Chapter 452: Chapter 452 Awakener

Despite not being able to discern what rules or truths lay behind this eerie world, observing and exploring its various strange phenomena still filled Qianqian and me with tireless amusement.

A fragment of a destroyed world, which theoretically should have been completely unresponsive to new external information, did not mean it was absolutely unchangeable; we still could easily alter its state. Lin Xue successfully lit a promotional poster at the school with a lighter. Moreover, more professional instructions from Taville and Bubbles gave us a clearer understanding of this world. Currently, it was confirmed that our actions affected this dead world just as they would in reality: we could destroy buildings here, write “Imperial Soy Sauce Group was here” on the walls, and even shatter an entire world fragment–like a hard drive that cannot write data. Even the most potent virus could not infect that, but the data it held could still be violently destroyed by a magnet–of course, the theories and conditions related might be quite complex, and the way the effects were produced were not exactly the same as destroying a hard drive with a strong magnetic field, and my mortal-level intellect could never comprehend the mysteries…

Why on earth am I criticizing my own intelligence?

“Boss, there’s a class going on here!”

As our group of Imperial Leaders, filled with childlike curiosity, busied ourselves studying how to best display our graffiti on the school’s bulletin board, Lilina, barely over a meter tall, kept hopping near a nearby teaching building’s window. Her efforts were effective; after nearly fifteen minutes, she finally spotted a classroom with people inside, and it seemed like there was a class in session.

That was quite normal. This world was like a videotape, continuously replaying scenes from before its destruction. So, it shouldn’t be strange if there was a class before doomsday, right?

“But there’s something weird over there!”

Seeing all of us looking disinterested, Lilina immediately pouted in annoyance and then, without any further explanation, pulled at my arm toward the window, “Come with me, Loli Fan Boss! You can’t just refuse an invitation from a loli!”

Are you making a habit out of teasing me daily?

After giving Lilina a light tap on her head, I too curiously leaned over the window of a teaching building, enjoying the thrill of peeping–er, observing–while Lilina, even shorter than Pandora, excitedly hopped beside me. “Boss, you’re in my way! Lift me up to see!”

Was this girl overly excited or what?

Through the window’s glass, what appeared before us was a typical high school classroom; about thirty or forty high school students sat woodenly in the spacious and bright classroom, while a male teacher with slightly graying hair and chalk dust on his cuffs of his black suit stood at the podium. They seemed to be having a math class, with the blackboard filled with complex formulas and various symbols. The teacher moved briskly around, writing on the board and occasionally stopping to explain or to ask a student to stand and answer, and the students called upon would immediately stand up and respond fluently.

Of course, such a scene was very ordinary in a normal school, but–this was a fragment of a destroyed world, right? Could these ghosts really still engage in complex activities like learning? Or was it just repeating “recordings” from the past?

This was my first time witnessing interactions among these “ghosts.” Previously, I had only seen passersby hurrying along the streets like blind ants, with no communication among them. But now, this classroom’s teacher and students seemed to exhibit some forms of individual interaction. Could this be evidence that, even in a world fragment where death prevailed, some level of internal information exchange was still possible?

Well, Taville would definitely love this topic.

And following Lilina’s pointing, I also saw what she meant by “strange.”

At the back row of the classroom, there were two high school students, a boy and a girl, whose actions clearly differed from those of the “ghosts.”

They were both dressed in casual clothes suitable for late spring and early summer, creating a stark contrast with the uniformity of the school uniforms worn by others in the classroom. One of them, a short-haired girl with a baby face, roamed among the last few students, occasionally shaking their shoulders or blocking their eyes with her hands as if pulling a prank. However, these students showed little reaction, only occasionally looking up in confusion or slightly tilting their heads to avoid the nuisance– their response was almost as simple as a monotonous reflex, hardly counting as a conscious reaction.

The other student, a tall boy around 1.8 meters tall with a buzz cut and wearing a hooded track jacket, sat bored at a desk in the corner of the classroom, unapologetically blocking the entire view of the unlucky boy behind him. This tall student with a face full of impatience occasionally looked at his companion’s antics, but mostly scanned the lifeless classroom aimlessly.

Then, he noticed someone lying outside the window, peeking into the classroom and even having a pretty Loli sitting on their shoulder.

With a “whoosh”, the boy, who looked like a delinquent, agilely jumped down from the desk. This sudden movement startled the baby-faced girl next to him, and then he patted her shoulder and gestured towards us with his mouth.

One hand was supporting Lilina, who sat on my shoulder, while the other waved at them, my smile shining with the brilliance of Crest Complete Whitening Plus Scope.

