Chapter 115

Chapter 115

The standard punishment for students who arrived late was to stand at the school gate for ten minutes. But since Ning Wang was a repeat offender, his punishment was doubled: ten laps around the track.

Wen Nuan had long found Ning Wang irritating. Wearing sunglasses, she watched him run laps and asked Ning Shuo, “What do you think?”

She knew Ning Shuo had come back from outside the school. According to the homeroom teacher, the reason he had given for taking leave was that he was worried the family fortune would be seized.

The credibility of Ning Shuo genuinely wanting to help her rose another two points in Wen Nuan’s mind.

Hearing her question, Ning Shuo looked up. “Hm? Fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine-negative one valence.”

Wen Nuan did not understand at first. “What?”

“Oh, I was memorizing valences.”

Wen Nuan: “…”

Ning Shuo pushed his glasses up. “Right, I heard Jiang Shixian hid something in the school for the Number One Swordsman in the World.”

Wen Nuan flew into a rage. “What? He left something for that bastard too!?”

“No telling whether the rumor is true. It was going around school a while ago. Supposedly, there’s a secret room with a fingerprint lock.”

Ning Shuo said without the slightest concern, “If you want it, just have him take you there when the time comes.”

Leaving behind a casual “I’m going to class,” Ning Shuo strode off. Wen Nuan stood under the eaves, staring thoughtfully at Ning Wang, who was still running laps on the field.

She said to the bodyguard beside her, “Go call that bastard over.”

—

Under Wen Nuan’s threats, Ning Wang displayed a noble spirit of preferring death to surrender.

After Wen Nuan said she would split half the family fortune with him if they found it, Ning Wang displayed the keen wit of a man who knew when to yield to circumstance. He let Wen Nuan drag him all over the school in search of it.

Watching his sloppy, carefree gait from behind, Wen Nuan secretly sneered. As expected of a bastard. So shortsighted.

The school had investments from the Jiang Family. That was also why, back when Ning Wang had been slacking off at school, the school administration had turned a blind eye.

Now that the Jiang Family had been swallowed up by the Wen Clan, and as the school sought new investment, Ning Shuo’s status rose along with the tide. At the very least, the person the homeroom teacher did not dare offend had changed from Ning Wang to Ning Shuo.

So when Ning Shuo said he had finished his test papers and wanted to go to the printing room to see if there were any newly printed papers, the homeroom teacher handed him the key to the printing room.

The whole series of events was absurd beyond belief, but the NPCs simply could not find anything wrong with it.

Wen Nuan, as Ning Banxian’s biological mother, had inexplicably gained power. That was true. Ning Banxian was an emotionless problem-solving machine who wanted to find a few more sets of papers to do. That was also true.

In any case, the test papers in the printing room were not the weekly exam papers. It would not hurt to let him grind through a few more sets.

When there was no Player interference, NPCs all followed their own settings and performed their duties step by step.

For example, aside from teaching class, the homeroom teacher supervised students’ studies and occasionally lurked in the restroom to intimidate any Player he found into doing problems.

For example, the printing room teacher was often late, always sleeping until the sun was high before coming to work.

Ning Shuo knew this because, as the class study committee member, he often came to the printing room to help subject teachers count out fresh test papers and carry them back to the classroom for his classmates to do.

The homeroom teacher always told him to go in the afternoon, because the printing room teacher would not be there in the morning.

Everything fell perfectly into place, as natural as water flowing downhill.

The printing room door was usually locked. The homeroom teacher clearly knew exactly what kind of person the printing room teacher was, so he gave Ning Shuo the key.

Just like that, Ning Shuo entered the printing room openly and aboveboard. After making sure he had not run into the teacher NPC, he began searching through the files.

His identity as study committee member was very convenient. When delivering papers, he could occasionally see materials on the teachers’ desks.

For example, the work in the printing room and archives room was very easy, so the same teacher managed both. The archives room and printing room were also in the same place.

Ning Shuo found a file at the bottom that had been sealed away for years.

Name: You Ge.
—

The files contained mostly information they already knew: You Ge had been an art student. After ranking first in her class, she was bullied on campus for half a year. Her leg was broken, and even after she recovered, she could no longer dance the way she used to. You Ge couldn’t get past it. In the end, she leapt from the rooftop.

After You Ge died, that legend began circulating in A High School’s elite class: during the weekly exams, if a student in the elite class failed to meet the key university cutoff, the student in last place would fall to their death just like You Ge.

But there had likewise never been a student who scored above 667.

They were already in the elite class. There had to be students who scored higher than 667.

Yet there was no record of any of them in the files.

Just like how You Ge had been an art student who danced ballet, but the file only contained the words “art student,” much like that vanished subject.

“Ballet” seemed to have disappeared forever.

By the same logic, students who scored 667 points had to have existed.

They had simply vanished, like “ballet,” into some unknown current of time and space.

Ning Shuo flipped to the very front of the files.

You Ge had been a student four years ago.

Then he went to look for Fan Jiangnan’s file.

According to the file, Fan Jiangnan had also been bullied on campus starting in the second semester of her second year.

She had actively sought help from the teachers, but A High School had long since rotted from within.

Fan Jiangnan gradually became quiet and withdrawn. In stark contrast to her increasingly silent personality, her grades climbed higher and higher.

She had been trying desperately to climb out of the mire.

As Fan Jiangnan’s scores drew closer and closer to the 700s, the school finally seemed to see her value. It issued warnings to the students who, despite their poor grades, had family backgrounds to rely on.

The physical violence stopped, but the emotional abuse never went away.

In the second semester of senior year, A High School established the elite class. Two girls who had bullied her used their connections to get into that class.

Before entering the elite class, none of them knew the rumor that the person in last place would die.

After entering the elite class, they found out.

At the cost of their lives.

—

Ning Shuo still found it strange.

Before she entered the elite class, Fan Jiangnan’s grades had always been stable in the high six hundreds, and sometimes even broke seven hundred.

What had happened to Fan Jiangnan during the week she entered the elite class?

Or rather, how did Fan Jiangnan know about You Ge? How did she know about the vanished 667?

Ning Shuo put the files back, then casually picked out a few test papers to take with him as a cover.

The Water Moon Mirror Fragment could be used now. He would see whether it could turn Fan Jiangnan into an NPC with self-awareness, like Mingzhi.

Ning Shuo toyed with the fragment, studying the cracks on it.

After the fragment had made the rounds through the hands of the various Ghost Bride entities and returned to him, quite a few new cracks had appeared on its surface.

From the looks of it, this item also had a limited number of uses.

Otherwise, he could have converted every NPC in the entire Script.

As he walked out of the printing room, Ning Shuo’s fingers stilled around the fragment.

After last night, the cracks seemed to have multiplied again.

…Was it because of the things he had remembered?

—

The elite class at A High School was incredibly strange. It was always established in the second semester of senior year.

Fan Jiangnan had once been isolated for half a year. After her bullies were warned by the school, she began living under cold, silent abuse instead.

It was much better than before, even though Fan Jiangnan still did not have a single friend.

During her first week in the elite class, Fan Jiangnan kept to herself as she always had. She heard people around her whispering. Because of her personality, she did not go asking questions; she simply kept overhearing bits and pieces everywhere, and in the end, she pieced together a fragment of the past.

-There had once been an incident at the school where campus bullying had led to a student’s death.