The Witch’s Awakening

School days arrived as scheduled.

Chen Zeyu attended Jinghu High School, a renowned private institution in Nanshan City.

As a private high school, students were permitted to wear their own clothes. Standard uniforms were also provided by the school, required only on special occasions.

Currently, Chen Zeyu and Evetti Flann were on their way to school.

“This skirt is really inconvenient for walking,” Chen Zeyu murmured. She glanced down at her knee-length plaid skirt, still worried about accidental exposure.

Evetti Flann pulled out her phone from her shoulder bag, quickly checked the time, and then tugged Chen Zeyu along. “You’re wearing safety shorts, aren’t you? Come on, let’s hurry! The homeroom teacher we contacted yesterday urged us to get there early.”

“Ah, I know, I know! Slow down, the wind’s going to make my skirt fly up!”

Holding down her skirt with her left hand, Chen Zeyu was pulled by Evetti Flann with her right, and the two girls dashed towards the school gate.

Suddenly, two figures with silver hair emerged among the students.

How could they not attract attention?

“Holy crap! Two bleached heads! Look, look!”

“Did the school relax its hair-dyeing rules? Silver-white is too much!”

“Their hair color is like vampires! These two girls are incredible, and quite pretty too. Are they sisters?”

Such rare hair color naturally drew a lot of attention and discussion from the students.

Feeling overwhelmed by the intense gazes, Chen Zeyu quickly whispered to Evetti Flann.

“Let’s run faster.”

“Got it.”

With their heads down, enduring the extremely high scrutiny, Chen Zeyu and Evetti Flann finally reached the classroom door just in time.

“Phew! Teacher, we’re here!” Evetti Flann waved at the teacher at the podium, panting. The teacher, wearing square-rimmed glasses, craned their neck to see Chen Zeyu, then relaxed their expression and waved them in.

Chen Zeyu entered the classroom once more, but this time, she faced the familiar class with an entirely new identity.

“Today, we have two transfer students joining our class, Chen Yunyao and Chen Yuqing. Everyone, please give them a warm welcome.”

Clap, clap, clap!

Unlike the perfunctory applause of the past, this round of clapping was exceptionally loud.

Pairs of curious eyes scrutinized Chen Zeyu and Evetti Flann, clearly drawn by their silver hair and striking appearance.

“Teacher! I have a question!” The lanky Wu Hao raised his hand high.

“Stand up and speak.”

“I want to know which one is Chen Yuqing and which one is Chen Yunyao,” Wu Hao said with a cheeky grin, tossing the challenge to the teacher.

The teacher glanced at Evetti Flann and Chen Zeyu. Besides their eye color, the two looked as if they were carved from the same mold. How could anyone distinguish them by name alone?

“Wu Hao, you always have the most questions! Sit down! Go ask them yourselves!” The teacher’s stern expression diffused the awkwardness of needing to answer.

“Heh, yes.” Wu Hao sat down with a roguish smile.

“In any case, everyone, please get along well. Chen Yuqing and Chen Yunyao, you can take the empty seats over there. There are exactly two, as the original students are temporarily on leave due to health reasons.” The teacher did not specify who they were.

Although the teacher didn’t say, the students below began to whisper amongst themselves.

“It must be Chen Zeyu…”

“Chen Zeyu shares a surname with them. Could they be related by blood?”

“No way, look at their hair color. How could they be related?”

Listening to the discussions below, Chen Zeyu herself sighed internally.

‘What do you mean, no relation? The relation is huge. I’ve become a girl and I’m standing right in front of you.’

After Chen Zeyu and Evetti Flann took their seats, the class resumed as normal.

This was a physics lesson.

The teacher rapidly scribbled formulas on the blackboard. Most of the surrounding students, however, seemed disinclined to listen, as the novel pair of rare-haired sisters had captured the class’s full attention.

Rustle, rustle.

Chen Zeyu diligently copied the formulas, trying her best to ignore the surrounding gazes. Yet, the more she tried to disregard them, the harder it became to calm her mind.

‘I hate that feeling of being watched, like a display in a cage.’

Chen Zeyu propped up her face, her pen tip pausing its writing. Her heart felt incredibly agitated.

“Hey, hey, what does this mean?” Evetti Flann pushed her notebook towards Chen Zeyu, on which a small string of formulas was written.

“Hmm? You’re actually studying?” Chen Zeyu observed Evetti Flann’s neat and beautiful handwriting.

“Why wouldn’t I? Any knowledge is worth learning if it’s useful to me,” Evetti Flann explained softly, blinking her eyebrows in a rather cute manner.

“Alright, the letter W here means… huh?”

Chen Zeyu felt a fleeting image flash before her eyes: the letter W spinning, pointing towards the door, where a cloaked figure stood.

“What is it?” Evetti Flann asked, seeing Chen Zeyu pause, assuming something was wrong.

“Wait a moment.” Chen Zeyu rubbed her eyes, then blinked a few times to look again.

The clean notebook, the sunlight still streaming through the door, the teacher still lecturing.

“What’s wrong?” Evetti Flann asked, concerned.

“I think I’m having hallucinations.” Chen Zeyu felt a strange familiarity, especially with that shadow that shouldn’t have been at the door.

“Hallucinations?” Evetti Flann scrutinized Chen Zeyu’s face, only then noticing a change in her.

Chen Zeyu’s only remaining original physical feature, her black pupils, had now changed. Crimson was spreading around her eyeballs, its area threatening to completely replace the black!

“…That feeling is coming again.” Chen Zeyu didn’t understand what was happening to her. She only felt her vision becoming bloodshot, her eyes terribly dry.

“This situation…” Evetti Flann suddenly recalled something she had experienced in her very early childhood.

Before any witch of their clan became a true [Witch], their pupils would undergo a magic awakening without exception. The deeper the eye color after awakening, the greater their potential in all aspects in the future. The highest potential eye color was red.

Accompanying this awakening, any witch had a chance of falling into cognitive impairment, perceiving everything within their sight as a threat.

“Evetti Flann… I feel so hot. Am I sick? I should have listened to you and gone to the hospital.” Chen Zeyu’s voice grew uncontrollably louder, drawing gazes from some nearby classmates.

What was happening? Chen Zeyu wasn’t bleeding, but rather seemed to be falling into a state of delirium, like a witch awakening?

Evetti Flann began to believe it, because Chen Zeyu showed no magical fluctuations, yet she exuded a sense of contained power, like a ticking time bomb about to finish its countdown!

“…Ugh, so hot…” Chen Zeyu tugged at her collar, her consciousness severely blurred.

“Teacher! My sister isn’t feeling well! Please let me take her to the infirmary!” Evetti Flann immediately stood up and gestured. The teacher, seeing Chen Zeyu’s flushed and confused face, quickly waved them on.

“What’s wrong with her? Take her quickly! Do you need a classmate to help carry her?”

“No, I can do it myself!”

Evetti Flann hoisted Chen Zeyu’s arm over her shoulder. Being roughly the same height, the two quickly stumbled out of the classroom door.

Chen Zeyu clung to her last shred of consciousness, barely turning her head to look. The sunlight at the classroom door had become dappled, and the illusory cloaked shadow stood motionless. The half-hidden face beneath the cloak revealed blood-red lips, smiling.

The stranded dead whale, the phantom shadow cast by the Grim Reaper, the mother searching for her child, the white flower igniting a flame, the consumption of memories.

Chen Zeyu suddenly understood; the content of that nightmare was officially recurring.

Evetti Flann couldn’t see it, but the dappled phantom had already sunk into the ground, pursuing her shadow.