Chapter 53 Standard Answer

...

Song Rushuang looked at the forum, and when she read the last sentence, she suddenly stopped in her tracks.

She stood at the dormitory entrance, with people constantly passing by, but everyone was focused on their wrists and had no time to watch where they were going.

Song Rushuang had been following this post closely, so she read it almost as soon as the original poster made the post.

There seemed to be quite a few people around her who read at a similar speed. When she stopped, several gasps were heard around her.

"...parallel world?"

"Save our world..."

"Humanity in that world has become extinct..."

They whispered among themselves, their tones filled with the same shock and heartache.

Song Rushuang recalled what the principal said at the opening ceremony: "2035 will be the last year of human history."

"But you have a chance to change all of this."

--you.

Song Rushuang once thought that this sentence was intended to encourage students to work hard and change the fate of mankind through their own efforts.

But it turns out it has another meaning as well.

To change the ending that belongs to "you".

As for the principal's own world, the end has already come.

Human history will end in 2035, and according to speculation on the forum, Teacher Lu arrived in Fangzhou after his death, so it's very likely that the principal himself...

At the beginning of the semester, they had speculated about the principal's intentions.

Thinking of this, Song Rushuang felt her chest and throat tighten, and she turned her steps toward the stairwell, about to walk out of the dormitory.

The elevator behind her dinged, the doors opened, and someone called her name: "Xiao Shuang!"

Song Rushuang turned around; it was Sun Wei.

Su Huaijin and Tian Tian, ​​the freckled girl, stood on either side of her. The three of them looked hurried, and the two of them practically had to carry the immobile Sun Wei away.

"Where are you going?" Sun Wei asked.

Song Rushuang was taken aback.

Where to go...

She had instinctively wanted to head towards the administration building, but when someone called her, she realized that her actions had been somewhat impulsive.

Is she really going to go to the principal and ask him about all of this?

She wasn't familiar with the principal, so this was really too abrupt.

Song Rushuang was still hesitating when Sun Wei spoke first: "We're going to find the principal, do you want to come along?"

The three were getting impatient and, after asking their questions, stared intently at Song Rushuang, waiting for her answer, which startled Song Rushuang.

She pursed her lips, gritted her teeth, and said firmly, "I'll go too."

*

When Song Rushuang and her group knocked on the principal's office door, Fu Qing was browsing the student forum.

From the day she drew Lu Yan from the recruitment pool, she had anticipated that the students would discover the secret of "rebirth".

In fact, this matter came to light later than she had imagined.

The students were probably too distracted by the midterm exams, and it wasn't until almost a week into the semester that they realized that Teacher Lu and the "Lu Yan" in the story were the same person, which really shows their poor observation skills.

So when Song Rushuang and the others heard "Come in" and opened the door, they saw the principal sitting with his legs crossed, leisurely browsing the forum.

Song Rushuang paused for a moment, her hand on the doorknob.

Fu Qing looked up: "Is there something you need?"

Song Rushuang felt as if she had been burned and hurriedly let go. Before coming here, her brain was like an overloaded CPU, loaded with ten thousand words she wanted to say to the principal and an excess of emotions, but when she actually looked into her eyes, she seemed to be unable to say anything.

“Um…” Song Rushuang stammered.

Unable to stand her roommate's nagging any longer, Sun Wei poked her head out from behind and asked, "Principal, is what they're saying on the forum true?"

She hesitated for a moment: "You, you really came back from the apocalypse?"...

Fu Qing glanced at the several girls who were panting heavily.

They must have run here, still breathless, their eyes fixed on me, enveloped in helplessness and regret.

The girl from the publicity team, named Tian Tian, ​​with freckles on her face, kept nervously looking her up and down, as if trying to find traces of injury on her, but afraid of actually seeing them. So she always looked worried, covering her face and peeking out her eyes through her fingers.

They wanted to ask the principal how she came into this world, whether she was injured, and whether her wounds had healed, but they were afraid of saying the wrong thing.

I wanted to say that we would definitely work hard, but then I felt that the promise was too light.

So everything was written on their faces.

The four of them stared at her expectantly.

Fu Qing couldn't stand those looks; they made her feel like the head of some stray animal protection association. She waved her hand, signaling them to find a place to sit, and before they were fully settled, she casually said, "It's true."

This caused Su Huaijin to trip as he walked towards the sofa, and Sun Wei nearly fell to the ground with a thud.

The four of them stared at her in shock.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Fu Qing rested her elbow on the table and propped her chin on her hand. "I thought it was a very simple deduction."

"If you didn't experience it firsthand, who could pinpoint such a precise time?"

Su Huaijin's mind raced, and he blurted out, "But you even know when the last human died? That's impossible!"

Song Rushuang keenly realized that this was indeed a paradox.

If the principal had personally experienced the apocalypse, she would have had no way of knowing when humanity would perish.

The reason why the inferences that "the principal is a government official" and "the doomsday prophecy is actually just a prediction made by intelligence personnel" have gained widespread support is also due to this.

In the students' understanding, Fu Qing's statement that "the last human died five years after the outbreak of the virus" was just a general statement and did not mean that she actually witnessed the moment when the last person died.

But the principal's confident tone left them confused.

After Su Huaijin finished speaking, Fu Qing's expression became somewhat strange.

