Chapter 73

Chapter 73

A few minutes passed, and Ji Xinghai's live stream remained pitch black, with only a blinking cursor moving around, but no one knew what he was doing.

Until the sound of footsteps echoed from outside, the live stream finally had clear audio again.

First came hurried footsteps, followed by the sound of someone descending stairs.

The sheep-headed doll seemed to be greeting family members.

Then there were sounds of wooden chairs scraping against the floor, ceramic dishes clinking, and the sounds of drinking and chewing that are usually unnoticed but now were exceptionally clear.

"They're having breakfast, but something seems off."

"What's strange?"

"The chewing sounds are not quite right. Their chewing is very uniform, which means their food is also very uniform. There are two possibilities for this: either resources are scarce and there are limited choices, or the family is poor and can only afford one type of food."

"Another odd thing is that we can guess they're having breakfast from the earlier conversation, but why is it so quiet? Is it because of extremely strict discipline?"

After about ten minutes, voices returned to the live stream, this time from the sheep-headed doll.

"Can I have another bowl?"

"Another bowl?"

"Can I eat a little more? I'll get hungry during class."

Silence filled the dark live stream for a few seconds before the previous female voice reappeared, this time with frustration beyond numbness:

"There's no way. Our family can only afford this much. We've already spent all our money on your education." A chair was pushed back, and someone stood up. "If you want more, here's what I saved for lunch."

"No need, Mom. I'm not really that hungry."

"Take it! You are the most important right now. You must study hard, or how will you make us proud? Hmph, these damn energy blocks have gone up in price again. They should be wrapped in gold foil and displayed in jewelry cases for the rich."

"...Mom, I really don't want it."

Inside, the audience heard a table shake and cups clink.

"What are you doing? Are you throwing a tantrum?"

"No, Mom, I'm sorry."

"Are you blaming me or threatening me? Your father and I work so hard and save every penny just for you, and you still complain?"

"It's my fault, I'm sorry," the sheep-headed doll's voice sounded weak.

"What did you do wrong?"

"I shouldn't have thrown a tantrum."

"You know better. Your father and I..."

This conversation between the sheep-headed doll and its mother felt strange to foreign viewers, but they couldn't pinpoint why.

It felt suffocating.

"Same parents, same nightmare." The JiuZhou audience felt like they couldn't breathe. Damn Hungry Academy, why make it so realistic?

"I know, Mom. It's hard for you to support my education. I'm sorry."

"You understand. Study hard at school. Don't disappoint us by being a troublemaker. Did you bring your homework books? Today is the first day of school, and you need to hand them in."

"Yes, I brought them."

"Don't think we're too strict. You need to work hard to have a good future and a good life. You'll understand someday."

A faint sigh could be heard, almost inaudible: "I know."

Then came the sound of chairs being pulled out, doors opening and closing.

The sound of leather shoes on cement started slowly, then sped up, and finally slowed down again. From the footsteps, the audience could almost imagine the sheep-headed doll's seemingly calm but potentially crumbling state.

The sound of a bus approaching, stopping, and opening its doors.

The sound of leather shoes resumed as the sheep-headed doll boarded the bus and quickly sat down. There were no other noises inside the bus.

The audience listened intently to the various subtle sounds, wondering why there were no other passengers. Suddenly, a glimmer of light appeared in the dark live stream. It turned out that Ji Xinghai had dug a hole with his hands.

He emerged from his pencil case, digging a pea-sized hole in the side of his backpack. He leaned in, and the audience couldn't help but do the same, eager to see the situation outside.

The camera shifted from the blinding interior of the backpack to the exterior, sharing Ji Xinghai's current perspective. Everyone's eyes widened in surprise.

"What kind of world is this?"

The first thing the audience saw was the world outside the bus window.

Factories with heavy industrial styles lined up one after another, reminiscent of the golden age of industrial cities. However, this steel city in the replica had no chimneys; instead, it was connected by glass-like pipes elevated by iron towers.

These pipes densely covered the sky, resembling an expansive spider web, with blood-red liquid flowing through them.

Red was the only color visible in this city, pressing down on the sky and everyone's hearts, making it hard to breathe.

