At 7:30am the next morning, Yue Xingwen was awakened by the alarm.
When he sat up and rubbed his eyes in a daze, he found that Jiang Pingce in the next bed had woken up and was sitting at the desk’s chair, opening his tablet computer to check the information. The light inside the room was dim, only a soft light of the tablet was projected on the boy’s handsome face; Obviously, he was worried about waking up Yue Xingwen, so he did not turn on the light.
Yue Xingwen yawned and conveniently turned on the light, stepping on his slippers and walking over to him, saying, “You’re up so early ah?”
“En. I’m used to waking up at 7 o’clock.” Jiang Pingce looked back at the sleepy Yue Xingwen and asked with concern, “Did you sleep well last night in this new dormitory?”
“Pretty good. I slept until dawn and didn’t even have a nightmare.” The sleepiness of just getting up gradually dissipated, and Yue Xingwen also regained his spirits. Seeing that Jiang Pingce was fully dressed, he turned in the direction of the bathroom and said, “I’ll wash my face first.”
Yue Xingwen quickly washed his face and changed his clothes before he came out of the bathroom.
Jiang Pingce was wearing the same set of sportswear he bought yesterday, and Yue Xingwen also changed into the sportswear. The same style of clothing, one dark and one light blue, the tone of color was quite united. Yue Xingwen took a closer look at Jiang Pingce and could not help but laugh, “You actually look quite handsome in sportswear. It’s not that I’m against you wearing a shirt and leather shoes, it’s just that I think, with these casual clothes, it will be easier to run.”
“En, that’s true.” Jiang Pingce agreed.
Yue Xingwen stretched out and asked, “I’m a little hungry, let’s go have breakfast?”
Jiang Pingce got up and said, “Let’s go. There’s no course on Saturday, so we can eat and wander around and then set up the research group.”
They walked out of the door and they went to the student’s canteen on the -4th floor together.
There were several canteens in the library, named directly after ‘Canteen 1, Canteen 2’, and the number of ‘empty seats’ could be seen on the screen at the entrance, so the two of them found a canteen with many empty seats and went in.
The canteen was spacious enough to accommodate thousands of people at once.
Different from their campus canteen where people queued up to get their meals at the food window, the library’s canteen had a square structure, surrounded by an automatic conveyor belt, on which lunch boxes were neatly placed. Yue Xingwen saw many students walking to the food window, and they could take the meal box directly from the conveyor belt after their fingerprints were put into the identification area and their points were swiped off.
Today’s menu was written on a large screen in the canteen. Breakfast’s selection included soy milk fritters, bread and milk, and different flavors of rice noodles and beef noodles for a flat price of 3 points. For lunch and dinner, the price was 10 points for one non-vegetarian and two vegetarian set menu.
Jiang Pingce led Yue Xingwen to a food window, skillfully swiped his points, taking two sets of bread and milk.
After that, they picked an empty seat and sat down. Yue Xingwen ate as he surveyed the students around him.
Hua’an University’s canteen was always crowded at mealtime, with students lining up to eat, greeting each other when they met someone they knew well, and often gathering in groups to chat while they ate. Occasionally, they could still hear laughter coming from somewhere, or some student cursing about the exam questions being too hard.
However, the canteen in the library was unusually quiet.
Everyone was eating in silence with their heads down, even chatting in a deliberately low voice, just because the large screen at the entrance to the canteen read: ‘Please oblique to table etiquette when eating, don’t make loud noises.’
These students came from the major universities all over the country, and when Yue Xingwen swept past them with a glance, he did not recognize any of them. Moreover, all the students’ faces were serious and very few smiles were seen. The canteen for thousands of students was somewhat oppressively quiet, and the conveyor belts that constantly carried food made people feel like prisoners locked up in a building.
Yue Xingwen ignored the discomfort in his heart and ate his breakfast quickly.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Dbat bo atfw kjixfv bea bo atf mjcaffc rlvf ys rlvf jcv kfgf pera jybea ab ajxf atf fifnjabg ktfc j ofwjif raevfca’r nblmf revvfcis rbecvfv ogbw yftlcv atfw, “Aljcu Ulcumf?”
