Ning Changfeng had already transferred to Class Five, and at this moment, he was walking toward Class Five with Shi Tianzhu.
After taking a few steps, Shi Tianzhu suddenly stopped.
Noticing her every move, Ning Changfeng immediately stopped as well and softly asked, "What's wrong?"
Shi Tianzhu was silent for a few seconds before asking, "Are they… dead?"
Ning Changfeng paused in surprise.
Over the past few days, apart from when he was in the dormitory, he had been by Shi Tianzhu's side constantly. She shouldn't have known what death was.
She must have overheard it in the crowd just now.
Ning Changfeng replied, "Yes, death means leaving this world. They didn't like this world, so they left here to go to another one."
After explaining to Shi Tianzhu, he added, "Dying is a terrible thing—painful and frightening. As long as people can live, as long as there's a sliver of hope, they should hold on."
These words were the same ones that the amnesiac Shi Tianzhu had once spoken to another amnesiac player in the library's study room.
He would always remember how Shi Tianzhu looked when she said those words. In that moment, he understood why so many people in the base admired her.
In a world filled with fear and despair, she had given countless people hope over the years, becoming a symbol of faith for so many.
Shi Tianzhu responded with a quiet "Mm." She looked at Ning Changfeng and asked, "What was our relationship before?"
Ning Changfeng replied, "We were rivals. You really disliked me."
Shi Tianzhu, surprised, said, "How could that be?"
Ning Changfeng was taken aback, and after a while, he broke into a delighted grin and said, "Come on, let's go to the classroom."
Shi Tianzhu walked into the classroom alongside him.
The school's efficiency was high; that very evening, they identified thirteen students who had driven a classmate to death and took them to the Reflection Hall to reflect on their actions.
Facing the instructor holding a black whip, those thirteen players offered no resistance, but for some reason, they began to argue among themselves.
They hurled accusations and insults at one another and only stopped when the instructor raised the whip and sternly ordered them to be quiet.
By the end of Friday, six players had died, five more were sent to the Reflection Hall, and eight players went there for a second time.
From that night onward, no one dared to excessively bully the amnesiac players again.
They focused on doing two things:
Studying.
Finding a way to transfer memories.
The week’s classes ended on Friday, with a full day of self-study on Saturday to reinforce what they'd learned, all in preparation for Sunday’s assessment test.
Sunday marked their third assessment test.
That morning, Ning Su lingered in bed a bit longer than usual, making him the last to get up and go to the bathroom to wash up.
By the time he came out, everyone else in the dorm had already left. Ling Xiao was waiting for him at the door. After a quick glance, he said, “Let’s go, time for the test.”
They arrived at the testing hall just in time for the exam.
Since Ning Changfeng transferred to Class Five, the task of studying and taking exams alongside Shi Tianzhu fell to him. Ning Su went to the fifth testing hall to wish Shi Tianzhu good luck, then headed to the first hall to take his own test.
The seating arrangement for this test followed the rankings from the previous assessment.
Looking at the dense network of cameras in the first testing hall, Ning Su thought that they would likely arrange every future assessment this way since it made it easier to “pick out the top performers.”
The walls on both sides were lined with the most surveillance cameras.
The top fifteen students from the last assessment, newly ranked, sat against the wall in the first vertical row on the right.
Ning Su, who ranked twenty-eighth last time, sat in the second row alongside Ning Changfeng, who was twenty-fifth.
Ling Xiao and Gu Witch sat two rows to their left.
This time, none of the top ten students in the grade were players. Shi He, who ranked first in the grade during the first assessment, dropped to eleventh from the bottom in the last one and was seated in the fifth hall.
“Ding-ding-ding—”
“Candidates, begin!”
The red lights on the tiny cameras flashed briefly, and the sound of pens scribbling across paper filled the testing hall.
Halfway through the Chinese exam, the student seated in the third seat of the first vertical row on the right began to slow down, eventually putting down his pen.
He was, in Ning Su’s view, the calmest student he had encountered since his memory loss.
He was even calmer than Xia Mengyu. He simply put down his pen, and after a moment of staring blankly at his test paper, he looked on in a daze.
Ning Su lowered his head and completed two questions. When he looked up again, he found the boy smiling.
It was a genuine smile, a liberating one, filled with an inexplicable hint of satisfaction.
Then, just like Xia Mengyu, he began writing on his scratch paper.
He didn't seem to show any obvious signs of unusual behavior, so the teachers and invigilators in the exam room hadn’t noticed or dragged him out.
Ning Su knew this was only temporary, because after reviewing the surveillance footage, the school leaders who selected him, along with some unknown parents, would already be aware of his memory loss.
Ning Su submitted his paper five minutes early. As he passed by the boy, he slowed down and glanced at the scratch paper he was writing on.
Like Xia Mengyu, he likely wanted to write a lot, but their memories would soon be completely erased. In the brief time he had, he could only jot down a few phrases, the rest mere repetitions.
Ning Su immediately noticed the limited amount of useful information:
[Mom and Dad, I lost my memory, hahaha!]
[Are you furious? Well, I feel great, hahaha!]
[Finally, I'm free. I don't have to live for grades anymore, no need to take the college entrance exam.]
[No matter how much you scold me or try to force me to death, it’s all over—I lost my memory, ha.]
[Now it's time to test whether you love me or just love my grades.]
[Grades… love me...]
Ning Su pursed his lips and handed in his test paper and answer sheet.
When he walked out of the exam room, he happened to hear shouting from the adjacent exam hall. A boy was being dragged out of the second exam room.
Ning Su was momentarily stunned, as were the other players from the first exam room, who were watching the boy being dragged away with grave expressions.
Once the exam ended, Ning Changfeng immediately asked, "What happened? Weren’t only students in the top ten of the grade supposed to have their memories extracted? The second exam room should be for students ranked between 121st and 240th, right?"
After discussing it for a few minutes, they couldn’t reach a conclusion.
All they knew was that if the memory extraction range in the exam hall was expanding beyond the top ten of the grade, this wasn’t a good sign.
Fortunately, this seemed to be an isolated case. The following exams saw no such incidents, with only three other players from the top ten being taken away.
As with the previous two times, some of the test papers and answer sheets were distributed during the next day's early morning study period.
On the way to the classroom with Ling Xiao, Ning Su asked him, "Lord Flower God, you must have made rapid progress again. You might even score higher than I did."
Ling Xiao tugged at his tie and looked at the spot over his heart. "I won’t score better than you."
Ning Su blinked. "Really?"
Ling Xiao’s gaze fell on his face and slowly moved away. He gave a low "Mm."
Ning Su thought Ling Xiao might score over 140 in English this time, depending on how they curved the grades. Curious, he waited through the morning study session for the test papers to be handed out.
It was in the second half of the class that the class representative finally started distributing the exams, beginning with the English papers. As soon as Ling Xiao’s paper was handed out, Ning Su turned around to look.
"What did you score?"
The moment Ning Su turned and saw the paper, he froze.
19 points.
The math test was also handed out.
20 points.
Only a quarter of the multiple-choice questions correct.
Lastly, the comprehensive humanities answer sheet was distributed.
0 points.
Ning Su’s fingers trembled.
Suddenly, he recalled an unsettling detail.
Whenever nearby players began losing their memories, he would hear a “gudong” sound.
But on the first night after they entered the game—right after finishing the exams, before the results were released, when no one had yet been called into the Reflection Hall—he had heard that “gudong” sound from the dormitory. It wasn’t just a single noise; it continued, “gudong, gudong, gudong,” echoing repeatedly.
