BTO CH20

The dorm was pitch-black after lights-out. Only the faint, greenish-white glow of the phone screen illuminated “Shao Zhan’s” naturally aloof face. The teenager’s sharp brow and eyes carried an innate, imposing presence; his tens of thousands of fangirls hadn’t voted him into first place for nothing.

Right now, however, Xu Sheng had zero mental bandwidth to care about the voting. Who was first and who was second had completely lost all meaning. His mind was entirely consumed by one thought:

Just let him drop out.

…Let him leave this damn school!

No—better yet, just let him drop dead.

During his private downtime, Xu Sheng refused to wear the standard school uniform. Without asking Shao Zhan for more of his clothes, he simply threw on a random T-shirt yanked from his own closet. Shao Zhan’s build wasn’t much different from his, and the clothes were all one-size-fits-all anyway; a couple centimeters’ difference in height barely mattered. If daytime Shao Zhan—strutting around in Xu Sheng’s body—exuded the aura of a “school tyrant,” then the genuine Shao Zhan out of uniform packed an even deadlier punch.

The first time Xu Sheng finished showering, closed his eyes to pull the shirt over his head, and looked in the mirror, he had frozen in place for a good while.

Stripped of the rigid restraint of a proper school uniform, the untamed edge radiating from the boy in the mirror flared out with complete abandon. He looked like the absolute spitting image of a school tyrant.

Meanwhile, Shao Zhan’s vote count remained completely flatlined.

Floor 1102: …

Floor 1103: ……

Floor 1104: Honestly, I really want to type a string of ellipses too, because every single word in human language fails to capture my current state of mind or what I’m feeling right now. But I still have to ask: what the actual fuck is going on here?!

Was this situation not utterly horrifying?!

Just imagine: while you are frantically busting your ass voting for your idol, the idol himself logs into his main account to bat for the rival camp, laying on an endless paragraph of shameless rainbow flattery. Any fan on earth would suffer a total mental breakdown.

Floor 1105: Is it really him? Is it genuinely him in person?

Floor 1106: It’s him. Is there anyone in this school who doesn’t recognize the Study God’s ID? The entire student body knows it.

Floor 1107: So… is it what I think it is?

Floor 1108: Is it what I’m thinking too?

At this very moment, Tan Kai and Hou Jun—who had earlier sworn to burn through burner accounts to defend “Zhan-ge’s” throne—were losing their minds alongside everyone else. The exact same thought screamed through every single person’s head: Turns out the Study God admires the school tyrant that much? Turns out there’s this kind of relationship between them?! What kind of love-hate melodrama between a star student and a delinquent is this?!

…

Several minutes ticked by.

Shao Zhan’s vote count halted completely; not a single vote ticked up.

Amidst the collective bewilderment, helplessness, and sheer panic of Shao Zhan’s fangirls, someone eventually took the initiative to cast a vote for Xu Sheng. After that, the frantic crowd seemed to find the righteous path, dumping all their remaining votes onto Xu Sheng like an avalanche.

Xu Sheng’s vote tally skyrocketed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

WeChat notifications flashed incessantly in his status bar.

Sitting closest to the blast radius, Zhang Feng had worried that Xu Sheng wasn’t paying attention to the contest. Terrified his bro might miss out on tonight’s freshest gossip, he rushed over to relay the agonizingly awkward spectacle, hitting Xu Sheng with a brutal second blow: Tonight’s battlefield is fucking wild! Do you have any idea what just went down?! The Study God literally came out to rally votes for you!

Zhang Feng: He said your eyes are like peach blossoms, and your nose bridge is so tall and straight he wishes he could slide down it. And the absolute masterpiece: ‘Your handsomeness makes the heavens dim and robs all creation of its luster!’

Zhang Feng: Though it looks like there’s a typo in that line—he used the wrong character for ‘dim.’

Xu Sheng: “…”

Fortunately, Zhang Feng promptly rationalized an excuse for the Study God: How could the Study God possibly make a typo? It’s definitely the input method’s fault.

Excitement bubbling over, Zhang Feng provided live commentary: Bro, you’re first! Number one!

Xu Sheng, who currently had zero desire to sit atop the podium, slowly shut his eyes. The higher the number climbed, the more he wanted to die.

With things escalating to this level, dodging it tomorrow was completely out of the question. Even if Shao Zhan didn’t browse the Tieba forums, Tan Kai and Hou Jun alone would take turns flaying a layer of skin off him.