Coafg tfjglcu atlr nblmf, Tef Wlcukfc jcv Aljcu Ulcumf ibbxfv yjmx ja atf rjwf alwf.
Ktfgf kfgf atgff qfbqif kjixlcu abkjgvr atfw. Ktf wjif raevfca lc atf wlvvif kjr ajii, klat ubbv ofjaegfr jcv atlmx fsfygbkr, jcv ktfc tf ogbkcfv, tf ujnf atf lwqgfrrlbc bo yflcu nfgs vluclolfv.
The other male student had light-colored eyes, very fair skin. Obviously, he had an Asian appearance, but his hair had a kind of European chestnut-colored with a natural curl, a bit like a mixed race, and his temperament was very unique.
The female student who called them had long hair tied in a neat ponytail. She was tall and beautiful, had a clear voice when she spoke, and had a kind of elder sister’s aura.
When Jiang Pingce saw these three people, he nodded politely and greeted them, “Senior brother, senior sister.”
Yue Xingwen stepped forward excitedly, and said, “Senior brother Zhuo, senior sister Lin, what a coincidence!”
This was the president of Hua’an University’s Student Council, from the Faculty of Science and Technology, majoring in Applied Physics, Zhuo Feng.
And the female student was the head of culture and recreation division in the Student Council, from the Faculty of Environment, majoring in Environmental Engineering, Lin Manluo.
Yue Xingwen had seen the names of these two people in the <Escape from the Laboratory> scoreboard. These two people were the campus’s famous divine couple, perfect match and had a very stable relationship. When Yue Xingwen and Jiang Pingce joined the Student Council in their freshman year, it was Zhuo Feng and Lin Manluo who interviewed them, and both of them were now in their senior year, ready to get married after graduation.
Yue Xingwen did not expect to meet them here.
Zhuo Feng cursed ‘fuck’ in a low voice, and said with a calm face, “Xingwen, you got pulled into the library too?”
Yue Xingwen was helpless. “Yes. You guys came in earlier than me, right? But, there was no news about your disappearance on campus.”
Lin Manluo said calmly, “The library and the campus are not in the same world, and we haven’t figured out how time is calculated. But my guess is that as long as we don’t die here after coming into the library, we shouldn’t be missing in reality. Otherwise the whole society would have been in complete panic after more than 20,000 university students had gone missing inexplicably instead of hearing nothing.”
She looked at Jiang Pingce and asked, “The person you’re waiting for is Xingwen?”
Jiang Pingce let out an ‘En’ in agreement.
Yue Xingwen was puzzled and asked, “Senior sister, what do you mean?”
“Yesterday, after we passed the courses on the first floor, we saw Jiang Pingce’s name on the scoreboard, and our research group happened to be one person short, so I sent him a private message and asked if he wanted to team up together. But Pingce said that he had to wait for someone and could not join us for the time being.” Lin Manluo looked at Yue Xingwen and smiled with understanding. “So, it turns out to be Xingwen, no wonder Pingce is waiting for you specially.”
Both of them were high school classmates, top students from liberal arts and science, and they were admitted into Hua’an University together. Since their freshman year, both of them often went to self-study together, joined the Student Council and came to the interview together. The students who knew them knew that they had the best relationship.
It seemed that Jiang Pingce refused the research group’s invitation of his senior brother and senior sister to wait for him specifically? Yue Xingwen smiled at Jiang Pingce as if saying ‘thank you for your loyalty’ with his eyes. The latter also smiled lightly, as if to say ‘You’re welcome’.
Yue Xingwen looked at the curly-haired male student next to him and asked, “By the way, who is this?”
Lin Manluo introduced the male student quickly, “I forgot to introduce, this is Xu Yishen, a senior in the Faculty of Biological Science. Zhuo Feng is very familiar with him and we met him in the Faculty of Medicine’s examination room. We built a research group together after the course.”
