Chapter 50 An old school campus, a paper-folded head facing east, west, south, north, and north. ...
The dice are made of paper, but they have the weight of normal dice. Each face grows a corresponding number of sunflowers, and the face facing up has exactly six real sunflowers, which is the largest number.
As soon as the thing landed in Xue Chao's palm, the origami scattered immediately. Xue Chao turned his head and saw that they had returned to their original state, as if there had been no discussion or adventure.
Because behind the curtain of the painting, a woman stepped down from her chair, her heels sinking into the cardboard rug, as if she were about to emerge from behind the curtain: "You found my dice? Then we can begin."
Her hand gripped the bottom of the curtain and pulled it up. Whether it was Xue Chao's uneasy intuition or not, he felt that this scene was a bit slow, like a deliberately mysterious slow motion—first, a long white tulle dress with chocolate wrappers peeking out of her pocket, a blue bow tied at the waist with a short belt, then the soft name tag on her chest, and her graceful neck adorned with a pearl necklace…
Finally, attached to the neck was a paper-folded head representing the cardinal directions.
Xue Chao subconsciously thought she had a giant origami face, but as she tilted her head, revealing only the side of the origami and the way the origami blinked, he had to admit that it was indeed her head.
"Where did the chairs go?" She walked to the small table for teachers, opened and closed it several times in all directions, and then opened it again. Inside the origami on the south side, the words "Craft Table" appeared. Sure enough, she pulled out a paper chair that had fallen over from under the large craft paper table. "Looks like some little rascals are playing 'Hero vs. Demon King' tunnel warfare under the table again. Please excuse the embarrassment, sit down."
Her voice was loud at first, but when she pointed out a seat to Xue Chao, it naturally became very gentle. She was indeed like a teacher who had been facing children for many years, able to switch between gentleness and authority at any time. Xue Chao recovered from the slight disorientation of being suddenly struck by the strangeness and sat down steadily opposite her.
Their height difference was too great. Directly in front of them was the blue bow on her belt. Only by tilting their heads up could they see her huge origami head, which opened and closed in all directions, like her lips, from which a woman's voice came out.
...The sound of papers turning over that he just heard was not a woman tidying up, but the sound of her head opening and closing as she folded paper while she was talking.
Xue Chao was shrouded in a considerable shadow cast by her head; she could "swallow" his upper body in one gulp if she lowered her head.
She placed the sunflower dice between them, took out a list, and Xue Chao spotted the name "Jiang Ming" in the list of students in the senior class. She then said gently, "Do you want to ask about Jiang Ming? We can see if he will take the day off today... Hmm, let's go north then."
She threw the dice, and it came to "3". Then the heads of the four cardinal directions opened and closed three times, and the word on the north side read "No leave requested".
Other directions are nonsensical words, such as "Snow White," "scrambled eggs with tomatoes," and "jump rope," which are like answers to other questions.
For a moment, she felt a hint of malicious regret, let out an exaggerated sigh, and then, as if her expression had changed, she teased him with a helpless yet indulgent tone: "I hope our little Jiang Ming won't stick the paper sword into Teacher Wang's flowerpot today to 'kill pests' for the kalanchoe."
Then, looking at Xue Chao, seemingly sensing his underlying wariness, she said gently, "Don't worry, there's no limit to the number of times. I'm very patient."
Xue Chao found it a bit strange. It was as if she was examining a given fact or foreseeing a future fact that was bound to happen. This matched the three words "memoir" in the main quest title. They were playing the role of this child's childhood.
But if it's a fait accompli, wouldn't her regret be superfluous?
So instead of asking Jiang Ming right away, he asked, "Can the frog eat chocolate now, Nan?"
She threw a "4," and the words for all directions changed, resulting in "Yes." The chocolate in the teacher's pocket disappeared and reappeared in front of the paper frog.
He became increasingly certain of his thought: "Is the frog green or blue? Dong."
She threw a "6", and the result was "blue", instantly turning the pink paper frog blue.
—It's not about viewing or predicting, it's about changing reality.
"The words inside your text change every round, how do I know if you've tampered with them?" Xue Chao questioned.
“How could that be? I’m the most fair.” The teacher, with her head held high and round, spoke softly, sounding sad as if she had been misunderstood. But she quickly noticed Xue Chao’s indifference, and her sadness softened, making her unadorned gentleness seem rigid and cold. “Any more questions? The cabinets aren’t finished yet, and we won’t have time when the children come.”
"But if everything is under your control, what difference is there between me and someone who didn't participate?" Xue Chao snatched the dice as if trying to gain an advantage for himself. "I'll roll."
She calmly gestured "please".
So Xue Chao tried a few more questions. If the questions had nothing to do with the craft park, then the game could not proceed.
And all questions will have an outcome that is favorable to her. For example, questions that try to weaken her or strengthen others, such as "Can the frog beat you?" or "Can you shrink?" will only get a negative answer.
In addition, the premise of the question must be factual. For example, "Can the sword in the paper frog's hand kill you?" Since the paper frog does not have a sword, the question is invalid and cannot be answered.
Furthermore, aside from yes/no questions, where only two options are provided, the answer may not necessarily be derived from those two options.
For example, if he asks, "Are you as tall as me or as tall as the paper frog?", the answer is, "Taller than both you and the paper frog."
Only "irrelevant questions" that pose absolutely no threat to her will have truly random results, and even random questions will mostly not yield the results he desires, always leaving him with the nauseating feeling of being just one step away from success.
If luck is also a passing score of 60, he would definitely get 59.
