In the "examination room", the players were in a panic and stumbled to avoid the table.
Yu Tang walked to seat number six, half squatted down, and took a closer look.
"What are you looking at it for!"
Dai Lei said anxiously: "You are with him, you are also an NPC in the game, right? Is this a game process or a bug? If it is a bug, fix it quickly—"
Yu Tang: "NPC?"
Dai Lei met his gaze, paused in his words, and felt his heart shrink unconsciously.
"I'm not an NPC." Yu Tang said, "I have a role. I'm your invigilator."
Yu Tang squatted in front of seat number six, raised his hand, and flicked it in the air.
The image of this card was different in everyone's eyes. In the eyes of others, his action was extremely weird. He was either pushing away a group of weird and wriggling monsters, or touching a ferocious bloody corpse. Everyone's expression changed slightly.
Yu Tang pushed aside the short hair of "Zhan Chen".
The "Zhan Chen" in his eyes had been gone for a long time, and was hastily tied to a chair, with cold chest and shoulders, pale and quiet as if he was sleeping soundly after exhaustion again.
A familiar warmth covers my back.
…
Without turning around, Yu Tang accurately grasped the hand that Zhan Chen extended to him and shook his head: "I'm fine."
He turned his head slightly, took advantage of the desk to look at Zhan Chen, and lowered his voice: "I need to confirm the time..."
Yu Tang withdrew his gaze.
Zhan Chen's gaze was still gentle, but clearly not approving. He clasped the hand he was holding back and slowly intertwined Yu Tang's fingers.
The warm palm pressed against the cold and wet palm, and the unyielding force emanated from the fingertips, pulling him out of the horrible dream.
When I looked up again, the illusion of "Zhan Chen" had disappeared.
What reappeared in front of Yu Tang were countless lines of codes that were constantly updating.
Yu Tang let out a sigh of relief and pursed his lips.
He held Zhan Chen's hand tightly, and concentrated on copying and pasting the status and editing time of all the card data, letting the aurora float over and completely swallow up the afterimage of the card.
Everything in the orphanage is just an image extracted from Feng Qing's memory. It does not really exist, but is occasionally triggered by the overlapping actions of the player and the character to reproduce in a three-dimensional projection.
The afterimage of the card was completely swallowed up, and everything returned to normal. A blank scroll slowly emerged on the table.
Dai Lei gritted his teeth, mustered up the courage to pick it up, and barely managed to hold back his surprise: "What the hell is this?!"
"This is an advanced math problem." Song Sihang explained, "The definite integral of a piecewise function. This one can remove the discontinuity point..."
"I know!" Dai Lei was so angry that he had a headache. "Why would the orphanage's exam include something like this? Aren't the children in the orphanage illiterate?"
“I can’t read.”
Dai Lei shook the paper vigorously twice: "Why do we need to take this test—"
His words suddenly stopped.
…The voice that spoke just now was that of a little girl.
Chai Ning had regained her composure and sat back in her seat. Meng Nanke accompanied her. The two of them could not hold hands, but could only touch each other's arms with insulating gloves on and whisper something that no one could hear.
Yu Liuhui was so scared that she couldn't stop crying, but was still being comforted by team doctor Sui.
Dai Lei felt a sudden chill on his back. He turned around abruptly, trying to find the source of the sound, but could see nothing.
"Only three people can be sponsored to go to school. Everyone else is zero, except for the top three."
The little girl's voice was clear and crisp. Her tone was supposed to be innocent, but it sounded particularly strange in the empty hall: "Let's not do the questions anymore, okay? This way we won't have to separate."
A boy with a weak voice answered, "Not answering the questions means being disobedient. The dean will punish us."
"We are saving money for the dean, so he won't punish us." Another child's voice rang out, "Don't be afraid, I'll just scribble a few words and hand in the paper when the invigilator comes back, and leave it for you to make a little wooden figure."
Another little girl asked quietly: "When will the invigilator come back? I'm so cold, I want to go back to sleep."
Another child's voice quietly answered, as if whispering in everyone's ear: "You can't leave if you don't hand in your paper..."
The next second, the windows in the hall suddenly slammed several times as if they were being blown by a blizzard.
The windows and doors of the long-dilapidated villa could not be closed tightly, and air leaked in everywhere. The cold wind penetrated through every hole, pricking people's exposed skin like needles.
