Chapter 474: Qiaomu Private High School |
>[Player Bai Liu has logged into the dungeon “Qiaomu Private High School”.]
>[Qiaomu Private High School is a renowned private high school with a high promotion rate. The school is fully equipped with advanced facilities, housing over ten thousand teachers and students across junior and senior high levels. It has launched multiple collaborations with the local education department and is an excellent high school with an advanced teaching force.]
>[But recently, accidents have been occurring frequently at Qiaomu Private High School. First, a senior girl accidentally drowned in an artificial lake less than a meter deep behind the mountain. After that, senior students committed suicide at home one after another in bizarre ways. Rumors of hauntings spread among the students, causing widespread panic. The school was forced to have a one-week holiday to let the students adjust their mindsets before returning to prepare for the Gaokao (National College Entrance Examination).]
>[You are a senior student at Qiaomu Private High School. After a week of holiday, you have returned to the school where seventeen students have already committed suicide to continue preparing for the Gaokao.]
>[Based on player Bai Liu’s high school grade analysis, player Bai Liu is defined as a poor student in this dungeon and is assigned to an ordinary class.]
>[Class Assignment: Senior Three Class Seventeen]
>[Main Mission: Achieve the rank of first in the entire school during this year’s Gaokao.]
>[Current Time: Fifty days until the Gaokao.]
Bai Liu slowly opened his eyes. The originally static scenery around him instantly began to flow, and noisy sounds flooded into his ears.
The sounds of basketballs hitting the ground and whistles blowing came from the playground. Outside the window was continuous tree shade. On the opposite teaching building hung a large, vertical red banner: [Fifty days until the Gaokao, today will hold the Gaokao Pre-Mobilization Oath Rally].
>[Holding Time: 14:00]
Bai Liu withdrew his gaze. Just as he turned his head, he saw that hurried female English class representative slap a test paper onto Bai Liu’s desk.
She raised her willow-leaf brows, placed one hand on her hip, and questioned him sternly: “Student Bai Liu, didn’t I tell everyone to come find their English papers? Your paper has been on the podium for ages. If you don’t have your paper, why didn’t you come looking for it?”
This English class representative was a quite beautiful girl with shoulder-length hair and a small braid tied behind her right ear. She wore a butterfly hairband and was very tall, looking to be about 1.7-something or nearly 1.8 meters. This height forced her knee-length school uniform skirt into the style of a miniskirt. In this ordinary class where everyone looked very average, this girl was so bright that one could pick her out at a single glance.
Bai Liu slowly looked up. He watched the girl for a moment as memories of his own high school years slowly surfaced in his mind.
Hou Tong, his high school classmate, the English class representative for the class, a member of Fang Dian’s volleyball team. Her grades weren’t very good, so she was assigned to the ordinary class, but it was said her family background was quite substantial—her parents had spent a lot of money to send her to Qiaomu Private High School. She was a genuine rich young lady.
Bai Liu’s impressions of his high school classmates were generally blurred. The reason he could remember this Hou Tong so clearly was because…
Under Bai Liu’s gaze, Hou Tong gripped his test paper tightly. She bit her lower lip, her face slowly turning red, but she still forced herself to maintain her front: “Last time, only your English paper was left on the podium, and Teacher Xu punished you by making you clean the toilets for a month. You’re doing it again this time—do you want to sweep the toilets for two months?!”
That’s right, this young lady liked him.
Or to be more precise, she liked his face.
Bai Liu followed the flow and took the English paper from Hou Tong’s hand, looking down and saying softly: “Thank you.”
“There’s no need to thank me, I’m just doing what a class representative should do.” Hou Tong answered coolly. She brushed her hair and turned to leave. “Don’t let me see this happen again. Delivering papers to you is a huge hassle.”
Bai Liu looked at the paper in his hand.
The second mock English exam. Total score 150; Bai Liu scored 83. It couldn’t be called a total disaster, but it could only be said… to have no redeeming qualities.
The entire paper had no strong points, but no weak points either; the mistakes were distributed quite evenly.
Bai Liu’s gaze moved to the name within the seal line of the exam paper. Written there in slightly immature and not-so-neat handwriting was: [Bai Liu].
