Chapter 480: Qiaomu Private High School |
Bai Liu calmly changed the subject: “We’ll talk about the matter of underachievers and top students later. Let’s discuss the important matters first. The main quest requires us to take first place in the Gaokao, but there is a very serious loophole in this task—it doesn’t provide a time limit.”
Mu Shicheng asked curiously, “What time limit?”
“The time to complete the task.” Mu Ke, wearing glasses, appeared among them at some unknown point and analyzed quite seriously, “The main quest didn’t give us a deadline for completion.”
“Damn, when did you get here!” Mu Shicheng jumped in fright.
Mu Ke pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, his tone light: “I came over with Jiayi. We are both top students.”
Mu Shicheng: “…”
Damn it, he felt like he was being insulted. What’s so great about being a top student!
“Isn’t there a fifty-day countdown to the Gaokao?” Mu Shicheng asked, full of doubt. He pulled up the system panel and pointed to the information on it, saying, “The main quest is to be rank one in the whole school for the Gaokao, so the deadline to complete the task should be fifty days.”
Mu Ke said tactfully, “That’s just the Gaokao countdown; it didn’t directly state that it’s the task completion time limit.”
Mu Shicheng gradually fell silent under the profound gazes of the other three. Then, unable to help himself, he cursed and retorted, “No, if it’s not fifty days, how else can this task be completed?”
“It couldn’t possibly be seven days again, right?!”
>[System Notification: Congratulations to player Mu Shicheng for unlocking hidden information of the dungeon’s main quest—[Task Time Limit].]
>[The main quest has been changed to: Players must achieve first place in the school for the Gaokao within seven days.]
Mu Shicheng: “…”
Mu Shicheng let out a “fuck” and slapped his system panel down in a fit of rage: “Seven days! Damn it, the third mock exam hasn’t even happened yet. How am I supposed to get first in the school for the Gaokao!”
“Don’t act like you would definitely get first in the Gaokao fifty days from now,” Liu Jiayi glanced at Mu Shicheng speechlessly before continuing to look at Bai Liu. “Besides this task limit, there’s another very troublesome point for us in completing the main quest.”
“That is the [Gaokao] itself.” Liu Jiayi’s expression darkened. “Although the system assigned me the identity of a top student, I don’t have the relevant high school knowledge. In other words, I myself cannot play a role in the [Gaokao] segment.”
Bai Liu looked at Mu Shicheng: “What about you? If you were to take the Gaokao now, how much could you score? Can you still get over six hundred points?”
“…” Mu Shicheng clicked his tongue, his bravado finally deflating. He turned his head away and scratched the back of his neck, answering in a small voice, “Maybe three or four hundred? I’ve forgotten almost everything.”
Bai Liu looked at Mu Ke.
Mu Ke pursed his lips, looking apologetic: “I’m sorry, I attended high school abroad. I haven’t taken the domestic Gaokao, so I might not score very high.”
Liu Jiayi took a deep breath: “Bai Liu, how much can you score? You said back then your Gaokao score was over a hundred points lower than Mu Shicheng’s. What about now? Your memory is better than Mu Shicheng’s, so you shouldn’t have forgotten high school knowledge that quickly. If you can still get your original score, you should be able to score higher than Mu Shicheng…”
Bai Liu calmly interrupted Liu Jiayi: “It should still be over a hundred points lower.”
Sensing the silent gazes surrounding him, Bai Liu spoke with a calm expression: “There’s no need to be so heavy-hearted for now. Things haven’t reached a dead end yet. Every game has a solution; we still have a chance.”
Mu Shicheng’s eyes lit up: “Bai Liu, do you have a way!”
Bai Liu rested his chin on his hand and analyzed calmly: “Do you think there’s a possibility that Captain Tang was the Gaokao Zhuangyuan (top scorer) of his province?”
Liu Jiayi: “…”
This was truly at the level of a desperate person turning to any doctor they could find.
Their team was finished.
“Gaokao Zhuangyuan?” Tang Erda looked incredulously at the group of teammates who had cornered him and were aggressively questioning him immediately after finding him.
Tang Erda thought for a moment and gave a serious reply: “Probably not. I didn’t take the Gaokao.”
Mu Shicheng, gnashing his teeth in despair, punched Tang Erda’s rock-hard chest: “How could you not have taken the Gaokao!”
“I was always training at the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau. I didn’t need to take the Gaokao; we took the department promotion exams for the Bureau.” Tang Erda helplessly moved Mu Shicheng’s fist away from his chest. “My promotion results were good, but I indeed haven’t studied specialized high school knowledge.”
Mu Shicheng was still unwilling to give up, pressing: “Then maybe you’re just a Gaokao prodigy?”
“What was your score for the second mock exam in this dungeon?” Bai Liu asked pointedly.
Tang Erda coughed awkwardly and straightened his back, assuming a heavy, apologetic posture: “507 points. Is that too low…?”
Bai Liu grabbed both of Tang Erda’s hands and said sincerely, “Captain Tang, in this dungeon, you are the hope of our entire team.”
Tang Erda: “…?”
