I have a life simulator.

Karuizawa Kei slowly opened the slip of paper she had drawn, not knowing which draw it was, and softly read out the words written on it—'Partner'.

If confirmed.

She hesitated before speaking, then suddenly noticed Ryuji Kanzaki waving his phone at her from the crowd around them, and nodded.

"Teachers can now open their phones and search for my or Liang's Baidu Baike entries on Google, and then click on the interpersonal relationships section to see them. Of course, if they wish, they can also find them in the acting experience and anecdotes sections."

"Or you can enter the words 'Ryo Kitagawa/Megumi Karuizawa' or 'partner' into Yahoo, and my name and Ryo's name should also appear in the related searches."

Compared to the past, Karuizawa Kei, now a seasoned actress, has mastered the art of controlling her emotions, so her facial expressions and tone of voice showed no abnormality whatsoever, as if nothing had just happened in front of her.

Perhaps it was because Karuizawa Kei's unhurried and leisurely speech was so convincing, or perhaps because the staff member had indeed heard of the two of them before, or perhaps she simply wanted to end the borrowing race as soon as possible, the referee decisively announced that Karuizawa Kei's answer had been approved. On the contrary, some of the students who heard these words began to search according to her instructions with curiosity.

The relationship between people can never be fully defined by a single label or word.

Watching Karuizawa Megumi and Amakura Asako run away from the lottery box towards the finish line, Kitagawa Ryo couldn't help but have this thought in his mind.

Besides being her partner on stage, he can also be her therapist, drama teacher, sexual partner, and lover.

Of course, the reverse is also true.

Regardless of his past or present life, Kitagawa Ryo's favorite play remains Macbeth, and Karuizawa Megumi is still the best actress to portray Lady Macbeth in his eyes.

-------------------------------------

It must be said that even after the girls' group finished the relay race, the students' discussions could still be heard everywhere on the playground. As soon as Sakayanagi Arisu came down from the platform, she could clearly hear the wailing of a group of boys from Class 1-C nearby.

"I feel like I can hardly concentrate on the projects that follow..."

"Me too, I can picture Ichinose and Kitagawa kissing as soon as I close my eyes. Hey, I must be dreaming, right?"

"What? There were already rumors and gossip about the two of them before. They're all from the same gang anyway."

"Rumors are rumors, but seeing it for yourself is a different story! My heart aches so much. This is Ichinose, after all..."

"My Beichuan..."

"Hiss, who just said that? Were there any of them among us?"

"It's decided! From now on, I'll stay in Kikyo's arms. In this cold and materialistic world, only the gentle Kikyo is my true home!"

Ignoring the group of boys who were probably acting crazy, Sakayanagi Arisu went over and naturally sat down next to Kitagawa Ryo, who had just become the center of attention twice, and said in a lazy tone:

"How does it feel to be confessed to in public like that by Honami?"

"Heh, I wonder who it was this morning who came in third place and then jumped into my arms in front of everyone."

After successfully silencing Sakayanagi Arisu's sarcastic remark, Kitagawa Ryo casually waved the printed schedule of events for the sports festival.

The sports festival is not over yet, and the obstacle course race just now was just a minor incident for Honami Ichinose and Megumi Karuizawa.

"After Youxi, will there be no more projects?"

"Well, there weren't many projects to compete in to begin with, and I didn't sign up for as many as Liang."

Sakayanagi Arisu reached out and took the form from Kitagawa Ryo's hand, resting her chin on her hand and saying with a touch of emotion:

"Let me see—you boys' group still have three individual events left: the 5,000-meter race, the 110-meter hurdles, and the ball throwing. Then there's the four-way tug-of-war and the final 1,600-meter relay race, which are the two team events. Yawn—is the sports festival coming to an end?"

Unlike the red-and-white tug-of-war between boys and girls held in the morning, the four-way tug-of-war mentioned by Sakayanagi Arisu is a different event. The competition format has also changed from a large red-and-white group to a competition between four classes. Each class sends four boys and four girls to compete, making it a relatively small-scale team event.

"However, everyone has placed more bets on the events near the end of the second half, since it's the final moment to determine the year's top scorer."

"In fact, as the situation of the top scorer in the grade and even the top scorer in the whole school becomes clearer, I am starting to worry that I will fail."

At this point, Sakayanagi Arisu reached out and gently brushed Kitagawa Ryo's bangs, tenderly brushed across his forehead, and finally gently covered his eyelids.

