Chapter 148: [Passing the Imperial Examination] As Long as You Give Up
When it was time to resume studying that afternoon, Wang Jiapeng and Chen Feiguang returned.
Returning along with them was Li Shanshan.
Her arm was set in a plaster cast as she walked into the classroom in a state of utter daze.
Although she knew breaking an arm shouldn’t technically affect her studying, being shipped right back to school the moment she was bandaged up at the hospital was simply too tragic!
Fearing it might hinder her performance on the college entrance exam, she had deliberately avoided injuring her right arm—otherwise, if her exam went poorly, she would be the one failing to clear the game.
Looking at it now, if she had broken her right arm, she would probably be forced to learn how to write with her left hand immediately!
The afternoon classes remained equally suffocating.
Getting called on was one thing; the few players were already acting like dead pigs that didn’t fear scalding water anyway.
What they hadn’t anticipated, however, was that they wouldn’t even be granted time to use the restroom.
The Chinese teacher dragged out class by five minutes, immediately followed by the chemistry teacher arriving five minutes early, leaving zero room in what was originally a ten-minute break.
Oh—the Chinese teacher happened to be the same person sitting behind the podium during the morning and noon sessions, confirming him as their homeroom teacher.
The break after the second period was originally twenty minutes long, meaning that even with dragged-out lessons, there should still be just enough time to use the restroom. However, this homeroom teacher stood right at the doorway.
When Wang Jiapeng stood up to use the restroom, he was pinned down by the teacher’s cold, contemptuous, and disgusted glare—a look as if he were staring at a pile of garbage.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Wang Jiapeng felt thoroughly baffled.
“I’m going to the restroom.”
“Restroom? Look at the top students in our class—do any of them go to the restroom? It’s always you useless trash who have endless pee and poop! Good students refrain from drinking a single drop of water just to squeeze out a bit more study time, all to avoid going to the bathroom! You’re the only one creating trouble!”
Wang Jiapeng: “…”
He felt utterly speechless.
“I haven’t used the restroom since this morning. Wanting to go to the bathroom now—isn’t that completely normal?”
When nature calls, how on earth could using the toilet be linked to one’s grades?
“You dare talk back?! Do you think I’m wrong?! It seems I need to call your parents back for another chat. Was the noon session too short for you?!”
Wang Jiapeng fell into despair.
His experience at noon had been a living nightmare.
Because he had used the excuse of being physically unwell, his parents forced a bowl of traditional Chinese medicine down his throat on the spot.
He had already drunk that stuff last night—and though he found a way to throw it up afterward, the lingering nausea was truly hard to put into words.
At noon today, surrounded by so many watching eyes, escaping it was entirely impossible.
What followed was a relentless lecture.
Do you deserve what your parents do for you? Do you deserve what you do for yourself? Do you deserve your teachers, society, and the whole world?!
By the time Wang Jiapeng returned at noon, he had nearly been brainwashed into believing he deserved to die ten thousand deaths.
On second thought, something was wrong—this was a game! Those weren’t his real parents, and his actual parents would never treat him like this!
“What are you still standing there for? Why aren’t you going back to study?!”
“I need to use the restroom.” Wang Jiapeng simply couldn’t accept holding it in any longer.
Even if time was running at double speed under the game’s settings, that still meant several hours remained until dismissal. Who could hold their urine for that long?
Wouldn’t his bladder explode?
The homeroom teacher’s expression contorted slightly as he took a disgusted step backward.
“I see you’re beyond saving. Get the hell out!”
Saying this, he stepped back into the classroom, his cold gaze sweeping over the entire class, lingering with extra emphasis on Li Shanshan and Chen Feiguang.
“Starting now, everyone is limited to using the restroom a maximum of three times a day! No drinking water during the daytime—use all that time on your studies! There’s only one month left until the college entrance exam! Look at yourselves, running off to the restroom at every turn! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to—is that really using the bathroom? You’re just taking advantage of it to slack off on your studies!”
