“Eh~ Stealing boyfriends? That Jiang Jian Yue? She always looks cold—I thought she was so reserved.”
“So she’s actually like that**（laughs）”
“I always thought her face was a bit slutty, right?”
The bathroom mirror reflected the faces of high school girls touching up their makeup, their expressions twisted and warped by the gossip spilling from their lips.
Bang!
The stall door swung open from inside, slamming into the tiled wall with a loud crash.
The high school girls jumped, instinctively turning to look at the girl who emerged from the stall.
Long, ashen-gray hair hung messily, with a few bangs draping diagonally to partially obscure her red eyes, adding a touch of gloomy coldness to her originally bewitching face.
“Emi……”
A classmate blurted out the girl’s name, then bit her lip.
Getting caught gossiping behind someone’s back is awkward for anyone.
The girl acted as if she hadn’t heard a word about herself.
She washed her hands, dried them, and left the bathroom, never making eye contact or speaking.
Just as the rumors said—cold and indifferent.
It was hard to imagine someone like her getting caught up in love triangles or stealing men.
***
Autumn wind swept through the corridor, carrying fallen leaves that Jiang Jian Yue easily caught in her hand.
No problem.
A faint smile appeared on her frosty face—such an emotional expression would leave those familiar with her dumbfounded.
After more than ten years, the fusion was finally complete.
Jiang Jian Yue’s soul came from another world—a world where people didn’t naturally have multicolored hair or eyes.
In her previous life, the person who named her never expected that a name taken from the poem phrase “Who first saw the moon by the river” could seamlessly become a Japanese name.
The originally gender-neutral “Jian Yue” became the single character “Yue,” transforming into a completely feminine name.
Jiang/Jian Yue became 江見/月 (emi tsuki), and she herself changed from male to female.
It was rare enough that whoever came up with this name must have had their family consult a high priest.
After transmigrating as the eldest daughter of the Jiang Family, she never fully merged with the body—her mind remained in chaos for more than ten years.
It was like suffering a high fever for over a decade, her thoughts suppressed and never quite active.
She’d even been taken to the hospital for tests due to sluggish thinking, but no significant illness was ever found.
Fortunately, the Jiang Family was wealthy, and as an only daughter, she never had to worry about survival.
“Even if my daughter is a fool, I want her to be the happiest fool in the world—”
Her biological father had once said that.
Unable to handle much, Jiang Jian Yue developed a talent for ignoring the world around her—the origin of her “cold and aloof” reputation.
Now, it seemed her soul had finally finished merging, her single-threaded brain functions unlocking—she’d evolved from a fool to a normal person.
With joy comes vitality, and now Jiang Jian Yue found amusement in everything.
The only issue was that her long-standing indifference had made her face forget how to smile; she could only manage a faint grin before her expression started twitching.
Hello, sunset!
Hello, fallen leaves!
Hello, classmates! Please don’t look at me like I’m a stranger!
Hello, injured male classmate…
Wait a minute?
In front of the shoe locker, her gentle smile faded, and she turned to look at a boy.
His black hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, golden eyes weary, his handsome face streaked with water from washing up, his school uniform marked with slashes and tears, and underneath, fresh wounds from sharp objects could be glimpsed.
Dark stains spread across the navy fabric.
The boy noticed her gaze, lowered his head further, gripped his bag strap tightly, and hurriedly changed shoes.
“……”
Jiang Jian Yue wanted to speak, but her throat, unused for so long, couldn’t squeeze out a sound.
The boy walked past her, nodding slightly in greeting.
A strange person.
Jiang Jian Yue didn’t think much of it. She changed her shoes and left the school.
The butler, Morita Aoya, waited as always with the car parked on the street near the intersection.
After picking up the young lady, he drove her home to Mejiro 1-chome.
A five-story apartment building on high ground—that was now Jiang Jian Yue’s home.
After starting high school, she moved here from the Jiang Family Old Residence in Setagaya, which was closer to the school in Sugamo.
Morita Aoya handled the apartment’s daily affairs, while a head butler Jiang Jian Yue barely knew managed the Old Residence.
Her mother had died young, and her father left for overseas when she was still in elementary school, almost never returning.
So much for happiness—its only trace was the massive living expenses wired into her account every month.
Jiang Jian Yue didn’t feel any sense of loss.
Her soul was that of an adult hardened by society; she didn’t need a little childhood affection.
To her, this current state was most comfortable.
Nearly limitless living expenses, servants at her beck and call—Jiang Jian Yue had achieved a life goal her previous self couldn’t in a lifetime.
All thanks to her own efforts—and a little bit of reincarnation luck.
She could already see the end of her life’s story: lying at home until World War III arrived.
Even if nukes dropped, she’d die with a smile.
After dinner, Jiang Jian Yue sat in front of her computer, fingers flying across the keyboard.
She planned to enjoy the greatest invention of mankind—the content of the internet.
But unexpectedly, the screen suddenly went black. Jiang Jian Yue stared at her own reflection in the blank display, her brows furrowing.
