Chapter 3 - Novice Copy (3)

Hongyi Amusement Park

Chapter 3 — Second Game (3)

Jiang Xiaoli didn’t let go, she held Li Hongying’s hand and went together with her to the canteen to have breakfast. Li Hongying ordered a bowl of hot dry noodles with soy milk and added three spoons of chilli to her hot dry noodles. Jiang Xiaoli followed behind her and ordered the same thing. When it came to adding chilli, she hesitated before adding a spoon of chilli.

……and then she sweated profusely from the spiciness.

Why do I often have tears in my eyes? Because this chilli is so damning hot. Now, I understand the merit of soy milk! Jiang Xiao’s lips were very red as she ate and her nose was full of sweat. Jiang Xiaoli thought. She didn’t eat hot dry noodles much in the past and did not expect hot dry noodles to have such a special taste. Thinking that she could only live for six days and would not have the chance to return to reality to have breakfast, her mood sank once more.

“Here.” Li Hongying handed over a packet of tissue paper.

“Thank you.” Jiang Xiaoli pulled out a piece of tissue. After she was done wiping, she took the tableware and placed them at the tray return station. Then, she carried her school bag and walked to the classroom together with Li Hongying. She was one step behind Li Hongying on purpose, being lost in thought and staring at Li Hongying’s slightly swaying ponytail——even if the two words, ‘hong yi’, were above her head, there appeared to be nothing wrong with Li Hongying at all. She was slightly withdrawn and introverted but it wasn’t her fault. Jiang Xiaoli thought, for Li Hongying to say those words to her, it should be that she did not want to implicate her, right?

……What sort of setting did this world have? It’s getting harder and harder to understand. Apart from Li Hongying, Jiang Xiaoli did not see anyone else with words on their heads.

Ugh. She lived her last six days in confusion. How did she surprisingly get drawn to come to an escape game copy. If she died, she simply wouldn’t even know how she died. Jiang Xiaoli had never seen any of the escape game genre, not even a reference…..wait, this place also had phones and the internet ah! Yet, before Jiang Xiaoli could snap into action, she was stupefied by today’s timetable. ——Yesterday, she did not have a chance to react.

Chinese, Chinese, physics, chemistry…mathematics, mathematics, English, biology……

The standard lessons with two periods will have a set of test papers handed out to be done on-site. Morning self-learning is also Chinese, recitation, studying, online dictation. Jiang Xiaoli sat on her seat, her hand holding the book trembled non-stop. A small yellow book with all sorts of classical Chinese poems had to be remembered for the university entrance exam. Jiang Xiaoli glanced at it several times and noticed she had an impression for most of them. Only then did she relax a bit. All in all, she was a true liberal arts student~

……wait a moment.

This class was a science class? 1

Jiang Xiaoli suddenly raised her head to look at the timetable, biology, physics, chemistry……not politics, history and geography. She’s done for.

If this escape game wants to kill her, just stab her directly! Is it interesting to do this type of thing to mess with her! After so many years, Jiang Xiaoli still knows shit about physics, biology and chemistry ah! But aren’t the subjects for the arts and sciences not divided? This world did not change ah?

One or two periods of Chinese examination passed and then there was a thirty-minute break. Jiang Xiaoli kneaded her fingertips which were deformed from writing so much and expressed that she didn’t want to write a third-year essay ever again. What essential sentences for essays, what allusions and what references, she had long forgotten them all. ‘The Resilience of Civilisation’? 2 She could only brace herself to write the essay and didn’t know whether she could get fifty marks.

For Jiang Xiaoli, listening to physics and chemistry was like listening to heavenly scriptures. She passed her biology, physics and chemistry in those days she was in junior high school. At that time, she did not have to even take an exam for biology. For her to rely on her knowledge in junior high school many years ago to comprehend third-year biology, physics and chemistry……Jiang Xiaoli wanted to die.

It goes without saying that she slept.

And it goes without saying that she got punished to stand again.

She went to the familiar blackboard at the back once again and didn’t dare to lean, standing as straight as a ramrod. Her eyes were fixed ahead and staring blankly at Li Hongying’s tender neck.

Li Hongying sat upright, taking notes from time to time on the question she got wrong. Jiang Xiaoli noticed Li Hongying unexpectedly had a specialised collection for her wrong questions and a notebook. She stood a distance away from her so she could only see densely packed words and the three colours of red, black and blue.