The white frost, with a biting chill, slowly spread across the ground.
Sui Zhengfan's voice deepened: "The ambient temperature is dropping. We must come up with a unified solution as soon as possible."
"Do we have to take the exam?" Dai Lei was a little annoyed. "The temperature in the hall is dropping. Can't we leave the hall? Why do we have to be led by the orphanage—"
Sui Zhengfan asked: "How do you leave?"
Dai Lei just saw the stairs leading to the second floor. He looked up and was about to speak, but his face changed instantly.
When they gathered in the hall, everyone actually saw the stairs.
Although the keys have changed into black and white, it is still a passage at least. As long as you find the correct pattern, you may be able to pass through it.
…
But at some point, just like the lid of a piano being closed, these stairs suddenly disappeared!
Dai Lei's heart tightened, and he was about to speak, but the one-eyed man who had been silent all the time suddenly grabbed the pencil on the table.
He scribbled a few words on the paper, then stood up, clutching the paper, and rushed to Yu Tang's front: "I've finished answering!"
Yu Tang looked at the scribble-like scroll and raised his eyes: "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure!" The one-eyed man stared at Yu Tang, "You said you are the invigilator, right? An invigilator can't stop candidates from handing in their papers, right?"
… When they followed Duan You on a mission, they also encountered this kind of haunted house.
Although he didn't understand why Yu Tang and Zhan Chen pretended to be the characters of the game, One-Eyed Dragon was very familiar with this kind of game. The way to survive was often hidden in the announced rules.
The rule this time was that "the top three could be funded to study", but since no one was illiterate, they could only be ranked according to the order in which they submitted their papers.
The one-eyed dragon's special ability is "perspective", and his domain is his eye, which can sneak into any place and see all the secrets. Before, when they hid in the basement, they used this eye to see everything that happened in the whole villa.
Before coming out of the basement, he put his other eye outside the villa and could see the blizzard all over the sky. It wouldn't be long before the blizzard would completely submerge the villa.
Only the first three people who handed in their papers could leave here, and the rest could only freeze to death together with the villa in the increasingly cold ice and snow.
"Hurry up!" The one-eyed dragon kept urging, "It doesn't matter what you guys are doing, just let us out!"
On the other side, the lizard suddenly understood what he meant and grabbed a pen to scribble on the paper.
The one-eyed dragon pushed the paper in front of Yu Tang: "I am the first place, I want to hand in the paper-"
The next second, the scroll in his hand seemed to be pulled away by some force and suddenly disappeared into thin air.
The sound of children whispering to each other filled the air.
The one-eyed man let out a long sigh, straightened his clothes, and walked towards the villa gate with a swagger.
He raised his hand to press the door handle and was about to push the door open when his clothes were suddenly grabbed by several small hands.
"An imposter!" The little girl's voice became angry. "His curls are wrong! They're fake! He's an imposter!"
"A stranger came in, and our people were replaced!"
"It's been replaced! It's been replaced!"
"Xiao Ba has been replaced, Xiao Ba is fake!"
"Thief! Liar!"
…
The children's voices were sharp and angry. Before the one-eyed dragon's smug look could fade from his face, he was pulled by an invisible force and dragged back without any explanation.
The air in front of him fluctuated for a moment, and the strange carved door reappeared.
The one-eyed dragon suddenly noticed Duan You's condition.
His face turned pale instantly. He looked at the door that was slowly opening. He struggled frantically, trying desperately to push away the pulling force: "I'm not lying! Let me go, I answered wrong, I'll answer the question again..."
He was pushed out of the door by the angry children.
His voice also disappeared outside the strange door.
Almost at the same moment, everyone noticed the One-Eyed Dragon's skyrocketing mental strength. His ability soared rapidly from the bottom of the A-level, but there was no sign of upgrading on his face, only endless fear.
Then, the spiritual power that seemed to never stop growing seemed to break through a certain limit, and the air suddenly fluctuated violently for a moment.
The one-eyed dragon's body suddenly became like a deflated ball. It began to shrink and deform rapidly, collapsing quickly.
…
After a few seconds of silence, Yu Liuhui asked in a trembling voice: "Did he... disappear?"
