***
Bonus chapter! Thank you to alyanna for the donation! ^^
***
‘What are you talking about, trying different methods? First, try to avoid ranking in the bottom 100.’
Ning Su’s somewhat blank expression clearly conveyed this message.
Ning Changfeng almost burst out laughing on the other side.
In his impression, Ling Xiao had always been mysterious, powerful, and unfathomable. Who could have imagined that there would be a time when he’d be holding a [Primary School English Vocabulary] book with a bewildered look on his face?
Ning Changfeng said, “Ling Xiao, this is your nephew’s heartfelt gesture. You should start learning.”
Ling Xiao: “...”
His gaze shifted from the [Primary School English Vocabulary] book to Ning Su.
The young man had just taken a bath, and his hair, still damp, was pressed down softly by a towel. His delicate eyebrows were slightly lowered under his widow’s peak, with his gaze barely visible through his long lashes, making it hard to discern the emotions in his eyes.
The only thing visible was a rare, slight tension in the curve of his thin lips.
Ling Xiao’s Adam’s apple moved slightly, and he had an urge to smooth out that curve.
He sat on the bed, leaning against the pillow, and opened the [Primary School English Vocabulary] book.
At some point, the only sound left in the dormitory was the sound of pages being turned.
Suddenly, Ling Xiao’s blanket moved, and two round bulges appeared, squirming forward.
Before long, two children crawled out from under the blanket, one on each side of Ling Xiao, and sat beside him to study the [Primary School English Vocabulary] book together.
Ling Xiao: “...”
Ling Xiao slowed down his page-turning.
The [Primary School English Vocabulary] book looked thick, but it actually contained a few words, along with many cute illustrations and crooked “straight” marks.
Ling Xiao paused for a moment, then turned his head to look at Gui Sheng.
Gui Sheng was pointing at himself with his little gray finger, silently mouthing, “It’s mine!”
Ling Xiao: “...”
He thought to himself, in a school full of top students, where did this [Primary School English Vocabulary] book come from?
After finishing the book, Ling Xiao looked up at the person in front of him.
That person had long fallen asleep peacefully resting on his own bed.
Ling Xiao pressed his temples and struggled to fall asleep with the two children.
It was after 2 AM when everyone in the dormitory finally went to bed.
“Gulp——”
“Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp——”
In a daze, Ning Su heard the “gulp” sound again, more frequent and clearer than the previous night.
It sounded like something was falling bit by bit into a lake.
Or like something was eating, swallowing some strange food into an empty stomach.
Ning Su opened his eyes and saw that on the bed opposite him, in the middle on the left side, a figure was sitting rigidly and silently.
It was Zhou Xiang.
Three o’clock in the morning was the quietest time at Qingyi High School.
An hour earlier, there were still people studying in the dormitory and the study room; two hours later, students would start waking up to study early.
In the quietest and darkest moment of the night, Zhou Xiang sat silently on the bed, not knowing what he intended to do.
Not long after, Ning Su saw his hand move.
Only then did he notice in the darkness that Zhou Xiang was holding a ballpoint pen, pressing it against his white school uniform shirt.
He was writing something on the inside pocket of his uniform shirt.
Ning Su was taken aback and pursed his lips.
He thought of Wang Zhiqiu carving words into the desk.
After Zhou Xiang finished writing, he sat there for a while longer, quietly staring ahead. It was unknown how much time had passed before he wiped his face and got out of bed.
As he was getting off the bed, he noticed that Ning Su had his eyes open.
Each floor of Qingyi High School’s dormitory had study rooms on both sides.
At three in the morning, a student with a thick exercise book in hand was returning to the dormitory, while two others in the study room were sleeping soundly on their desks.
Ning Su and Zhou Xiang stood at the dormitory entrance, diagonally opposite the study room.
Ning Su asked him, “Are you having memory problems?”
Zhou Xiang breathed heavily, his voice nasal. He wiped his face again and said, “I can’t remember what I looked at before I fell asleep.”
“Things you remember before going to bed, it’s normal to forget them after a night’s sleep,” Ning Su said.
“It’s not just those,” Zhou Xiang replied. “Many things in my memory are slowly becoming blurred, as if covered by a thin layer of mosaic, and then erased.”
Ning Su pursed his lips. If it were just the things remembered before going to bed that were forgotten, he could still say it was due to nerves.
But with such a clear description, it was clear that Zhou Xiang’s memory was genuinely deteriorating.
Zhou Xiang’s breathing grew heavier. His right hand, originally hanging by his side, moved anxiously to the white wall, then to the dormitory door, and then back to his leg, trembling as he clenched it in the dim light.
“The half-angle sine formula, is it called sine? What is the formula again?”
“Accou, coun?”
His trembling became more severe, as if he was desperately trying to fight for his memory, but could only watch helplessly as it slipped away.
Like fine sand, he tried to grasp it, but the more he tried, the more it slipped through his fingers.
“Time passes like, like...”
“The late emperor, the late emperor?”
His restless hand tightly grabbed his short hair, while the other hand slapped his head forcefully. “The late emperor, the late emperor!”
His figure gradually overlapped with the image of the girl they saw under the tree, memorizing words when they entered the school gates.
Ning Su quickly grabbed his arm. “Zhou Xiang, calm down!”
“The more you think about it, the faster it will slip away!”
Zhou Xiang’s hand, which was hitting his head, stopped. He held his head in his hands.
“I wasn’t that scared before. It wasn’t until my memory started to fade bit by bit that I realized how terrifying this feeling is.”
“I can feel them slipping away, bit by bit, and very quickly. I’m powerless, and I don’t know to what extent they will eventually disappear.”
“Will it be like Ling Xiao said, where even emotions fade away in the end, turning into an empty shell, a walking corpse...”
Ning Su didn’t know how to comfort him. Any words at this moment would seem hollow.
He could only try to prevent him from becoming anxious, to stop him from pulling out his hair and scalp like that girl.
“Don’t be afraid. It’s impossible that entering the game would immediately sentence 78 players to death just because of an exam. There must be a way out.”
“Mm,” Zhou Xiang responded, but his hand was still trembling, his chest heaving violently.
“It’s already like this, I’m afraid it’s useless to be scared now,” Zhou Xiang tightly clenched his hands. “After entering the game, many memories aren’t pleasant. It’s better to forget them.”
“Even in reality, holding onto many memories is useless...”
Ning Su didn’t believe it and looked up at him.
His clear peach blossom eyes shimmered with a faint light in the dim surroundings, as if they could see through everything.
Zhou Xiang opened his mouth, his throat dry and sore. “I do have memories that I’m particularly afraid of losing. They are my only, my only...”
Ning Su understood.
He had seen it all.
He saw Zhou Xiang sitting on the bed; the words written inside the pocket of his shirt.
The shirt was white, and he had used a blue ballpoint pen to write inside the pocket, where the layers of fabric made it harder to notice. Even so, he couldn’t write much.
Ning Su thought Zhou Xiang would write his name and basic information, like Wang Zhiqiu and Xia Mengyu did.
But no.
He wrote someone else’s name. All three of his school uniforms had it.
“Lu Yue is the person you love most. Believe in him.”
Thanks for the update!! 😣😣
ReplyDelete