Chapter 24

Something Wrong

He couldn't tell Chao Musheng that either — that if he and Zhang San failed to clear the instance, the NPCs in this world would slowly forget they had ever existed. As though they had never been here at all.

Players and NPCs alike: pieces moved by the Main God. None of them free.

"You two have been off these last couple of days." Chao Musheng had noticed the change in Zhang San and Zhao Shang. "Did you fight last week and still haven't made up?"

"We didn't fight, Xiao Chao." Zhang San was worried Chao Musheng would see through him. "We're just — thinking about leaving in two days. It's hard to say goodbye."

"I thought maybe you'd heard about the written assessment and were nervous." Chao Musheng clapped Zhang San on the shoulder. "Well, if that's all it is, you'll be fine."

"Assessment?" Zhang San forgot to be sad. He stared. "What assessment?"

"How would you get a completion certificate without an assessment?" Seeing Zhang San's expression collapse like the end of the world, Chao Musheng gave his shoulder a reassuring pat. "Don't panic — I'll go through the important points with you."

"What if we fail?" Zhang San pressed. "Does the school really withhold the certificate?"

"The exam questions won't be too hard. As long as other visiting students completed the assignments the seniors gave them, they should generally pass." He could see Zhang San wasn't reassured, so he sighed and lowered his voice. "Alright, listen. The written exam is only fifty percent of the final score. Attendance counts for ten percent. And forty percent of the scoring is in the hands of the six of us assigned hosts."

Forty percent.

If any player had antagonized their assigned host — what did that mean for them?

In an instance built around academic value, a player who couldn't even earn a completion certificate was as good as sentenced to death.

That was why winning affinity from the students had been so difficult. The students only cared about academic progress.

But one person was different.

Zhang San looked at Chao Musheng.

Xiao Chao was different. He hadn't made them write a study plan. He hadn't minded when Shang-bro was reading physics books in the library — even the problems Shang-bro couldn't follow, Xiao Chao had patiently worked through with him.

Compared to the strict, demanding hosts the other players had described, Xiao Chao had been more like a patient classmate, walking them through every corner of the school.

"This student — would you stop staring at Chao Musheng beside you, please, we're in class." The professor rapped the desk, then added with a wry smile: "Come now, everyone look at me. I was considerably better-looking than young Musheng in my day."

Laughter rippled through the classroom. Zhang San came to himself and realized the professor was talking about him.

He straightened up, red-faced.

When the class ended, a group of male students passed Zhang San on their way out, imitating the old professor's tone: "Zhang San — look over here too, would you?"

Zhang San: "..."

He turned to find Chao Musheng laughing at him without the slightest trace of guilt, having already stolen a classmate's biscuits and slung an arm around the classmate's shoulders as they walked off together.

Zhang San and Zhao Shang followed at the back, watching the students disappear ahead of them. Neither spoke.

After a long silence, walking side by side, Zhang San gathered his nerve. "Shang-bro — I don't want to do the hidden quest."

Zhao Shang: "When did I say I was going to take it?"

Zhang San felt relief and embarrassment in equal measure. After a moment he asked: "Then what do we do about the rest of the objectives?"

Zhao Shang didn't answer that directly. "The hidden quest itself has a problem."

"What problem?"

"The system said completing it would grant all instance rewards. It didn't say we'd be able to leave the instance." Zhao Shang shifted the books to his other arm. "Think back to when we first arrived. What were the actual clearing conditions?"

Goodwill from the students. The school seal. The president's trust. The student registry.

He'd assumed the seal had to be the school's official stamp — but the honorary certificate had overturned that assumption.

So what was the president's trust?

Receiving a completion certificate — did that count as trust, in the literal sense?

If they weren't trusted, how would they be given a certificate?

For the first time since entering this instance, a thought had taken shape: what if this world was still alive?

Not controlled by the system. Not shifting according to players' intentions.

If it was alive — what were they, to this world?

*

The players had no idea a written exam was waiting for them. They only knew their assigned hosts had been piling on work until it felt relentless.

