After the notebook was distributed, the sound of the system disappeared. I turned my head and told Wang Meng’er that I was going to the academic affairs office on the first floor. She thought we could try this, but how would we fool the teachers and classmates who had just gone downstairs?
“I’ve got an idea,” I rolled up my sleeves, then switched on the loudspeaker in the broadcasting room. I started swearing like crazy over the loudspeaker, which broadcasts all over the school.
“Headmaster, f*ck your mother!”
Wang Meng’er’s adorable little face twisted in horror as she instantly grasped my intentions, and her mood settled. I heard footsteps rushing up the stairs from below, accompanied by curses. I scooped up Wang Meng’er, opened the broadcasting room window, and leapt down with ease, landing back on the first floor. We repeated the process, slipping through the open window back into the chemistry classroom. While all the teachers and students were searching for us on the second and third floors, we made our way to the Academic Affairs Office.
Returning here, everything felt different. The tables and chairs lay in utter disarray, chairs strewn haphazardly across the corridor. The curtains were drawn tight, plunging the room into utter darkness. The only thing standing upright was the computer in the Head of School Administration’s office.
I cautiously stepped inside the room, and the moment I entered, the door behind me closed softly and unnaturally.
A chilling gale swept through the room, causing all the chairs piled in the hallway to tremble restlessly. Darkness then descended, as a row of pale figures drifted slowly from both sides.
I cried out in alarm, hoisted Wang Meng’er onto my shoulders and dashed towards the computer. I flung both the notebook I’d found in the broadcast room, and the one the system had just rewarded me with, straight into her arms.
“You crack the computer password. I’ll deal with these ghosts.” I enveloped the office in a psychic barrier before grappling with the malevolent spirits emerging from the darkness. My innate abilities render me impervious to psychic assaults, yet these spectres managed to inflict injury upon me. This alone proved that every ghost manifesting within this room was actually real.
Wang Meng’er was utterly terrified, yet she dared not waste a moment. While I wrestled with the spectres over here, Wang Meng’er rummaged through the broadcasting room’s notes. She carefully and meticulously recited the password. Once she’d powered up the computer, the surroundings underwent a sudden transformation. The office, once teeming with spectres, became a pool of blood. My ankles and Wang Meng’er’s were submerged in the crimson liquid. The ghosts vanished without a trace, replaced by countless hands reaching up from the blood-filled pool.
The bloodied hands couldn’t strike me, but they dragged my entire body beneath the floorboards. It seems the Headmaster’s abilities are a blend of truth and illusion. This fusion of the illusory and the real means that even though I’m immune to psychic assaults, I must remain vigilant against the genuine threats concealed within.
Right, truth be told, from the outer world we were in earlier all the way to the inner world of the blood pool, no matter how the office transformed, there was one thing that remained steadfastly in place — that computer! My gut tells me all this illusion and reality are somehow connected to it. If the Headmaster can establish rules out of thin air, then surely there must be rules governing the computer too.
I urged Wang Meng’er to crack the code swiftly. The girl was dragged along, laboriously pounding at the keyboard fashioned from soft flesh and blood. Immediately afterwards, she was yanked into the pool of blood.
I spun round and pulled her to her feet, but the fiends in the blood pool clearly intended to keep us both trapped. I couldn’t fathom why the Academic Affairs Office had become like this. Then I saw the notebook awarded by the system emit a golden glow. A thread connected it to the computer, as if yesterday was repeating itself. An invisible hand hammered the keyboard while Wang Meng’er struggled, endlessly repeating the password.
“960908!” She instructed me to type. Unexpectedly, the password seemed to possess a life of its own. Under Wang Meng’er’s urging, the notebook’s power enabled the computer to successfully input the password.
The moment the computer was fully powered up, the room reverted to its original state. Wang Meng’er and I sat on the floor, gasping for breath. She was clearly terrified, yet she forced herself to stand as I pulled her up to inspect the computer’s condition.
“The password was successful.” She noticed a document open on the computer desktop and walked over to examine it. It turned out to be a collection of news articles pieced together, featuring parents from various regions sending their gratitude and blessings to Headmaster Wu Mingda, whose guidance had set their children on the right path.
The second news item concerned a teenager murdering his parents. The protagonist of both reports was the same individual, meaning that the child in question killed his parents shortly after leaving school.
The computer also contained the Headmaster’s instructions to the head of administration. In his email, the headmaster remarked that today’s pupils burn out too quickly, and the school requires fresh blood. Consequently, the Head of Administration was tasked with arranging for a transfer student. Following this came my personal details. Thus, my role here was merely cannon fodder to fill a student vacancy. Ha! Little did he expect I’d not only come to cause trouble but also to eliminate so many of his staff.
As for the Head of Administration, he too has his own set of rules. I’ve grown too weary to bother with them, since I’ve already incorporated the Head of Administration into my being. His rules have been consigned directly to that black notebook gifted by the system. I’ve yet to understand how to utilise this item, though its power proved rather effective for typing in the password just now.
“Look at this file — it’s the students’ leave-of-absence documentation,” Wang Meng’er declared, having unearthed another gem from the computer folder. Upon opening it, she discovered over a hundred leave-of-absence files — all photocopies of leave certificates for students from this very school.
To Wang Meng’er’s dismay, she discovered her own name among these leave certificates.
“This… this can’t be possible. I never applied for a leave certificate. It’s impossible.” Wang Meng’er stared at the leave certificate displayed on the computer screen, utterly bewildered. The handwritten signature was unmistakably hers, and it even bore her four-inch photograph. Yet she had absolutely no recollection of ever applying for such a document.
