1: Chapter 1 Returning to Senior Year

[Chapter 43 Revised]

The following is the main text

...

"Someone asked me, what should I do if I'm still a virgin in my 30s?"

"Well, to be honest, you might as well just restart your life..."

Watching a blogger on his phone screen spouting nonsense in a video, Chen Fan couldn't help but curse under his breath, "Restart your ass! Does a 30-year-old virgin eat your rice or something?"

He was indeed a virgin, an old virgin in his thirties who had never even been in a relationship.

But he was also helpless; during college, he was addicted to gaming and didn't know how to pursue girls.

After graduating, he no longer had the chance.

After starting work, he was lucky enough to get into a good company.

Once there, he was busy with work, and coupled with being socially awkward, he never had the opportunity to pursue anyone.

As time went on, there was no need to pursue anyone anymore; his family started setting him up on blind dates.

The results were always the same: after a few chats on WeChat, they would ask if he had a car or a house, and how much the bride price would be.

After failing time and time again, he gradually stopped going to the blind dates his family arranged.

He just decided to lie flat and let things be.

So by his thirties, while other people's children were old enough to run errands, Chen Fan was still a virgin.

However, even so, Chen Fan never thought about 'restarting' his life.

After all, although he didn't have a wife, after so many years of hard work combined with his parents' savings, he had bought a house—even if it was only a small fifty-square-meter apartment. He had a car—a manual transmission worth a few tens of thousands—and a bit of savings.

He didn't have to worry about food or drink, and he even had money to spend on his hobbies.

He felt this life was pretty good; why on earth would he want to restart?

These bloggers nowadays were just damn good at creating anxiety.

He cursed quietly and then closed Douyin.

He put down his phone and checked the time; it was already past 4:00 AM.

No, I can't stay up any longer. If I keep this up, I'm probably going to drop dead.

Just after putting his phone down, Chen Fan felt his eyelids getting heavier and heavier, and he soon drifted off into a groggy sleep.

...

When he opened his eyes again...

Blinding sunlight streamed through familiar old curtains, and the faint whirring of an old-fashioned fan sounded in his ears.

Chen Fan was a bit dazed.

He seemed to be in a classroom, surrounded by students wearing old-fashioned school uniforms—the blue and white kind that looked like a style from over a decade ago.

Judging by their appearance, they were high school students. On the podium, an old-fashioned middle-aged woman was giving a lecture.

Looking at her face, Chen Fan felt she looked somewhat familiar.

Turning his head to look at the students next to him, they also felt strangely familiar.

"Holy crap!" Chen Fan was shocked. Wasn't this his high school deskmate, Jiang Chen?

Looking around, they were indeed all his high school classmates. Although he hadn't seen them in over ten years, seeing them again brought back a sense of familiarity.

He turned his head to look at the back row.

Behind him was just a trash can.

The back row by the bin, the throne of the kings.

Chen Fan froze for a few seconds as an absurd thought popped into his head:

"Could it be... I've been reborn back to my high school days?"

He was desperate to verify it. He habitually reached for the phone in his pocket to check the time, but found nothing. Only then did he remember that he didn't have a phone at this time; his first phone was bought by his family when he went to college.

He looked around. In front of him sat two girls, and one of them had a small mirror on her desk.

The moment he saw the mirror, Chen Fan's eyes lit up. He gently tapped the girl's back.

The girl turned around, revealing a somewhat familiar face. She looked at Chen Fan with confusion.

"Let me use your mirror for a second." After so many years, Chen Fan had already forgotten this girl's name.

Hearing Chen Fan's words, the girl let out a soft chuckle. "Since when did you become so vain?" She handed the mirror on the desk to Chen Fan. "Here."

Chen Fan took the mirror, carefully opened the lid, and looked at the face inside.

A slightly youthful face appeared in the mirror—exactly how Chen Fan looked in high school.

Seeing this, Chen Fan was incredibly excited. He really had been reborn.

He had returned to high school, and it should be his senior year, because that was when he and Jiang Chen became deskmates.

Wait, why did he suddenly get reborn? Could it be that even God couldn't stand him being a 30-year-old virgin?

To be honest, this rebirth brought him both surprise and a bit of helplessness.

If a highly capable person were reborn, they could use their past knowledge and insights to become the richest person in the city without a problem.

But Chen Fan wasn't that person; he was just an ordinary guy.

Logically speaking, someone like him—who was never a simp, never got dumped by a girlfriend for being poor, never got cheated on by a wife, and even lived quite comfortably—shouldn't have been the one to get reborn.

And yet, he woke up back in his senior year of high school.

Having a second chance at life, Chen Fan had a clear understanding of himself.

People like him were 'ordinary' to put it nicely, a 'loser' to put it bluntly, and 'trash' to put it even worse. In a novel, he would be nothing more than an extra.

He was the type who would dream of wealth, waver in poverty, yield to power, and succumb to temptation.

At most, he had a bit of good luck. Even if he was reborn, it wouldn't change his core nature.

So even though he was reborn now, Chen Fan didn't know what to do. Starting a business required capital, and he knew nothing about it; if he tried, he'd surely lose everything.

The stock market? Chen Fan knew a few stocks that would rise eventually, but that was over a decade away. By then, it would be too late.

The lottery? That wouldn't work either. He had never bought lottery tickets in his previous life, so he didn't remember any winning numbers. As for betting on the World Cup, that was even more out of the question; Chen Fan didn't even know how many people played on a soccer team, let alone who the World Cup champion was.

Aside from those, the only thing Chen Fan could think of was writing novels. But he knew his own level; the novel he had written before didn't have great prose—it only made money because he got lucky.

And in 2009, ByteDance hadn't even been founded yet, let alone Fanqie.

He did know some future hit novels, but when he read them, he just skimmed through. After finishing, he'd forget most of the main plot.

So, plagiarizing books would also be quite difficult for Chen Fan.

For a moment, Chen Fan felt a bit lost. Was he going to remain an extra even after being reborn?

Just then, Chen Fan saw the electronic clock hanging on the wall: October 14, 2009. Next to it was a slogan: 240 days until the Gaokao.

He suddenly realized a problem: his grades.

It was October, which meant it was the first semester of senior year. His grades in freshman year were decent, and although they dropped a bit in sophomore year, if he could have maintained them until the end of high school, getting into a first-tier university wouldn't have been a problem. If he performed well, a 211 university might even have been possible.

However, in the second half of his sophomore year, he became addicted to online gaming and often stayed out all night at internet cafes. In the end, he only managed to get into a vocational college.

To be honest, if he could at least get into a vocational college in this life, it would be fine; at least it was a college.

But with Chen Fan's current level, he probably couldn't even get into a vocational college because he had forgotten almost all of his high school knowledge.

Although there was nearly a year left until the Gaokao, Chen Fan estimated that even if he tried to study, he wouldn't be able to absorb anything.

Damn it, after being reborn, am I really not even going to make it into college?

Chen Fan scratched his head in frustration.

Just then, a mechanical voice sounded in Chen Fan's mind.

[Ding! Wealth System activated.]

The cold, mechanical notification sounded like heavenly music.

"I knew it! I knew it!" Chen Fan couldn't contain the excitement in his heart as he screamed internally, "A piece of trash like me getting reborn... I definitely had to have a system!"