Chapter 16

Around her, students were heading to the cafeteria in twos and threes.

The weather was sweltering, so everyone was keeping out of the sun and walking in the shade of the trees.

Only Yan Can stood motionless in the blazing sunlight. With her striking looks and familiar face, she looked almost like a statue, impossible to ignore.

She paid no mind to the many glances and whispers around her.

Compared with those, what she cared about most right now was where on earth she’d been thrown this time.

The moment the light in front of her suddenly flared bright, the pain in her body vanished. By now, Yan Can couldn’t feel any pain at all.

The sun was high overhead; it was clearly noon, though she couldn’t tell which day it was. In her heart, she prayed it had better be today at noon.

Please don’t send her any farther back. She really didn’t want to start over from the beginning again.

As if heaven had heard her plea, when she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, the screen lit up. It showed today’s date: September 15. The time was 12:13 p.m., about fifteen minutes after the morning classes had ended.

She let out a relieved breath and instinctively touched her chest. The pain there was gone already, but the memory of hurting so badly it felt as if her soul had been ripped out still left her shaken.

Yan Can really didn’t want to go through that again; at least not any time soon. She was terrified of pain.

Clearly, through more than a hundred loops before this, she had never felt anything at all. Why had it hurt so much this time? And so suddenly?

Was it because of the female lead?

Could it be that now, when the female lead died, she would be dragged down with her and forced to feel the pain of death too?

Yan Can was practically going crazy. That was far too unfriendly to her!

Zhang Ru and Yu Ting, who were walking ahead, noticed she hadn’t followed. They stepped into the shade and called to her, waving.

Yan Can had something on her mind, so she shook her head and mouthed back, “I’m not eating.” Then she turned and left.

She was going to find Su Ci, that woman who never kept her word.

She had clearly said she’d stay with her; why was she trying to die again?

Thinking of the last loop, when she hadn’t seen Su Ci at lunch in the cafeteria, Yan Can walked toward the building where sophomore classes were held while dialing Su Ci’s number.

She wasn’t in a hurry. Based on the experience from the previous loops, Su Ci’s death time was after school. She still had time.

The call went through, but no one answered. Just as it was about to hang up automatically, the call screen switched to counting.

“Where are you?” Without waiting for the other side to say hello, Yan Can got straight to the point. “Su Ci, I need to see you about something.”

Without giving the other person any time to react, she continued, “Come to the rooftop. I’ll wait for you there.”

After saying that, she hung up directly. Then she called Secretary Cen and briefly explained the situation before heading straight to the rooftop.

Su Ci looked at the call log and frowned. The other person’s tone was very different from usual; it was unusually serious, with an authority that didn’t leave room for refusal. It was rather like the behavior of a young lady from a wealthy family.

So had Miss Yan finally been unable to hold back and was about to show her cards?

Su Ci didn’t hesitate. She put her phone back in her pocket and got up to leave the classroom. Just as she reached the corridor, she ran into the homeroom teacher, who had come looking for her in person.

Behind the teacher was Lin Tong, the math class representative from their class. Seeing her, the teacher smiled kindly and said, “Su Ci, come with me for a moment.”

Su Ci politely let her gaze flick past Lin Tong behind the teacher and nodded at the teacher.

In the office, the teacher looked at her two prized students and talked about how the school had spent a lot of money to hire a special instructor for this math competition training. She encouraged them to study hard and work diligently, striving to bring back a gold medal from next month’s math competition. “If you do well this time and place in the top ten, you’ll very likely be directly selected for the national team.”

After painting a rosy picture, she also gave them some warm encouragement. In the end, she looked at them with approving eyes. “Su Ci, Lin Tong, I have high hopes for both of you.”

By the time they left the office, half an hour had passed. Su Ci and Lin Tong came out one after the other.

Once outside, Su Ci deliberately checked her phone. It was strange; half an hour had passed, and Yan Can still hadn’t looked for her. There were no urging messages either, even though she was usually so impatient.

Su Ci frowned. Walking ahead, she hesitated for a moment when she saw her back, then still called out to stop her.

Thinking that they would also be taking training classes together in the future, Lin Tong took out her phone. “Add me, Su Ci. We’ll be seeing each other often when we join the training squad later.”

Lin Tong was also a specially admitted student like her, but unlike her, her family had some money. Though she couldn’t compare with the young ladies and young masters in the class, compared with Su Ci, she was better off than the worst and not as well off as the best.

The two of them hadn’t had much interaction before; they only exchanged a few words in an official capacity when handing out and collecting homework.

Since they were in the same class, Su Ci didn’t refuse. She nodded, and the two added each other as contacts.

After the request went through, Lin Tong’s delight was impossible to hide.

In her mind, adding each other as contacts meant their relationship had moved a step beyond ordinary classmates.

The two walked side by side. When they reached the fork in the road, Su Ci pointed one way and said, “I have something to do. I’m going first.”

Since she’d said so, Lin Tong had no choice but to nod. “Okay, then I’ll head back first.”

They parted ways, and Su Ci went to the rooftop. Along the way, she glanced at her phone again, but Yan Can still hadn’t sent her any messages.

Su Ci found this strange. It didn’t really fit Yan Can’s personality.

