After Transmigrating Into a Book, I Was Hooked by the Protagonist Gong - Chapter 4

The door flew open.

Qin Zhan froze, his hand stopping mid-air just as he was about to press the doorbell. Catching sight of the two umbrellas in Bai Yuinian’s hands, he flashed his trademark warm smile. “Are you heading out? I came by to return Tang Yu’s meal card. He left it with me when we grabbed lunch together at noon, but…”

He glanced back at the villa across the way. “It looks like Tang Yu isn’t home yet—”

Before he could even finish his sentence, the meal card was snatched right out of his hand.

Bai Yuenian maintained his permanent, icy expression. “I’ll take care of it. Thanks for making the trip.”

Qin Zhan: “!?!”

Slightly dazed, Qin Zhan couldn’t quite pinpoint what felt off, but he forced his smile to stay put. “Then… sorry to trouble you.”

Bam. The door slammed shut. To say Bai Yuenian’s movements were swift would be an understatement.

Staring at his empty hand, Qin Zhan suddenly wondered what the point of his trip even was. Was he just a glorified delivery boy?

For some reason, he got the distinct impression that Bai Yuenian harbored a bizarre animosity toward him. Even though the guy had been as expressionless as always, Qin Zhan’s uncanny sixth sense rarely lied.

How strange. He and Bai Yuenian frequently participated in academic competitions together and were on speaking terms. Why the sudden cold shoulder? Had he done something to offend him?

Meanwhile, in a dim, dreary alleyway, chaos was unfolding.

A girl wearing an Industrial High School uniform was being pinned down by three thugs.

The sound Tang Yu had heard moments ago was the tearing of fabric. The girl’s mouth was clamped shut, her backpack tossed to the side. Her uniform jacket hung halfway off her shoulders, and the t-shirt underneath had been ripped open, exposing a bra strap.

Taking in the scene, Tang Yu didn’t hesitate. He slammed a fist directly into the face of the tattooed thug who was gagging the girl.

In a fluid motion, he grabbed the buzz-cut guy by the collar, dragging his face against the rough brick wall before launching a high kick.

The yellow-haired thug rushing toward him hesitated for a fraction of a second. The rip in Tang Yu’s jeans had exposed a flash of pale skin that caught him off guard, making him forget to throw a punch.

The next instant, Tang Yu’s leg came crashing down like a ton of bricks onto the thug’s shoulder, dropping him to his knees instantly.

When it came to fighting, Tang Yu possessed a reckless, unforgiving streak and since he was already having a thoroughly irritating day, he was pulling absolutely no punches.

Within a couple of rounds, the three thugs realized they were completely outmatched. They beat a hasty retreat, though not without barking a classic parting threat: “Fuck! You just wait!”

Idiots, Tang Yu thought with a sneer.

Keeping his back turned to the girl to give her privacy, Tang Yu waited until he heard her finished rustling around before turning around. “Where do you live? Want me to walk you home?”

The girl didn’t refuse. Tang Yu was famous at school, so she recognized him immediately. After what had just happened, having him by her side gave her a profound sense of security.

They walked in silence, keeping a respectful distance. Tang Yu followed a step behind, turning something over in his mind before finally asking, “Do you know those guys?”

The girl gripped her backpack straps tightly, remaining silent.

Tang Yu rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. If it’s private, act like I didn’t ask.”

He had only asked because those faces were unfamiliar, and their accents didn’t sound local. He suspected they were out-of-towners who had just arrived in Nancheng specifically to target her, and he wanted to know if she needed actual help.

More importantly, he wanted to know if they should go to the police. He was perfectly willing to act as a witness.

The girl lived close by, just a street away from the bookstore in a quiet residential complex. They arrived in no time.

Reaching the bottom of the stairwell, the girl scanned the area anxiously. Once she was certain they were alone, she spoke in a timid voice. “They’re debt collectors.”

“My dad’s company owes them money. Just now… they wanted to take photos of me… to blackmail him.”

“Did they get any?” Tang Yu’s heart sank. He instantly regretted letting those scumbags walk away so easily. Even though she was filtering her words, he knew exactly what kind of photos they were trying to take by ripping her clothes open. He should have beaten them harder the kind of beating that breaks ribs and shatters teeth.

“No,” the girl replied softly. “You got there just in time.”

Tang Yu let out a breath of relief.

