My Strange Tale Love Strategy Simulator

Zhang Ying didn't know how he got out of the taxi, how he climbed the stairs, how he pushed open the door, how he took a shower, changed into his pajamas, and lay down on the bed. When he came to his senses, he was already lying on his back on his single bed, staring blankly at the white ceiling for a long time.

There was a very thin crack in the ceiling, stretching from the light fixture to the corner of the wall. He stared at the crack, his eyes unblinking, his expression blank like an unwritten exam paper.

Under the bed was a bag of plush toys brought back from the amusement park today. The head of a white kitten peeked out from the plastic bag, and one of its plastic eyes reflected the streetlights streaming in from the window.

Inside the small transparent box on the table, the little turtle was slowly climbing up the rock, sliding down, and climbing up again. Zhang Ying was completely unaware of all this.

Zhang's mother pushed open the door a crack.

She saw her son lying stiffly on the bed, motionless, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, his face blank, neither sad nor happy, as if half of his soul had been taken from his body.

She glanced again at the bag of toys under the bed and the little turtle on the table, then gently closed the door.

She went to the living room, picked up her phone, opened Green Bubble, clicked on the chat box labeled "Husband," and typed: "Old Zhang, it seems your son is dating someone."

Shortly after sending the message, she received a voice message. She opened it, and a deep male voice boomed from the speaker. She quickly lowered the volume, but the sound was still so loud it echoed throughout the living room: "You mean this brat's dating?! Hahaha, he's like me, I was about this age when I won you over!"

"Let's not talk about that now," Zhang's mother texted, frowning. "You know, isn't he about to take the college entrance exam?"

"Don't worry, with that brat's personality, it's just dating, it won't affect him much."

"That's not the reason." Zhang's mother paused on the screen for a moment, then quickly typed again. "Judging from his expression when he came home today, it seems like he's been dumped."

There was a long silence on the other end. Then a voice message popped up, the man's voice losing its playful tone and becoming more serious, though somewhat flustered:

"Huh? You're telling me this? I have no experience with this either. Oh, poor kid. My ship is about to return to port. He should have finished his college entrance exams by then, so we can go on a trip together and relax. I'll have to trouble you to take good care of that brat during this time, my dear wife."

Zhang's mother sighed, put her phone on the coffee table, and glanced back at Zhang Ying's closed door. She felt now wasn't the time to go in. She'd wait until her son's mood improved.

Inside the room, Zhang Ying rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. It was no use. With her eyes closed, she saw Li Ziqing tiptoeing closer; with her eyes open, she saw the moon outside the window, its light impossibly round.

He simply buried his head in his hands, curled up his knees, and twisted on the bed like a dehydrated earthworm. What hadn't he seen on his phone about couples' intimate moments in his life? He thought he was fearless in this area, but one kiss and he'd turned into this.

"Zhang Ying, Zhang Ying, what a disappointment you've made of yourself." He cursed himself inwardly, turned over, pulled the blanket over his head, and wrapped himself up like a spring roll.

Three seconds later, a suppressed, silly laugh came from under the covers.

Meanwhile, at Okura No. 1 Middle School, in the vocal music room.

The vocal room was pitch black. The curtains were not drawn, and moonlight streamed in through the glass, casting a crooked, silvery-white patch on the floor.

The neatly arranged tables and chairs were quietly piled up in the corner, and the piano was covered with a dust cloth.

A music box sat on the podium, its spring not turned, a speck of dust falling into the gap of the metal cylinder. Silence reigned.

In a scene unseen by the average person, in a corner of the vocal studio, a girl in a white dress is curled up, hugging her legs.

She placed her straw hat beside her knees, buried her face between them, her lips curved into a smile, but her eyes were wet.

I was both happy and sad.

Thankfully, after all these years, she has finally found someone willing to pull her back from the brink of disaster.

Sadly, this person came too late. If only Zhang Xuedi had reached out to her while she was still alive, even if it was just a pat on the shoulder and a "Are you alright?"

She thought for a moment, then smiled.

Zhang was probably only in junior high school at the time. What could a junior high student do if he actually stood in front of her? He would probably blush, stammer, and be unable to speak, only to be patted on the head and comforted by her, "It's okay, senior."

Li Ziqing stood up from the corner. Her bare feet made no sound on the wooden floor. She walked to the window and looked up at the sky. The sky was cloudless, filled with stars, and the full moon hung high in the sky.

Under the moonlight, the area around Dacang No. 1 Middle School was completely silent. Occasionally, a car would drive by in the distance, the sound of its tires rolling over the road coming from outside the wall, drowning out the chirping of insects in the grass, and then silence would fall again.

Li Ziqing chuckled softly, shook her head, and turned to look at the ceiling of the vocal room. In her eyes, the ceiling was no longer a blank whitewashed wall.

Brown talismans were densely pasted all over the ceiling, stretching from above the podium to directly above the piano. Each one was faintly glowing, like red-hot chains, layered and intersecting.

These talismans constantly suppress her power, sealing her within Dacang No. 1 Middle School. Over the past month, her power has gradually increased, but the seal remains. If it isn't completely broken, she can only reach Zhang Ying's side once more, at most through the jade bracelet on his hand.

The image of Zhang Ying's profile on the Ferris wheel earlier that day flashed through my mind. He pointed to the city bathed in the twilight outside the window and said, "I'll take you to see the scenery you've never seen before."

She had never appreciated the myriad lights outside the window before.

Now she wants to see more.

Li Ziqing clenched his fist, raised his head, and looked straight at the unseen sky behind the ceiling through the gaps in the talismans.

"For me, and for him." Her voice was soft, so soft that only the dusty piano in the vocal studio could hear it. "Even if it costs me half my life, I'll rush out!"

Li Ziqing closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her once clear pupils were now stained crimson, the blood spreading from the bottom up, inch by inch, over the iris, over the whites of her eyes, until only two bottomless pools of red remained.

Her original girlish image peeled away layer by layer like ink fading, her fair skin began to harden from her fingertips, the texture of ball joints emerged at her joints, and her white dress was soaked through layer by layer by dark red, turning back into that ballet dress that had been soaked in the lake of blood countless times.

She transformed back into the puppet in the blood-red ballet costume.

Blood gushed from her joints.

The blood splashed onto the floor, but instead of spreading, it flowed along the ground as if it were alive, climbing up the corner of the wall and gathering into a dark red wave on the ceiling, crashing straight towards the brown runes!

The talisman burst into a dazzling golden light the moment it touched the blood, and the originally dull brown runes lit up one by one, like a red-hot branding iron!

The blood near the talisman hissed in the golden light, evaporating into wisps of scarlet mist that dissipated into the air.

With each drop of blood that dried up, a new crack appeared on Li Ziqing's puppet body. But to her, each crack felt like a thousand steel needles piercing her skin at once, the pain of which lingered and continued to drill deeper.

Her body was trembling. Her wooden joints made a faint cracking sound, as if they might fall apart at any moment. But she just clenched her fists, raised her bloodshot eyes, and continued to urge the blood to flow upwards.

One wave evaporates, another rises to replace it. Cracks spread from the chest to the neck, and from the neck to the cheeks.

A thin crack appeared on her wooden face, running diagonally from the corner of her eye to her jaw. No blood flowed out, only sawdust fell softly from the edge of the crack.

But she did not back down an inch.