Thank you @pandorasproxy for the Kofi.
Yuying University
Chapter 501: Their CPUs had fried too.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[???]
[What’s going on with the anchor?]
[Hiss, the side effects of the society badge must be kicking in.]
[It’s over, it’s over. Looks like the anchor is really doomed this time.]
[? Don’t be so cynical, you in the front. Don’t forget how many times the anchor has turned danger into safety before. Shut your damn mouth!]
[Oh, you know it all, do you? I just went and checked. The anchor’s teammates just entered a new cycle in their memories not long ago. It’ll probably be at least another hour or two before they can get out. I was hoping the anchor could find a solution inside the administration building this time, but the result is obvious. Now he’s being chased by the Student Council, society members, and even security guards—so tell me, what’s the plan?]
[…]
The viewers supporting Wen Jianyan were speechless.
Even though they had witnessed him turn the tables against all odds countless times before, this time… they couldn’t think of any way for him to break the deadlock.
After all, the current situation was too extreme.
All paths that could lead to a reversal of the situation were sealed. Even they, the viewers with a god’s-eye view of the entire situation, could see no hope of survival.
“Ha… ha…”
Wen Jianyan bent over, panting. His right hand still gripped the handle of the glass door, the veins on the back of his hand bulging, looking exceptionally terrifying.
Under his sweat-soaked hair, the side of his face was unnaturally pale.
It was not the paleness of a normal human’s weakness. On the contrary, it was the ghastly, bluish-white color that only a dead person could possess.
Behind him, the atmosphere had become bizarre.
Seemingly having lost their target, the darkness spreading from the security office stopped advancing. The society members who had been stopping the security guards under his command had also, at some point, ceased their movements. They all turned their heads in unison, their pairs of cold, pitch-black eyes staring fixedly in Wen Jianyan’s direction, a strange light flickering within them.
It was…
Anticipation.
Wen Jianyan forced himself to look away, his unfocused vision wavering, almost unable to fixate on the ground.
Of course, he knew why the society members were looking at him like that.
Although he was now the nominal society president, he was still essentially human. But once he was devoured by the “badge,” he would be completely alienated into a part of the instance, in other words… a monster.
Fuck.
Wen Jianyan knew he was isolated and helpless.
His teammates were separated from him and couldn’t possibly appear. As for Wu Zhu, Wen Jianyan had never thought of seeking his help from the beginning. According to their bet, if he was truly assimilated by the instance, it would probably be exactly what the other party wanted.
He had to find a solution on his own, or he would definitely die here.
Although he didn’t feel pain, Wen Jianyan could clearly feel the process of his own [Transformation]. Starting from the nerve endings, his limbs began to grow stiff and cold, as if all his cells were starting to necrotize…
A feeling of decay rose within his body. His senses of touch, smell, and taste all began to fail.
The transformation was not limited to his physical body.
Wen Jianyan could even feel his human memories and emotions beginning to fade, becoming distant and indifferent.
In the “Integrity First” live room, the signal on the screen gradually weakened.
But this time, no one was cursing Nightmare anymore.
This meant that the anchor’s life signs were weakening. If there was no turn of events in a short period, the livestream room would be completely shut down—which would mean the anchor’s death.
Some viewers were gloating, while others were anxious as hell. But regardless of which type of viewer they were, they couldn’t control the direction of the instance and could only watch as the anchor slipped step by step towards death.
[I bet the anchor will be dead within five minutes.]
[Five minutes? You’re thinking too much. I’ve watched other anchors before, three minutes at most!]
[…]
Feeling the strangeness in his body, alarm bells rang wildly in Wen Jianyan’s mind.
No.
He gritted his teeth. The taste of rust began to spread between his lips and teeth, but he couldn’t taste anything, only a faint sense of pain stimulating the tip of his tongue, as if reminding him of his approaching death.
I must… do something…
Wen Jianyan pressed his head against the cold glass door. His breathing had slowed, but he was still relentlessly searching his mind for any possible way to change the situation.
Were there any items he could use?
After a quick mental review, Wen Jianyan soon came to a suffocating conclusion.
None.
What’s more…
Even if there really was an item suitable for the current situation, it probably wouldn’t work.
Not only because this instance’s difficulty rating was too high, but also because of the special nature of the [Society Badge].
As the “prize” given by the Vice-Principal to the winner of the society competition, and also an important item that granted the anchor a special identity, based on Wen Jianyan’s experience, it was likely a manifestation of one of the instance’s rules itself…
Wen Jianyan subconsciously looked down.
At some point, cold sweat had soaked through his shirt. The thin white fabric clung to his skin, faintly revealing a strange bluish tint.
