Chapter 176: Darkened Elementary Students, Assemble! |
The blond-haired, blue-eyed boy stood at the entrance of the confinement room, his head bowed as he focused entirely on the handheld console in his grasp.
A jazz-style battle theme echoed through the confinement room, originating from the palm-sized PSP in his hands.
"Ignoring me, huh? Then I will ignore you too."
Ji Minghuan murmured. Propping his elbows on the table and resting his chin in his right hand, he let out a yawn.
Just from the background music, he could tell that Mario was playing the fourth installment of the Persona series.
After a long while, Mario finally looked up from the PSP screen.
He cast a glance at Ji Minghuan, scrutinizing him the way a player might inspect an NPC at a village entrance in an online game. Then, he walked over and unceremoniously pulled up a chair to sit down.
"Is this my home or yours?" Ji Minghuan frowned. "Where are your manners? At least let me play the game for a bit. You really have no class."
"...So you are Sun Changkong?" Mario asked suddenly.
"No, my real name is actually Kong Youling."
Ji Minghuan shook his head, solemnly educating him. "Besides, Journey to the West was written ages ago. It passed the copyright protection period a long time ago. Even if you are an internet-addicted teen, you should have at least a little common sense, right?"
"Oh," Mario said. "Kong Youling. Your name sounds like a girl's."
"Listen to you. Are you saying 'Sun Changkong' does not sound like a girl's name either?"
"It sounds like a monkey."
"Well said! I will pass that exact review on to her later."
Ji Minghuan clapped his hands with a smirk, then tilted his head to peek at the console screen. Sure enough, the game Mario was playing was Persona 4 Golden.
He thought for a moment, then asked, "Why is your name Mario, yet you are playing a Sony PSP? How can you face Nintendo after all they have done to raise you?"
At this, Ji Minghuan suddenly slapped the table hard like a lawyer in court, before stating with utter seriousness:
"Stop pretending, kid. Hurry up and take out your Switch! We can play Mario Party together. I could reluctantly accept Kirby, or at the very least, we could play a third-party game like It Takes Two."
"I just love playing the PSP," Mario replied expressionlessly. "Nintendo games are no fun. They are too childish. They are not even as good as cheap web flash games."
"Zelda is the best in the world."
"It is not even worth a single hair on Persona 5 Royal."
Ji Minghuan sighed and tilted his head. "Forget it, I will not argue with you. Truth is, I have never played any of them. I am just a poor kid. We never had game consoles at the orphanage."
"I can tell."
Hearing this, Ji Minghuan froze for a second before invisible black lines of exasperation practically dropped over his forehead.
He snapped, "What are you looking so proud for? When I destroy the world later, I will smash all your precious Sony factories first and only leave Nintendo standing, letting Nintendo consoles rule the Earth!"
Just as his voice fell, the Tutor's stern tone slowly echoed from the penguin-shaped intercom on the ceiling:
"Ji Minghuan, please watch your words. This is already your second warning, and there will not be a third. If you make a similar statement again, we will punish you with five days of solitary confinement. During that time, you will not be allowed to meet or have any contact with the other children."
"Tsk... I was just making a joke. Do you really have to take it so seriously? You Salvation Society people are so stiff."
With that, Ji Minghuan smacked his lips dismissively, still resting his chin in his hand as he looked away.
"Then go ahead and destroy it. I wish the world would end sooner rather than later," Mario suddenly chimed in.
Ji Minghuan paused slightly. 'As expected, internet-addicted teens are all misanthropes,' he thought.
After a moment of silence, he spoke up, "Actually, my name is Ji Minghuan. What about you? Mario cannot possibly be your true name, right?"
"What are you talking about? My real name is Mario."
The blond-haired, blue-eyed boy rubbed the dark circles under his eyes, responding with a disapproving tone. His reactions always seemed to be half a beat too slow.
"I heard you are an Exorcist?"
"Yes."
"Wait a minute. That PSP in your hands would not happen to be your Celestial Drive, would it?"
"No."
"Oh. Then where is your Celestial Drive?"
"Do not even think about it," Mario said without looking up. "I cannot use it right now. Even if I could, I would be electrocuted unconscious."
Hearing this, Ji Minghuan could not help but raise an eyebrow. 'So it is not just Superhumans. Does the Salvation Society really have a way to suppress Exorcists from summoning their Celestial Drives as well?' he wondered.
He asked again, "How did you end up here?"
"What about you?"
"I took a nap at the orphanage, and when I woke up, I found myself already here," Ji Minghuan spread his hands. "The Salvation Society is quite magical, is it not?"
"I was in a classroom."