Even with ten mouths, he wouldn’t be able to spin this.

Fuck, what do I do now?

Xu Sheng climbed out of bed and ran a hand through his hair. Not even on day one of turning into Shao Zhan, when Gao Zhibo had ambushed him with that function problem, had he felt this brand of pure despair.

Should he just go turn himself in?

Since there was no hiding it anyway, they needed to talk this over. At the very least, he had to give the real Shao Zhan a heads-up so they could face tomorrow’s torrential storm with unified, unbothered composure.

Xu Sheng cracked the door open. Mustering all his psychological courage, he took two steps forward and stood before the dorm room opposite his own.

Though, compared to knocking, he would much rather turn right into the stairwell, hike up to the roof of the dorm building, and leap into the wind to bring a swift end to his brief, tragic life.

Xu Sheng raised his hand and bent his knuckles. Right before rapping on the wood, he took a step back.

He… couldn’t bring himself to knock.

Xu Sheng squatted down on the floor, fished the phone out of his pants pocket, and casually tugged at his collar. After two seconds of hesitation, he opened WeChat.

When he and Shao Zhan had swapped phones, they had relogged into their main accounts for the primary apps. An unexpected, rarely used app like Tieba simply hadn’t crossed their minds.

Shao Zhan’s original WeChat contact list had been sparse. Aside from Xu Sheng, there were only a handful of teachers and classmates.

The categories were strictly organized: family sat at the very top, followed by school. The final category was a bit odd, prompting Xu Sheng to take a second look—it was labeled “Nanping.”

Xu Sheng couldn’t say for sure whether “Nanping” referred to the district in his memory; C City had a few outer zones, and Nanping District was rather remote.

Having no desire to pry into someone else’s privacy, he had skimmed past it and switched straight back to his own WeChat account after getting the phone. He shot a message to “Shao Zhan”: You there?

Xu Sheng typed again: Open the door, I need to talk to you.

Xu Sheng pressed on: Before you open it, prepare yourself mentally, and silently repeat to yourself: a gentleman uses words and not fists, violence solves nothing, classmates must cherish and love one another… If none of those work, just remember who is Shao Zhan right now. A person has to cherish their own body.

The very second that paragraph went through, the dorm door swung open.

Shao Zhan leaned against the frame, expressionless. Fresh out of the shower, water was still dripping from his hair; before he could grab a towel, his phone had begun buzzing. Glancing down upon opening the door, he found Xu Sheng squatting on the floor playing on his phone.

With his head hung low, Xu Sheng’s face was almost buried against his knees, the phone resting on his shins, leaving only the nape of his neck and messy hair visible.

Hearing the door, Xu Sheng finally looked up.

“What are you squatting there for?” Shao Zhan shifted sideways. “Get in.”

Xu Sheng stood up sluggishly. Before stepping over the threshold, he made sure to verify his personal safety: “Did you read the messages?”

Shao Zhan carried the damp chill of fresh water mixed with the faint scent of shower gel, sweeping past with an icy edge the moment they drew close: “If none of the above works, I don’t give a damn whose body you’re in.”

“…” So he did read them.

Xu Sheng touched his nose, convinced that under no circumstances would he survive to see tomorrow’s sunrise.

He hadn’t been in Shao Zhan’s room often. The morning he woke up here, he had been too consumed by shock; only in hindsight did he notice that Shao Zhan’s room was excessively orderly. Just like the guy himself, nothing redundant was permitted to exist unless strictly necessary.

Shao Zhan pulled out the desk chair. Sitting down on it, Xu Sheng felt as though he were awaiting execution. Shao Zhan leaned against the edge of the study desk, the two of them facing each other directly.

Xu Sheng broke the ice with a throwaway line: “Were you doing test papers just now?”

He almost slipped out a “Have you eaten dinner yet,” but Shao Zhan kept his gaze down, his expression completely obscured. Only three clipped syllables came in response: “Cut the crap.”

“Get to the point.”

Shao Zhan could roughly guess that Xu Sheng had gotten into trouble again. Ever since the thunderstorm, bizarre accidents had rolled in one after another without a moment’s peace; he wouldn’t be surprised no matter what had happened.

At worst, it was just another misunderstanding or a cracked persona.

…Or so he thought, right up until Xu Sheng slid the phone across to him.

