Feng Hao finished his physical exam just in the nick of time.
In the final ten minutes, Li Feng and Lin Zhuanghong ignored his heart-wrenching screams, forcibly dragged him out of the corner, and strapped him to the operating table.
They weren’t being kind; they simply didn’t know whether a thorough physical exam or dodging the bullet was the “correct” path, and they certainly couldn’t allow a rival to claim special treatment.
Listening to the continuous screams ringing in his ears, Li Xin began to ponder an important question: As an excellent teacher, did he have an obligation to intervene in school bullying?
The answer was self-evident—he was a teacher, and school bullying was a dereliction of duty regardless of the setting.
This answer left Li Xin feeling dissatisfied, so he decided to pivot his approach:
“Don’t be so aggressive when helping a classmate through a difficult time.” Li Xin looked up, suddenly speaking in a serious tone to the three men who were grinding their teeth while binding the student to the bed. “You’re acting like you’re slaughtering a pig.”
This statement, which was biased enough to reach the North Pole, left Yu Suheng, who had been resting with his eyes closed against the wall, speechless. He opened his eyes, his expression indescribable.
But the delinquent teacher seemed completely oblivious, his seriousness looking genuine.
Li Feng was the first to react. He covered Feng Hao’s mouth and nose before the latter could shout, smiling fawningly: “Understood, Teacher Li. Xiao Feng didn’t want to do the physical, so we were just trying to help him. Don’t worry about it.”
“Exactly, exactly, don’t worry.” Lin Zhuanghong tightened the restraints, though he pulled back slightly, mindful of the remaining player count. They weren’t neurotic maniacs like Feng Hao; too many deaths in a dungeon didn’t benefit them in the slightest. The City of Wishes didn’t have a tradition where the last survivor automatically cleared the game—they needed as many people as possible to find clues in the later stages.
Feng Hao’s exam was a disaster. He spent almost the entire time crying and screaming, so much so that even Yu Suheng let out an involuntary tsk of annoyance.
Eventually, to escape the suffering, Feng Hao gave up on thinking altogether. He answered whatever the doctor asked, effectively being coerced into providing three “hobbies.”
A lost cause.
Li Xin rested his chin on his hand, judging the situation internally.
As expected, when the electric shock device stopped, the doctor’s wrinkled face was filled with refreshing satisfaction—a complete reversal of the gloomy, wilted eggplant he had been earlier.
That’s more like it. What was that trash from before?
The doctor contentedly put away the instrument. Catching a glimpse of Li Xin, he performed an immediate transformation in front of him, begrudgingly tossing the medical record form into the arms of the “temporary homeroom teacher” with an air of disgust.
“The physical for your class is over. Take a look to make sure it’s correct, then get the hell out,” the doctor ordered, expressionless.
“Alright,” Li Xin agreed casually, flipping through the record form from beginning to end—though who knew what he actually saw in those ten seconds.
Confirming the exam was done, the doctor kicked the “teacher and students” out the door at exactly 11:00.
The door slammed shut in front of them, nearly hitting Li Xin’s nose.
“He’s got a lot of resentment,” Li Xin muttered, rubbing the tip of his nose.
The others didn’t dare respond, acting like quails.
Away from the infirmary, in the eyes of Lin Zhuanghong and the others, Li Xin seemed to revert to being a terrifying dungeon NPC. Without a “common enemy,” the homeroom teacher was now an obstacle to completing their mission; no matter how deceptive he seemed, they couldn’t afford to let their guard down.
Before the motion-sensor lights in the corridor went out, Li Xin gave a soft chuckle, leaned against the railing, and finally said: “Congratulations, everyone. Tonight’s lesson is over. Go back and get some rest.”
“Have you heard? The bulletin board updated. Someone went to check; it says ‘Major Update’.”
“Damn, what’s going on? Can this ghost thing even update?”
“Supposed to have updated once many years ago, when the Red Pawn (ID 01) reached the top.”
“How long ago was that? Decades, right?”
“Doesn’t matter how long—the point is, according to the old-timers, every ‘Major Update’ represents a version shift. Maybe the ‘City of Resentment’ is pulling new tricks again.”
“Fk, more tricks? They really don’t want people to live. My points are almost at zero. Can this update please delete all the ‘pig-teammates’?”
System Time 11:00. The central plaza of the City of Wishes was crowded in front of the bulletin board.
The focus of the discussion was the update. Everyone was asking questions, but unfortunately, no one had any accurate clues about the sudden change. So, they could only wait.
Suddenly, the back of the crowd stirred. Someone whispered, staring in shock at a certain spot: “Holy sh*t, am I seeing things? Is that the ‘Crazy Rabbit’ (ID 019)?”
The name “Crazy Rabbit” hit the air, and most people’s expressions shifted instantly. The gaze of the crowd turned as one.
Indeed, a girl dressed in a red dress, looking to be about sixteen or seventeen, skipped toward them.
On her path, everyone subconsciously made way. Even the newcomers who had arrived recently and didn’t understand the situation were dragged aside by quick-witted veteran players.