On the rooftop, Yan Can stood a few steps away from the railing, lowering her eyes to read the message Secretary Cen had sent. After reading it, she downloaded an app on her phone and went through a few simple steps before her lips curved in satisfaction.

Su Ci still hadn’t arrived yet, so she moved a few more steps away from the railing. The rooftop guardrail was very high; it came up above her neck, but she still didn’t dare get too close. She was somewhat afraid of heights. If she went near it, her heart would start racing, so she couldn’t understand how there could be people in this world who would jump from such a height. Weren’t they scared? Didn’t it hurt when they fell?

Just as she was thinking this, she heard footsteps approaching; it was the clatter of leather shoes on the stairs. The sound drew nearer and nearer, finally stopping not far behind her, probably by the door.

She put away all her wandering thoughts and turned to look at the female lead of this world.

Su Ci stood in the shadow by the doorway, while Yan Can stood in the sunlight beside the railing.

The two looked at each other, and time seemed to circle back to the beginning; this was the first time Yan Can had seen the female lead on the rooftop, and back then Su Ci had also walked up there expressionlessly.

She suddenly wondered: back then, when Su Ci walked onto the rooftop, what was she thinking? And four hours later, in the final moment before her death, what had she been thinking?

Human beings really were troublesome creatures, because they had thoughts.

She truly couldn’t understand it; if you could live, why would you want to die?

She took a few steps closer and stopped in front of Su Ci.

Su Ci frowned, finding Yan Can’s behavior a little hard to make sense of.

Yan Can actually had a lot of things she wanted to say, but just now, as she walked those few steps over, every time she opened her mouth to say something, her chest hurt. It was as if the pain were warning her: if you reveal the secret, you’re done for!

She really had no other choice. “Su Ci, do you keep your word?”

Su Ci frowned, her expression seeming a little speechless.

Yan Can was speechless too. She really didn’t know what to do. She wanted so badly to curse the person in front of her into their senses, but she was afraid that if she did, the female lead would get triggered and die even faster.

“Ugh!” Yan Can let out a heavy sigh.

“If you’re asking me such a boring question, then I don’t think there’s any need for me to stay here.” Su Ci turned to leave at once.

“Don’t!” Yan Can subconsciously grabbed her wrist. At Su Ci’s murderous look, she let go and pulled a fluffy little duck plush keychain from her pocket. “How is that not important? I’m giving this to you.”

Su Ci didn’t take it. She looked at her strangely, not understanding why Yan Can was suddenly giving her this thing.

Yan Can smiled. “Last time I went to your place, you said you’d lost a doll. I didn’t know what it looked like, but I thought this one was pretty cute, so I bought a pair. This green one is for you.”

As she spoke, she took her phone out of her other pocket. Hanging from the red cord at the end was a light blue matching charm. “Hehe, a pair.”

With that smile, she once again became the kind of young lady Su Ci couldn’t quite understand.

“Take it,” Yan Can said, grabbing her hand and stuffing the charm into her palm. “You’re not allowed to give it to anyone else.”

So she had called her to the rooftop just for this?

Su Ci found it even more baffling now.

But Yan Can really did seem like she had only come to give her a keychain, because after she stuffed it into her hand, she left.

After the last class of the afternoon ended, Yan Can calmly tidied her desk. Her phone’s location tracking had just shown that Su Ci was still on campus.

At this moment, the icon was moving; she had just come down from the teaching building.

Thinking of the last loop, Yan Can couldn’t help frowning. “So how is she planning to die? Jump into the lake?”

Then a phone call came in. It was Su Ci.

“What is it?” Yan Can was already rushing toward the location shown on the map; Su Ci had almost reached the school gate.

So it wasn’t jumping off a building or into a lake, and it wasn’t happening on campus either. Surely she couldn’t be about to get hit by a car after going out, could she...

Yan Can ran faster, and the distance between them grew smaller and smaller.

“I’m calling to tell you I’m going back home first. I’ll take a taxi straight to your place later,” Su Ci said, sounding a little anxious.

“Oh.” Just as Yan Can finished saying that, the other side hung up.

When Yan Can saw the figure ahead of her, she suddenly realized that Su Ci calling her like this had not happened in the last loop.

Wait; the reason it hadn’t happened then was because she hadn’t brought her phone.

Wait, wait a little more...

By now, cold sweat was pouring down Yan Can’s back. Would someone who deliberately called to tell you what they were going to do next suddenly commit suicide?

No way...

Yan Can immediately chased after her. Before she could stop Su Ci, she watched helplessly as Su Ci got into a car.

No way...

Could it really be a car accident?

“Miss?” Chen Shu found it strange to see Yan Can running this way. Before he could say anything, he heard her say, “Follow the car in front!”

Could she really have hit the nail on the head and be about to be run over by a car to death...

Yan Can sat in the front passenger seat, staring fixedly at the car ahead carrying Su Ci.

As time passed, Yan Can began to lose control of the trembling in her legs.

She stared at her phone and muttered inwardly: pick up, pick up, pick up...

But the call to Su Ci remained busy the entire time.

On the other side, Su Ci was talking with Auntie Wei. The other woman told her not to rush.

The two chatted a little more about schoolwork and life.

Then, just as Su Ci ended the call and lifted her eyes, a split second later, in her light brown pupils, an out-of-control cement truck came crashing straight toward them—