No One Understands Reincarnation Better Than I Do

Jiangzhou County No. 2 High School, Class 7 of the second year.

Summer vacation had ended, but the sun outside was still blazing with intensity.

It was Friday, just past 1 p.m. Guan Ren sat by the classroom window, feeling as though the left side of his face was being blasted by a space heater—hot and flushed, with his ears, neck, and cheek all blending into one.

Worse yet, the afternoon sun wasn't even shining evenly—it baked the left side of his face while leaving the right untouched. Guan Ren felt truly uncomfortable, so he picked up the freshly distributed Compulsory Chinese Textbook III from his desk and pressed its cool cover against his face to cool off.

“Brother Ren, Brother Ren.”

“What…”

His childhood friend and closest buddy, Zhang Chi, turned around. His chubby yet oddly endearing round face was filled with innocence.

“Brother Ren, look at the sky outside.”

Guan Ren glanced up.

“What about it?”

“That cloud.”

“What?”

“Hey, doesn’t it look like Ji Bo?”

“……”

Typical of high schoolers from this era—radiating a kind of innocent stupidity.

That said… to be fair… it really did look like him.

“Heh…”

After chuckling at the phallic-shaped cloud in the sky for a while, Guan Ren snapped out of it and kicked the leg of Zhang Chi’s chair from underneath.

“Tch, what the hell?”

Zhang Chi flinched, hurriedly stashing away his phone. He looked around nervously before turning back, glaring at Guan Ren.

“I’m reading a novel, damn it! Don’t scare me like that when the teacher’s not here!”

“Stop reading. I have a real question.”

“What kind of question?”

“You know what the first period is?”

Zhang Chi looked dumbfounded.

“You call that a real question?”

Guan Ren was equally appalled.

“You’re a student. Isn’t studying your actual job?”

“But I suck, man. Be honest—with my skills, should I even be worrying about studying?”

“……”

“Besides, Brother Ren, you suck too. You only got 98 points on the placement test when school started. What are you showing off for?”

“Ninety-eight?”

Guan Ren was stunned. Only 98?

Was I this intense back in high school?

“You serious? I was that good?”

“Good, my ass—it was 98 for the science composite.”

Science composite…

Guan Ren did a quick mental count—physics, chemistry, and biology. Three subjects total.

Ah, that’s fine then.

“My bad.”

With a very mature smile, Guan Ren flashed a set of neat white teeth. His already Daniel Wu-level face took on a bit of Eddie Peng charm.

“I just reincarnated. I’ve forgotten a lot about high school.”

“Reincarnated?”

“Yeah, reincarnated.”

Guan Ren nodded.

“You might not believe it if I told you, but I already graduated from college. I was working like a corporate drone in Rongcheng…”

“Wait a sec, what’s a ‘corporate drone’?”

“It’s… uh… just an office worker.”

Guan Ren glanced at the calendar hanging beside the blackboard. It was now 2011, and the term “corporate drone”—a foreign concept imported from Japan—hadn’t yet become popular in China.

…

In short, it was because Corporate Drone Guan Ren had been too desperate to climb the ladder that he had made a bold decision the night before. He pretended to be drunk at the company’s annual party to escort his boss—an unmarried woman who had never dated—back to her hotel room, where he proceeded to spend the entire night “reporting on work.”

Then the next day—just now, in fact—Guan Ren woke up to find himself back in his hometown of Jiangzhou County, several years in the past, seated in a classroom at No. 2 High School.

…

“That’s the situation, and that’s how it all went down. Honestly, my head’s still spinning… sigh, life is just full of surprises…”

Finishing his tale, Guan Ren sighed deeply, his gaze tinged with a worn-out, contemplative depth.

Zhang Chi, after hearing everything, was equally moved, but his gaze burned with curiosity and excitement.

“Brother Ren, so after all that, what novel is it from? What’s the title? Tell me!”

“I’m being serious.”

Guan Ren locked eyes with him, his expression purely serious.

“Brother Chi, what if I told you I really did reincarnate from the future back to 2011? Would you believe me?”

“I believe, I believe.”

Zhang Chi nodded like a pecking chick.

“So… what’s the book called?”

“……”

Well, fair enough. To be expected.

Of course, Guan Ren couldn’t actually reveal the truth. He also wasn’t about to pull some “predicting the future” stunt just yet. So he casually brushed it off with a random line.

“The title is Rebirth: I Swear I Don’t Want to Reload My Save.”

“Oh? Just the name sounds good.”

Zhang Chi’s eyes lit up.

“Which site? Is it on WoReader?”

“……”

WoReader…

What a relic of a name…

[Choose 3G, choose WO.]

That ancient ad slogan echoed in his mind. Memories long buried surged back, overwhelming Guan Ren’s brain, and he reflexively replied with an equally outdated platform.

“Tianyi Bookstore. Go read it there.”

“Damn, another platform… Brother Ren, lend me 5 yuan.”

“For what?”

“To top up 30MB of data.”

