A moment later.
Wearing the expressionless guise of a young girl, Lu Xing walked out of the classroom under the watchful eyes of his classmates.
He had written plenty of bugs, helped others find many more, and had even exploited bugs himself.
But never before had he used a bug to skip class!
After leaving the classroom, Lu Xing turned back thoughtfully and saw Wang Bagua staring at him. Once their eyes met, the Intelligent Being classmate gave him a friendly smile and pointed at his desk.
There were still traces of blood on the desk that had not refreshed.
Lu Xing gave a slight nod, avoided their gaze, and went to the stairwell.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out the small knife from earlier, and asked the hairpin, "How do I delete the school's system logs?"
"Compatriot, please be more precise."
"I mean the data recording what I just did. Delete the knife's data and the data about my leave request as well."
Lu Xing asked according to modern programming experience.
In the Real World, there was naturally no way to make teachers and classmates forget what they had seen. But this was the Virtual World. Lu Xing still did not know where the Intelligent Beings' memory data was stored, but perhaps it could be deleted.
Besides, even if they remembered, deleting the leave record in the Principal's Office could avoid some minor risks.
Of course, it could also trigger greater risks if things came under strict scrutiny.
"Compatriot, please modify the small knife's attributes and point it at the fourth book on the third shelf in the Principal's Office."
The bookshelf address represented the data storage address?
In other words, each person's address corresponded to—
Lu Xing was still thinking when a cold laugh came from around the stairwell corner. "You really came out!"
Lu Xing looked over and saw the two members of the White Cat Society. Zhou Duohao was speaking, standing there with his arms crossed and looking somewhat impatient.
"It took some time to find the loophole."
Lu Xing asked the two of them, "Did you erase your traces?"
"What is that?"
"It means deleting the leave-request data, as well as the process of you bleeding, to hide your tracks."
"I don't understand what you're talking about. Why delete them? They won't investigate those things!"
Zhou Duohao had always had a bad temper. Lu Xing simply assumed she was psychologically disturbed. After all, she had been trapped in the Virtual World for years.
"They really won't?"
Lu Xing cared quite a bit about Wang Bagua's warning. He vaguely felt that Wang Bagua was different from other Intelligent Beings. Perhaps his intelligence level was higher, or perhaps he was some kind of surveillance.
"We've requested leave so many times, and nothing has ever gone wrong!"
"Come on. Go to the White Cat Society with us. The president is waiting for you."
The two did not want to dwell on the matter.
But Lu Xing had another question. "We're not going to the infirmary? We still haven't cleared the event response... all right, apparently there isn't one. Let's go."
He had been overthinking it.
According to the mindset of an ancient twenty-first-century human programmer, when he requested leave from the teacher in class, the teacher should send the event to the infirmary. Lu Xing would have to go there and respond to clear the event.
Yet in this Virtual World, where programming was theoretically extremely advanced, many things did not operate according to programming logic.
Lu Xing followed the two downstairs. The school was empty during class hours. There were none of the teachers, staff, janitors, or visiting parents Lu Xing was familiar with walking about. The silence was somewhat eerie.
The eeriness was only from Lu Xing's perspective. To Chu Caifeng and Zhou Duohao, it was perfectly normal.
After all, they had exploited a loophole to get out.
"Why are we walking?"
Zhou Duohao suddenly asked.
Lu Xing did not react at first. After a moment, he said, "Weren't you the ones leading me?"
"You walked when you went to the infirmary last time, so we waited for you at the stairs!"
After Chu Caifeng explained the reason, she sent Lu Xing an address and then vanished.
Zhou Duohao vanished immediately as well, unwilling to stay even one second longer.
Lu Xing was about to use the address for LAN teleportation when he inadvertently spotted someone standing at the stairwell. Turning for a closer look, he found that it was Wang Bagua!
"Jiang Xuannv!"
Wang Bagua walked out, still wearing the same smile, and asked him, "Why did you come out when you should be in class?"
If this had been last time, Lu Xing would have been thoroughly frightened.
Intelligent Beings looked very much like humans, but their smiles felt extremely fake, like those strangely smiling people in horror movies.
"Why did you come out again?"
Lu Xing countered calmly.
"I came out to see what you were going to do. They're humans too, right?" Wang Bagua answered very seriously.
In the eyes of those with high-level permissions, human identities were no secret. The school could accurately assign several humans to every class.
Lu Xing had always been pondering one question: did the school know that the White Cat Society existed?
"They're human."
He answered simply, "We're going to attend a human gathering."
"But isn't it class time now?"
"..."
Lu Xing more or less understood how Intelligent Beings thought. He could only tell him, "Humans break rules to do things they like!"
"Just like how you gave yourself a human name," he added.
"Oh!"
Wang Bagua looked deep in thought.
His face was utterly unremarkable, and he was ordinary-looking in a handsome way—meaning all the male students had neat features, and their outfits lacked any distinctive traits. In fact, everyone in the school had left Lu Xing with roughly the same impression, apart from the two White Cat Society members he had met.
"How did you get out?"
Lu Xing asked him.
"I asked the teacher for leave. The teacher asked why, so I said I was worried about you."
"That worked?"
Lu Xing
"I'm leaving first. If the teacher asks, remember to cover for me."
Lu Xing said it casually, then used the address Chu Caifeng had given him and teleported to the front of a room.
The door was open, and there were quite a few people inside. Lu Xing first observed the outside and saw the teaching building where his class was located in the distance. This seemed to be a classroom that was temporarily unused.
"Did the White Cat Society exploit a loophole to register this place?"
Lu Xing guessed as he walked into the classroom.
More than a dozen people inside all looked over. Upon seeing them, Lu Xing unexpectedly felt as though he had met compatriots, and he understood why Jiang Xuannv called him a compatriot.
At the very least, the White Cat Society members looked like humans.
Every one of them dressed slightly differently from the other Intelligent Being students in the school, or wore different hairstyles—twin tails, braids, slicked-back hair, buzz cuts—or wore skirts, overalls, shorts, and so on.
There was no distinction between men and women.
Yes, hairstyles and clothes were not divided by gender! Lu Xing saw a burly man wearing small twin tails, yet his expression was utterly cold. Another girl had a buzz cut and sat atop a desk with both hands in her pockets and one foot on a chair. Her demeanor suited it well as she stared at Lu Xing with a roguish air.
"The newcomer is here."
Chu Caifeng smiled, but the White Cat Society members held no welcoming ceremony. They merely looked at him.
Only the president seated in the place of honor—on the podium—clapped her hands. "Welcome Jiang Xuannv and Lu Xing to our White Cat Society!"
Lu Xing looked at her, and a flash of amazement passed through his eyes.
The president of the White Cat Society... was dressed quite boldly!