It seemed to have been deeply rooted in his skin, his body, his soul.
Even through his shirt, Wen Jianyan could still see its familiar shape.
It was that very society badge.
While it had brought him hope for breaking the deadlock multiple times, it was also leading him to an unavoidable death.
“…”
Wen Jianyan closed his eyes—he could no longer breathe on his own and could only force himself to actively exhale and inhale deeply.
This kind of thing couldn’t be solved by items from outside the instance.
It could only be solved by using something from within the instance—
“…”
Ah.
Wait.
As if thinking of something, Wen Jianyan suddenly paused.
A clue seemed to have been captured in his stiffening brain. The sudden thought was like a bolt of lightning streaking across the sky, instantly illuminating the darkness.
Yes. That’s right.
Rules can only be solved by rules.
A loophole in a instance must be filled with another loophole.
In the “Integrity First” live room, watching the screen that was already half black, the topic of conversation among the viewers had unknowingly changed. Even they themselves didn’t notice that they were no longer discussing the possibility of the anchor breaking the deadlock—after all, there seemed to be nothing left to talk about—
So, they began to summarize and evaluate the anchor.
[Honestly, for the anchor to have lasted this long is already incredible. Think about it, forget other instances, just in this [Yuying Comprehensive University] instance, how many records has he broken? To be able to single-handedly raise the instance’s difficulty to double-S, and still push the exploration rate to over 90% at such a high difficulty, that record is terrifying.]
[Right, right, the anchor is truly extraordinary. The life-and-death crises he’s faced in this instance, if it were anyone else, they would have died at least a hundred times over. It’s my first time seeing an anchor handle so many crises in a single stream… I don’t know whether to say he’s lucky or unlucky.]
[Hahahaha, for real!]
Among the viewers, some were regretful, some sighed, some mocked, and some were excited.
And just as they were chatting heatedly, suddenly, on the screen that was already more than half black, the youth who had been motionless for a long time and looked as if he were on the verge of death, his dangling arm suddenly twitched.
[?]
[Wait, did I see that wrong? Did he just move?]
As if to prove that the livestream viewers weren’t mistaken, the youth’s arm moved a little more. He arduously controlled his fingers, moving them inch by inch.
[???]
[Holy shit, his assimilation progress should be at least 90% by now, right? Even his SAN value is at its limit, and he can still maintain normal cognitive ability??? Is something like that really possible?]
[…I don’t know, I’ve never seen it.]
[But even if he can maintain it, it’s useless. I’ve estimated, based on the current darkness of the screen, the livestream will have to be shut down in two minutes at most.]
[Tsk tsk, indeed. What a pity.]
[But I’m really curious. He’s already at the last moment of his life, what is he still trying to do?]
On the screen, the youth had managed to reach a finger into his pocket, slowly, bit by bit, fumbling for something.
Finally, he seemed to have found what he was looking for.
After a brief pause, he arduously pulled his fingers out of his pocket.
Between his twitching, bluish-white fingers, a piercing crimson could be vaguely glimpsed.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[?]
[Ahhh, what did the anchor pull out? Let me see, let me see!]
[Anxious, anxious!]
[Holy shit, wait, could it be what I think it is… holy shit holy shit holy shit!]
The livestream room was in chaos. The number of online viewers, which had just dropped, suddenly skyrocketed again.
However, before the camera could cut over, as if he had exhausted his strength, Wen Jianyan’s whole body slumped to the side. Leaning against the door in a very awkward position, he half-collapsed to the ground.
The hand holding the object was hidden under his body.
His chest was no longer rising and falling. His sweat-soaked hair clung to his cheeks. He was completely motionless, as if he had become a silent corpse.
A minute passed.
No movement.
Two minutes passed.
Still no movement.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[Dead?]
[I don’t know. Looking at the time, it should be about right, but…]
On the already half-blackened screen, the youth suddenly moved and raised his head.
His sweat-soaked hair slid to both sides, revealing his face.
But at this moment, that excessively handsome face had become lifeless. His skin had the corpse-like bluish-white color, exuding a strange aura of death. His eyelids twitched and slowly lifted.
His eyeballs were pitch-black, without a hint of light.
Eerie and hollow, extremely bizarre.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[So he still got alienated… tsk tsk, what a pity.]
[Wait, something’s not right. The anchor has been alienated, so why is the livestream signal still on?? The stream hasn’t been shut down either!]
[Hey, that seems to be true. What’s going on?]
Looking at the abnormality in the livestream, the viewers were bewildered, unable to make heads or tails of it.
Just then, on the screen, the youth slowly began to straighten his body.