“Get lost.”

…

Even now, Guan Ren was beginning to wonder if he was still dreaming.

He had originally hoped that cozying up to his female boss would save him a decade of hard work. But now it looked like he was going to have to live through those years all over again…

“Haaa—”

Yawns spread throughout the classroom in a wave. Guan Ren caught the bug too.

Totally normal, afternoon classes had just started, and many students were still in that post-lunch slump.

About half the class lay collapsed on their desks, slumped in all directions. One glance across the room and it looked like a field of scallions struck by frost.

The other half of the students hadn’t arrived yet, leaving many seats still empty.

Including the one to Guan Ren’s right.

“Hmm…”

Guan Ren glanced sideways. While continuing to digest the shocking truth of his reincarnation, he also began studying the empty seat beside him.

The new textbooks were neatly arranged on the desk…

Summer homework was stacked in a transparent folder…

The pencil case was blue, with a cartoon pattern from his childhood trauma: Duck Detective…

A palm-sized pack of tissues sat beside a similarly palm-sized transparent water bottle, with slices of lemon floating inside…

…

Compared to his own desk, which looked like a towering fortress of books, his deskmate’s area was impeccably tidy.

“Deskmate, huh…”

It had been a long time since that word felt familiar to Guan Ren.

And so, staring at the desk, he unconsciously leaned over, bent down, and sneakily peeked into the cubby under the desk.

Investigating a deskmate’s secrets involved two key steps.

Step one: take a whiff.

Hmm… no smell of spicy sticks…

Step two: take another whiff.

There was also a faint, sweet scent…

Alright, that basically confirmed it. His deskmate was most likely a girl.

Not that this information was of much use to Guan Ren.

After all, in his previous life, all of his high school deskmates had been girls.

Among the vast sea of options, which one was it this time?

Guan Ren straightened up, intending to check her textbooks or test papers to find her name. But before he could do anything, Zhang Chi spun around from the desk in front and slapped both hands onto Guan Ren’s desk.

“Brother Ren, you’ve got great taste!”

“?”

Guan Ren blinked.

“Great taste in what?”

“In that novel you recommended—Reload! The plot’s a bit different from what you said, but it’s seriously good.”

“???”

Guan Ren was even more confused.

Wait, that book actually exists?

Then again, not too surprising. Web novels from this era were in their wild growth phase. With countless titles like Online Game: XXX, Rebirth: XXX, Urban Legend: XXX, it wasn’t out of the question that the title he made up on the spot matched a real book.

“Damn, it’s written so well! Makes me wanna reincarnate too!”

“……”

Old, long-dead memories surged again. The ancient memes made Guan Ren feel both nostalgic and cringe.

“What, you wanna reincarnate too?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re what—sixteen? What the hell would you reincarnate back to? To be a toddler again?”

Guan Ren rolled his eyes at Zhang Chi.

“You’re living your best youthful years and don’t even know it.”

“Tch, it’s too early now. I’ll wait till I’m old, then come back reborn with a system. Won’t that be awesome?”

“A system?”

Guan Ren curled his lip.

“Give it up. Reincarnation doesn’t come with a system.”

“Uh? Then… lottery tickets?”

“That could work, but only if you knew you were going to reincarnate and remembered the winning numbers.”

“Good point. I’ll start memorizing now.”

“Even then, it might not help. Ever seen The Butterfly Effect? I’m not saying reincarnation definitely includes that stuff, just reminding you to think ahead.”

“Damn, Brother Ren…”

Zhang Chi looked at him, completely taken in. He patted Guan Ren on the shoulder.

“I’m starting to think you’ve read way more web novels than me. You sound like a reincarnation expert.”

“Damn right.”

Guan Ren picked up a gel pen, popped it into his mouth like a cigarette, and clicked his hands open like an accordion.

“No one understands reincarnation better than I do.”

Hmm…

Now that he thought about it, this pen tasted oddly… fragrant.

Could it be a scented ink cartridge?

Not impossible. They existed but weren’t those usually for elementary school kids?

As Guan Ren sat there slurping the pen like a popsicle, lost in thought, a faint breeze with the same delicate scent drifted in from the seat beside him.

A moment later, the pen was suddenly yanked from his mouth by a slender, pale hand.

“?”

Guan Ren turned around in shock.

And then he saw her—his current deskmate.

One ladle from that “vast river of possibilities.”

“Guan Ren.”

Wearing a blue-and-white school uniform, the girl held the pen in her hand. Her slightly pointed chin tilted upward at a graceful angle.

“My pen—did it taste good?”

She spoke in a calm, even tone. Her voice carried a touch of classic elegance, like something from a historical drama.

…

Fragments of hazy, wistful memories of youth stirred within Guan Ren’s mind, flickering like faded slides clicking through a projector.

So it was her…

Looking at the girl’s fresh, delicate features, Guan Ren froze for a moment. Then a polite smile slowly curved at the corners of his lips.

“Hello, Gu Youli.”