Chapter 54 The Old School Days... It was the sound of a window being pushed open. ...
The child's body no longer acts as a frightening compass; whichever balloon Xue Chao swings to, the balloon's body will bar its teeth and claws in attack.
The roots were exceptionally tough and could not be broken, so he had to keep replacing the balloons to reduce the obstacles caused by the children's mischief.
The children's sunflower heads were all inside balloons, bearing the weight of their emotions, rolling back and forth angrily. Some of the flower heads opened their mouths wide, reaching down through the balloons, trying to bite Xue Chao's hand, yet afraid the balloons would burst, like kittens biting.
Opening his mouth was no use; the other sunflower heads opened their eyes and suddenly crashed into the thin skin of the balloon, sticking tightly to it. Their clear black and white eyes glared at him fiercely, trying to startle him and make him lose his grip. Xue Chao grabbed another stem and lashed it out, sending the group of balloons tumbling backward.
As another balloon drifted by, Xue Chao seized the opportunity to grab its stem, but the balloon dodged first, deliberately tricking him. He had anticipated this, so he didn't actually let go of the original balloon. The force of his missed grab swayed him to the lower right, where he grabbed another innocent balloon.
He tried to trick him with his balloon and chase after him again, but Jiang Ming, who had come from behind, pulled him down. The sunflower heads inside the two balloons were put together, and he instantly saw stars.
He was like a wicked executor who believed that "those who harm others will always be harmed in return." When he spoke with a smile, it was as if he were teasing a group of mischievous children. His general kindness was mixed with a touch of authority: "It's not enough for you to do anything naughty."
What was originally a strange encirclement was turned into a childlike adventure for them. Xue Chao landed on the rainbow arch first, and as soon as he stood firm, Jiang Ming, who was right behind him, laughed and pounced on him. Xue Chao was stunned for a moment, then quickly switched places, using Jiang Ming as a cushion, and fell down with him.
He impatiently smacked Jiang Ming on the head again: "Are you courting death?"
"You're not dead, are you?" Jiang Ming's head tilted to the side after being slapped, and he bumped into a stone brick. His eyes were glazed over, but he still had a grin on his face, which made him even more annoying.
Not satisfied, he suddenly propped himself up while Xue Chao was sitting on him, wrapped a bear hug around Xue Chao's slender waist, buried his face in the man's neck, and, like a child hugging their favorite teddy bear in bed at midnight, said in a silly, infatuated voice, "It would be better if he were dead..."
He suddenly stopped, as if he had suddenly woken up, and found his words utterly boring. He was amused by his own nonsense, and his head was bent back and forth. The tears from his laughter rubbed against Xue Chao's carotid artery, icy cold, like a snowflake suddenly falling from the sky and just managing to get into his collar.
Xue Chao ran his long, slender hand through Jiang Ming's hair and swiftly pulled his dog-like head away. Jiang Ming's head made intimate contact with the stone bricks again. This time he was really dizzy and was kicked again. He pretended to cry out in pain.
Xue Chao had ignored this annoying person earlier, waiting for a system notification or for the person in front of him to be kicked out of the game, but there had been no movement so far, and his heart sank.
Looking up again, I was taken aback. The kindergarten's color scheme was childlike and bright. The walls and gate were in the same rainbow colors, and the playground carpet was a large area of light blue, as if a rainbow had been drawn around the sky to make this paradise.
However, the outer side of the wall was a dirty white, grayish and yellowish, with the paint worn off at the bottom, revealing the original color of the cement wall, with a ring of moldy black, and the wall surface was pitted and full of old scratches left by the years.
Dirty trash cans and bags were piled up in front of the wall, which was covered with all kinds of job postings. Small advertisements printed in the gaps were smeared together with ink, and there were several electrical boxes side by side.
This isn't a kindergarten; it's clearly a dilapidated stairwell in an old residential area.
Xue Chao was a little unsure what this meant, so he turned back to look at the other side of the road. The rows of residential buildings looked like old toy models. Because no one could fit inside them, no matter how realistic they were, they didn't look like houses for people to live in.
Every window was quiet and dark, as if it were empty. Only one window was open. It was too far away to see the specific layout of the room. All that could be seen was a large inscription on the wall opposite, with one of the characters probably being "home". The gray glass window was splashed with striking red paint. The red was shocking and continued to fall downwards, increasing in number until it formed a thick pool on the ground, staining the stone bricks red.
This window is quieter and darker than any other window; it's an empty space that was "already empty."
