Chapter 130 Who Will Preach the Way (Part 1) That concludes today's lesson...
"Ding ding ding—Lesson is about to begin. Please take your seats as soon as possible and let's immerse ourselves in the ocean of knowledge together—"
As the unusually familiar school bell rang, Du Yu sat in the classroom with a wary expression, a lingering look of surprise in his eyes.
The buildings eroded by the gray fog finally stabilized. Du Yugang followed Bian Shaoyan and his group of security officers into the sealed-off area. Suddenly, he found himself sitting in a familiar classroom.
Another spacetime rift? It doesn't seem like it.
It is a good strategy to remain inactive until the source of the anomaly is found.
Du Yu's gaze swept over the familiar furnishings, guessing that he was on the fourth floor of the fifth teaching building—only here could there be such a strange classroom model, with a podium at the front, and seats arranged in rows behind, rising higher and higher, like a huge semicircle, with the straight section facing the lecturer.
My roommate Wen Xi once complained that the classrooms on the fourth floor of the fifth teaching building didn't look like classrooms for classes, but more like a movie theater or a small concert stage.
"Crunch."
A soft sound came from the side near the corridor. Du Yu looked in the direction of the sound and saw a straight figure walk in. At the same time, as the figure stood on the podium, the classroom, which had been empty except for Du Yu, was instantly filled with rustling sounds.
Du Yu seemed to have instantly transformed from a solitary study room into a bustling, noisy city.
However, at this moment, Du Yu did not have the energy to observe these suddenly appearing "classmates".
She looked at the middle-aged woman tidying up the courseware on the podium and raised her eyebrows slightly.
The woman wore a white silk blouse with a ribbon tied neatly at the side of her neck. She paired it with light blue distressed flared jeans and brown square-toed chunky-heeled leather shoes, the leather gleaming with a glossy sheen.
Du Yu was all too familiar with this outfit, which he wore meticulously even in the height of summer.
Her thesis advisor, Gu Yinglan, is now the president of Jinling University and the person in charge of the Redwood Church.
When Du Yu first came to Jinling University to attend the opening ceremony and listen to Gu Yinglan, who was then the dean, speak, her elegant and meticulous attire perfectly matched Du Yu's stereotypical impression of scholars in humanities-related fields.
Because he chose her as his thesis advisor, Du Yu saw a photo of Gu Yinglan and her deceased husband at Gu Yinglan's home.
Du Yu didn't know much about the man, only that he was also a professor in the history department, and someone who insisted on wearing a long-sleeved shirt and vest to teach students even in the sweltering heat of the south—it seemed that intellectuals of their generation all valued teaching very much.
Du Yu was not familiar with the details of his death, only knowing that it was due to a car accident. The funeral was held hastily, on the afternoon of the first day of school.
Du Yu was unaware of the situation at the time. He only remembered that Gu Yinglan wore a black shirt and black trousers that day, her long hair tied back with all stray hairs carefully tucked behind her ears. She was dressed simply and without any accessories. It wasn't until four years later that Du Yu learned the reason for the deathly silence beneath her calm words:
"Students, you come from all over the country and have gathered here. Four years from now, you will marvel at how wonderful fate is. Destiny often determines the date of parting when we first meet. Enjoy this time together. You are the freshmen of Jinling this year, and freshmen will have a new life."
The freshmen, just entering university, were excited and curious about everything. Who would listen to a leader's official speech on the podium? But perhaps because her clothes were neatly pressed and her back was straight, Gu Yinglan stood out among the middle-aged, overweight crowd, and Du Yu listened attentively to her brief speech.
When Du Yu occasionally learned the date of Gu Yinglan's deceased husband's funeral, she could still vaguely recall this speech about "new life".
On the afternoon before heading to the funeral to send a deceased person off to their final moments, Gu Yinglan stood below the podium looking at a group of innocent and energetic young students, wishing them a "new life." What was she thinking at that moment?
This is a question that is destined to remain unanswered.
Du Yu snapped out of his daze. The figure on the podium, resembling Gu Yinglan, had finished organizing the slides. The bottom of the thumb-thick A4 document tapped on the table. Her calm, dark eyes swept across the classroom, revealing neither joy nor anger. She then uttered her first words since entering the classroom:
"Class representative, give me a list of courses. We'll be taking attendance today."
Du Yu's brow twitched violently. Gu Yinglan, who had appeared out of nowhere in such a bizarre environment, was going to take attendance as her first task? Even if she was trying to simulate a class at Jinling University, wasn't this a bit too realistic?
“Xu Qiaoqiao…”
"...Yasuda Yu..."
“Ma Wenli…”
Perhaps because she hadn't heard these names in a long time, names she thought she would never hear again in her life, Du Yu looked around. Even though she knew it was a false illusion, she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed when she didn't see Wen Xi and Shi Wei. So much so that when she heard that familiar name, she was startled and paused for a moment.
"Gu Tu".
Ignoring all the sadness, Du Yu suddenly looked up, his mental energy sweeping across the entire scene, and quickly found the person wearing pajamas, looking bewildered and out of place with his surroundings—Gu Tu.
"Has Gu Tu arrived?"
The smooth roll call was interrupted. Gu Yinglan, who was on the podium, paused in her action of pointing at the roster. She stiffly raised her head and, although her tone was questioning, her gaze was unmistakably fixed on Gu Tu, whose eyes were filled with panic.
