Please, I'm Trying to Study, Your Highness! - chapter 2

Sage mode?

Can’t sleep?

Honestly, none of it matters. The only reason this spirit, on the verge of collapse, has managed to hold out until now is just one…

My gaze continues down the personal information panel.

My eyes linger on a particular line for a long time.

That… is the only meaning for my existence here.

It is also the last vessel I have to cross this sea of suffering.

[Main Quest]: Path to Homecoming (In Progress)

> Quest Objectives

1. Achieve the highest total score in the National College Entrance Examination (Gaokao) in your province and earn the title of “Provincial Top Scorer.”

2. With this score, successfully gain admission to a top university (T University or P University) and receive an official acceptance letter.

Quest Rewards

1. Upon completion, gain the sole permission to return to the original world. Transmission will be automatically executed after confirmation of the acceptance letter (until then, the original world will be frozen at the moment before transmigration).

2. Fundamental separation: the talent “Gift of the Grind King (Abnormality/Curse)” will be completely removed from the host’s soul, and all related physiological and psychological abnormal states will be canceled.

Quest Failure Penalty: Time will resume in the original world, and you will be permanently stranded in the current world.

Quest Difficulty: Hell Level

…

A simple description of just over two hundred words, yet it encapsulates all my shackles and hopes.

Memory is a rusty key.

When you jam it into the keyhole and twist it hard,

that deliberately buried content at the deepest part of my mind is dredged up again amid the grinding and twisting sounds.

The beginning of everything didn’t involve the classic “saving someone and getting sent away by a hundred-ton King Dump Truck” scenario, nor did I die from the rare “choked on instant noodles” event.

My start was as cliché as a third-rate web novel itself.

It began on a night of utter boredom.

I was holed up in my rented apartment, mindlessly scrolling my mouse across the computer screen.

My browser was stopped on some unknown novel website.

The interface was crude, the pop-up ads were outrageous, and you could tell at a glance they hadn’t paid for any copyrights.

On the screen was a serialized, shoddily written power fantasy, its prose as tacky as a middle schooler’s diary.

Especially the plot.

It was so brainless I wondered if the author was running some kind of social experiment.

Its main function seemed to be to provoke readers’ desires in the simplest, most direct way.

I skimmed the first few chapters and could basically guess the protagonist’s cheat powers, his harem, and the routine of humiliating villains-almost all of it.

I couldn’t stand it, so out of habit, I opened the comment section, hoping to see which fellow readers were losing their minds below and maybe find some amusement.

One comment, upvoted to the top, caught my eye.

“Soul question: If you could have a superpower to enter this novel’s world, what would you choose?”

The question was ordinary, but the replies stacked dozens of floors.

Some wanted time stop, some hypnosis, others infinite stamina… The variety of responses was like a massive wish-granting event.

I sneered.

Bro, you really picked this?

Boring. Might as well go memorize a few more words for the graduate entrance exam.

I had zero interest in joining the discussion about these hormone-fueled fantasies.

Just as I clicked the mouse to close the page,

a powerful, irresistible dizziness seized my brain, and the world spun wildly before my eyes.

The computer screen’s glow twisted and stretched into a blinding band of light, then exploded into countless flying fragments.

My body lost all control, a buzzing filled my ears, and darkness gradually swallowed my vision.

……..

When I regained consciousness, it was the pungent smell of disinfectant that jolted me awake.

I found myself lying on an unfamiliar bed, surrounded by snow-white walls and ceiling.

That cold, emotionless voice sounded in my mind for the first time.

[World coordinate positioning complete.]

[Identity information refreshed.]

[System binding successful. Beginner’s pack has been issued.]

[Talent: Gift of the Grind King (Abnormality/Curse) activated.]

I thought it was just an auditory hallucination left over from my brain crashing-until I saw my hospital admission card.

The name was clearly written as “Lin Hui,” which was fine.

But the age column had actually reverted to 15?

What the hell!!

Did my account not only get hacked, but also maliciously rolled back?!!

Then a flood of memories that weren’t mine forcibly poured into my mind.

After a bout of intense headache, I had to face a cruel reality.

I had transmigrated.

And not just anywhere-I had landed right in the shoddily written web novel I was furiously mocking before losing consciousness!

As a veteran bookworm with over a decade of web novel reading experience, I instantly analyzed my situation.

My mind began frantically searching for fragments of memory about that novel.

The technology tree of this world was about the same as my original world.

It’s basically a parallel server of Blue Star.

But some social settings here reeked of the absurdity unique to power fantasies.

The most typical example was the education system.

Middle school had an unbelievable five grades.

From First Year to Fifth Year of Junior High.

Nine years of compulsory education only covered up to graduation from Third Year.

The real watershed was the city-wide exam to advance from Third Year to Fourth Year of Junior High.

Only those who passed could enter Fourth Year of Junior High.

And once you became a Fourth Year student, it was like holding a reservation ticket to high school-almost a guaranteed promotion.

