The lecture hall was stuffy. The air smelled like cheap coffee, old whiteboard markers, and the faint stink of someone's forgotten tuna sandwich. The professor's voice droned on somewhere in the background, muffled and monotone.
Baiju, however, wasn't listening to a single word.
He was too busy peering—intensely—at the top of Wang Shiyuan's head.
Because yes. It was still there.
The glowing gold paper.
Still floating. Still shimmering. Still spinning ever so slowly like it had all the time in the universe. It was starting to make him feel like he'd accidentally downloaded a bad visual mod for real life.
He narrowed his eyes.
This was the third hour. He'd taken two different hangover meds. He'd gulped water, even chewed gum. He shouldn't still be hallucinating. But that thing hadn't budged.
His frown deepened.
He poked at his notes with his pen, ignoring the squiggly diagram of the water cycle the professor had scrawled on the board. His pen tapped the desk in a nervous rhythm.
The golden sheet shimmered slightly, like a rare Pokémon in the wild—only way more annoying.
'What is this... a cursed version of The Sims?' he thought bitterly. 'Where's the green crystal? Why is my best friend suddenly the chosen one?'
Still frowning, he raised a hand to his forehead and gently touched the bump.
It was still sore.
Still there.
Still proof that he'd smashed his skull into a public streetlight like a complete idiot.
He sighed and pulled out his phone under the desk, switching to the front camera. His pale reflection blinked back at him—slightly tired, hair a little messy, but still ridiculously handsome, if he said so himself. Well… aside from the puffy red bump blooming in the center of his forehead like a failed unicorn horn.
Baiju winced. He gently prodded it again. "Ow…" he hissed.
'Did I scramble my brain when I hit that pole?' he thought, rubbing harder like maybe he could just massage the weirdness away.
"BAIJU!"
He jumped.
The phone slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor.
Everyone turned to look.
Professor Lu Wenming stood at the front of the class, holding a red marker like it was a dagger.
His eyes narrowed behind thin-rimmed glasses. "Are you seriously using your phone in my class?"
Baiju blinked at him. Then flashed the most plastic, charming smile he could muster.
"Uh… sorry, Professor Lu. I was just checking the… um… UV index."
Someone in the back coughed to hide a laugh.
Professor Lu wasn't amused.
"Outside. Now."
"But—"
"Now!"
Baiju stood up with a sigh, gathered his stuff, and trudged toward the door with the slow dignity of a falsely accused martyr. As he passed Shiyuan, he leaned down and whispered under his breath, "Your head is literally haunted. Fix that."
And with that, he stepped out into the hallway and leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling tiles like they'd provide answers.
They didn't.
The golden paper didn't disappear either.
Baiju let out a long, quiet groan and rubbed his forehead again.
"…Great. First I throw up on a beautiful man. Then I get knocked out. Now I'm seeing magic labels on people's heads. At this rate, I'll be in a psych ward before finals."
He slid down to sit on the floor, the hallway silent around him.
The bump throbbed gently, and the golden paper continued to float in the air behind the classroom door, completely unbothered.
'Seriously… what the hell is going on?'