"Wen Qing, wake up. Class is almost over."
When Wen Qing opened her eyes once again, she found herself in a classroom. A middle-aged man with a beer belly was passionately lecturing at the podium, spittle flying as he spoke. She was seated at the back row, her view obstructed by rows of dark heads in front of her. On her desk, a messy pile of books was scattered, and the writing on those books seemed strangely familiar. Her desk mate was a round-faced girl who, upon seeing her awake, covered her mouth with her hand and whispered, "Hurry and get ready. As soon as the bell rings, we'll dash out..."
Wen Qing felt a moment of confusion. Everything before her was both familiar and strange, as if she had experienced it before.
Recalling what happened before, after returning from the mission world to the endless void, she had sent Gong Wenqing into the reincarnation pool and absorbed the power of merit. Then, without waiting for the next client, she had been transported to this place.
No clients, huh?
Having traversed countless worlds, Wen Qing had long honed her skills at disguising herself as the original host without causing any suspicion. She had also become accustomed to dealing with various unexpected situations. She opened her textbook in front of her, flipped to the first page, and read the words clearly written there—
Class 2, Grade 3, Wen Qing.
In an instant, memories that seemed locked away surged forth like a tide.
Yes, Wen Qing remembered now. This was the world she was in before entering the endless void. It was her own world.
Her parents had passed away in a car accident when she was three years old, and she had been raised by her uncle's family. In her final year of high school, without any warning, Wen Qing had entered the endless void. No one had told her why, or what she should do. When the first client had come knocking, she had instinctively known what to do.
Complete tasks for clients, then claim the protagonist's golden finger, and earn merit... During her missions, she had relied on her own exploration and learning to figure things out. The initial worlds were a bit challenging, but as her experience grew, she became more adept at handling them. Apart from what the phoenix had told her about becoming a god through merit, she had no idea about the purpose of her continuous missions. She only knew to keep going as if fulfilling a duty. And just as she finally understood and had a direction to strive towards, she had suddenly returned—back to her original world, frozen at the moment she left.
It felt as if she had just taken a nap, and had a dream. But Wen Qing was well aware that what she had experienced was far from a dream!
Just as she didn't know why she had entered the endless void, she didn't know why she had returned suddenly. Wen Qing tried to communicate with the endless void through her consciousness and found it still there, unchanged. Even the little phoenix was there, napping in a tree. All those golden fingers from the endless void were still there, intact.
Feeling relieved, Wen Qing let go of her worries. Regardless of the reason for her return, when the time came, she'd know.
All these thoughts raced through her mind in an instant. When she snapped back to reality, she noticed her desk mate already reaching into the desk's opening, grabbing her lunchbox. She began a countdown with her mouth, "Ten, nine, eight..."
Wen Qing discreetly glanced at her own notebook and then "recalled" that her desk mate was called Su Xiaoman. It seemed they used to dash to the cafeteria as soon as the bell rang back in those days.
It wasn't because they were longing to eat, but rather because their school had many students, and the cafeteria was not spacious enough. Arriving late meant having to wait in long lines. For high school seniors, every second counted. But if they went too late, even though the crowd was smaller, the food would have cooled down, and there was a risk of getting an upset stomach, which was something they couldn't afford.
As she reminisced about these details, Wen Qing's memories in her mind suddenly became vivid, as if these events had happened just yesterday. Wen Qing couldn't help but marvel at how, as an old monster who had lived for who knew how many years, she still had these youthful memories.
Ding-ding-ding...
The school bell rang punctually. Before the teacher could finish saying "class dismissed," several students in the class swiftly rushed out, including Wen Qing's desk mate, Su Xiaoman.
"Xiaoman, wait..."
Watching Su Xiaoman disappear with a blink of an eye, Wen Qing silently swallowed her words. It had been so long since she had used this skill that her reaction was slow.
Forget it, she wasn't hungry anyway. Wen Qing waited until all the students in the class had left before getting up and heading outside to reacquaint herself with the campus.
Just as she stepped out of the classroom, she collided with a hurriedly passing girl. The girl muttered an apology and quickly walked away.
Wen Qing was momentarily stunned because she saw three large crimson characters hovering above the girl's head—
Reborn.
It was like players in a video game displaying their usernames. Those three words were stably suspended above her, moving with her every step. The students around her seemed to completely ignore it, as if only Wen Qing could see it...
All of this wasn't the main point. What surprised Wen Qing was that there was actually a reborn at her school?! Wen Qing was astonished because she had never expected to encounter a rebirth in the real world. Despite traversing countless worlds and meeting various individuals with a golden finger, she had always thought that such things were exclusive to the world of novels. Even though those worlds were also real, they were somehow different.
However, she quickly reasoned that it was normal. After all, which world didn't have its protagonists? She just wondered what this reborn girl was planning to do. Subconsciously, Wen Qing followed in her footsteps.