He lowered his head, looking at his own fingers with some novelty, and flexed them slowly. Then, his already silent chest suddenly rose and fell slightly, and a muffled laugh escaped his throat.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[?]
[???]
[Is it just me… or is this a little creepy?]
The lifeless-looking youth was smiling. He raised his hand, grabbed the handle on the glass door next to him, and pulled himself up.
As if he was not yet used to his current body, his movements were still a bit stiff. He swayed twice before standing straight.
Only then did the side of his body that had been pressed underneath him finally appear on the livestream screen.
On the youth’s right arm, he wore a scarlet armband.
The blood-red color was like a wound, as if it could cut a person’s eyes. On the red cloth strip that was originally blank, three words were now clearly visible:
[Student Council].
After seeing this scene, the “Integrity First” livestream fell into a long silence.
[…]
[…]
[…]
After a long time, disbelieving comments finally erupted:
[Huh??? Wait, what???]
[What the fuck? That works????]
[Wait?? Can someone tell me, how does that even work?? He’s cheating!!!]
—It worked.
—He wasn’t cheating.
A barely perceptible smile touched Wen Jianyan’s pale lips.
In fact, there had been signs all along.
He just hadn’t connected the broken clues.
As long as a member was once an anchor, there must be a selection method—to become a society member, one had to be marked, leave the dormitory at night, and come to the administration building to register.
And the higher the status level in the instance, the stricter the selection method—to become the society president, not only did one need to be a society member, but one also had to win the society competition, enter the mirror image, and overcome numerous obstacles to reach the third floor of the administration building to be “awarded” by the Vice-Principal to gain the qualification.
Back in the first school year, after escaping from the track and field on the sports field, Wen Jianyan had already obtained the candidate qualification—although this qualification was difficult, Wen Jianyan was not the only one to get it. Besides him, Hugo was also a candidate—but after becoming candidates, they never got a further opportunity.
How could one become an official member of the Student Council from a candidate?
He didn’t know.
There were no hints in the instance, and no Student Council members had actively approached them to give them an assessment method. Because of this, Wen Jianyan had almost regarded it as a useless plot thread and had long since thrown it to the back of his mind.
Until just now.
Just like progressing from a society member to the society president required completing more tasks on top of the former, becoming an official member of the Student Council from a candidate required the same kind of path.
Hugo had once said that the selection condition for becoming a candidate member was “to break the school rules and survive the pursuit of the Student Council.”
Then, what about the method to become an official member?
Wen Jianyan finally had the answer.
And the reason he was able to get the answer was because Wen Jianyan had actually already completed it without knowing, he just didn’t understand the significance of it at the time.
The condition to become an official member of the Student Council from a candidate was [Kill a Student Council member and seize their armband].
Previously, while being treated as a cook and pushing a cart full of grave dirt to the teaching building, Wen Jianyan had used the grave dirt to kill a Student Council member. In order to escape that terrifying world filled with corpses, Wen Jianyan had braked and turned back during his escape, went to the side of the Student Council member’s corpse, and fumbled for the crucial armband from the pitch-black slime under the skin.
From that moment on, Wen Jianyan had already passed the selection ritual and become an official member of the Student Council.
He just didn’t know it himself.
After all, for him at that time, his newly acquired armband had dissolved, while the old armband showed no changes. It seemed as if nothing had happened.
But, something had indeed changed.
After that, to avoid a direct conflict with the Student Council and to save A’Bao and the others who had left the administration building with him, Wen Jianyan had put on the old armband.
And that night, while undressing to sleep, Wen Jianyan saw a thick, deep, ring-shaped red mark on his arm, as if the blood vessels under the skin had ruptured and the blood had seeped out, forming a new armband.
However, wearing the armband in the past had never caused this to happen.
Wen Jianyan was very puzzled at the time.
Until just now, when Wen Jianyan saw the color and shape of the society president badge seeping out from under his shirt…
So similar.
Both were marks that seeped out from under the skin, gradually deepened, and eventually formed a painless, itchless scar.
Like some kind of mark.
It was at this moment that Wen Jianyan finally connected all the previous events, all the subtle and trivial clues.
He suddenly realized that he had actually already passed the assessment.
It was just that, because he himself didn’t know it, he had never “officially reported.”
How to officially report?
The answer was simple.
One only needed to wear the armband long enough until one grew out from under the skin.
So, at the critical moment of life and death just now, Wen Jianyan chose to go all in.
In the “Integrity First” live room, the viewers had already started to go back and re-watch all the recordings related to the Student Council. From their god’s-eye view, they now finally pieced together the true picture of the events.
