Because those Canglan extras had delayed us for quite a while, by the time we rushed to the cafeteria, we found that there was no food left. Only half a steamed bun, tossed on the floor by who knew who, gaped wide as if mocking our late arrival.
"Hungry..." Pandora said softly.
"On the rooftop." Sandora voiced her agreement.
This girl's ability to absorb human knowledge was seriously impressive!
Qian Qian rubbed her stomach and suggested, "A Jun, how about we go buy some bread outside the school gate?"
"No." I waved my hand grandly. "Let's go mooch a meal off a teacher!"
I had finally discovered one benefit of the Empire Commanders infiltrating this school: as a student, you could obtain plenty of privileges without drawing attention. For example, freely entering and leaving the school during lockdown, going into the Experiment Building to use the internet while it was closed, and mooching a meal at the teachers' dormitory when you failed to buy lunch.
As a school that constantly strove to catch up with the neighboring Canglan Private High School, City No. 2 High School's leadership had always regarded improving the working and living conditions of its staff as an important task. The direct result of this guiding principle was that our teachers' dormitory had outrageously luxurious living conditions. Bathrooms, kitchens, and living rooms were all included—it was practically furnished like a standard hotel suite. Though it could not compare at all to the five-star hotel-style staff housing at the aristocratic school across the street, students already considered such accommodations far beyond what a dormitory ought to be. Thus, the teachers' dormitory became the second most criticized place in our school, right after the central themed restroom.
But today, we benefited greatly from that kind of dormitory.
Sitting in the Living Room of Pan Lingling's dorm, we stared dumbfounded at the lavish dishes that nearly covered the whole table. The owner of this dorm, our beautiful teacher Miss Pan Lingling, was still fluttering back and forth between the kitchen and Living Room like a gust of wind. The clattering of pots, bowls, and utensils had quite a rock-and-roll rhythm to it.
Clearly, the collective arrival of two Heads of State and one Empire General to mooch a meal had made this loyal female officer extremely nervous.
Unlike us, who were completely at ease, Qian Qian had been exceedingly restrained from the moment she entered. Even now, she still could not understand how we could so brazenly come to our homeroom teacher's place to mooch a meal.
"Teacher," Qian Qian finally could not help saying when Pan Lingling brought the third plate of braised pork to the table, "this is enough. We can't finish so much food... Besides, if this keeps up, it'll be time for class soon..."
"Oh..." Pan Lingling replied. She quickly walked to the table, placed a plate of chicken strips in front of Pandora, then cautiously looked around before saying nervously, "Wait... I still have a few more dishes..."
"Enough! If you keep cooking, there'll be enough for us to eat until the end of next century!" I said, both annoyed and amused. I truly had no idea what was going on with Pan Lingling. She had been so relaxed and natural in class, and she had never seemed this nervous around me before. Why was she so tense now?
"This is a different situation," Pandora's voice sounded in my mind, as if she had guessed my confusion. "Brother and Sister Sandora are interacting with Siweisi as equals in terms of authority. For a Shilin Apostle with only A-level authority, this is an exceptionally rare honor. That is why Siweisi feels such great pressure."
Pandora's explanation made me laugh. "Then what about you? How come you don't seem pressured? And you can even call Sandora 'Sister' so naturally now."
"I possess SSS-level authority, and Brother has also specially permitted me to address the Shilin Emperor as an equal. Therefore, I am an exception."
"...I really don't understand the way you people think."
Under my "order," Pan Lingling finally stopped. By then, the food before us could basically be called an imperial feast. It was truly hard on her to make so many dishes in such a short time.
I reckoned this was the most nerve-racking meal Pan Lingling had ever eaten in her life. You could tell from the fact that she bit through her chopsticks six times in a row.
Sandora seemed quite satisfied with Carbon-Based Lifeform food as well, which made me even more curious about the Shilin Apostles' physiological structure. Their diet apparently encompassed everything from organic to inorganic, from energy to matter. It was hard to imagine what in this universe they could not digest.
