Chapter 2: School
The incessant ticking of the clock echoed as Zhang Yu, seated in the classroom, diligently worked on the test paper before him.
But the test seemed endless; no matter how much he did or how much he filled in, there was never a moment of completion.
His seat also grew more and more distant from his classmates, until he could no longer make out the figures ahead, as if he were being slowly devoured by the darkness behind him.
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead as panic surged from his heart. The hand that had been writing nonstop began to weaken, losing its strength.
Only when he plummeted into the bottomless darkness along with countless books and test papers did Zhang Yu jolt awake in his bed.
“Was that a dream?”
Seems like it was all memories from the original Zhang Yu.
He rubbed his head, feeling innumerable fragmented memories of the body’s previous owner rise and fall in his mind, shifting and uncertain.
Although the current Zhang Yu was in control, he had yet to fully integrate the original memories, and many details required conscious effort to recall.
This was especially true for the memories concerning that bizarre ritual from the day before. The slightest attempt to remember brought on a wave of dizziness, making it impossible to recall what had happened.
He glanced at his phone and saw it was only five in the morning. He intended to fall back asleep, but found that this body simply couldn’t.
It was as if waking up at five every day for school had become an instinct for this body.
Why do I feel a sense of guilt for staying in bed?
Zhang Yu sat up, figuring this was likely an influence from the original owner’s memories.
Feeling his somewhat empty stomach, Zhang Yu simply stood up.
Forget it, I’ll just go to school. At least I can get a full meal there.
He remembered that Songyang High School was supposed to provide three meals a day, and this month’s meal fees had already been loaded onto his student card.
Now, burdened with a massive 700,000-yuan debt and with only fifty-odd yuan to his name, he certainly couldn’t afford to eat out.
So, he left the stuffy apartment, cut through an alley filled with sewage, and squeezed onto a bus with a crowd of people.
Jammed in a carriage thick with the mixed smells of sweat and food, the air conditioning might as well have been off. Zhang Yu felt like a misshapen takeout order being jostled and bumped toward the city center.
After an hour and a half and two bus transfers, a sweat-drenched Zhang Yu finally pushed his way off the bus.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Zhang Yu thought, Come to think of it, why am I a day student?
Oh, right. It’s because I couldn’t afford the boarding fees.
Unlike the area where Zhang Yu lived, the place he got off was in the city district. All he could see were skyscrapers and clean, wide roads, and even the air was much fresher.
The men and women on the streets were also mostly well-dressed, looking like urban elites.
After a walk with several stops, he finally reached the school gates, where he could see the large characters for “Songyang Advanced Immortal Arts High School” from a distance.
An electronic screen at the entrance was even displaying a list of rankings, showing the top ten students from last month’s exams for all three high school grades.
This alone was enough to show that Songyang High School was a school that placed extreme importance on student achievement.
And if Zhang Yu were to summarize it based on his recollections, it would be that at Songyang High School, grades were king. It was a world where everyone was judged solely on their scores.
Here, studying and taking exams were as natural as breathing, and nearly everyone harbored an extreme prejudice based on scores.
Things like “Your score is so low, no wonder it takes you so long to queue in the cafeteria,” “With a score that low, you’re not even qualified to sit at our table,” and “Top students should mercilessly humiliate the slackers”… were all considered positive campus energy.
This is a world where scores are supreme, a living hell for underachievers.
Zhang Yu glanced at the screen displaying First-Year Total Score 10th Place: Zhang Yu, and sighed internally.
Good thing I’m one of the ones with a high score.
Though my current rank might not be entirely deserved, at least I haven’t been exposed yet. I should still be able to live a decent life at school, right?
The cafeteria at Songyang High School served breakfast, so Zhang Yu followed his memories there.
As he walked, he noticed that although there were many students lining up for food, the cafeteria was eerily quiet. Nearly everyone queued in silence, collected their food in silence, and silently found a place to eat, moving with the precision of interlocking gears.
Some students were even reading books as they ate, seizing every single minute to study.
After finding a random seat and taking a bite of a meat bun, Zhang Yu saw someone sit down in the empty spot across from him.
It was a girl with long, jet-black hair and a fair complexion.
Her name surfaced in Zhang Yu’s mind.
Bai Zhenzhen.
To be precise, Bai Zhenzhen, first place in the first-year overall rankings, the woman at the very top of the first-year pecking order.
Looking at the girl sipping porridge in front of him, Zhang Yu wondered, Are we friends? Is it because I’m in the top ten? Is this the so-called circle of top students?
Bai Zhenzhen was the type of person who, if not smiling, always looked like she was sulking. Even the most ordinary words from her could carry a sense of alienation that kept others at a distance.
Just by sitting in front of him without saying a word, she made Zhang Yu wonder if she had some sort of problem with him.
Just as Zhang Yu was focusing on the memories related to Bai Zhenzhen, trying to confirm the nature of their relationship.
He heard the girl speak.
“Meet me in the small garden after you finish eating. I’ll wait for you there.”
Watching her retreating back, a thoughtful look flashed in Zhang Yu’s eyes.
