Beside the green lawn, Owen changed into an all-black track suit and slipped on his ace running shoes.
After tying his shoelaces, he opened his satchel and glanced inside.
Inside, a ring box lay quietly, as if it were gazing back at him.
He then closed the bag, took it off, and handed it to Hua Zhaofeng, who had just hurried back.
At the sa ti, he spoke to a lean, black-haired boy standing beside him.
"Are you ready? Registration is about to begin."
"Yeah, Owen."
The black-haired boy nodded and followed Owen out of the club's lineup.
Trailing behind them were two others.
They were two tall girls with almost identical faces but indifferent expressions.
Both were blonde with blue eyes, exuding an exceptionally valiant aura.
They were the Cooper sisters from the Track and Field Club, a pair of twins.
"I really do not want to run the four hundred ters..."
The younger Cooper sister stretched lazily as they walked toward the registration desk.
"If we win, we can get rid of that annoying Spencer, so... let us just give it our all."
The older Cooper sister glanced at her and offered a reminder.
"True."
Owen smiled at their exchange but remained silent. Turning his head, he spotted Spencer walking over from the other side.
Behind her trailed Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino, both looking rather unnatural.
"..."
The registration desk was situated in the middle of the green lawn, where an official from the Student Council had already been waiting for quite so ti.
But just as Spencer was about to approach, a loud shout from Jiang Yun suddenly echoed from the track behind her.
"Spencer!! Do not register yet!!"
"Huh?"
Spencer paused in slight confusion and turned her head, only to see Jiang Yun running toward them with an anxious expression.
"The race is starting in a few minutes, what is wrong?"
Seeing Jiang Yun run over, Spencer looked completely baffled but asked anyway.
However, Jiang Yun frantically grabbed Spencer's hand. Her gaze shifted from Spencer's face and locked onto Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino behind her.
"It is not , it is them..."
"Them? Who?"
Caught off guard, Spencer had yet to figure out what was happening. She simply followed Jiang Yun's gaze and turned around, just in ti to see the two boys suddenly stiffen.
"You two..."
"You two! I heard everything you just said to Hua Zhaofeng!!"
"Hua Zhaofeng?"
At that mont, Owen, who was receiving the relay baton not far away, perked up his ears and turned to look in their direction.
Jiang Yun angrily let go of Spencer's hand, then marched straight up to the two boys and demanded,
"Tell
yourselves, did you promise Hua Zhaofeng that you would throw the second and fourth legs of the relay!?"
Throw the race?
No matter how slow Spencer could be, hearing this phrase made her realize what was going on.
Her sky-blue eyes contracted slightly before she abruptly looked up, glaring at Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino.
Feeling Spencer's sweeping gaze, the expressions on the two boys' faces instantly went pale.
Nino was at a total loss, while Tatsuya Sakawa swallowed a mouthful of saliva, forcing a smile as he waved his hands.
"N-no, Senior Jiang, did you mishear? We are not, I never even..."
The mont those words left his mouth, in Spencer's eyes, the shape of the little gray pig began to twist and distort once again.
It looked like a rotting orange with extrely wrinkled skin, prompting her to uncomfortably rub her eyes.
"Liars!!"
Seeing that Tatsuya Sakawa was still trying to cover it up, veins bulged on Jiang Yun's forehead in anger as she directly raised her mobile phone.
She unlocked the screen, revealing a voice recording application.
Turning around, she walked to Spencer's side, turned the volu up to maximum, and played the audio file she had just recorded.
"Sakawa, Nino, I know this is not your fault..."
"This is all Spencer's fault. I am familiar with both of you, you are both good guys..."
"You want us to throw the race..."
"No one will notice anyway. The first and third legs are run by girls, but the crucial second and fourth legs are in your hands. Whether you win or lose is entirely up to you... What do you think?"
"Then... then when the ti cos, the two of us will just run a little slower, and losing on the fourth leg should be fine, right..."
"..."
While registration was still ongoing over there, Owen had silently walked up to stand not far behind Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino.
