Chapter 154: [Passing the Imperial Examination] A Clever Brain
Bai Cha patted her throat, wanting to cough.
However, as if suddenly realizing that Mother Han lived right next door and the soundproofing might not be sufficient, she quickly collapsed onto the bed, burying her face into her pillow and pulling the blanket over her head.
Suppressed coughing sounds echoed in fitful bursts.
Han Yingying wanted to draw closer out of concern, yet didn’t dare step forward.
She still remembered that she was a ghost.
When a ghost came into contact with a human, it was never a good thing for the human.
After quite a long while, Bai Cha finally emerged from beneath the blanket.
Her face was flushed from holding her breath, tears glistening at the corners of her eyes, making her look exceptionally frail.
Unlike how Mother Han perceived her as Han Yingying, in Han Yingying’s eyes, Bai Cha remained in her original form.
Right now, Bai Cha had messy strands of hair clinging to her cheeks, looking so delicate that she seemed ready to crumble at a single touch.
Han Yingying grew frantic with worry.
“Sister…”
“I’m fine.” Bai Cha waved her hand weakly.
“I’m just too tired today. Come over here.”
Bai Cha pointed to the side of the bed.
“Sit down. You’ve probably been following me the whole time, right? Have you communicated with the other students?”
Han Yingying felt that Bai Cha was doing everything just to help her. After all, her mother had actually gone to rest today, which brought her great relief. Seeing Bai Cha in this state now made her feel extra guilty.
“No… there isn’t much for everyone to chat about. I really have been following you. Mainly… we can’t follow our moms and dads, and there’s nowhere else for us to go either.”
Bai Cha closed her eyes and nodded.
“But you’re able to go to other places, right?”
Han Yingying pondered for a moment and said, “Yes, but only within this neighborhood and the school.”
“That’s enough. You should have seen those friends I was talking to today. Could you make a trip to their homes to deliver a message for me? While you’re at it, you can also chat with the students following behind them.”
Bai Cha looked at her gently.
“All of you just want to make your parents happy… so in truth, you and the players aren’t in a strictly antagonistic relationship either. It doesn’t matter if those players have poor grades—you guys can help them cheat.”
Han Yingying startled, as if she had never considered such a possibility before.
“Since my grades are good, they can look at my answers, and then you can pass the answers along to them. That way, their parents can be happier too, while also preventing… certain players from resorting to actions that might harm their parents.”
Han Yingying was convinced.
She had indeed witnessed parents being killed before.
Some players possessed formidable means, after all.
“I can go talk to them, but I don’t know if they’ll agree.”
“It doesn’t matter if they don’t agree. You just need to pass the message along; don’t make things hard on yourself.”
Spoken in such a soft, gentle voice, Han Yingying felt like crying all over again.
Bai Cha quickly scribbled down words on paper, writing four identical notes, and handed them to Han Yingying to deliver.
“Deliver the notes first. There’s no rush for the chat between you and your fellow students.”
Han Yingying took them immediately.
“Alright! I’ll go right now!”
With Han Yingying sent off, she was left entirely alone in the room.
Bai Cha’s expression turned somewhat aloof and detached.
She glanced at her skill panel.
Back in the Beauty Above All instance, both of her skills had upgraded to Level 2, though she hadn’t noticed any concrete changes for the time being.
Flower of Lies hadn’t been used in the previous instance because Xu Shengsheng was around; she didn’t particularly want Xu Shengsheng to know about this skill for the time being.
Because a skill representing deception reflected a player’s underlying personality in a way that invited deep speculation.
Although Xu Shengsheng had a carefree, oblivious personality and wouldn’t necessarily dwell on such things, after clearing a few more game instances, she would naturally come to understand the correlation between skills and a player’s true character.
Therefore, Bai Cha hadn’t used that skill at all during the last instance.
In this instance, however, she definitely needed to use it.
“Mother Han will not know that I went out.”
[Lies have taken effect. Remaining duration of effect: 01:00.]
Only one minute.
Bai Cha left a note for Han Yingying, instructing her to sit properly and do homework upon her return, to prevent Mother Han from discovering her daughter’s absence should she peek through the door.
Although Han Yingying’s face was completely shattered, the back of her head looked mostly fine—she had landed face-first, after all.
With her hair covering the back, it was hard to tell anything was amiss.
Most importantly: do your own homework yourself!
Bai Cha carefully took the keys hanging beside the door and stepped out.
The movement indeed failed to rouse Mother Han.
In truth, Mother Han seemed currently trapped deep within a nightmare.
At the exact same time downstairs, Wang Jiapeng—who was the first to receive the note—stared at its contents and gritted his teeth.
The big boss had already helped him to this extent; he couldn’t afford to be useless!
Seeing his parents about to force another bottle of brain-boosting oral liquid down his throat, Wang Jiapeng suddenly spoke up: “Mom, do you know if there’s some kind of secret prescription? I feel like Han Yingying from our class suddenly became so amazing because she took some secret prescription. She was never like this before.”
His parents froze for a moment.
“A secret prescription?”
“Yeah, Mom! Think about it—her personality wasn’t like this before! Look at how she performed all day today, knowing how to solve every single problem! Were her grades ever this good in the past? Her grades were clearly on par with mine before, but now my grades have dropped while hers shot up. I suspect…”
Wang Jiapeng’s voice grew lower and lower, because his parents’ expressions were gradually contorting into something terrifying and grotesque.
Just as he thought he had ruined everything, the two parents exchanged a glance.
“You’re right! I was wondering why that little girl suddenly became so formidable when I was watching the surveillance today! Her mother must have used some dark sorcery to steal our child’s brain!”
“That’s right! The reason our son became so stupid now is definitely because someone stole his clever brain!”
Wang Jiapeng: “…”
He casually felt the small slip of paper tucked inside his pocket.
There were only two sentences written on that paper:
Make your parents believe my intelligence is because my mom obtained some kind of secret prescription from the group owner.
Try your best to get your parents to go out and find the group owner immediately, and have them bring you along.
The plan was proceeding exceptionally smoothly, except for the part where he was called stupid…
Oh well, who told him to have bad grades?
“Then what should we do? Mom, I’m telling you the truth—I don’t know why, but I genuinely can’t read a single word right now. I clearly wasn’t like this before…”
Wang Jiapeng’s mother stroked his head, showing a rare moment of gentleness.
“Don’t worry, son! Your dad and I will go find an expert for you! We will never let anyone steal your brain away!”
“I can just go alone. You stay home and keep our son company,” Wang Jiapeng’s father suggested.
“How about we all go together?” Wang Jiapeng chimed in. “I can’t learn anything right now anyway. Maybe if we meet that expert, he’ll have a way to solve this, and I can come back and study right after. Otherwise, it’s such a waste of time.”
Wang Jiapeng’s mother pondered for a moment.
“That works too. If a ritual needs to be performed, we’d probably have to bring the kid over anyway, which would waste even more time then.”
Saying this, she looked at the father. The father thought it over briefly before nodding in agreement.
Wang Jiapeng let out a sigh of relief in his heart.
Especially when stepping out the door, he still felt a sense of utter disbelief.
Originally, he had been contemplating how he would likely have to endure a round of torture from his parents tonight before sneaking out while pretending to sleep.
Given that he didn’t live on a high floor, he could have jumped straight out the window.
He hadn’t expected that he could actually walk right out the front door in broad daylight.
Is this what the brain of a smart person is like?
Wang Jiapeng wept silent tears of admiration.
