Free Web NovelChapter 185: Chapter 185: Joining Forces After 700 Years
"The true essence of talking to humans in their language and to ghosts in theirs lies in catering to their preferences."
Under Mr. Bai’s previous guidance and his own insights, Bai Wu became adept at employing this method.
In his memories, Jiang Yimi’s most apparent issue was her own guilt over killing the Masked Strange Person; the person she most wanted to see was also the Masked Strange Person.
No matter how absurd the possibility of this scene becoming reality, she held onto that hope deep inside.
So Bai Wu bravely told a monumental lie.
There are two kinds of lies in this world.
One type of lie is to evade responsibility, while another type is to take on responsibility.
Bai Wu’s lie was of the latter kind.
Even though the Masked Strange Person gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity, he did not know the Masked Strange Person.
For him, masks originally served merely as props to hide his identity during live broadcasts.
But now, just as Lin Rui took over the mask from his hands, he felt as if he had officially taken over the mask from the hands of the First Generation Masked Strange Person.
Kind souls deserve redemption.
Hong Yin, Bai Xiaoyu, Jiang Yimi—Bai Wu believed that these people would surely have a positive impact on the world someday.
"Perhaps you still won’t believe me, but that’s okay, my identity isn’t important. What’s important is that there were many things left undone 700 years ago," he said.
Bai Wu handed the scroll to Jiang Yimi, and as she took it, she asked with a trembling voice,
"Are you really him... But I saw you die with my own eyes..."
"Death is just the beginning of the next journey. Remember, I’ve said this to you before? My flesh, in a certain sense, will never really die. I have an extremely advanced Sequence within me that allows me to bend the rules of time and space at the moment of death."
Whether it was heroes never die, or death is just the beginning of the next journey, the tone in which Bai Wu spoke these words was strikingly similar to the real Masked Strange Person.
Bai Wu didn’t want to dwell on the topic of identity.
Despite his brief interaction with the Masked Strange Person, his indescribable sense of familiarity allowed him to take on the role of the Masked Man with ease.
He was confident in this respect; the longer the time passed, the more Jiang Yimi would become convinced that he was the Masked Strange Person.
Whether the Masked Strange Person was dead or alive didn’t really matter. If the Masked Strange Person was dead, then he was the Masked Strange Person; if the Masked Strange Person was alive, no matter, he might be creating some sort of cause and effect, and who knows? In the future, he might meet this incredibly powerful human from 700 years ago.
"Tell me about the changes that have taken place at the school."
Jiang Yimi nodded, her heart still racing, her emotions unable to settle down, and her eyes fixated on Bai Wu, afraid that he might suddenly disappear if she blinked. After a good while, she began to describe the changes at the school:
"My loss of control almost turned the school into a Ghost School, and now... the school has completely changed from before. The principal hides underground, not daring to come out, and a number of teachers who helped the principal are also hiding in the academic building area..."
Suddenly, Bai Wu found the layout of the school interesting:
"All of the principal’s people are in hiding?"
"Yes, they’re all hidden in the area of the teachers’ office building. I haven’t been out for a long time either. I don’t know what they’re up to, what they’re planning. Anyway, they can’t leave the school, and moreover, there are quite a few beings within the school... who are even more powerful than they are."
Bai Wu nodded, truly blended into a disadvantaged group now.
"So, who are the ones teaching the classes?"
"Some of the teachers who were unaware of everything at the time. The disaster brought more than just death; most people turned into monsters because of me. But these monsters seem to have different powers due to their own obsessions and desires. Some teachers long to guide students... so they attain the power that surpasses the majority of students."
"By ’the majority,’ you mean there are still students more powerful than the teachers?"
"There are indeed. In the teaching building of the east school area, there is a faction of student force. They are different from other students. These students were seen as bad students by the teachers before. Regardless of whether they wanted to become good students or had animosity towards the teachers, they all possess powers that many teachers fear."
Upon mentioning this, Jiang Yimi’s face showed a hint of guilt:
"But although they are powerful, they are also bound by rules. The entire school is divided into the dormitory area, the teachers’ office building area occupied by the principal, the nearby learning area controlled by the non-principal teachers, and the bad student area in the east. But these areas... actually all have something in common."
