Finale of Senior Year
Han Chen adjusted the time on Qin Jianwei's shiny Patek Philippe, syncing it with the outside world. Every clock in the room had been frozen by the force of his suppression. He made sure everything aligned before moving on.
The others, still suspended in his hidden space, had to be returned exactly as they were. Before releasing them, he updated their wrist devices, ensuring no discrepancies that might raise suspicion. But phones were trickier - too many logs, too much data stored beyond his control. Instead of risking inconsistencies, he simply fried their circuits, rendering them useless.
With everything in place, he let go of his control.
To the shop manager and staff, it felt like they had just blinked.
One moment, they were inside the shop. The next, everything had changed.
Artifacts, sculptures and paintings lay scattered, shattered across the floor. A massive hole gaped in the ceiling. And at the center of it all, Qin Jianwei sat slumped over, head hanging low, motionless.
A beat of silence. Then --pandemonium.
The manager exploded in anger, shouting about the destroyed valuables, but hesitated mid-rant when he saw the scene properly. Something was wrong. Bodyguard checking young master's breath and doing chest compressions, in panic.
People rushed in, the tension shifting from outrage to fear.
His invisibility technique bent all visible light, swallowing the far ends of the spectrum as well. But it wasn't perfect. Some wavelengths still slipped through, making total carelessness a risk.
So he moved carefully, slipping between blind spots, avoiding the gaze of recording cameras now capturing the confusion.
Even invisible, his face, his clothes was disguised. No trace, no identity.
Then he was gone. His job done. He didn't care about the rumors or the chaos he'd left behind.
At night, Han Chen was expecting it. Li Mei's voice.
< It was you, wasn't it? Qin Jianwei is unconscious at the luxury hospital in Lingyun International Hospital in Xinghai City. >
He didn't deny it.
< Your role is almost over… If you're free, come over. I'll erase your memories, oh and follow my end of the deal. > He commented.
A pause. Then—
< NOO… >
< …Got anything to say? >
Another pause. Then, softer—
< ...I like to keep them. I'll send updates on the case. Bye. >
Silence followed. Han Chen closed his rune. Her mind was unraveling. He left her to deal with it herself.
In the days that followed, public reaction exploded.
Qin Jianwei - handsome, charismatic, a rising young master - was now in a coma, brain-dead state with no visible injuries.
His name trended across social media, countless people expressing shock, sympathy, confusion.
"How could this happen?!"
"No wounds? No fight? Just... gone?"
"I don't believe this was natural!"
Women who had admired him gathered in support. His friends rushed to visit.
But no one had any answers until the smiley face incident was posted online.
Before authorities could lock it down, hackers leaked the CCTV footage.
The world saw:
Qin Jianwei smiling, speaking to the shop owner. The lights flickering out. Total silence. A single paper drifting into the night vision view -- lights were back on, and people saw, a sketch... drawn with a crude, smiling face. Time passed with occasional muffled grunts in the background.
And then - the explosion. The paper drifted away.
When the camera's vision switched on --
Qin Jianwei sat frozen, his face as if lifted facing the ceiling hole, twisted in eerie agony. The smiley face paper landed perfectly back in front of the lens again as if showing a small spoiler.
There was no attacker. No evidence of a struggle.
Just him.
The internet exploded with theories.
"A ghost attack?" "A cursed artifact?" "Secret martial arts cultivation gone wrong?" " Grandmaster interfered??"
No one had an answer.
... <><><><>.....
Qin Jianwei woke up in a luxury hospital suite a year later.
He felt… strange. Like something had been peeled away from his mind.
Memories slipped through his fingers. Fragments of something important --something life-changing -- just out of reach.
Two years. No, 3 years? Gone. Advanced business knowledge, martial arts knowledge, cyber knowledge gone.
His first instinct? He felt he was insanely powerful due to the leftover master level internal energy but no way to channel it.
He called his ex-fiancée.
To check on what happened and to know whether she liked his last gift and still like to proceed with the wedding plan.
As if none of it had ever happened.
As for Han Chen,
He doesn't prove his superiority.
He just is.
He lets the world wonder what happened but never leaves answers.
....<><><><>.....
After that incident, Han Chen had no guilt feeling in this act of robbing system fragment. He managed to get more fragments in previous life not out of peace talk. What spirituality told him, is to maintain peace of mind in every endeavor. He planned very well, left no traces. Took the system fragment.
Only harm involved was person involved was put in a coma. Coming from a place, where people would be killed for the slightest negligence, he didn't feel any of it. Infact, he felt he should have been careful in buying more time to do it cleanly. The other guy has been freeloading in the timeline he branched out. He just prevented the progress of timeline into the unknown.
He didn't like variables at all. Leaving him alive was mercy. I need to know if he could still maintain that main character energy after waking up. Even after waking up his past lives' memories will be muddled and will take time to resurface.
The internal injuries took two days to heal completely. His telekinetic control was torn apart like paper in front of spatial law, and it was just the 23rd layer of space law application. The absorbed fragment took some time to refine. Four months to be exact. By that time his school life and exams were over.
....
The final months of school were mostly uneventful, with one small exception; the class president kept showing up in my personal space.
Her name was Hye-Won Choi, or just Cuī. She was an interesting girl. She had the same unwavering expression, the same firm tone, as if she was completely untouchable by classmates' antics. Unlike most of the girls, she didn't wear any makeup. No lipstick, no foundation, nothing to hide behind. May be self-confidence and comfort? Her uniform was always proper but never excessive --the skirt at the standard length, blazer buttoned only, when necessary, tie perfectly straight. May be this is why she has been consistently the class president all these years.
She always had this calm smile, like someone who rarely let things bother her. Not the fake, practiced kind girls sometimes put on to impress someone. Her black hair was neatly tied into a low ponytail, that didn't look styled but still suited her. It was pretty obvious she had a crush on me recently. Unlike the other girls who I rejected she didn't outright ask me to date her. She actively tries to engage with me. But when it comes to topic of confession, she lost all this courage to speak with me in person.
I was polite to her, nothing more. May be for her, she might be acting genuinely friendly, but for me I can see her deep emotions visibly expressed in my spiritual sense. Much pinker and lavender than anyone else.
As for Tang Xuemei, she still respected me --for my ability, if nothing else --but there was no trace of romantic affection. Seeing how obvious Cuī was about her feelings, she voluntarily switched seats with her.
At first, it was just to annoy me into helping her train. But lately, it felt like she had taken it as some kind of personal challenge --as if she was trying to set me up or prove something.
Regardless, Hye-Won ended up becoming part of the small group I spent time in the end of senior year.
Somehow Xue Qing broke up with Zhao Lin. Some say, she had seen him in contact with other girls while they were dating. etc. Anway, Xue Qing lost her virgin yin essence few months before already. She also felt more mature than the other girls present. May be the girl in my previous life had affair with him earlier than this. I have been a fool to notice any difference.
...