Tick-tock, tick-tock — the clock kept ticking. In the classroom, Zhang Yu sat there with a dead-serious expression, working on the exam paper in front of him.
But the exam paper seemed to be endless. No matter how he worked, how he filled in the blanks, there was never a moment when it was done.
And his seat was getting farther and farther from his classmates. Gradually, the figures ahead became blurry, as if the darkness behind him was swallowing everything bit by bit.
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Panic surged in his chest. His书写 hand began to go soft, losing strength, until — along with countless books and exam papers — he plummeted into that bottomless darkness.
Zhang Yu jolted awake in bed.
"Dreaming?"
"Seems like memories from Zhang Yu's past life..."
He rubbed his head, feeling countless fragmented memories belonging to the original body rise and fall in his mind, shifting and unstable.
Although the current Zhang Yu had already taken control of this body, the original memories still hadn't fully merged. Many details required focused recollection to bring back.
Especially regarding yesterday's bizarre ritual — the moment Zhang Yu tried to recall it, a wave of dizziness hit him. He completely couldn't remember what had happened.
He glanced at his phone. It was only 5 AM. He wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but found that this body simply wouldn't let him.
As if waking up at five every day to go to school had become an instinct hardwired into the body.
"Why does lying here make me feel guilty?"
Zhang Yu sat up, figuring this was probably the influence of the original body's memories.
He patted his slightly growling stomach and stood up. "Forget it, might as well go to school. At least I can get a free meal."
He remembered that Songyang High School provided three meals a day, and this month's meal fees had already been loaded onto his card.
Now, burdened with 700,000 in debt and with barely fifty-something yuan to his name, he sure as hell couldn't afford to eat out.
So he left the stuffy apartment, threaded through the filthy alleyways reeking of sewage, and squeezed onto a bus with a crowd of people.
Crammed into a bus车厢 where the stench of sweat and food mingled, where the air conditioning was supposedly on but felt like it wasn't, Zhang Yu felt like a squashed takeout delivery being jolted toward the city center.
After an hour and a half and two bus transfers, a drenched-in-sweat Zhang Yu finally managed to squeeze off the bus.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Come to think of it, why do I commute instead of boarding?"
"Oh right, because I can't afford the dorm fees."
Unlike the neighborhood where Zhang Yu lived, the area he'd gotten off at was in the city proper. Towering skyscrapers and wide, clean roads filled his vision, and even the air was noticeably fresher.
The men and women walking on the streets were mostly well-dressed, looking like urban elites.
After walking and stopping along the way, he finally reached the school gate. From a distance, Zhang Yu could already see the large characters on the gate: "Songyang Senior High School of Immortal Studies."
On the electronic screen at the school entrance, there was actually a string of report cards, listing the top ten students from all three grade levels based on last month's scores.
This alone showed that Songyang High School was a school that placed immense importance on student performance.
If Zhang Yu were to summarize it based on his current memories: at Songyang High School, scores reign supreme. This was a world where everyone judged you by your numbers.
Studying and exams were as natural here as breathing, and nearly everyone had an extreme case of score-based discrimination.
Things like "Your score is so low? No wonder you have to wait so long in the cafeteria line," "Your score is so low, you don't even deserve to sit at our table in the cafeteria," "Top students exist to thoroughly humiliate bottom-feeders" — all of this was considered "positive campus culture."
"This is a score-worshipping world. Hell for underachievers."
Zhang Yu glanced at the screen showing "Grade 10, Overall Rank 10: Zhang Yu" and sighed inwardly. "Good thing I'm one of the high scorers."
"Even if this ranking might be a bit unearned right now, at least it hasn't been exposed yet. So I should still be able to live a decent life at school?"
Songyang High School's cafeteria served breakfast, so Zhang Yu followed his memories and headed there.
Walking in, he noticed that while there were many students lining up to eat, they were all eerily quiet. Nearly everyone queued silently, collected their food quietly, and found seats to eat in silence — like interlocking gears, precisely executing every step.
Some students were even reading books while eating, squeezing every last minute to study.
Zhang Yu found a random seat and sat down. Just as he took a bite of his meat bun, someone sat down in the empty seat across from him.
She was a girl with jet-black long hair and a pale, delicate face.
A name surfaced in Zhang Yu's mind.
"Bai Zhenzhen."
"More precisely, Bai Zhenzhen — ranked first overall in Grade 10. The woman at the very top of the high school food chain."
Watching the girl across from him sipping porridge, Zhang Yu thought: "Are we... friends?"
"Because I'm in the top ten? Is this what they call the honors clique?"
Bai Zhenzhen was the type of person who always looked upset unless she was actively smiling. Even ordinary words coming out of her mouth carried an air of cold detachment that kept people at arm's length.
Just like now, sitting across from Zhang Yu — if she didn't say a word, he'd start wondering if she had some kind of problem with him.
Just as Zhang Yu was focused on digging through memories related to Bai Zhenzhen, trying to figure out what exactly their relationship was—
The girl spoke: "After you finish eating, come to the little garden. I'll be waiting there."
Watching her retreating figure, a thoughtful look flickered across Zhang Yu's eyes.