Listening to the word-for-word conversation between Hua Zhaofeng and the two boys in the recording, his brow furrowed slightly.
anwhile, Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino never expected that Jiang Yun had not only overheard their conversation in the boys' restroom but had also recorded the entire thing on her phone.
Faced with such irrefutable evidence, Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino completely lost the nerve to argue back. Lowering their heads, their eyes darted away from Jiang Yun's furious glare.
Spencer narrowed her eyes, then opened them again to look straight ahead.
But this ti, rubbing her eyes did not stabilize her vision. Instead, the images of the two little pigs before her beca increasingly twisted.
She stopped rubbing her eyes and simply endured the distorted perspective, asking in confusion,
"W-why..."
"Yeah, why?! On Friday, Spencer clearly took us all to Universal Studios together! And since we joined the Doujinshi Society, she has bought so many things for us..."
Jiang Yun was both angry and bewildered. She lowered her phone and marched toward Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino.
Watching her approach, Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino instinctively took a step back.
"Spencer has practically been the one carrying this entire Club War!"
"..."
"Even before, when you were being mockingly insulted in the cafeteria, Spencer stood up for you, yet you..."
Jiang Yun pressed forward step by step until Tatsuya Sakawa finally had nowhere left to retreat, as Owen was standing right behind him, watching.
Then, in the next second, the agony he had been suppressing finally erupted from within. He planted his feet firmly and suddenly yelled,
"But it is because of Spencer that we are treated this way! Everyone clearly hates Spencer, yet we are the ones getting dragged down with her!"
Hearing this, Jiang Yun paused in shock, staring at Tatsuya Sakawa's finally unbottled expression.
Behind him, Nino looked equally pained, but he still reached out and squeezed Sakawa's shoulder. After all, throwing a race was nothing to be proud of.
However, Tatsuya Sakawa seed completely suffocated by the thoughts that had been haunting him. He aggressively swatted Nino's hand away and cried out emotionally,
"We have done absolutely nothing wrong, yet we are inexplicably treated as if we are the sa kind of people as Spencer. Why do we deserve this?"
Hearing these words, Spencer, who had remained silent behind Jiang Yun, felt her pupils contract.
It was as if one of those sentences had suddenly pierced her, causing her lips and expression to tremble.
"Buzz—"
A sharp, needle-like pain shot through her brain. The echoing of those words made her eyes burn even more.
But Jiang Yun did not fall into his trap of self-pity; instead, she grew even more indignant.
"What do you an, treated this way? Were people treating you perfectly before? Do you really believe that those people who ignored you and made snide remarks behind your back are suddenly going to change..."
"We know that!"
Tatsuya Sakawa roared, cutting Jiang Yun off while keeping his head lowered.
"We know that even before this, others looked down on us and treated us like thin air. We never harbored the delusion that we could suddenly fit in with them.
"So, would it not just be better to go back to how it was?!"
Listening to him, Jiang Yun's eyes unconsciously widened.
"Just treat us like thin air! We do not ask for things to get better, but at least they will not get any worse, right? Just endure it for three years and graduate, would that not be fine!!
"Just let us stay in the corner! Even if we occasionally draw attention and get despised, it is still better than being dragged out in front of everyone and treated like rats crossing the street, right?!"
Tatsuya Sakawa clutched his head as if he were having a breakdown, his voice choking with sobs. He looked entirely crushed by the pressure he had been under recently.
"On the contrary, what about you? How long have you even known Spencer? Why are you speaking up for her so fiercely? What is your real reason?
"Is it because of her money? Or are you afraid her family will retaliate against you after she leaves?
"If you just kept quiet and let the race finish like this, would it not have been fine? Everyone would be happy! Her family has money, can they not just send her sowhere else?
"I just want to end these miserable days. I do not want to continue this for even one more day.
"But if Spencer does not leave, these days will never end...
"Did you have to make it like this? Forcing
to say out loud right before the race that I am quitting the club, making
lose face in front of everyone...
"I should be the one asking, why exactly are you doing this?!"
Jiang Yun stared at the broken Tatsuya Sakawa in front of her, entirely speechless. She then turned her gaze to Nino behind him and asked hoarsely,
"...He wants to quit the club. What about you?"
