ABMSI Chapter 77

Even though Peng Yan tried to stop him from going after Fu Duqiu, Duan Wei still felt something wasn’t right. After thinking for a moment, he slipped through the noisy crowd in a few quick strides and spotted that familiar figure standing alone outside the restroom hallway.

The other boy leaned against the wall, the dim lights making his silhouette look almost unreal. A few students passing by glanced his way, their eyes full of curiosity.

“Why are you standing here?” Duan Wei walked up with obvious intent to greet him, leaning his shoulder casually on the wall next to him. He forced a topic: “Aren’t you coming back to play with us?”

Maybe it was the proximity, but the trace of Duan Wei’s pheromones lingering in the air brushed past Fu Duqiu’s senses. For a moment, he found his emotions hard to control. He drew in a deep breath, forcing his attention away from him, answering quietly, “It’s too noisy in there.”

“Oh…” Duan Wei let out an unconscious sigh of relief. “If you’re uncomfortable, we can just go back to school instead?”

The moment he said that, Fu Duqiu paused. He looked at Duan Wei with a flicker of surprise, then curved his lips slightly. “You don’t want to play anymore?”

Duan Wei didn’t think too deeply about it. He wasn’t particularly addicted to online games, nor did he really want to head back to the suffocating classroom environment. But if Fu Duqiu wasn’t used to it, then of course he was willing to leave with him.

Thinking this, Duan Wei said carelessly, “We’re just playing matching games anyway. Can’t rank up—there’s no point.”

He spoke lazily, like whether he played or not didn’t matter at all. Yet those words warmed Fu Duqiu’s chest a little. The irritation he’d been carrying around suddenly softened. He chuckled faintly and said, “Let’s go back. Play a bit more.”

Seeing his mood improve so visibly, Duan Wei relaxed and followed him back. At some point, he’d started caring about Fu Duqiu’s emotions. Even though he still had zero idea why Fu Duqiu was upset, he instinctively wanted to fix it.

He’d never had that thought before—not even toward Peng Yan, his friend of many years.

The afternoon passed quickly. After a few rounds of games, the group grabbed dinner. When they returned to school, evening study was about to start. Gaming wrecks your eyes; the moment Duan Wei sat down, he immediately crashed onto his arms and slept, completely forgetting his mountain of unfinished homework.

Peng Yan turned around and tapped his desk without looking. Fu Duqiu’s voice came quietly: “Don’t make noise. He’s asleep.”

Peng Yan turned around, startled, and saw their “Duan Bro” knocked out cold, sleeping with half his face exposed under the lights, pale as porcelain. He glanced at him, then asked Fu Duqiu, “Hey, top student— are math and English worksheets done? Lend them to him to copy later?”

“I’ve finished. Let him copy this first.” Fu Duqiu pulled out the math worksheet and handed it over.

The elegant handwriting was so fresh the ink looked like it had just dried—clearly rushed a moment ago. Seeing even Fu Duqiu scrambling to finish homework, Peng Yan muttered, “We should wake him, right? If he doesn’t finish his English worksheet, Old Tong will blow his head open tomorrow.”

He reached out to wake Duan Wei, but Fu Duqiu stopped him immediately. On the desk lay two identical English worksheets—one fully written, the other half completed. That half-written sheet mimicked Duan Wei’s handwriting, but a close look revealed it was obviously Fu Duqiu’s.

Seeing this, Peng Yan understood everything. A second later, he heard Fu Duqiu calmly say, “He’s tired. Let him sleep. I’ll finish it for him.”

“…”

Peng Yan stared: True. Gaming all afternoon… who wouldn’t be exhausted?

Meanwhile, the other party involved in this grand act of devotion slept in blissful ignorance. His sleep wasn’t deep; he could vaguely hear pages turning nearby, and his dreams once again drifted into those bizarre scenes he’d been having lately.

Duan Wei was starting to suspect he’d been brainwashed by that childhood story Fu Duqiu once told. Otherwise, why on earth would he keep dreaming about these random scenes?

This time, it wasn’t even the same story. The setting shifted from the park to a lakeside. Two kids were digging for worms in a muddy pit—one squatting, the other standing next to him.

Under the burning sun, the two little shadows stared seriously into the hole as if they’d discovered some rare treasure. After a while, the squatting boy suddenly gasped, grabbed a plastic bottle, and leaned forward, trying to catch something.

The boy standing next to him leaned in as well—only for his foot to slip. With a loud yelp, he plunged straight into the other boy.

Splash! They both toppled into the muddy pit together. Their once pristine white clothes instantly turned into a “your mother’s going to kill you” special.

But the two kids didn’t care at all. They looked at each other, and suddenly burst into loud laughter…

“Hahahahahahahaha—”

The laughter lit up the scene like sunshine breaking through clouds.

It was a story Fu Duqiu had never told him. Yet somehow, Duan Wei dreamt it.

When he finally woke up, the sky outside was completely dark. The classroom was filled with the soft rustle of pages. His desk was stacked with fully completed worksheets. He stared, dumbfounded, for a long while.

After confirming they were all his homework, he mumbled groggily:

“Did the sea-nymph fairy come by?”

Hearing that, Fu Duqiu, who was sitting beside him, let out a quiet laugh. That low voice sent a shiver straight down Duan Wei’s spine, jolting him fully awake. He immediately noticed the handwriting on the worksheets—almost identical to Fu Duqiu’s. He turned his head and asked, “You did this for me?”

Before Fu Duqiu could answer, Peng Yan from the front seat twisted around. He had already made up a lesson’s worth of homework, and with the afternoon gaming session added in, his expression looked downright tragic. Envious, he said to Duan Wei, “Yep. He copied them for you. A favor like this? When are you planning to repay it? Why not just devote your life to him?”

