The next day, when Jiang Ling walked into the classroom with her crimson knee-length pleated skirt pressing down her lower body, she finally understood what the so-called assistance contract and ordinary secondary school were - they were clearly the previous guardianship agreements and schools for the disabled!
In reality, it's a common practice for modern people to consider those unable to integrate into cyberspace disabled. This practice has persisted for five thousand years, even leading to changes in some legal provisions. Although Jiang Ling doesn't know exactly what happened five thousand years ago, she finally understands why Lin Yi worries about her, why young people avoid her, and why Yu Nuanxin tries so hard to change the status quo—after all, no one wants to have a friend who lacks civil capacity.
Unfortunately, this is the fact, and now they can only choose to accept it.
After the pre-school test, Jiang Ling was assigned to Class 3, Grade 2, and her homeroom teacher was an intelligent conscious being named T203.
As for why they were able to skip to the second grade, it all comes down to Lihuayuan's peculiar admissions system. Like any other ordinary middle school, Lihuayuan employs a system known as the "Healthy Person Rating System." This system records students' behaviors each academic year, weighting them to determine their actual performance in society. This system prioritizes "normal individuals who pose no threat to society," so a student's academic performance doesn't significantly impact the final result. This means that students in these schools are all "half-step geniuses" with extreme academic biases—or, more bluntly, monsters, lunatics, or even giant babies.
The same was true of Jiang Ling's test results. In some areas, her professional skills rivaled, and even surpassed, those of veteran astronauts and military personnel. Yet, in other respects, she was completely unlike anything human. After all, over 10,000 years ago, an expert who had seen the test report had summarized her in the most crude terms: she was a pure, cosmic-level Ultimate Being.
Feeling the curious glances from the students around her, Jiang Ling briefly introduced herself, then calmly walked to the window seat in the second-to-last row arranged by the head teacher - the so-called holy place for Japanese anime protagonists.
T203 ignored the students around Jiang Ling who were trying to liven up the atmosphere. He knocked on the podium, waiting dignifiedly for everyone's attention to shift to his side. Then he said slowly, "Dear students, this school is also a small society. I hope you can get along well with each other in the future and not create any rifts due to others joining in mid-semester."
It left after it finished speaking. Several relatively disciplined students in the front row placed the textbooks they would use for the next class on the table. Jiang Ling politely responded to the person who approached her while glancing at them out of the corner of her eye. They were books about politics.
Is it necessary to study politics on the mothership?
She originally thought that this artificial little world was peaceful, but now it seems that the situation may not be so good.
Have political ideas changed today? Or how many strange political parties and factions have emerged during her slumber?
"Jiang Ling, I'm Zhou Yang, the monitor of Class 3, Grade 2!" A young voice interrupted her thoughts. "You just joined our class today. If you have any questions, you can ask me."
Jiang Ling looked up, her green eyes reflecting a young man wearing a peaked cap and dressed in meticulous attire, about fifteen years old. Considering the longevity and youthfulness of modern people, his actual age might be much older. She noticed that the man calling himself "Zhou Yang" seemed to be deliberately maintaining a social distance of one body length from her. The exposed skin on his head bore some burn marks, and around his neck was a black collar with a square, red-lighting device attached to it.
The students who had gathered around him scattered like wild beasts upon hearing him speak, hiding in the distance and watching. Their hair was relatively short, the boys only had a slightly buzzed look, while the girls had shoulder-length hair at most, and most of them were neglected.
"Excuse me, classmate Zhou Yang, is there anything I can help you with?" Jiang Ling gave a gentle smile.
Zhou Yang handed over a palm-sized paper box and gently placed it on her desk. "This is your student terminal. It's a very old product. You should know how to use it, right? Remember to take good care of it." He paused, his lips curled up. "There have always been thieves in school. No matter how hard the school committee tries, they can't stop them."
Jiang Ling put away the paper box and nodded: "Thank you for your concern, squad leader."
Zhou Yang looked at her again and said, "What beautiful hair!" Then he left with his hands behind his back and slowly walked back to his seat in the third row.
Jiang Ling placed the cardboard box on her black stockings-covered thigh. She noticed some artistic calligraphy printed on the top. A closer sniff revealed the scent of still-dry ink. She opened it, revealing a black, antique smartphone with the number 203 printed on the back. It came without a charger or SIM card. She pressed and held the screen to wake it up. Two unfamiliar icons popped up, followed by a simplified image of the mothership and the Lihuayuan School emblem.
There's no need to enter a password to unlock the screensaver. The main interface only has four apps: "System," "Network," "Communication," and "Payment." The shortcut bar at the top of the screen shows the time, signal strength, and battery level. The battery level always shows "Charging" and remains full.
She clicked on "Payment," which displayed the basic information she had filled out on the form Yu Nuanxin had provided her the previous day, with the account balance field reading ".00." Swiping right brought up a QR code for receiving payments, while swiping left displayed the payment code. Scrolling down revealed transfer methods.
She skillfully set the unlocking password and payment password for this "student terminal", and then, before the class started, she downloaded several of the most downloaded software from the Internet and put them in her left pocket.
At this moment, she noticed that the person sitting at the next table on her right was secretly making small gestures to her, so she looked at the girl with golden-pink hair with interest.
"Hey, um... Jiang Ling..." She tried to lower her voice, fearing that others would notice. "Can you give me two, no, one hundred points?"
"What?"
"It's the payment points on your terminal. I just saw it. You just got here today, so there must be a lot of them, right?"
"Are you short of ideas?" Jiang Ling coaxed.
"Yes, I guess so!" The girl blushed and lowered her head, her voice getting smaller and smaller.
"Then tell me why you're asking me to borrow it? And I don't even know your name."
"It's not a loan, it's a trade!" The girl suddenly gained confidence. "My name is Sun Yixin. I can tell you a lot of things about our class! Lots and lots of things."
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