Nino looked past Jiang Yun at Spencer, whose eyes were trembling and who looked absolutely miserable. He hesitated for a second, but still said,
"I am sorry... Hua Zhaofeng promised
that he would make the truth known. I also... do not want to bear the stigma of harassing soone else's girlfriend anymore."
Hearing him say this, the expression on Jiang Yun's face finally contorted into pain as well.
With her eyes growing red, she bit her lip, about to unleash a torrent of curses, but the moisture welling in the corners of her eyes forced her to raise a hand and wipe them first.
Then, she lowered her head slightly and roared,
"If you both felt this way, then why did you eagerly agree when President Yan asked if you truly wanted to join the Doujinshi Society?!"
"That was because we were afraid of Spencer's family..."
"If you were so afraid, then how dare you do sothing like this now?!"
"..."
The two boys remained silent, but Jiang Yun's tearful voice grew angrier with every word.
"Do you really think I am this angry purely for Spencer or the Doujinshi Society?
"I am angry for myself! Angry about the failure caused by the idiotic decisions of you two blockheads!
"Maybe Tatsuya Sakawa does not know, but Nino! You are a second-year, do you really not know?!
"Before the current Student Council took over, do you rember what a hellhole Far Moon Academy was? Do you rember what pathetic lives we Outer Court Students lived!!"
Jiang Yun lifted her head and pointed a finger directly at Nino, shouting the question.
Upon hearing this, Nino's expression darkened slightly, and he averted his gaze from Jiang Yun's interrogation.
Of course he knew.
Because the ti he was publicly slandered as a bastard who harassed soone else's girlfriend was during the previous academic year, when he was still a first-year.
"Everything has clearly gotten so much better since this Student Council took charge...
"Outcasts like us, who were alienated for all sorts of reasons, actually managed to enter the finals of a school-wide competition—sothing we would never have dared to dream of before...
"Losers like us, who were treated like stinking fish and rotten shrimp, finally had a chance to make everyone look at us in a new light. We had a chance to beat the popular kids and the winners in life, like Owen...
"The opportunity was clearly right in front of us. If we just worked a little harder, it would have been perfect...
"Why are you not willing to put in the effort on your own initiative, even just once..."
As she spoke, Jiang Yun's robust voice gradually lost its strength, and instead, she covered her face and began to sob.
The people in the spectator stands, being too far away to hear the specific details of the conversation below, did not know what was happening and craned their necks curiously.
Watching Jiang Yun break down in tears, both Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino looked away.
Tatsuya Sakawa had no choice but to look behind him at Spencer, whose expression mirrored confusion and sadness, and said,
"Spencer, please, we are begging you... let us quit the club."
"..."
Whispers broke out among the spectator stands, and the caras positioned in the corners all focused on the center. Inside the VIP viewing platform, Hers looked as if his soul had left his body.
Although he did not know what had transpired, seeing Spencer's pale, vacant expression made him realize that things had taken a turn for the worse.
He shakily tried to raise his handkerchief to wipe his forehead, but the handkerchief felt as heavy as a mountain and plumted to the ground.
"Umm... Chairman Spencer, I... I will imdiately send a teacher to see what happened. Please do not panic..."
"..."
Down on the green lawn, an expressionless Yan Huan slowly walked onto the field, approaching the area.
Over there, Owen, who had been observing the whole ti, took a deep breath and closed his eyes upon seeing Yan Huan approaching.
"...You... you guys..."
Every single word just spoken fell into Spencer's ears, twisting through her brain like steel awls, causing excruciating pain.
Everything around her began to blur and distort.
Before her eyes, Tatsuya Sakawa and Nino, who were originally pigs, slowly twisted and deford, but they did not turn into birds.
Instead, they warped into so sort of grotesque amalgamation of mangled flesh.
"Buzz!!"
A severe ringing in her ears blasted her already clumsy thoughts into a blank slate, leaving her montarily at a loss for what to do.
Only chaos remained in her mind.
'They said I am not the sa as them.'
'Then what am I?'
'If I am not the sa as normal birds with bright, beautiful feathers...'