“Get lost,” Duan Wei snapped at him, then lowered his voice and asked Fu Duqiu, “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“You were sleeping too soundly.” Because of Peng Yan’s comment, Fu Duqiu’s eyes were tinged with a vague hint of amusement. “They’re only due tomorrow. Check if there’s anything you don’t understand—I’ll explain it to you.”

Peng Yan, the excellent third wheel, wisely faced forward again.

Duan Wei cleared his throat and looked away, picking up the math worksheet. His mind was a desolate wasteland; one glance at the questions, and he realized he couldn’t understand a single one. So he randomly pointed at a problem, and Fu Duqiu leaned in to explain.

“Here, first, because the distance from (2, -1) to the line x + 2y = 0 is… the circle—”

Fu Duqiu was very close—close enough that his breath brushed against the side of Duan Wei’s neck, sending ripples through him. Worried that Duan Wei wouldn’t catch on, he took the pen and began writing and drawing steps on the paper. The faint scraping of pen against paper echoed strangely loud, and Duan Wei found himself dazed beyond rescue.

He stared at those slender, defined fingers gripping the pen, and his heart gave a violent thump. Whatever pathetic thinking ability he possessed evaporated on the spot.

“…So that gives us the answer. Got it?” Fu Duqiu set the pen down on the scrap paper. When Duan Wei remained silent for too long, he subconsciously turned his head.

Unexpectedly, in that brief moment, their eyes met.

Even Fu Duqiu didn’t seem aware of it himself—when he looked at Duan Wei, his gaze softened in a way it never had before, as though the person in front of him were something fragile and precious, something that would shatter with the slightest touch.

That kind of gaze was impossible to ignore. Even Duan Wei, who usually reacted like he had one neuron and a half, caught it instantly. And that was exactly what threw him—he couldn’t tell anymore whether Fu Duqiu was looking at him, or at the original Duan Wei he used to know.

Because he couldn’t tell, he suddenly realized… he was slipping.

“Oh…” His eyes darted away as if burned. “Got it.”

Noticing something odd in his expression, Fu Duqiu assumed he had crossed a line and immediately sat back a little. He asked quietly, “Is there anything else you don’t understand?”

“Nope.” Duan Wei answered with extreme decisiveness while his face burned redder by the second. He turned toward the window and tried to let the cold air calm him down.

Thankfully, the bell rang for the end of the first evening study session. Duan Wei stood up abruptly to go buy a drink and cool off. But as soon as he stepped outside the classroom, he walked straight into Xu Jianian.

They were in the same class, but it struck him that he hadn’t spoken to her in quite a while. So he greeted her first.

“Xiao Wei?” Xu Jianian smiled. “Going to the store?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go together,” she said, naturally.

Duan Wei and Xu Jianian had grown up together. Their relationship was the type that could survive long stretches without talking and snap back without effort. The store wasn’t far from the teaching building, but Xu Jianian chattered happily the whole way, easily sweeping Fu Duqiu’s presence out of Duan Wei’s mind.

“You seem a lot happier lately,” Duan Wei joked, “I thought you were fighting with Peng Yan.”

At that, Xu Jianian suddenly fell silent. Something seemed to cross her mind, and she asked cautiously, “Xiao Wei, do you still like me?”

“Huh?” Duan Wei froze. According to the original storyline—up to the end—Duan Wei had always liked Xu Jianian. Yet when he thought about it, he realized he hadn’t shown her any affection in a long time. So he answered honestly, “No, I don’t.”

The moment those words fell, Xu Jianian visibly loosened up, letting out a relieved breath. “That’s good, that’s good.”

“What the—me not liking you makes you this happy?” Duan Wei almost laughed.

“It’s not like that. It’s just… there’s something I’ve been keeping from you for a long time, and I’ve been too embarrassed to say it.” Her face grew redder as she spoke. She was wearing a short skirt under her school jacket, and she fidgeted so hard the hem wrinkled into a mess.

Seeing that, Duan Wei asked casually, “What is it?”

“I…” She hesitated, swallowed once, and whispered, “I like someone.”

“…”

In that moment, it felt like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over Duan Wei’s head. He snapped fully awake. Even the heat in his cheeks from earlier finally faded.

“What’s wrong?” Xu Jianian asked carefully when she saw his expression.

“…Nothing.” Duan Wei shook his head and walked ahead.

His mind kept flashing images of Fu Duqiu—little things, the classroom, the worksheets, that gaze. Meanwhile, Xu Jianian’s words echoed louder and louder.

What the hell was he doing?

He came to this fictional world to push the plot forward. So how did the male lead and female lead drift into opposite galaxies without him noticing?

And worse: he’d actually started feeling something he shouldn’t… for Fu Duqiu.

Falling for a character from a novel—sounds beautifully romantic in theory, but in reality? Completely absurd.

The more he thought about it, the more unhinged he became. Even when Xu Jianian called after him, he didn’t hear her. The next second, someone tugged him hard from behind. He looked up just in time to see a tree right in front of him.

“What’s going on with you?” Xu Jianian held onto his arm, baffled. “You’re not even looking where you’re going!”

Snapped back, Duan Wei forced a smile. “Just dizzy.”

“I told you to stop playing games so much.” Seeing his color return, she continued, “Aren’t you curious who I like?”

The old Duan Wei, king of gossip, would’ve interrogated her for every detail.

But he just smiled lightly and shook his head. “No need.”

No need to know who likes who. No need to figure out whether Fu Duqiu likes the original him or the present him.

He came to this world to leave it.

He can’t give Fu Duqiu anything beyond friendship.

Author’s note: Don’t worry, this isn’t angst! We just need a few chapters for young Master Duan to realize his own feelings!