"A classroom?"
"At the time, a few classmates were kicking my head. They wanted to smash my game console," Mario said slowly. "My Celestial Drive awakened, and an extra game console appeared in my hands. I was playing a shooting game back then, so I dragged all of them into a shooter and blew their heads off, one by one."
Ji Minghuan was stunned for quite a while before saying, "That is some serious power. Just do not get too absorbed in your game later and suddenly drag me into Persona, shouting out its name while beating me up with your inner mask."
"I cannot do something like that."
"Why not?"
"I can only pull people into simple games."
"Then have you ever thought about dragging the Tutor into a shooting game?"
Mario fell silent.
The Tutor's voice chimed in once more from the penguin-head intercom: "Ji Minghuan..."
Ji Minghuan shrugged, immediately interrupting the man. "What are you getting so anxious for? I meant having you accompany Mario to shoot zombies together. When did I ever imply letting him blow your head off?"
He paused. "It would be like a father and son playing a VR game together. How nice is that, right? Parent-child bonding time helps promote affection. Would you not agree, Shigeru Miyamoto?"
Shigeru Miyamoto was the real-life name of the "Father of Mario."
Upon hearing that, the Tutor went quiet.
After a moment of silence, Mario suddenly said, "The Tutor said you do not like it here, so he wants me to accompany you to London for a walk, and execute a mission along the way."
"Do not tell me you actually like it here?" Ji Minghuan fired back.
"I do not think there is anything bad about this place. There is food, there is water, and there are people to clean up after us. I can lie in bed and play games twenty-four hours a day, and sleep whenever I am tired. It is simply paradise."
"I get it now. Only little brats who had a hard time in the outside world would like it here. As a little tyrant of the orphanage, when have I ever experienced such a stifling life growing up?"
"No matter how tough you were at the orphanage, you would still have to find a job eventually," Mario retorted. "Once you start working, you will realize that coasting by with free food and drinks in the Salvation Society is much better."
Ji Minghuan let out a heavy sigh. 'Could you be any more depressing, kid?' he mused inwardly.
Sure enough, the Salvation Society only captured children who harbored self-loathing and had given up on themselves. Sun Changkong had accidentally slaughtered a village, Filio had devoured his own mother, and Mario had killed his classmates like characters in a shooting game when he first awakened his Celestial Drive.
However, judging from Mario's experiences, he was the one being bullied at school. So, killing his classmates probably did not bring him much sense of guilt anyway.
'Is it just his personality that makes him simply like the environment here?'
While he was lost in thought, the heavy metal doors rumbled open. From the blinding curtain of light, three blurry silhouettes emerged.
Their voices arrived before they did. "You bumped into me!" a rather bossy voice complained.
"Sorry, sorry..." apologized a voice more timid than a little girl's.
"Pay more attention next time. If you had bumped into little sister Ling, you would be in big trouble."
"But... she stepped on my tail."
"Little sister Ling stepping on your tail is a reward. Do not be ungrateful."
"Oh, okay."
The chatter grew closer, and finally, all three of them walked in with their eyes shut tight. After all, the incandescent white lights beaming from the ceiling were far too glaring for anyone to dare open their eyelids.
As the white-haired girl at the very back crossed the threshold, the heavy metal doors slowly shut behind them.
Mario turned his head, spared them a single glance, and then looked away to continue playing his game.
The trio slightly fluttered their eyelids, taking a moment to adjust to the sudden intense lighting, before curiously gazing at Mario, whose back was facing them.
"Ji Minghuan, we are here," Filio said with a gentle smile.
Kong Youling wrote in her notebook and held it up toward Ji Minghuan: "Here, here."
Seeing a stranger in the confinement room, Sun Changkong raised an eyebrow. She then adjusted her baseball cap, walked over, and asked,
"Is he Cat Mario?"
"It is Mario, not Cat Mario," Mario corrected. He apparently understood Chinese as well; the Tutor must have taught him quite a bit.
"Oh. I am Sun Changkong," Sun Changkong introduced herself.
Mario suddenly fell silent, seemingly too lazy to engage with her.
"Big Sis, he just said your name sounds like a monkey," Ji Minghuan snitched dramatically.
"What?" Sun Changkong froze. Then, turning indignantly toward Mario, she pouted, revealing a small canine tooth. "You jerk, who are you calling a monkey?!"
"The first impression that name gives is a monkey," Mario deadpanned. "Do you expect me to lie? How boring."
Seeing that the two were about to start fighting, Kong Youling stepped between them. She jotted something down in her notebook with her pencil, showing it first to Sun Changkong before turning to show Mario:
"Do not fight, NO fighting!"