Not only Wang Meng’er herself, but virtually all her classmates had written leave documents.
“That’s impossible.”
Seeing Wang Meng’er visibly agitated, I patted her back to calm her down. My mind raced, arriving at two conclusions.
“From the sudden emergence of the inner world just now, we can deduce that only this computer in the room is genuine. If the files within are authentic, then it is possible that the school has fabricated them…”
At my words, Wang Meng’er’s reddened eyes once again lit up with hope. I abruptly changed gears and added, “But—”
“It’s also possible that everything is genuine — that all the files on the computer are authentic. You and your classmates may have written those leave certificates without realising it, or perhaps you and your classmates did indeed leave this school at some point. Yet for some unknown reasons, you returned from outside and had all your memories erased.”
Wang Meng’er was instantly overcome with despair: “But since I arrived at this school, I’ve never applied for a leave permit.”
“Is it possible that using a leave certificate to leave the school doesn’t actually take you away from it, but instead brings you back? That the very moment you leave is the moment you return. Perhaps it’s a cycle, who knows?”
Wang Meng’er grew even more desperate, her eyes vacant as she looked at me: “What are we going to do then? Is the rule about needing a leave certificate to leave the school a lie?”
I grew serious: “This is merely speculation on my part. To determine whether it ‘s true or not, we’d need to conduct some experiments. Have you seen if my name appears in those leave documents?”
Wang Meng’er shook her head. “No, you’re a transfer student. How could there possibly be one for you?”
I smiled confidently: “This proves I am but a droplet that has fallen upon your lake, creating ripples in its wake. Trust me.”
Beneath the surface of violence and madness lay a somewhat tender heart of stone. My words gave Wang Meng’er a profound sense of security, and she quickly rallied to place her trust in me. “I could try approaching Wang Lan and the others. Both Wang Lan and Zi Chen are exemplary students in their studies and behaviour, never having broken any rules. Their names are listed in these files. If they submit another request to leave school, the discrepancy should be obvious.”
“I never would have guessed you ‘d be so bold.”
【Crack the password on the Academic Affairs Office computer to uncover the truth behind the leave certificate. World Exploration Level: 25%】
Solving a single code actually increased it by 5%. So if I deciphered all the otherworldly scripts in my code book, would that boost my exploration progress even further?
“I’ll be able to return to the dorm during lunchtime. Since the female dormitory supervisor no longer conducts curfew checks due to my actions that day, it’s permissible to return during any given period if one wishes to break the rules.” Wang Meng’er intends to go back and discuss this matter with her roommates. I’m rather uneasy about it — what if she gets caught by some unsavoury character?
“Oh, and look at that crowd of controlled puppet students outside. The teacher can manipulate so many students. What if you return to the dormitory and discover all your acquaintances have been turned into puppets?”
Wang Meng’er shook her head. “I can guarantee that Wang Lan and Zi Chen wouldn’t. Those students were actually successfully brainwashed by the teachers. They originally had their own minds, just like us. But over time, they grew to feel despair about the outside world and their very existence, which is why they’ve become like this.”
“You haven’t been brainwashed by the teacher, so how would you know?”
Wang Meng’er lowered her head and smiled bitterly. “I actually have a younger sister. She’s one of the puppets.”
She has a younger sister?
“My younger sister is a first year student; she’s my cousin. No matter how I try to reason with her, it’s no use. I desperately want to save her, but she’s already in a state of utter despair.”
At this moment, an impractical question came to mind, and seizing the opportunity, I actually voiced it: “Who brought you in?”
Wang Meng’er’s expression suddenly changed, yet she maintained her composure as she replied to me, “It’s my third aunt, who is also my cousin’s mother.”
At that moment, the bell rang to signal the end of the lesson. The wall clock displayed that it was already half past eleven in the morning – time for the pupils to head to the cafeteria for lunch. I didn’t press further with my questions, since time was limited. We needed to make a swift exit from the teaching building during the lunch break.
At this hour, students must comply with the rules, and so must the monsters. Most have headed to the cafeteria, leaving only a handful on patrol. A small number of teachers and students upstairs have already made their way down to the ground floor. I took Wang Meng’er with me, broke open the window of the Academic Affairs Office, and leapt out. I killed several puppets patrolling behind the building. Instantly, I felt utterly exhausted — my SAN[mfn]Sanity Value[/mfn] had been drained, and my blue bar was nearly depleted. Wang Meng’er urged me to run.
“They’ve found us. You need to choose a safe place to rest and hide. It can’t be the teaching building anymore. The monster teachers who emerged from that building are now searching the entire school for you.”
“But I can’t go to the cafeteria either — those monsters are eating there right now. If I were to fight them, my SAN[mfn]Sanity Value[/mfn] would be critically depleted. I’m utterly exhausted now and have to rest.”
Noticing my worries, Wang Meng’er recommended a place to me.
“The cafeteria and the school library are side by side, with the library falling within the cafeteria’s jurisdiction. Once you’re there, the monsters in the teaching block won’t come looking for you. Once I’ve sorted out the matter with the leave certificate tonight, we’ll meet at the library around 9 o’clock tomorrow morning. Until then, you can hide out temporarily. The library has plenty of storage rooms; as long as you keep quiet inside one, you’ll be perfectly safe.”
I chose to trust her. After leaving Wang Meng’er concealed in the bushes and watching her return to the dormitory block, I promptly scrambled up a tree to avoid the pursuing students and teachers. Only when this horde of monsters had all gone off for lunch did I dash along the route Wang Meng’er had gestured towards, arriving at the library.
Translator’s Corner: … (ᵕ—ᴗ—) If you see any grammar/spelling errors, please let me know ~
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