The vegetable player came back to the dormitory and flopped onto his bed to complain about having to memorize knowledge points. He complained for a while, got no response, sat up to look around, and found Zhang San grimacing over his notebook, Zhao Shang writing at speed, and Wan You — most improbably of all — working through an exam paper.

"You can do those questions?" The vegetable player could barely believe it. A person like Wan You, who got by on charm, doing high-level problems?

Wan You finished the last question, capped his pen, sealed the ink bottle. "I'm going for a walk."

Before the infinite world, he had won competition prizes too.

After that—

One humiliation after another, until he had stopped performing well on purpose. He'd thought, if he stopped standing out, they would leave him alone.

But he'd been young and hadn't understood. Losing his marks meant losing his teachers' protection too. It only made the ones who hurt him worse.

Before the infinite world took him, he'd been cornered in a bathroom and mocked.

What had he been thinking, in that moment?

If I became beautiful — more beautiful than anyone — would someone like me? Would someone stand up for me?

The artificial lake at this school was large. Wan You walked for a good while and still hadn't circled all of Swan Lake.

Three cats ran past his feet, each carrying a small fish. He nearly caught one by the tail and yanked his leg back in alarm.

"Mrr?" The last one — orange — stopped and turned to look at him.

Wan You stepped back.

The cat tilted its head and looked steadily up at him. It kept meowing.

The two ahead heard it and doubled back, settling into a row, all three peering upward.

Human — did you take the light bulbs out of the school's lamps and put them in your eyes?

The Cat Sovereign had never seen eyes this big.

A curiosity. She must go and fetch her human companion to see.

Wan You, under the sustained scrutiny of three cats, felt his skin prickle. When they finally just trotted away without incident, he quietly exhaled.

"What's the use of your grades if every time I'm seen with you, I feel like people are laughing at me—"

Behind the tree line, a couple was arguing. The young woman had her hair in a low ponytail; being spoken to like this, she didn't shout or crumble — just pressed her lips together and said flatly: "Get out of my sight."

"Fine by me — I've been wanting to end this for a while," the young man shot back.

Wan You listened, jaw tight, fists clenched.

"What species of toad," said Chao Musheng, emerging from among the trees with an expression of profound exasperation, "attaches himself to a swan and then complains that she has wings. Go on, leave — this is swan territory, no toads allowed."

The young man, mocked this publicly, had nowhere left to stand. But he was outnumbered on a campus where he had no connections, so he threw a last spiteful word at the young woman and fled.

From the moment Chao Musheng appeared, Wan You had stayed silent. He turned to go — and found the three cats back in front of him, blocking his path.

"Mrow mrow mrow!"

Curiosity — you can't leave, my human hasn't noticed you yet.

He couldn't understand a word of it, but their expressions were unmistakably peculiar.

He glanced back. Not far away, Chao Musheng was talking quietly to the young woman, who had started to cry, pressing the sound low.

Wan You resented people like Chao Musheng. Or more honestly — he was envious of them. Good-looking, academically excellent, liked by teachers and classmates, no poverty, no illness, no fear of being pushed around.

Chao Musheng looked over and noticed the young woman's tears were coming steadily. He checked his pockets and realized he hadn't brought any tissues.

"Here." A packet of tissues appeared in front of the young woman.

"Thank you." She covered half her face with her hand, somewhat embarrassed to be seen like this.

"Don't mention it." Wan You pointed to the nearby bench. "Sit down for a moment."

When she had sat, he offered, a little stiffly: "Looks aren't everything. Don't listen to what people like that say."

For some reason, his words made her cry harder.

Wan You was at a loss. He looked toward Chao Musheng — the person he didn't like — hoping he would do something, because someone couldn't just keep crying indefinitely.

"With eyes as nice as yours, it's a surprise your judgement's this poor." Chao Musheng sat down beside the young woman, scooped up Little Tangerine from where she'd wandered to his feet, and deposited her on the bench. "Even if you were in the business of charity, you could at least pick someone with decent character."

"Mrr?"

Little Tangerine craned her neck and poked her nose toward the young woman, determined to investigate whatever was producing this sound.