"It's not gone." Dai Lei said, "His eyes are still there, or rather, it's not his eyes that are still there..."
Dai Lei didn't say anything else, but everyone's heart sank involuntarily.
…It’s not that the one-eyed dragon’s eye is still there.
Like Duan You, he evolved into an S-level mutant outside that door.
Then, just as Duan You was swallowed by his vortex, the one-eyed dragon was also "eaten" by his eyes.
Dai Lei instinctively looked towards Sui Zhengfan. His voice was extremely low and trembling with fear: "This is the final result of evolution, right? We will be devoured by our own superpowers..."
Dai Lei asked: "Is it the person with the ability that evolves, or the ability itself?"
Sui Zhengfan did not reply.
He walked over and closed the door: "Now is not the time to explore the answer to this question."
"When will it be?!" Dai Lei could no longer hold back. "Did humans acquire superpowers, or did superpowers evolve using humans as a springboard? If it's the latter, then we—"
Before he could finish his words, there was a heavy sound of someone falling to the ground behind him.
Yu Liuhui fell to the ground along with the stool.
Her eyelashes were covered with a layer of frost, her face was pale from the cold, her body was shaking unconsciously, and she was no longer fully conscious.
Team doctor Sui walked over quickly and expanded his treatment field to cover her entire body.
Dai Lei looked at the situation in front of him, his anger was frozen bit by bit by the ice, and he stood there in a daze.
“We have to survive first.”
Sui Zhengfan said: "I'll give you two minutes to calm down, and then we can discuss the real rules of the game."
His tone was still that of an ordinary middle-class person with a good temper, but the words he said made Dai Lei freeze in place and swallow hard.
Zhan Chen acted as the NPC in the game, and had stepped forward at the right time to considerately distribute the winter coats and heating pads that dropped when the plot was triggered to the players.
Sui Zhengfan nodded to Zhan Chen and walked towards the table in the center: "Okay, come here..."
"First, let's confirm one thing." Sui Zhengfan said, "Has anyone else's files been moved?"
…
The rules of the game are not difficult to guess.
The point of this exam is not to get into the top three, but to hand in a paper that cannot be recognized as a fake.
It is absolutely not acceptable to scribble on the papers. The "kids" in the orphanage are very familiar with each other. Even if they just scribble on the papers, they can easily tell whether the person answering the papers is one of their own.
If the person who handed in the paper was identified as an imposter, he would be pushed out by the angry children.
"But how can they be exactly the same?" Dai Lei couldn't help but ask, "Do we have the handwriting data of these children?"
"Even if there is, what if they don't recognize it after I draw it?"
Lizard watched the two guys standing outside the door, completely frightened, his face pale, not daring to write any more: "Anyway, it's their decision. If they insist that what we wrote doesn't look like the original, there's nothing we can do..."
"No, there is a way." Chai Ning suddenly said, "Most of the children in the orphanage have no culture, right?"
Chai Ning said: "Xiao Ke and I are such people. When we were working, we often went to the office to guess people's names when we were removing the sealing strips... There are two types of people's papers that we can't tell apart."
Meng Nanke nodded and whispered, "One is a blank paper, and the other is a full-mark paper."
There was not a single word written on the blank paper, so of course it was impossible to tell who had written it.
The full-mark test paper looked like a mystery to them. They only knew that since the answer was filled up and the score was the highest, they must be the best student in the class.
"That's just what I said." Dai Lei was a little disappointed. "Didn't I just tell you that if they hand in a blank paper, they will be beaten. They definitely don't dare to hand in a blank paper. In such an isolated academy, is it possible that someone can get full marks in advanced mathematics? Xiaosong, can you get full marks?"
Song Sihang was stunned for a moment, then shook his head: "I can only answer 70 points... I also got full marks when I was in college."
"Seventy points is pretty good." Dai Lei grabbed his hair in annoyance. "There's not even a single choice. I can't even answer with seven points..."
…
Zhan Chen listened to their discussion for a while and then returned to the sofa.
Yu Tang, the invigilator, collected a test paper and sat at the invigilation table. He turned a blind eye to the "exam students" whispering among each other and concentrated on typing on his laptop.
He thought the cotton coat was ugly and was originally reluctant to wear it, but Zhan Chen forced him to put one on. Now his two hands were almost curled up in the cotton coat, and his fingertips were still slightly white from the cold.
