When the Side Character Gets a System and Travels through Difference Worlds

Li Fugui chided her with a laugh, "I’ve never met anyone as obsessed with first place as you. If you managed to take first in the competitions too..."

At this, Li Fugui started laughing at his own words. The teaching standards at their town’s high school were only so-so, and Tan You was self-taught on top of that. Expecting her to take first place in academic competitions was, frankly, asking too much.

Tan You just smiled. "I’ll give it a try first. The older I get, the less I want to be beneath anyone else."

Li Fugui laughed heartily. "That’s the spirit! In that case, I’ll drive a little faster. I’ll do my best to keep anyone from stealing your top spot."

Li Fugui might have been small, but he drove like a man possessed. The trip from No. 2 Middle School back to their school usually took half an hour. But with Li Fugui’s extreme driving, Tan You was standing in front of her Year 1, Class 3 classroom in just fifteen minutes.

Huang Ruixiang smiled upon seeing Tan You. He casually pulled a geography test paper from the stack and handed it to her. "We’re collecting papers in twenty minutes. Better hurry."

Tan You didn’t say much. She sat down and immediately started blazing through the questions. Huang Ruixiang lowered his gaze and smiled, suddenly offering a moment of silent mourning for the grade’s perennial second-place finisher.

The moment Tan You had left campus earlier that day, the entire grade had started buzzing. Everyone was curious about where she had gone, but they were even more curious about something else: if Tan You missed the exam, would the person who was always in second finally take first place?

After all, the Politics and Geography exams were worth a combined 200 points. In their excitement, everyone conveniently forgot that in every weekly quiz, Tan You usually beat the runner-up by more than 200 points.

Besides, Tan You had come back to take the Geography exam. Even with the time crunch, her score wouldn’t be a zero. So, no matter how you looked at it, first place still belonged to Tan You.

Huang Ruixiang, observing from the side, was secretly pleased. To be honest, he’d felt like something was missing when he didn’t see Tan You during the exam. It was only natural for teachers to be fond of good students.

Even though she only had twenty minutes, some parts of geography were more like a science. It didn’t require complex calculations, and Tan You knew the answer the moment she read a question.

And so, finishing in the final minute, Tan You successfully completed the weekly geography quiz. Cao Haiyan watched, utterly amazed. During the break after the papers were collected, she leaned in to whisper in Tan You’s ear, "I really thought you weren’t going to make it."

"Where did you go this morning?"

Tan You didn’t want to make a big deal out of it before the results were announced, so she just smiled. "I had to take care of something downtown. It wasn’t convenient to go by myself, so I asked Teacher Li to give me a ride."

Cao Haiyan didn’t press further. "Oh. When you weren’t here for the exam, it just felt a little empty. I’m glad you’re back."

Tan You said with a helpless smile, "I’m not that important, am I?"

Cao Haiyan said resolutely, "You are! I can’t really explain it, but you are."

She linked her arm through Tan You’s. "Even though you missed the Politics exam, I bet you’ll still get first place."

Cao Haiyan’s deskmate laughed. "Is there even any doubt? When has Tan You not left second place in the dust?"

As the group chatted and laughed, news that Tan You had managed to finish the geography exam spread like wildfire through the entire first-year grade. The perennial second-placer, Xie Hong, sighed in resignation. "It’s hopeless."

Xie Hong was a student in Class 1 who had actually underperformed on his high school entrance exams. Based on his previous scores, he was a shoo-in for the prestigious No. 2 Middle School. After ending up at the town’s high school instead, Xie Hong had assumed he would dominate the competition and stand head and shoulders above everyone else.

But Xie Hong never imagined that from the very first placement test to every weekly quiz and monthly exam that followed, he would be soundly beaten by Tan You every single time. He couldn’t make a comeback no matter what.

No matter how hard he studied, the gap between him and Tan You only grew wider.

Xie Hong was a good student, too, and good students naturally have a streak of pride. But that pride tended to evaporate the moment he came up against someone stronger than him.

A few of the boys around Xie Hong tried to console him. "Don’t worry about it. There’s no shame in losing to Tan You."

"I heard she can predict her own score," one said. "Like, the moment she finishes a test, she knows exactly how many points she got. We can’t even finish the tests, and she’s over there calculating her score. We’re not even in the same league."

"Besides, think about it," another chimed in. "Getting beaten by a girl that pretty isn’t so bad."

Xie Hong scoffed, "Get lost, all of you. Is that your idea of comforting someone?"

Despite his words, an image of Tan You’s face—her red lips and white teeth—flashed through Xie Hong’s mind. He was lost in a daze for a split second before quickly reigning in his thoughts, not daring to dwell on it.

Tan Ying sat diagonally across from Xie Hong. Being tall, she didn’t have a seat near the front; instead, she was in the second-to-last row.

Listening to Xie Hong and the other boys talk about Tan You, Tan Ying couldn’t help but clench the pen in her hand. She hated it when people mentioned Tan You, but what right did she have to stop them?

’Tan You was just so radiant, a level of brilliance I can never hope to reach.’

"Hey, I heard they used to split the classes in the second year, but starting with our grade, they’re doing it in the second semester of our first year. Xie Hong, are you picking liberal arts or science?"

Xie Hong hesitated for a moment. "Probably science? Physics and biology."

One of the boys explained, "Our school only has two science tracks. You have to take physics if you pick science, and then it splits into a physics-biology class and a physics-chemistry class."

"I heard Tan You decided she was going to study physics and biology the moment she started high school."

"Didn’t Old Wang try to get her for his class? Apparently, she was really firm about it, said she was definitely going to take physics and biology. And since Old Wang used to teach the physics-chemistry class, it wasn’t a good fit."

"It’d be great if Old Wang taught the physics-biology class, then we could be in the same class as Tan You. I heard that during the evening science study sessions for Class 3, Tan You is the one up on the podium teaching six times out of ten."

"No wonder Class 3 has been doing so well recently."

’Physics and biology?’ Tan Ying’s ears perked up. ’Maybe I should choose physics and biology too? Tan You is always avoiding me, right? If we were in the same class, could she still avoid me then?’

Tan You had no idea Tan Ying had made such a resolution. After finishing the two days of weekly quizzes, she didn’t delay any longer and set out to complete her mission.

After unlocking her new identity—a Mage of the Undead System from the Western Fantasy Continent—Tan You felt her entire worldview had been shattered. But even a shattered worldview didn’t mean she could accept becoming a snake.

Right now, Tan You was stretched out full-length, lying on her back beside a small stream, the very picture of someone who had given up and was just waiting to die. Mindful of her image, she kept her forked tongue tucked away. Still, any person looking at her could see the utter despair in her posture.

The Beauty System hovered beside the great snake’s head. "Host, are you all right?"

Tan You’s voice was faint. "Don’t worry. I won’t be dying anytime soon."

She tried to sit up, but after a long struggle, she only managed to flop uselessly back down by the stream with a SPLAT. Creek water splashed everywhere, dousing her head and body.

She had been stewing in misery for nearly four hours. She’d thought she would arrive before everything started. But Tan You never, ever imagined she would be dropped into the worst possible moment.

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