Chapter 75

Chapter 75

"Murder?"

"Yes, murder." Ji Xinghai looked at the distressed sheep-head doll. His smoky makeup eyes curved into crescents, and his gentle voice carried hidden blades.

Sometimes, murder doesn't require direct action; it only needs to create an environment where death is inevitable.

Given the current state of the sheep-head doll, it wouldn't be far from 'suicide.'

"The body always tries to preserve life; survival is the instinct of all living beings. No one would willingly choose to end their own life unless living is more unbearable than death.

"Tired, lost, hopeless, bleak—don't you want... to end your life this way?"

The sheep-head doll froze.

Ji Xinghai's lips, hidden beneath heavy makeup, curled into an evil smile. He seemed to understand the significance of such 'toys.'

Every oppressed individual who realizes their oppression needs an outlet; otherwise, they would explode like gas canisters under the heat.

However, 'children' only have toys.

This world isn't kind to dolls either.

Oppressed dolls transfer their pain onto toys to catch a breath. Thus, they harm and despise toys while also desperately needing them.

In other words, toys are drugs that prolong these 'children's' lives—at the cost of their own.

But why should they?

"I don't have the virtue of sacrificing myself for others," he thought.

Next, either find a chance to act alone or kill the controller.

The latter might have hidden dangers—he didn't believe the Hungry Academy wouldn't manipulate the clues.

Before that... Ji Xinghai smiled at the sheep-head doll, whose mental state was perilous. Despite its dire situation, he couldn't resist provoking it further.

"Tsk, do you think suicide is your choice?

"No, you have no right to choose. So-called suicide is just an irresistible murder by someone else.

"Living is controlled by others, and so is death. How pathetic."

The sheep-head doll was stunned, its worldview shattered. Its skin alternated between flesh color and red, as if it were about to follow in the footsteps of the wooden doll.

Its gaze, sharp as knives, shot towards the clown doll, but Ji Xinghai's smile grew brighter. With his heavy, pale clown makeup, he perfectly embodied the main antagonist in horror films, a deranged madman who nearly wipes out the protagonists.

"Killing the controller allows you to escape your identity." He pondered this clue, which seemed to guide them but deliberately omitted key details. Who could escape their identity, and how?

Ji Xinghai's gaze lingered on the sheep-head doll: with its unstable mental state, it was going to die anyway. Why not make it useful one last time?

"This knife is yours; I'll leave it here. Who it cuts is up to you." Ji Xinghai placed the utility knife down and raised his hands in a harmless surrender, but his eyes remained fixed on the sheep-head doll.

"Either bear the name of suicide as they wish and be murdered, or... swing it at those who are killing you."

The sheep-head doll's black eyes seemed to turn blood-red. A crack appeared in its mental world, and black tendrils crawled out, binding and entwining it...

Separated by white mist, within half a minute, it underwent a mental transformation under some malevolent force.

The sheep-head doll grabbed the utility knife, as if seizing control of its fate.

It began to regain its composure; the veins on its body receded, and its swollen form returned to normal.

It couldn't kill the clown doll, and besides, it was right.

"Hey! What's happening in there?" The people outside the disinfection room had noticed the sheep-head doll's delay.

Before another warning sounded, the sheep-head doll hastily patched its wrist with tape, zipped up its backpack, and walked out of the smoke-filled disinfection room.

Its lowered face showed a sickly slackness, and it still clutched the utility knife tightly.

Soon, the team finished disinfection and prepared to enter the school.

The ant-like procession crisscrossed the land. The sheep-head doll, with its backpack, moved mechanically, even though it was lost in its own mental world.

One of the metal tentacles connected to a metal house lifted it up, and a scanner swept over its face like a QR code.

"Beep, Basic Class 1, Baa, identity confirmed." Then the mechanical arm grabbed the sheep-head doll's head, swinging its body in the air. It looked uncomfortable, but no one cared.

Through an opening, the metal tentacle delivered it into the metal house, adjusting its position precisely on one of the seats.

These seats were uniquely designed, fully enclosed on three sides, allowing students to see only forward, unable to communicate with those beside or behind them.

As soon as the sheep-head doll sat down, restraints emerged from the seat, securing its waist and legs. Then a helmet descended, locking its head in place.