"I don't know if Ryo has noticed, but the situation on the second-year Kiryu Academy side has become quite fierce. In fact, Ryo's current score has clearly threatened Nagumo's position as the school's all-time leading scorer."

"Although I know that Liang has probably considered everything I can think of and have considered, I still can't help but want to tell you these things."

"Liang, you absolutely cannot be careless and think that Nan Yun can't target you across grade levels. Even just the loan agreement he has with Class C and Class D is enough to make some students in those two classes obey his orders, not to mention the off-site tactics."

"Besides him, those students who didn't bet on Liang might also try to take action against Liang for personal points, and even... it's not certain that they might be from our own class."

Sakayanagi Arisu was speaking in a rare, almost rambling tone. Although she had said earlier that she was just a fun-loving participant in the sports festival, she couldn't help but say these things now that Kitagawa Ryo's safety might be threatened.

"Okay, I understand. Thank you, Arisu."

Kitagawa Ryo listened quietly to everything Sakayanagi Arisu said, then nodded and earnestly expressed his gratitude.

"I think so."

Another familiar voice came from the side. Although his vision was blocked by Sakayanagi Arisu's hand, Kitagawa Ryo immediately recognized the voice as that of Ichinose Honami.

Along with the sound, his free right hand was gently taken up and placed in a warm place, seemingly enveloped by Ichinose Honami's two hands, and then pressed against his forehead. He could clearly feel the other person's warm breath coming out one after another at his wrist.

"Before the last event of the sports festival officially ends, Ryo should not go to places like the restroom alone, and should not drink bottled water brought from the class, even unopened bottles."

Honami Ichinose's voice flowed into Ryo Kitagawa's ears like lukewarm syrup, gentle yet carrying an undeniable firmness that left him no room to refuse.

"If you need to replenish your fluids, you can drink what I brought first."

As these words were spoken, Ichinose Honami gently handed a cylindrical object to Kitagawa Ryo.

He slowly opened his eyes, gently removed Sakayanagi Arisu's hand from where it was covering him, and then clearly saw Ichinose Honami's own personal water bottle.

It's a very ordinary style.

But the thing tied to it instantly caught Kitagawa Ryo's attention.

That's his name.

To be precise, it was the name tag he handwrote during the name tag ripping exercise in the special exam on the deserted island, which was later taken away by Honami Ichinose:

Kitakawa Ryo ( Kitakawa Ryo ).

However, another name was added to the empty space on that name tag:

Ichinose Honami (一之濑帆波).

Chapter 309: The Power of Money

"Attention students, the 5000-meter race for first-grade students is about to begin. All participants, please proceed to the starting line to confirm your registration with school staff as soon as possible. I'll repeat that again..."

Kitagawa Ryo had just received Ichinose Honami's water bottle when the announcement from the loudspeakers around the playground came that the next event was about to begin. He decided not to refuse anymore, unscrewed the cap, and slowly sipped some of the cool boiled water in the bottle to replenish his body's fluids before putting the water bottle down and handing it back to Ichinose Honami.

"Thank you for the water, Fanbo. I'm off to report now."

"Yes, if I have time after my project is over, I'll wait for Liang at the finish line. But Liang, please remember, even if I arrive a little late, don't drink any water offered by other people. Consider it our agreement."

Honami Ichinose gently tucked a few strands of hair that had fallen to the side of her face and tucked them back behind her ears. Then, she carefully took the water bottle that Ryo Kitagawa had returned with both hands, leaned forward, and lightly touched the tip of his nose with her forehead.

"it is good."

Kitagawa Ryo nodded in agreement, then turned around and jogged straight toward the starting line.

Only after his silhouette shrank to a dot in Sakayanagi Arisu's pupils did she turn her head and examine Ichinose Honami with a playful expression.

"If you weren't Fanbo, I definitely wouldn't have let Ryo drink the water you brought without saying a word, and made such an absurd promise."

As she spoke, Sakayanagi Arisu muttered to herself again:

"But didn't the other students think the same way? That's why they were easily fooled by you when fighting on horseback, whether it was Kamuro from Class D or Airi, it was the same."

No matter where you are, creating a rock-solid and deeply ingrained persona for yourself is always more beneficial than harmful. Even if some people sense something is amiss at that moment, they will naturally ignore it.

