Chapter 150: College Entrance Exam (Gaokao)
When Teacher Lü flashed into existence from the air, the fake smile on her excited face had not yet faded.
“Tang tongxue, this time—”
Then she saw Tang Xinjue speeding toward her at extreme velocity.
Tang Xinjue nodded at her in greeting, then suddenly reached out, grabbed her by the collar, and slammed her forward into her own front!
Teacher Lü: ???
The enormous black hand at the end of the staircase did not care whether there was one person or two below. Without hesitation, it slammed downward.
The woman who bore the brunt of it froze mid-smile. Her hair instinctively exploded backward, transforming in the blink of an eye into countless thin, sharp spikes that forcibly pierced through the outline of the black hand!
Two shrill screams rang out at the same time — one was the woman’s pained shriek, the other was the staircase’s piercing howl.
Tang Xinjue’s vision suddenly cleared.
It turned out the thick darkness in the stairwell was not merely low visibility from lack of light — it was caused by countless fine, floating strands of black mist.
At this moment, the black mist churned like living creatures, rolling downward in waves, crazily converging at the edge of the final step on the fifth floor. Like flames rising from underground, they burned with boiling rage.
Tang Xinjue grabbed Teacher Lü and slammed on the brakes, then shrugged.
“Teacher, you seem to have made them angry.”
Teacher Lü clutched her head, mouth hanging open. “I made them angry? You...”
Before she could unleash the flood of curses stuck in her throat, the black mist let out a sharp screech and lashed out with long whip-like tendrils.
Tang Xinjue reacted slightly faster than the person beside her. She wrapped her arms around Teacher Lü from behind and rolled across the ground.
Amid Teacher Lü’s screaming, Tang Xinjue successfully used her body to block the full staircase of ghostly entities, then shoved her toward the thinnest part of the black mist barrier and followed immediately after.
This time, the staircase reacted in an instant. All the black mist surged toward the direction of the fleeing figure, enclosing the target tightly inside!
Snap! At the same moment, a soft sound rang out. Tang Xinjue broke through the encirclement.
— After pushing Teacher Lü away, she had charged in the opposite direction. The originally most dangerous angle, where the black mist was densest, had instantly become the easiest breakthrough point once all the firepower was redirected toward Teacher Lü.
Teacher Lü: “You XX—”
Tang Xinjue stood up and dusted off her clothes, covering several long streaks of blood on her skin. Then she politely nodded toward the woman trapped on the staircase and said courteously:
“Teacher really keeps her word. Thank you for running all this way to pick me up. I’ll head back to the exam hall to continue doing questions now. When you go back later, remember to bring a few band-aids and deliver them to Exam Room 307. Thanks.”
After saying that, she waved her hand casually and turned, disappearing leisurely into the corridor.
...
Zhang You quietly pushed open a door and slipped inside like a swimming fish.
Seeing the empty and ordinary layout inside, she was already used to it. Not only was she not disappointed, she immediately perked up and began searching for the next opportunity to move on.
From the second loop onward, Zhang You had quickly realized that honestly taking exams had almost no usefulness in this instance dungeon. She had no choice but to return to her old profession, using skilled roaming and jungle-style exploration techniques to scout the teaching building.
Using the fragmented gaps between four exam sessions, she systematically explored all four floors and discovered that the appearance patterns of invigilators were not without patterns. Through observation, she categorized them into three types:
The first type was the most ordinary exam hall invigilators. On average, two were stationed in each classroom and almost never left unless under extremely special circumstances.
The second type was roaming invigilators. Whenever examinees performed actions that counted as “not taking the exam seriously,” these invigilators would swarm out en masse and disappear only after order was restored.
The third type was the most special. There was only one of this type. Their personal will and personality were more prominent, and they seemed to possess the ability to command other invigilators. They were also the only NPCs who made her feel clear hostility.
For example, the short-tempered female invigilator named “Bing Lanlan”, whose name was strangely familiar, belonged to this category of leader.
But regardless of type, none of the invigilators were online at all times.
Especially Bing Lanlan. With minimal observation, Zhang You discovered that she seemed constrained by certain activity rules:
Whenever a certain amount of action or time was reached, she would be forced to return to a door in the fourth-floor hall. If no emergency involving examinees occurred, she would not reappear until the next exam session.
After mastering these patterns, Zhang You seized every gap when gaps existed, and created gaps when none existed. Using every trick available to her, she finally traversed every accessible area in the five-story teaching building.
Once all the places that could be entered were explored, the remaining ones were the places that could not be entered.
A faint sound of approaching footsteps interrupted her thoughts.
Zhang You silently put on a pair of gloves, then swiftly slipped into a corner cabinet and waited for the door to be pushed open.
This was the second floor, the area with the tightest invigilator presence and the highest detection risk. Extra caution was required.
In fact, she had long noticed that different floors had different security intensities. After walking through everything once, she abandoned the low-difficulty floors and specifically focused on roaming through these “one-step-one-minefield” zones.
After all, the more dangerous a place was, the more important it usually was.
So the more forbidden it was, the more she had to go there.
“Creeeak—”
The door was pushed open boldly. A young male invigilator walked in.
He scanned the room expressionlessly. His gaze finally settled on the large wooden cabinet in the corner that could fit one person.
