Lu Siting's furious voice chased him from behind.
Clutching his schoolbag, Xu Xingye rushed out of the classroom without looking back and ran down the corridor toward the stairs.
School had just ended, and the corridor was full of students packing up to go home. He squeezed sideways between two classmates. He had barely stepped down onto the first stair when that familiar inner voice suddenly burrowed into his head again.
[Wifey, wait for me.]
[How does he run so fast?]
[His bag keeps bouncing. Even the way he runs away is gorgeous.]
Xu Xingye slipped and almost tumbled straight down the stairs.
He grabbed the handrail and barely managed to steady himself, his temples already pounding.
Who was his wifey?
Only his body had gone back to seventeen. Mentally, he was twenty-five. A grown man who'd lived two lives—what part of him looked like a wife?
The footsteps behind him drew closer.
Making full use of his long legs, Lu Siting caught up in a few strides, closing to less than a meter away. Xu Xingye didn't even need to look back to imagine his expression.
A dark face, tightly furrowed brows, looking ready to drag him back and settle the score.
What Xu Xingye heard, however, was something else entirely.
[Was I too fierce just now? Did I scare him?]
[I shouldn't have grabbed his bag.]
[Should've picked him up and carried him off with the notes.]
[No. Carrying him off is illegal.]
The corner of Xu Xingye's mouth twitched.
Apparently Lu Siting retained some awareness of the law after all.
Unfortunately, not much.
“Xu Xingye, stop right there!”
Lu Siting shouted again behind him.
Far from stopping, Xu Xingye ran faster.
He used the crowd at the turn in the stairs as cover, slipped around several students, and quickly put some distance between them.
The moment they were more than a meter apart, the voice in his head cut off.
As though someone had yanked out his headphones.
Xu Xingye's steps faltered briefly. Then he seized the opportunity and charged down the remaining stairs. He ran out of the classroom building, crossed the sports field, and only dared glance back after squeezing into the crowd at the school gate.
Several boys carrying basketballs had blocked Lu Siting behind them. He was staring this way with a thunderous expression.
Xu Xingye took one look and immediately turned away.
What was he staring at?
Keep looking, and the guy might start planning where their future children would go to school.
He walked briskly all the way home.
His parents were still at work, and the house was quiet. He took out his key, but his fingers were still trembling. It took three tries to get it into the lock.
Inside. Door closed. Deadbolt turned.
Once he had done all that, he leaned against the door and panted for a long time. Only after making sure a lunatic surnamed Lu hadn't followed him did he manage a breath of relief.
Peace at last.
Xu Xingye went to his bedroom, threw his schoolbag onto the chair, grabbed the glass on his desk, and gulped down water.
Half a glass in, he choked and coughed several times.
As it turned out, drinking water didn't cure mind reading.
It certainly didn't cure Lu Siting.
He put down the glass, pulled out his chair, and sat down to seriously sort through the day's events.
First, he had been reborn.
Second, he seemed to have gained the ability to read minds.
Last—and most terrifying of all—the ability apparently worked only on Lu Siting.
Xu Xingye removed his glasses and pressed a hand between his brows.
He went back over everything that had happened that day.
After the lunch break, at least a dozen people had been in the classroom. Some had passed his desk; others had come over to talk. He hadn't heard any strange voices from them.
Lin Yubing had been very close when she reached for his notes. He'd heard nothing.
Zhao Fei had likewise come within a meter while threatening to beat him up. Still nothing.
Only Lu Siting.
Whenever that guy approached, it was as though someone forcibly connected a transmitter to his brain. The instant the distance widened, the voice disappeared.
Xu Xingye put his glasses back on and took a sheet of scrap paper from the drawer. He wrote several lines.
“Trigger: Lu Siting.”
“Reliable range: approximately one meter.”
“Specific cause: unknown.”
After writing the last few words, he stared at the paper, his expression growing graver.
Back on the stairs, he hadn't had time to judge exactly how far away Lu Siting had been.
Under normal circumstances, the range should be about one meter. Whether that distance changed when Lu Siting was especially emotional remained uncertain.
The only certainty was that he couldn't hear anyone else's thoughts.
At least for now.
Xu Xingye leaned back and closed his eyes. Lu Siting's infuriatingly cold face immediately appeared in his mind.
Then the things he'd heard during the day followed.
[Wifey, wait for me.]
[How is that any different from exchanging tokens of love?]
[The main bedroom has to be big. Let's get a four-meter bed.]
Xu Xingye's eyes snapped open.
The room was still quiet. Outside, there was only the sound of passing traffic.
Those hadn't been Lu Siting's current thoughts.
The words and tone were exactly the same as during the day, even in the same order. They had simply left such an impact that thinking of Lu Siting now made his brain replay them automatically.
Like a maddeningly catchy song you couldn't forget once you'd heard it.
Except an ordinary song was merely annoying.
Lu Siting's thoughts made a person question his entire existence.
Xu Xingye hurried to distract himself by reciting pi.
Three point one four one five nine two six five three five.
By the tenth decimal place, he'd finally suppressed the jumble of voices.
After a few seconds of silence, he looked down at the math workbook on his desk. Expressionless, he picked it up and slapped it over his own face.
When other people were reborn, they either used their knowledge of the future to make a fortune or gained some amazing power that turned their lives around.
He'd received a radio in his head tuned exclusively to Lu Siting.
And every program belonged on a banned channel.
How was that fair?
Xu Xingye lowered the workbook, stood, and paced around his room twice, trying to find an explanation with at least a trace of scientific plausibility.
Aftereffects of the car accident?
But his present body hadn't been hit by a car, and his head wasn't injured. Even if there were aftereffects, they shouldn't lock so precisely onto Lu Siting alone.
Could there be some special connection between them?
The instant that thought appeared, Xu Xingye stopped walking and unhesitatingly crushed it.
Impossible.
The only special relationship he and Lu Siting had was mutual dislike.
More precisely, he had previously thought the dislike was mutual.
Apparently, the other guy had merely been wearing an archrival's disguise while secretly planning the size of their future bed.
After a moment's silence, Xu Xingye picked up his phone. He even felt an urge to search for the contact details of a psychiatric hospital.
The patient, of course, wouldn't be him.
The problem was that nobody else knew what Lu Siting was thinking.
Even if he took him to the hospital, the doctor would probably suggest admitting them both.
One had something wrong with his head.
The other claimed to read minds.
A shared room would suit them perfectly.
Xu Xingye put down his phone and looked again at the three lines on the scrap paper.
He still had to go to school tomorrow.
And Lu Siting sat diagonally behind him.
That meant the guy only had to step forward a few paces, or corner him beside his desk during a break, for that damned radio in his head to switch itself back on.
Avoid him.
Tomorrow, he had to stay far away.
Preferably keep his distance from the moment he entered the classroom. No eye contact. No getting close. And absolutely no opportunities for Lu Siting to touch his schoolbag strap.
Having carefully made his plan for tomorrow, Xu Xingye washed up and went to bed early.
But the moment he closed his eyes, the image of Lu Siting chasing after him appeared again.
[Wifey, wait for me.]
Xu Xingye opened his eyes and began reciting pi.
Ten minutes later, he closed them again.
[Let's get a four-meter bed.]
He opened his eyes once more and switched to the periodic table.
The torment continued well past midnight. Finally, in despair, Xu Xingye threw himself into his pillow and pulled the quilt over his head.
He was doomed.
He had a feeling he might never escape that lunatic for the rest of this life.