"I found it."
Noticing Zhan Chen coming back, Yu Tang pushed away his notebook and leaned back: "We are now-"
Before he could finish his words, he paused involuntarily.
Zhan Chen leaned over, stripped the temporary invigilator out of his half-warm cotton-padded jacket, wrapped him around his chest and shoulders, and put Yu Tang's hand under his ribs to warm it.
Yu Tang's hands were cold. In addition to the lower ambient temperature, there was still a hint of cold sweat on his palms.
Yu Tang moved his numb fingers. He almost shivered from the heat from Zhan Chen's body. He couldn't help but squint his eyes in comfort: "Director Zhan, how much did you adjust yourself to?"
"Forty degrees. I'll be your hot water bottle for a while."
Zhan Chen asked: "What did you find?"
"Time." Yu Tang said, "I analyzed the code of that card."
The director of the Secret Service used this card to trap the electric storm, which, according to the timeline, was long after Feng Qing's experience in the orphanage.
In the twelfth entrapment operation, Yu Tang finally succeeded in snatching the card.
Later, Yu Tang took over the role of Luo Ran in the book. Before the story ended, he integrated the code of this card into the hypnosis card, giving Wen Er a nightmare from which he could not wake up.
"The card afterimage recorded in Feng Qing's world is the shadow left by the card at that time. As long as we analyze this shadow code, we can determine the time we are in."
Yu Tang said: "We are now on the eighth day since Pu Ying fell into the electric storm."
Without waiting for Zhan Chen to respond, the system couldn't help but be surprised: "What does this have to do with Pu Ying?"
"It is related." Yu Tang said, "A lot of things happened during this period."
"This time, Wen Er joined his mentor's laboratory."
"Wen'er's mentor made a deal with the conservatives and decided to start preparing an experimental plan against the Sharp Knife Group to help the conservatives eliminate the Sharp Knife Group."
"It was also during this time that I met the lost Pu Ying in the eye of the storm. He had peeled off too many particles and was about to dissipate."
"I gave my core particle to Pu Ying and sent him out of the lightning storm..."
Yu Tang said: "This is the eighth thing that happened since Pu Ying fell into the storm."
The system calculated and became more puzzled: "Then why did Pu Ying go back so late?"
"Pu Ying fell into an electric storm when he was six years old. Even if he came out eight years later, he was only fourteen years old... But he didn't return to the Pu family until so many years later."
The system asked: "Did someone hide him? Why did they hide him?"
Yu Tang: "Because of Wen Er."
The system was somewhat puzzled: "What?"
…
Wen Er's talent is an important part of studying electric storms.
To complete the entire plan, Wen Er's presence is indispensable, and Wen Er's mentor must keep Wen Er in the laboratory.
—Is there any way to make Wen Er willing to continue to study electric storms fanatically
"There is only one way." Yu Tang said, "Never return Pu Ying to him."
Wen Er studies the electric storm in order to find Pu Ying. As long as he can't find Pu Ying, he will keep researching.
The system was stunned.
Yu Tang moved closer to Zhan Chen's arms, his whole body pressed against Zhan Chen. Not quite satisfied yet, he buried his face in Zhan Chen's arms.
Zhan Chen lowered his head, looking at the little ball of light that had turned into a human being, nestling skillfully in his arms. There was a hint of indulgence and gentle helplessness in his eyes, and he pulled the person closer to his arms: "You gave the core particle to Pu Ying?"
Yu Tang nodded.
This is the beginning of all stories.
Particle-level civilizations naturally have the ability to devour and decompose. After too many conscious entities lost in the electric storm were completely annihilated, the electric storm itself developed self-awareness.
The electric storm that had just generated self-awareness generously distributed its core particles to the human being who was about to be annihilated and dissipated, and then sent that human being out of the storm.
At that time, Wen Er had already reached a preliminary research conclusion, which could improve the Ministry of Science and Technology's missing person recognition system based on the residual electrical pulse frequency of humans. He only needed one paper to completely solidify this conclusion and allow him to directly enter the Ministry of Science and Technology's directly affiliated research institute.
It was also because of the results of this research that Pu Ying was found as soon as he came out.