Some newcomers looked at the innocent-looking smile on Crazy Rabbit’s face and were about to ask questions, only to have their mouths covered by veteran players.
For a time, the vast plaza fell into total silence. No one dared to actively attract the attention of the “Little Witch.”
Crazy Rabbit reached the bulletin board unimpeded. She stared at the words “Major Update” still displayed on the screen and pulled the lollipop out of her mouth.
“How long has it been updating?” she asked.
After a few moments of glancing at each other, someone gathered the courage to answer: “Three hours.”
Three hours… that’s not too bad…
Crazy Rabbit pondered for a moment and slowly closed her eyes.
As her consciousness flowed, fragmented images flashed through her mind—like an invisible film reel: low, dense bushes, a dim sky, dead animals, and then… a building.
The building was surrounded by barbed wire, looking very much like a nursing home, a mental asylum, or a rehab center.
Seeing the dungeon setting, Crazy Rabbit forcibly stopped the mental feed. In the less-than-a-second pause, she only had time to make out the advertisement pasted on the wall: [Life Correction: Providing you with a perfect future.]
What kind of crap is this? The dungeon themes are getting more and more abstract.
Crazy Rabbit felt a throbbing pain in her temples. She could no longer control the imagery in her mind, letting the scenes continue to flash.
In the subsequent images, she saw figures inside the building. They appeared in a dark tiered classroom one moment, an infirmary with a metal surgical table the next, and in the next second, a dormitory filled with metal items.
At this point, the imagery began to glitch like static on an old television. Crazy Rabbit gritted her teeth, keeping her focus, because the final scene would bring her the most valuable clue—the core secret of the dungeon.
This was her greatest advantage in reaching the 019 position.
With a sound like the static of an old film, Crazy Rabbit saw a tiny room… and a man sitting at a desk.
The image made Crazy Rabbit furrow her brow. This didn’t look like the player dormitory in the previous shots; it looked more like… the residence of a dungeon NPC.
But the person in the image had the face of a total “scumbag”—so handsome that he felt completely out of place in the City of Wishes. Based on Crazy Rabbit’s experience, this man could not possibly be an NPC.
Crazy Rabbit endured the stabbing pain in her forehead, almost suspecting her ability had mutated.
What kind of ‘good’ dungeon has a handsome guy as the key clue?
A handsome guy was one thing—if it were some well-known player from the leaderboards, that would be fine. But she had never even heard of this person. Is my ability malfunctioning?
Before she could finish questioning her power, the scene shifted. Following a knock on the door and the man’s casual “Come in,” a black shadow appeared in the shot.
A dungeon monster was standing before him, yet the man in the image didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word “fear.” It wasn’t until the shadow pulled a whiteboard out of its own body that the man finally shed his roguish attitude and focused on the board.
Here it comes. Crazy Rabbit concentrated, adjusting her viewpoint. However, when she saw the words, her expression changed instantly.
[…Teacher, please come to the Principal’s office. I have prepared some fine tea. Before your shift starts, let’s chat about your work content today.]
The “redacted” title confirmed Crazy Rabbit’s suspicions. The dungeon would protect the basic information of players, but if it were an NPC, the corresponding title would appear directly.
There was no doubt now: this man was a player.
But with one doubt confirmed, another emerged. This player seemed too well-adapted to the dungeon. Even the dungeon monster’s attitude toward him was strange—friendly in a way that looked like it had been hexed.
If it weren’t for the third-person viewpoint, Crazy Rabbit would have assumed this guy was just a handsome NPC.
At her current level, she almost never ignored any suspicious point or intuition. She stared hard at the face of the man in the imagery. Speculations appeared, one by one, only to be rejected just as quickly.
The final answer left her feeling a sudden, bone-chilling sense of dread.
This person…
The final image in her power flickered on the man’s smiling face. He raised his eyes, appearing to do so unintentionally, but his gaze landed exactly on the spot where Crazy Rabbit was peering through her ability.
In that instant, Crazy Rabbit almost thought he had discovered her.
But the man’s gaze was only a fleeting touch. Before the imagery faded completely, Crazy Rabbit heard the final snippet of dialogue:
“…Teacher, what are you looking at?”
The man answered: “Nothing… just felt like there were a few too many ‘eyes’ in this school.”
The collapsing imagery made Crazy Rabbit suddenly cover her eyes. Her brain felt as though it were being drilled through by something, the pain forcing her to crouch to the ground.
Watching the girl clutching her forehead in front of the bulletin board, the people in the vicinity realized something, their faces turning grim.
“Holy sh*t, Little Ancestor! What’s wrong?!”
Someone exclaimed, running over from afar. A roguish-looking boy pushed through the crowd and grabbed Crazy Rabbit, his expression filled with shock and uncertainty.
Crazy Rabbit’s state was terrible. This exploration had nearly drained her mental energy. She didn’t stand up with the boy’s help; instead, leaning close to his ear, she gritted out a sentence:
“Find White Witch. Tell her: the Confrontation Dungeon is about to open, and the prophecy… has begun.”