The screen on the helmet lit up, displaying a set of data: Contribution Value, Pollution Value, Stability Value.

The sheep-head doll was accustomed to this process. It placed its backpack on the table, opened it, and took out its books, ignoring the smiling Ji Xinghai at the backpack's mouth.

"Contribution Value, Pollution Value, Stability Value." Ji Xinghai, with a rare wide view, memorized these three values and compared them with the data of the nearby dolls.

The sheep-head doll's Contribution Value was average, as was its Pollution Value, but its Stability Value was very low.

This data, combined with its near-explosion earlier, seemed to explain something.

Just like in reality, there are some highly sensitive children whose emotions are more unstable and who can easily enter a phase of self-destruction and destruction of others.

"Damn! This is a seat, not a torture device!"

The audience didn't immediately focus on the data; their attention was drawn to the seats.

No one had seen such 'student seats' or classrooms like this before.

The entire metal room was a huge semicircle, but instead of a solid floor, it was made up of a grid of crude steel bars. The student seats were positioned at the intersections of these bars.

Below the suspended steel bars was a layer of transparent glass, now covered with a layer of dust and littered with dropped pens, erasers, and paper scraps.

Judging from the marks on the glass, this area was regularly cleaned; otherwise, it would have been buried under the fallen garbage long ago. Unlike now, through the glass, one could still see the tops of other metal rooms and the densely packed dolls waiting below.

Those dolls were as tiny as sesame seeds, forming lines that resembled ants.

"What's the point of this structure? Couldn't they just make a solid floor instead of something you can't walk on?"

"Maybe the point is precisely to prevent walking. It physically eliminates all possibilities of students playing around during breaks."

"...So this isn't really a prison?"

This was indeed a classroom, and the sheep-headed doll was a real student. After taking out its textbook, only two summer homework books and Ji Xinghai remained in its backpack.

"Hehe." The 'child' sitting next to the sheep-headed doll noticed Ji Xinghai and couldn't help but let out a couple of light whistles, waving a paper airplane while sniffing, looking quite silly.

The contribution level on the child's helmet wasn't high, but its pollution level was extremely high. However, it showed little disappointment, making a funny face at the sheep-headed doll, which couldn't even see it, and seemed quite entertained.

Putting aside the clay doll face, an image of a mischievous child in a high-pressure environment emerged vividly.

"So these dolls each have their own personalities, similar to real children."

"Hmph."

As the audience was getting engrossed, the sheep-headed doll suddenly turned grim upon hearing the commotion nearby. It roughly pushed the clown doll into place, zipped up its backpack, and the live stream darkened once again.

"Eh? What's going on?"

The off-site audience was confused but soon felt the vibrations in the live stream, seemingly caused by the violent stuffing of the backpack into the desk drawer.

Once their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they saw light seeping through the gaps, illuminating the massive homework book, which read "A Fulfilling Summer" before the words "Homework Book."

Such a thick homework book was indeed fulfilling.

"Ah, when toys viewed as disposable objects are noticed by others, do they trigger jealousy and possessiveness?"

It was reminiscent of the obsessive and destructive overlord in ancient literature, where a hint of vulnerability under a strong facade could evoke human compassion and kindness.

"Hmph."

Ji Xinghai coldly looked down at the homework book beneath his feet. In the dim light, a sharp utility knife blade appeared in his hand.

To follow the Hungry Academy's script and love-hate each other to the ends of the earth?

What a joke!

If this world is a burning gas tank, he would turn the flame to maximum!

"Sus sus."

Once everyone was seated, the door of the metal room closed, and another door opened. The steel bars carrying the metal seats vibrated rhythmically. The sheep-headed doll tensed up, quickly taking out a pencil and an eraser and placing them neatly beside the textbook. An outside voice, sharp and genderless, said, "Put everything except the required textbooks and learning tools into the desk drawer and close the lid."

"Yes, teacher." The dolls responded in unison, neither too fast nor too slow.

Was the teacher arriving?

Through the backpack and desk drawer, the outside voice grew fainter, but one could still hear clearly what was being said.

The audience heard the new NPC teacher distribute practice papers and declare that the first day of school required immediate focus on studies: "Did you attend the summer prep classes? Complete one hundred three-digit mixed operations within one minute, with an error rate controlled at 2% or less."