"In order for Wen Er to continue his research, hiding Pu Ying is the most appropriate choice."
Yu Tang asked, "Where is the best place to hide it? Where is it least likely to be found?"
"Why was the Sui family asked to sponsor an orphanage? Why was this orphanage specifically mentioned by the Alliance Headquarters? Why was it said that the children in this orphanage were selected?"
"The only possibility I can think of is that this is not an orphanage at all."
Yu Tang said, "This is a prison."
The system was stunned, floating in the sea of consciousness.
“They hid all the people and data that needed to ‘disappear’ but couldn’t completely ‘disappear’ here.”
Yu Tang: "The director of the Secret Service Bureau was surprised that he made things so difficult for these kids, but they still got a perfect score on the test paper."
Yu Tang asked: "Master Zhan, can you still get full marks on advanced mathematics?"
"…" Zhan Chen was speechless: "I can't, but the data can."
After all, he is data now. No matter how difficult the advanced math problem is, as long as he inputs it into the calculation, he can always get the correct answer.
Yu Tang nodded.
He was still reluctant to leave the warmth of Zhan Chen's body, so he simply didn't look back and wrote and drew on Zhan Chen's body through the fabric of his shirt: "Feng Qing is the eleventh person in the orphanage. These ten tables are Feng Qing's perspective."
His assessment began when Feng Qing was adopted at the age of seven, and he could only make logical inferences about the specific situation in the orphanage.
“I noticed it when the tables and chairs first appeared,” Yu Tang said. “They were not placed in a completely neat arrangement, but in a certain perspective…”
The system couldn't help but whisper curiously: "Su, do you know how to see through things?"
Yu Tang: “…”
Little Blue Card and Little Red Card jumped up, took turns knocking on the system's camera, and skillfully dragged the system into the sack.
"I understand." Zhan Chen suppressed his smile and said in a gentle voice, "This is the last observation angle on the right side... There should have been eleven tables here, and Feng Qing was sitting at the last table on the far right."
Yu Tang coughed twice and clapped his hands with the two cards in his sea of consciousness.
The system corrected its mistakes as soon as it knew them. The red light flashed steadily, and half of the speaker popped out from the sack: "Suxi, Suxi, is Pu Ying also one of Feng Qing's ten brothers and sisters?"
"No." Yu Tang said, "Pu Ying has been here for a short time and is older than Feng Qing. He is not among these ten people - he is at the twelfth table."
"These kids are very xenophobic."
"They played a trick on Pu Ying, hiding her desk and test papers, disguising themselves so that no one could see them... They should have been taught a lesson by Feng Qing one by one."
Yu Tang: "Finally, Pu Ying should have finished answering this paper."
The system searched the hall carefully, but was still confused: "Dormitory, there are other tables..."
"Yes." Yu Tang said, "It's right here."
The system froze.
Yu Tang moved away from Zhan Chen's arms, and felt around in the cavity of the exam desk, and as expected, he found a blank test paper.
"The invigilator won't be here to watch them all the time, so why would he put an invigilation table there?"
Yu Tang said: "There is only one possibility, this table belongs to Pu Ying."
The original intention of the game world was to keep ten people and never leave. If Zhan Chen had taken on the NPC job at the beginning and given him the position of invigilator, this table would never have appeared.
As long as they can find Pu Ying's position correctly and hand in a perfect answer sheet, they should be able to pass this level safely.
Yu Tang put the test paper on the table and was about to jump out of Zhan Chen's arms to let Zhan Chen answer the questions carefully, but was stopped by a warm arm.
Yu Tang was slightly startled and raised his head in Zhan Chen's arms.
"The invigilator won't be watching them all the time."
Zhan Chen looked at him and asked seriously, "Can you keep looking at me?"
Yu Tang was stunned for two seconds, and couldn't stop coughing twice, with redness running down his ears and into his collar.
Zhan Chen smiled, pulled the invigilator back into his arms, took out a pencil from the desk, and still held Yu Tang firmly with one hand.
He could guess what Yu Tang saw on the card called Fear.
He made a mistake and arrogantly kept the lightning storm. Now that he is back, Yu Tang will never have to watch those things again.
"I'm going to start answering the questions." Zhan Chen said softly, "Master Xiaoguang, start supervising the exam."