Just as the light in his eyes was about to dim, a screeching sound of brakes rang out.
Yang Ge practically jumped out of the car, and before he even landed, he shouted at Zhao Yuan, "Yuan Ge! Quick! Your exam admission tickets!"
Zhao Yuan straightened up, and the other students in Class 1 also turned their attention to him.
They saw that Yang was holding a strangely colored plastic bag in his hand. The originally transparent material was stained with rust-red stains, as well as dust and dirt.
Zhao Yuan took the plastic bag and glanced at it. On the other side of the bag was a glaring red handprint. This dried red color was blood.
They took out their admission tickets and distributed them to the students around them. Urged by the teacher, most of the students had already entered the examination room.
But Zhao Yuan didn't move. He held his exam admission ticket, looked up and asked Yang Ge, "Who gave you the bag?"
Yang's eyes reddened for a moment.
He didn't answer, but the smile on Zhao Yuan's lips vanished completely.
Unlike the other students who rushed into the examination room, Zhao Yuan grabbed his things and went to Fu Yang's electric scooter.
He asked, "Where is he? At school? In the alley? Or... on the outer street?"
This was the first time Yang Ge had dared to stop Zhao Yuan. He gripped the handlebars, looked at Zhao Yuan, and said, "Brother Yuan, the boss told you to do well on your exam! He said you have to do well on your exam! I've already called the police, I've called the police!"
Yang Ge snatched the car keys and kicked the car to the ground.
Zhao Yuan looked down at the rusty marks on his hands as the teacher pushed him into the examination room.
Yang Ge wasn't lying.
He received the bag and was already hopping onto his electric scooter when he heard Qin Chu's voice: "Tell Zhao Yuan to do well on the exam. If he..."
The next sentence was a familiar threat, but Yang Ge was too far away to hear it clearly.
Outside the street, on the top floor of the factory building.
The scorching sun beat down on this barren concrete field.
The top floor was densely packed with people lying down; some were still writhing and groaning, while others were already unconscious.
Qin Chu sat on a protruding beam to the side, and heard heavy breathing sounds in his ears.
It belongs to him.
His right hand hung limply on his knee, with beads of blood trickling down his fingertips, almost forming a thin line. In reality, apart from this injury on his hand, he had no other serious injuries.
"Beep, Zhou Sisi has successfully entered the examination room. Task progress 100%."
"Beep, Wang Peng has successfully entered the examination room. Mission progress 100%."
After a while, Noah finally notified him: "Beep, Zhao Yuan has successfully entered the examination room, mission progress 100%."
Qin Chu breathed a sigh of relief.
He heard the sound of police sirens; though they were far away, this place had finally heard them again.
As the horn sounded closer and closer, Qin Chu rummaged in his pocket with his uninjured left hand for a while and took out a card.
This is his admission ticket.
After receiving his admission ticket, Qin Chu didn't look at it closely.
Looking closely now, he realized that the photo on the ID wasn't him. The boy in the photo had a slight smile on his face, appearing somewhat hypocritically gentle. The name wasn't his either; it was simply Cheng Cheng.
"The mission is complete, sir. What are your plans?"
"After this college entrance examination, perhaps human consciousness will awaken and break away from the virtual world."
"You can say goodbye to them properly."
"No need." Qin Chu's voice was very low. He said, "There is still a long way to go. Noah, go to the next world."
I hope that one day, everyone in this world, through their own efforts, will be able to go where they want to go.
-
The scorching sunlight streamed through the dark red curtains, casting patches of light on the cool floor.
There were no people lying on the ground groaning in pain, nor any abandoned cement factory buildings. The aircraft of the Imperial Capital City Police circled around the Roy Palace area, and the sound of sirens similar to those in the story could be heard.
Before Qin Chu stood Crown Prince Levi, half-reclining on a soft couch, with the patient old steward of the Royal Palace beside him.
When the mysterious man in black robes said he would tell a story, the old butler thought he would be like a stand-up comedian, telling a joke or something. But as it turned out, he had overestimated the child before him.
This was the first time he had ever heard a story about a tablet.
It wasn't that the story was too boring, but rather that the storyteller's voice was consistently flat and lacked any liveliness. The black-robed figure remained silent for a long while, the lingering, cold voice disappeared, and the palace returned to silence.
The old butler wondered, is this ever going to end?
It wasn't that he found it strange, but rather that the man in black robes had fallen silent several times during the story, as if he were recalling something or considering how to proceed.
After waiting a while longer, the old butler saw the man in black robes stand up from the stool, and then he realized that the story ended with the chaotic scene on the factory rooftop.
This ending was hard for the elderly to accept, and they couldn't help but ask, "And then?"
Then the old steward saw the man in black robes look up at him strangely and reply, "That's all."
That's it.
It really came to an abrupt end.
The old butler felt like he was about to vomit blood.
Not only was the whole story told in a dry and uninteresting way, but it also ended abruptly at the end.
It takes real courage for someone of this caliber to perform at the Palace of Roy.
The old butler looked at Levy again.
