Tick-tock, tick-tock. The clock kept ringing. Zhang Yu sat in the classroom, face dead serious, scribbling on the exam paper in front of him.
But no matter how fast he wrote, no matter how many answers he filled in, the paper never ended. His seat drifted farther and farther from his classmates. The figures in front of him blurred until he could no longer see them, as if the darkness behind him was swallowing him inch by inch.
Cold sweat poured down his forehead. Panic surged in his chest. The hand holding the pen began to tremble, then lost all strength.
Finally, he fell into the bottomless darkness along with countless textbooks and test sheets. Zhang Yu jerked awake on his bed.
"A dream?"
"It felt like memories from the original owner."
He rubbed his temples. Countless fragmented memories of the body's previous occupant rose and fell in his mind like restless waves.
Although he now controlled this body, he hadn't fully fused with the memories. Many details only surfaced when he deliberately tried to recall them.
Especially anything related to that bizarre ritual yesterday—every time he even brushed against the thought, his head spun and went blank.
He glanced at his phone: 5:00 a.m. He wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but the body refused. It was as if waking up at five to study had become muscle memory.
"Why do I feel guilty just lying here?"
Zhang Yu sat up and sighed. This must be the original owner's influence.
His stomach growled. He stood up decisively. "Whatever. Let's just go to school. At least I can get fed."
He remembered that Songyang High provided three meals a day, and this month's meal card had already been topped up.
With 700,000 yuan in debt and only fifty-something yuan in his pocket, eating out was not an option.
He left the sweltering apartment, waded through sewage-filled alleys, and squeezed onto a bus with the crowd.
Pressed inside a stinking, humid carriage that reeked of sweat and cheap breakfast, the air-conditioning might as well have been decorative. Zhang Yu felt like a deformed takeout box being jolted toward the city center.
An hour and a half, two bus changes, and a full-body sweat later, he finally stumbled off.
Wiping his forehead, he muttered, "Why the hell am I a day student again?"
Oh. Right. Couldn't afford the dorm.
The area around the school was completely different from where he lived—towering buildings, wide clean streets, even the air smelled fresher.
The men and women walking past all looked sharp and well-dressed, the picture of urban elites.
After a few stops and starts, he reached the school gates. From a distance he saw the huge golden characters: Songyang Advanced Immortal Dao High School.
On the giant electronic screen by the gate, last month's top-10 rankings for all three grades were proudly displayed.
This alone told you everything: Songyang High worshipped grades above all else.
If Zhang Yu had to sum it up based on the memories trickling in: Songyang High—grades are king. This was a world where everyone lived and died by their scores.
Studying and testing were as natural as breathing, and extreme score discrimination was practically encouraged.
"Only 400 points? No wonder you're still lining up at the cafeteria." "Low score? You don't even deserve to sit at the same table as us." Top students bullying the bottom-feeders was considered "positive campus energy."
"This is literally hell for anyone who isn't a straight-A student," Zhang Yu thought, glancing at the screen.
High 1 – 10th place overall: Zhang Yu.
He exhaled in relief. "At least I'm one of the high-scorers… for now."
"Even if the rank is currently fake, as long as nobody has exposed me yet, I can still live with some dignity, right?"
The cafeteria served breakfast. Following muscle memory, he headed straight there.
The place was packed, yet eerily silent. Everyone queued in perfect order, collected their food without a word, found a seat, and ate—like gears meshing together with mechanical precision.
Some even read textbooks while eating, squeezing every second for study.
Zhang Yu grabbed a meat bun, took one bite, and someone sat down across from him.
A girl with long jet-black hair and pale skin.
A name surfaced in his mind.
"Bai Zhenzhen."
More precisely—Year 1 overall 1st place, Bai Zhenzhen. The woman at the very top of the Year 1 contempt chain.
Zhang Yu stared at the girl quietly sipping her porridge. "Are we friends?" "Because I'm top 10? Is this the legendary genius circle?"
