Chapter 147: [Passing the Imperial Examination] Pressing Down Step by Step
Li Shanshan picked up her test paper with trembling hands.
Recalling Guo Wenhao’s stunt from earlier, she steeled herself and decided to go ruthless as well.
As she stood up, she pretended to lose her balance and slammed heavily onto the floor.
Her left arm snapped on impact, the bone visibly deformed beneath the skin.
Cold sweat drenched her as she groaned in agony, pain being the only thing left in her throat.
The physics teacher’s expression turned exceedingly grim.
“Li Shanshan’s parent, come pick up your child! Don’t delay the other students’ studies!”
Pushing up his glasses, his thin, short stature somehow radiated an overpowering, suffocating aura.
His sharp gaze swept over the entire class.
“I hope you all pay close attention to your health! The college entrance exam is right around the corner—if any of you ruin your bodies, you ruin your exam, and you will bear the consequences yourself!”
With that, he called out Wang Jiapeng’s name next.
With the teacher’s stern warning still ringing in his ears, Wang Jiapeng didn’t dare pull a stunt to injure himself like the other two.
After all, one or two injured students could be written off, but if three or four all got hurt back-to-back, it would raise massive red flags.
Left with no other choice, he could only stand there stammering awkwardly for a long time.
“I’m sorry, Teacher… I don’t know how to solve this problem, but I know I was wrong! I will definitely study hard and make sure to learn all these problems I don’t know!”
His attitude was exceptionally earnest, yet it failed to satisfy the teacher in the slightest.
“When I came over before class, your math teacher told me your grades have regressed noticeably and that you can’t solve most of the problems anymore! You can’t even solve a problem as simple as this—what have you been studying lately? What have you been doing?! Do you deserve your parents’ sacrifices? Do you deserve how hard they work to put you through school?!”
The physics teacher spat his words with biting severity, spraying droplets of saliva straight onto the face of a student sitting in the front row.
That student kept their head buried, not even daring to wipe it off.
“Let me ask you, what did you come to this school for?! Huh?! Don’t you just want to get into a good university?! What are you doing right now?! You’re wasting educational resources, do you know that?! You’re wasting your parents’ hard-earned money, do you know that?!”
“If you don’t want to study, get the hell out! ‘I don’t know how’—as far as I’m concerned, it’s a problem with your attitude! Even if others don’t know how to do it, they still try to speak up and explain for a bit; they don’t just state outright that they don’t know! If you genuinely didn’t know, do you think I couldn’t tell?! To say you don’t know so self-righteously—your attitude is completely corrupt!”
Wang Jiapeng was on the verge of tears.
He had a terrible premonition that he was going to be completely finished today as well.
In reality, this scenario wasn’t isolated to this single classroom.
Every class contained a few players, and whenever the NPCs called on students, they targeted these players specifically.
Frictional fractions of them managed to answer correctly.
Guo Wenhao and Li Shanshan weren’t the only ones who injured themselves either; players across various classes resorted to hurting themselves to escape the relentless pressure.
“Fine, sit down! Your parent will be here before noon today, and I’ll discuss your performance today with them then!”
Wang Jiapeng collapsed back into his chair with a face full of bitter misery.
He now deeply regretted not being the very first person called on; if he had gone first, he could have escaped temporarily just like Guo Wenhao.
Now, only one person remained who hadn’t been questioned yet.
The pressure crashed squarely onto Chen Feiguang.
Sure enough, Chen Feiguang was called up next.
Having witnessed Wang Jiapeng’s harsh lesson, he didn’t dare admit he didn’t know how to solve it.
Yet after a long silence, he couldn’t squeeze out a single word either.
Furious, the physics teacher jabbed a finger straight at his nose and berated him: “You can’t even solve such a simple problem, and you can’t even make a sound when you don’t know how?! Complete useless trash! Every single one of you is useless trash! I’ll be having a talk with your parent when they get here too!”
After finishing his tirade, he briefly went over the problem.
A short while later, Li Shanshan’s mother rushed over.