A short while later, after he’d had his fill, he left the cafeteria and made his way to the small garden behind the school.
It was a quiet spot behind the dormitories, and with most students rushing to the academic buildings at this hour, it was practically deserted.
Bai Zhenzhen was standing by a flowerbed. The moment she heard Zhang Yu’s footsteps, she turned and strode up to him.
“Dad!”
With a thud, she knelt on the ground, hugging Zhang Yu’s thigh.
“There were too many people in the cafeteria just now, I was too embarrassed to say anything.”
“Please lend me some money, my payday loan is almost a month overdue! I’m begging you on my knees…”
Staring at the scene before him, Zhang Yu cursed inwardly.
What kind of messed-up school is this? The first and tenth in the year are both taking out loans to keep up appearances?
And at that moment, Zhang Yu finally remembered. He and Bai Zhenzhen knew each other not because of some top-student circle, but because she was his handler, the one who had pitched him payday loans.
Allow him to reintroduce her: Bai Zhenzhen, his classmate, was his brother-in-arms in sharing intel on various lending platforms, bonded by a solid friendship forged in borrowing money from all corners.
Realizing that behind her icy poker face in the cafeteria, she had been racking her brain on how to borrow money from him, Zhang Yu shook his head helplessly.
“Let go of me first. Where would I possibly have money to lend you?”
Bai Zhenzhen looked up, desperate. “You’re only tenth in the year, how much could you possibly spend? The loans you applied for must be much smaller than mine, right?”
She paused, then added stiffly, a flush creeping up her neck, “As long as you help me pay off my debt… you can do whatever you want.”
Zhang Yu’s eyes lit up at her words. Seeing the usually cold Bai Zhenzhen now blushing like a peach blossom, he found her uniquely charming.
He looked her up and down. “Really, anything?”
Bai Zhenzhen bit her lip and nodded. “Mhm.”
“Then can I use you as collateral?”
Bai Zhenzhen immediately let go of his leg and glared at him.
“Yu-boy, are you really broke?”
Zhang Yu took out his phone, showing her his account balance and the overdue notices.
Bai Zhenzhen stood up, dusted off her trousers, and then looked at Zhang Yu in disbelief.
“You owe seven hundred thousand? You’d probably have to work for a long time even after graduating from university to pay that off.”
“You’re only in your first year of high school and you’re already spending this recklessly?”
At this, Bai Zhenzhen shook her head repeatedly. “Zhang Yu, how on earth did you spend all this money?”
Zhang Yu rubbed his head. “I forgot… let me think for a second.”
Bai Zhenzhen looked at him doubtfully. “You didn’t invest it in something, did you? Were you scammed?”
As he tried to remember, Zhang Yu himself grew uncertain.
“Probably… not?”
But Bai Zhenzhen’s expression turned serious. The more she thought about it, the more she felt there was something suspicious about how he’d spent over seven hundred thousand.
“Let me see your phone.”
Zhang Yu knew she was just concerned for him. After all, bad investments, scams, gambling, sudden death, and cultivation deviation were the top five causes of death in Songyang City, with cultivation deviation ranking fifth.
He, too, felt a growing suspicion about what his predecessor had been up to, so he handed over his phone.
“Good, I also want to review how this money was spent. Let’s look at the transaction history together.”
Their eyes scanned the phone screen, taking in the original Zhang Yu’s expenses, one by one.
As Zhang Yu saw them, detailed memories began to surface in his mind.
Pill Cauldron Pharmacy -280.00
Pill Cauldron Pharmacy -250.00
Time and Tide Meditation Chamber -120.00
“Here, I bought medicinal pills,” Zhang Yu explained. “Then I rented a meditation chamber for breathing exercises…”
Besides general education subjects like language, math, physics, and history, Songyang High School’s curriculum consisted of courses related to the Immortal Dao.
The so-called Immortal Dao was the path of cultivation for a person to become an immortal, step by step. This was the most important subject in high school, accounting for the highest percentage of grades, and was the key to getting into a prestigious university.
Breathing exercises were the most fundamental skill of the Immortal Dao. By using them to gather the spiritual energy from the atmosphere, a cultivator could accumulate magic power within their body.
Only with sufficient magic power could one achieve greater combat strength and ascend to higher realms. It could be said that magic power was the foundation for all Immortal Dao techniques.
For example, to break through from the Qi Refinement realm to the Foundation Establishment realm, one needed over 60 points of magic power, while the maximum magic power one could master in the Qi Refinement realm was 100 points.
In the system built by the Ten Great Sects, everything was standardized and digitized as much as possible, including magic power. The current power level tests at school were all accurate to one decimal place.
Bai Zhenzhen nodded slightly and continued scrolling.
Shuixiu Catering Services Co., Ltd. -532.00
“This was for a supplementary nutritional meal at the cafeteria. It was quite expensive.”
In Immortal Dao cultivation, the strength of one’s physical body was equally crucial, and consuming large quantities of food rich in spiritual energy and Immortal Dao elements was a daily part of a cultivator’s routine, known as dietary supplementation.
