After I Fell into a Yandere Novel - Chapter 3

I’d thought graduating from high school meant I was done with it forever. Never had I imagined that one day I’d find myself back in a second-year classroom.

The teacher droned on, a book rolled loosely in one hand. The students answered in a ragged chorus. Above us, an old ceiling fan turned with a rusty squeak.

Ah, youth.

Beautiful, sleep-inducing youth.

I yawned and wondered how much longer it would be until school let out. As I did, I openly studied the male lead.

His long, raven-dark lashes were lowered. Blue veins stood out on the back of the hand holding his pen, and whenever the teacher reached an important point, he copied it down stroke by careful stroke.

He looked like nothing more than a sweet, obedient boy brimming with youthful charm.

“Are you watching me?”

He had suddenly turned his head, catching my gaze with frightening precision. The words were soundless, shaped only by his lips.

His glass-bright eyes fixed on mine, curious and intent.

Startled, I looked away and mouthed back, “No.”

After that, I could feel his gaze drifting over me again and again.

What was he thinking? Had he noticed something different about me?

In the novel, the villainess had been madly in love with him on the inside, but outwardly she was gentle, reserved, and never crossed a line.

Had staring at him broken character?

Help.

I had needles under my seat, thorns at my back, and a fishbone lodged in my throat all at once.

Thankfully, the dismissal bell rang and saved me.

I snatched up my schoolbag and bolted for the door.

Only after sprinting all the way to the school gates did another problem hit me.

How had the villainess gotten home in the novel?

Wasn’t there… some kind of chauffeur who picked her up?

I stood there trying to remember.

“An Ruo.”

The voice still had a boy’s clean, youthful warmth.

Oh!

The male lead.

I turned stiffly. Pei Zhiqing stood behind me, smiling with harmless sweetness. “Why are you still here?”

I put on my sincerest expression and answered with unprecedented conviction.

“Pei Zhiqing, I was waiting here especially for you. I wanted to borrow your notes.”

“I see.” Laughter colored his voice, and faint sparks of amusement gathered in his dark eyes. “No wonder you kept watching me in class. You wanted my notes.”

I was a genius. A flawless explanation, complete with cause and effect.

“Here.”

Without hesitation, he pulled a plain black notebook from his bag and offered it to me.

Yet when the notebook appeared right in front of my face, I was suddenly afraid to take it.

The more gentle and harmless he seemed, the more frightened I became. This mild-looking boy was the yandere from the novel—the one who, at his age, could already scheme to imprison the heroine.

What if the notebook contained something unspeakable? If I read it by accident, would he silence me?

Quietly and permanently?

But I couldn’t refuse it, either.

He was watching me with laughter in his eyes, as if patiently observing my reaction—a hunter studying his prey.

I couldn’t do anything strange.

So I steeled myself, took the notebook, held my false smile in place, and said, “Thank you so much, Pei Zhiqing.”

His eyes curved. “You’re welcome. I’ll be going, then. See you tomorrow.”

I watched him shoulder his bag and disappear into a stream of blue-and-white uniforms. Tall and straight as a young poplar, he seemed the very picture of youth.

What a deceitful face.

I stared at the notebook in my hands with mixed feelings until someone called, “Miss An Ruo.”

I looked up. My chauffeur had finally arrived.

So I had remembered correctly. The villainess was driven to and from school.

At least I wouldn’t have to find my own way home.

I forced myself into the car and watched the scenery race past outside, listlessly rubbing the notebook’s cover with my thumb.

After surviving the male lead, I had another person to prepare for.

The villainess’s father.

She came from a single-parent household and had been raised by him, but the novel said little about the man. His character remained indistinct.

Quiet and withdrawn? Or calculating and deep?

I had no idea.

Better to take the initiative and gain some control over the unknown.

“Uncle Zhang, is Dad already home waiting for me to have dinner?”

The man’s hands paused on the steering wheel. After a long silence, he said, “Sir is away on business. He won’t return for a while. Also, miss… my surname is Li.”

Oops. Wrong name.

But that was a minor problem. I wouldn’t have to meet the villainess’s father yet, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

The closer someone was to her, the more likely they were to see the cracks in my disguise.