Those who failed were diverted to vocational and technical schools.
After doing the conversion, does that mean people preparing for the college entrance exam on Blue Star in my previous life are only just starting their first year of high school in this novel’s alternate world?

As for why.

Let’s just say the author did it for the convenience of the plot.

Back to the main topic.

What was the protagonist’s name in the book again?

I think his surname was Chu… Right, Chu Sheng.

Who was the first female character he pursued…

In an instant, the thought struck me like lightning.

The childhood friend of some cannon fodder in the book-Su Wanqing.

That name nearly froze the blood in my veins.

Because not only was the cannon fodder named Lin Hui, but in my current identity, I also have a childhood friend named Su Wanqing.

Damn, the case is cracked!

More fragments of memory began to piece themselves together one after another.

Next door to the cannon fodder’s house lives the charming young Aunt Bai.

And in the novel, isn’t the protagonist’s neighbor after moving the beautiful widowed landlady?

One familiar name and setting after another overlapped perfectly with the web of relationships of this forcibly implanted “new identity.”

Lin Hui.

The cannon fodder who doesn’t survive past chapter ten in the novel.

A pitiful clown obsessed with his childhood friend, who, out of jealousy toward the protagonist, does something stupid and is ruthlessly trampled underfoot as a stepping stone.

His ending is having his limbs broken and being dumped in the river by the protagonist after trying to force himself on Su Wanqing.

It took me a whole day to digest this despairing fact.

No matter how I look at it, this script is heading straight for a “GG” at light speed.

I know very well that in a wish-fulfillment novel world dominated by “plot” and “protagonist’s halo,” any attempt to oppose the protagonist is suicide.

With years of immersion in web novels, I understand that even if I don’t provoke the protagonist, it’s useless.

Because the “inertia” and “irresistible force” of the plot will always subtly push me to the opposite side of the protagonist.

Maybe Su Wanqing comes to me for help and the protagonist happens to see, leading to a misunderstanding.

Maybe I accidentally bump into one of the protagonist’s women on the street.

Maybe I just glance a little too long at one of the protagonist’s destined harem members in a restaurant…

It sounds ridiculous, but that’s how things could go.

After all, “reasonableness” exists to serve the protagonist.

As long as the plot demands it, when the butterfly flaps its wings, I’ll inevitably end up crushed under the protagonist’s foot.

As cannon fodder, my very existence is original sin.

So, what’s the best solution?

That is… to hell with the plot!

To hell with the harem!

To hell with the protagonist!

In a short time, I made what is arguably the most rational and correct decision in any web novel world.

Move out immediately.

Leave this city.

Maybe even leave this province.

After figuring out most of the rules, the idea of running away started growing wildly in my mind.

After all, since the world is generated by a wish-fulfillment novel, many things that require complicated procedures in reality become unusually simple here.

It’s as if there’s a “plot convenience” filter.

At the age of just fifteen, holding the large inheritance left by my original parents after their “accidental” deaths, I managed to handle all the procedures alone with almost no obstacles.

I headed south, settling in a coastal city thousands of miles away from the original plot’s location.

After half a year of recuperation, I used money to pull some strings and got into the best local middle school.

Every day, I look at the main quest and set goals for myself.

Complete that damned Path to Homecoming, become the top scorer in the province, and then go home.

As for the absurd phenomena of this world and those women destined to become part of the protagonist’s harem, they have nothing to do with me.

I’m not a savior, just an ordinary person.

At home, there’s a father who was abandoned by his ex-wife and has never recovered, and a seriously ill grandfather waiting for me to visit him.

So, I must go back-no matter what!

……

The tide of memory slowly recedes, and the sting in my palm pulls my consciousness back to reality.

It’s been three years since I buried myself in studying to avoid the idiotic plot of the original novel.

And only through these three years of study did I realize just how much of a trap this “hell-level” main quest is.

Tell me, in a world where the plot can be driven by hormones and impulse, why set up something as hardcore as the college entrance exam?

And the NPCs include genius students with intelligence cheats!

I have to compete with those freaks for the top spot in the college entrance exam?

Are you kidding me?!!

No matter how hopeless it gets, with no way out, all I can do is grit my teeth and charge forward.

When the boat reaches the bridge, it’ll straighten itself…

As long as I don’t give up, there’s always hope.

“Hoo-”

I straighten my aching back and look around at my newly cleaned home.

It’s already late at night.

The clock on the wall is about to strike three.

The air is still stuffy.

The sticky sweat is uncomfortable.

I have no intention of showering or cleaning myself, just collapse back onto the bed.

Using the last bit of strength, I turn over and bury my face deep into the pillow.

I need sleep…

That’s the final command my brain sends through my nervous system.

Maybe only in the abyss of unconsciousness can I temporarily escape all this.

My eyelids grow heavy, shutting out that damned quest and this absurd world beyond the gates of consciousness.

…..

[Information transmission complete.]

The electronic voice makes its final, emotionless announcement, echoing in the dim room.

[Good night, and good luck, esteemed Saint-level virgin.]