She puffed out her cheeks, her crimson eyes staring earnestly at both of them over the top of the notebook.
Seeing her like this, Mario stayed silent for a moment before turning to Ji Minghuan. "She cannot speak?"
Ji Minghuan walked toward the television in the corner as he explained, "Her name is Kong Youling. She is a penguin alien from Nebula M78. When enraged, she can use her Spark Lens to transform into a giant penguin and battle monsters."
He paused. "Penguin aliens usually only communicate with others via brainwaves. But since the Tutor sealed her Spark Lens, she has no choice but to stoop to using written words to interact with a lowly human like you!"
Mario blinked in surprise and looked at Kong Youling again. "You are a penguin alien?"
Kong Youling was taken aback as well. She lowered her head to scribble quickly in her notebook, then turned it toward Mario. Drawn on the page was a silly-looking little penguin, accompanied by a line of onomatopoeia:
"Gu-gu, ga-ga!"
"You really are a penguin alien... First time I have seen one," Mario murmured.
"Do not try to change the subject, you jerk! Say it again—whose name sounds like a monkey?!" Sun Changkong scowled, furrowing her fiery red eyebrows as she relentlessly pursued the issue.
Mario looked at her deadpan and mocked, "Looking closely, the actual person resembles a monkey even more than the name does."
With that, he cast a glance at Filio. "If I didn't know better, I would think I walked into a zoo... A penguin, a monkey, a wolf. Is there even a human left here?"
After saying his piece, he went right back to playing his console without lifting his head.
Filio lunged forward, hugging the explosive Sun Changkong tightly to restrain her, and pleaded, "Please, do not fight!"
"Big Sis, just ignore him. Let us watch television," Ji Minghuan chimed in to placate her.
He sat down cross-legged in front of the television, his head lowered as he concentrated on picking out a DVD.
"What are we watching today?" Kong Youling wrote in her small notebook as she sat beside him.
"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," Ji Minghuan answered. "Since we have to go to London tomorrow for a mission, we will only watch half at most. We will finish the rest another day."
Sun Changkong finally managed to cool her temper. Filio's wolf ears were tickling her face, almost making her burst into laughter. She puffed her cheeks, gave a cold snort, and then completely ignored Mario as she marched over to the television.
Filio let out a sigh of relief. Patting his heart, he turned to Mario and introduced himself:
"My name is Filio."
Mario did not reply. The glow of the console screen reflected in his blue eyes. Sensing the cold shoulder, Filio chose not to make a nuisance of himself.
The three children sat down in front of the television, quietly watching Ji Minghuan sift through the mountain of film discs.
Kong Youling set down her notebook and clapped her hands together in anticipation.
Sun Changkong paused for a moment. Thinking this was some trendy new ritual where one had to clap before a film started, she joined in and clapped as well to avoid looking like a country bumpkin.
Filio wagged his tail, a small smile creeping onto his lips.
Only Mario sat silently in the chair behind them, playing his PSP without making a single sound.
As he browsed through the discs, Ji Minghuan thought to himself, 'Come to think of it... If the Salvation Society captures Xize'er too, wouldn't we have enough to form a seven-member squad of Darkened Elementary Students?'
He shook his head, brushing away his chaotic thoughts.
"We are going to London tomorrow. Are you guys nervous?" he suddenly asked.
"Not really," Sun Changkong replied absentmindedly, scratching the tip of her nose.
"Just a little bit," Filio nodded.
"Not nervous with you here," Kong Youling wrote, holding up her small notebook.
"Is that so... Then let us come up with a thrilling slogan," Ji Minghuan suggested earnestly. "It will help boost morale."
"What kind of slogan?" Sun Changkong asked in surprise.
"You think of one, Ji Minghuan," Filio encouraged.
"Darkened Elementary Students..." Ji Minghuan proclaimed with dramatic flair, "...Assemble!"
Sun Changkong and Filio stared at him in utter speechlessness. For a moment, the confinement room fell dead silent, leaving only the click-clack sounds of Mario furiously tapping away at his console.
Consequently, Ji Minghuan curled his lip, shifting his gaze away from their faces to look silently at Kong Youling.
His eyes seemed to say, 'Do not tell me even you refuse to support me? No way, no way, right?'
Kong Youling stared blankly. She turned her head to look at Sun Changkong's expression, then glanced at Filio's.
Under the intense pressure of Ji Minghuan's gaze, Kong Youling buried her face behind her notebook and gently tilted her head, her white hair swaying softly.
On the notebook was the drawing of the silly little penguin, with the words written beside it:
"Gu-gu, ga-ga?"