This meal was an ordeal for Pan Lingling, but for Sandora, it was a feast. Thanks to this girl, who was still not satisfied after devouring half the table's food, we were a full twenty minutes late for class that afternoon—fortunately, our first class that afternoon was Ideological Politics and Legal Foundations. Remember who taught that class? It was the counterfeit-cash guy who had printed four months' worth of activity funds for three hundred Empire Commanders overnight...
Five minutes before the final class of the afternoon, the fat Zheng Hang suddenly burst into the classroom in a great rush, shouting, "News! This is absolutely huge news!"
Why did I feel like there had been so much news lately?
Normally, the fat guy's news was all unbearably boring gossip, with credibility hovering around zero. Few people in the class were willing to believe him. But recently, he had miraculously brought us two pieces of earth-shattering good news, and the students had gradually begun taking an interest in his broadcasts.
Since the fat guy always liked to lewdly keep everyone in suspense whenever he had news to announce, the students came prepared this time. The moment he jumped onto the podium, the people around him began lowering their heads to grab their stools.
Seeing the class move in such perfect unison, the fat guy broke out in cold sweat. He hurriedly said, "No, no! I won't keep you in suspense this time. Put your weapons down first..."
After everyone put down their stools, the fat guy cleared his throat and said, "According to the latest reliable intelligence, an important figure has arrived in our area. Three nights from now, there will be a grand welcoming ceremony at the big square in the city center..."
"Pfft—" everyone sighed in unison.
"There'll be free drinks and snacks at the scene, plus lots of girls to look at. And this important figure is an incredibly beautiful woman, rare in the whole world!"
"Yeah—" everyone cheered in unison!
An enthusiastic audience member below the podium raised his hand and spoke. "Fatty, what important figure has arrived this time? Does it really require such a huge spectacle?"
The fat guy rubbed his shiny forehead and said, "I don't know the specifics either. Apparently, she's a Royal Family Member from some foreign country. I heard she's a princess, but the information has been locked down too tightly. I couldn't even find out her name..."
The students near the podium were making a racket, but I had no interest in joining them.
"Sandora, tell me honestly. Is it you?"
Sandora wore an innocent expression. "What do you mean, is it me?"
...Why could this girl not be as obedient as Pandora? Was the difference between the Shilin Emperor and ordinary Shilin Apostles that they had more personality?
"Stop playing dumb," I said, nearly losing my mind. "What identity did you use to enter this world?"
"Well..." Sandora cutely pressed her index finger to her lower lip. "What does a princess do?"
Good heavens! How had this girl pulled that off?!
You had to understand that fully blending into an environment under a fabricated identity was absolutely no simple matter. If all you wanted was a fake identity, that was easy enough. Forge proof of identity, alter the government's citizen records while you were at it, and everything could be settled. That was not difficult for the Shilin Apostles. But creating a false social network at the same time was not so simple. It meant that not only did you need identification, you also needed a fairly complete network of interpersonal relationships. Otherwise, if a person suddenly appeared out of nowhere, flaws would eventually be exposed. Take a simple example: Siweisi had used the human identity Pan Lingling to infiltrate our school and become a homeroom teacher. She had acquired this new identity in only a few hours. It required not only a new identity, but also Keaos's group Mind Interference ability to impose mental suggestions on key humans, making her existence part of their "memories." Otherwise, with a colleague suddenly appearing out of nowhere, the other teachers at the school would have been the first to grow suspicious.
From the analysis above, it was clear that if you wanted to establish a fabricated social network for yourself in a relatively short time, mass memory modification was an indispensable method. And the more attention your fake identity attracted, the wider the scope of memory modification required. If you wanted to become someone like MJ... then a massive cleansing of billions of people's memories would probably be unavoidable.
So what had Sandora done now?
According to her own words, she had become the princess of some country?
Good heavens, had she wiped the memories of an entire country's population?!
Before you continue