My Strange Tale Love Strategy Simulator

When Zhang Ying left the school, it was completely dark. One of the streetlights on the playground was broken, and the remaining few shone with a pale light in the night wind.

He crawled out of the hole, brushed the dirt off his knees, turned into the alley without surveillance cameras along the way he came, changed out of his black clothes and stuffed them into his backpack, becoming an ordinary high school student again.

Pushing open the door, the living room light was still on. Zhang's mother sat on the sofa; the television was on but the volume was muted, and the subtitles of a period drama were silently scrolling across the screen.

"Mom, I'm going back—"

"So late again." Zhang's mother put her cup down on the coffee table, her expression serious. "Tell me, are you in a relationship?"

Zhang Ying was amazed at how prescient her mother was, even predicting this. Standing in the entryway, she kicked off her shoes and muttered under her breath, "Who would want me?"

"You're just like your father back in the day, acting like a complete rascal!" Zhang's mother continued nagging, but her hands were already on the stove, carrying out the food that had been warming up. "Hurry up and finish your meal, take a shower, and go to bed!"

After taking a shower, Zhang Ying threw himself onto the bed. He was still warm from the shower, and his hair was half-wet and stuck to the pillow.

He took a deep breath and opened the simulator panel.

[Dating Strategy Simulator]

[Encounter Handbook]

【The Dating Manual (New)】

Lover's Handbook

Move the cursor over the dating guide and tap. The page expands, displaying a dense array of information line by line.

【Target for Strategy 1: The Dancing Girl's Ghost Story】

[Rank: Current "Groundbound Spirit"]

[Status: Sealed (After full unsealing, it will become a "half-disaster")]

[Favorability: 80%]

[Strategy Training Bar: 0%]

[Difficulty Level: ★☆]

[Affection level reached 20%: Special CG 1 unlocked]

[Affection level reached 40%: Special CG 2 unlocked]

[Affection level reached 60%: Special CG 3 unlocked]

[Affection level reached 80%: Special CG 4 unlocked]

[Reach 100% Affection Level: Unlock Special CG 5, Establish Romantic Relationship, Unlock Development Manual]

[Special CG 1: The Cage of Expectation]

[Special CG 2: An Unexpected Relaxation]

[Special CG 3: The Promise to Fly into the Sky]

[Special CG 4: A Moment of Waiting]

Zhang Ying's gaze lingered on the unlocked CG titles for a moment. Each title represented a path he had walked. From prison to ease, from promises to waiting. He reached out and clicked on the special CG four.

The screen slowly unfolds on the panel.

I stand at the crossroads of fate, the roads to the left and right blocked, a straight path leading to an abyss. I want to turn back, but behind me, everything crumbles with every step. How I long to pause for a moment, to wait for another path to appear.

The roads stretched out to the left, right, and ahead, while the road behind crumbled inch by inch. Gravel crumbled from the edges, rolling into the bottomless darkness below, its sound lost in the darkness. Only by running forward could one avoid being swallowed up.

But when I ran to the center of the intersection, both roads on the left and right had huge gaps, deep and wide cracks. The opposite side was a complete road, but I could never cross it.

The only option is to go forward and continue moving forward.

The cracking sound behind them grew closer, and the road beneath their feet began to fall into darkness, piece by piece.

I ran forward as fast as I could, the wind filling my lungs, my legs feeling like lead, and the metallic taste of rust rising in my throat. But at the end of the road ahead, there was only another abyss.

There is no road. There never has been.

Zhang Ying accepted his fate and slowly closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, he had become her.

-

Most of the sycamore leaves outside the window have fallen, and the withered yellow leaves cling to the glass of the dance studio on the third floor, being lifted up by the wind and then pressed back down.

My father's admonition still seemed to echo in my ears, and the handprint on my face still seemed to remain. I covered my cheeks, trying hard not to let the tears flow.

Perhaps I should agree to the teacher's request. If I leave the school dance team again, I might really never have another chance...

I stood in front of the mirror, looking at the girl in the ballet tutu reflected in it. Her hair was cut unevenly, some strands long and some short, clinging to her cheeks like a wet bird.

The ballet shoes were old; the toes were frayed, and a few faded words, washed away by water, could still be faintly seen on the surface: "Waste." The person who wrote those two words hadn't used much force, yet they had never been washed away.

The captain stood behind me, walked past me, and bumped my shoulder. I clenched my trembling fists but didn't move. The girl in the mirror didn't move either.

"Still practicing? What's the point of practicing?" She didn't turn around, her voice drifting from the direction of the dressing room, "What's a cripple doing dancing? I advise you to just accept your fate and be a pretty face for show."

I didn't answer. One by one, the people in the dance studio left, and the lights went out one by one. The last one was the fluorescent light directly above the mirror; it bounced a few times and made a buzzing electrical sound. I stood on my tiptoes, straightened my knees, raised my arms above my head, and struck the pose I could do with my eyes closed.

Arabesque. The girl in the mirror remained motionless in that pose.

Her legs were trembling; the muscles in her left calf were twitching in tiny, sharp spasms. Three years ago, this leg could hold that position until the music ended, until the applause started, until the spotlight went out. Now it could only hold it for five seconds.

At the fourth second, her ankle collapsed, and her foot slammed back onto the floor. Only the fluorescent light hummed in the mirror.

I so wanted to tell myself in the mirror, "It's okay, you can do other things too."

I want to sing loudly, I want to be carefree, I want to be free, I want to buy a bottle of soda at the convenience store at the school gate after school like my peers, I want to lean on the corridor railing and sunbathe during breaks, I want someone to ask me "What do you like?" instead of "What do you like about me?"

But each time, the words caught in my throat. Facing my face in the mirror—a face marred by a bad haircut and covered by the indelible words "useless"—I could only stand there silently. Silence was my final response.

But in the end, silence was all I could do. My mother came to see me once. She stood at the door of the dance studio, holding a thermos in her hand. Her gaze slid over my unruly hair, over my legs, over the writing on my old dance shoes, and finally landed on my face.

She didn't ask anything. She just came in, placed the insulated food container next to the barre, then turned around and said to me with her back to me, "Qing'er, your dad hasn't been very happy lately. Just bear with it a little longer, practice hard, and one day you'll be able to fly. You have to promise your mom that you'll fly into the sky."

I watched her retreating figure, my throat choked with so many words. I wanted to say, "Mom, I don't want to jump anymore." I wanted to say, "I'm really tired." I wanted to say, "When they were cutting my hair, I shouted 'No!' but no one heard me."

But I didn't say anything. I swallowed those words back, watching her unscrew the lid of the thermos, the rising steam blurring her face. I stood in front of the mirror again, meeting my mother's expectant gaze.

My body leaped up again after countless falls, my toes touching the ground, my arms stretching upwards, my stiff and sluggish joints drawing a wobbly arc in the air.

I kept jumping around, wanting to fulfill that promise to fly into the sky. I saw my mother standing in the doorway, the light in her eyes gradually dimming. She didn't say anything. She left the insulated food container on the handle, turned around, and left.

The only sound in the dance studio was the hum of the fluorescent lights. I pressed my face against the cold mirror, my breath blurring my reflection.

Finally, even that gray, faded shadow could no longer be seen.

The world is rising, while I am falling.

……