The surrounding environment suddenly fell silent. The sounds of laughter, chewing snacks, turning pages of books, and the crisp sound of pens tapping on tablet screens, which had been constantly filling Du Yu's ears, abruptly disappeared. Almost everyone stiffly raised their heads, staring at the bewildered Gu Tu from either the front or the back.
Danger!
Without Du Yu activating her ability, the [Listener] trait itself sensed danger in the air. The passive effect of her ability told her that if the silence continued, something even more dangerous was about to happen!
Fortunately, although she didn't know what had happened, perhaps sensing danger, Gu Tu nervously gripped the hem of her clothes, nodded under Gu Yinglan's direct gaze, and answered tremblingly, "Here."
Gu Yinglan looked away and moved on to the next name. The students around her, as if paused, also looked away and continued what they had been doing. But looking at the figures chewing on pens, tearing pages from their textbooks to plug their ears, and scribbling on the electronic screen with bloodied fingers, even the most oblivious person wouldn't consider them normal.
"Duyu."
As Du Yu turned to the next page of the roster, he was distracted, thinking, "Du and Gu have different first letters, how can they be connected?" He quickly responded, learning from his previous experience.
"Very good, everyone who was supposed to come has come, only Shi Wei and Wen Xi are absent."
Du Yu's heart skipped a beat. She looked at Gu Yinglan with suspicion and uncertainty. Although there was no roll call, she was very certain that her roommate had "skipped class." An ominous premonition spread in her heart. Although she did not know what this class meant, her instinct told her that it was definitely not a good thing.
"Ho—"
Du Yu opened her mouth, but only managed to make a faint breathing sound. She had been able to speak just a moment ago, but the instant she was about to question him, she lost control of her body. Only after that thought passed did she shiver and regain control of her body.
On the podium, Gu Yinglan seemed oblivious to everything. She closed the roster, opened the first page of her handout, and the multimedia projector began playing the PowerPoint presentation.
"We're not having class today; we're going to update you on the latest research findings in academia."
"In the third year of the Taifeng reign, a severe drought struck, and locust plagues broke out everywhere, lasting for years... In the fifth year of the Taifeng reign, in seventeen prefectures including Bing, Xu, and Dai, the earth trembled, causing countless deaths and injuries... In the eighth year of the Taifeng reign, a great plague struck Nanjing, and people dressed in white filled the city... In the ninth year of the Taifeng reign, a famine struck, leaving thousands of miles of barren land, and people in Jiangnan resorted to cannibalism..."
"In the fifteenth year of the Taifeng reign, the emperor received the Tianqi decree and was overjoyed. That year, the weather was favorable and the harvest was plentiful, and not one out of every hundred households survived. In the first year of the Tianqi reign, immortals left Penglai in the west and climbed Mount Tai in the east to worship Tai Sui. The five grains were plentiful, everything went smoothly, and people had no worries. Therefore, the 'Record of a Hundred Disasters' was closed and left for readers to peruse."
The PPT flipped smoothly, revealing strange text on the photos. Gu Yinglan turned on the laser pointer, and the red dot swept across the strange text line by line, translating it sentence by sentence: "...This is a newly translated historical record from a lost kingdom called [Original Water]. Preliminary judgment is that this kingdom disappeared seven million years ago."
Seven million years ago?!
Even though he had already seen the scroll's contents on the forum, Du Yu was still secretly astonished by the enormous number after hearing Gu Yinglan's account. What kind of paper could be preserved for seven million years, with the writing still as clear as if it had just been written yesterday?
Gu Yinglan seemed to hear Du Yu's shock and nodded slightly: "Yes, it's an incredible number. This discovery will rewrite human history. We don't know our planet as well as we thought."
“Before us, there may have been another kind of human being who lived here, with a civilization similar to ours but with a very different development path. After Professor Chen’s paper is published, we may have to change our self-identification from ‘human’ to ‘new human’.”
Seven million years ago, an ancient civilization and ancient humans called themselves the "Land of the Original Water"...
If this were her previous life, even if she didn't intend to pursue further studies in history, she would most likely have been thrilled to hear this astonishing news... but there are no ifs.
Now, she's even more curious about the significance of the emergence of this ancient kingdom of "Yuanshui"...
Wait a minute, an archaeologist who discovered an ancient civilization, an amnesiac village chief who inexplicably became an ancient person in the world of a novel... Thinking of the scene of reuniting with Gu Yinglan, Du Yu's eyes flickered, and a conjecture was brewing in her mind.
The PowerPoint slides scrolled so fast it seemed like the teacher didn't want anyone to learn them. After the content about the scroll was finished, Gu Yinglan's originally clear and steady lecture voice sounded like it was on eight times the speed, distorted beyond recognition.
Even with Du Yu focusing his mental energy on his ears and eyes, he still couldn't understand what Gu Yinglan was saying. Perhaps only five or six seconds later, Gu Yinglan cleared her throat, picked up the thermos containing apple and astragalus water, took a sip, and her voice finally returned to a speed that a normal human could hear:
That's all for today's lesson. Don't forget to review and preview, students. get out of class dismissed.
As the last syllable of the word "class" faded into the air, Gu Yinglan packed up her lecture notes and left unhurriedly. The "classmates" who had just suddenly appeared in the classroom were now disappearing from it in the same abrupt way.
The moment Gu Yinglan closed the classroom door, the entire classroom was so quiet that you could hear the sound of a cat's whiskers falling to the ground. Du Yu and Gu Tu looked at each other, speechless.
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