NFM Chapter 39

Cao Aimin ran this idea through his mind, and after considering various pieces of evidence, he became absolutely convinced that he was indeed the male protagonist of a web novel from Dianjia, set in an infinite flow genre.

The male protagonist’s seat, the male protagonist’s amnesia, the male protagonist’s infinite flow… wasn’t this the standard setup for a male protagonist? Ten years on the east side, ten years on the west side, don’t bully the poor youth… Yes, the reason he, at thirty-two years old, came to teach at this middle school was because of his ex-fiancée who had broken off their engagement!

His life actually turned out to be a city-themed story of breaking off an engagement and seeking revenge… Now all the elements were in place. Thinking that one day he might appear on Dianjia’s Character Starlight Ranking alongside popular characters like Klein, Ning Zhiheng, and Senior Bai, Cao Aimin felt a small surge of excitement in his otherwise flat chest.

Seeing the three transfer students once again forming a group and heading out of the classroom, Cao Aimin slammed his hand on the desk, pushed the homework in front of the class monitor, and said, “Here’s the homework, I’m off!”

As soon as he finished speaking, he hurriedly ran out, leaving the pale and stiff monitor standing there holding his homework.

‘Speaking of which, this monitor…’ he thought as he ran, ‘the spots on his hands are getting more and more…’

By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, panting, the three had already formed an infinite flow branch and were having a small meeting. Cao Aimin hid behind the bushes and heard Xia Xingye’s gentle voice: “…the situation is getting worse, and the spots on them are increasing.”

Qiu Ran said, “Then…”

“We need to start taking action. I think the Seven Wonders correspond to the deaths of seven people. The rooftop corresponds to Yan Xi, the pool corresponds to Shen You, and the music room corresponds to Tang Feng. The latter two have various entanglements with Yan Xi… From today, we should start taking action to prevent the next four deaths. Otherwise, after a month, when all seven are dead, there are two possibilities. One, they will all turn into evil spirits and attack us. Two, Yan Xi, who has killed six people, will become a true evil spirit, driving the six fierce ghosts to kill us, and then it will be troublesome…”

Nearby, Cao Aimin listened in confusion. Using all his reasoning abilities, he roughly understood their meaning.

One, there have already been three murders at this school, and there will be four more.

Two, the source of it all is a student named Yan Xi from Class 3C. He became a fierce ghost after committing suicide due to bullying and is now taking revenge on his former enemies. So far, he has killed two people.

Three, their task is to prevent the situation from worsening. Therefore, they need to protect the remaining four people from being killed.

“Then…” the girl named Qiu Ran asked, “how do we know who will be killed? There are only three of us, we can’t split up every night and wander around.”

Hearing this question, Xia Xingye slightly furrowed his brows. His eyebrows were delicate, like flowers reflected in water, making one’s heart flutter.

Cao Aimin, who had been broken up with by his girlfriend for a long time and now found even a man’s beauty stirring, bit himself hard.

Is… is it possible…?

He thought about it and felt there could only be one explanation—many authors of Dianjia novels would first have the female protagonist dress as a man, pretend to be gay with the male protagonist to attract female readers, and then, as the popularity grew, have the female protagonist reveal her true identity to prove the male protagonist is straight…

Yes, it must be like this!

So this gentle-voiced, outstandingly handsome, long-haired, beautiful but dressed as a man… must be the well-hidden female protagonist of the novel he’s in!

Just as he was lost in his thoughts, a lazy voice came from the other side: “Hehe.”

The voice came from above. Cao Aimin and the three looked up at the tree.

“Why are you sitting in the tree?!” Li Fen shouted.

A leg tightly wrapped in suit pants dangled from the tree’s shade. The leg was slender and well-proportioned, swaying gently in the evening breeze. Just from that leg, one could imagine how slim-waisted, long-legged, and beautiful the owner of that leg was. The young man, whose voice was like a cat’s, smiled at them: “Because it’s more convenient to go downstairs from here…”

Everyone looked up. Indeed, above the tree was the fourth-floor corridor.

Li Fen: …so you really jumped down from there?

“I got too excited listening, couldn’t help it.”