Jiang Xiaoli thought. Li Hongying’s grades should be pretty good. Why was she sitting in the last row then?

It was until the afternoon that Li Hongying was made to stand as punishment when she slept in English class.

She walked slowly. 3

Nobody is perfect, overdoing it was also normal.

When all is said and done, the first in the whole shall be taken by Jiang Xiaoli. Without a doubt, it was number one from counting from the back.

Following Li Hongying back to the dorm room, Jiang Xiaoli watched as Li Hongying packed her bag and took out her clothes to go to the bathroom to take a shower. She hesitated for a while but still called out to her, “That, Li Hongying…..”

Li Hongying, who was holding her clothes, turned around to look at her.

“Could you……that, could……” Jiang Xiaoli was a bit embarrassed for inconveniencing her. After all, she believed Li Hongying was merely a third-year student and she was a salted fish who graduated from university a long time ago, “Teach me mathematics, physics and chemistry……”

“I can also teach you English!” With all things considered, she had also taken the exam for band four and six! 4

“Ok.” Li Hongying nodded, then continued to carry her clothes towards the bathroom.

She gave a resolute answer without a mishap and was indifferent as usual.

Jiang Xiaoli scratched her head, looked at the test paper on the desk and sat down in resignation. Let’s do the school assignment first. She will wait for Li Hongying to finish showering before going to take shower herself too.

When she was doing a question on coordinate geometry, Jiang Xiaoli thought of something all of a sudden. That angle Li Hongying stood in moments ago, seemed to be……somewhat good-looking. If Li Hongying was without that pair of black-framed spectacles, how would she look? A counterattack to the downside of those spectacles? 5

Jiang Xiaoli bit the pen cap and shook her head before she continued to write on the test paper. She tried to solve it countless times but could not help feeling sad: She didn’t know when she would die and yet she was here doing her school assignment meticulously, this was truly a case of studying is of more importance than her life…..

In regards to this copy, Jiang Xiaoli still hadn’t had a clue. She had no other alternative but to keep to the daily routine of studying, incessantly do questions, learn by heart and return to the dorm room to accept Li Hongying’s tutoring. Li Hongying took it seriously, Jiang Xiaoli was able to understand some concepts she didn’t quite understand before just by flipping through the collection of her mistakes and the notebook. As for her handwriting, it is said a person’s handwriting reflects their character. Li Hongying’s words were written stroke by stroke, was upright and honest. It pleased the heart and delighted the eyes just by looking at it. Only that, Jiang Xiaoli always felt that there was a cutting edge hidden in her handwriting. It was until Jiang Xiaoli caught sight of her sketchbook by chance, the three bold and carefree characters of ‘Li Hongying’ written in one stroke in cursive script, was completely different from her usual upright and honest small regular script.

An alter ego?

At this time, it was already the fourth day and the fifth day was the start of the final exams and two entire days’ worth of exams. Then, grades were tallied and the changing of seats according to their usual performance. Jiang Xiaoli also did not have time to delve into Li Hongying’s true colours until the mathematics exam, Li Hongying went out to the toilet in a hurry and did not return for over twenty minutes.

Jiang Xiaoli bit the pen cap as she looked at the exam paper, she felt that something had happened to Li Hongying. Her heart was occupied with this matter and failed to understand the question. She immediately raised her hand to go to the toilet and then found Li Hongying in a toilet cubicle.

“……period?”

“En.”

Jiang Xiaoli could not resist laughing outside the door. She handed the tissues she brought over from below the door, “Wait for me.” After she told her this, she then went directly to the school’s convenience store to buy a sanitary pad and returned to the toilet to give it to Li Hongying. Completing this task took around ten minutes and when Jiang Xiaoli continued the exam, she already did not have much time left. Fortunately, she did the major questions first and as for the rest, she couldn’t do it for a while so it didn’t matter much.

Other than Chinese and English, her mathematics was considered to be average. Even though she didn’t take the test for sciences but if she could get a point for her marks then get a point. Jiang Xiaoli calculated roughly and felt that it was settled that she would be first counting from the back. Relying on two doors to pull the rest of the four doors? 6 Even if her Chinese and English got a perfect score, she couldn’t pull her grades up ah! Then again, she wasn’t cut out to score full marks.

“Thank you.” After the exam ended, the students either went to their respective cliques to compare their answers or already left the classroom. Li Hongying finished packing her things and walked over to Jiang Xiaoli to softly give her thanks.