Longxiang Education Services Co., Ltd. -1500.00
Longxiang Education Services Co., Ltd. -3000.00
Zhang Yu recalled for a moment. “Hmm… this was for the last tutoring session, and the fee for renting a spiritual root.”
A spiritual root was originally a special kind of talent, possessed by only a handful of geniuses, that could greatly increase a cultivator’s training efficiency and combat power.
As the most famous barrier to entry on the Immortal Dao in the past, even Zhang Yu and his mother had heard the legends about spiritual roots back in middle school, so much so that the original Zhang Yu had used renting one as an excuse to get his mother to send him money for tutoring and loan repayments.
But now, with the advancement of Immortal Dao technology, even ordinary people like Zhang Yu, who were born without a spiritual root, could rent one to improve their cultivation efficiency.
As she continued to scroll, apart from the initial few items Zhang Yu explained, the subsequent expenses were all more of the same, almost entirely related to Immortal Dao cultivation.
After quickly finishing the review of Zhang Yu’s spending over the past few months, Bai Zhenzhen’s eyes were filled with pity.
“You kid… you really spent all this money on cultivation? You’re seven hundred thousand in debt just to scrape into tenth place?”
“School only started a little over three months ago, right? What are you going to do now?”
As someone who had only been in this new world for a day, Zhang Yu was naturally lost about the future. He just shrugged and said, “I’ll just get by for now and figure something out slowly.”
Noticing it was almost time for class, the two started walking toward the academic building. Bai Zhenzhen couldn’t believe his attitude.
“You owe a fortune, yet you look more relaxed than me with my two hundred thousand debt. Don’t you get it? You won’t have any money to pour into your studies anymore!”
“Do you have any idea what the consequences of not having money for your studies are? Do you realize how dangerous this is?”
“What consequences?” Zhang Yu asked.
“The monthly exams are in three weeks,” she shrugged grimly. “For three weeks, you’ll have no money to rent a spiritual root, no money for pills, no money for the tutoring center, not even enough for daily supplements… and everyone else is improving every second of every day. It would be completely normal for your rank to drop by dozens of places, and then you’ll be kicked straight out of the model class!”
As Bai Zhenzhen spoke, more related memories flooded into Zhang Yu’s mind.
The entire first year was divided into ten classes, from Class 1 to Class 10, with placements determined by the monthly exams.
Given Zhang Yu’s rank, he had naturally been placed in Class 1, the one with the best resources, also known as the model class.
And while the monthly exams included regular general knowledge tests, the most important component was always one’s Immortal Dao cultivation results.
After all, general education was only worth 50 points, while the various Immortal Dao subjects combined were worth a total of 650 points.
Furthermore, since they were all first-year students who had only officially begun cultivating after school started, the gap in their cultivation levels was actually limited.
Although he was seemingly in tenth place, if he failed to maintain his previous rate of progress over the next few weeks, he could easily be left dozens of places behind.
“If you stay broke,” Bai Zhenzhen continued, “your rank will get worse and worse, and your treatment will get worse and worse. In this vicious cycle, you’ll be kicked down from Class 1 all the way to Class 10, one step at a time!”
Her face was grim. “No money and no results means you’ll be nothing but combustible trash in the teachers’ eyes, a joke to the students in the model class, and a target for the nobodies in the regular classes to get their cheap sense of superiority!”
Bai Zhenzhen clutched her head. “In a situation like that, forget about cultivation resources; it’ll be hard to even maintain a stable Dao heart. Your grades will only get worse, and eventually, you’ll fall below the elimination line, forced to leave Songyang High School with a body full of ailments and a mountain of debt.”
As if seeing that pathetic future in her mind’s eye, Bai Zhenzhen looked up at the sky and lamented, “Do you want to live at the bottom of the entire school’s pecking order, being insulted over and over! To end up as a high school dropout, the dregs of society?”
Zhang Yu’s lips twitched. “Then what do you suggest I do?”
Bai Zhenzhen fell silent for a moment before turning her head.
“Bro, to be honest… if you’re seven hundred thousand in debt just to reach tenth place, you might really not be cut out for the Immortal Dao.”
“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 reply, but he sighed in his heart.
The only good thing about this damn world is that you can cultivate, and on my very first day, I’m being told I have no talent for it?
Not long after returning to the classroom, Zhang Yu picked up his vibrating phone to see that Bai Zhenzhen had transferred him 500 yuan, along with a message.
Bai Zhenzhen: Pay your utility bills first.
Zhang Yu froze for a second, then sniffed his clothes. He immediately understood that Bai Zhenzhen must have noticed that he hadn’t showered in days.
While he had gotten used to the smell, it must have been quite noticeable to others.
Thinking of how she had sent him money despite her own dire financial straits, Zhang Yu sighed. He typed out a long message on his phone, deleted it all, and finally just replied: Thanks.
After sending the message, Zhang Yu looked at his palm and saw that the symbol there was already half-filled with black.
On his way to school and into the classroom, Zhang Yu had already realized that only he could see the symbol on his palm.
He calculated the time and estimated that the symbol would be completely filled with black by tonight; he just didn’t know what would happen when it was.