The small hole Ji Xinghai dug provided a limited view, but even this glimpse was enough to astonish the audience.

"And what about the kids on the bus... what’s going on with them?"

The world outside the window was surprising, and the world inside was equally perplexing. The bus, which he thought would be empty, was in fact full—filled with dolls, all eerily silent.

The bus continued to move forward, the same scenery stretching endlessly outside the windows.

There wasn’t a speck of green or a single person outside, yet the ‘children’ with toy heads inside seemed accustomed to it. They sat silently, their postures rigid, without a sound except for the hum of the bus. The entire world felt like a silent film.

Ji Xinghai watched for a long time until the bus turned into an elevated tunnel framed by steel structures before he looked away.

During this time, the ‘children’ on the bus remained quiet, sitting upright with hollow eyes, not even exchanging glances with those beside them.

These dolls, dressed neatly in blue uniforms, swayed slightly with the movement of the bus, their faces expressionless.

"It looks just like a hearse," one viewer commented, expressing their true thoughts.

The elevated tunnel was long, supported by skeletons rising hundreds of meters from below. Ji Xinghai saw more similar buses converging on this road, each filled with large-headed dolls.

"The map is interesting too; the elevated tunnels connect both sides, but in reality, they seem to sever connections. The children's world is on this side, while the adults' world is on the other," he thought.

If they looked up, they would see that the red liquid-filled glass pipes in the sky grew denser the further they went, as if they were approaching the heart that supplied blood to this city.

But which real city’s heart requires children instead of adults?

"Strange, all these school buses on this road, filled with large-headed doll NPCs. Could they be heading to a place like University City, where many schools gather?"

"Not only are there more buses, but look at how dense the glass pipes outside have become, almost enveloping the entire sky. It’s giving me chills."

Despite there being nothing visibly frightening, the sight of bus after bus of eerily silent ‘children’ being transported to such a place gave viewers a sense of unease.

It felt less like they were going to school and more like they were headed to a slaughterhouse.

Perhaps it was because the red liquid in the pipes resembled blood, but there was an instinctive repulsion.

Finally, the bus passed through the elevated tunnel and stopped at a massive parking platform. The children disembarked orderly, one by one.

They had different faces, but their clothes, posture, and expressions were uniformly precise, as if measured by a ruler.

Ji Xinghai squinted: military-style management.

Or, to put it nicely, these ‘children’ had high compliance.

After the lambs-head dolls left the bus, another group of ‘children’ boarded, also lining up obediently. However, these ‘children’ looked worse, their steps lethargic.

He recalled the black factories that operated twenty-four hours a day, where night and day shift workers exchanged places, their efforts sustaining the machines’ continuous operation.

This exchange occurred at every bus stop, with all faces numb, including the lambs-head dolls who still had some ‘humanity’ when they woke up in the morning.

The dolls lined up silently, walking in one direction. Gradually, a silver-gray building resembling a giant machine appeared before them and all the viewers.

Ji Xinghai struggled to describe it accurately. The main structure was cylindrical, with thick pipes extending from its top, branching out and connecting to the glass pipes they had seen earlier.

On all four sides of the cylinder were smaller, similarly silver-gray buildings attached haphazardly, creating a chaotic appearance. These smaller buildings had tendrils hanging down, silver-gray from afar, reaching the ground like the aerial roots of a banyan tree.

The massive building felt like an oddly shaped distiller, with the liquid flowing from the pipes at the top being the distilled result.

But if that was the distilled product, who was the fuel, and who was the raw material?

For some reason, his gaze shifted to the dolls lining up, maintaining a precise distance from each other.

"Routine inspection." As the line approached the archway of the massive building, a fish-head monster suddenly emerged from among the large-headed dolls.

It towered over the dolls, its voice adult-like, but its appearance was entirely different from theirs.

It was not a cartoonish version but rather a freshly severed fish head, still emitting a strong fishy and bloody odor, with a pair of pale, dead eyes.

Its lower half was metallic, with treads for legs and metal pincers for hands.

The treads of the fish-head monster made a rumbling sound as it stood behind the archway, manipulating the control panel, forming a blue light barrier.

"Did you bring anything you shouldn’t have?"

The body of the lambs-head doll trembled slightly.