'If I am not the sa as the bullied little pigs either...'
'Then what in the world am I?'
'I am not even a pig...'
'Then what am I?'
In an instant, overwhelming loneliness and fear flooded Spencer's heart.
She subconsciously gritted her teeth, clenched her fists, and raised her hand toward Tatsuya Sakawa.
She wanted to put up a fierce front with bared fangs, just like she always did.
'This way, I can hide my vulnerability. This way, I will not get bullied...'
But the sight of Spencer clenching her fists frightened Tatsuya Sakawa, making his body tremble slightly.
Pale-faced, he hastily squeezed his eyes shut and shielded his body, screaming out at the sa ti,
"If you want to hit , then hit ! This is who you are anyway! Just a violent bastard who uses her wealthy family background to bully others!!"
"..."
Hearing this, Spencer, who had just raised her fist, froze. Even her raised hand stalled in mid-air.
She clearly possessed the imnse power of a Modifier. Everyone in the whole school clearly feared her power...
Yet at this mont, that power was effortlessly shattered by a single sentence from Tatsuya Sakawa.
Spencer's raised arm slowly lost its strength, and soon, her entire body went slack.
Her eyes were completely red. Biting her lip, she tried to take a step, only to collapse to her knees on the ground.
"Sob..."
The next second, tears welled up and spilled uncontrollably from her sky-blue eyes,
"I... I am not..."
"Tatsuya Sakawa, you motherfucker..."
Seeing this, Jiang Yun flew into an absolute rage. She wiped her tears and was about to charge at him.
Terrified that a physical fight would break out, Nino hurriedly grabbed Jiang Yun and tried to break them up.
The entire scene dissolved into imdiate chaos. The people in the surrounding spectator stands could not grasp the details, but it was easy to see that the mbers of the Doujinshi Society seed to be arguing.
Following that, Spencer—who was usually the most detestable and arrogant person—actually dropped to her knees in a fragile state, shedding tears.
"Look, that Spencer is actually crying!"
"Serves her right!"
"So satisfying. Just looking at how smug she acted before..."
The voices from the spectator stands slowly drifted over, distorting bit by bit until they turned into a chaotic cacophony of chirping birds.
Bright and beautiful birds lived in a magnificent castle in the sky, looking down upon the ugly Golden Bomb Pig below, mocking her fragility.
Once she lost the disguise of her glamorous feathers, her featherless ugliness and her hidden fragility were fully exposed.
She had seed to want to explain.
To explain that she did not an for things to be this way, to explain that she had originally planned to leave anyway.
To explain that she viewed them as friends, as people just like herself.
But even the little pigs she considered to be just as fragile as she was did not see her as one of their own...
'Then what, exactly, am I?'
In her completely blank mind, there was no longer any ti left to contemplate what she actually was.
She rely thought back to the words Yan Huan had coldly spoken to her before.
She just wondered if it was because she had done sothing wrong again that they were treating her this way.
Had she ruined everything again, just like everything else she had done before?
Should she just stay alone in her room forever, want nothing, give up on everything, and never fight for anything?
'If I do not try to win, if I do not long to possess wonderful things like the other birds...'
'If I give up on everything, does that an I will not ruin anything anymore?'
"Crack-crack-crack-crack!!"
The mont this thought arose, an unprecedented, ethereal sound of shattering echoed throughout the entire stadium.
A massive phantom image of a finger, completely covered in cracks, began to erge from her body.
Moreover, it was continuously crumbling, being utterly rejected by Spencer.
Along with it, her previously raised hand and the ferocious fangs she had feigned also began to disintegrate.
"Sob, sob, sob..."
The figures of the pigs and birds around her simultaneously grew extrely twisted, spiraling into a horrifying manifestation of dread.
At this mont, she felt as though she had been isolated by the entire world.
In despair, she lowered her hands, bowed her head, and buried her face in her hands to cry,
"I... I am not... Sob..."
"Crack-crack-crack-crack!"
Not far behind her, the instant the shadow of the Thumb Modifier shattered and was violently rejected from her body, Myau-chan materialized.