The moment she arrived, she delivered a harsh slap straight across Li Shanshan’s face.
“How can you be so utterly useless?! You’re old enough to walk, yet you manage to fall down?! Thank goodness you didn’t break your right arm, or what would happen to your college entrance exam?! I work myself to the bone to pay for your education, and you pull a flaw like this right at the finish line—do you deserve what I do for you?!”
Scolding her relentlessly, she dragged Li Shanshan away.
Bai Cha watched the entire spectacle in silence.
If things continued like this, no one would be able to clear this instance—it would end in a total wipeout.
She couldn’t guarantee what kind of test scores she needed to achieve to satisfy Mother Han either.
Truth be told, the real objective that needed resolving was simply the parents themselves.
As long as the parent was satisfied, scoring zero points would be enough.
Suddenly, she felt an intense, burning gaze bearing down on her from the side.
She maintained complete self-control, refraining from looking over.
Outside the window beside her, the teacher who had appeared during morning self-study—most likely their homeroom teacher—was currently standing there with a grim, shadowed face, peering inside.
The bullet chat room was thoroughly spooked:
[Help! When did this guy appear?!]
[So scary…]
[I know! He just came up from the lower classes; he pressed his face against the window of every single classroom to look inside!]
[Huh? Isn’t he the homeroom teacher of this class? Why is he checking other classes too?]
[Maybe he’s both the homeroom teacher and the grade director?]
[Holy crap?!]
The class period finally drew to a close. As the dismissal bell rang, Wang Jiapeng slumped onto his desk, tears streaming down his face.
Then, his gaze happened to lock with Bai Cha’s.
After a moment’s hesitation, Wang Jiapeng sat bolt upright and blinked at her.
That girl must definitely be a player too, right?
Because whether it was the math teacher or the physics teacher, they had exclusively called on the five of them throughout the entire morning.
The four of them were definitely players, knowing absolutely nothing about the material.
Only this girl managed to complete the teachers’ questions successfully every single time.
Bai Cha offered him a faint smile, then subtly raised her eyes toward a surveillance camera.
Wang Jiapeng’s body shuddered violently, and he hastily retracted his gaze. Right, there are still surveillance cameras! The parents of these students were watching from behind those lenses right now.
Judging by how the math and physics teachers shouted directly at the cameras, those devices clearly carried audio feeds as well.
He didn’t dare walk over to talk to Bai Cha either—the moment his identity was exposed, he would be dead meat!
Then again, he was practically dead meat as it was!!
Fourth period was English.
The English teacher followed the exact same routine, distributing test papers for an in-class pop quiz right from the start.
Unsurprisingly, while many people still remembered some English vocabulary, their proficiency had long fallen past their high school peak, nor was it anywhere near CET-4 or CET-6 college levels.
Consequently, the papers were riddled with errors.
Another chaotic, miserable scene unfolded.
Finally, noon dismissal arrived.
Chen Feiguang and Wang Jiapeng were summoned directly to the faculty office.
Bai Cha, on the other hand, headed out to eat.
She carried a campus meal card in her pocket, which she had discovered yesterday.
Seeing her classmates sprint in the same direction like a horde of zombies swarming a city, Bai Cha had no choice but to break into a run alongside them.
By the time she reached the cafeteria, seven minutes of the twenty-minute meal period had already elapsed. After lining up and getting her food, she was left with a mere five minutes to actually eat.
And that was assuming she could sprint back to the academic building in under four minutes.
Bai Cha reaffirmed her decision: once she returned home tonight, she needed to start uncovering Mother Han’s background immediately.
This kind of life was simply unlivable for human beings.
Furthermore, regarding the supernatural phenomenon that had been tailing her, she couldn’t determine what it was linked to yet—information gathering was ridiculously difficult under these conditions, as there was simply no time available.
In any case, as the entity that needed to be satisfied, Mother Han remained the top priority.
Finishing her meal in a rush, she ran back to the classroom, only to find the homeroom teacher already sitting at the front, glaring at the room once again.
Meanwhile, Wang Jiapeng and the other player had yet to return.