[Wait wait wait, my CPU is fried. So… just as the anchor was about to officially become the society president, he put on the Student Council armband and completed the final step of the assessment. But because the status of society president and Student Council member are conflicting, even though he met the conditions for both, he couldn’t join either side, right?]
[Right… your guess is spot on.]
[More importantly, although he wasn’t completely alienated in either direction, under the instance’s rules, he still has the nominal privileges of both.]
[…]
[…]
[Holy shit! Holy shit! You can exploit a bug like that???]
Wen Jianyan raised his hand and casually tidied his messy hair. He even used the blurry glass door next to him as a mirror and looked, quite pleased with himself.
Even as a corpse, I still look pretty handsome.
After doing all this, he turned around and looked behind him.
The first-floor lobby was dead silent.
Whether it was the society members or the pursuing Student Council members, they had all been motionless for a while.
They stood at a distance, rigidly staring at the…
Human?
Corpse?
Society President?
Student Council Member?
“…”
No matter which side it was, the expressions on their faces were frozen.
Their CPUs seemed to be fried too.
The culprit seemed completely oblivious to this. He showed a bright smile that didn’t match his identity and waved to the forces behind him, like a sunny corpse:
“Can I go now?”
Ignoring the crowd of bewildered instance monsters behind him, Wen Jianyan left the administration building in a grand manner.
Outside the administration building, many of the group had left, with less than half remaining to wait for him.
In fact, this number was already beyond Wen Jianyan’s expectations.
After all, they weren’t really teammates, just an accidentally formed group.
Seeing Wen Jianyan come out, Suo Suo was the happiest.
It wasn’t that he had too many feelings for Wen Jianyan, mainly because he was still counting on him to help him finish his thesis.
He rushed up in a single stride. “Big Shot, you’re finally—”
But before he could finish his sentence, the rest of his words were stuck in his throat.
In the darkness, the youth’s bluish-white skin, the eerie aura of death, and the pitch-black, hollow eyes all seemed so bizarre. Not to mention, he was also wearing a blood-red armband on his right arm, on which the three words [Student Council] were clearly written.
Even though there were still a few meters between them, the terrifying sense of pressure from the other party was still conveyed without reservation.
“!!!”
Suo Suo gasped sharply, a chill shooting up from his bones. He jerked back:
“Be careful!!”
Even without his reminder, the others had also noticed Wen Jianyan’s strangeness.
Seeing the armband on his arm, Chen Cheng’s face immediately fell:
“Fuck, he’s been assimilated.”
He stared at Wen Jianyan, every nerve in his body screaming danger. His guard was instantly raised.
Everyone could feel the terrifying aura emanating from the other party—he had been assimilated, and the level of the monster he had become was very high. If they weren’t careful, they would surely die without a burial place.
All the anchors present raised their vigilance to the maximum. Their bodies tensed, ready for battle.
Suo Suo surreptitiously retreated, shrinking next to Chen Cheng, and asked in a low voice:
“Can we take him down—”
He hadn’t finished speaking when he saw the youth in the distance raise his hand, showing an innocent expression:
“Wait, wait, wait.”
“…”
Everyone was slightly stunned.
Although his skin was bluish-white and his pupils were pitch-black, his expression was still the same as usual, a smile on his lips, slightly casual:
“What’s the hurry? I haven’t been assimilated yet.”
Wen Jianyan blinked at everyone:
“Don’t worry, I’m really not dead.”
As he spoke, he took out his Nightmare phone and easily unlocked it. He waved the unlocked phone towards the crowd:
“See?”
“…”
Huh?
Everyone stood where they were, their expressions frozen on their faces.
They looked at the phone, then at Wen Jianyan.
Then back at the phone, then at Wen Jianyan’s armband.
Huh? Wait a minute?
What’s going on?
The anchors stood there stunned, their minds a jumbled mess, feeling that all the common sense they had acquired in the instance was starting to fight with itself, with countless opposing viewpoints screaming and arguing.
“Of course… even if I really was assimilated,” Wen Jianyan looked at Suo Suo with a smile. The smile on his face faded slightly, and a cold, terrifying aura spread out, making one shudder.
Although the youth was smiling, the words he spoke sent a cold sweat down their backs:
“Do you really think you could take me down?”
Suo Suo was startled and shivered violently.
But the next second, the youth in the distance retracted his dangerous aura and showed a friendly smile:
“Haha, just kidding.”
Everyone: “…”
—Their CPUs were fried too.
“Mesmo morto, ainda pareço muito bonito.” tenha alguma vergonha, por favor
YES. tantas preocupações e você focando nisso!!!