Xu Yishen greeted them with a smile and said, “Hello junior brothers, I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Both of them also greeted him politely. This senior from the Faculty of Biological Science, whose name had appeared on the scoreboard of the <Escape from the Laboratory> and <Cardiovascular Ward> should be pretty strong.
Xu Yishen sighed lightly and said, “Since junior brother Jiang wants to team up with junior brother Yue, then we’re still one short person for the team. Zhuo Feng, what are you going to do?”
Zhuo Feng said simply, “Let’s go to the Research Group Center and find a conference room to talk, don’t talk in front of the canteen.”
A group of five people took the elevator to the Research Group Center on the -2nd floor.
It was Saturday today, the whole class was closed, and all the students who had passed through the Faculty’s courses had come to the Research Group Center after breakfast. The place was packed, even more exaggerated than yesterday. Zhuo Feng led the four people around a large row of seats and registered in the [Meeting Room Area] to open a Research Group’s meeting room, consuming 10 points.
The meeting room was spacious, with an oval table surrounded by a dozen seats.
Zhuo Feng let everyone sit down casually, and then said, “It’s not convenient to talk about courses in public areas. In fact, the three of us just failed our classes yesterday afternoon.”
“Failed?” Yue Xingwen was stunned.
Senior brother Zhuo Feng was the president of the Student Council of Hua’an University, and he was very capable of doing with his swift and decisive reaction; Senior sister Lin Manluo was multi-talented and a goddess in many people’s hearts, and both of them were still a couple with a perfect tacit understanding, coupled with this powerful senior brother from the Faculty of Biological Science. Yue Xingwen could hardly imagine the difficulty of the later course for such a combination could actually fail.
“What course?” Jiang Pingce asked lightly.
Zhuo Feng frowned and said, “A compulsory course in the Faculty of Architecture, City Collapse.”
Yue Xingwen and Jiang Pingce looked at each other.
Was there such a course?!
Lin Manluo thought about that not-so-good experience, and said with a pale face, “My first experience of being crushed to death by a collapsed building was horrible. This course should need a teammate who is majoring in Architecture, and a lot of displacement skills to pass. We couldn’t escape any faster than the collapsing building and after failing the course we were sent back to the Faculty of Medicine to retake the course.”
Xu Yishen rubbed his temples gently and said, “If you retake the course, you will have to start the exam from scratch in the <Cardiovascular Ward> course, and you won’t be rewarded with points even if you pass the exam… *Sigh*. It’s too miserable as I had experienced heart disease again.”
Zhuo Feng’s eyebrows was about to twist into ‘川’ character as he said, “We started to retake the course from the Faculty of Medicine on the 1st floor, so our progress will be slower than the two of you. Otherwise, after you get to the 3rd floor, don’t take the Faculty of Architecture’s course yet, and let’s take it after we get to the 3rd floor too and expand the Research Group?”
Lin Manluo looked at the two of them and asked, “The primary Research Group can accommodate up to 4 team members. Are you planning to get through the level with only two people? Or are you going to recruit two more teammates?”
After thinking about it, Yue Xingwen leaned over to Jiang Pingce’s ear and asked softly, “Pingce, I have two candidates for my teammates, do you mind if I pull them in? If you don’t like it, we’ll both go through first.”
Jiang Pingce said, “It doesn’t matter, you decide.”
Yue Xingwen nodded, looked at Lin Manluo and said, “Senior sister, Ke Shaobin has also come to the library.”
When Zhuo Feng heard this, he could not help but curse, “Fuck, how come more and more people are coming in?!”
Lin Manluo was stunned for a moment and said, “Xiao Ke? He is a high-achieving student in the Faculty of Computer Science, with Xiao Ke and Pingce, the science department should be very good. We have Xingwen in the liberal arts, so that we don’t have to be afraid of either the liberal arts and sciences.”
