The sound of pens scratching against paper filled the examination hall.
The June weather was already sweltering, and the faint breeze stirred by flipping test papers did little to alleviate the stifling heat, instead adding to everyone’s restlessness.
A girl sitting in the fifth seat of the far-right column in the first examination hall suddenly stopped writing. Beads of sweat dripped down her face as she stared at her test paper in panic.
Clutching her pen, she forced herself to calm down. She flipped to the essay section and began writing with trembling hands.
Even as tears dripped onto the paper, she clenched her teeth, not letting out a single sound. She discreetly wiped the tears off the paper with her sleeve.
She probably wouldn’t be dragged out of the room screaming and shouting.
Ning Su raised his hand and waited for the teacher to approach obediently. He looked up and whispered softly, “Teacher, may I go to the restroom?”
Before the exam, the teacher had reminded everyone to use the restroom beforehand and emphasized that no one would be allowed to leave during the exam.
However, for students in the first examination hall, the teachers tended to be more lenient. After all, nature calls, and faced with Ning Su’s clear, beautiful eyes, no teacher could refuse.
“Go ahead, but be quick.”
Ning Su replied, “Thank you, teacher. I’ll be back within five minutes.”
The teacher nodded in satisfaction and let him leave.
Ning Su walked from the first examination hall all the way to the fifth. He passed slowly by the entrance of the fifth hall, went to the nearby restroom to wash his hands, and then strolled back unhurriedly.
Hong Zhenjiang glanced up at his retreating figure, then looked down and gripped an eraser in his hand.
When there were only 30 minutes left in the exam, a rubber eraser suddenly hit Lin Jiaze on the head.
The sharp-eyed invigilators immediately noticed, their eyes falling on the black eraser that had rolled to the ground.
Before they could react, Lin Jiaze suddenly stood up, trembling and crying. She grabbed two pens and hurled them at Hong Zhenjiang. Tears streaming down her face, she shouted, “I’ve already told you I can’t pass you cheat notes! Can’t you just leave me alone? Stop harassing me!”
The petite girl’s scream was unexpectedly piercing.
Hong Zhenjiang, seemingly embarrassed at being exposed, flushed red and shoved the small-framed Lin Jiaze to the ground. “What the hell are you talking about?!”
As Lin Jiaze fell, she bumped into a student who was in the middle of answering questions. The student’s pen scratched a long, jagged line across their answer sheet, ruining the carefully written answers.
That student also stood up to confront the situation, accidentally colliding with Hong Zhenjiang and knocking over two more students in the process.
“What are you doing?!”
“Get out of the way! Don’t mess up my exam!”
“Who bumped into me? It’s not my fault!”
“Teacher! Teacher! There’s a fight here!”
What started as a small, failed attempt at cheating had quickly escalated into a full-blown commotion in the examination hall.
More and more students were getting involved, and the noise began to disrupt exams in neighboring halls.
As invigilators and teachers tried to break up the fight and restore order, the stern-faced director of student affairs arrived.
The previous night, a group of students had caused trouble on the sports field, and she had been so furious that she hadn’t slept well. Now, hearing that another incident had broken out during the exam, her anger flared up again.
When she walked in, she was met with a scene that made her blood boil—several of the troublemakers from the night before were involved again!
Her chest heaved with rage as she pointed at them and declared, “Every single one of you, get to the Reflection Hall and think about what you’ve done!”
The students who had been causing trouble immediately sat back down, terrified. The examination hall quieted down significantly.
One teacher spoke up hesitantly, “Director, is this really appropriate? Sending them to the Reflection Hall will disrupt their exams.”
According to school rules, time in the Reflection Hall lasted at least an hour.
This would undoubtedly interfere with the current exam, and with only a 20-minute break between exams, it would also cut into the next one.
Another teacher added, “And at this time, it’s… not ideal.”
The Reflection Hall was already occupied by others.
But the director of student affairs, now completely enraged, snapped, “That’s exactly the point! They need to face consequences to learn their lesson! Last night, I let them off too lightly, and they didn’t learn a thing. Now they’re causing trouble again—it’s never-ending!”
“Besides, if we don’t punish them, it’s the other students who will suffer.”
Many students in this examination hall came from influential families, and after being disrupted like this, they were visibly upset, muttering complaints under their breath.
If these troublemakers weren’t dealt with, the other students wouldn’t let it slide.
The two teachers who had tried to reason with her quietly stepped aside.
The noisy students had all returned to their seats, obediently lowering their heads to focus on their exams. But they couldn’t escape the sharp eyes of the director of student affairs, who had years of experience dealing with such situations. One by one, she identified every student who had been involved in the commotion and hauled them off to the Reflection Hall—not a single one was spared.
Hong Zhenjiang walked at the front of the group, while the others followed with their heads bowed, as if they had truly realized the gravity of their mistakes.
The director of student affairs warned, “Keep your voices down when entering the Reflection Hall. No noise inside, understood?”
“Understood.”
There were more guards than usual stationed outside the Reflection Hall, standing alert by the bridge.
They entered the Reflection Hall quietly, with 20 minutes left until the end of the first Chinese exam.
As they walked through the door, a beam of light flashed over them.
They hadn’t known what it was before, but now they did—it was a blue light scanner, checking if the students were carrying anything they shouldn’t.
As soon as they entered the Reflection Hall, the director of student affairs locked the door from the outside.
The room was filled with a faint, eerie black mist. Each person seemed to take on a darker hue, standing in silence like solemn warriors.
Hong Zhenjiang turned to Lin Jiaze and asked, “Are you okay?”
Lin Jiaze shook her head and whispered, “I’m fine.”
They scanned the Reflection Hall, which they had visited twice before, searching for something.
One of the amnesiac players pointed to a spot on the ceiling. “There.”
Hong Zhenjiang, tall and strong, stepped onto a desk and reached up to touch the spot. His fingers brushed against a patch of dried blood. He looked down at the hands of a few of the amnesiac players.
The Reflection Hall was always shrouded in a thin layer of black mist. The marks left on the ceiling by the players who had been locked in the room the previous night hadn’t been discovered by the school yet.
This was partly due to the mist obscuring the view and partly because it had been so late the night before, and the school had been preoccupied with the exams today.
Hong Zhenjiang stepped down from the desk quietly and arranged a few tables together.
He and Lin Jiaze sat there, waiting for the exam to end and for one of the influential students to enter the Reflection Hall to transfer memories.
The twenty amnesiac players gradually moved closer, surrounding them.
These twenty players were all the ones who had written statements of repentance in the study room that night.
The thin layer of black mist acted like a pair of sunglasses, providing a sense of protection. It gave Lin Jiaze the courage to look into their eyes and say, “Don’t be afraid later.”
The amnesiac players nodded at her one by one.
As the end of the exam drew nearer, Hong Zhenjiang grew a little nervous. “Will they really be able to handle it? They won’t get scared and run, will they?”
This was a question Hong Zhenjiang had brought up back in the library study room.
On exam day, there were more guards patrolling the school, especially around the Reflection Hall.
It would be impossible for just two players to break through all the guards and witness the memory transfer process. They needed the amnesiac players to help distract and block the guards.
T/N: Sorry if it took a while to update. I've been kind of busy. ><
