How come you're also my ex-girlfriend?

Five seconds that felt incredibly long.

Xu Yan felt his slumped shoulders stiffen and ache, and suddenly wondered if prisoners waiting for the judge's verdict in court felt the same way.

Then her verdict was announced.

"But what does that have to do with me?"

The window, which requires a safety hammer to break, has developed a crack. Oh, is that frost formed from cold air? The air conditioning is still too cold.

"Huh? Is that so?"

"Is it fair that I made him bear this reputation just because I was willing to be good friends with him?"

"So he deserved it?"

"That's not entirely true... it's just that the person he approached was me, so there was nothing he could do."

"Ah... speaking of which, you just felt that you rejected him right before he confessed, right? Isn't that a bit too much..."

From an angle that Xu Yan couldn't see, the girl's brows furrowed slightly, and she only pursed her lips for a moment.

He quickly and firmly shook his head.

"No, I've seen too many guys like that. And even if it's not this time, it'll happen sooner or later. I'll say those things sooner or later anyway. So there's no difference."

“What if things don’t go this way, and something else happens between you two in the future? I’m worried that it might be a bit too early for you to say these things now.”

"progress?"

This time, Lin Jia didn't need to be firm. Her tone was relaxed with a hint of disdain: "Is it that I will fall in love with him, or that he will meet a girl who is better than me and who also likes him? Don't be ridiculous."

"That's true..."

Xu Yan stopped listening to what they talked about after that.

Until they got off the bus first.

Xu Yan slowly sat up straight, staring blankly out the window.

It was probably because the air conditioning was on; it was so cold that it made my blood freeze and my heart stop beating.

After a long while, he couldn't help but touch his nose.

"Damn it, where did my red nose go?"

Right now.

"Crench!"

The bus suddenly braked hard, and Xu Yan's body lurched forward violently. Fortunately, he reacted quickly and grabbed the handrail in front of him, so that his head only hit the back of his hand and he was not involved in a collision.

Just as the driver in front was cursing loudly at the window, Xu Yan raised his head and shook it.

A sudden car accident gave you a new lease on life at 38, a man who had accomplished nothing.

Xu Yan: ? ? ?

That slightly mechanical AI voice wasn't an illusion; it was still echoing in my head.

You've been reborn back to your senior year of high school. Looking back on your past, you see too many messy relationships, too many unfulfilled promises, and countless people who missed you and whom you missed. The faces of those who hurt you and were hurt by you constantly flash before your eyes. You finally realize that this shouldn't be your life. Indecisiveness leads to gaining nothing and losing everything you cherish. You must live a life without regrets, a life of freedom, without any constraints or pain.

[Task: A confession that was rejected before it could be spoken.]

[You've never lacked good or bad romantic encounters in your life. Lin Jia is the girl you'll always think of when you think of this period of your youth. You can't forget every word she said to you that summer when you were boating on the lake, but you know clearly that all the ambiguous feelings she gave you were just illusions. You lived almost entirely in the illusions she created for you throughout high school. Now it's your turn to make a new choice. Whatever that choice may be, after all, the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, or even now.]

[Reward: 1000 yuan.]

no...

Xu Yan stared blankly at his reflection in the window.

Rebirth? Really?

Just then, my phone vibrated, and a message popped up on the screen.

This comes from Lin Jia, who got off the bus a long time ago.

……

P.S.: I've released a new book! Long time no see, please add it to your favorites~ Please, please.

Chapter 2 The Unfinished Date

I just got home. How about you? Are you home yet?

Okay, let's not dwell on what happened before. School starts soon, and it'll be our senior year of high school. Let's work hard together.

Lin Jia has a habit of checking her messages three times before sending them.

It's not about misreading typos or grammatical issues; it's simply about reflecting on whether the message I send accurately conveys the emotions I want to express.

Why did things turn out this way today? Lin Jia had actually thought about it for a bit.

The conclusion drawn is that emergency evacuation measures are necessary.

Xu Yan is indeed a very good-looking guy, so keeping him by my side all this time, making other girls who want to get close to him hesitate because of me, is a rather fulfilling thing. This is something I haven't told my best friend.

Ambiguity can be intoxicating at times, but it's ultimately an illusion. We shouldn't waste our precious youth on people who have no meaning or future.

Maintaining a delicate friendship would have been fine, but she sensed the danger of crossing the line, so it didn't matter whether she said it sooner or later.

So why send such a message at this particular time?

She hadn't initially planned this, but after talking with Xiao Yujie, she couldn't help but think about what if it ended like this, and he really did run into some 'lovestruck bees'? Even if that girl wasn't as good as her.

