Twelve noon. The rooftop of the school building.
A girl stood on the edge of the roof, her white dress billowing in the wind—pure, radiant, breathtaking.
Lulu crouched about three meters behind her, doing her best to talk her down.
“Snap out of it! He doesn’t even love you! Jumping over some guy like that—it’s just not worth it!” she pleaded. “Getting stuck in romance brain will literally kill you!”
The girl turned her head slowly and said in a dreamy voice, “He loves me.”
Lulu: “He does not!”
Girl: “He totally loves me.”
Lulu: “……”
Someone please drag this girl off to forage wild herbs or something—what else was she supposed to say?
Three meters further back, standing just inside the rooftop door, was Dong Zi. He wore a matching expression of confusion, utterly unable to grasp the logic of romance-addled minds.
Still, bolstered by the confidence of being in a relationship himself, he stepped forward bravely. “With all due respect—”
The moment those four words left his mouth, the girl flung herself off the edge without a second thought.
Dong Zi: “…You………………”
It totally looked like he’d just talked her into jumping—but that really wasn’t what happened.
***
Time rewinds—back to the very beginning of the instance.
When they first entered the instance, Dong Zi immediately recognized the classroom—it was his old high school.
But he also noticed that everyone sitting around him was unfamiliar NPCs. Without hesitation, he waited until class ended and went to find Lulu. The two regrouped and decided to follow the same approach Fu Changxun had used.
They climbed to the fifth-floor broadcast room and used the intercom system to send out a message across the school: “Fu Changxun, come quickly.”
Once again, it was like shouting into a void. No response. Total silence.
But things here were different from the other side. During class, there were no monsters roaming the halls. During morning exercises, there were no rules about students being dragged to the front and executed if they slacked off. Everything was oddly calm. Unnaturally calm.
That was, until 12:12 p.m., when a girl jumped from the rooftop.
The moment she hit the ground, they opened their eyes—and found themselves right back at the beginning of the instance.
It was a loop: if they didn’t stop the girl from jumping, they’d reset to the start over and over again.
During the second loop, they managed to find four more players: one lone-wolf type and three semi-rookie players who still hadn’t figured out what was going on.
Most of them had only entered a single rookie instance before and hadn’t played again until the forced deadline pulled them into this one.
They were what you’d call “checked-out” players. And sometimes, those were even more troublesome than lone wolves.
Lone wolves kept to themselves—they didn’t get in anyone’s way. But checked-out players were terrified of everything, didn’t want to do anything, and just hoped to get through by blind luck.
They dragged down everyone else—morale, pace, strategy, you name it.
Their fear of death only made them more paralyzed.
“Listen to me,” Dong Zi said firmly. “We’re in a time loop. If you don’t want to be stuck here forever, follow my lead.”
These three clearly didn’t want to die. If they had, they wouldn’t have waited until the last possible moment to be pulled into the game.
Now that someone was offering to take charge, they were more than happy to accept, nodding quickly.
Lulu said, “We still need to confirm our theory. If that girl jumps from the roof again, the loop will trigger. This is our second cycle. When it gets close to 12:12, everyone keep an eye on the windows—see what you can catch. If the loop happens again, we’ll all compare notes.”
None of them had much experience, but they promised to follow instructions.
And then they witnessed it: the girl jumped from the fifth-floor rooftop like a bird with broken wings, her body smashing into the ground with sickening finality.
There was no censorship—no pixelation. One of the rookies lost it and threw up on the spot… but before the vomit even hit the floor, time snapped back.
The clock rewound to 9 a.m.—second period Chinese class. Everything reset.
They were definitely in a loop.
The window of time was tight—just three hours—and they hadn’t even gotten a good look at the girl’s face, let alone prepared a way to stop her.
So in the third cycle, they headed to the rooftop before noon.
But the girl in the white dress was already sitting at the edge when they arrived. No matter what they said, she wouldn’t respond—and right at 12:12, she jumped again.
Another bloody scene. The three checked-out players couldn’t take it anymore. They ran.
That left only Dong Zi and Lulu.
During the fourth loop, now that they remembered what the girl looked like, they broke into the principal’s office and stole the student roster. They managed to find her name and class—thinking they could intercept her before she ever reached the roof.
But by the time they got to her, she was already up there.
Another wasted trip. Still, Lulu tried her best. “Menghan, what’s going on? What’s making you feel this way? Talk to me—sometimes it helps to say it out loud.”
The girl—Li Menghan—just gave a soft, empty smile and shook her head. Then she jumped again.
Lulu: “……”
Do I really come off that unapproachable?
Fifth loop. Lulu switched tactics.
“I’ve seen this kind of thing in TV shows and movies—when you’re trapped in a time loop, you have to resolve the emotional trauma of the person at the center.”
Dong Zi nodded thoughtfully. “Then let’s dig into her past. Maybe if we understand her background, we can talk her down.”
This high school’s teaching building was laid out in a square, with each floor corresponding to a different grade: second floor for seniors, third for juniors, and fourth for freshmen.