But then, at the corner of a staircase, she bumped into a male student with three large crimson characters above his head—
Transmigrator.
Wen Qing was taken aback. one reborn and one transmigrator? Were golden finger users becoming so common now? In less than a minute, she encountered two individuals with golden fingers. Wasn't this probability a bit too high?
The male student appeared bewildered, as if he had no idea what had just happened. When he saw Wen Qing, he grabbed her and asked, "Hey, classmate, where is this place?"
As they got closer, Wen Qing noticed something odd. Beneath the three large characters "Transmigrator" on the boy's head, there was a blank space that was displaying live comments—
["What the heck! Didn't I go out drinking with friends last night? How did I end up here?"]
["Those damn guys wouldn't be playing a prank on me, would they?"]
["They really went all out, transporting me from the snowy north to the south overnight!"]
["Oh, this girl looks pretty nice! Maybe I can get her WeChat and chat with her!"]
…
Wen Qing realized that this might be the other person's inner thoughts, but she didn't understand why they were displayed in the form of bullet comments. She stared at the comments and replied, "Earth, China, Zhejiang Province, Z City No. 1 Middle School."
Normally, when someone asked for directions, they wouldn't answer like Wen Qing did. However, this time, the transmigrator seemed eager for a more detailed response, so he didn't find anything unusual about her answer. In fact, after hearing her response, he seemed quite excited—
["Not Z Country of Mercury, right? Wow! I've transmigrated!"]
["Thirty years of misery, and I've finally become the protagonist!"]
["Looks like it's a parallel world, and I've gotten younger too. This is a familiar setup: either plagiarize songs and books to become the entertainment king or develop technology to dominate the world! Of course, I can't forget about the girls!"]
…
Wen Qing: "..." He's a transmigrating harem protagonist.
After confirming that the bullet comments above the transmigrator's head did indeed reflect his thoughts, Wen Qing intended to leave. She needed to go back and process the information from today's events. It was quite overwhelming, and she needed time to digest it.
"Hey, sis, don't go. Add me on WeChat!"
—
["Such a beautiful girl; maybe she'll be my number one consort. Hehehe..."]
Wen Qing looked at him expressionlessly and said, "Heh." Then, she turned and walked away.
She couldn't understand why these sleazy harem protagonists were favored by fate and given a golden finger. How many girls had to suffer because of people like him? Wen Qing really wanted to castrate these kinds of individuals, but until she figured things out, she didn't dare to act recklessly...
Oh, she couldn't stand it anymore! Why keep such scum alive?
Wen Qing walked a few steps and then turned back. The transmigrator thought she had changed her mind and hurriedly said, "I knew it, sis, you—"
But his words abruptly stopped because the girl simply ignored him and walked right past him.
The transmigrator looked a bit embarrassed.
[Well, there are plenty of girls in the future. Right now, the most important thing is to figure out where I've transmigrated to and what advantages I have.]
What he didn't know was that, as Wen Qing passed by him, she had given him a "little gift".
Having dealt with one potential problem, Wen Qing's mood improved slightly. At this point, she wasn't in a hurry to find the reborn girl. Instead, she decided to go to the teacher and request leave, planning to return home.
As Wen Qing headed to the guard with her leave request, she saw the reborn girl negotiating with the guard uncle.
"Uncle, please let me go out for a while. I have something urgent to do. I'll be back in ten minutes!"
"No, it's not possible! Nobody can go out without a leave request!"
The guard uncle was adamant, and despite the reborn girl's efforts to persuade him, he remained unmoved. She was getting impatient. When Wen Qing passed by, she saw that the reborn girl had bullet comments above her head too—
["Ah! This is so infuriating! I forgot that I can't go out without a leave request!"]
["My five-million jackpot! Please don't let someone else buy it!"]
Wen Qing smirked. It seemed that buying lottery tickets was a must for reborn individuals, a common trope. She couldn't understand how someone who had never bought a lottery ticket before could remember the numbers so clearly.
After submitting her leave request, Wen Qing finally left the school gate. As she reached the bus stop, she saw a private car speeding by, with three familiar crimson characters hovering above it—
Mind Reader.
Another encounter with a golden finger user!
Of course, it wasn't the car that had the mind-reading ability but the person inside it.
Half a minute later, a taxi with "Cultivator" written on it drove by. Wen Qing had become somewhat numb to it all. She felt that even if she encountered characters like "Quick Transmigrator," "Raider," "WeChat Red Envelope Group," or "Interdimensional Trader," she wouldn't be surprised anymore.
This was truly a world where the golden fingers had gone wild!
In the blink of an eye, Wen Qing suddenly understood her mission upon returning—damn it, she had to maintain social stability! Because there were too many golden finger users in the real world now! Wen Qing couldn't help but wonder what kind of chemical reaction would occur when so many golden finger users gathered in one place.
Perhaps the reason she had been sent on missions to plunder so many golden fingers was for this very purpose!