A moment later, after he'd eaten and drunk his fill, he walked out of the cafeteria and headed to the small garden behind the school.
This was a quiet spot behind the dormitory buildings. With most students rushing to the classrooms at this hour, it was virtually deserted.
Bai Zhenzhen stood in front of a flower bed. The moment she heard Zhang Yu's footsteps, she turned around and hurried over to him.
"Dad!"
With a thud, she dropped to her knees, hugging Zhang Yu's leg. "There were too many people in the cafeteria just now — I was too embarrassed to say it in front of everyone."
"Lend me some money. My microloan payment's been overdue for almost a month! I'm literally begging you on my knees..."
Staring at this scene, Zhang Yu cursed inwardly: "What kind of garbage school is this? First place and tenth place are both taking out loans to flex?"
Now Zhang Yu also remembered — the reason he and Bai Zhenzhen knew each other wasn't because of any honors clique. It was because she was his upline, the one who'd peddled microloans to him.
Let me re-introduce: Zhang Yu's classmate, Bai Zhenzhen — they were "good bros" who shared intel on borrowing platforms across the board, bound by the solid brotherhood of四处借钱四处欠债.
Thinking about how beneath that icy poker face in the cafeteria, she'd been constantly scheming how to borrow money from him, Zhang Yu shook his head helplessly. "Let go of me first. What money do I have to lend you?"
Bai Zhenzhen shook her head. "You're only ranked tenth — how much could you have spent? You must've taken out way less in loans than me, right?"
Then, with a stiff and somewhat shy tone, she added: "As long as you help pay off my debt... I'll do whatever you want."
Zhang Yu's eyes lit up. Looking at the usually-cold Bai Zhenzhen now with her face flushed like peach blossoms, he found her oddly charming.
He looked her up and down. "Anything at all?"
Bai Zhenzhen bit her lip lightly and nodded. "Mm."
Zhang Yu: "Can I use you as collateral?"
Bai Zhenzhen let go and glared at him. "Yu-zi, do you really have no money?"
Zhang Yu pulled out his phone and showed her the balance and overdue payment notifications.
Bai Zhenzhen stood up, dusted off her pants, and looked at Zhang Yu with disbelief. "You owe seven hundred thousand? Even after graduating from university, it would probably take years of work to pay that off."
"And you're only in Grade 10 and already spending like this?"
Shaking her head repeatedly, she continued: "Zhang Yu, how exactly did you spend all this money?"
Zhang Yu rubbed his head. "I forgot... give me a moment to think."
Bai Zhenzhen looked at him suspiciously. "Don't tell me you invested in something? Did you get scammed?"
As Zhang Yu tried to recall, he grew uncertain too. "Probably... not?"
Bai Zhenzhen's expression suddenly turned serious. The more she thought about it, the more fishy this seven-hundred-thousand spending seemed. "Let me see your phone."
Zhang Yu understood she was looking out for him. After all, investment fraud, scams, gambling, sudden death, and cultivation deviation were the top five causes of death in Songyang City — with cultivation deviation ranking fifth.
He felt the same doubt about the original body welling up inside him, so he immediately pulled out his phone. "Actually, I want to trace where this money went too. Let's look at the transaction history together."
Their eyes swept across the phone screen, seeing each of the original body's expenses one by one.
And as Zhang Yu read them, many related memory details surged out of his mind.
[Danding Pharmacy -280.00]
[Danding Pharmacy -250.00]
[Time Waits for No One Meditation Room -120.00]
Zhang Yu explained as they scrolled: "I bought pills at the school pharmacy, then rented a meditation room to practice breathing exercises..."
Songyang High School's curriculum included general subjects like Chinese, math, physics, and history, but the core was Immortal Studies — the path of cultivation from mortal to immortal.
Breathing exercises were the most fundamental skill in Immortal Cultivation — by breathing in and gathering the spiritual energy in the atmosphere, cultivators could accumulate mana within their bodies.
With sufficient mana, one could unleash greater combat power and reach higher realms. Mana was truly the foundation upon which all Immortal Cultivation techniques operated.
For example, to break through from the Qi Refining realm to the Foundation Establishment realm, the mana requirement was above 60 points. The maximum mana a Qi Refining cultivator could hold was 100 points.
In the system established by the Ten Great Sects, everything was standardized and digitized to the greatest extent possible — including mana. The mana detection devices at school currently measured to one decimal place.
Bai Zhenzhen nodded slightly and continued scrolling.
[Shuixiu Food Service Co., Ltd. -532.00]
Zhang Yu said: "That's for nutritional supplements at the cafeteria. Pretty expensive."
In Immortal Cultivation, physical body strength was equally crucial. Consuming large quantities of food rich in spiritual energy and cultivation elements was part of a cultivator's daily routine, known as "food supplementation."
[Longxiang Education Services Co., Ltd. -1500.00]
[Longxiang Education Services Co., Ltd. -3000.00]
Zhang Yu recalled after a moment: "Hmm... that's for tutoring fees, and the fee for renting a Spiritual Root."
