Blown Open

Lin Yi is no pushover; the harsher the insults, the harsher the retaliation.

"Yes, this height is no problem."

Wang Ding pulled out two daggers and stuck them into the cracks in the wall. Using the force of the daggers, he slowly climbed up, asking as he went, "Why do they call you a jinx?"

Lin Yi said calmly, "I heard from my grandma that my parents are arguing about getting a divorce because of me. They don't want me, they left me with my grandma, but they won't give her any money."

"Grandma said I'm a jinx, someone who came to collect debts from my past life."

"She couldn't afford to raise me, so she returned me to my Dad. You all know what happened after that."

Wang Ding climbed with some difficulty, but didn't forget to ask again, "What about your mother? Hasn't she come looking for you?"

Lin Yi shook his head. "I don't know."

Wang Ding pulled out his dagger, thrust it upwards forcefully, and said, "Actually, it's fine not to have parents. I don't have any either; they died not long after I was born."

Lin Yi asked in confusion, "But didn't you run away from home?"

Wang Ding paused, then, remembering this was Instance's backstory, chuckled and added, "Yes, but I have other relatives too, so it's not a big deal."

After Wang Ding crawled out from underground, more than ten minutes had passed. Standing on the ground, staring at the hundreds of squares in front of them, they wisely chose to give up.

He triggered two punishments after taking only two steps, and the third time would result in a point deduction and being discovered by the Disciplinarian Director, so it was best for them to leave for the time being.

The two retreated to the doorway, but after groping around for a while, they found they couldn't open it.

Lin Yi panicked slightly. "What do we do now?"

Lin Nieran said, "Let's just blow it up."

"It's blown up."

Wang Ding answered crisply and decisively.

"It exploded?"

Lin Yi had never heard of such a solution before, and his eyes were full of confusion. Could it be the kind of "explosion" he was thinking of?

Before he could even ask how to blow it up, Wang Ding had already pulled Weird Object Explosive Pack out of his pocket.

[Explosive Pack

Description: Watching Explosive Pack explode with emotions, my current mood is: calm.

You even have this kind of thing? Are you sure you got it legitimately?

Just as Lin Yi was filled with questions, Wang Ding muttered to himself as he secured the bomb to the edge of the wooden door, "It should be enough in a calm state..."

After saying that, he took a few steps back and took out a tortoise shell to block in front of them.

"After it explodes, follow me, and be quick," Wang Ding said.

"Great!" Lin Yi was somewhat excited, as this was the first time he had experienced such a situation.

"Boom!"

Gravel flew everywhere, and the smell of gunpowder and smoke mixed with dust rushed in, but the tortoise shell firmly blocked it. Apart from feeling the surrounding air become somewhat scorching, Lin Yi felt nothing else.

He glanced up cautiously and saw that perhaps the door was too sturdy, because a single Explosive Pack had only blasted a large hole in it.

"Walk!"

Wang Ding pulled Lin Yi out of the cave, then gave them another invisible Weird Object, and the two ran quickly outside.

They had just run out from behind the Statue when they saw more than a dozen Disciplinarian Director rushing in.

Outside, the moment the explosion was heard, many children nearby sensed something was wrong and rushed over. Within a minute, a group of children had gathered at the entrance.

The two carefully navigated through the crowd, avoiding obstacles, and eventually blended in with the children who had been drawn in by the noise, pretending to have just been attracted by the crowd.

Lin Nieran, following behind, belatedly realized, "007, won't this set a bad example for Lin Yi?"

007 [Does the host consider himself a good person?]

Lin Nieran said, "That makes a lot of sense."

The two were running too fast and didn't see that the back of the statue had been blasted open by the blast wave, leaving a small crack.

The sound of the explosion echoed throughout the Orphanage, and even the higher-ranking children who were studying came down to see what was happening, all wondering what had occurred.

"It looks like an explosion!"

"An explosion? What exploded? We don't have any gas cylinders or anything like that here, do we?"

"Who knows? The Disciplinarian Director looked so grim, I dare not ask."

"Will we be able to have dinner tonight?"

The crowd crowded in front of the door, too afraid to go in. They could only keep peering inside, curiously asking those around them what had happened.

While investigating elsewhere, Tao Yuan guessed in just 0.01 seconds that the commotion was most likely related to his companions, and rushed to the scene immediately.

Seeing the two emerge from some hidden corner, their faces still covered in soot, Tao Yuan, who had come to see what was going on, grabbed their arms.

Where did you go?

Wang Ding and Lin Yi were both startled, but breathed a sigh of relief when they turned around and saw it was her, "You scared me to death!"

Tao Yuan glanced at the Dining Hall, her eyes filled with questions.

Wang Ding closed his eyes and nodded helplessly, while Lin Yi also smiled awkwardly, feeling guilty.

Tao Yuan shook her head with amusement. Good heavens, it was Wang Ding and Lin Yi who did it. She thought those two were the most reliable.

Wang Ding glanced at the other children looking in their direction and called out loudly, "Nowhere. We just finished working and came to check when we heard the noise."

Lin Yi wiped the soot off his face, eliminating any possible evidence to arouse suspicion, and said, "We wanted to go check out the Back Mountain, but we tripped and fell halfway there."

Wang Ding said, "Yes, it hurts terribly."

"You guys went to the Back Mountain too?"

Upon hearing this, a boy dressed in clean clothes, who was standing in front of them, turned around and started talking to them.

Lin Yi glanced at him, then silently lowered her head, not wanting to acknowledge him.

The boy was of average appearance, but he had unusual brown eyes. He had fair and healthy skin and wore clean clothes, including a cotton-padded coat, which was much better than the tattered clothes they were wearing.

Such a clear difference makes it obvious at a glance that this is at least B-Rank child.

"Are you going there to play too?" Wang Ding asked, "But aren't you in class?"

The boy grinned and said, "Class is so boring, who wants to listen to the lecture? I sneaked out."

"But, skipping class will result in points being deducted, right?"

"Sure," the boy said nonchalantly, "But I'm not afraid. We can get extra points as long as we attend class on time, and there are plenty of points to be gained. So what if they're deducted?"

"As long as I don't make a big mistake, the Disciplinarian Director won't deduct points."

His words made the group of people, who already knew how difficult it was for lower-ranking children to get extra points, grit their teeth in silence.

For children with low scores, even a small mistake can result in a deduction of five or ten points, while gaining points is far more difficult than imagined. For children with high scores, gaining points is so easy, and they can even be exempted from making mistakes.

No wonder the children here, despite being so young, don't act like children at all; they're all very precocious.

"Oh right, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Yuan Xi, and I used to be friends with Lin Yi."

Upon hearing this Tao Yuan and the others all looked at Lin Yi. However, Lin Yi seemed not to have heard them; his gaze was fixed on the child next to Yuan Xi.