Xu Yan stood in front of the mirror for a long time. The longer he looked, the less he wanted to leave.He just couldn't ge enough of his face , reaching up to touch his own face again. Soft skin, no dark circles, not a single pimple . Even his hair looked effortlessly, good.
He sighed. [This face.] [If I'd looked like this in my previous life, I would've walked slower on purpose, just to give people time to notice.] Another sigh followed it. [The author really wrote "plain-looking" with a straight face. Were the protagonists celestial beings or something?]
A knock interrupted his thoughts.
"Young Master, breakfast is getting cold."
Xu Yan finally pulled himself away from the mirror. "...Coming."
The dining room alone was larger than his entire apartment from his previous life. The table was already set — steamed buns, porridge, fresh fruit, a pitcher of milk and some other dishes — and even the tableware looked like it cost more than his old rent. He sat down quietly, then glanced at the butler, then at the food, then back at the butler.
[Do rich people really eat like this every morning?] [How many people are they feeding?]
The butler smiled politely. "Young Master, is something wrong?"
Xu Yan shook his head immediately. "No. I was just... appreciating the carbohydrates."
Halfway through breakfast, more memories kept surfacing. The Xu family was wealthy — very wealthy. His parents were almost always overseas for work, which meant he'd grown up alone in this house with a staff of housekeepers instead of anyone who actually lived there with him. Plenty of money. Almost no warmth to go with it.
Xu Yan paused mid-bite.
[Wait.] [If I'm rich...] [Does that mean I can buy unlimited milk tea?]
He nearly laughed out loud. Just like that, the despair of waking up inside a novel improved by a solid thirty percent.
---
Back in his room, Xu Yan grabbed a notebook off the desk, wrote on the top page in large letters- "Survival Plan Version 1.0."
"1.Stay away from the protagonists."
"Simple enough."
" 2. Stay away from major plot events."
"...Mostly." He frowned at it, then crossed it out and wrote again .
" 2.Watch major plot events from a safe distance."
He liked this one more. [Much more realistic.] [Life without a little gossip isn't worth living, honestly.]
"3. Never get hit by a car."
He stared at that line for several seconds before underlining it three times, hard enough to nearly tear the page.
He closed his eyes and tried to recall everything he could remember about the novel — the protagonists, the villain, the supporting cast, the major parts of the plot. Some scenes came back crystal clear. Others were simply gone.
"...Why can't I remember anything past chapter three hundred?"
He slapped his own forehead.
"Oh, right. I skipped the business arc." [Who reads fifty chapters of corporate meetings?] [Not me. Never me.]
He kept trying to remember but the result wasn't very good . Some of his memories were sharp as photographs; others were blank, and in some he could just remember the fargment of it .
His stomach dropped. [...I'm finished.] [I can't even remember the full story.. how am I gonna survive this .]
He grabbed his phone and opened the memo app before the rest of it could slip away too.
**Things I Remember**
- Lu Yichen is not actually a villain.
- The protagonists create disasters wherever they go.
- Stay away from roads.
- Public breakups usually happen near the fountain.
- Cafeteria = gossip hotspot.
- Student forum = mandatory daily reading.
He read the list over once. "...Good enough." [Future me can figure out the rest.]
---
After changing into his school uniform, Xu Yan slung his bag over one shoulder and was ready for this battlefield. He smiled with confident. "As long as I don't interfere with the plot, I'll definitely survive."
Somewhere outside, a crow cawed once into the silence.
Xu Yan's eyes narrowed. [That doesn't feel like a good sign.] He shook his head a second later, brushing it off. "No. I'm overthinking this."
And just like that he was heading to his first day at University