He lay half-reclined on the soft couch the whole time, his eyelids half-closed as if he was about to fall asleep, seemingly sensing the hypnotic effect from the black-robed man's tone.
It wasn't until the man in the black robe said "gone" that Levy couldn't help but laugh, seemingly finding the reaction more interesting than the story itself.
The old steward was still deeply affected by the unfinished project, but seeing that His Highness the Crown Prince was showing some reaction, he wanted to give the man in black a chance to prove himself, so he asked a few more questions:
"How did those kids do on their exams?"
Which schools did they ultimately go to?
"Did Cheng Cheng go back to take the exam? Did they know that the final certificate was delivered by their friend?"
After asking this question, the old steward noticed that the man in black robes remained silent for a while.
The silence carried a peculiar quality, slowly seeping out from beneath the black robe.
Qin Chu raised his hand and adjusted the hood of his black robe.
He omitted some information when recounting the experience, making it merely a simple story.
It was only now that Qin Chu unexpectedly discovered that he remembered the events of that world so clearly, with even some details still vivid in his mind.
But he had no way to answer the old butler's question.
Thinking about these questions, all he could think about was a blank space of regret, so he said, "I don't know."
Well, that's the obvious and completely unsurprising answer.
The old butler sighed, thinking to himself that even if he didn't know, he should make one up on the spot!
After observing Levi for a moment, the old steward saw that His Highness the Crown Prince couldn't help but yawn, looking extremely bored.
Fortunately, Levy was clearly in a good mood and wasn't angry because he had been forced to listen to a boring and poorly-ended story.
He waved to the old butler, clearly instructing him to dismiss the young man in the black robe.
The old butler bowed, gesturing for Qin Chu to follow him out, and asked, "What reward do you wish to receive?"
When the old butler asked the question, he was indeed a little curious about how the boy would answer, because if the boy was interested in daily necessities, there was no need for him to insist on finishing the story.
Qin Chu did not follow the butler's instructions to leave the room. Instead, he turned to Levi and said, "I hope you can issue a document to postpone the evacuation of medical personnel from the M13 assembly point."
Hearing this, the butler was a little surprised, and even Levi looked up at him.
Those who have now awakened from the nutrient pods have returned home, while those still trapped in the network are divided into several clusters based on the frequency of their mental fluctuations.
Currently, medical resources are extremely scarce, and this is the only way to have one or two doctors responsible for dozens of cabins.
Although people have been waking up sporadically recently, those who have been in a coma for too long still require systematic treatment. The Empire's vast medical system remains paralyzed, so the cabinet has had to issue a document to transfer some medical personnel from designated locations.
If medical personnel are transferred, it means that the people at that gathering point are only surviving on the operation of the equipment, and there is a high probability that they will die in the nutrient tank.
This is a helpless abandonment, and the criteria for abandoning a gathering point is that no one has woken up in the past two months and more than 60% of the members' vital signs have dropped to the critical point.
M13 is a gathering point on the capital planet that is about to be abandoned. According to the issued documents, the medical staff will be transferred away in three days.
The old steward's gaze softened as he looked at Qin Chu. Perhaps it was because his family was in this gathering place that the young man insisted on coming to the Royal Palace to see His Highness the Crown Prince.
"You've asked the wrong person."
Levi's laughter on the couch carried a hint of mockery. "Have you studied history? The Empire's current system is similar to a constitutional monarchy. I don't have much say in anything, and I still have to rely on the cabinet to pay my salary."
The old butler lowered his gaze, maintaining his smile.
That's true, but which of those cabinet officials wasn't terrified of Levy when they saw him?
At this moment, the black-robed man in front of him showed an unexpected familiarity with His Highness the Crown Prince. He still faced Levi and said, "As long as you want to do it."
Levy seemed to find his words amusing, his eyes narrowing slightly with a smile, revealing a sharp canine tooth at the corner of his mouth: "Why would I want to do it? What does it have to do with me?"
Utterly indifferent, yet tinged with a hint of malice.
Seeing this, Qin Chu stopped talking and turned to the butler: "Could you take me inside this gathering place?"
The Royal Palace still had this much power. With a touch of pity, the butler looked at Levi to make sure he didn't refuse, then led Qin Chu to his office, wrote a document, and had a palace attendant from the Royal Palace take Qin Chu there.
Outside the gates of Roy Palace, Burke, who had been basking in the sun for over an hour, was fanning himself with his belly completely exposed, making the old butler's eyelids twitch.
Before leaving, Qin Chu turned to the old butler and Burke and said, "The story isn't over yet. I'll come back tomorrow."
The old butler's face turned green, and he thought to himself, "You'd better forget about this story."
But the man in black robes was clearly just giving a heads-up, without giving anyone a chance to refuse, before leaving with his palace servants.
Burke found this guy quite interesting; he actually came to Roy Palace to freeload, and one time wasn't enough, so he insisted on coming back the next day under the scorching sun.
You'd think this was a family of elderly, weak, sick, and disabled people to support.
The next day, Burke was still standing guard under the sun, thinking about how to get out of his miserable situation.