Even if this caused a rift between them, and they could never go back to how they used to be, she wouldn't feel too much regret, because she knew she had plenty of those qualities. She just didn't want Xu Yan to be so close to other girls in front of her; it was really embarrassing, and might even become fodder for gossip among the classmates...

When she hadn't received a reply after five minutes, Lin Jia couldn't help but feel a subtle unease.

Xu Yan had never acted like this before.

Messages are replied to instantly, and I even feel a slight sense of pleasure when I see the message "The other person is typing" displayed in the chat box right after I send it.

It's a feeling of being able to truly control the other person's emotions, and it's also a desire to control a guy who is undeniably handsome.

Lin Jia could wait another five minutes, but after biting her fair and moist fingertips, she sent the next message.

Are you still not home?

Instead of an instant reply, the message was quickly followed by a glaring notification.

[Send failed. Please add the recipient as a friend first.]

Lin Jia understood perfectly what this meant: the boy, who had almost no other male friends besides her, had deleted her from his friend list!

What's going on...?

Is it to show off my individuality? To make myself seem temperamental?

Didn't you say you could still be friends? How can you be so naive and childish?

For a moment, Lin Jia wanted to add him back and ask him why he was willing to delete her.

But Lin Jia quickly suppressed the thought, because in her view, it was a rather degrading act. He would soon regret it, and soon realize that he simply couldn't get used to life without himself.

All the things I've said and done to him in the past will become the source of his torment. So there's no need for me to rush things.

Even if we don't bring him back... is that a waste? Don't be ridiculous. He's just Xu Yan. What's so regrettable about him if we disregard his appearance?

She put down her phone with a sense of relief and took a deep breath.

"Just venting, so childish and overly sensitive. What do you gain by deleting me? Do you expect me to pay you back?"

[1000 yuan received.]

"Are you really going to pay?"

After getting off the train at the station and deleting him from the friend list, Xu Yan saw the bank notification that the money had been quickly deposited into his account.

I also carefully checked my balance, and it was indeed not a prank text message, but real money.

Depend on.

This means that the voices appearing in your mind are real, but can that prove that the information being conveyed to you is true?

At thirty-eight, I've accomplished nothing and even had a car accident? Wait, what does it mean to have so many female confidantes...? I'm just an innocent young man.

So, if I end up having a wild and promiscuous life in the future? That seems to explain why I'll achieve nothing. After all, alcohol and women are harmful.

I must quit drinking!

However, Xu Yan didn't dwell on these things too much, since worrying about the future was unnecessary now. The key was that the sudden appearance of this system-like thing brought him a strange sense of excitement, even though it seemed like the system had been given to the wrong person and he hadn't actually been reborn.

But such excitement was enough to overshadow the awful feeling after the 'park incident'.

Is deleting Lin Jia something to regret? He only regrets that his friend list only has Lin Jia. If his friend list were full of cold, impersonal Lin Jias, they would all become warm, heartwarming 1000 yuan.

Xu Yan hadn't yet decided what to do with the thousand yuan that had just arrived. It certainly wasn't going to be used to buy study materials; even a freak wouldn't do something so outrageous.

As he walked into the residential area, he was thinking about it.

Liangcheng, where Xu Yan lives, is now a well-known major city in China, famous for its vibrant nightlife and numerous traditional attractions. However, his family has always lived in a relatively old part of the city, in a house allocated to them by their parents' former workplace.

Although it has been renovated and refurbished many times, both the roads and the walls show the marks of time.

Xu Yan walked toward the familiar apartment building. Just as he passed the blue-roofed shed where electric bikes and bicycles were parked, he stopped and frowned as he looked over.

Such fair and white legs.

A tall, slender figure stood with her back to him, her figure noticeably tall. Even in the sweltering late summer heat, she wore denim shorts, her long, straight legs gleaming white against her exposed skin.

She was wearing white socks under her sneakers. Don't ask why she's paying attention to socks; it's because she cares about her ankle health.

Xu Yan had only taken a cursory glance at them, since the pretty girls in the neighborhood had nothing to do with him.

But the more I looked at that figure, the more familiar it seemed, and I couldn't help but stop.

He noticed that the other person was standing in... which seemed to be where he had parked his bicycle? And why was he crouching down and acting so suspiciously?

Just as Xu Yan was wondering what was going on, the slender, tall figure seemed to sense the scrutinizing gaze, turned around, and straightened up.

He met Xu Yan's gaze directly.