Chapter 43: Family Information in the Old Phone
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 43: Family Information in the Old Phone
By the time I finished cleaning the entire villa, a significant amount of time had passed.
I was so exhausted I’d broken into a sweat.
Cleaning spells are actually quite technical; they don't just make dirt vanish, they "strip" it away. This means the grime still needs to be physically cleared out. Even though the villa looked clean on the surface, once I did a thorough sweep, the amount of dust and debris I collected was substantial.
After finishing, all I wanted was a shower.
No sooner said than done. I headed back to the bedroom and began organizing my clothes. These were all prepared for me by Sister Bai, and I could tell she had put a lot of thought into them.
I probably wouldn't be heading out again for the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was dangerous outside, and there was reconstruction work going on nearby. What was the point of going out?
Besides, that massive hole in the sky still hadn't been repaired.
As for what to eat tonight...
That was a problem. Normally, a job should include meals, but I’d forgotten to bring any bread back with me, and there was nothing to eat in the villa.
Should I... order takeout?
The Academy should have takeout services. After all, I’d seen senior sisters delivering food at the shop; they seemed incredibly busy.
I just didn't know if the apps on my old phone would work.
You could say the Witch Academy is completely cut off from the outside world. For freshmen especially, the admission letter is a one-way ticket into the Academy. Once you're inside, your phone loses its signal.
You have to use the phone issued by the Academy, but I wasn't sure if those apps could even be downloaded onto it.
Probably... not?
Most of the applications on the Academy phone were developed around the Academy system. There were apps in the software store, but after downloading them... they didn't seem to work.
Before I downloaded one, the description clearly stated it wouldn't function within the Academy's boundaries.
Was even information being blockaded?
Was it because of the Curtain Wall?
But hadn't the Curtain Wall been broken?
I tapped on a short-video app I’d just downloaded and found that, aside from a bit of lag, it actually seemed to work...
Did the breaking of the Curtain Wall mean information could now link to the outside world?
The Academy shouldn't have made such a blunder, right?
Otherwise, all sorts of news from within the Academy would have leaked into society by now. You can't get rid of everything just by deleting posts.
Before I enrolled, I had no idea the Witch Academy accepted boys. While I suppose I could have found that out if I’d actively looked for it, the fact that boys turn into girls upon entering the Witch Academy was something I absolutely didn't know. If something that explosive got out, wouldn't it immediately blow up public opinion?
Boys who wanted to be girls would be ecstatic. They wouldn't even need gender reassignment surgery. And from what I could see so far, there weren't any side effects—you don't even get a period. Fine, you can't get pregnant either, but for a boy, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
After messing around for a bit, I finished downloading the Academy's delivery app. I’d treat myself to takeout tonight. Oh, right—I also needed to transfer what little money I had left to this new phone.
I picked up my old phone, which I’d tossed aside earlier, only to realize it was dead.
Out of power...
Did this villa even have a place to charge it?
I wandered around the bedroom for a while but couldn't find anything. No way... in a villa this big, there wasn't a single charging port?
Did everything in the villa run on mana?
That was a bit despairing... Maybe I should ask Little Ox-Horse. After all, it was the smart butler of this villa.
"Little Ox-Horse, quick question: is there anywhere in the villa I can charge a phone?"
Little Ox-Horse, who was currently on its charging pile, powered up and immediately spoke. "Yes. Although the Witch Academy runs entirely on mana energy, charging interfaces have been provided to accommodate the habits of new students."
"Where?" I asked succinctly.
"I have an interface on my body. It uses electricity converted from mana, and the output can be adjusted as needed."
"On your body..."
I looked at Little Ox-Horse and searched for a long time before finally finding a socket in a hidden spot. I’ll be damned, there really was one!
I went back to my room, grabbed the charging cable for my old phone, and started charging it right there on the spot.
This crappy phone had been with me for a long time. Even though I had a new one and felt that impulsive urge to "love the new and loathe the old," there were too many memories in this phone.
"Forget it. At the very end, I'll delete the diaries inside. Consider it... a way of saying goodbye to the past."
I still remembered the diaries I’d written on that phone. They were my strongest tether to the past, recording unforgettable events. I hadn't written them explicitly; instead, I’d buried my emotions between the lines. I hoped that by doing this, I could dilute those negative feelings.
Even though I was living a second life, my experiences growing up still had a profound impact on me. What did that prove?
It proved that I wasn't strong enough on the inside.
After waiting a while, the battery hadn't charged much, but the phone was finally able to turn on.
As the familiar startup sound rang out, I had to wait a bit longer before the phone was actually usable.
It was an old model, after all. If it was slow, it was slow. I had plenty of patience for this.
Once the phone finally loaded, an overwhelming flood of messages began popping up on the lock screen, causing the phone to lag for several seconds.
I watched the messages flash by, seeing those familiar contacts.
At that moment, I almost didn't want to open the phone.
I didn't have many contacts. I didn't even have the contact info for more than a few classmates. To put it another way, I wasn't exactly popular.
I could already imagine who was incessantly trying to reach me.
How many days had it been since I left home?
Quite a few, it seemed. I’d spent a long time in Sister Bai's house.
They knew I was there, but they hadn't come looking for me, nor had they contacted me.
Now that I’d vanished, they were frantically searching for me?
I wondered if they’d gone to the Shi'an Bureau to find me. Then again, the Shi'an Bureau probably didn't have jurisdiction over a Transcendent Academy.
Furthermore, ordinary people didn't have the clearance to look up the personal data of a student at a Transcendent Academy. So, they likely had no idea I had entered the Witch Academy.
I opened the phone and tapped on the chat logs.
There were messages from private chats and the family group. My father, my mother, and even my younger brother—I didn't recall them ever being this concerned about me.
I specifically checked the messages from one other person. Her private chat sat silently in my list, untouched. She was the girlfriend—well, ex-girlfriend now.
Even if there was only a tiny possibility, if she suddenly messaged me, I’d be the one with the headache. I wouldn't know how to continue a relationship that existed in name only.
Come to think of it... did I ever actually have feelings for her? I seemed to have forgotten. After all, back then I just wanted to try it out—to see what a campus romance was like.
And the result was... this.
Her grades used to be about the same as mine, so how exactly did she skyrocket to the top?
I didn't know.
Was it while she was slacking off in class with me, or while we were doing other things together...? Maybe that's just what a genius is—someone who can ace exams without even trying to study.