Chapter 152: [Passing the Imperial Examination] Need Some Help?
Mother Han froze.
Han Yingying had only flashed past for a split second.
“You…”
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Bai Cha tilted her head slightly, looking at her with a hint of confusion, seemingly unaware of why her mother was so frightened.
Mother Han rubbed her eyes and stared intently at Bai Cha.
“Nothing… It’s probably just that Mom has been too tired lately…” Mother Han squeezed out a faint smile.
“Then you should get some proper rest. I’m taking the college entrance exam soon, so if you don’t take care of yourself, what am I going to do?” Bai Cha immediately spoke with a face full of worry.
Mother Han nodded hastily.
“Don’t worry, I’ll go to bed early tonight. Mom definitely won’t mess up your college entrance exam. The exam is the most important thing—you have to get into a good university!”
“Alright, hurry off to school!”
Bai Cha left the house.
The player living on the third floor was Wang Jiapeng.
The moment he saw Bai Cha, tears welled up in his eyes.
Bai Cha: “…”
“Your grades are so good, you…”
As Wang Jiapeng spoke, he instinctively glanced back with a look of horror plastered across his face.
It was only after they reached the base of the apartment building that he whispered softly.
“Do you have any study tricks you can share? The fast-track, crash-course kind? I feel like I won’t even survive three days here before I kick the bucket…”
“…I don’t.” If Bai Cha had the ability to turn someone into a top college entrance exam scorer in a fifteen-day crash course, she would have gone straight to opening test-prep classes—she’d be raking in money by the bucketload.
“Then what do I do? I’m genuinely losing my mind. They forced me to eat two brains this morning! I don’t even know what kind of brains they were, blegh—”
Saying this, Wang Jiapeng looked ready to gag.
“It was probably pig brain,” Bai Cha said, silently stepping a bit further away from him.
Although she wasn’t particularly picky, she preferred to keep things clean whenever possible.
“Really? Did you eat it too?”
Bai Cha looked at him as if he were an idiot.
“Are you a pig? Can’t you just tell your parents that eating pig brain will turn you into a pig? Just say your bad grades are all because they keep making you eat pig brain! Even if it wasn’t pig brain, the same logic applies to anything else.”
Wang Jiapeng froze.
Then, with teary eyes, he hurried to keep up with Bai Cha.
“Big Boss, you’re so smart! How come I didn’t think of that?!”
Mainly because he had been scared out of his wits.
That pair of parents was truly terrifying.
“Oh, right, did you drink that medicine last night? They forced another bowl down my throat yesterday at noon too. I have no idea what’s in it, but I keep feeling awful.”
“No.”
As Bai Cha spoke, she pulled out two sponges, gave him a quick glimpse, and tucked them back away.
“You can buy them in the system shop. Absorb it clean, just leave a tiny bit at the bottom of the bowl.”
Wang Jiapeng’s eyes lit up once again.
“There’s actually stuff like that in the shop?!”
While carefully concealing his actions as he browsed the system shop, he couldn’t help asking.
“Then how did you manage not to get caught by them? Did you keep it in your mouth?”
Bai Cha: “…My mom saw that my grades were good, so she stopped making me drink it. I haven’t tried putting it in my mouth—you can give it a shot.”
Wang Jiapeng: “…”
Is the gap between human beings really this wide?
In the neighborhood, quite a few students were walking around with bandages wrapped around them, instantly recognizable as players.
Li Shanshan and Chen Feiguang walked over, and before long, Guo Wenhao joined them as well.
Guo Wenhao’s face was deathly pale.
Li Shanshan looked at him sympathetically.
“Are you alright?”
Guo Wenhao shook his head.
“Don’t even ask. I ended up with a severe concussion! The moment they heard it might affect my studying, they started pouring drugs down my throat—traditional Chinese medicine, Western medicine, everything! It scared me so badly that I took the chance while using the restroom to redeem a healing pill from the shop.”
