My brother couldn't be a corrupted magical girl.

Chapter 57 Know the black, guard the white

The sky was just beginning to brighten.

Bai Yuze woke up before his alarm clock went off at six in the morning and quickly turned it off to avoid waking Bai Youqing, who was sleeping.

Even if the two rooms are separated by a thick wall.

Bai Yuze drew back the curtains and saw that he hadn't seen the sunrise today; instead, the weather forecast had predicted a cloudy day.

Before dawn, a thick, pure gray-white cloud floated in the sky.

Bai Yuzhe roused himself, still feeling a bit weary, and entered the washroom to wash up.

He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he felt his sister had been acting strangely these past few days. He couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong. Before, his sister would always share funny stories from school and complain about how bad the school food was…

But in the past few days, Bai Youqing has rarely talked about school.

Most of the time, they ate in a dull and gloomy manner, and after finishing their meals, they would go straight to their rooms.

Perhaps it's because I'm entering puberty.

It's not all bad. She's a bit better and more sensible than before. She'll help with the dishes now, which is truly something to celebrate.

After leaving the bedroom, Bai Yuze grabbed a few loaves of bread and a bottle of milk. He then went into the kitchen, washed the millet, and turned on the rice cooker so that Bai Youqing could have millet porridge when she woke up.

For the first half of the semester, the two of them could go to Qiuyuan No.1 Middle School together.

Later, as time became more pressing in their senior year of high school, he started waking up much earlier, causing their timelines to diverge significantly.

As soon as he stepped out of the room, a gust of cold wind blew against Bai Yuze's face.

The latter, uncertain, took out his phone to check the weather forecast again. After confirming that it wouldn't rain, he went out.

Along the way, there weren't many pedestrians on the streets. The most common sight was cleaning ladies dragging garbage carts around, making an indelible contribution to the beauty of Yeqiu City.

Over the past few weeks, Bai Yuze has gradually given up running along the Xunyang River every day and has instead started running a few laps around Qiuyuan No.1 Middle School. It's not that he's become lazy.

On the contrary, in the eyes of Hoshino Seri, Bai Yuze had turned his life around, leaving early and returning late every day.

The reason he was like this was that the senior high school students were just too diligent. Several times when he arrived at school at five o'clock, he was surprised to see students still studying hard in the classroom with flashlights in hand.

Even after evening self-study ended past 10 p.m., they still chose to stay in the classroom to continue studying.

Bai Yuze doesn't object to high school seniors studying diligently in their final months, but he believes that too much of anything can be counterproductive; pushing something too hard can easily lead to irreversible negative effects.

In class, he repeatedly emphasized that the closer it gets to the end, the more attention should be paid to physical health.

To avoid this from happening, Bai Yuze could only play cat and mouse with them, catching one and sending them to Teacher Hoshino for psychological treatment.

It did have some effect at first; everyone obediently left after class and went to sleep when the bell rang. But as soon as even one person stayed up all night to study, the problem would immediately resurface.

In the words of college students:

The sound of typing lulled me to sleep, while the sound of turning pages kept me awake all night.

As the homeroom teacher, Bai Yuze was forced to work overtime.

We pay close attention to the physical condition of every student, fearing that any student might fall ill on the eve of the college entrance examination and regret it for the rest of their life.

Sometimes, he would check on students' sleep in the dormitory until 11 or 12 at night.

To be honest, when he was studying at Qiuyuan No. 1 Middle School, most of the time when the homeroom teacher checked the dormitories, it was to find out who was secretly reading novels or playing games at night.

Now he's investigating who's secretly studying.

Fortunately, Bai Yuze's good intentions were not in vain. Soon, the school also began to formulate rules and regulations and gradually arranged for security guards to patrol.

This allowed Teacher Bai to get a good night's sleep.

After finishing his run, Bai Yuzhe sat at his desk in a daze. He had finished today's lesson plan and couldn't help but feel a little bored. He took out the novel that he had confiscated from Class D of the second year of high school a while ago and started reading.

After looking at it for a while, Bai Yuze expressionlessly threw the book into the nearby trash can.

In that instant, he felt unclean.

It felt like the Demoness Yuugiri stretched out her slippery pink tentacles and reached into his ear, leaving a sticky pink liquid on his tender brain.

The incandescent light shone through the gaps in the trash can, revealing the title of the novel: "Outside the Window".

This state continued until Hoshino Seri arrived. Looking at Bai Yuze, who was staring blankly at the table, she asked curiously, "Teacher Bai, what's wrong? You seem to have something on your mind."

"I saw something I shouldn't have seen, and I can't forget it no matter what I do. Hoshino-sensei, do you have any ideas?"

"Um... let me tell you a story from my childhood."

One year, my dad took me to a scenic area. There was a beautiful mountain stream at the foot of the mountain, so I went over to play. There I saw an old man fishing alone. I looked around and saw that the stream was very shallow and there were many fish everywhere.

He pulled up the fishing hook and saw that it was straight.

So, out of curiosity, I walked over and asked, "Grandpa, why is your fishhook straight?"

The old man said, "Just know that it has curves; that's knowing its curves and keeping its straightness."

Hoshino Seri stopped there and quietly looked at Bai Yuze.

"Know the black, but keep to the white, and be a model for the world." Bai Yuze pondered for a moment, then smiled and nodded. "Thank you for your explanation, Professor Hoshino. I understand now."

Hoshino Seri nodded with a slight puzzlement, then turned around and began working on her files and notes.

A few minutes later, Hoshino Seri turned around, blinked innocently, and asked with a hint of confusion and doubt, "Shouldn't the Tao Te Ching say, 'Know the white, keep to the black, and be a model for the world'?"

"No, you must be mistaken, Mr. Hoshino."

Bai Yuze smiled, lowered his head, and took out his lesson plan to prepare for class.

"Teacher Bai, you're so mean."

A few minutes later, Hoshino Seri held a thick copy of the Tao Te Ching in her hand, staring at him with a resentful and fierce look in her eyes.

"..."

"..."

"Ahem, maybe I remembered it wrong," Bai Yuze replied perfunctorily.

"Ms. Bai, who always likes to play pranks on people, is really awful!"

"But who can blame me when Hoshino-sensei looks so cute when she's being teased?"

Bai Yuze ended the match.

But he felt that this cute young teacher, Hoshino, wouldn't talk to him today, or even in the next few days.

Just as he was feeling sad about not being able to chat with his female colleagues these past few days, his phone vibrated in his pocket.

It was a WeChat message from Peng Liang, inviting him to dinner that evening.

Their conversation revealed the anger, sadness, and grief Bai Yuze felt after refusing to have dinner with him last time...