After Mu Ke organized everyone’s information and told Tang Erda, Tang Erda finally understood what Bai Liu meant. He looked around at everyone, not knowing whether to laugh or cry: “I never expected that I would actually become the person with the highest grades.”
*(T/N: As a fellow human in my mid thirties, if you asked me to take a college entrance exam at my age I would just give up. I would get close to full marks in my own subject but I’d probably tank every other subject. Poor Tang Erda, let this almost middle-aged man have a break.)*
“But before the key task of the [Gaokao], I think the time limit issue is harder to handle.” Tang Erda frowned at the two words [Seven Days] newly added to the main quest on the system panel. “Seven days from now will only be April 25th. Even if we wait until the very last moment of the deadline, there are still 43 days until the Gaokao. How are we supposed to take it?”
“This is completely unsolvable.”
Bai Liu looked up, his dark eyes meeting Tang Erda’s: “There is no such thing as a completely unsolvable game in this world.”
“The clues to completing the task must be hidden within a certain node of the game.”
Tang Erda was stunned.
The Oath-Taking Rally.
The Principal, dressed in a formal suit, walked onto the large viewing stand facing the playground. This Principal was a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties; he held a microphone and scanned the students below with drooping eyelids, his expression filled with an indescribable arrogance and irritability:
“Good afternoon, students of Qiaomu High School.”
“Originally, our rally was supposed to be held thirty days before the Gaokao. But as I believe you all know, some things happened a while ago. A student reported us to the education department, so under pressure from various parties, we were forced to give the entire school a week off.”
“After your return, I thought it over and decided to hold this year’s rally ahead of schedule.”
The Principal swept a mean gaze across every student’s face:
“Students, do you know why I am holding this rally early?”
Below was dead silence. Everyone lowered their heads, displaying a practiced resistance to this question, much like when a teacher suddenly asks a question in class.
“The purpose of me holding this rally early—” the Principal tapped the microphone twice, causing a piercing screech from the speakers. He suddenly raised his voice and cursed, “—is to warn those high school seniors with crooked minds to get their heads back into their studies!”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve.” The expression on the Principal’s face became increasingly sinister. His gaze slithered over the faces of every bowed senior like a snake looking to bite, “I had the teachers of every class emphasize repeatedly—repeatedly—do not associate the school with those seniors who committed suicide at home. Do not go around talking nonsense about how many seniors died at Qiaomu High School.”
“But look at you. Someone went straight to the education department and forced us to take a week off.”
“Had fun, didn’t you?”
The Principal gave a cold laugh: “I just want to tell that student: you wasted a week of study time for every senior in this school. If even one child in this grade fails to get into their ideal university as they wished, you are the criminal.”
“Now I am giving you a chance to turn over a new leaf. You have three minutes to stand up yourself. Don’t force me to pick you out one by one.”
There was a brief commotion below. Students in one class began to stir, and a boy was dragged out of the crowd crying, shouting: “It wasn’t me who reported it! It wasn’t me!”
The person next to him pointed at the boy and shouted loudly, “It was him, Principal!”
“Let this student come to my office alone later,” the Principal ordered coldly.
The boy let out a shrill cry as he was dragged away.
The Principal put his hands behind his back and paced the stage a few times before stopping in the middle. He squinted at the people below: “I know you’re afraid because those seventeen seniors died.”
“But the deaths of those seventeen seniors have nothing to do with Qiaomu High School. They all committed suicide at home. Do not let me hear any more rumors spreading around. Don’t let those seventeen dead students affect the Gaokao of the more than two thousand children who are still alive.”
“They are dead; they can no longer take the Gaokao. But you still have to!”
The Principal shouted sternly: “There are only fifty days left until the Gaokao. I hope you understand what the important things in your life are. Is it those seventeen losers who committed suicide at home because of Gaokao pressure, or is it you warriors who have overcome the pressure and are about to enter the battlefield!”
One could hear a pin drop below. The Principal seemed quite satisfied with the deterrent effect he had created; he nodded:
“Good. Next, we invite student Lu Yizhan—who had a total score of 687 in the second mock exam, ranking second in the grade and second in the city—to come on stage to speak, give the rally speech, and lead everyone in the oath.”
“Let’s welcome him with applause.”
After the Principal finished, he led the applause. A young man with a straight posture, wearing a school uniform, walked up the stairs from the right side of the stand. He walked steadily onto the stage and took the microphone from the Principal’s hand. He didn’t greet the Principal at all but turned directly to the students below and nodded politely.
This posture made it seem as though the Principal wasn’t the Principal, but just a staff member delivering a microphone to him.
The Principal’s face darkened slightly, but he still walked down.
The young man raised his head. His features were upright and gentle, and his school uniform was clean and tidy with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He methodically unfolded the speech in his hand:
“Regarding the Principal’s earlier comments on the report and the unfortunate passing of the seventeen high school students, I have two things to say.”
Lu Yizhan looked up. There was even a hint of a quiet, elegant smile on his face, but that smile did not reach his eyes:
“First, the person who reported it was me.”
“Second, the seventeen dead students were not losers; they were victims.”
*(T/N: Lol Yizhan standing on business as usual.)*