So he was mostly recovered now, leaving behind only a bit of external trauma.
“I’m pretty much in the same boat. I was forced to drink bone soup last night, and they gave me bone soup again this morning. I’m about to throw up! They didn’t even get rid of the gamey smell from those bones…”
Li Shanshan’s face turned green.
“If we just… ahem, I mean, if we eliminate the targets, would everything be resolved?” Chen Feiguang asked in a low voice.
Hearing this, Li Shanshan immediately shook her head.
“It won’t work. Look over there.”
She pointed to a student walking past them.
The boy walked with eerily precise strides, every single step standardized like a robot following calculated code.
His eyes were hollow and lifeless, devoid of any vitality.
“He lives right above me. I heard it last night because the soundproofing isn’t great…”
Li Shanshan swallowed hard.
“The bullet chat said he tried to fight back first, but got counter-killed. The commotion was huge. Then… this morning, my mom told me the parent upstairs asked in the group chat if anyone knew a way to exorcise evil spirits, saying his kid was possessed by a ghost. The group owner posted a method, telling him to pick something up from his house, and the kid was fine this morning—even more obedient than before…”
The group walked and talked.
Whenever someone passed by, they would pretend to ask Bai Cha academic questions.
Bai Cha answered them with utter seriousness as well.
“The group owner is…”
“Not sure, I didn’t dare ask.” Li Shanshan was terrified that asking extra questions would get her forced to drink two more bowls of bone soup.
She was already planning to find an opportunity to hurry up and heal her arm—who could endure this kind of torture?
“Eight out of ten, our medicine came from the group owner too,” Bai Cha noted.
The others knitted their brows.
“Then we have to find a way to investigate. Can we sneak out at night?”
“Try using an invisibility cloak?”
“Anyway, if we can get out, should we gather tonight? What do you think, Big Boss?” Wang Jiapeng looked at Bai Cha.
In fact, the bullet chat had mentioned that Bai Cha wasn’t as high-ranked as them. Since no specific instance details were leaked, they could see the basic player info too—but so what?
In this instance, former player ranks meant jack shit; test scores were king.
“No need. I have a way to contact you tonight. We’ve reached the school—let me see you sprint!”
The faces of the four players instantly crumpled into misery.
While running, Guo Wenhao couldn’t help asking, “Wait, what about daytime today?”
“For daytime class Q&A, I can proactively raise my hand to answer for you guys. Though if I do that… my intense curve-setting might make your subsequent treatment even harsher.”
Bai Cha looked at them as she spoke.
“Do you want it?”
The four displayed torn expressions.
Indeed, Bai Cha could proactively help them answer questions, an act that would earn her extra points in the eyes of the teachers.
Meanwhile, they would definitely be criticized by their parents upon returning home.
However…
“Yes! We’re gonna get chewed out either way!”
A scolding was a scolding regardless. If they pulled off another display of knowing nothing at all for an entire day today, they would probably die an even more miserable death.
“Thanks, Big Boss!”
Bai Cha offered a good-tempered smile.
“Don’t mention it. But you guys have to work hard too!”
“Mm-hmm!” Passion flared up within the group.
Then, the moment they spotted the homeroom teacher standing at the base of the academic building, their smiles vanished instantly.
Even so, the homeroom teacher still caught sight of their smiles.
Bai Cha ran up the stairs swiftly, and the homeroom teacher didn’t stop her. However, the four trailing behind received a thorough earful.
“The college entrance exam is right around the corner, yet you’re still giggling and messing around! As far as I’m concerned, you don’t feel a shred of urgency! What kind of results do you expect to get acting like this?!”
The four were collectively rendered speechless.
They all kept their heads lowered like muted quails.
The homeroom teacher shot them another look of disgust, waved his hand, and let them head upstairs.
“Fuck,” Guo Wenhao cursed under his breath after climbing two flights of stairs.
If we can’t kill the parents, can we kill the teacher?