The other two cats gathered around her feet, all three looking up with their heads tilted at identical angles.

The young woman, mid-cry, looked down at three identically curious cat faces. The tears faltered.

She turned and found her seatmate was her classmate Chao Musheng, which made her feel several times more self-conscious. "Oh — it's you."

"I've been talking to you this whole time and you're only recognizing me now?" Chao Musheng pulled one of her tissues for himself to wipe his face. "Go ahead — you can start telling me exactly what's wrong with that toad. I'll listen, and it won't cost you anything."

Wan You watched the tissue situation with silent indignation.

Those are my tissues. My tissues are not for handsome men to use.

"You need one too?" Noticing Wan You's stare, Chao Musheng extracted another tissue and lifted Little Tangerine back to transfer her to the young woman's lap. "Excuse me — would you move over slightly? We need to make room for our friend Wan You."

The young woman, silently cradling the cat, shifted along the bench.

She wasn't sure why, but crying suddenly seemed less urgent.

"Sit down." Chao Musheng patted the empty space beside him.

Wan You: "..."

He accepted the offered tissue in silence. Then... sat down next to Chao Musheng.

He would like to reiterate, for the record, that he genuinely did not like men like this.

The young woman: "We dated for two months. Earlier today I found his phone — he'd been sharing private things about me with his roommates."

Chao Musheng: "Not your fault. That toad deceived you."

"He seemed alright at first. I thought I'd finally found someone decent."

"Two months." Chao Musheng focused. "So you were already together when the department selection trial started this semester?"

She nodded. "Why — why?"

"That's why you didn't get selected, even though you're usually outstanding." Chao Musheng regarded her with sympathetic gravity. "That toad has an inauspicious physiognomy. He brings misfortune to his partners — anyone romantically linked to him will find their career and academic fortunes disrupted."

The young woman stopped crying entirely. "Really? How do you know that?"

Wan You, who had completely forgotten his dislike of Chao Musheng, stared at him. He knew how to read faces too?

"I have a passing familiarity with the subject." Chao Musheng assumed the air of a subtle master. "My father researches religious studies, so I've picked up a little here and there."

If Chao Musheng had claimed to tell fortunes, she'd have thought he was making it up. But his father — a university professor who researched religious studies — lent the whole thing an institutional legitimacy. She immediately treated it with complete seriousness.

"That explains it." The realization dawned on her. "After he got together with me, he won first place in his department's experimental competition. He was stealing my career fortune."

"Is it too late to block him?" she asked urgently. "If we've broken up, we're not partners anymore, right?"

"The moment you ended things, fate severed the connection." Chao Musheng maintained perfect composure. "This constitutes the natural conclusion of a fated bond. The luck he redirected from you will find its way back to you in time."

"Good." The young woman got out her phone, blocked the relevant person, and only then allowed herself a proper breath of relief.

Lucky escape. She'd almost let him keep benefiting at her expense.

"I still have experiment data to finish — I need to go." She set Little Tangerine back on the bench, stood, thanked Chao Musheng, and left with the urgency of someone who had very important results to calculate.

Wan You stared after her for some time, unable to produce any words.

"Could you..." He looked at Chao Musheng. "Could you read mine too?"

In an instance world, there were things that devoured souls. An NPC who could read physiognomy wasn't that surprising, by comparison.

Chao Musheng: "..."

This kid actually believed it?

"Mrow mrow mrow!"

Little Tangerine jumped into Chao Musheng's lap. Human — look at the curiosity, quickly.

The other two cats jumped onto the bench and batted at his knee, adding their voices.

"Stop that." Chao Musheng gave each small head two strokes and set them all on the ground. "Go play."

Mission accomplished — the human had noticed. The cats bounded into the undergrowth and vanished.

Watching them obey Chao Musheng so readily, Wan You felt a flicker of something unpleasant. "Are these your cats?"

"No — they belong to the academic affairs office." Chao Musheng brushed cat hair from his clothes. "I heard from the senior responsible for you that your studying has improved a lot these past couple of days."

Wan You hadn't expected this. His expression shifted through several configurations before he looked down. "The learning environment at your school is very good."