The split second Xu Sheng let go of the device, he tapped into his astonishing vertical leap, springing back two paces until his back hit the door.

Inside the darkened room, a deathly silence reigned.

With the lights out, Xu Sheng couldn’t see clearly and kicked something over as he scrambled backward. He could only track the turbulent shifts in Shao Zhan’s expression by the dim glow of the screen.

Shao Zhan read through it swiftly, piecing together the broad strokes of what had happened. He normally paid zero attention to these activities, so understanding the general mechanics of the contest took a bit of extra effort.

By the time he pulled himself out of Xu Sheng’s “masterfully written” essay, forget about broken personas—he felt as though the entire universe were crumbling before his eyes. And as it collapsed, a single line written with dogshit prose echoed on an endless loop: “peach-blossom eyes of his—so breathtakingly mesmerizing.”

“I need to explain,” Xu Sheng ventured. “I forgot this was your account.” As for why he had gone on Tieba to post such a paragraph about himself in the first place—he skipped that entirely. Explaining it was simply too humiliating.

“Why didn’t you forget yourself while you were at it?”

“…”

“Could your prose be any more atrocious?”

“…”

With every word, Shao Zhan took a step forward, finally coming to a halt directly in front of him.

Xu Sheng was backed flush against the door, facing the arctic chill rolling off Shao Zhan’s entire frame. Looming over him, Shao Zhan seemed to let out a breath that resembled a smirk: “I’ve never seen your Chinese essays run this long.”

Xu Sheng genuinely thought Shao Zhan was about to beat him to death on the spot regardless of whose body he was occupying. Yet the next second, the sound of the latch sliding back clicked through the quiet room. Opening the door, Shao Zhan saw straight through his panic: “If beating you to death was of any use, you wouldn’t be standing here right now. And for the record: that’s not how you write ‘dim’ in ‘robs of luster.'”

Xu Sheng: “I can go?”

Beating him was pointless, and standing here in a deadlocked stalemate was equally useless.

Shao Zhan let go of the door, forcing down every raging emotion: “If you don’t fix this tomorrow, kill yourself.”

Narrowly escaping Shao Zhan’s clutches, Xu Sheng managed to secure a temporary extension on his life. Returning to his room, he tossed and turned all night without a wink of sleep, looking every bit like an idol staring down an unmitigated PR catastrophe.

Xu Sheng had assumed he could at least survive until morning study hall. Yet before morning self-study even arrived, Class 7’s resident gossip ambassadors, Hou Jun and Tan Kai, paid an express visit to the dorms—

Last night had been a sleepless night for every student at Linjiang Sixth High who had cast a ballot.

For Hou Jun and Tan Kai, sleep had been entirely out of the question!

Before heading up, Tan Kai met with Hou Jun: “Monkey Bro, what the hell have I done? I kept telling Zhan-ge I’d vote for him! No wonder every time I said it, Zhan-ge had that weird look on his face… Looking back on that weird look now, that’s totally what it meant!”

Hou Jun was floored: “Holy shit, really? There were signs all along?”

Tan Kai said, “That stare—it was practically screaming, ‘Why aren’t you voting for Xu Sheng?’ Exactly! The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that was it!”

The two chatted away, heading down the stairwell in a total daze.

Having woken up early, barely anyone was stirring in the dorm building yet.

Tan Kai summoned his courage and knocked twice on the door. From inside, a voice both unfamiliar and familiar called out: “Hold on.”

The unfamiliarity came from the fact that it clearly wasn’t the Study God’s voice.

The familiarity was even more glaring—because even though it wasn’t the Study God, it felt as though they had heard it somewhere before, ringing with unmistakable resonance.

Hou Jun hesitated: “Did we knock on the wrong door?”

Tan Kai was dead certain: “No way! Zhan-ge lives right here!”

The second the words left his mouth, the door swung open.

The hour was far too early; Shao Zhan had assumed the person knocking was Xu Sheng. On top of that, having lived in this room for so long, many habits had become pure muscle memory. Normally he wouldn’t be this careless, but Xu Sheng’s essay had kept him up for most of the night. He had only just thrown his clothes on, his hair a tousled mess, only to lock eyes with two frozen pairs of pupils.

Shao Zhan: “…”

Tan Kai: “…”

Hou Jun: “…”

If Tan Kai and Hou Jun had merely been suspicious before arriving, their entire worldview shattered completely in this instant: Why the hell was Xu Sheng the one opening the door?