After walking through the downpour, the girl was relatively dry thanks to her uniform jacket, but Tang Yu’s thin T-shirt was half-soaked, and water was dripping from the tips of his bangs.

Seeing his state, the girl felt incredibly guilty. “You went to so much trouble for me today. Please, come up and dry off. It’s just the second floor, it’ll only take a second.”

Tang Yu had intended to just watch her safely make it upstairs, but she insisted so fiercely claiming she couldn’t live with herself if she let him walk back in the rain, and demanding she at least give him an umbrella that he couldn’t refuse. He followed her up.

Tang Yu waited by the entrance. The apartment was impeccably clean. On the wall by the foyer hung a message board cluttered with sticky notes, several of them signed with a sweet, maternal “Mom.”

A minute later, the girl handed him a fresh towel. “Here, use this to dry off. It’s brand new.”

Tang Yu asked, “Does your mom know about this?”

“I didn’t want her to worry,” she admitted, looking down. “So I haven’t told her.”

Tang Yu understood. Those thugs were cowards; they were targeting the easiest mark first. “How long have they been tailing you?”

“About a week,” she added. “I didn’t think they’d be so reckless. I guess I was naive. Today was the first time they actually laid hands on me. A couple from the vocational school lives upstairs, and they were the ones who realized I was being followed. They’ve been walking me home every day, but they had something else to do today, and I had classroom cleanup duty, so I left late…”

Tang Yu handed the towel back. “You should still tell your mother. You can’t hide this forever. What if they show up at your front door? Also… you really should think about calling the police.”

“I will.”

Pausing, the girl glanced at the dripping hem of his shirt and hesitated. “Your clothes… do you want to change out of them?”

“I mean, we only have one piece of men’s clothing in the house. It’s never been worn. I bought it a while ago intending to give it to my brother and his wife as a wedding anniversary present, but it turns out I won’t be needing it anymore. It should fit you, if you don’t mind.”

Tang Yu opened his mouth to tell her not to bother, but the girl sprinted into her room with lightning speed. She emerged holding a white T-shirt featuring Tom from Tom and Jerry. On the back of the shirt was a highly conspicuous half-heart graphic.

It was the male half of a matching couple’s set.

Back downstairs, Tang Yu stepped out into the rain, holding the umbrella the girl had lent him.

The girl pushed open the window on the second floor, calling out, “Tang Yu! I didn’t get a chance to properly say thank you!”

Hearing her, Tang Yu spun the handle of the umbrella in acknowledgment. Behind him, the pink half-heart graphic caught the eye of a lone observer waiting in the shadows.

Raindrops pelted the black canopy of the umbrella, their bouncing trajectories catching the light and forming a soft, iridescent halo.

The umbrella tilted upward slowly, revealing a pair of cool, striking, almond-shaped eyes.

Perhaps because he didn’t want to carry two umbrellas back home, Bai Yuenian casually placed the extra umbrella he had brought into the community’s public sharing bin.

His gaze shifted from Tang Yu to the girl on the second floor, who was still waving.

She was also wearing a white T-shirt. But from his angle, he couldn’t see the graphic on her clothes, rendering it impossible to tell if she was wearing the other half of the couple’s set.

Bai Yuenian stood frozen in place for a long time. Only when Tang Yu’s silhouette completely vanished from sight did he turn and walk in the exact opposite direction.

He walked all the way to the school cafeteria’s convenience store. There, he deposited precisely two cents onto Tang Yu’s meal card, using the exact change to buy a single fruit candy wrapped in shiny, colorful foil.

He popped the candy into his mouth. As it slowly dissolved, a wave of intense sweetness coated his tongue.

The next morning, the sky was clear and a restless, cool breeze rustled through the trees.

Sunlight pierced through a crack in the curtains, hitting Tang Yu right in the face. The bright glare turned his vision a warm, blurry orange. Frowning, he rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

A few moments later, the phone on the nightstand began to buzz furiously.

It was a WeChat message from Xie Tianyi.

[Xie Tianyi: Bro! Get your ass to school right now!]

Too lazy to type, Tang Yu sent a groggy voice note instead. “What is it? I’m exhausted. I’m skipping morning classes.”

[Xie Tianyi: Don’t do that!] [Xie Tianyi: This is a code red! Old Man Zi Yue literally came to the classroom looking for you! He even questioned Teacher Min. When he found out you weren’t here, his face turned terrifyingly dark!]