Good enough that it completely matched the idea of university he'd formed as a child in the orphanage.

Chao Musheng: "Thank you."

Wan You, unable to stop himself: "I was complimenting the school, not you."

As soon as the words were out, he felt a jolt of alarm. How had he forgotten — Chao Musheng was an NPC in this instance. You didn't say things like that to NPCs you couldn't afford to antagonize.

"I'm part of the school, so complimenting the school is complimenting me." Chao Musheng, not remotely offended, smiled. "You like it here?"

"Yes." Seeing Chao Musheng wasn't angry, Wan You let the wall down a fraction further. "Not that it matters."

However good this place was, it was still an instance the Main God had constructed.

He didn't know why the Main God would build an instance like this one. But he knew players only ever left instances two ways: dead, or successfully returned to the Main God's space.

"There's an exam the day after tomorrow." Chao Musheng stood. "Study hard. There are rewards for high scores."

Wan You was dismissive. He wasn't actually a Jinghua student. What would a high score do for him?

*

In the middle of the night, Zhang San woke from a dream to find a glowing face hovering in the darkness across from him. He nearly left his body in fright.

Looking more carefully: Wan You, reading by torchlight.

"Are you trying to give someone a heart attack?" Zhang San rubbed his eyes and sat up. He looked at the bed beside Wan You's. "Where's the vegetable player?"

"He climbed out the window two hours ago." Wan You tucked the book under his pillow without urgency. "One day left in the instance. He arranged with the players next door to break into the president's office together and steal the seal and student registry."

Zhang San: "How do you know?"

"I left a listening item in 402." Wan You pulled his blanket straight. "Helpful reminder while I'm at it: their plan, once they have what they need, is to pin the whole thing on you two. In exchange for the president's trust."

"We've never done anything to him—"

"Are you still half-asleep? When survival is on the line, what won't a player do?" Wan You noticed Zhao Shang was awake too. "Keep the noise down. I'm going to sleep."

He had an exam to perform well in tomorrow.

*

In the middle of the night, Chao Musheng and the other five assigned hosts were urgently summoned to the academic affairs office.

The office was blazing with light. When Chao Musheng arrived, several people were already inside.

Two young men were crouched in the corner in handcuffs.

"What happened?" Chao Musheng went to stand beside the senior. "What did these two do?"

"The president signed a high-confidentiality research agreement with Kunlun Enterprises yesterday. Today these two crept into his office." The senior's expression was grave. "There's something wrong with these two."

"Visiting students go through a rigorous vetting process before being recommended to us — their health checks are detailed down to blood type. How did anyone questionable get through?" Chao Musheng caught one of the handcuffed students opening his mouth, as though trying to expel something, and immediately pulled the two people standing closest away.

Tac. Tac. Tac.

A glass marble rolled into the corner.

Vegetable player: ?

System — why did his escape bead fail?

The officers, who had come equipped for a very different scenario, examined it several times with great care before announcing: "Everyone stand down — it's a glass marble."

Everyone else in the room: ?

They'd been braced for some kind of secret weapon that would eliminate them all. Just a glass marble. Right then.

"Reborn as a spy, caught in the act, attempting to feign madness to evade legal consequences." The senior student pushed her glasses up. "Real life isn't a TV drama. Feigning madness doesn't work."

The one who was genuinely going mad was her — because one of the arrested visiting students was hers.

Her rivals in the hosting group would never let her forget this.

Chao Musheng looked at the senior, who did seem to be approaching the far end of her composure, and felt sincerely sorry for her.

His phone began vibrating insistently. He opened it: the Chao Family Bay group chat.

In the middle of the night — why was it suddenly so busy?

The group was in uproar. The troublemakers they'd caught during the Dragon Boat Festival — it had emerged that those individuals were undocumented, with no identity papers at all, and were very likely foreign-planted operatives.

Chao Musheng looked at the chat. Then looked at the two handcuffed visiting students.

For the first time in his life, he began to question his circumstances.

How many spies were operating in his immediate vicinity?

Was something wrong with him specifically?