As he said this, Lin Huai jumped down from the tree. Li Fen instinctively made a move to catch him, but the young man dodged.

He landed lightly on the ground in a half-kneeling position, his chin sharp, eyes upturned, handsome yet with a sharp and beautiful aura. The young man who fell from the tree was dressed in a black suit with a striped bow tie, smiling with a hint of mischief at the corner of his mouth.

Cao Aimin was stunned.

“Originally, I didn’t want to come down, but it seems I need to give my teammates some hints,” Lin Huai smiled. “About the ‘victims’—”

He drew out the word “victims,” then pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket: “Here, take this.”

“Invidia… is that Victoria? Victoria’s Secret?”

“…” Lin Huai squinted, “It’s one of the seven deadly sins, envy. What are you thinking about at such a young age?”

“I found this at Tang Feng’s death scene. Before that, I sneaked into Class 3C’s classroom and found the word ‘acedia’ written in blood on the back of Shen You’s desk, meaning ‘sloth.'”

“This…”

“Tang Feng was Yan Xi’s best-known friend; they grew up together. However, he did nothing when Yan Xi was framed, and later, out of jealousy over Yan Xi’s surpassing grades, he set traps for him. Eventually, he even used Yan Xi’s trust to trick him into giving him a novel he wrote, which he then posted in the class for public humiliation. Therefore, his judgment is envy.”

“As for Shen You, as the propaganda officer, she spread rumors about Yan Xi peeping on the class beauty in the restroom without any understanding of the situation. She even spread and stamped these rumors when other classmates came to ask, leading to widespread gossip. In class, she was always harsh, never taking the time to listen to his explanations. Therefore, her judgment is sloth, sloth being irresponsibility.”

He succinctly explained the actions of these two individuals. Facing the shocked looks from everyone, he shrugged and smiled: “What did you think I’ve been doing in Class C these past few days?”

‘Actually, it was just to pick on Yu Xingjian,’ Lin Huai silently thought, ‘the information was incidentally obtained from Li Xinyi… but there’s no need to mention that when showing off.’

“Then,” Qiu Ran asked, “what’s the relationship between their crimes and the locations of their deaths?”

“Yan Xi can play the piano; he and Tang Wen knew each other from piano class since childhood. Therefore, Tang Wen chose the piano room as the place to hang herself. As for the pool, it was probably to make Shen You inhale enough mud to silence her irresponsible mouth.”

“But, since the small hole in the restroom is one of the Seven Wonders,” Qiu Ran questioned, “and you just said that the initial conflict between Shen You and Yan Xi was the restroom peeping incident, why didn’t Shen You die in the restroom? That way of dying would be more targeted.”

Li Fen said, “I think it’s because there’s no mud in the restroom…”

“But the restroom has other things that can be used to block the mouth…” Qiu Ran said, “like feces…”

“Maybe because that would be too cruel for a lady…” Li Fen interjected.

Facing Qiu Ran’s question, Lin Huai said, “Perhaps the evil spirit didn’t have much experience in killing at that time, or perhaps… he hadn’t decided to become an evil spirit yet?”

“!” Qiu Ran quickly caught the keyword, “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Lin Huai smiled, waving his hand, “Bye.”

With that, he was about to leave, hiding his achievements, when Xia Xingye’s polite voice came from behind.

“Teacher Lin.”

“Teacher Lin, are you joining our side by telling us all this?” he smiled.

Lin Huai, with his back to him, said, “As they say, the debtor has his due, I’m not interested in stopping the evil spirit from taking revenge…”

‘After all, by race, I should belong to the evil spirit’s side,’ he thought, ‘just like how people from the Valley of the Wicked wouldn’t attack Wang Yifeng in a battle (even though his flute sounds terrible)… and.’

Thinking of “and,” he looked towards Class 3F and stopped revealing his thoughts, which could spoil the next five chapters, fully demonstrating the trait that prophets need to be killed.

Xia Xingye waited for him to finish “and,” but Lin Huai never spoke again.

“But you can rest assured,” Lin Huai said, “I won’t hinder your attempts to complete the task, nor am I interested in helping the evil spirit take revenge—this is his own business. Revenge is the most powerless thing in the world.”

