Clang clang clang clang clang!
The loud and passionate opening theme blasted out.
"Wah!" Zhang Ning couldn't help crying out.
"So loud! That must've been intentional to scare people!"
The theme song itself was strange—flashing images of crows, blood-stained cloth, eyes peering from the darkness. Creepy.
Inside Jing Yu's fan group chat:
"Didn't they say it was a suspense drama? Why does it feel like a horror one?"
"There's a genre called suspense-horror, you know!"
"I admit that opening scared me!"
"Turns out Teacher Jing Yu can do horror too!"
"That's the male lead in the opening, right?"
"He's in the hospital right from the start—lol!"
"Wait, isn't that the actor who played Hikaru in 'Hikaru no Go'? The makeup artist is amazing—he looks so weak I almost didn't recognize him."
"Seriously, it's Hikaru! Makes me feel immersed immediately. Hikaru, get up and play Go!"
"No, no—Hikaru, time to take your medicine!"
"I hope the story keeps this freshness. At least the start is great, I really want to keep watching!"
The fan group bantered to relieve the heavy atmosphere.
At Yomiyama North Middle School, Class 3-3's class president, study monitor, and another committee member visited the male lead Koichi—
because he was their new transfer student. He hadn't even attended one day of class before being hospitalized.
The mention of "Class 3-3" immediately made viewers tense, especially when paired with the name Misaki mentioned in the opening narration.
Then came the hospital elevator scene.
The male lead turned his head—
Behind him suddenly appeared a girl with an eyepatch.
The heroine Misaki made her debut.
A beautiful girl is delivering something to the morgue.
Black school uniform and skirt, flat-chested, pretty, shrouded in mystery.
Then came Ms. Mikami, the homeroom teacher and the male lead's guardian.
The cast in 'Another' was large, but most were just side characters—doomed to die within a few episodes, barely getting any close-up shots.
Then the teacher introduced Koichi to the class.
Zhang Ning began to relax a little. Though 'Another' started with a spooky tone, ten minutes in, nothing too outrageous had happened yet.
Still, whenever "Class 3-3" was mentioned, every character acted strangely.
And of course—the eyepatch girl being in the same class as the male lead—Zhang Ning had already guessed that cliché.
The story shifted into ordinary school life—but with unsettling hints everywhere that something was wrong with this class.
Fan group chatter:
"What's even the setting of this drama? Any production staff in here? We've watched over 10 minutes and still don't get it."
"But not understanding makes me even more curious! I'm hooked."
"Class 3 is treated so differently! They don't even have PE with the other classes!"
"That girl is so pretty! Looks familiar…"
"Yukari Sakuragi, right? If I remember correctly, she's played by Yu Youqing!"
"Yu Youqing?"
"Yeah! Teacher Jing Yu's go-to heroine before Hikaru no Go. She even had kiss scenes with Sai's actor in other shows!"
"Wait, really? Jing Yu did romance dramas before?"
"Not just kisses—he even played a scumbag in 'White Album 2'!"
"And he's not only a top Go player on screen—his musical skills are insane. In 'Your Lie in April', the piano and violin pieces were his own compositions! Go check the DVDs on Jinhui TV's website!"
"See? Don't just focus on the Big Six TV stations. Mid-sized ones have gems too!"
"Actually, now I wonder—maybe Yu Youqing's character is the real heroine, not the eyepatch girl?"
"Guess we'll have to keep watching."
The plot grew stranger.
Although Misaki sat in the classroom, everyone ignored her. No one spoke to her; they pretended she wasn't there. Even when Koichi mentioned her name, his classmates stared at him in horror.
Misaki told him:
"You'd better not talk to me."
"Didn't anyone tell you?"
"You'd better be careful… maybe it's already begun."
Her cryptic warnings cut across the otherwise normal school scenes.
Zhang Ning's unease deepened. Could Misaki be the same girl mentioned in the opening narration—the one who died over 20 years ago? Or just a common suspense-drama "same name" trick?
The seemingly calm story carried the weight of impending doom.
Viewers felt it too—and ratings on Yunteng TV kept steadily climbing.
Meanwhile, the 'Manual' on Imperial Capital TV was about to break 6% viewership.
Yet 'Another'—a low-budget 9-million yuan production—was holding steady above 2%, now nearly 2.7%. Other TV station analysts were shocked.
Was Jing Yu really that skilled?
The male lead, baffled by his classmates ignoring Misaki, finally confronted her head-on to uncover the class's secrets.
She told him the story from the opening narration—this time with an ending.
At the graduation ceremony 26 years ago, the girl who had supposedly died—Misaki—appeared in the class photo.
Smiling, standing with everyone else.
But the story didn't end there.
The next day, heavy rain.
Yu Youqing's character Yukari, seeing Koichi without an umbrella, offered to walk him home.
The background music grew eerie.
Koichi asked:
"Who exactly is Misaki?"
Yukari froze, panicked:
"You mustn't say that name… not in Class 3."
The plot thickened.
"The first year?"
Zhang Ning echoed the characters' discussion.
What did that mean? The dead girl reappearing in the first year?
What happened the second year?
The third?
Now it was the 26th year… what would happen next?
Forty minutes of riddles—viewers were both frustrated and hooked.
"So slow! In her first year, she appeared in the graduation photo. Then what?"
"Teacher Jing Yu really knows how to drag out suspense!"
"Even though I don't get Class 3's taboo yet, the mystery is gripping."
"Hope the latter plot doesn't collapse. Looks like the whole show is about uncovering Class 3's secret."
"I'm already nervous, even though nothing truly shocking has happened. Thank goodness I've got the fan group to watch with."
Finally, Koichi couldn't hold back his curiosity any longer. He asked Misaki about the truth of Class 3-3 twenty-six years ago.
She replied expressionlessly:
"No one told you? The others can't see me… because I don't exist. The only one who can see me is you, Koichi."
Her tone shifted.
The audience understood—
It wasn't that others couldn't see her.
They were deliberately pretending not to.
The opening story was about Class 3 pretending a dead classmate was still alive.
Now, twenty-six years later, Class 3 was pretending that Misaki didn't exist.
How could that not be connected?
Then came rapid camera cuts—
Yu Youqing's Yukari, having received some news, left the classroom in panic.
When she saw Koichi and Misaki together, her terrified expression said it all. She fled down the stairs.
Misaki's single eye—the one that could supposedly see ominous things—followed Yin Mu's retreating figure.
Zhang Ning, like all the viewers, felt a suffocating dread. Something terrible was about to happen.
On the staircase—Yukari slipped.
Her umbrella flew from her hand—
Its tip landed perfectly against her throat as she tumbled down.
Zhang Ning's pupils shrank.
Rip!
The sickening sound of bamboo piercing meat.
Blood sprayed across the TV screen.
"What the—?!"
Zhang Ning froze.
Dead?
She had to be dead, right?
The sudden twist left him reeling.
The whole episode had built suspense around Misaki, the taboo of Class 3, and the ominous number "twenty-six."
And now—right as Koichi was about to learn the truth—Yukari suffered a brutal accident.
Could that really be a coincidence?
Yu Youqing's acting was haunting—her desperate struggle, her eyes fading from terror, to unwillingness, to lifelessness, as her body lay in a pool of blood.
The prettiest girl in the show—dead in the very first episode.
Fans used to Jing Yu's romance and Go dramas were stunned.
For them, it was as if the images of Kaori Miyazono (Your Lie in April), Emi Fukuju ('My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday'), and Setsuna Ogiso (White Album 2) all fused into this dying girl.
The contrast was too extreme.
Suspense drama?
This felt like a horror thriller!
And the episode wasn't even over.