I Saw Your Tenth Death Coming

"The answer is C. You'll die in three years."

On the first day of school, transfer student Pei Junchen poked Qin Zhishen with his pen and greeted her with words straight out of a horror movie.

She slapped her copy of 53 Practice Tests against his handsome face. "Aren't you afraid karma will get you for cursing people? I'll live long enough to collect my pension."

That was until he accurately predicted the midterm questions, the school's heartthrob confessing his feelings, and her phone falling into the toilet.

"Believe me now? Your death notice number is CN10086..." Pei Junchen cornered her in the classroom, his body burning hot, nothing like an ordinary high school student.

Later, he shielded her from every disaster: taking the hit for her in a car accident, forcing open the lock on her front door during a fire...

"Qin Zhishen, please listen to me. Stay alive, okay?" His eyes reddened at the corners as he spoke.

Then she stumbled across his bloodstained notebook, which recorded all the ways she might die: gunshots, falls from buildings, drowning...

On the title page, a line of desperate writing read: "Pei Junchen, this is your tenth time transmigrating for her. If you fail again, you'll disappear forever."

Trembling, she found him. "Tell me you didn't come back again and again just to save me..."

He gently wiped away her tears. "I did it so you could live, even if... I'm not in that future."

Only later did she learn the truth he'd kept from her: every time she died, he was involved.

Pei Junchen admitted it, his smile gentle and broken. "I'm no prophet. I'm... the one who dragged you into this hell."

He wanted her to see it as nothing but atonement, to trade his life for hers. It seemed fair enough. But Qin Zhishen grabbed his hand and said, "Then we'll break this cycle together. Pei Junchen, I won't let you bear it alone."

At last, everything settled, the greater conspiracy was exposed, and they won a future for each other.

Qin Zhishen smiled and unfolded the marriage certificate he'd hidden for years. "You kept something this important from me? You really have some nerve."

Pei Junchen scooped her up and tossed her onto the bed. "I can't hold back another second..."

[Bonus Scene]

At the school anniversary magic show, Qin Zhishen was "randomly" chosen as a volunteer.

Ropes wound around her, binding her slender wrists behind her back. Pei Junchen went onstage himself to check the knots.

His cool fingertips brushed over the pulse beating at her wrist. Lowering his voice so only she could hear, he said:

"Don't be scared. It's a slipknot..."

His fingertip deliberately grazed her sensitive palm. He chuckled:

"But your waist... is making me reconsider."

Theme: Love is salvation.