Three Wishes

At a little past three in the morning, Liu Lang shuddered slightly and finally came out.

Ever since he had downloaded an app marked with a lone Y for its icon, this adolescent boy had been unable to stop himself.

Glancing at the time on his phone, he saw it was already three in the morning.

I have class tomorrow, and the college entrance exam is only a month away, and yet I am still doing this...

With a guilty conscience, he left the bathroom, washed his hands, then splashed water on his face. Only then did drowsiness begin to creep over him.

Liu Lang attended a private high school in the city. His six-bed dorm had a balcony, and the bathroom, which also served as a shower room, was on the left side of the balcony.

Just as he was groping his way from the balcony back into the dorm in the dark, a sentence suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Yes, a sentence. No sound at all, just a sentence.

So much so that Liu Lang wondered if he had become so exhausted that his mind had started wandering beyond control.

State your three wishes, and they shall be granted one by one.

After climbing into bed and lying down, the sentence was still lingering in Liu Lang's mind.

He closed his eyes, smiled faintly, and murmured, "Three wishes... let me get into Tsinghua or Peking University without the exam, I want superpowers, and I want Rie to turn into a busty, long-legged beauty who does to me what Yua did in that video just now..."

At six the next morning, the broadcast blared to life with an energetic song, and complaints rose from the dormitory building as well.

Liu Lang got up too. By his rough estimate, he had slept less than three hours. "This time I really can't use my phone anymore!"

Just then, the song on the broadcast stopped. After a burst of frantic noise, the unexpected voice of the principal came through.

On the balconies, some students were still holding toothbrushes in their mouths, others had just put down towels from washing their faces, and even the top student who was already carrying a kettle on his way to morning study stopped in place because of the unusual announcement.

"All students, gather on the sports field in ten minutes! Now!"

Dorm supervisors on every floor transformed into the principal's fiercest enforcers, pounding on the doors of each dormitory with sticks or clothes hangers, shouting for the students to hurry to the sports field.

Liu Lang only had time to pull on his pants before being driven out of the dorm with his school T-shirt in hand. Only while going downstairs with the crowd did he manage to get dressed properly.

"Good thing I put my phone in my pocket first, or I definitely wouldn't have had time to grab it." He even felt like praising his own cleverness.

They were herded like a flock of sheep, and when they reached the field, they discovered there were actually many soldiers there.

What is going on? Are we starting military training?

Are you stupid? Military training a month before the college entrance exam?

Look, those soldiers are carrying guns!

The grim atmosphere woke the students fully. Liu Lang even felt a trace of excitement in his heart; something very different was clearly about to happen.

On the podium, a man who looked like a military officer took the microphone from the principal and said bluntly, "War has broken out! Our province is now the front line. You are all precious seedlings, and within this week you will be evacuated in batches to the rear. This is to protect you!"

The students erupted in uproar, and Liu Lang was stunned as well.

There is only one month left until the college entrance exam, and now you say war has broken out, and that we students are to be transported to some rear area?

"Quiet! The situation was sudden. Your parents and relatives will also be evacuated locally under government arrangements, so you don't need to worry. Also, this year's college entrance exam has been postponed. The new date will be announced later."

The principal understood these children better. He took the microphone again and added a few more words, and only then did the students quiet down a little.

Liu Lang took out his phone and found that there was no signal anymore. He felt a pang of distress at the money he had just spent last night on a VPN, which now seemed likely to go to waste.

"But if the exam is postponed, then I still have time to work on my math!"

"Who are they fighting against? Could it be the Eastern Isles?"

"Look, there are military doctors, and so many people in white coats. It looks like they're going to draw my blood. Are they checking blood types so they can have us donate later?"

Sure enough, they were drawing blood. Homeroom teachers and other teachers from each class had also arrived, organizing their students into lines for the blood draw.

From the moment he woke until now, only half an hour had passed, and Liu Lang had felt an unceasing sense of unreality.

He even thought of the dream from the previous night, in which he had three wishes that could be fulfilled.

He could not remember two of them, but one he remembered very clearly: he would be able to enter Tsinghua or Peking University without taking the exam.

Now that part should have come true, so what about Tsinghua and Peking University?

Could it be that I am simply incapable of getting into Tsinghua or Peking University, and in order to fulfill that wish, heaven had no choice but to start a war...

Liu Lang hurriedly shook his head, casting off the absurd thought. It was indeed lack of sleep. He wondered whether he would get a chance to catch up on sleep later.

"Liu Lang!"

A petite, lovely girl pressed her left arm where blood had just been drawn with her right hand and ran happily over to his side. "You still haven't had yours drawn? Mine's done already. It hurt so much."

"Xiaorong, there are still several people ahead of me." Liu Lang chuckled awkwardly. Xiaorong liked him, but he felt nothing for her at all.

Their parents knew each other, but Xiaorong's parents had both died in an accident.

For Xiaorong to be able to attend this private high school, Liu Lang's father had even helped arrange the connections.

Come to think of it, it was also Xiaorong who had taught Liu Lang how to download that app with the Y icon.

Xiaorong seemed especially happy just being beside Liu Lang. Her face was flushed red, and she kept finding things to talk about.

"I had a dream last night. In the dream, three wishes could come true. My first wish was to see you this morning, and I didn't expect it to actually come true!"

They were in different classes, and not even in the same teaching building, so it really was not easy to run into each other in daily life.

But when Liu Lang heard the words "three wishes," he was shocked. He was about to ask her more when the homeroom teacher interrupted him, and it was his turn to have blood drawn.

Xiaorong was still standing behind Liu Lang. She loosened the finger that had been pressing her arm, and to her surprise, she found that a lotus mark the size of a fingertip had appeared at the spot where the blood had been drawn.

Two blushes rose to her cheeks at once. She shyly glanced at Liu Lang's back and thought to herself, It really came true. Was I really not dreaming?

Under the teachers' direction, the students who had finished their blood draw left the sports field in an orderly manner and went to the cafeteria for breakfast.

Xiaorong did not return to her class's line. She stayed beside Liu Lang instead.

The teachers seemed to know more than anyone else and were all worried, leaving them with no mind to care about early romance.

"Xiaorong, you said... you dreamed of three wishes. What did you wish for?" In the cafeteria, Liu Lang helped Xiaorong get a basket of her favorite soup dumplings.

The two found a seat and sat down together. He was deeply concerned about the three wishes.

"The first one has already come true, silly. It was to see you. Even though we're in the same school, it's not easy to see you once." Xiaorong pouted a little, sounding aggrieved.

"And the other two?"

"The second one... hee hee, I won't tell you. As for the third, it was to bring my mom and dad back to life."

By the time she finished speaking, two teardrops had already slipped down her cheeks. Seeing this, Liu Lang hastily apologized, flustered and unsure what to do.

"At a time like this, you should help me wipe away my tears." Xiaorong lifted her head and said softly, her words carrying a faint chill and pride.

Liu Lang froze. It almost seemed like an illusion. For a moment just now, he felt a queen-like presence from Xiaorong. With a reflexive motion, he used his fingers to wipe away her tears, and Xiaorong immediately broke into a brilliant smile.