The first and fifth floors were for offices and special rooms—storage, labs, and the broadcast room. Easy to navigate.
Li Menghan was a freshman, in a class located dead center on the fourth floor.
The two of them headed straight there, made up an excuse, and called the class monitor out.
Dong Zi got straight to the point. “You’ve got a student named Li Menghan in your class, right?”
The monitor blinked, confused. “Seniors, who are you…”
Lulu quickly cut in. “Her family’s trying to reach her. They haven’t been able to get in touch, so we wanted to ask about how she’s doing at school—her studies, her social life, that kind of thing.”
The monitor’s expression shifted to one of suspicion—right before Dong Zi pulled out the ace up his sleeve.
“You don’t know? That’s the level of attention you pay to your class? And you’re the class monitor? Maybe I should have a word with your homeroom teacher…”
Classic guilt trip. Sure enough, the NPC took the bait.
“Of course I know her!” he said indignantly, then promptly spilled everything he knew about Li Menghan.
Apparently, not long after she started freshman year, a senior began pursuing her. A junior from the grade above—handsome, charming, and warm. She fell fast and hard.
But the prince on a white horse turned out to be a fraud. The real deal? A scumbag serial dater who changed girlfriends like he changed clothes.
Barely two months in, he’d moved on and dumped her—his excuse?
“I see your face every day, every day, every day. I’m sick of it. I want something fresh.”
Li Menghan, still lost in the early flush of first love, couldn’t accept the breakup.
Brainwashed by the guy’s bullshit, she actually went to a shady clinic to get cosmetic surgery—and took a full month off school to recover. Her studies fell apart.
When she finally came back, the guy didn’t even recognize her. Thought she was a hot new transfer student. Dumped his current girlfriend on the spot and started sweet-talking her again.
The two got back together.
Just yesterday, one of Li Menghan’s classmates called out to her in public—loud enough for her senior to hear.
That one slip blew her cover.
The guy immediately exploded. “Disgusting!” he spat, then stormed off.
They’d been on a date at the time—right on the sports field, with tons of students around. Dozens witnessed the whole thing, and it didn’t take long before word reached the teachers too.
Li Menghan was instantly thrust into the eye of the storm.
Words like “shameless,” “cheap,” and “plastic surgery freak” came crashing down on her all at once.
Lulu’s brow furrowed deeply. Once they left the classroom, she let out a long sigh.
“I’m guessing it was the pressure of public opinion that crushed her,” she said regretfully. “She felt like suicide was the only way to clear her name. It’s dumb… but also kind of sad.”
Most girls feel down after a breakup, but eventually they move on. Very few would go as far as putting a knife to their own face over it.
Dong Zi shook his head. “She didn’t need to do all that. The best move would’ve been exposing the asshole instead.”
“No time for that now. Next time she shows up on the roof, we restrain her first. Break the loop, then deal with the deeper problem.” Lulu charged up the stairs.
Li Menghan was already there, still sitting calmly at the edge. She turned toward the rooftop entrance as soon as she heard the sound.
There was still a faint puffiness on her face, the kind that comes from recent cosmetic surgery. But her features were undeniably beautiful.
Getting work done wasn’t inherently wrong. But getting it done for that kind of scumbag?
Absolutely not worth it.
The most basic principle of life is to love yourself. You live for you, not for anyone else. Lowering yourself for someone else’s approval only makes people look down on you even more.
“Li Menghan! Your senior’s looking for you!” Lulu shouted.
That got her attention. “Really?”
Five minutes still remained before 12:12. Without warning, the two of them lunged and grabbed her.
But to their shock, Li Menghan broke free as if possessed by a powerlifter. She even flung Dong Zi hard to the ground with one arm. After a brief struggle, she threw herself over the edge again—right on the dot at 12:12.
And so began loop number six.
Lulu was dumbfounded. “What the hell? She looks so petite—how’d she overpower both of us?!”
Dong Zi, whose Strength stat was nearly maxed out: “…It felt like I got hit by a car.”
Lulu tried to reason through it. “That can’t be normal. It’s probably a ‘scripted death’—like in some movies. Even though we got to the suicide scene, we haven’t resolved her core issue. So the instance has to kill her.”
Looks like they’d have to get back on track and address the real problem—convince her not to take her own life.
But what was Li Menghan’s obsession?
Was it really just that lying, cheating ex of hers? That seemed too simple…
What Lulu hadn’t yet realized was that for girls who’ve been manipulated and emotionally dependent—who’ve been manipulated and lived only for love—changing their mindset was practically impossible.
Simple?
Here comes a massive slap to the face.
Which brings us right back to the scene from the beginning of this chapter:
Li Menghan refusing to come to her senses. All she wanted was love. All she wanted was to get back together with her precious senior.
Sixth loop: complete.
When Dong Zi opened his eyes for the seventh time, still in the same classroom seat, he couldn’t help mentally screaming—
“Ah Xun, help me!”
He had no idea how to talk someone out of suicide. This kind of job? It needed a professional.