Staring at us for a long while with an extremely surprised look, despite his effort to appear calm, the excitement and thrill in his eyes could not escape my sharp sight. His companion, caught off guard, let out a cheer and ran towards us–only to be pulled back by her friend from crashing into the glass and dragged out through the classroom’s back door.

Yep, that was a fool, assessment complete.

Lilina and I patiently waited outside the academic building; sure enough, it took less than a minute for the sound of rushing footsteps to approach from the nearby staircase. The two students we saw earlier ran out quickly and stopped in front of us, panting heavily.

“Yo!” I greeted cheerfully.

“Hey!” Sitting comfortably on my shoulder, Lilina also greeted cheerfully. I mean, shouldn’t you get down now? While the soft touch of Loli is quite nice, aren’t I the boss and you the employee?

“Hello! We are… we…” the short-haired girl finally caught her breath and then stutteringly said, “We are members of the Awakeners, my name is Ling Yin… may I ask… may I ask…”

“Useless fellow,” the tall boy interrupted her stammering, with a tone of an experienced member who had to step forward to assist a useless junior that embarrassed their team, “This is Ling Yin, and my name is Hu Wen. We are both members of the Awakeners organization. I know you must be very confused right now and are eager to know what happened, but before that, you have to answer three questions from me… Geez, looking with eyes is enough to distinguish the differences, why does the captain even bother designing these three idiotic questions…”

Hu Wen said with a displeased face, clearly trying to hide his inner excitement. Observing this young man, clearly several years younger than me yet trying to exhibit a mature, even “Guide”-like demeanor, I found him quite entertaining and didn’t interrupt his rambling monologue.

“Listen up, the first question: What are you doing? This question is very important, make sure to answer truthfully!” Hu Wen’s expression became serious as he spoke, showing that despite his previous disregard, he took those so-called “three questions” seriously.

Lilina and I looked at each other, and in unison, we said, “We’re just here to watch!”

At that moment, the future of the Empire seemed dim and bleak.

“But this bullshit answer actually pleased Hu Wen and Ling Yin so much that they even looked overjoyed. Then Hu Wen threw out a second question, “So do you know the meaning of ‘tomorrow’?”

“What kind of weird question is that?” I was utterly puzzled as I shrugged my shoulders. “Lilina, you tell them.”

The fake lolita I’d been shaking almost slid off, twisted my shoulder without a hint of politeness, and then whispered softly, “It’s probably that there is no tomorrow in this world…”

“Alright, we know the meaning of tomorrow, but it seems there is no tomorrow here anymore.” Lilina whispered back, and this not-so-loud answer almost made Hu Wen and Ling Yin jump for joy.

“And another question, the third one: do you… know what happened? This question isn’t to judge your identities, but it’s quite important…”

“I don’t know,” Lilina said curtly and delicately hopped down from my shoulder, “Loli Fan, you just took a lot of advantage of me just now~~” she said to me in the latter half.

Take advantage my ass! Who the hell was shamelessly sitting on my shoulder? If I didn’t hold your waist, and you, you fidgety creature, fell down, whose fault would it be?

Although the third answer visibly darkened the expressions on Hu Wen and Ling Yin’s faces, our arrival seemed to have delighted them, which filled my heart with many hazy guesses. However, my intuition made me choose to keep calm and see how things would unfold.

At that moment, Big Sister noticed what was going on, dragging Qianqian, who was aimlessly wandering around, and Lin Xue, who was ready to pour gasoline and burn the flower beds (was this really a necessary research project?), over: “Ah Jun, who are they?”

“Ah, Hu Wen! And…”

“I know, I know,” Hu Wen struggled to maintain a calm demeanor, but his face still involuntarily showed excitement. He waved his hands unconsciously as if trying to quiet a younger, inexperienced colleague, and involuntarily took a few steps forward, “You… you all Awakened, right? That’s great, I didn’t expect such luck today… Now the captain won’t have to frown anymore, follow me… uh, I’ll give you a rough idea on the way… never mind, let the captain talk to you about it, she loves doing this, hehe, it’s been a long time since we had any newcomers…”

This is a guy who normally looks calm, but becomes extremely talkative once excited; this was my first impression of the boy called Hu Wen.

Big Sister looked at me with an inquiring expression. I slightly waved my hand, signaling her and the other two restless girls to stay calm, and then through Spiritual Connection, I told them about our recent encounter with these two students. Their appearance was clearly the least likely event in the fragments of this world, but we couldn’t make any reasonable guesses, not even Bubbles and Taville could calculate the reason for such anomalies in the world’s fragments after receiving our messages. However, Sandora, who was acting as temporary logistics support far behind, suggested that we quietly integrate into their little group and see what these “living ghosts” were really up to.