Spiritual Roots were a special kind of gift possessed only by a select few geniuses. They could dramatically boost a cultivator's efficiency and combat power.
As the most famous barrier in the history of Immortal Cultivation, even Zhang Yu and his mother had heard all the legends about Spiritual Roots back when he was in middle school. So much so that the original Zhang Yu had used "renting a Spiritual Root" as an excuse to get his mother to send money while borrowing loans for tutoring.
However, with modern cultivation technology advancing rapidly, ordinary people without Spiritual Roots — like Zhang Yu — could now pay to rent one to improve their cultivation efficiency.
He kept scrolling. Aside from the first few items where Zhang Yu gave brief explanations, the remaining expenses were almost all similar — virtually everything was related to Immortal Cultivation.
After quickly going through Zhang Yu's expenses over the past few months, Bai Zhenzhen looked at him with eyes full of sympathy. "So you really spent all this on your own cultivation?"
"And you only made it to tenth place after going seven hundred thousand in debt?"
"It's only been three-plus months since school started, right? What are you going to do?"
As someone who'd only transmigrated into this world one day ago, Zhang Yu was naturally just as lost. He shrugged. "I'll just muddle through for now. Figure it out gradually."
Seeing that class was about to start, they walked toward the teaching building while chatting.
"How are you, with seven hundred thousand in debt, looking calmer than me with just over two hundred thousand?"
Bai Zhenzhen stared at Zhang Yu's peaceful expression and warned: "You have no more money to keep spending on your studies!"
"Do you have any idea what happens when you can't afford to study? Do you know how dangerous our situation is?"
Zhang Yu: "What happens?"
Bai Zhenzhen said: "In three weeks there's the monthly exam. With three weeks left and no money to rent a Spiritual Root, no money for pills, no money for tutoring, no money for daily supplements... Meanwhile, everyone else is improving every single second. When the time comes, dropping dozens of ranks would be completely normal — and you'll be kicked out of the Demonstration Class immediately!"
As Zhang Yu processed Bai Zhenzhen's words, a flood of related memories poured into his mind.
The entire Grade 10 had ten classes, from Class 1 to Class 10, with class assignments based on monthly exam results.
With Zhang Yu's ranking, he'd naturally been placed in Class 1 — the best-treated class, also known as the Demonstration Class.
The monthly exam scores weren't just about regular academic tests; what mattered most was ultimately the Immortal Cultivation performance.
After all, general education was only worth 50 points, while the combined Immortal Studies subjects totaled a whopping 650 points.
Everyone was in Grade 10 and had only officially begun Cultivation after the school year started, so their cultivation levels were actually fairly close.
Although he appeared to be in tenth place, if he couldn't maintain his previous pace of improvement over the next few weeks, it would be easy to fall dozens of spots behind.
Bai Zhenzhen continued: "No money, worse and worse rankings, lower and lower treatment — in this vicious cycle, you'll be kicked from Class 1 all the way down to Class 10!"
Her face grave, she added: "No money, no results — you'll become combustible garbage in the teachers' eyes, a laughingstock among Demonstration Class students, and the target for those nobodies in regular classes to feel a cheap sense of superiority!"
Bai Zhenzhen clutched her head. "In that situation, forget about cultivation resources — even your Dao Heart would be hard to keep stable. Your scores will only get worse, and eventually you'll fall below the elimination line, getting kicked out of Songyang High School with nothing but injuries and a mountain of debt."
As if envisioning that miserable future in her mind, Bai Zhenzhen looked up at the sky and sighed. "Do you really want to live at the very bottom of the school's social hierarchy, getting humiliated by everyone? End up as a dropout scrub who amount to nothing?"
Zhang Yu twitched his mouth. "So what do you suggest?"
Bai Zhenzhen was silent for a moment, then turned her head. "Bro, honestly... spending seven hundred thousand just to reach tenth place? You might genuinely not be cut out for Immortal Cultivation."
"I don't know how you got into Songyang, but my advice is... drop out and get a job. Otherwise, I'm afraid you'll only sink deeper."
Zhang Yu didn't respond, but inwardly he lamented: "The only good thing about this crummy world is that you can cultivate — and they tell me on my very first day that I don't have the talent for it?"
Back in the classroom shortly after, Zhang Yu picked up his buzzing phone and found that Bai Zhenzhen had transferred him 500 yuan, along with a message.
Bai Zhenzhen: "Use this to pay your utility bills first."
Zhang Yu blinked, then suddenly sniffed his own clothes. He immediately understood — Bai Zhenzhen had caught the smell of someone who hadn't showered in days.
He'd gotten used to it himself, but to others it would be pretty noticeable.
Thinking about how she'd sent him money despite her own dire financial situation, Zhang Yu sighed. He typed out a long message on his phone, then deleted every word of it. In the end, he replied with just two characters:
"Thanks."
After putting his phone away, Zhang Yu looked at his palm. The symbol on it was already half-filled with black.
From the moment he'd walked to school and entered the classroom, Zhang Yu had discovered that this symbol on his palm was visible only to him.
He did the math — the symbol would likely be completely filled with black by tonight. The question was: what would happen once it was full?