces of those girls slowly took shape in her mundane daily life, acquiring fair, soft hands, bright, expressive eyes, and lips as red as dripping blood. And the embodiment of her fantasies was her “friend” Zhang Lu, who had grown up with her.
Zhang Lu had grown up alongside her, and their families had once been of similar means. The difference was that Zhang Lu’s family had been fortunate enough to receive government compensation for a demolition, acquiring three apartments and a large sum of money, quickly widening the gap between their families.
Outsiders believed that Zhang Lu and Feng Yao were inseparable friends. Zhang Lu was beautiful and outstanding, yet she was particularly close to the ordinary and silent Feng Yao. In talent competitions, she always teamed up with Feng Yao, winning awards for her piano skills, yet giving the only medal to Feng Yao, who had blown a note on the harmonica. Zhang Lu excelled academically, and many borrowed her notes, but her notes were either with her or with Feng Yao. Even when going to the cafeteria, Zhang Lu always ordered the same dishes as Feng Yao.
But Feng Yao never considered that friendship.
How could a lofty and proud girl be friends with someone as ordinary as her? If it were her, she would never do such a thing. Just seeing those girls, as plain as herself, who smiled foolishly without realizing it, made her feel disgusted.
So the truth was simple—Zhang Lu only saw her as an accessory. Without the dullness of the green leaves, how could the nobility of the flowers be highlighted?
But in reality, flowers would always be flowers, and green leaves would always be just green leaves. She could not compete with Zhang Lu, only surviving in her shadow, filled with jealousy and hatred, yet helpless.
The flower treated the green leaf as a friend, taking it from the black soil to the vase, enjoying the most beautiful sunlight. But the green leaf could only resent the flower for blocking its own brilliance.
Until…
She received a Black Invitation Letter inviting her to a midnight theater to watch a play.
The day before, she had eagerly mentioned to the most handsome boy in class, Ye Xian, that she loved watching plays. She had said this intentionally because Zhang Lu had casually remarked, “Ye Xian is really handsome.”
So she gladly accepted the invitation.
But she didn’t expect it to be a dead end.
Having read many infinite flow novels, Feng Yao navigated through the challenges without much trouble. After escaping from the theater, she returned to school, trembling alone in a chair, suddenly shaking with laughter.
She was indeed extraordinary, extraordinary! What did it matter if Zhang Lu was surrounded by everyone? Had she ever participated in such a Game? Had she ever had such an adventure? She…
She, Feng Yao, was the special one!
Thus, when she received the third mandatory invitation letter, despite her fear, she walked into the villa with anticipation. Upon seeing Zhang Lu, heavily made up, and learning that she had also participated in a Game, the confidence Feng Yao had painstakingly built up was shattered once again.
“Yao Yao, what are you doing here?” Zhang Lu looked at her in surprise, her eyes filled with not only astonishment but also an unconscious disdain. “It’s very dangerous here; it’s hard to survive. I thought you wouldn’t…”
Wouldn’t what? Someone like me doesn’t qualify to participate in the Game like you? Feng Yao’s face remained expressionless: “Ah… you’re here too.”
“Last time, I almost died, but luckily I had a big shot to guide me,” Zhang Lu said. “It’s a pity the big shot didn’t leave any contact information. What about you? You participated in two rounds; you must have had a big shot guiding you, right? Do you have their contact information?”
Thinking of Zhang Lu’s words, Feng Yao, who had been hesitating, suddenly smiled coldly and slowly climbed down from the bed.
Why? Why do you always have to steal the spotlight in my life? She thought resentfully, if you want to blame someone, blame yourself for appearing!
In the outside world, she couldn’t do anything to Zhang Lu, only allowing this many flowers to grow around her. But in the Game, it was different!
How many novels had Zhang Lu read compared to her? Did Zhang Lu have the decisiveness she had? Did Zhang Lu know…
If someone died here, they would completely disappear. If someone wanted her dead…
She wouldn’t even need to dirty her hands.
Feng Yao tiptoed to the other side of the bed, gently reaching her hand under Zhang Lu’s pillow.
Her fingers touched something cold; it was Zhang Lu’s phone.
In the Game, participants were not allowed to kill each other, but appropriate means were acceptable. Slowly pulling out the phone, Feng Yao thought, and I don’t want to kill anyone…
I just want to try something.
All second-class safety items combined were not enough for everyone to survive until seven days later, while third-class items, though elusive, also held great hidden opportunities and risks—sometimes, Experienced Players could obtain items from the Game that could be taken out, and these items would bring significant benefits and effects in subsequent Games. For example, the ambiguous fortune bags, which might contain useful items. Therefore, Feng Yao had been thinking about buying a fortune bag from the very beginning.
But buying it herself was still too risky. Long before Lin Huai bought pajamas yesterday, Feng Yao had secretly attempted it. She placed a fortune bag in her shopping cart and dug out Zhang Lu’s phone number from her contacts, trying to change the recipient to Zhang Lu for the first round of attempts.
In the best-case scenario, the fortune bag would yield effective items; even if the items were with Zhang Lu, she could still benefit a little. In the second-best case, if the fortune bag yielded no effective items, she would have spent 500 yuan, only needing to worry about the final 498’s ownership. In the worst case, if the fortune bag yielded a ghostly item, the recipient would still… not be her.
However, when she placed the order, the system returned a message saying, “Please do not use your own phone; fill in another recipient.”
It seemed this method wouldn’t work; she needed to find another way. Feng Yao thought, and she didn’t believe in her luck either. If there were other solutions, she could give up on buying the fortune bag.
Finally, she found another method.
The author has something to say:
*Use of the ○-ed plot:
There is no plot in this chapter.