Hu Wen and Ling Yin led the way to an old-looking, large, multi-purpose building deep within the campus. Then, within this building that was annoyingly complex, we wound our way into a baffling depth… I mean, should a normal academic building even have such bizarre structures? You can’t expect me to ignore those stairs that turned a right angle in mid-air and entered the wall, or the corridor that gradually inclined upwards directly entering the second floor, dammit!

“This building protects us, but it always undergoes these mutations, hehe…” Hu Wen led the way, clarifying our doubts, “You must be curious, right? Everyone feels that way when they first Awaken. Don’t worry; you’ll get used to it soon. We’ll tell you how to find the right path here, and actually, even if you wander randomly, you won’t really get lost–hey, also, don’t randomly open doors here. Many dangerous doors have already been marked with notes, but there are still some places we haven’t explored, and even classrooms marked as safe sometimes suddenly mutate…”

“This building is filled with intense, conflicting fragments of information,” Bubbles’s voice also echoed in my mind through the real-time data link. She was constantly analyzing those messy pieces of information, “Perhaps it’s the conflict between these pieces of information that allows a few ‘ghosts’ to maintain their free will even after the world has stagnated. However, I still need more data, kid’s dad. Bravely kick open those doors marked with little notes!”

Bravely, my ass!

My head felt massive as I hung up the Spiritual Connection, Bubbles was alright, but those hidden violent factors in his marrow were problematic.

According to Hu Wen, the school’s teaching building was extraordinarily complex due to the “Mutation.” Graffiti sprayed with paint was everywhere–the walls of the corridors and the floors were scribbled with words like “safe,” “dangerous,” “mutating,” and several places bore traces of being altered. Numerous classroom doors also had messy pieces of paper stuck onto them, hastily describing the state of the rooms. However, to me, it all seemed like a misty description of mountains and clouds. Through Hu Wen’s brief words, we confirmed that the sign at the school entrance covered in paint was the masterpiece of this student group that called themselves Awakeners.

Lin Xue kept curiously looking around as we walked. The girl always brought endless trouble and started, under the pretext of “researching,” to cause significant destruction on campus (including pouring gasoline in the flowerbeds, which was astonishing), and now I was genuinely worried she might impulsively kick open those doors with little notes stuck to them. Although they were tightly locked, the occasional eerie sense of danger coming from behind some classroom doors heightened my vigilance.

Of course, what made me even more cautious were Qianqian and Lin Xue, these two unsettling elements…

The former was a carefree idiot capable of stirring up just about anything, while the latter, despite knowing everything, constantly sought trouble. Look, if you take your eyes off her for just a second, she’s sneaking off toward the corridor corner again…

“Hey, can’t you stay out of trouble for a second? Don’t make me kick you out of the group.”

I stepped back silently, grabbed Lin Xue’s arm, and dragged her next to me, threatening her in a low voice by her ear.

“Hmph, I’ve already joined the instance; I could just go solo!” Lin Xue retorted as defiantly as ever, but her neck turned red when I breathed out.

“Alright, you pervert,” she finally surrendered under my unwavering gaze, her face slightly flushed and sullenly turning her head away, “Do you think I’m as naive as your dear Qianqian? Let me tell you, there’s a lot of incredible stuff behind those doors…”

“I know,” I cut in, pulling her along to catch up with the group, “But for now, let’s just watch and wait. This world is full of mysteries and inconsistencies. I have an intuition that if we can unravel the secrets here, we might gain tremendously.”

“Congratulations, you guessed right,” Lin Xue shrugged and walked ahead, “I’ve seen the future; it’s the same. But don’t expect me to tell you everything. It would destroy this world.”

I guess she just wants to watch us run around like headless chickens, you troublesome girl!

“We… we’re here!” Amidst the struggle with Lin Xue, Ling Yin’s timid and slightly stuttered voice suddenly drew my attention. I looked up, and we were standing at the door to a large activity room.

The double doors of the activity room were ajar, and a rough circle drawn in blue spray paint covered half its surface. Because of the gap in the doors, it looked like a cannon split in half. Ling Yin and Hu Wen asked us to wait at the door and then gently pushed it open and walked in.

Moments later, the two opened the activity room’s doors widely. A girl with a stubborn look, golden ponytail, and wearing coveralls splattered with paint sat in a chair facing the doorway. As the doors swung open, our figures and that of the girl appeared simultaneously in each other’s pupils.

(Recently, neither monthly tickets nor subscriptions are doing well… it seems I really should speak up, shouldn’t I?) (To be continued. For further updates, please visit www.wuxiaworld.site. More chapters available, support the author, support genuine reading!)