Xue Chao seemed to have reached his limit: "Your answer is not among the options."
“Did I say it was based on your choice?” She blinked her terrifying origami head, gently provoking. “Perhaps you’d like to ask again, ‘Is the paper frog green or blue?’ Maybe this time it will turn black—class is about to start, you can ask one more question.”
Xue Chao glanced at her cautiously, as if looking at a hateful but invincible enemy. He could only mentally speculate, "He's definitely going to pull some trick again." His suppressed anger seemed pitifully weak in her eyes.
"Is Jiang Ming a child or an adult, currently in the senior class of Sunflower Kindergarten? Nan."
He even added superfluous descriptions, fearing she might try to find another loophole. The dice rolled a "3," and he held his breath, watching the changes in her head. But the result was still contrary to his expectations. He slammed his fist on the table, stood up, and stared intently at the two characters "Master" on the south side: "Are you 'Master' on both sides of the south side?"
She looked at him with increasing affection, like looking at a naughty child, with a condescending love. She opened and closed her head again, gesturing for him to look at the word "child" on the other half of the screen to the south: "Then let's stop here, class is about to begin."
As soon as the cute school bell rang, Xue Chao blinked again, and the strange teacher in front of him returned to his normal height, slightly shorter than him. All the paper structures in the craft park returned to normal, the origami returned to their original size, and the tunnel disappeared.
Except for the teacher's head, which still faces east, west, south, and north, it seems that all the absurdity has been hidden back in dreams, and reality has settled down.
Xue Chao suddenly became lazy, like a clown taking off his stage makeup to be laughed at. He started counting money with a cold face as soon as he stepped off the stage. A paper squirrel fell out of his sleeve, with a half-eaten sunflower still in its mouth. The dice face up now only had two sunflowers, but somehow they had already turned into "2".
"Thank you for your fairness and impartiality. If you were to be a 'big shot' on both sides, it would be difficult for me."
"..." She stood up abruptly, only then realizing how he had gradually lowered her guard, leading her to this final step, stealing the day and night right under her blind and smug nose, her head opening and closing in all directions, as if trying to vent all her powerless anger.
His goal was achieved; the players in the camera had shrunk to the size of children.
Jiang Ming was swinging on a swing at the time, playfully swinging himself high into the air. Suddenly, he turned into a child and was thrown out. Fortunately, even though the playground was covered with a cushioning educational mat, he managed to stabilize himself in a bizarre way.
Realizing that the host had solved his age problem, Jiang Ming immediately raised his hand like a child and reported to his host from afar: "I'm at the slide entrance, are you coming to find me? I can't even reach the door lock now."
The tone was questioning, but the person had already gone back to the swing and was playing leisurely, which was infuriating.
Xue Chao felt nothing when facing the strange people in the craft park. However, he felt a bit resentful when he looked at the players in his own camp at the camera, as if they had been robbed of their rightful lives and were unhappy with him.
Jiang Ming seemed to know what he was thinking, making a heart shape with his hands from afar, while singing a line of music that went off-key eight times: "Without you, who will still treat me like a child—"
Xue Chao decided to tell him to "get lost" as soon as they met.
He doesn't have any earth-shattering sense of responsibility; of course, he doesn't. But in 1v1 mode, there might only be one player right now. The dungeon has just started, and the popularity rating is far from reaching the target. If Jiang Ming dies, the game will end immediately, and he'll be finished too.
The feeling of two people's lives being tied together is truly disgusting.
He pushed open the window on one side of the playground to check on Jiang Ming's condition just in case, but the window suddenly fell outwards and landed on the elephant-shaped entrance of the slide, connecting with it—the slide had "grown" all the way to the top floor, and was now directly opposite the window.
He followed the long, winding slide until he reached the exit of the playground slide, where little players wearing oversized sunflower hats were waving excitedly.
Xue Chao did not rush down. He returned to the corridor and looked around. There was still no one on the top floor, and the door to the stairwell was still tied tightly with balloon fragments. He kept a safe distance and gently pushed open a crack with a long ruler. He immediately squeezed out a string that was tied to the balloon, flicked it like a snake's tail, and grabbed nothing.
He decisively closed the door and slid down the slide.
The slide was long and pitch black, with no other sounds except for its lonely and somewhat jarring slid. The slope was sometimes gentle and sometimes steep, like riding a leaf on the night, drifting along forever.
The thought had barely crossed his mind when the long slide abruptly ended. He fell from the slide's exit and plunged into the water with a "plop," splashing everywhere.
He fell very deep, and kept falling. The shimmering water blurred his vision, clear and transparent, yet heavy and distant from the world. He was like a prehistoric life form sealed under ice, gazing eternally and lonely at those phantoms that were forever out of his reach, before continuing to sink into the bottomless abyss beneath him.
Xue Chao grabbed the red handrail, jolted awake from a dream, and looked up sharply. His soaking wet wolf tail hair was all flung behind his head, and the water splashed up in a bright parabola.
He realized he was in an enclosed pool hall, where the water only reached his abdomen.
The swimming pool was small, with no exit and only one window that let in limited pale sunlight, which covered a small area of pool water near the window and reflected off the off-white checkered tile wall.
A little boy wearing a sunflower hat stood by the pool, looking down at his shoes.
Xue Chao thought the lazy player had come after him using some method. He had barely finished saying "get lost" when he saw the name tag on the child's chest that read "Qian Liang" and paused.
The little boy slowly raised his head, revealing the head of a remote control under his hat. The two joysticks controlling the toy race car turned like a pair of eyes, staring at Xue Chao.
Did you hide my snake?
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