Chapter 1

I thought my online boyfriend and my college professor were the two biggest disasters in my life.

One argued with me online almost every day.

The other loved making me suffer in class.

Until the day I was kicked out of the lab.

That night, someone followed me through a dark street,I dialed my online boyfriend’s number.

The very next second.

My professor’s phone rang.

Only then did I realize—

That's when I realized I'd been dating my professor for the past six months.

Three minutes ago, I had just broken up with my online boyfriend.

Now, Julian Sterling walked down from the lecture stage, his face incredibly dark. He ordered all of us to stand up and clear our desks.

He seemed to be looking for something.

Then, he confiscated my Nintendo Switch and took my seatmate, Chloe, out of the room with him.

We all held our breath as we watched Chloe being led away.

Once they left, the classroom collectively exhaled.

Whispers immediately broke out among the students.

"What happened to Chloe?"

"She’s probably going to get ripped to shreds by Professor Sterling."

"Someone better prep some tissues for her. She’s going to cry a river."

Everyone had good reason to think so.

The Sterling family was filthy rich. Julian could have easily gone home to inherit a billion-dollar empire, yet he chose to pursue academia.

He used to advise Ph.D. students at a top-tier research institute abroad.

Rumor had it that because the academic atmosphere at our department had been declining lately, the Dean had personally begged him to come back and teach undergrads.

Handsome, brilliant, and with a killer physique—that was our first impression of him.

For a while, Julian was the ultimate fantasy for every girl on campus. Students had to show up early just to fight for a seat in his lectures.

But on his second day of teaching, he gave us a brutal reality check.

Show up late? Automatic absence.

No phones allowed in class.

And the worst part: his final grading system was downright sadistic.

To put it in perspective, we used to be able to pull an easy B+ in this class with our eyes closed. Now, he graded on a strict curve where only the top 10% could get an A, while the bottom 30% automatically received an F.

When it came to grading research papers, he was ruthless.

He was like a cold, emotionless academic executioner.

Anyone summoned to his office might walk in with a smile, but they would definitely leave in tears.

If there was even a tiny logical loophole in your paper, his only response was a cold: "Rewrite it."

He was the ultimate GPA assassin of the entire department.

Under such immense academic pressure, I ended up getting an online boyfriend.

Our relationship started with a random matchmaking queue in a game.

One night, after being tortured by Julian’s paper draft until 2 AM, I completely snapped. I opened Steam and joined a random survival game.

The system matched me with a teammate who didn’t say a single word but played with terrifying precision.

Meanwhile, I was running around like a headless chicken.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and turned on his mic.

"Your positioning is completely chaotic. Honestly, it's worse than an undergraduate’s final thesis."

That sentence instantly triggered my PTSD.

I aggressively typed back:

*Who asked you? I like playing this way.*

He replied coldly:

*Suit yourself.*

When the game ended, my stats were indeed a total disaster.

But to grind my rank, I had to swallow my pride and send him a friend request.

Fortunately, he didn't hold a grudge.

After playing together a few times, I realized this guy was a genuine gaming god.

It was that rare feeling of finding a soulmate without ever having met in person.

We didn’t need to know each other’s names or what we looked like.

We were chasing a connection of the minds.

Naturally, we transitioned into an online relationship.

Even though we never met, we had a tacit agreement that we were exclusive.

He was actually really sweet, though his most adorable trait was his occasional pettiness.

For example, if I replied to his messages too slowly, or forgot to text him goodnight, he’d get sulky.

Sometimes, if I snapped back at him, he would get genuinely angry.

And strangely, every single time he got angry, Julian would call on me in class the next day. It was the weirdest thing.

Once or twice was fine, but who could survive this happening every single time?

So, I broke up with him.

If I didn't, I was literally going to fail my finals.

Oh my god, who would dare to keep dating under these conditions?

There had to be some kind of curse on us. We were clearly not meant to be.

And now, poor Chloe was summoned to Julian’s office just because of the Switch he had bought for me.

He was the one who gave me that console and insisted I carry it with me.

Yesterday, I had lent it to Chloe.

Dating him was truly a hazard to myself and everyone around me.