—This was indeed his handwriting from when he was seventeen or eighteen.
Qiaomu Private High School indeed had collaborations with the education department and welfare homes back then. The education department would mandatorily require large private high schools like Qiaomu to periodically allocate a certain number of enrollment spots for age-appropriate students from welfare homes every year.
Qiaomu High School did provide them, but they were all spots in very poor “ordinary classes.” Compared to other spots in welfare homes that allowed direct entry into public high schools, these were really not considered good spots.
However, one had to test into public high schools. When Bai Liu was 14, he had just transferred to a public welfare home and had to take the exams a year later. Naturally, he didn’t pass and could only take the allocated spot for a private high school.
Reasonably speaking, an elite or even near-aristocratic private high school spot like Qiaomu shouldn’t be considered bad, but the fact was that for children from welfare homes, the Qiaomu High School spot was the worst.
Because most of the teachers and students here were extremely severe in their bullying toward the children who came from welfare homes via allocated spots.
Among the welfare home children who came to Qiaomu Private High School in the two years before Bai Liu, one skipped school and still hasn’t been found, and one dropped out due to mental instability. He was the third child from the welfare home to attend using an allocated spot.
Lu Yizhan was the fourth.
At that time, Lu Yizhan had actually tested into a public high school; he was ranked first in scores. But after learning that Bai Liu had been assigned to Qiaomu, he gave up his public high school spot without hesitation to go with Bai Liu.
The welfare home only had one allocated spot for Qiaomu, so Lu Yizhan couldn’t enter using an allocated spot; he tested in on his own.
Lu Yizhan was the second-highest scorer among the Qiaomu High School selective students of that year. The first was Fang Dian. Both of them were invited in by the Qiaomu High School management with full scholarships. Upon entering, they were placed in the best class—Class One, also known as the Special Elite Class.
After entering Qiaomu High School for a period of time, Bai Liu completely understood why the welfare home children from the previous two years ended up that way.
There were three types of students in Qiaomu High School. The first type was those who were either rich or noble, but whose grades were not excellent, so they came here.
These people usually had very unruly personalities and were extremely disdainful of students coming from places like welfare homes. They loved to mock them for being orphans.
Sometimes these people would even initiate physical bullying, such as throwing your textbooks out before class or blocking your toilet stall door so you couldn’t get out.
But generally, the degree wasn’t severe and was somewhat idiotic; they were easy to deal with, and one could just ignore them.
The second type was those with excellent grades but whose family backgrounds weren’t very good, who came here for Qiaomu’s huge scholarships. Typical examples were Fang Dian and Lu Yizhan.
These students generally didn’t like to look for trouble, but they weren’t very kind to the welfare home students either. Because they liked students with good grades, they looked down on poor students like Bai Liu who entered through social welfare. No matter how much those welfare home children were bullied, they would just walk past quickly as if they hadn’t seen anything.
The third type was those whose grades weren’t particularly outstanding and whose family backgrounds weren’t very wealthy either. They hadn’t tested into good public or private high schools and their families had gritted their teeth to shell out money to get them in.
These students were usually only children. Two months to half a year after enrollment, they would rapidly become lackeys for the wealthy and powerful students, acting as their subordinates and using their influence to severely bully the weaker students around them.
This was the most troublesome type, because they hated welfare home students like Bai Liu the most—students who didn’t have to spend money and didn’t need good grades to easily enter Qiaomu High School.
A typical example would be…
Bai Liu’s gaze moved toward the area near the podium. In the second row counting down from the podium, there was a male student who was turning his head and staring at him deathly.
This student had a mouth full of buckteeth with metal wire braces, a watermelon-cut hairstyle with thick bangs, and a short stature. Even while sitting, one could see he was a bit bow-legged. This person’s forehead and chin were covered with puss-filled, inflamed acne. The way he stared while puffing out his cheeks made him look very much like a toad waiting to bite someone.
This person was named Bao Kangle, and he was the “third type” of student who had targeted him for all three years of high school.
Ordinary “third type” students could be handled by Bai Liu without showing any emotion, and he wouldn’t let them persist for as long as three years.