Its jade-green eyes locked onto the phantom thumb that was struggling fiercely to survive. It turned and warned Yan Huan, who had been steadily walking toward the scene,
"Yan Huan, that is the true form of the Modifier. I recognize it! That is the most powerful one among the five Modifiers!"
Hearing Myau-chan's warning, Yan Huan's forward steps paused slightly.
"..."
Myau-chan kept its eyes glued to the scene and continued,
"Spencer has already ford the thought of abandoning it, which is why it has suffered imnse trauma!
"If things continue like this and we leave Spencer alone, it will soon be completely expelled from her body and thoroughly resolved.
"It seems that heavily traumatizing the host's heart to the point of absolute despair, making them want to give up everything, is another way to resolve the Modifier.
"Conversely, the mont her heart regains hope, the Modifier will fully recover."
"Yan Huan, this is a once-in-a-lifeti opportunity...
"What have you decided to do?"
Myau-chan turned its head, its green eyes staring straight at Yan Huan.
However, Yan Huan, having stopped in his tracks, rely gazed at the sheer chaos over there, observing the Modifier that was constantly writhing and distorting around Spencer.
As long as he did absolutely nothing right now, the most powerful of the five Modifiers would be resolved once and for all.
It had only been a little over a month, and he could already complete the progress for one of the five Modifiers.
'Resolve the Modifier. Resolve the Modifier...'
The nightmarish voice echoed relentlessly in Yan Huan's mind.
It was exactly this obsession that drove him to constantly wear a mask, playing along with these hosts and enduring endless pain.
Now, he finally had a golden opportunity in his grasp to resolve the Modifier.
But...
Yan Huan could not help but recall everything he had just witnessed.
He had watched helplessly as Spencer clenched her fists, gathering her strength, wanting to fight back.
Yet, imdiately after Tatsuya Sakawa's single sentence, all the fight left her.
She did not curse. She did not raise her fists. Instead, she developed the desire to completely abandon the Modifier.
If everyone else hated Spencer because, in her eyes, they were all birds—and thus affected by the Modifier's influence...
Then why did the people she saw as pigs, as people just like her, as her friends, treat her this way?
And back when she did not have the Modifier, all those years ago, why did those hypocritical bastards who viewed her as a hairless pig and bullied her treat her like that?
Since the first round of the competition, what exactly had she done wrong?
She had not gone around stealing other people's things anymore. Instead, she honestly and diligently trained every single day.
She apologized to him, the bird in her eyes, and invited the friends she saw as little pigs out to have fun together.
She never intended to stay; she just wanted to win the race once and then give the granted wish to everyone else.
For a girl like her to end up in such a state...
Even if this resolved the Modifier, it forced Yan Huan to ask himself:
'Yan Huan, is this really what you want?'
Heavy, dark clouds obscured the originally sky-blue heavens. Howling winds swept past, blowing Spencer's falling tears onto the ground as she kept her head bowed.
"..."
Yan Huan also felt as if the fierce wind made it impossible to lift his head, stinging his eyes so much that he had to reach out and cover his lowered face.
His right hand clamped tightly over his face, his fingernails digging deep into his flesh.
"Crack-crack-crack..."
The illusory sound of shattering echoed once more...
Only this ti, the shattering did not seem to be the crisp, pleasant sound of Modifier fragnts falling.
At this mont, breaking apart in the breeze...
Was the mask that had always covered Yan Huan's face.
"Myau-chan..."
"ow?"
Sitting on his shoulder, Myau-chan turned to look at Yan Huan upon hearing him speak so suddenly.
At that mont, Yan Huan slowly lowered his hand.
He stared straight ahead at the scene. Then, in the next second, he lifted his legs and began walking in that direction once again.
anwhile, his expression had turned completely glacial, and even the words he forced out were sharp and hoarse.
The gale roared past, beating the green grass down until it bowed.
The mockery and laughter from the spectator stands around them, along with everything happening in front, kneaded the situation into utter chaos.
Yet Yan Huan just walked step by step toward them. His voice brimd with an icy chill as he gritted his teeth and declared,
"Fuck the Modifier!"
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