After grading the final exam paper, Jiang Wan didn’t bother flipping back through the earlier pages to calculate the deductions for incorrect answers. Instead, she worked out the total score in her head and wrote it on the first page.
Once she was done, she leaned back in the ergonomic chair and yawned.
The chair and cushion were genuinely comfortable, so she wasn’t particularly tired. Just a little bored.
Fortunately, the multiple-choice answer sheets could be graded by machine, saving them from having to mark those by hand.
The Lychee Coconut drink on her desk had long since been emptied, and the sky outside was already approaching dusk.
“Thanks for your hard work, Jiang Wan.” Teacher Yu let out a long breath. “I still need to enter these scores, so hurry along and get some dinner. It’s already so late. It doesn’t matter if you’re a little late for evening self-study.”
Jiang Wan said goodbye to Teacher Yu, but before she could even leave the teaching building, someone stopped her.
“Does this mean we don’t have classes tomorrow?” the Dorm Leader asked expectantly.
Jiang Wan: “…” How are you so well-informed…? Forget it. “We do.”
The teachers’ food poisoning hadn’t been particularly serious. They had all finished their IV drips that afternoon and gone home.
The moment Jiang Wan answered, a chorus of overlapping sighs erupted beside her.
—Her classmates had all been pressed against the windows, waiting to hear the answer.
“If only we could get another day off!”
“Then our Placement Exam results wouldn’t come out so soon, either!”
This was followed by an even louder wave of miserable wailing.
“Don’t mention the Placement Exam! I’ll have a heart attack right here!”
“No Placement Exam, no Placement Exam!”
“Huh?” Chen Jingning raised his head amid the cries, looking perfectly innocent. “But I actually really want to know.”
“Chen Jingning, you traitor! You think you’re so great just because you get high scores?!”
“Cuiguo, cover his mouth!”
Three boys immediately charged forward. One covered his mouth, another grabbed his arms, and the third lifted his legs. Together, they carried Chen Jingning to the opposite end of the classroom, a full ten meters away from Jiang Wan.
Jiang Wan listened for a moment, then mischievously said, “I could give you a little preview, you know. Help you prepare yourselves mentally.”
“No!”
“Please don’t—!”
“Little Wan have you eaten yet if you haven’t hurry to the cafeteria they’re serving Brazilian barbecue rice today and I specifically asked the cafeteria auntie to save you a portion!!”
The cafeteria menu changed daily, offering an enormous variety of dishes. There were four separate contractors competing with one another, regularly handing out student surveys and constantly introducing new dishes.
Some dishes only appeared occasionally, like pineapple rice or Brazilian barbecue rice.
Jiang Wan’s attention was instantly captured by the mention of Brazilian barbecue rice. “Then I’m leaving. Enjoy your evening self-study.”
Only the Dorm Leader quietly caught Jiang Wan’s arm. “We’re planning to explore Building Six later. Want to come?”
Every school inevitably had its own ghost stories.
At Quanzhou, Building Six was the laboratory building. Apart from the occasional experimental class, hardly anyone went in or out.
Its multipurpose laboratories contained large quantities of instruments, equipment, statues, and even anatomical models.
And because the building didn’t get much sunlight, its interior was always unusually cool…
There it was—the haunted location that every school ghost story needed.
Quanzhou required students to live on campus, but supervision during evening self-study was already relatively relaxed. Tonight, with so many teachers recovering at home, it was even more so.
—And so, the first-year students happily decided to spend this rare Monday evening exploring Building Six at night.
Jiang Wan wasn’t particularly interested and was about to shake her head when she suddenly heard a System announcement.
[Mission triggered. Participate in your classmates’ test of courage and successfully show off with an astonishment value exceeding 75.]
Jiang Wan looked up and easily spotted Zhou Wenxing, the owner of the Show-Off System.
Zhou Wenxing was leaning against the doorframe in a pose resembling Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, trying to look effortlessly relaxed. Unfortunately, his muscles weren’t strong enough to support the pose. His posture was distorted, his limbs trembled slightly, and his face had turned bright red from the strain.
Jiang Wan: “…” Does this guy fundamentally misunderstand the art of showing off?
A successful display of superiority had to be based on something you were actually good at.
Who would be stupid enough to show off in an area where they had absolutely no talent?!
The surrounding students were equally baffled.
“Zhou Wenxing, what are you doing?”
Zhou Wenxing: “…Practicing dancing.”
“Huh? Didn’t you sprain your waist during the entrance audition for the street dance club?”
Zhou Wenxing: “…I switched clubs.”
“Oh, the anime dance club? That might be easier. The main requirement is abandoning your sense of shame.”
Jiang Wan didn’t think that would be a problem. Zhou Wenxing clearly had very little shame to begin with.
Ignoring his ridiculous posing, she turned back to the Dorm Leader and nodded. “Wait until I get back. I’ll go with you.”
“Okay!” The Dorm Leader pushed up her glasses, attempting to make the lenses flash ominously. “Before you return, I’ll search for ghost stories and ways to scare people. Maybe I can make some props myself. Remember to keep it a secret for me.”
Jiang Wan understood perfectly.
This was their last-supper-style celebration, after all. The Placement Exam results would be announced tomorrow.
So she didn’t interfere. She leisurely went to the cafeteria for Brazilian barbecue rice, stopped by the supermarket, and finally strolled back to the high school teaching building.
At the back of Class Six’s classroom, five or six students had arranged their chairs in a circle and were huddled together, studying something intently.
Jiang Wan entered through the back door and watched curiously for a moment before clearing her throat with exaggerated seriousness.
“Ahem.”