Xue Chao suddenly realized that the creaking sound of the mirror breaking... was the sound of the window being opened.
That eerie and silent sound, as if he had smugly and indifferently abandoned it, was waiting ahead, giving him a chilling blow to the head.
He had always treated the story of "Jiang Ming" as a game setting, with all the joys and sorrows being for "role-playing." He would observe from the sidelines, watching coldly, lest he be taken advantage of by ghosts and monsters and suffer losses. But now, because of that window, a distant connection was suddenly formed, causing him to feel a little uncontrollable empathy.
It was a night long ago, cloudless and moonless, with only countless stars hanging in the eternal night, so clear it was almost unsettling.
The woman, dressed in a dark purple silk nightgown, stood comfortably by the window, a glass of red wine beside her, but her gaze towards the starry sky was dark and silent.
There must be something else. But young Xue Chao couldn't understand. He just got up to drink water in the middle of the night and happened to see this scene. Instinct overcame his thoughts in an instant, making him feel uneasy that his sister was like a bird trapped in a cage, and that she would fly back to the sky at any moment.
Even if the next second is the moment of falling.
So he ran over hesitantly, grabbed her arm, and when his sister heard his idea, she was taken aback at first, then the gloom dissipated, and he smiled back at her: "No way..."
He was comforted at the time, but it felt more like a self-persuasion born of misunderstanding and fear, like a needle buried deep in his brain. When he thought about it again, it still stung him painfully—that sentence always seemed to have an unfinished meaning, just like the way she looked at the starry sky at the time—"There's something else too."
Jiang Ming was lying directly opposite the red paint stain across the street, like a mirror image with the street as its axis.
He had been watching quietly with his head turned to the side, but noticing the silence, he turned around and saw Xue Chao's expression. He understood it even faster than Xue Chao did, and suddenly asked, "Are you sad for them?"
There was no sarcasm in his words, as if he were serious, but the next second he revealed his true colors and laughed: "No way, hahaha, it's just a game setting. I could make up a hundred for you in one night. They look like people, and you really think they're human? You're not the type who kills wolves during the day and cries in bed at night, are you?"
"..." Xue Chao raised his hand, about to give him another kowtow package, but Jiang Ming, who had expected this, exaggeratedly dodged it. The kid was afraid that he would really get angry, so he quickly diverted the host's attention and gestured for him to try the invisible wall.
Reaching the edge of the road, Xue Chao found himself unable to go any further and indeed touched an invisible wall.
There are also horizontal limitations; the area of activity is limited to the small patch of land in front of the gate.
Jiang Ming pointed inside the kindergarten: "It seems that the area outside the school gate is not the point where the game ends. What should we do? Go back? But those balloons aren't coming over."
“I know where it is. Let’s go back inside.” Xue Chao narrowed his eyes. “Follow me.”
He climbed back up the wall and circled around it toward the teaching building. Jiang Ming found everything fun and skipped along behind him. He quickly understood how Jiang Ming wanted to get back: "The slide? But it's quite a distance from the nearest penguin entrance, and it's a downward exit. Even if you can jump over it, you'll be in big trouble if you don't grab on properly."
The slide is a large slide with multiple animal-shaped entrances and exits, resembling a huge and sturdy plant that stretches its branches freely in the playground. The elephant entrance also connects to the craft playground.
"So we still need the balloons' help." As Xue Chao was speaking, the balloon that had deliberately moved away to see them helpless flew back mischievously, trying to cause trouble and make them fall. He was waiting for this moment, so he grabbed the stem of the balloon that was disrupting his balance, swung it forward sharply, and got another balloon, which stopped right at the penguin exit.
He gave the sunflower inside the balloon a malicious smile, and then, to the astonishment of the flower-faced eyes, he used his hand to forcefully push the balloon into the slide entrance, where it got stuck.
Xue Chao used the roots to tie the child's limbs behind his back, and together with his adult body, they blocked the exit tightly. He then shoved the flower plate hard through the balloon skin and said, "Hurry up and crawl in. Why are you so lazy?"
"[Jiang Ming] Balloon:?"
"【Jiang Ming】Family, did you see that bewildered look on that eyeball? Hahahaha!"
"[Jiang Ming] I'm really impressed, bro, you're so flamboyant."
Jiang Ming, who was imitating him, saw this scene and couldn't stop laughing, pulling the balloon up and down in the air.
The balloon couldn't get out and stubbornly wanted to stay there, but Xue Chao kept nagging and cursing at it. Before long, the flower plate was so dizzy from being bullied that it spun around and almost retaliated by rushing a long way down the slide.