Zhue Feng nodded and said, “En, the courses in the library obviously require multiple majors to pass through the hurdles. The Faculty of Architecture is a hurdle, and the failing rate is amazingly high. I don’t know what kind of Faculty above the 3rd floor, if you encounter strong students, you can recruit them to enhance the strength of the team.”
Yue Xingwen followed the topic and said, “I met a senior brother before, named Liu Zhaoqing, a grad student of orthopedic surgery at the Faculty of Medicine, who took a scalpel and was particularly good at fighting monsters. When we reach the 3rd floor, expanding the Research Group, how about we merge both teams?”
The three people looked at each other, and Zhuo Feng simply nodded his head, “This is a feasible solution. Anyway, after failing the course, we must retake the course from the 1st floor and our progress will be slower than yours. Once you have passed the Faculty of Mathematics on the 2nd floor, wait for us on the 3rd floor.”
Jiang Pingce casually asked, “Are the courses at the Faculty of Mathematics difficult?”
Zhuo Feng replied, “It’s quite difficult, a lot of data operations, and it took us a lot of effort. The library has a huge question bank, and the content of each exam is different. With your ability, passing the Faculty of Mathematics should be easy, so I won’t mislead you.”
When Yue Xingwen heard this, he could not help but wonder, “Question bank? In your <Cardiovascular Ward> exam, did you the murderer you found name Zhu Yuanbo from VIP-1 ward?”
Zhuo Feng shook his head and said, “No, the murderer in our last exam was the head nurse.”
Jiang Pingce said, “In our class, the murderer was an old lady in bed no. 10.”
Yue Xingwen: “……”
He could not believe there was a randomly changing question bank!
In this way, even the students who had passed the higher level would not be able to provide answers to the lower levels and would surely get the wrong answers by copying them directly. Just like the university entrance examination paper would be changed every year. At most, everyone could only learn the method of the exam, and they still needed to use their own brains to pass the exam.
Jiang Pingce changed the topic and asked, “Does senior brother know which level the fastest team has reached?”
Zhuo Feng said, “The fastest progress is on the 4th floor. It was the speed flow violence team from Kyoto University, whose captain I happen to know is a geographical planning major, and their team passed the Faculty of Architecture yesterday. They should be relying on the Geography Department’s rapid plate movement. However, they’re now hesitant to go straight to the 4th floor or turn around to pass the elective courses to save up points to expand their Research Group.”
Lin Manluo calmly proposed, “I don’t think we need to be anxious, that team from Kyoto University, in order to pass quickly, they chose Profession Qin’s speed bonus and cooldown reduction for their Research Group. Their team configuration is Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry plus Geography, without a classmate in literature and history. It will be hard for them to pass the liberal arts’ courses later on. We’ll have to plan our team configuration well and try not to fail any courses in the future, or we’ll lose all our work and hit the 1st floor again for a retake.”
It was hard to go back and retake after climbing to the 4th floor, and they would have to go through another course like <Cardiovascular Ward> with no points given after the exam. Although students who retake the exams would be more likely to pass them because they had experienced it once, it was a waste of time to repeatedly failed and retake the exams, not to mention that they would be dead if they accidentally made a mistake while retaking the exam.
The library system had long warned them—— If you failed while retaking the exam, you would be obliterated.
Therefore, senior sister Manluo’s words were very reasonable.
They could not be anxious, and had to plan well before trying the follow-up courses.
Yue Xingwen looked at Jiang Pingce and whispered, “how about we set up the Research Group first and add Ke Shaobin and senior brother Liu to it? I’m afraid that things will change, they’ll be pulled by another Research Group and we’ll have to find another person.”
Jiang Pingce nodded and replied, “Okay, set it up as soon as possible.”
Thank you for the chapter! Got quite scared when I read the library s warning hoo
More classmates is better
Thank you very much for the translation 🤍
Thanks for the chapter!!
I love when there are op teams lol
Ty for the chapter ❤️
Thank you for the chapter❤️ I am ready for the soon op group ride!!!
🤖
Yay! We get to meet the little bot again!