Cheng Shuang had seen this kind of retro-style book at her great-grandfather's house. Calling it a book is not quite right; it was an insert-style photo album, with each page having a sense of the passage of time.

Books hold beauty and wealth, while photo albums preserve the most precious and indispensable memories of the past.

The little girl carefully pulled out the photo album. She held her breath and didn't start flipping through it immediately. Instead, she examined the outer cover and, seeing that there were no numbers or book classification marks, she opened it to take a look.

At this moment, Liao Yuewei also picked up a book, but when she saw that Cheng was holding a photo album, her eyes lit up immediately, and she stuffed the book she had been doubting back into her hands.

The two huddled together, one quickly flipping through the photos while the other diligently jotted down the time and basic characteristics of the people in the pictures, such as age and gender.

"Wait!" After turning three pages, Liao Yuewei put down her pen and said suspiciously, "These are all from one person."

Cheng Shuang nodded, "It should be described as a child's growth record." She and her sister each have one, and they collect a photo every year on their birthdays to record their growth process.

On the first page of the album, a short-armed, three-headed, bald baby sits casually on a fluffy carpet, unlike ordinary babies who grin without teeth. He has a slight frown on his small brows, looking mature beyond his years, and even though his chubby little body is pink, he still exudes a domineering aura.

The second picture says "Baby's 100th Day," the third is a photo of him at six months old, and the fourth is a photo of him having his first birthday celebration ("抓周"). The chubby little boy has a fair complexion, but doesn't show a hint of a smile. He holds a book in one hand and a calligraphy brush in the other, looking like he's about to command the world.

Every year, there's a separate photo of this child, and with each passing year, the boy's brow furrows a little more. Until the boy appears in front of a white church, his appearance and clothing perfectly matching the boy in the 'family of three' photo.

From the age of seven, the photos of the stubborn little boy were taken in the background of a girls' private school, wearing a black Zhongshan-style school uniform, which he never took off until he was eighteen.

"It's not the class monitor. The two look completely different." Liao Yuewei looked at them again. Not only were they different, but this child clearly had the appearance of a boy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, his eyebrows were firm, calm and reserved. He was not as refined and handsome as the principal, and he lacked the spiritedness that a young man should have. He looked mature and gloomy.

"This young man has always studied at an all-girls school?" Cheng Shuang asked curiously. Otherwise, why would he take a photo with the school sign at the school gate every year?

"What if it's the principal's request? That's why this young man has been looking unhappy." Liao Yuewei stroked her chin and analyzed, "If he were in an all-girls school, I think he would be grinning from ear to ear right now."

"What if...the opposite!" It was precisely because he had no playmates of the same sex and age that the boy's thoughts became increasingly gloomy.

Cheng Shuang inexplicably recalled the ABC song, closed the photo album, stood up, and said with a serious expression, "I still feel something is not right."

Liao Yuewei assumed she was upset because she had misjudged the target, and was about to offer some words of comfort when her gaze shifted to the brightly lit torches outside the window. The winding path led directly towards the teaching building. However, a single photo album wasn't enough to prove it was the principal's secret, and even if it were, it wouldn't change their current situation in any positive way.

She tried, but the photo album wasn't the key to leaving the cycle of reincarnation.

"The most urgent task is to find..."

"I remember now!" Cheng Shuang's eyes shone brightly as she grabbed Liao Yuewei's arm, tilting her head back with excitement. "The fifth floor doesn't have classrooms except for the principal's office and teachers' offices. There are ten doors in total for the teachers' offices. The class monitor and I went to one of them once. It was about the same size as the dean's office, except that there were two teachers sitting in each one. The fifth floor is a bit narrower than the other floors, so the doors aren't facing each other. From the outside, the middle part is semi-circular and made entirely of glass."

She carefully recalled the distance between the doors on the fifth-floor corridor and quickly said, "There's a hidden space. The principal's office has a hidden space. And since the principal's office is sandwiched between the teachers' offices, how could the wall opposite the bookshelves be glass? Unless the furniture itself isn't arranged in a square format, like a guest area that occupies a corner to create a visual illusion. Actually, the semi-circular floor-to-ceiling window only shows us part of it; the other part..."

Cheng Shuang abruptly stopped talking and turned to look out the window.

The principal's office was well soundproofed, and the noise from the corridor could not be heard. However, with the window wide open, the commotion downstairs could be faintly heard getting closer and closer, and the scattered torches had all gathered downstairs.

Almost instantly, the noise stopped abruptly, leaving only a few sparks illuminating the area below.

They went inside!

If the dean of students was caught in the teaching building, then they must already be familiar with the layout of the building. If nothing unexpected happens, they will go straight to the fifth floor. After all, what valuable things could there be in the classrooms? They are just some helpless orphans, what wealth could they possibly have?

The two looked tense and simultaneously glanced at the filing cabinet behind the desk. They ran over hand in hand and, sure enough, found the willow leaf pattern running from top to bottom along the edge of the antique mahogany filing cabinet.

"The hidden space is inside the wall behind the filing cabinet!" Liao Yuewei added to what Cheng Shuang hadn't finished saying, her hands constantly groping the cabinet surface, looking for a switch.

"I'll go check the desk." Cheng Shuang took a deep breath, turned around, and went to the desk.

The principal seemed to dislike elaborate decorations; the items on his desk were neat and simple: a book, a pen, a teacup, and a lamp—not even a photo frame. Remembering that her father always kept a family photo in his office, she pulled open a drawer…

The mahogany desk has two drawers and a cabinet. One drawer contains a letter opener, ink, a fountain pen, a matchbox and other miscellaneous items. The other drawer is easy to pull out, and under a few opened letters is an upside-down photo frame.

"Look here, isn't the indentation more noticeable than elsewhere?" Liao Yuewei's voice rang out.

Cheng Shuang picked up the photo frame and walked over, looking at it as she went.

The photo frame shows a stunningly beautiful woman with fiery red lips, her eyes slightly narrowed, her expression dreamy, and her smile as she turns back is radiant and affectionate.

Unfortunately, the background of the photo is blurred, so it's impossible to tell where it was taken.

Liao Yuewei was pointing to the center of the filing cabinet. Perhaps because the location was too obvious, she didn't suspect it at first. But now that her finger was on that spot, she felt something was off. The carved rectangular pattern was slightly deeper than the other patterns.

The filing cabinet was carved with a large phoenix tail pattern that radiated outwards from a central rectangle, with smaller square patterns adorning the four corners. That's why the center didn't immediately seem empty. But as soon as Liao Yuewei saw the photo frame the little girl was carrying, she immediately felt that the rectangle was too jarring and should be inlaid with something, like...

She took the picture frame, pressed it in, and with almost no effort, the frame was embedded in the filing cabinet, with only the sound of the tracks rubbing together.