"My goodness, do the NPCs in this instance also have to endure this?"

"What's the point of completing a hundred mental arithmetic problems in one minute? Even humans can't compete with AI."

"Sounds like someone young speaking. Back then, it wasn't just about finishing a hundred mental arithmetic problems in one minute. Ask your parents; even in kindergarten, we started competing, mastering five hundred common characters and double-digit addition and subtraction by the senior year, ideally memorizing fifty poems and basic English."

The conditions set by the NPC teacher were stringent—completing a hundred mental arithmetic problems in one minute with an error rate of 2%—which reminded some middle-aged people who came from the era of intense competition of the fear of being dominated by grades.

Ordinary people back then were no different from expendable materials, with rigid class structures leaving few opportunities for advancement. Thus, they pinned all hopes of changing their fate on academics.

It was a blood mill in another sense, where many children "died" inside.

"Wait!" The head of the Analysis Group recalled something, his eyes distant, as if remembering the past. "I seem to remember seeing a similar work. The prototype of this instance..."

"Is it?"

"Shh." The head made a 'silence' gesture. "Let me think."

The head of the Analysis Group clasped his hands, lost in thought, while the others listened to the sounds coming from the black screen.

The rustling sound was the sheep-headed doll writing the practice test quickly without stopping. Apart from the external sounds, there was a gentle scraping noise, and a small glowing arrow moving up and down, indicating that Ji Xinghai was doing something.

"What is Hai doing?"

"We'll know soon."

"The time for the practice test is over. Put down your pencils." The NPC teacher's voice sounded again, and the off-site audience felt the live stream vibrate, with the sensation growing stronger.

It was as if the teacher was a spider on the steel frame, and wherever it went, the vibrations were strongest.

And these students were naturally the prey on the spider's web.

"Baa baa, what’s going on with you? What did you do during the summer break?" The shaking stopped, and the NPC teacher’s voice became clear, the heavy displeasure and irritation evident in its tone. "You only got ninety-six questions right on the practice test. Look, all of these were questions you shouldn’t have missed."

"I’m sorry, Teacher," the sheep-headed doll said softly.

"Don’t say sorry to me; you’re letting yourself down. Every day, someone gets eliminated from this school. Those who get eliminated are worthless trash to society. Let me tell you, think about your family—your parents are temporary workers. A little rain and they’ll be submerged. Do you even have the right to make mistakes?"

"Sorry, Teacher, it won’t happen again." The sheep-headed doll’s voice was low, tinged not just with fear but also a hint of stubbornness.

The NPC teacher didn’t notice this anomaly and continued, "Forget it; talking to you now is useless. You won’t understand until you fall into a pit yourself. Everyone, take out your summer homework. Baa baa, start with you."

"Yes."

With the soft sound of the desk compartment lid opening, light streamed in, brightening the live stream once more. The audience was surprised to find that Ji Xinghai wasn’t in the backpack; he was standing in the corner of the desk compartment, watching as the backpack was taken away.

As the backpack was slowly pulled out, more light flooded in, revealing the clown-shaped Ji Xinghai strutting to the edge of the desk compartment and looking up.

The sheep-headed doll was somewhat surprised, sensing an ominous premonition. But with the teacher watching closely, it couldn’t dwell on it too much.

As the backpack was completely removed, the clown Ji Xinghai suddenly blew a kiss and then, under the cover of the backpack, accelerated and leaped off.

The sheep-headed doll froze as the teacher had already unzipped the backpack.

"Baa baa, what’s going on with your homework book?!"

By this time, Ji Xinghai had already jumped out of the desk compartment. The vast height difference and the dizzying steel structure below would have made anyone with acrophobia faint. The live stream viewers experienced a heart-stopping free fall, only to see him land steadily just before they could scream.

"Explain yourself! Why is your homework book torn like this? Are you dissatisfied with the homework or with me?!"

The NPC teacher’s anger had reached its peak, and it could no longer hide its negative emotions. The sheep-headed doll quickly looked back at the desk compartment, but it was empty.

No, there was something there.

The sheep-headed doll noticed a line of tiny knife-carved words in the previously clean desk compartment: "If you knew what the world was like, would you still choose to be born?!"