Pigeon: Boo hoo hoo, I don’t want to go into the Little Black Room again.
Pigeon: I’ve grinded out so much loot. I just want to share my joy with the group.
Pigeon: I only wanted to play games with everyone. What did I do wrong?
Pass One Charm: Shut your mouth, you shameless old thief.
Bai Bai: There are bad apples in the group, but I won’t say who.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Alright, alright. The group’s just looking out for your studies.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: If you slack off playing games with us right at the end here and bomb the Gaokao, that’d be bad.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Since you’re so unwilling to accept our good intentions, and with only ten days left till the Gaokao, it’s not our problem anymore.
That’s too much. Is that really “good intentions” toward Pigeon? Sounds more like you’re finally getting a chance to vent some pent-up grudge.
No wonder she never mentioned being a senior back then. She must’ve seen this coming.
Still, she didn’t even flex her cards, so yeah, the group muting her really was for the sake of her grades.
Pigeon: I see. You’re just settling personal scores.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Absolutely not. Don’t believe me? Ask them.
Bai Bai: I think the President is right.
Pass One Charm: I think the President is right.
Pigeon: Pfft, you’re all in cahoots. Whatever, there’s something more important now anyway.
Pigeon: [Uploaded a file.]
Pigeon: I checked, and Xiao Yi, you’re in the same province as me. We always get the same national paper, and it should be the same this year.
Human-Dragon Unity: Really?
Pigeon: This is our class teacher’s predictions for the main subjects, plus some key class teacher’s Gaokao predictions for sciences that I got from a friend.
Pigeon: Not to brag, but my school’s a city key school. The teachers here are pretty sharp.
Pigeon: Sure, predictions don’t always hit, but it’ll still be useful reference material for you.
Pigeon: For the sake of my life, you absolutely cannot share this outside.
Pass One Charm: Now that’s true love.
Human-Dragon Unity: Whoa, is this okay?
Pigeon: What’s not okay? I’m only sneaking it to you, Xiao Yi.
Pigeon: As long as everyone in the group keeps their mouths shut—heaven knows, earth knows, you know, I know.
Pigeon: Close enough to never happened.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: 666.
Pass One Charm: Buying a high-speed rail ticket overnight to rat you out at your school, heh heh.
Bai Bai: Xiao Huo, you’re bad.
Pass One Charm: Bai Bai? Aren’t you my teammate?
Bai Bai: Am I? When? Not anymore starting now.
Pass One Charm: Your loyal subjects stand ready to fight to the death—why does Your Majesty surrender first?
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Enough fooling around.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: I can vouch that Xiao Huo definitely wouldn’t do something like that, but still, a friendly reminder.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Jokes aside, no sharing that file from Pigeon in any form.
Pass One Charm: Ugh, group bullying.
Bai Bai: Yeah, yeah.
Human-Dragon Unity: Since you’ve said that much, Pigeon, I’ll gratefully download it.
Human-Dragon Unity: If we ever meet, dinner’s on me.
Pigeon: I doubt I’ll ever get that meal, but I’ll remember it.
Human-Dragon Unity: Of course. And I still owe the President for the book loan too.
Human-Dragon Unity: Gotta buy him dinner if the chance comes.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Skip the dinner. I don’t need your meal.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Focus on the Gaokao instead. What if I need a wage slave to work for me later?
Human-Dragon Unity: A nine-to-five with weekends off, eighty percent of the day slacking, full holidays, no makeup days after swaps? That kind of wage slave?
Human-Dragon Unity: Sounds doable to me.
Human-Dragon Unity: President, just send the offer, and I’m yours from then on!
Pass One Charm: As if you’d get that gig. President, look at me—my degree’s higher than his.
Human-Dragon Unity: What if? I haven’t taken the test yet. What if mine’s higher?
Pass One Charm: Heh, fine. I’ll write you an empty check too.
Pass One Charm: Don’t say “beat me”—if you even match my tier of uni, dinner’s on me.