After a brief judgment, he changed direction and walked over step by step, gripping the cabinet handle.
Zhang You held her breath.
Through the cabinet crack, she could see the invigilator’s dull, lifeless eyeballs sitting obediently in their sockets without moving.
This meant it was only a routine inspection and had not yet linked with other invigilators.
Just as Zhang You relaxed slightly, the invigilator yanked open the cabinet door, and their gazes met directly.
In the next second, clutching his stabbed chin, he didn’t even get a word out before stumbling backward and collapsing unconscious.
Zhang You cautiously jumped out, silently stripped his coat and tools, put them on herself, then dragged him into the cabinet and shut it.
Although roaming invigilators were numerous and endless, they had weaknesses. A heavy strike to the chin temporarily severed their connection to the outside and immobilized their actions. Locking them inside enclosed spaces also delayed their “automatic recall” speed.
After skillfully dealing with the situation, Zhang You reopened the door and slipped out silently.
At this point, only one unopened door remained in the second-floor corridor.
It was a locked door.
She had searched keys on many invigilators, but none matched the lock. She had nearly stripped all the second-floor invigilators clean.
If this still failed, she would be left with only one option — taking the greatest risk and returning to the fourth floor to find “Bing Lanlan,” basically plucking hair from a tiger’s backside.*
*doing something very dangerous
Click.
A soft sound came from the lock, and the door opened—
Fortunately, heaven always leaves a path.
Zhang You suppressed the curve of her lips and slipped inside without wasting a second. The moment she entered, she was nearly blinded.
…Was this room a little too bright?
After adjusting, she finally saw where the light came from.
The room was almost completely filled with glass and metal objects, reflecting window light and ceiling lamps like outdoor daylight, dazzling to the eyes.
At first, she didn't understand the origin or purpose of these items, until she saw dozens of pairs of glasses of various styles displayed in the cabinet directly in front of her. She instantly understood.
So that’s what this is?
Each seemingly ordinary pair of glasses, when inspected closely, had microscopic text engraved on the lenses. Combined with nearby earplugs, magnetic cards, USB drives… their nature was obvious.
This was clearly a storage room for cheating tools!
The room was packed with devices and instruments — from large remote consoles and signal recovery units to tiny earplug rings and even toilet paper — all arranged under incomprehensible code labels, displayed like confiscated contraband.
Feeling slightly guilty, Zhang You adjusted her own glasses and began searching according to plan, grinding her teeth while checking.
Why did this dungeon confiscate all her abilities? Even leaving her a storage bag would have been fine.
These were all props.
Free dungeon props!
After searching most of the room with no results, she felt as if she had lost a hundred million.
Could she really not take even a little without violating dungeon rules?
For example—
Her gaze suddenly fixed on something.
At the edge of a silver device, where a gap blended into the wall shadow, a corner of paper was barely visible.
She gently pulled it out.
The hidden document revealed itself, and the title entered her view:
“Higher Entrance Examination… Rules and Guidelines?”
“That’s impossible! This is only the second round — how could you have this much power…”
The square-faced female teacher lay on the ground clutching her chest, disbelief written all over her face.
Although she still looked like a normal invigilator on the outside, her other arm had already turned into pale bone. The knife-sharp fingertips still had strips of bloody flesh hanging from them, making it easy to imagine how brutal her attacks were.
Unfortunately, the bone was broken.
The terrifying arm couldn’t be lifted at all. It was bent ninety degrees backward at the elbow, with a foot pressing down on her shoulder.
The owner of that foot looked down at her coldly, holding a bloodstained ID badge taken from the square-faced teacher’s pocket.
Zheng Wanqing squinted at the text.
“Liu… Liuli Zi? What is this? A color? A type of glass?”
*琉璃 liuli means glass, while 紫 zi means purple
What kind of nonsense clue was this?
“Th-that’s my name!”
The square-faced teacher roared her final sentence. Her tongue suddenly shot outward, stretching violently toward Zheng Wanqing’s neck!
Zheng Wanqing instinctively smashed downward with a punch.
A steel phantom condensed and collided head-on, smashing the tongue back into the ground. The back of the square-faced teacher’s head caved in with a crater.
“Uuugh—”
She glared stubbornly, refusing to yield even in defeat.
Zheng Wanqing suddenly realized.
“So your name is Liuli Zi? It sounds kind of familiar… Are you the dungeon boss? No, you’re too weak for that. Then do you know where my roommate is?”
“Hey? Hey?”
Zheng Wanqing crouched down and patted her face — only to realize her eyes had rolled back and she had fainted from shock.
[Severe damage detected in exam hall. Unable to continue examination. Random transfer to next exam hall will begin. Please prepare. Three, two, one…]
“Next exam hall?”
Zheng Wanqing froze.
Her vision blurred. When she opened her eyes again, the scene had completely changed.
The crooked “examinees” and “invigilators” filling the classroom were gone, replaced by rows of brand-new desks and unfamiliar faces.
A few steps away at the classroom door, a group of invigilators had gathered, but this time their target seemed to be another girl with a low ponytail, not her.Seeing that familiar silhouette, Zheng Wanqing’s eyes widened in shock.
<<Previous | Index | Next>>
(T/N) The dungeon bosses name are familiar to our protagonists because they first appear in Chapter 45 as choices in Classic Movie Appreciation arc
Post a Comment