Xue Chao let it be; he'd just take action whenever he was unhappy, and see who ended up getting the short end of the stick. Just then, he heard the sound of balloons bursting outside.
The two acted together, and Xue Chao didn't keep an eye on the camera position, so he didn't know how the balloon popped. But he reacted with lightning speed, suddenly pulling back another section of the balloon. His hand, which had just emerged from the slide, grabbed Jiang Ming, who was about to fall. His arm scraped against the slide wall, even through the thin fabric, and a layer of skin was scraped off and mixed with the fabric.
At that moment, Jiang Ming's expression was one of genuine surprise.
With one more person, the weight increased dramatically. Even the already ominous balloon was pulled to the exit. The flower's eyes lit up instantly, and it took the opportunity to squeeze out. Xue Chao frowned, holding the child's bound body against the entrance, and pushed back against it with force. The opposing forces of his two arms made him grit his teeth.
Jiang Ming said, half-jokingly and half-seriously, with a hint of tea in his voice, "If this continues, we'll all be finished. I'm dragging you down. Let go."
"You'd only drag me down if you died like this. Don't act like a spoiled brat just because you're the only player. What kind of loveless brat are you, trying to get attention through rebellion?" Xue Chao was annoyed. He pushed his raised hand away with a sharp crack, and he shoved himself back into the slide. "Besides, who do you think you are?"
Jiang Ming spouted nonsense, but he actually held Xue Chao's hand tightly the whole time. Even after getting some leverage on the slide, he insisted on intertwining his fingers again. When Xue Chao looked over, he would put on a pitiful expression and act recklessly, pushing Xue Chao's limits.
Xue Chao had never seen anyone so annoying. Unfortunately, their interests were now intertwined, and as the host, he didn't want to risk "losing the only player." He felt that this guy was a giant fly that would buzz around people for no reason, but would run away quickly when it came to actually fighting. He would also deliberately linger in front of people, enjoying the impotent rage of the person he was harassing, and so on.
“To be honest,” Xue Chao gritted his teeth, “I really want to kick you off the train.”
"But I've fallen in love with you." Jiang Ming smiled sweetly, talking to herself in a way that sounded more like a little girl's game than playful banter. "Will you be my boyfriend?"
Xue Chao's words were succinct: "Get lost."
Jiang Ming was not discouraged at all: "Then I'll pursue you."
The more he talked, the more enthusiastic he became. So for the rest of the journey, Xue Chao focused on forcing the balloon forward and constantly comparing the path to prevent it from escaping to other exits.
Once they were back inside the building, Balloon hurriedly broke through the window and ran away, not wanting to spend another second with this devil.
"Back where?" Jiang Ming seemed to lack any sense of propriety or shame that a normal human being should have. After being shaken off, he leaned in again the next second, "Ah, this spot..."
The radio station, the starting point of Xue Chao's story.
Xue Chao: "The number of players in the instance is 5, but so far it's just you and me. If it's not that we haven't found other players, then players will appear one after another, and I, as the host, am probably the only one who stays throughout the whole process."
Jiang Ming: "I understand. Players come and go, but the host remains. If the story doesn't end when I, as the 'protagonist' of the kindergarten, return to the outside of the school, then the anchor point for the transition will likely be you."
They pushed open the door and entered. The pale yellow wallpaper, colorful educational carpet, and cute radio station disappeared, and the four walls turned into a vast expanse of white, like entering the formatted initial room of a game, so white it was dazzling.
The door behind him closed gently. Xue Chao turned around, but Jiang Ming had already disappeared. The room was repainted, as if a new room had been added. The main audience should also be young children, but the decoration was much more formal than that of a kindergarten, combining the simplicity and grandeur of an art gallery with a touch of childlike fun.
Between the two rotating cylindrical bookshelves, there is a radio station labeled "Art and Beauty Training Institution Radio Station".
Main Quest 2 "Campus Memories" has been updated.
[Main Quest 2-2 "Art and Beauty Training Institution": Every day that my fingertips dance, it seems my soul is also fluttering freely.]
[Task Details: Please spend your elementary school extracurricular time and complete your own storyline!]
The camera angle completely changed, as if the scene had suddenly shifted. The woman with the white rose earring was standing quietly at the entrance of a training institution that resembled a children's palace, tentatively pushing the door open to enter.
The locked player name changed from [Jiang Ming] to [Pu Fengchun].
[The camera position has been automatically bound to the current player]
[Player: █/5]
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