From Sakayanagi Arisu's perspective and intelligence gathering, the girls' horseback riding operation would actually end in a victory for the Red Team. This is because, apart from Class 1-C who had lost their will to fight, the Class 1-B group, which consisted of only her and Amasawa Ichika, was not remotely controlled by Ichinose Honami beforehand.

And as it turns out, although her group and Tianze Yixia's group could create a huge lead for the entire White Group, they would also be besieged and targeted, so they would definitely not survive to the final endgame stage.

Actually, when Sakura Airi's group suddenly indicated that they were exhausted, Sakayanagi Arisu, who was watching from the sidelines, had already noticed it.

While at first glance it might seem that Sakura Airi is chosen as the rider because of her high reputation and popularity in her class, a closer look reveals that the girls who make up the three horses beneath her are also members of Ichinose Honami's social circle, like a subset that has been included.

So even if it wasn't Sakura Airi but Horikita Suzune's team left at that point, they would definitely have run out of energy before the two-on-one advantage was about to arrive, and then Ichinose Honami would have personally delivered the last point, ending the entire match.

Judging from the prediction results, this single match did indeed earn Honami Ichinose over one million personal points, which can be described as a great success.

But because her well-established persona was so solid, most of the students present immediately believed that Sakura Airi's group was really exhausted, and Ichinose Honami did make a mistake in the final competition. Who would blame her for that?

"If we only consider this point, I really don't hesitate to speculate on your actions just now with the worst possible intentions. For example, you didn't bet on Ryo in events like the year's top scorer, so you wanted to weaken his performance here. You even put something in the bottle of water you're holding now, and the name tag you deliberately put on it was to lower Ryo's guard... You just need to say afterwards that you didn't know and that someone else might have tampered with it, and Ryo definitely won't pursue the matter."

Despite being bombarded with so many unfounded and malicious speculations by Sakayanagi Arisu in front of her, Ichinose Honami maintained her calm and peaceful expression, even reaching out to slightly adjust the position of the hair clip on her head.

"But I always felt that Honami would never do something like that to Ryo. Although I wasn't able to go off-campus with your drama club during the summer vacation, you guys must have had a wonderful and fun time, right?"

Sakayanagi Arisu casually stroked the ring on the middle finger of her left hand, then looked up and asked Ichinose Honami this question.

As one of the members of the same group as her during the special exam on the deserted island, she could clearly sense the changes that Ichinose Honami had undergone before and after this summer vacation. Connecting this with what Honami herself had said on the deserted island, Sakayanagi Arisu easily realized the truth.

It was as if a piece of porcelain on the verge of breaking had suddenly transformed into a brand-new piece, freshly fired and unglazed, with all the old, worn-out smells that were trying to be hidden yet overflowing completely vanished.

Just as the reason she stood so clearly against Karuizawa Kei this time was not simply because they were incompatible or because of unforgettable past events, but because she clearly expressed and revealed her emotional inclinations and strong desires.

"So, what does Arisu mean by telling me all this now? Are you trying to stop me?"

Faced with Sakayanagi Arisu's increasingly aggressive questioning, Ichinose Honami simply threw the question back at her. She held the water bottle with name tags bearing both of their names wrapped around it in both hands, unscrewed the cap herself, and pressed her lips to the rim of the bottle, taking a shallow sip to moisten her throat.

"...Sometimes I really want to know what exactly happened between you and Ryo."

Sakayanagi Arisu also didn't answer Ichinose Honami's question directly. Instead, she suddenly said something a bit nonsensical, and then seemed to lose the will to continue the conversation. She nimbly jogged to the starting line to cheer for Kitagawa Ryo. After all, unlike Ichinose Honami, she hadn't signed up for the next event for the girls.

After Sakayanagi Arisu left, Ichinose Honami breathed a sigh of relief, but her eyes immediately hardened again. She shook her head slightly to temporarily put aside everything related to Sakayanagi Arisu and focused her attention on Karuizawa Megumi, who was a little further away.

After all, she still hasn't been able to confirm where the other party placed their large bet. This is mainly because the total prize pool for this sports festival prediction is too huge, and with Nagumo Masaru's extravagant spending, her and Karuizawa Megumi's five million bets, split between them, seem to have only made a splash. It's quite troublesome to carefully identify the source of the bet.

However, she needs to be careful about Liang's safety right now.

The higher the sunk cost, the more inevitable it becomes that one cannot turn back.

The guessing game is like this.

Perhaps the same applies to relationships.