Su Huaijin's heart skipped a beat, and an absurd conjecture rose from the bottom of her heart: "You...no way...could you be the one who survives to the end?"

The remaining three were stunned, as if struck by lightning.

The freckled boy opened his mouth wide and let out a weak "Huh?"

Fu Qing's expression seemed to indicate acquiescence.

Su Huaijin stammered, "But, that's still not right... Even if you survive to the end, you won't know if there are any other humans still alive on Earth."

Fu Qing tapped the side of her face with the index finger of her left hand, which was resting on her chin: "Perhaps you can take it as information that came with her rebirth?"

Rebirth.

The four of them caught the word, and their mood suddenly turned heavy.

On their way here, they had all secretly hoped that the principal would deny the forum's speculation and tell them that she had not actually experienced the apocalypse, and that the "Lu Yan" in the simulation pod was just a virtual character created by the system by referencing the image of a real person.

If all teachers and students work together, they can change the predicted future, and none of the terrible things they imagine will happen.

Instead of letting them know, as they are doing now, that the principal and teachers are burdened with a predetermined fate and are here to help them change their destiny.

Even if they succeed, the world of the principal and teachers will never be the same again...

Song Rushuang felt a pang of sadness.

The air was still. The four people sat side by side on the sofa, their hands unconsciously resting obediently on their knees, their expressions more sorrowful than the last.

After a long silence, Fu Qing broke the silence softly: "The expressions on your faces make me think I'm dead again."

The four people: "..."

Fu Qing admired it for a moment, then said with satisfaction, "That's good. I've never seen anyone mourn for me before."

The four people: "…………"

Don't even mention that no one in this world can witness the scene of mourning after their own death. Even if they could, when you, Principal, die, only zombies in the world can mourn for you!

Several people almost blurted out their complaints, but quickly covered their mouths and stopped themselves.

That was close!

The oppressive atmosphere was thrown into chaos, and the girls exchanged glances, seeing determination in each other's eyes.

They will not allow this world to head towards destruction again.

In this way, once everything is over, the principal and teachers can start a new life in the new world.

This thought made them feel a little better. Song Rushuang finally remembered the news that she had temporarily ignored: "The principal survived to the very end."

—She actually survived to the end!

The extinction of humanity is sad, but... the principal is just too amazing.

The thought that such an amazing person was personally teaching them made Song Rushuang want to jump up and down on the spot, stomp her feet and scream, but with the principal right in front of her, she could only restrain herself and quietly clench her fists.

Su Huaijin was too shocked. In order to calm himself down, he instinctively began to analyze the suspicious points in the incident: "Wait, if the dungeons in the simulated combat pod are all real events—or rather, some of them are real events—it's too much of a coincidence that we just happened to run into the school's teachers. Unless, the real part of the dungeon was not randomly generated, but was uploaded by someone."

She kept muttering to herself.

"Xiao Juan's copy appeared before Teacher Lu came to the school, which means it wasn't uploaded by Teacher Lu herself, but by someone else in the school..."

Fu Qing hissed softly, interrupting Su Huaijin before she could continue, and said with a headache, "Wait a minute."

This little girl is far too clever; if she keeps analyzing like this, she'll expose all my secrets.

Fu Qing strongly suspects that the accounts that post lengthy analyses on the forum are actually alternate accounts opened by Su Huaijin.

Su Huaijin looked at the principal innocently.

Fu Qing stared at her for two seconds, then glanced at the side of the desk.

Throughout the conversation, a system panel remained suspended there, with the pale green student forum constantly refreshing.

Not only Su Huaijin sitting in front of her, but also others on the forum guessed the identity of the blurred protagonist XX in Xiao Juan's storyline, who might be the principal.

The reason is simple: "young," "reliable," and "acquainted with Lu Yan"—these descriptions make it hard not to associate them with Fu Qing.

The simulation pod replicas they treated as a game were likely based on the real experiences of the principal and teachers.

And everything the principal has told them from the opening ceremony to today is true.

She never lied, nor did she have any conspiracy theories. From beginning to end, the principal was completely open with them. On the contrary, they were hesitant to fully trust her and even suspected her repeatedly.

The students were deeply shaken.

Shock, guilt, sadness...

The emotions that had been building up in the past erupted at this moment, turning into deep self-blame.

A pop-up notification appeared in the upper right corner of the system panel: [Student popularity is rapidly increasing!]

[Student approval rating has exceeded 40%]

[Received 1000 teaching points as a reward]

[42%……46%……50%……]

Fuqing's student favorability rating had been hovering around 39% recently, but today it has finally broken through that barrier.

She just didn't expect that after passing 40% and receiving the reward, the popularity rating would continue to rise rapidly at a breakneck pace.

The speed only gradually decreased after it exceeded 50%.

Looking at the numbers that were still jumping around after the decimal point, Fu Qing finally made up her mind.

The students gave her a thousand points, and it seemed she should give them something in return.

[Facility Upgrade]

Should a "replay function" be added to all simulated combat bays?

[Cost: 200 Teaching Points]

Fu Qing moved her finger and clicked "OK".

Aren't the students all complaining that the dungeons are too difficult and they don't know how to clear them?

Perfect.

The fact that I was reborn has been exposed, and I have gained additional teaching points.

She can use this opportunity to provide them with a standard answer.