“However,” he said, “I haven’t misled your reasoning. Follow this line of thought, and you might find something very interesting.”

After saying this, he bowed to the void as he came, and disappeared into the twilight.

The setting sun stretched his shadow long. Cao Aimin, Li Fen, and Qiu Ran stared at his back, dumbfounded.

“This person…” Cao Aimin wildly thought, “how can he be so pretentious, and the way he leaves things half-said is really infuriating!”

He thought about it and felt that this person was either the male second lead he was about to conquer or the villain boss he would eventually confront in the future. As for a supporting character? Female lead? Don’t even think about it!

Behind Lin Huai, only Xia Xingye watched his back, slightly narrowing his eyes.

In the afterglow of the setting sun, his earring shone with a blood-red light.

While the trio of Xia, Qiu, and Fen (plus a thirty-two-year-old man tentatively probing from the periphery) continued their investigation of the school based on their plan to prevent revenge, Wednesday of the second week arrived.

“Today’s class ends here, self-study for fifteen minutes, then go to lunch,” Lin Huai flipped through the book, weakly sprawled on the podium, his squinting eyes fixed on the students below, “Ahhh—why is teaching others more tiring than being a student myself—I want a holiday—I want a holiday—I want a holiday—”

After issuing a water-word count triple hit, he barely restrained himself from rolling around on the podium in front of the whole class. At that moment, Fang Cheng, as if seeking death, brought his book up: “Teacher Lin, I have a question to ask…”

Ever since Lin Huai pulled Fang Cheng out of the Punishment Chamber, this person had been bringing questions to the podium every day, ten questions a day, never repeating. Lin Huai covered his face with the book and said, “Odd functions stay odd, even functions stay even, symbols follow the quadrant…”

“Teacher Lin—”

“Lu Xun didn’t say this, if you want to quote it in your essay, suggest changing it to Dostoevsky said…”

“Teacher Lin.”

“Highlights xxx mood, enhances xxx atmosphere, highlights and enhances should not be reversed, the ‘fen’ in atmosphere is read as the first tone…”

“Teacher Lin.”

After being hit with Fang Cheng’s water-word count triple hit, Lin Huai finally pulled the book off his face, took the book from his hand, and started lazily reading. After a while, he tossed the book back to him and said, “This question is beyond the syllabus, ignore it.”

Considering he was being too perfunctory, he added, “This question is from Jiangsu.”

After saying this, he continued to sprawl on the podium. Fang Cheng, holding the book, didn’t know whether to go back down or not. Lin Huai squinted for a while, then impatiently said, “If you want to understand it, go read a book called ‘Been out of high school for several years, don’t know what reference books are available, so let’s call it Intermediate Mathematics for now.’ By the way, why are you asking me about math problems…”

After saying this, he covered his face with the book again and pretended to sleep.

Fang Cheng, holding the math reference book, helplessly looked at the young teacher who was sprawled lazily on the podium for a while, then went back down.

After the bell rang, Lin Huai stretched and walked out of the classroom first. Chen Haoyu came up to Fang Cheng and said, “Son, let’s go eat.”

Fang Cheng “hmmed” and followed him.

After the meal, it was already dark. On the way back to the classroom, Fang Cheng said to Chen Haoyu, “I want to go to the library to borrow a book.”

Chen Haoyu didn’t hesitate: “Then I, your dad, will accompany you, what do you want to borrow? ‘Zhu Xian’? ‘Douluo Dalu’?”

“…’Intermediate Mathematics’.”

“Wow, my son really loves studying,” Chen Haoyu, as if honored, hooked his shoulder and joked, “Let’s go, we can make it back half an hour before evening self-study. Teacher Lin is supervising tonight, it’s fine to come back a bit late.”

Fang Cheng “hmmed” and let Chen Haoyu overly intimately hook his shoulder.

The two of them thus walked towards the library in the night.

Author’s Note: *The origin of the crossed-out meme:

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Also known as ‘When They Cry’, a horror anime. Its characteristic is that characters die upon transferring schools.