Therefore, Ichinose Honami will only have one love in her life, which is both the first and the last.

-------------------------------------

Unlike previous projects where each class sent two people to form a group of eight, with ten groups per project, the 5,000-meter race now only has one group per grade, taking into account the duration and students' physical fitness. Each class still sends two people to participate, but the total number of runners is only eight.

Although he had seen the list of participants in this event on the competition list published by each class beforehand, when he arrived near the starting line, Kitagawa Ryo still habitually glanced at the other students around him. Apart from a boy from his class who was participating with him and belonged to the sports club, he hardly saw any familiar faces.

But thinking about it, it's normal. After all, even in a regular high school, long-distance running is always the least popular event during the sports festival. Running 5,000 meters is not the same as running 100 or 200 meters. Instead of wasting a lot of energy on this, it's better to sign up for other smaller events to get points.

Although there might be athletic prodigies like Ken Sudo or Yosuke Hirata who have great endurance and stamina and are willing to sign up for such events, under the rules of the Tokyo Advanced Educational High School's sports festival, class leaders would often politely decline their proposals at this point. After all, there was the 1600-meter relay race, which had the highest score and was the only multi-grade competition in the entire sports festival, waiting for them later.

But since Kitagawa Ryo himself is the class leader of Class 1-B, then it doesn't matter.

Perhaps because the controversy caused by Ichinose Honami had not yet completely subsided, the moment Kitagawa Ryo appeared, the surrounding discussions never stopped. Even though the competition was about to begin, several contestants from other classes whispered among themselves and cast curious glances in his direction.

The referee standing by the track glanced at his watch again, and after confirming that there was only one minute left before the start, he raised his megaphone. But just as he was about to remind the runners to get ready to start, a commotion suddenly broke out in the field. A student from Class C collapsed on the track, clutching his stomach in apparent pain.

"what happened?"

"Ouch...it hurts so much, my stomach suddenly hurts so much."

After asking a few questions, the referee used a walkie-talkie to call over his colleagues from the medical team, and they quickly lifted the student onto a stretcher.

The school is always the one that can't afford to gamble. Even when they know that many students are faking illness, they still have to rush around checking them one by one, for fear that something might go wrong. As far as this referee knows, the situation in the second and third grades is even more serious than in their first grade. It can be said that accidents happen frequently.

"So, are there any substitute players from Class C who are willing to pay 100,000 personal points to take their place on the field?"

After watching his medical colleagues swiftly carry the student from Class C away, the referee raised his megaphone and repeated the same message twice to the other students in Class C of the first year.

Although he didn't think anyone would spend 100,000 points to run 5,000 meters and suffer, it was a rule set by the school, so he could only go through the motions.

In stark contrast to the referee's languid tone, the atmosphere off the court in Class 1-C was almost harsh, as if the air itself were frozen.

From the moment the C-class boy on the field collapsed to the ground clutching his leg and groaning in pain, Long Yuanxiang, who had initially been just watching the show, suddenly turned cold. He abruptly turned around and scanned the face of each boy behind him, almost squeezing out each word from his throat:

Who did it?

Ryuen Sho had anticipated from the beginning that Kitagawa Ryo might be targeted by others starting in the afternoon. Therefore, although the competition schedule for Class 1-C was extremely chaotic and arbitrary, he still did his best to place his trusted confidants in these afternoon events. His purpose was not to participate in the competition, but to keep an eye on Kitagawa Ryo during the competition.

The student who is currently lying on the ground and being taken away by the medical team is one of those he personally arranged to be taken away.

Apart from a few boys such as Daichi Ishizaki and Satoru Kaneda, most of the boys in Class 1-C remained remarkably silent at this moment.

It must be said that at this moment, they joined forces to give Long Yuanxiang a unique and realistic lesson.

The students in Class 1-C who accepted Nagumo's loan, hoping to make a fortune at the sports festival and even secretly colluding with unfamiliar upperclassmen, did not succumb to his violence as Ryuen Sho had envisioned.

Or perhaps, it was simply that their desire for personal points (money) that made them forget and suppress the emotion called fear.

Perhaps from the very beginning, the class that was most severely affected by the wave of consumerism launched by Tokyo Advanced Educational High School during the summer vacation was Class 1-C.

It's just like what Shakespeare depicted in his plays: money can turn black into white, ugly into beautiful, wrong into right, lowly into noble, old into young, and coward into warrior.