The shell nearby said nothing, its inner white skirt fringe gradually tinged with a blush of red.
Wen Nan didn't notice the shell turning red. He was focused on something else at the moment, having twisted the entire sea cucumber into a pretzel shape, showing his back to the shell beside him, he said:
"Beibei, could you take a look at my spines for me?"
The shell next to him suddenly turned beet red, like a cooked Arctic clam.
She turned her head, looking at him with an indescribable expression.
Wen Nan abruptly realized there was an issue with his words, and hurriedly apologized, "No, I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I meant to ask if you could check if there are... some strange inscriptions on my back?"
Jun Beibei saw his earnest demeanor and finally believed she had overthought it. She moved closer, carefully inspecting Wen Nan's back like a mother monkey picking lice off her baby monkey.
After a moment, she nodded, "There are."
"Great," sighed Wen Nan inwardly, confirming his suspicion, "What do they say?"
Jun Beibei picked up a pen and a small notepad from the desk, copied down what she saw, and then slid it over to Wen Nan—
[Candidate: Number 2 (1:1 replica of Number 1); Test Phase: Phase One; Obsession Value Accumulation Progress: 15%.]
It seemed that this time, the fusion arranged by the Divine Staff Sheath was much more effective than shuffling fragments, directly creating a copy of Yu Shujun's obsession value for Wen Nan.
From then on, directly looking at the particle effect-laden panel on Yu Shujun's body would be equivalent to seeing the mirrored result of his own panel.
Next up, it's just a matter of waiting for Yu Shujun's obsession value to reach 100%, and then the two of them will enter the second phase together.
Thinking of this, Wen Nan relaxed, stuffed his bag into the drawer, rummaged around inside, and surprisingly pulled out a stick of ice candy.
He hadn't seen one of these in almost twenty years.
Overjoyed, Wen Nan used his short spines to draw the ice candy out and held it under the desk, handing it over to the shell beside him,
"Wanna share a stick of ice candy? To celebrate us becoming deskmates!"
Saying this, Wen Nan unwrapped the packaging, discovering that the once rock-hard ice candy inside had melted into water due to the sudden rise in temperature.
The fun part of this thing was breaking it open and chomping on it. If it's in liquid form, it's no different from an ice pack.
The shell beside him wasn't aware of where the essence of ice candy lay; she had already silently extended her fringe to grab the stick reaching toward her.
However, Wen Nan pulled it back at that moment, "It's melted; it tastes better frozen, forget it. Let's wait till it's frozen next time."
Jun Beibei looked longingly at the withdrawn stick, opened her mouth as if to say something, when Mr. Ban Shrimp's voice came from the podium:
"Ye Shenshen, Jun Beibei, you've only been deskmates for less than a class period, and you already have so much to talk about? If you like chatting so much, head to the office after class to chat with us teachers all you want?"
Wen Nan immediately lifted his spines, smiled, and said, "No need, teacher, we've finished talking."
The students sitting at the front row covered their mouths and giggled again.
After two classes, the bivalves in Class 2 were filled with curiosity about this newly transferred sea cucumber.
They discovered that this student named Ye Shenshen, although seemingly as abnormal as Jun Beibei, was far more interesting and open-minded, willing to make new friends.
This resulted in Wen Nan's desk being "covered" with shells during the two-hour dinner break between the end of afternoon classes and the start of evening study.
There were large and small ones, round and square ones, some shriveled, some plump, all with their seams slightly open, directed toward Wen Nan.
"Ye Shenshen, are all the students from the transition class like you?"
"Like what?"
"Like you, with so many, so many..."
"You mean so many spines?"
"Yes, yes."
"No, only I have this many."
"That's amazing. Why are you so different from us? My uncle is the head of the senior year, and I heard you were specially admitted by the principal to our school, is that true? I heard you, I heard you have..."
"What does he have?"
"I'm sick," responded the sea cucumber, leaning its soft body back tactically in a nonchalant manner, "Not wrong, I'm indeed sick."
"Are you really sick? What disease?"
The sea cucumber straightened its body again, "Haven't you noticed? I'm too long, longer than any of you."
Hearing Wen Nan say this, the group of male shells around him let out dismissive "tch" sounds, while the female shells made shy "yikes."
Wen Nan laughed boldly, instinctively turning his head to the side, discovering that the white Arctic clam had quietly stood up and was heading toward the back door.
"Beibei, where are you going?" Wen Nan called out to her.
The male and female shells hearing Wen Nan call out "Beibei" collectively hooted "ooh ooh," whispering teasers like "calling so intimately" or "what, just transferred and there's already something going on," and some even hummed an off-key "oh~babe~babe~babe~" song.
This caused classmate Jun Beibei to tightly close her shell along both sides, not answering Wen Nan's question, disappearing down the hallway without a look back.
Wen Nan lost interest in bantering with the shells in the classroom, stood up, and with agile maneuvering of his soft body, bypassed the shells and dashed out the back door.