“It’s nothing.” Jiang Xiaoli smiled and didn’t take this to heart. She quickly packed her things while asking, “The last question for maths is C, right? The multiple-choice questions.”

“I chose A.”

Jiang Xiaoli’s expression collapsed in an instant. She didn’t get it right. Wasn’t it said they will all choose C? It’s just that it doesn’t hit the target every time.

—— “Jiang Xiaoli, are you close with Li Hongying?”

A girl at the next table interjected. Maybe she was asking purely out of nothing more than curiosity or perhaps, she had other plans. She continued asking again, “Are you guys going out?”

“How could that be?” Jiang Xiaoli slightly raised her eyebrows and Li Hongying pursed up her lips. Jiang Xiaoli didn’t know whether she was unhappy but if she didn’t make it clear, it would probably be very awkward. She smiled generously, “If this kind of relationship is dating, then I’m afraid I’d have countless girlfriends starting from kindergarten.”

……If Jiang Xiaoli was given another chance, she would absolutely not say such remarks that she presumed as ‘humorous’.

Because those people fundamentally did not understand what Jiang Xiaoli was trying to say.

The next day she went to class again, when she heard others murmuring this rumour of ‘Jiang Xiaoli started dating from when she was in kindergarten, to date she already has countless girlfriends’, she fell apart.

Jiang-never been in a relationship-Xiaoli felt bitter and swallowed the bitter pill. 7

“Don’t the NPC in this copy have their intelligence templates loaded?!” 8

Another thing was that the gossip of Li Hongying and her dating had been ‘proved’.

It was already the last day of the protection period, why can’t they let her merrily go on her way?

Jiang Xiaoli wished she could transmigrate back to yesterday and ruthlessly hit herself with two slaps: Who called you to be humorous! Who called you to shoot off your mouth! Deny it directly!

……Even if she denied it, there might still be other versions disseminated.

She was a person who was about to die and actually didn’t care about it. It’s just that she felt she let Li Hongying down. The other was a girl studying earnestly who didn’t cause trouble or gossip and made lots of effort to lower her sense of presence in class but still got pulled into becoming a topic to talk about after school.

……

Recently, Li Hongying had also been thinking about what to do.

The seven days were almost over so should she start the supernatural phenomenons immediately or gradually let the students in class ‘accidentally’ reveal that they were ghosts to make Jiang Xiaoli sink into endless fear, then let her realise——she was the only one alive in this copy? Or maybe, continue to put on a play for fun. Li Hongying pushed the spectacles on the bridge of her nose. To be honest, she did not particularly like wearing spectacles. She hadn’t worn them for a long time after she died. If it wasn’t for the seven days protection period the toy sent this time had and her wish to play a mini-game, she would not specially disguise herself in this appearance that she even hated for this copy.

——Li Hongying really hated it and very much hated the person she was before she died.

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Footnotes

理科班 lĭ kē bān : In the second year of senior high school, there will be streaming of subject combinations.

The subjects to study for liberal arts are Chinese, Mathematics, English, Politics, History and Geography.

The subjects to study for sciences are Chinese, Mathematics, English, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. 文明的韧性 wén míng de rèn xìng : This is an essay topic given to senior high school students for their university entrance examination and they have to write an essay about this topic. 彳亍口巴 chì chù kŏu bā : It came about when a brother (老八) made a hamburger in a video and asked, “Look, do you think this burger is alright?” (你看这汉堡做滴行不行？). The viewers said, “It’s okay~” (It’s supposed to ‘行’ but they prolonged it to ‘ 彳亍’)

Hence, over time ‘彳亍口巴’ came to mean slowly. 四六级 sì liù jí : The College English Test (CET) is made compulsory to take in university in China. For those English-related majors in university, students have to take CET6 and CET4. As for non-English majors, students only take CET4.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_English_Test 里的逆袭吗？lǐ de nì xí ma? : One of the meanings of ‘里’ is the harm done to external beauty from wearing clothes and items so what our MC means here is a counter to those negative effects just by removing those nasty spectacles. To use other subjects with better grades to boost the overall grades. 有苦说不出 yǒu kǔ shuō bu chū : She suffered but was unable to express it out loud. 加载智力模板 jiā zài zhì lì mú bǎn : Our amusing MC thinks of it as a game system so she’s questioning whether the standard part for NPC’s intellect was loaded for the characters in this game.