Li Wei's study group was a mess.
This, in itself, was not a new development.
What was new were the participants.
To his left sat a young man named Long Bo, a river dragon spirit whose family had managed the Yangtze for the last three thousand years.
He was currently organizing their textbooks by color, then by publication date, then by the author's astrological sign.
His notes were a terrifying testament to the power of obsessive-compulsive order.
"The ink distribution on this page is inconsistent," Long Bo muttered, his brow furrowed in deep concentration. "This is unacceptable."
**
Across from them sat Xiao Qian, a huli jing, or fox spirit.
She was supposed to be researching the socio-economic impact of the Ming Dynasty's naval expeditions.
Instead, she was scrolling through the divine equivalent of Instagram, a celestial app called "Ascension."
"Ohmigod, you guys," she whispered, her nine fluffy tails twitching with excitement under the table. "Did you see what the Thunder God's youngest son is wearing? So tacky. Total social suicide."
She had the attention span of a gnat and a gossip addiction that could destabilize empires.
**
And to Li Wei's right sat Jiang, the reformed jiangshi.
He was the result of Li Wei's rock-paper-scissors gambit, a semi-undead student now trying to reintegrate into mortal academia.
He hadn't blinked in three hours.
He also hadn't turned the page.
He was still processing the first paragraph.
His main academic advantage was that he had personally lived through most of the historical periods they were studying.
His main disadvantage was that his memory recall had the processing speed of a dial-up modem.
"The... first... emperor..." Jiang said, his voice a slow, dry rasp. "...was... a... jerk."
This was their progress for the last hour.
Li Wei wanted to cry.
**
This is a disaster, Yin Mode whimpered in his head. We're all going to fail. I'm going to be stuck in summer school with a neat-freak dragon and a zombie who thinks slower than I do.
A cold, analytical presence pushed through the panic.
The problem is not the individuals, Yang Mode stated, his logic cutting through the chaos. It is the methodology. Their study habits are not optimized for their unique supernatural attributes.
The golden light flickered in Li Wei's eyes.
He stood up.
The three supernatural students looked at him.
"New plan," Yang Mode announced, his voice crisp and efficient.
He pointed at Long Bo.
"Your obsession with order is a strength, not a weakness. Stop organizing the books. Start organizing the data. I want a full cross-referenced timeline of every major event, correlated with celestial phenomena and local dragon politics. Now."
Long Bo's eyes lit up with a fervent, nerdy gleam. "At last. A worthy challenge."
He pointed at Xiao Qian.
"Your social network is your greatest asset. Stop stalking celebrities. Start gathering intel. I need you to find out which ancient spirits are still around who might have firsthand knowledge of the late Ming Dynasty. Use your gossip skills for a grade."
Xiao Qian's fox ears perked up. "So... I get to slide into ancient deities' DMs for homework?"
"Precisely."
Finally, he looked at Jiang.
"Your memory is perfect, just slow. Stop trying to read. Start remembering. You are the primary source. We will ask you questions. Take your time. We will wait."
Jiang gave a slow, deliberate nod.
It was a perfect, ruthlessly efficient, and surprisingly compassionate plan.
It was also, Feng Yue noted from the library entrance where she'd been watching, utterly terrifying.
He wasn't just helping them study.
He was turning them into a supernatural intelligence-gathering unit.
**
The normal human students in the library started to notice.
They watched as Li Wei's study group, once a joke, became a terrifying engine of academic achievement.
They saw Long Bo creating timelines that were so detailed they probably violated several temporal laws.
They heard Xiao Qian casually name-dropping gods and goddesses like they were old high school friends.
They saw Jiang, the slow zombie, suddenly provide a perfect, firsthand account of a 15th-century naval battle.
The normal students, with their normal brains and their normal, non-magical highlighters, started to feel... inadequate.
A quiet, desperate arms race began in the library.
Students started burning incense to the god of knowledge for better grades.
The physics majors tried to create a time-dilation field to get more study hours.
The philosophy department just gave up and had an existential crisis in the corner.
Li Wei's little study group hadn't just changed their own grades.
They had broken the academic curve for the entire university.
**
That night, they were huddled in their usual corner of the library, long after closing.
The energy between them had changed.
They weren't just classmates anymore.
They were a team.
A weird, dysfunctional, supernatural team.
"Okay, so according to a very bitter water nymph I know," Xiao Qian whispered, scrolling through her phone, "the admiral of the treasure fleet, Zheng He, didn't just 'disappear.' He sailed his fleet into a portal to the Dragon Realm. Apparently, he owed Ao Guang's great-great-grandfather a lot of money."
"That... aligns... with... my... memory," Jiang rasped. "The... sky... opened... up."
"And the celestial charts from that period show a massive spike in localized chaotic energy," Long Bo added, pointing to a flawless, hand-drawn star chart. "It all lines up."
They looked at each other, a spark of shared discovery in their eyes.
Then they all looked at Li Wei.
He was just sitting there, a goofy smile on his face, happy to be included.
I have friends, Yin Mode thought, a warm, fuzzy feeling spreading through his chest. Actual friends. This is awesome.
But beneath the warmth, a cold spike of fear.
They're my friends.
And I'm dangerous.
His chaos had brought gods and monsters to this campus.
His power was a beacon, a target.
And now, these people, his first real friends, were standing right next to that target.
He was going to get them hurt.
Or killed.
The need to belong and the desperate, fierce need to protect them went to war in his soul.
He had to push them away.
For their own good.
He opened his mouth to say something stupid, something mean, something that would make them leave him alone.
But Long Bo spoke first.
"There's something else," the dragon said, his voice low. "I was cross-referencing our birth charts for compatibility... for academic purposes, of course."
He laid out four scrolls on the table.
"Our spiritual signatures," he said, his finger tracing the glowing lines of energy on each scroll. "They're all different. A dragon, a fox, a jiangshi, and..."
He looked at Li Wei.
"...whatever you are."
"But," he continued, "there's a resonance. A harmonic frequency. It's faint, but it's there. It's like... our destinies are tied together."
He pointed to an ancient, faded prophecy written in the margins of his star chart.
"When the Dragon of Order, the Fox of Deception, the Corpse of Memory, and the Fool of Chaos unite," he read, his voice barely a whisper, "they will uncover the path to the beginning."
A sudden gust of wind swept through the closed library, rustling the pages of a thousand books.
The combined qi of the four of them, resonating with the prophecy, pulsed as one.
And on the ancient star chart, a new set of lines began to glow.
Faint, golden lines.
They weren't stars.
They were a map.
A map that led to a single point, deep in the foundations of the university.
A hidden chamber.
A place that wasn't on any blueprint.
Beneath the map, a single line of ancient text shimmered into existence, glowing with a terrifying, divine light.
"Here lies the Sealed Classroom of the First Chaos Cultivator."
đź“Ł [SYSTEM NOTICE: AUTHOR SUPPORT INTERFACE]
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