Bai Zhenzhen was the type who looked like she was secretly angry even when her expression was neutral. Every word out of her mouth carried a cold distance that kept people at arm's length.
Right now, just sitting there saying nothing, she somehow made Zhang Yu feel like he had offended her.
While he was racking his brain trying to figure out their relationship, she spoke.
"Finish eating and meet me in the small garden behind the dorms. I'll wait for you."
Watching her leave, something flickered in Zhang Yu's eyes.
A few minutes later, full and satisfied, he headed to the little garden behind the dormitory building.
Hardly anyone was around—most students had already gone to class.
Bai Zhenzhen stood by a flower bed. The moment she heard his footsteps, she turned and walked straight toward him.
"Daddy!"
Thump. She dropped to her knees and hugged his thigh. "There were too many people in the cafeteria, I was embarrassed to say it."
"Please lend me some money! My micro-loan is almost a month overdue! I'm begging you on my knees…"
Zhang Yu inwardly cursed. "What kind of trash school is this? Both 1st place and 10th place are loan-funded posers?"
The memories finally clicked.
He and Bai Zhenzhen weren't friends because of some elite study circle. She was his upline. She was the one who had introduced him to all those loan apps.
Allow me to reintroduce: his classmate Bai Zhenzhen, his dear loan-bro who exchanged insider info on which platforms were still lending, bonded by the sacred friendship of borrowing money together.
Thinking of that ice-cold poker face in the cafeteria hiding desperate calculations about how to borrow money from him, Zhang Yu helplessly shook his head.
"Let go first. I don't have any money to lend you."
Bai Zhenzhen shook her head. "You're only 10th. How much could you possibly spend? You must have way fewer loans than me."
She stiffened, cheeks flushing slightly. "As long as you help me pay it off… you can do anything you want."
Zhang Yu's eyes lit up. Looking at the usually frosty Bai Zhenzhen now blushing like a peach blossom, he found her oddly charming.
He sized her up and down. "Anything?"
She bit her lip and nodded. "Mm."
Zhang Yu: "Can I use you as collateral then?"
Bai Zhenzhen instantly let go and glared at him. "Yu-zi, you're really broke?"
He showed her his phone—balance and overdue notices.
She stood up, brushed the dust off her knees, and stared at him in disbelief. "Seven hundred thousand? Even after graduating university you'd have to work years to pay that off."
"You're only in Year 1—how did you burn through money that fast?"
Zhang Yu rubbed his temples. "I… forgot. Give me a second."
Bai Zhenzhen grew suspicious. "You didn't invest it somewhere, did you? Were you scammed?"
He wasn't sure himself. "Probably… not?"
Her expression turned grave. The more she thought about it, the more those 700k+ seemed wrong. "Give me your phone."
Zhang Yu knew she was genuinely worried—after all, in Songyang City the top five causes of death among students were, in order: investment scams, fraud, gambling, sudden death from overwork, and deviation (5th).
He also wanted to figure out where the money had gone, so he handed it over. "I was just about to go through the transaction history myself. Let's look together."
They scrolled through the records. As each line appeared, more detailed memories surfaced.
Danding Pharmacy −280.00 Danding Pharmacy −250.00 Time Waits for No One Meditation Chamber −120.00
Zhang Yu explained as they went: "Bought some pills from the pharmacy, then rented a quiet room to cycle spiritual energy…"
Besides normal subjects like language, math, physics, and history, Songyang High's curriculum was dominated by immortal dao classes.
The immortal dao was the path of mortals becoming immortals—the core of high school education, the biggest chunk of points on university entrance exams, the make-or-break factor for getting into a top sect university.
Breathing and cycling (tuna) was the most basic skill: inhaling ambient spiritual energy to accumulate mana inside the body.
Mana was the foundation of everything. Stronger mana → stronger combat power → higher realm.
For example, to break through from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment, you needed at least 60 mana; the Qi Refining cap was 100.
Thanks to the top ten sects' standardization efforts, everything—including mana—was quantified down to one decimal place.
