The Blue Star.
The midsummer sky, still hot even at night.
Wang Yue stood by the roadside, skillfully unlocking a shared bicycle.
Riding on the road, Wang Yue's mind was still on the college reunion that had just ended.
Eight years after graduation, past 30, he had still accomplished nothing.
Looking at his old classmates at the party, radiant and successful in their careers, Wang Yue felt a pang of envy.
Reflecting on his life, he was average in looks, average in academics, average in work, and average in life. Not too good, not too bad.
In his youth, he had been brave, strived, cried, and loved, but in the end, like most people, his sharp edges had been worn down by life, and he had blended into the vast masses.
There were many regrets, but ultimately he was powerless to change anything.
At this moment, that familiar voice echoed in his mind again: "Detecting host's strong desire to not be ordinary. Do you wish to activate this system and begin a defiant and unrestrained afterlife? Cost: Eternal absence of true love, all interactions driven by profit, and a lonely end."
"Reject."
Wang Yue uttered two words expressionlessly.
He had lost count of how many times he had rejected the system; it must have been several hundred times over the years.
The first time he heard the system's voice, he had been excited, thinking he had died and would now be the protagonist, the sole chosen one.
Unfortunately, the price for activating the system was: "Parents die of sudden illness within one year."
This was unacceptable to Wang Yue.
Every time he encountered difficulties or major setbacks thereafter, the system would appear as promised, but each time the price was too much for him to bear.
For example:
"Parents live thirty years less."
"Self lives thirty years less."
"Childhood friend lives thirty years less."
"Forever cuckolded for the rest of your life."
"Perpetually chased by a venomous snail."
"Chased by a serial killer for ten years."
...
And so on, countless examples.
The conditions, initially extremely harsh, gradually became relatively more lenient.
But Wang Yue never agreed.
Some things were too heavy for life to bear.
Every gift from destiny is already marked with its price.
Wang Yue couldn't set the price, but he could refuse.
After rejecting the system once more, Wang Yue felt a slight sense of relief.
The traffic light turned red, and Wang Yue applied the brakes, stopping steadily.
"How much further until I can enter your heart..."
Just then, his phone rang.
Wang Yue took out his phone from his pocket; it was his beautiful roommate.
"Hello, what's up?"
Wang Yue asked with a smile.
"I made your favorite sweet and sour pork ribs. Come back quickly."
A gentle female voice came from the other end of the line.
"I'm almost at the subway station, wait for me."
"Okay~"
Wang Yue smiled, hung up the phone, put it in his pocket, and looked up to see an old man with a cane walking unsteadily towards him from across the street, already in the middle of the road.
A truck with its headlights on was speeding towards them. At the old man's pace, he was sure to be hit.
"Damn!"
Wang Yue didn't have time to think. He dropped the bicycle and rushed towards the old man.
"Hurry up! Are you trying to die!"
Wang Yue shouted loudly.
The old man seemed to ignore him, wearing sunglasses, still walking slowly.
"Vroom!"
The truck seemed to finally see the old man and began to roar loudly, its ear-piercing brakes echoing on the quiet street.
Wang Yue shoved the old man hard. Untrained for a long time, his legs went weak, and he could no longer move. He could only watch helplessly as the truck bore down on him.
"Bang!"
Wang Yue's mind went blank. He felt an intense pain spread through his body and was involuntarily thrown into the air. Images of his life flashed rapidly through his mind.
"Bang!"
Wang Yue fell to the ground, having lost consciousness. His vision blurred: "Am I going to die? Life is truly full of unexpected twists."
"Detecting host is on the verge of death. Do you wish to activate this system? It can ensure the host's safety and usher in a life of unrestrained freedom! Cost: All close friends and family will die successively within one year."
Wang Yue laughed. The system had never, or rarely, made such an outrageous demand.
Was it trying to drive up the price now that he was about to die?
Unfortunately, the system had underestimated him, and underestimated humanity.
"Re...Reject."
Wang Yue, with all his might, uttered the last two words, his consciousness completely falling into darkness.
"What the heck, you still won't take it?"
After Wang Yue fainted, the system's originally mechanical and cold voice became astonished.
"Forget it, I lost fairly. Encountering such a weirdo is my bad luck."
...
"Wang Yue, stop sleeping! Teacher is calling you!"
Wang Yue was jolted awake by a violent shake.
Before he could even open his eyes, a system voice stunned him.
"Congratulations to the host for triggering the hidden reward: Rejecting the system a thousand times!"
"Detected that out of these 1000 rejections, 763 times the host's wish was to have a perfect life. This system has, based on the host's situation, rewound the timeline to: Blue Star Calendar, September 19, 2010."
"To help the host achieve a perfect life, given the host's past rejections, the system has been automatically activated! Activation cost: None."
"To more intuitively display host data, the data panel is now enabled."
"To reward the host's spirit of choosing death over submission, this life reset rewards 30 free attribute points and 5 random quality skill books."
"Rewards have been distributed."
"May your future be brilliant, and your rebirth complete!"
[Host: Wang Yue]
[Appearance: 66]
[Intelligence: 80]
[Constitution: 66]
[Special: 75]
[Height: 175]
[Distributable Attribute Points: 30]
[5 Random Quality Skill Books]
Wang Yue's eyes snapped open. The skill panel was clearly displayed before him. Around him, more than ten people were staring intently at him, most with a look of schadenfreude.
At the forefront, a middle-aged woman with a dark expression stared silently at Wang Yue.
Wang Yue's head buzzed.
Had he been reborn?
He had truly been reborn!
A flicker of wild joy flashed in Wang Yue's eyes. Looking at the familiar yet strange faces around him, he felt an overwhelming sense of closeness.
Blue Star Calendar, September 19, 2010.
A major event happened on this day, one that even changed the trajectory of his future!
And the scene before him now was of him attending a tutoring session at his math teacher's house.
This year, he was in his third year of high school!
"Wang Yue, your parents are spending money for you to attend tutoring to improve your grades, not to sleep! Do you honor your parents' hard-earned money?"
The math teacher berated him sternly.
Wei Qinghua's face was of a sharp and mean appearance, especially when angry, but seeing this face, which he remembered with such animosity, Wang Yue, empowered by rebirth, felt a strange sense of affection.
So, he responded with a smile: "I'm sorry, Teacher Wei."
Although Wei Qinghua was greedy and looked down on the poor, which was why he secretly ran a tutoring class during the holidays, he did care about good students. However, Wang Yue, who had always been in the lower-middle range of academic performance, had never experienced this kind of care.
"Stop grinning at me. How do you solve this problem I just explained? If you can't explain it, I think it's necessary to inform your parents."
Wei Qinghua said with a cold snort.
The surrounding classmates watched Wang Yue with schadenfreude, ready to see him make a fool of himself.
Wang Yue looked at the small blackboard.
"Given the function f(x) = (x+1)ln(x) - x + 1
Prove: (x-1)f(x) ≥ 0"
In high school, Wang Yue's math grades were always at the bottom. For function problems like this, he usually adopted a laid-back attitude.
If it were his previous self, he truly wouldn't be able to answer. But the reborn Wang Yue, perhaps with a boost from two lifetimes of intelligence, saw the solution at a glance and found it exceptionally simple.
Therefore, under the increasingly shocked gazes of everyone.
Wang Yue slowly stated the answer.