“Zi Yue” was their disciplinary dean, whose actual name was Liu Ziyue. He was fierce notoriously fierce and his favorite pastime was catching Tang Yu skipping class.

But Liu Ziyue had actually gone to the classroom to hunt him down?

He had never done that before. Because Tang Yu, the resident school delinquent, usually vanished like a ghost whenever he cut class. No one ever knew where he was, and asking around was a waste of time.

Tang Yu lay back down, completely unbothered.

Wait, what else did Xie Tianyi say? Teacher Min? Who was Teacher Min?

Right. He had transmigrated into a book. He was currently enrolled in Class 1 the honors class!

Tang Yu’s half-awake brain finally connected the dots. The realization hit him like a lightning bolt. He scrambled out of bed and rushed into the bathroom to get ready.

Rewinding to a few minutes prior.

By the back door of the classroom, Zhou Fangmin stood with her arms crossed, staring intently at Xie Tianyi’s phone, waiting for a reply.

With a sharp ding, Tang Yu’s voice note arrived.

Zhou Fangmin tilted her chin up. “Go ahead. Put it on speaker. Let’s hear his grand excuse.”

Cornered, Xie Tianyi reluctantly tapped the voice message.

The next second, Tang Yu’s raspy voice, thick with morning grogginess, echoed clearly through the high-quality speakers.

“What is it? I’m exhausted~”

His tone was significantly deeper and rasper than usual, carrying a faint, sleepy tremor. The way he dragged out the “What is it” sounded incredibly soft, almost like a whimper.

A few desks away, Bai Yuenian’s pen froze mid-sentence. The tips of his ears turned a shade of crimson. Sitting right by the back door, he had heard every single syllable of the audio.

Morning self-study for the honors class was usually reserved for pop quizzes. Today’s subject was chemistry.

The rules for these small quizzes were relaxed, with tablemates simply swapping papers to grade each other.

Half an hour later, Wu Jianqi drew a sharp, red slash next to Bai Yuenian’s very first multiple-choice question.

He instantly began questioning his own reality. The question required a bit of calculation and was considered medium difficulty. Looking at the margins of the paper, Bai Yuenian had clearly scribbled down the steps. Although messy, it was obvious he had calculated the correct answer: B.

So why on earth had he written ‘A’ in the brackets?

It was statistically impossible for the Academic God to make a mistake. The answer key had to be wrong. Guided by his absolute reverence for Bai Yuenian, Wu Jianqi recalculate the problem entirely, terrified that he had missed some hidden trick.

Two minutes later, Wu Jianqi nudged his elbow toward his desk mate. “Uh, Yu-god, this question…”

Without a hint of emotion, Bai Yuenian cast a brief glance at the paper. “I wrote the wrong letter.”

Wu Jianqi: “…”

Just like that? Did the literal god of academics actually make the kind of careless mistakes reserved for mere mortals?

Dazed, Wu Jianqi went back to grading.

A moment later, a shadow fell over the front door.

A girl’s timid voice drifted into the room. “Teacher, I’m looking for Tang Yu.”

Talk about perfect timing.

Though Zhou Fangmin was in a foul mood, she wasn’t the type to take it out on an innocent student. Her voice softened automatically. “He’s running late today. Is there something you need?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” the girl said, shaking her head. “I just wanted to thank him. Teacher, could you please help me put this milk tea on his desk? Thank you so much!”

Why was everyone looking for Tang Yu today? And someone was sending him milk tea?

Wu Jianqi looked up, noticing that the students in the last two rows were all craning their necks toward the door. At seventeen or eighteen years old, a girl gifting a boy milk tea was basically a siren song for gossip and romantic drama.

What truly shocked him, however, was that Bai Yuenian was looking toward the door too! This was unprecedented. Was the aloof, borderline ascetic Academic God actually interested in high school gossip?

But then he remembered the gossip revolved around Tang Yu. Suddenly, it made perfect sense.

The girl at the door was the exact same girl from the balcony yesterday. Since it was regular class hours, she wasn’t wearing her school uniform, opting instead for a casual hoodie and sweatpants.

Bai Yuenian stared at the cup of milk tea sitting on Tang Yu’s empty desk, then slowly lowered his head. His long eyelashes cast a small shadow under his eyes, making him look inexplicably despondent.

Staring at the glaring red slash marking his first mistake on the quiz, he muttered a sentence under his breath that absolutely no one around him could comprehend:

“Tom and Jerry… are both male cats.”

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