“And you!” He jabbed a finger at Li Shanshan. “Look at your hair—so long! Look at those with top grades; they all cut their hair short just to avoid wasting time washing it! They don’t even wash their hair for a month! Yet some of you young girls wash your hair every few days—why wash it so frequently? Planning to flirt and fall in love?! Have some decency!”
Bai Cha watched the middle-aged man with a protruding belly pointing his finger around.
She was contemplating a single question.
Was the core of this instance the parents, or was it the school?
Based on her past experience, there were two ways to destroy an instance. One allowed players to earn points—which involved killing the key figure of the instance.
This “killing” likely referred to a complete and utter erasure.
Otherwise, if a player possessed strong combat power, it wasn’t impossible for them to slay the boss.
That included NPC deaths—would they respawn afterward?
Regardless, when she used her dodder vines to parasitize and strip away all of a key figure’s power, that key figure would vanish entirely.
Consequently, the instance would shut down without deducting her points.
The second method was Xu Ming-wang’s approach: finding the core issue that formed the instance and plunging the entire instance into absolute chaos.
This chaos would render the instance incapable of continuing its operations—much like a server hit by a malicious virus. Unable to run normally, the instance would be scrapped as a result.
Under such circumstances, it was technically categorized as an attack on the game itself.
It was equivalent to the game working hard to build an instance, only for the instance to end up ruined, thus deducting points from the player.
Erasing key figures, on the other hand, shouldn’t cause significant damage to the game.
Based on these two scenarios, the key figures in this current instance were rather subtle…
Because the key figures could be every single student’s parents. As long as everyone dealt with their respective parents and collectively erased them, the absence of parents would mean there was no concept of “satisfaction” left to fulfill. Unable to proceed, the instance would have to close.
However, that would require all fifty-eight players to act together.
That was going to be extremely difficult to coordinate.
After all, another possibility existed: the parents weren’t the key figures at all. In that scenario, if all parents were gone, the inability to achieve satisfaction would lead to every single player failing to clear the instance.
The risk was far too high; she couldn’t determine which possibility carried a higher probability, though it felt largely like a fifty-fifty split.
On the other hand, if she pursued the point-deducting method of destroying the instance, causing it to collapse would mainly center around the school—or rather, the college entrance exam itself.
That was going to be quite difficult to target as well.
This wasn’t like the Beauty Above All instance, where making the NPCs realize the inherent flaws of their world could directly halt the instance’s operation.
In this instance—setting aside the parents who treated the exam with extreme fanatical obsession—she didn’t actually believe the college entrance exam itself was wrong.
For individuals hailing from ordinary backgrounds, it truly presented a fantastic opportunity.
Naturally, opportunities to change one’s destiny were never limited to just this one, but since a fair chance was offered to everyone, one ought to work hard to seize it.
That single point held true beyond doubt.
Therefore, when projected into this instance, it was impossible for the NPCs to view these concepts as wrong.
As for their actions… well…
Judging by the current situation, even if the children died, the adults wouldn’t suddenly see the light, much less recognize their own mistakes.
After all, their starting premise was built upon being “absolutely right” and “for the child’s own good.”
Bai Cha shook her head, deciding to give up on destroying this instance.
Focusing on her personal clear would be enough.
Nothing in the world is difficult, as long as you are willing to give up.
She wasn’t some legendary figure anyway; if she couldn’t destroy the instance, then so be it. It was simply a matter of doing her best.
An overly stubborn obsession might only lead to an outcome like Xu Ming-wang’s.
Still… where did the ghosts and monsters in this game originate from?
Bai Cha let her mind wander while working through her test paper.
The blood dripping from above her head—was it a hallucination? Was she the only one experiencing it, or did everyone go through it?
Perhaps she ought to open her eyes tonight to face whatever was hovering above her head.
Rrrrring—!
When the dismissal bell for evening self-study finally rang, every player let out a collective breath of relief.
However, what awaited them at home was far from easy either.
