I Absolutely Must Not Be Conquered in a Romance World

My name is Wen Heng, and I'm an ordinary college student.

Or at least, I should be.

But here's the problem: this world is one enormous collection of romance novels.

Everyone has an invisible "script" over their head, and somehow I can see the plot prompts.

On the sports field, the captain of the school basketball team sinks a three-pointer. A line of golden text appears over his head: [Sunny basketball boy x cold student council president, love at first sight.]

In the cafeteria, a transfer student walks around with a tray, looking for a seat. Pink text drifts over her head: [Gentle, healing girl x aloof genius boy, destined to heal him.]

Even when my parents go out to buy groceries, pink text in an old-fashioned style appears over their heads: [Married for twenty-five years, still holding an umbrella over you.]

Even more astonishing, everyone has a heart-shaped progress bar above their head. It gradually fills as their feelings grow. I watched my deskmate go from 0% to 100% with my own eyes: three months, heart completely full, target locked, irreversible. Then he started having background music follow him around, and I was forced to listen to "thump-thump-thump, goes my heart" for an entire semester.

I swore I would never become like that.

From then on, I made myself a set of rules: don't look at anyone with a "love interest" label over their head for more than three seconds; don't accept anything with a "fated encounter" effect; avoid high-risk settings like "the rooftop," "the infirmary," and "the classroom after school"; if anyone plays background music at me, turn around and leave immediately.

I followed these rules for three years, with remarkable results... except not.

Why does someone as ordinary as me keep attracting romance plots and ending up in love triangles?

At the school culture festival, our class monitor organized a dinner and insisted I come along. A line of text popped up over his head: [Dinner date event. Trigger chance: high.] I promptly launched into a series of earth-shaking coughs and rasped, "I've got a cold. I can't go." Everyone at the table silently scooted their chairs away from me, but the class monitor showed up in front of me with fever medicine and porridge, saying, "That dinner isn't interesting at all. I was worried about you."

No. Is coughing so hard I can barely breathe supposed to make me attractive?

On the way home from school, my childhood friend sat on a bench with his guitar and said he'd learned a new song he wanted to play for me. As soon as he finished the intro, I opened my mouth and brayed like a donkey. I belted out an accompaniment to his guitar, off-key the whole time, turning a love song into heavy metal. I waited for him to tell me to get lost, but he was quiet for three seconds, then smiled and said, "You have a pretty nice voice."

No. How is braying like a donkey pretty?

After PE, in the changing room, I ran into a long-haired "girl" who was actually a boy in disguise. The text over his head began flashing wildly: [Warning! Identity reveal event in progress!] If I exposed him, I would become the "first person to discover his secret" in his script. I leaned close to his face, put on a sincere but stupid expression, and asked, "Your skin is so nice. What skincare products do you use?" Then I patted him on the shoulder and walked away without looking back. The next day, he sat down beside me of his own accord and said, "You're the only one in the whole class who's different."

No. You think I'm "special" because I didn't realize you're a boy?

The school bully and the class monitor got into a fight in the hallway, one grabbing the other's collar while the other clutched his sleeve. The gray words [Rival Recognition] appeared over both their heads at once. My childhood friend and the campus heartthrob fought over the hair tie I'd dropped on the sports field, holding a standoff at the school gate for a full twenty minutes. In the end, the hair tie was torn in half, and they each took a piece.

No. What are you fighting over? I haven't said yes to either of you!!!

Even when caught in a love triangle, I still refused to let anyone win me over. If the progress bar went up, I hid. If I couldn't hide, I played dumb. If that didn't work, I vanished into thin air.

Until one day after school, when I opened my shoe locker and a letter fell out.

A pink envelope, a heart-shaped sticker, a faint fragrance of perfume.

A love letter.

The sixth ironclad rule of the romance-novel world: If you receive a love letter, you must reply within three days. Reply "yes" and you enter a romance plot. Reply "no" and it's "playing hard to get" and "she's so different."

This was a dead end.

Unless...

I crumpled the letter, shoved it into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed. My face stayed blank the whole time, as if I were eating a pancake.

Me, dating? Me, getting caught up in a love triangle? Absolutely not.

I walked out of the school gate, chewing on paper, and even felt rather pleased with myself.

That is, until I opened my shoe locker the next day.

Whoosh! More than a dozen letters poured out like a waterfall, covering the ground.

Me: "..."

Seriously.

Is there something wrong with this world???

Theme: Never let yourself be won over in a romance-novel world