This Bao Kangle had a very special point. Although Bai Liu categorized him as the “third type,” he was different from the others. Like other “third type” students, Bao Kangle came from an ordinary family and chose Qiaomu High School because he couldn’t pass into a good school.
However, the difference was that Bao Kangle didn’t enter Qiaomu Private High School by paying money.
The classroom door was pushed open. A woman wearing red nail polish and holding a lesson plan walked onto the podium, stepping in seven-centimeter stiletto heels with her hips swaying, head held high.
This woman wasn’t very tall, looking to be only 1.5-something meters. She wore black stockings and a pencil skirt, with straight bangs and a watermelon-cut hair style. Her teeth were slightly bucked. She turned around and raised her chin, first scanning the students below. When her gaze swept over where Bai Liu was sitting, she couldn’t help but frown, revealing a look of disgust. She tapped the lesson plan on the podium and spoke: “Class is in session!”
Hou Tong shouted clearly: “Stand up!”
“Good afternoon, Teacher Xu.”
Bai Liu stood up naturally. He followed the others obediently in bowing, then raised his head to look at the female teacher on the podium who looked almost exactly like Bao Kangle.
Xu Wei, his English teacher, the class adviser of Class Seventeen, and a member of the Qiaomu High School teaching staff. Bao Kangle was her son, and he had entered Qiaomu High School through the special path for children of staff members.
By logic, Bao Kangle was just like Bai Liu, enjoying the fruits of others’ labor and entering the school without paying anything. Yet, Bao Kangle loathed him intensely.
But, how should one put it—there was a reason Bao Kangle hated him.
While Bai Liu was bowing, Hou Tong quickly glanced back at him and then curled the corners of her mouth. When Xu Wei and Bao Kangle saw this scene, both of their faces darkened simultaneously.
Bao Kangle liked Hou Tong, or rather, Xu Wei had instructed Bao Kangle to like Hou Tong.
Xu Wei had gotten Bao Kangle into Qiaomu High School and into her own class just so this unlearned “toad” could have the advantage of being close by. With her help as a “wingman” in her role as class adviser, she hoped he could pursue Hou Tong, a true “white swan,” during their student days. Ideally, they could “cook the raw rice into a meal” (get her pregnant/compromise her) so that this toad Bao Kangle could soar to the branches and become a “phoenix man” (a man from a humble background who marries a wealthy woman).
*(T/N: Hey what the fuck…)*
But Bai Liu, this poor student from the welfare home with zero merits, just had to captivate Hou Tong with his face, blocking the path for this mother and son!
Hou Tong raised her head. The quick peek she just took at Bai Liu had put her in a very happy mood. Her voice was bright: “Good afternoon, teacher!”
“Good afternoon, everyone.” Xu Wei nodded. “Sit down.”
As everyone prepared to sit, Xu Wei’s face was indifferent as she flipped through the grade rankings: “Wait, Bai Liu, stay standing.”
“You only scored 83 on this English exam, and you got half of the cloze test wrong. I don’t know how you’ve been listening in class.”
“I know you don’t have a good background and your parents are gone, so you should work even harder. This cloze test was already very simple, yet you still missed so many.”
Xu Wei looked at Bai Liu, who had his head lowered, and a flash of gratification crossed her eyes: “Bai Liu, you are different from the other children in this class. They have parents and a way out. You are only able to sit here because of the help from the state and society. I hope you can clearly identify yourself and see where the road you are walking is.”
“You can just stand and listen for this class.”
The class erupted into a roar of laughter, and someone heckled in a sarcastic tone: “You have to be worthy of the poverty-alleviation help, Bai Liu~”
Hou Tong looked up with a look of astonishment.
Although Bai Liu only scored 83, he was by no means the last in the class. Why was he the only one singled out to stand for the whole lesson?!
—
*(T/N: Great, yet another game instance that’s going to be bad for my blood pressure. I don’t even have high blood pressure but this novel gives me high blood pressure. This one is going to be especially bad because I myself am a teacher and legit I cannot fathom ever treating a student, an actual child, like this. UGH.)*