Damn AMD.
A few seconds later, the screen lit up again, but it wasn’t her usual desktop.
The text on the programs was in Chinese.
Weixinbao, Thunder, 5E Battle Platform…
So familiar—wasn’t this her previous life’s desktop?
Memories from more than ten years ago surged back.
Jiang Jian Yue rubbed her aching temples.
A legendary Golden Finger?
But what was the point of this?
The time in the lower left still read 202X—the year before she transmigrated.
Out of habit, she opened Penguin. No one had messaged her, though she was in many groups—where she was a silent lurker, invisible to tight-knit circles.
Given the situation, she might as well check out the new releases on Ruizhan.
She was here to enjoy dopamine anyway—it didn’t matter which world.
With that, she clicked a pink program icon and randomly selected an original new release called “Chantui.”
Only one episode was out, so the barrage of comments was sparse, and the Netflix logo at the beginning made her want to switch shows.
But soon, she was drawn in by the exquisite animation and frame count.
[Front row]
[Why is this sixty frames?]
[Netflix has more money than sense, making a silky smooth anime isn’t surprising]
[Netflix is amazing]
[Come on, hasn’t Netflix made enough crap?]
[It’s so smooth it feels weird, I’m out]
A few bullet comments floated by, but Jiang Jian Yue’s gaze was fixed on the screen, staring at a familiar stone monument: [Tokun High School, Tokyo].
Isn’t this my school?
The anime’s plot was a cliché bullying scene, with the constant background of cicada cries adding a faint sense of death.
A boy named Yuki Asahi had a good friend, Maeda Kaiichi.
They’d been together since kindergarten—childhood friends.
It started as childish roughhousing, with Maeda Kaiichi always habitually belittling others and making Yuki Asahi look foolish.
The childish malice never faded with age, eventually turning into bullying.
Even worse, Maeda Kaiichi clung to him like dog poop—they always ended up at the same school.
The introverted and timid Yuki Asahi didn’t dare resist and could only apply to Tokun High School, far from his home, hoping to escape.
Yet at the entrance ceremony, he saw that all-too-familiar figure.
Maybe Tokyo is just that small.
At this point, Jiang Jian Yue recalled the boy she’d seen after school.
If her guess was right, it was Yuki Asahi.
She easily drew her conclusion: Great, this is the 2D world!
But when Yuki Asahi got his head stomped on the rooftop and saw the Cicada Monster clinging to Maeda Kaiichi’s back—
Jiang Jian Yue’s face went pale with terror: It’s over, this is the 2D world!
[Why is the frame rate of this bug so high, I’m gonna throw up…]
[I’m out, I hate bugs]
The sparse bullet comments exploded with the appearance of the terrifying bug, then vanished, leaving the screen even quieter.
In the moment Yuki Asahi saw the monster, it slashed open Maeda Kaiichi’s back with its spiny legs, and under a bloodcurdling scream, burrowed inside.
With intense animation, Maeda Kaiichi’s body was torn apart, his limbs seeming to fuse with the insect’s body as it burst from within, blood and flesh vivid.
[What’s the BYD review team even doing—no censorship?]
[So erotic]
[Where’s the erotic part, seriously]
[Classic Netflix]
With Yuki Asahi’s weak body, how could he possibly fight such a terrifying monster?
The monster A-ed forward, the monster’s advantage was overwhelming, the monster scored a GG.
It’s a spiritual outburst, I used a spiritual outburst!
Jiang Jian Yue watched the fluidly animated fight scenes, silently commenting to herself.
Of course the protagonist wouldn’t die.
If she’d been standing at the edge of the rooftop, she might have worried.
In the midst of despair, Yuki Asahi’s heart suddenly pounded. The scene shifted to a space within his body, where something heart-shaped, like a cicada shell, cracked open, releasing golden light.
Golden Eyes ignited.
[Isn’t this our Dragon Race’s Golden Eyes? Next time, please credit the source]
Jiang Jian Yue gave this comment a thumbs-up so more people could see it.
Yuki Asahi didn’t gain supernatural powers, but his physical abilities seemed enhanced, and with wild, desperate strikes, he drove the monster back.
Finally, with a roar, Yuki Asahi’s fist pierced the monster’s body, embedding into the wall behind it.
Maeda Kaiichi probably died as well—no hope for saving him.
[Looks like a cat]
The battle ended, and Yuki Asahi collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath, fear hitting him all at once.
His gaze drifted over the monster’s body, and when he saw Maeda Kaiichi’s twisted half-face, he suddenly calmed down.
Why calm down?
Sometimes, introverts are terrifying—you never know if their heads are full of: Stab you, stab you, stab you…
Out of Yuki Asahi’s line of sight, a small bug resembling the giant monster crawled up his pant leg.
The next scene showed him washing blood from his face and hands, then heading to the main building’s shoe lockers.
Jiang Jian Yue sat up straight, and on screen, her 2D self was staring back at her from the monitor.