Bai Zhenzhen nodded and kept scrolling.
Shuixiu Catering Services Ltd. −532.00 "That's extra spirit-food meals at the cafeteria."
Physical strength mattered too. Consuming food rich in spiritual energy was routine cultivation—called "dietary supplementation."
Longxiang Education Services Ltd. −1,500.00 Longxiang Education Services Ltd. −3,000.00
"Tutoring fees… and spirit root rental."
Spirit roots were a rare innate gift that massively boosted cultivation speed and combat power.
Even back in middle school, Zhang Yu and his mom had heard the legends, which was why the original owner had used "renting a spirit root" as an excuse to ask for money.
But now, with modern immortal technology, even mortals like him could rent artificial spirit roots for a price.
The rest of the list was the same story—pills, meditation chambers, supplements, tutoring, more rentals. Almost every yuan went straight into cultivation.
After finishing the past few months' records, Bai Zhenzhen looked at Zhang Yu with pure pity.
"You really blew seven hundred thousand plus just on cultivation?"
"And you're still only 10th?"
"School started three months ago. What are you going to do now?"
As someone who had transmigrated less than 24 hours ago, Zhang Yu had no plan. He shrugged. "Wing it. Figure something out eventually."
They walked toward the teaching building together.
"How are you so chill when you owe three times more than me?"
Bai Zhenzhen glanced at his relaxed expression and warned, "You have no money left to spend on studying!"
"Do you even understand what happens if you stop spending? Do you know how dangerous our situation is right now?"
Zhang Yu: "What happens?"
"Three weeks until the monthly exam. Three weeks with no rented spirit root, no pills, no tutoring, no supplements—while everyone else progresses every second. Dropping dozens of places is completely normal. You'll get kicked out of the elite class!"
Memories flooded in again.
Year 1 had ten classes, ranked 1 to 10 purely by monthly exam results.
With his current rank he was in Class 1—the elite demonstration class with the best resources.
Monthly exams: 50 points general subjects, 650 points immortal dao subjects.
Since everyone started cultivating only after entering high school, cultivation levels were still fairly close.
10th place looked safe, but if he stagnated for the next three weeks while others kept improving, he could easily fall outside the top 50.
Bai Zhenzhen continued gravely:
"No money → ranking drops → worse resources → ranking drops further. You'll get demoted class by class until you're in Class 10!"
"You'll become combustible trash in the teachers' eyes, a laughingstock to the elite class, cheap superiority fuel for the ordinary classes!"
She clutched her head. "Forget cultivation resources—your Dao heart won't even stay stable. Grades will tank harder, until you fall below the cutoff, get expelled carrying injuries and a mountain of debt."
She looked up at the sky and wailed, "Do you want to live at the bottom of the school contempt chain, humiliated every day, and end up a high-school dropout societal waste?!"
Zhang Yu twitched. "Then what do you suggest?"
Silence. Then she turned, voice serious.
"Bro, real talk… spending 700k just to reach 10th place? You might genuinely have no talent for the immortal path."
"I don't know how you even got into Songyang, but my advice—drop out and get a job. Otherwise you'll just sink deeper."
Zhang Yu didn't reply, but inwardly sighed. "The only good thing about this shitty world is immortality, and on day one you tell me I have no talent?"
Back in the classroom, his phone buzzed. Bai Zhenzhen had sent him 500 yuan.
[Bai Zhenzhen: Pay your water and electricity first.]
Zhang Yu froze, sniffed his clothes, and instantly understood—she had smelled that he hadn't showered in days.
The stench was probably obvious to everyone else even if he'd gotten used to it.
Thinking of how broke she was yet still sent him money, he typed a long grateful message, deleted it all, and finally just replied:
Thanks.
After putting the phone away, he glanced at his palm.
The mysterious symbol was now half filled with black.
From the moment he arrived at school until now, only he could see it.
Doing some mental math, he figured it would be completely black by tonight.
He had no idea what would happen then.