Bai Wu roughly guessed what this commonality was:
"Longing but unable to obtain..."
"Yes, because of me, the entire school is in this state of longing but never obtaining. Students in the learning area fear examinations, but they are forced to face them every day, so their strength diminishes, and the teachers’ control over them grows stronger."
"And the teachers? They were actually good teachers. Their pre-death obsession was to teach these students well... But they couldn’t achieve that. After their transformation into the Evil Fallen, they endlessly issue exams, yet the students’ grades only get worse and worse. They can never teach a good student."
"The students in the east school area are rebellious, wanting to earn adult approval in rebellious ways, but it’s pointless. They are filled with the desire to fight, only able to keep slaughtering each other day by day. They will never get the approval of teachers and parents. The stronger they become, the further away they are from everyone else."
"In the dormitory area..."
Mentioning the dormitory area, Jiang Yimi sighed gently:
"The staff in charge of the dormitory patrol it daily. There are both good and bad aspects to it. The bad thing is, the various horror tales of the dormitory area are what the students fear the most, but now, as soon as classes end, all the students returning to the dormitory are forced to experience those campus horror stories they once talked about."
Bai Wu understood; no wonder there were so many eyes full of resentment staring at him when he left the dormitory building.
So they’re all resentments...
Lodged in a dormitory where terrifying phenomena occur every night, they definitely long to leave.
All faces pressed against the windows, their eyes wide open, looking at the sights outside the windows, indicated that these students turned Evil Fallen could no longer sleep; they only wanted to escape the dormitory area.
But the current state of the school is a self-fulfilling prophecy of longing but not obtaining... The more you fear something, the more you face it repeatedly, and the more you avoid a calamity, the more likely it is to come true...
In a sense, after Jiang Yimi’s disease outbreak merged, Baichuan Middle School had become a true area of severe misfortune.
Those who come here have no luck to speak of anymore.
"The good part is, those who serve the principal, they originally helped the principal transfer students and ignored the lives of the students for the greed of money, but not anymore. They have to patrol the dormitory tirelessly because of the presence of the Lantern Bearer..."
Bai Wu also wanted to know, just what exactly was the Lantern Bearer.
"I encountered it before in the dormitory area as well, though I did not see it, but by the sound of it, it seemed to be an old person carrying a lamp. Unlike the security staff of the dormitories, it does not seem to always be there."
"Hmm... The Lantern Bearer is a very special existence, it could be... it could be stemming from my desire to protect the school. Originally, the Lantern Bearer did not exist. After your death... after you died, I was overwhelmed by grief and pain, and misfortune uncontrollably burst forth from within me, but deep down, I still wanted to protect those students you and I had once saved."
So this is what the distorted reality mentioned by the eyes meant...
Jiang Yimi’s potential is indeed terrifying, her inner grief causing calamities to run amok and uncontrollably, turning the school into a hellish Ghost School.
But her inner kindness, at that time, materialized into a Lantern Bearer.
Bai Wu looked at this girl with a tragic experience and a kind heart, and he suddenly understood, his inner inquiries about the behavior of the Lantern Bearer all found their answers at this moment:
"So the Lantern Bearer’s existence is to ensure the safety of the students... In a dormitory where students are present, it would knock on the door three times. It didn’t knock on 405 because there were no students there."
"And in dormitory 403 where I was, because in the Mirror World, there lived many children saved by the Masked Strange Person and Jiang Yimi. So when it came to 403, the Lantern Bearer kept knocking, not because I did not respond to it, but to make sure the children inside the mirror were safe..."
Jiang Yimi quickly confirmed Bai Wu’s inner guess:
"It is a Guardian, if any student left or went missing from the dormitory, the security guards from the security department would be punished by the Lantern Bearer. They would suffer extreme mental torture, trapped in nightmares unable to break free."
"But this is also very helpless... Because of the presence of the security department and the Lantern Bearer, students must return to their dormitories, they must go through the most terrifying ghost stories. Because of my loss of control, they have been tormented every night for the past seven hundred years." freewebnøvel.com
Jiang Yimi was in pain.
