A mysterious realm descends, and I defy fate in comics.

Chapter 367 After Saying Goodbye to You - Xu Nian...

After Ji Shanqing's matter was over, Xu Niannian did not contact Jiang Xingni for a long time.

She couldn't quite explain her own reaction.

Sometimes, when she woke up from a dream during her lunch break in high school, she would instinctively reach out to hold her best friend's hand, only to find it empty. Then she would remember that Jiang Xingni had given up her guaranteed admission to university and instead went to that shady vocational high school called Taixu.

Xu Niannian initially felt indignant on Jiang Xingni's behalf.

After fifteen years of education, the obsession with the college entrance examination and getting into a good university is almost ingrained in my bones.

As a result, seeing Jiang Xingni's efforts all along to go to university and leave the city, only to end up in a run-down, low-quality vocational high school—although Jiang Xingni did indeed leave the city—Xu Niannian felt for a moment that Jiang Xingni seemed to have gone mad, or perhaps been threatened.

How could Jiang Xingni have done this voluntarily? Xu Niannian just couldn't understand it. Giving up her prestigious top university in China to attend a trashy vocational high school sounded like a dream.

The good news is that Jiang Xingni is not in a relationship, so her best friend is not a love-obsessed person.

The bad news is that her best friend isn't a romantic at heart, which makes it even harder for Xu Niannian to accept Jiang Xingni's decision.

Although Jiang Xingni and her group of new friends successfully rescued Xu Niannian, Xu Niannian came to understand that the vocational high school Jiang Xingnian attended was not an ordinary, low-level vocational high school, but a vocational high school with unique superpowers.

After being rescued, Xu Niannian stopped contacting Jiang Xingni.

When Jiang Xingni asked her, Xu Niannian only said that she was too busy in her senior year of high school, and the countdown to the college entrance examination was just around the corner, so she had to prepare for the exam.

So Jiang Xingni stopped sending her messages to disturb her studying.

However, Xu Niannian herself was well aware that although the college entrance examination was indeed one of the reasons, it was not the whole story.

The high school she attended was indeed strict, with students arriving at school at six in the morning and leaving at ten at night, but if the two of them wanted to stay in touch, they would always find time to chat for a bit.

Xu Niannian dared not speak her seventeen-year-old girlish thoughts aloud or make them public. She buried all her hidden feelings deep in her heart, not knowing what words could describe her thoughts.

Then she came across this sentence.

"I was afraid that my feelings seemed too light and airy to you, so I stopped talking about them. You're on the road to becoming an adult, while I'm still stuck at the moment when we went to the small shop together during evening self-study break at age 17 to buy the last magazine, and I saw your happy profile."

Xu Niannian suddenly realized how to describe the bittersweet thoughts in her heart—I'm afraid my daily life as a high school student is insignificant to you, and your daily life has long since become extraordinary. Those battles, superpowers, ghosts, and deaths are too far away for me and too close for you. Now, when I speak to you, can you hear me clearly through the battles and teammates around you?

Amidst those tense and exciting battles, after gaining the ability to fly and burrow underground and having friends, are you still willing to lower your head and listen to me, an ordinary person with no superpowers? Do we still have anything in common? Will the gap between us widen? Will I only be able to watch you go further and further away in the future? Will we also drift further and further apart? Jiang Xingni

Xu Niannian wasn't sure of the answer to this question, so she didn't contact Jiang Xingni again. She was afraid of getting a definite answer.

Even after the college entrance examination, Xu Niannian was addicted to summer games and mobile phones and had decided to accept the result - after all, most friends can only accompany one person for a part of the journey. It's just that she and Jiang Xingni separated earlier, and they had already drifted apart before high school was over.

She actually saw Jiang Xingni's figure during the live broadcast, but Xu Niannian simply didn't expect that Jiang Xingni would die here.

She didn't see Jiang Xingni's death livestream; the camera switched away while she was watching. Xu Niannian wasn't interested in watching how Jiang Xingni's new friends fought, how they fought side-by-side with Jiang Xingni, or how well they worked together—it was as if she had been excluded from Jiang Xingni's world, which was indeed the case.

So Xu Niannian never received any more messages from Jiang Xingni until the day she received her university admission notice. She then turned on her phone, mustered up her courage, and wanted to meet up with Jiang Xingni.

She wanted to tell Jiang Xingni that she had been admitted to a university in the capital, and that she might be able to meet him soon.

Although there are bound to be many barriers and obstacles between an ordinary person and a superpowered individual, she still wants to get closer and closer to Jiang Xingni. Even if they gradually drift apart, she should at least try to maintain contact with Jiang Xingni.

Xu Niannian dialed the number with high expectations, waiting for the familiar female voice on the other end, but instead heard an unfamiliar voice.

"Hello, who is it?" Lu Ming glanced at the caller ID and saw the name "Niannian". She had not been involved in the middle school incident, so she naturally did not know who Xu Niannian was.

"Is Jiang Xingni there? I want to talk to her. Can I pass the phone to her?" Lu Ming could clearly hear the laughter in the girl's voice on the other end of the phone.

For a moment, she couldn't even tell whether the person on the other end was unaware that Jiang Xingni was dead, or whether they were mocking them for calling from such a number, ridiculing how powerless they were.

"You don't know what happened?" Lu Ming asked impatiently. "I don't have time to waste here with you."

"Huh? What happened?"

Her tone was one of utter bewilderment and confusion, as if she truly knew nothing.

"Jiang Xingni's contact name for you is Niannian," Lu Ming said sarcastically. "Miss Niannian, don't you even know Jiang Xingni is dead?"

"What a pity, you missed her funeral and the seventh day after her death—were you offline during that time? Didn't you know anything?"

Xu Niannian remained silent.

She silently opened a webpage and began searching for the name Jiang Xingni in various places: death, death, death.

The news that had been blocked out by her information cocoon finally broke into her eyes. Xu Niannian opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"I...no one told me..." She finally broke down. "No one told me? Why didn't you protect her?!"

Xu Niannian no longer knew what she was saying.

"Do you even know how bright a future Jiang Xingni should have had? If she hadn't gotten involved in all this mess, she wouldn't be dead! She was already guaranteed a place in university! But she gave it up for you, and this is how you treat her?"

She seemed unable to control her mouth, screaming, wailing, and crying.

Her gaze swept across the room, but she couldn't find any trace of Jiang Xingni—her high school notes had already been sold to a scrap yard when she was admitted to university.

At that time, Xu Niannian thought that she and Jiang Xingni would have many more summers.

Now, Xu Niannian doesn't even know what to use as a medium to remember her good friends.

If only everything could go back to when I was sixteen.

—You would hold my hand and go buy snacks after class, and you would bring me gifts when you came back from outings. I have all the questions I don't understand and all the notes from class. I hate high school, I hate the days of going to school at six in the morning and going home at ten at night, I hate the days of not getting enough sleep and not being able to wake up, and I hate those knowledge points that I can't memorize or learn.

But... if I were with you, I would be willing to go back to high school, I would be willing to repeat three years of high school.

I would like to go back to when you were still alive.