Pass One Charm: Money’s no object. Pick whatever you want.
Human-Dragon Unity: Real empty promise.
Pass One Charm: Learning from the best.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Get lost, all of you. I don’t want wage slaves with zero ambition.
Human-Dragon Unity: Ambition? Edible?
Pass One Charm: Ah, the capitalist.
Pigeon: Ah, wage slaves.
Human-Dragon Unity: Ah, surplus value.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Noted in my little black book.jpg
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Next Tabletop RPG session, all character card backgrounds must be at least five thousand words. No stream-of-consciousness drivel, or rejected.
Pass One Charm: Ugh, just kill me.
Human-Dragon Unity: Ugh, just kill me.
Pigeon: That’s not a character background—that’s a thesis.
Bai Bai: I’ve got something next session, so I’ll skip. See you the one after.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Alright, enough joking.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: Xiao Yi and Pigeon, time for you two to hit the Little Black Room.
Pigeon: Ah, bullying.
Human-Dragon Unity: Ah, power.
Don’t Play Holy Slash: You two, good luck on the Gaokao. See you after exams.
Bai Bai: Go get ’em, Xiao Yi! Pigeon too.
Pass One Charm: Bai Bai, the double standard is glaring. You two seniors, good luck.
Pigeon: Hmph, kick.
Human-Dragon Unity: We’ll win.
Time flew by until evening. For some reason, he felt unusually drowsy today.
Maybe he was coming down with a cold. He’d grab some medicine from the infirmary tomorrow. Better to rest early tonight.
He wasn’t the type to push through at a cost. Forcing it now would only hurt his upcoming exams.
A cold wasn’t a big deal, though. Unlike those anime characters, no one here was that fragile—laid up in bed waiting for a cute girl to nurse them.
…Wait, if he played it safe and stayed in bed with a cold, would a cute girl come take care of him?
After self-study ended, he unusually skipped staying late in the classroom. Instead, he headed straight back to the dorm.
He lay there for who knew how long. When he groggily opened his eyes, the dorm lights were still on—it wasn’t lights-out yet.
He closed his eyes to drift off again, but the noisy chatter from his roommates outside pulled him back.
“What happened?”
“Lao Mo, get up. Time to watch the drama.”
Watch the drama? Mo Xiangwen’s mind cleared a bit. He climbed out of bed and followed them to the dorm corridor.
Down on the Little Square below, a teacher from another class and the grade leader were facing off against a student he didn’t recognize.
Well, “facing off” might be a stretch, but their stances and distance gave him that vibe.
“What’s going on?” Mo Xiangwen asked someone nearby.
“What else? It’s the evening show these past few days.”
“You’re talking in riddles. I don’t get it.”
“Basically, a kid’s crying to go home, and the teacher and grade leader are talking him down.”
“They won’t let him?”
“It’s not that. They’re scared too, but it’s late night—not great to just let him leave campus.”
“Yeah, I passed by earlier and heard the teacher promise to approve a leave for tomorrow morning,” another chimed in.
Whatever the grade leader or teacher said next, the student lost it again.
“Let me go home! Right now!”
“I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to study. I won’t take the Gaokao, okay?!”
The boy’s tear-choked shout was raw and desperate, echoing across several dorm buildings and drawing a crowd.
Mo Xiangwen glanced around. The whole corridor was packed, everyone glued to the spectacle below.
They looked like avid spectators, but their faces showed this was old hat.
“Happens a lot these days?”
“Not every day, but a few times. Boys and girls both, though I hear more girls. We haven’t seen those.”
“Girls’ dorm isn’t far. The loud ones carried over.”
Everyone buzzed with chatter, oblivious to their homeroom teacher sneaking up behind.
Tweet!
The teacher blew a sharp whistle. The blast snapped the gawkers back to reality, and they scrambled to their rooms.
“Shoo! Nothing to see here. Back to bed, all of you!”