The unattainable was also evident in her. Seven hundred years ago, what she most desired was to not trouble others, not to involve anyone else.
But now, all the students, teachers, and staff in every zone of the school were affected by Jiang Yimi’s misfortune.
"The principal wanted to control the school, but they became the weakest group in the entire school, which is the only thing that doesn’t make me feel guilty. They cannot leave the teaching building area; if they did, the students from the eastern zone would stop killing each other and would, like hunters sensing their prey, act otherwise."
This indeed was a consolation amidst the misfortunes.
What the principal and others could not achieve was the control over the school, the hunting of students.
But now they could not control the school, and they went from hunters to the hunted.
Reality had completely turned on its head due to a calamity’s outbreak.
Almost all of the puzzles of the school had been solved, and the issue with the Masked Strange Person was also resolved, but to completely relieve Jiang Yimi’s concerns, several areas of the school had to be purified.
This also involved a critical issue. The school was divided into multiple zones, including the blue zone, the purple zone, and the red zone.
Now, these zones were accessible, meaning that at least one piece of the Doomsday Puzzle Fragment that determined the zone boundaries had been used in this school.
"Do you know about the Doomsday Puzzle Fragment?" Bai Wu asked.
"I don’t know, what is that?"
"It’s something that can turn the school back to normal, to eliminate all the strange rules of the school, we need that fragment. In theory, you should have one..."
Jiang Yimi shook her head.
A suspicion arose in Bai Wu’s heart.
"Could it be that when this school became a district outside of the Tower, the chosen Guardian wasn’t Jiang Yimi? Who could it be then?"
After some contemplation, Jiang Yimi indeed could not recall anything related to the fragment:
"Is there really such a thing? Do you mean... everything about the school can be restored?"
"Yes, the elimination of inter-zone boundaries implies that someone has already got one of the pieces, and the other two crucial fragments, involving the purification of the zone rules, and gaining the good will of Evil Fallen, with these two fragments, even though they would live in the form of Evil Fallen, at least there will be no more resentments and fears here."
Bai Wu did not mention Evil Fallen Purification.
Because after Evil Fallen Purification, they would become human, and perhaps Jiang Yimi could be purified alone and brought back to the High Tower, but not the rest of the school.
That group was too large in number; if they were not even Evil Fallen, they simply could not survive in this place.
"Where might the Doomsday Puzzle Fragment be?"
"In theory, it should be with the most powerful Evil Fallen in the area, but you don’t have it."
Lowering her head in thought for a long time, Jiang Yimi said:
"Could it be... related to my constitution?"
Bai Wu was startled, then suddenly had a clue.
"Right, I overlooked that detail; in this area, you are indeed the most powerful being, but perhaps because you are not a pure Evil Fallen, but rather in a Semi-Evil Fallen state, you did not get the Doomsday Fragment. Apart from you, who would be the strongest Evil Fallen?"
Baichuan Middle School is an area recorded in the Traction Disc by Cain, Bai Wu knew that Cain might have visited this place.
And the disappearance of internal zone divisions meant that someone had already acquired one of the fragments; Bai Wu also speculated that this person was very likely Cain.
But Cain may not have collected all the other fragments.
Jiang Yimi said:
"In the east zone, among the bad students, there are three heads, they are in a three-way battle, with high mutation levels. In the teaching building, there is a head teacher whose mutation level is also high, but unlike the east zone, you need to defeat those students. We can handle them if we join forces, but in the teaching building area... you cannot use force."
"Then what should be used?"
"You must take an exam..."
Bai Wu laughed; verbal sparring was something he was very familiar with. Unless the world of the Pre-Tower Era was no longer ruled by the likes of Newton, he truly was not afraid of any student-level tests.
This was the confidence from a scholar god.
"Then there’s the Lantern Bearer... Although it’s a part of my kind thoughts, it has materialized, it has a life of its own. In the dormitory area, the strongest is the Lantern Bearer. I’m not quite clear about its abilities... but we should be able to suppress it if we work together."
After a slight pause, Jiang Yimi’s expression became serious:
"Lastly, the principal."