The classmates gathered around their phones jumped to their feet in fright.
“Teacher, we weren’t doing any—Damn, it’s Little Wan! You scared me to death!”
“Well, it’s not the same kind of terror as the laboratory building,” another student commented, “but it’s definitely a different kind of horror.”
The student who had already lifted his chair, ready to flee the scene, sat back down and said casually, “We’re going looking for thrills later anyway. That’s a pretty good start.”
Jiang Wan nodded. “Before we go to the laboratory building, I’ll hand out the exam papers I’ve finished grading.”
As she spoke, she reached for her backpack zipper with a thoroughly convincing air of seriousness.
The students in the back two rows immediately went pale. One rushed forward to hold her zipper shut, while another frantically tried to snatch her bag.
“No, no, no! Little Wan, we can talk about this! We’re requesting a stay of execution!”
“Little Wan, want some chocolate? I just bought some nama chocolate!”
Chen Jingning turned around. “You’re all in no hurry? Then can I just look at my own paper?”
Everyone turned to glare at him.
“NO!!”
Chen Jingning looked a little disappointed. “…Oh.”
The Sports Representative, who had been the first to try stopping Jiang Wan from opening her bag, suddenly froze.
“…Huh? Jiang Wan, what’s in your bag? Why does it feel like something’s biting me?”
Jiang Wan blinked at him, then, without warning, grabbed her bag with both hands and yanked it downward.
The next second, the Sports Representative’s hand appeared before everyone’s eyes—along with a snake clamped onto his finger.
The entire classroom instantly descended into chaos.
The students in the back rows scrambled toward the front on their hands and knees. Meanwhile, the tall, broad-shouldered Sports Representative turned pale with fright, flailing his hand wildly and screaming in a high-pitched voice like a little girl.
“Kyaaaaa! Help! There’s a snake! AAAAAAH—!”
The culprit, Jiang Wan, was laughing so hard her stomach hurt. She collapsed against a nearby desk, wiping away tears of laughter.
A few seconds later, the Sports Representative’s desperate efforts finally paid off. He managed to fling the imitation snake off his finger, sending it flying toward the doorway like a black shadow.
At that exact moment, someone pushed open the classroom’s back door.
The Dean of Students’ stern face appeared.
“Your class is the noisiest in the entire build—”
Smack!
The toy snake struck him directly, triggering its mechanism. Its mouth snapped open and clamped onto the exact spot where his trouser zipper was.
Jiang Wan: “…” Ah.
The Dean’s words instantly lodged in his throat.
It took exactly one second for the entire Class Six classroom to go from uproarious chaos to absolute silence.
Two seconds later, the Dean of Students reached out with a contorted expression and slowly closed the classroom’s back door.
The Sports Representative murmured, “…Even my balls hurt just watching that.”
The Arts Representative whispered, “Look on the bright side. At least it wasn’t his wig that got bitten off.”
Regarding the Dean of Students, Who Wears a Wig Every Day and Thinks None of Us Know He’s Bald, Even Though Literally Everyone Knows.
A few seconds later, thunderous laughter erupted throughout the classroom once again.
“I can’t, I can’t! I might actually laugh myself to death in this classroom today!” The Dorm Leader clung to Jiang Wan, laughing so hard she could barely stand. “Wasn’t that the toy snake they sold at the supermarket last Halloween? Little Wan, did you actually go and buy leftover stock?”
Jiang Wan calmly zipped up her backpack. “I was planning to use it later, but Wang Ru was the one who stuck his hand into my bag.”
The Sports Representative looked ready to cry. “Wasn’t I trying to contribute to the class by stopping you from taking out the exam papers?”
“Teacher Yu is still entering the scores. The papers won’t be handed out until tomorrow.” Jiang Wan casually slung her backpack over her shoulder. “So what were you looking at just now?”
“We were looking for prank props too,” the Dorm Leader answered, still struggling to suppress her laughter. “We thought we’d find something simple on Taobao and see if we could make it ourselves.”
The school was full of hidden talents, including plenty of skilled crafters. Making one or two props at short notice wouldn’t be difficult.
“It’s just a shame that the toy snake Little Wan brought got confiscated…” Halfway through speaking, the Dorm Leader burst into laughter again and pounded the desk. “Pfft—hahahaha! How could the timing have been that perfect?!”
With most teachers at home recovering from food poisoning, the remaining teachers run off their feet, and the Dean of Students having just suffered a devastating blow to the groin—a triple stacking of favorable buffs—Class Six could practically laugh the roof off without a single teacher coming to stop them.
A few students from the neighboring class even came over to watch the commotion.
Meanwhile, the students holding phones continued earnestly searching for prank props, exchanging suggestions.
“In that kind of atmosphere, even a tiny scare can be terrifying. Simple props should be enough.”
“But anything too childish won’t scare anyone. We can’t use the kind meant for little kids.”
“Isn’t Annabelle terrifying?”
“Bullshit! How is Annabelle childish?!”
“Stop arguing, stop arguing. Here.” The student holding the phone changed the search keywords. “Finding something that isn’t childish is easy. I’ll just add ‘adult’ in front of ‘horror toys.'”
Jiang Wan, who was eating Pocky nearby: “…?”
Adult… toys?
Huh?
Don’t any of you think there’s something wrong with that?!
Unfortunately, the great thing about the internet was just how incredibly fast it was.
Before Jiang Wan could stop them, the product search results appeared on the phone.
“AAAAAAAH—!!”
“Close it! Close it!!”
“THROW THE PHONE AWAY!!!”
Their horrified screams once again echoed into the corridor.
The neighboring class: “…” Did Class Six get their exam papers back early or something?