After the Sentinel-Guide Bond Mark Appears

My name is Li Xi, and I'm an ordinary guide.

With excellent grades, I got into a top-tier Sentinel-Guide academy, hoping to continue living as an ordinary guide.

Our history teacher said that Sentinels and Guides with an exceptionally high compatibility develop a partner mark on their bodies and are drawn to each other. Once the mark is officially confirmed, the White Tower registers them as married.

The reason our history teacher was the one telling us this was that the odds were so low the phenomenon was almost a thing of the past.

I was half asleep in history class. A few days later, a Sentinel dragged me off to get married.

He showed me a photo of the back of my neck, where a clearly visible special mark supposedly proved I was his marriage partner.

How had I lived this long without anyone telling me I had a partner mark on the back of my neck?!

I cut him off. "Then where's your mark? Let me see."

He blushed. "Isn't that a little inappropriate...? Maybe we should go somewhere else?"

He hooked his thumb over the waistband of his expensive underwear and shyly pulled it down a little. His black snake spirit form silently coiled around my ankle.

I leaned closer and stared, horrified. "Holy crap, that's a tattoo!"

But we didn't get married, because another Sentinel turned up with the same mark.

Then one day, even my Sentinel younger brother, who had never liked me, awkwardly came to tell me he seemed to have developed a tattoo too.

...This can't be right, can it?

History teacher, you've got some explaining to do!

I watched several Sentinels bicker over who would get to marry me. The folds of my cerebral cortex smoothed out like my jellyfish spirit form spreading flat.

All I wanted was a peaceful campus life!

Reader's Guide:

1. The story is in third person. Female lead, male Sentinels, BG, harem. The male cast includes a big puppy with a tailbone, a wolf pup, an incubus, a toxic man, and more.

2. All the men are virgins. No official partner, and I may not be able to treat them all equally.

3. Lots of personal worldbuilding for the Sentinel-Guide setting. I'm making things up as I go.

4. More to come if I think of anything.

Theme: Use your talents to create a bright future.