Survival Day

A week later, Second High School, Cangnan City.

"Hey, look. Is that guy from our school? Why does he have a strip of cloth over his eyes?"

"He's wearing our school uniform, so he must be."

"He's even holding a white cane. Looks like he's blind."

"That's strange. Why haven't I seen him before?"

"Maybe he's one of the new tenth graders this year?"

"Still, with those layers of black cloth wrapped around his eyes, he actually looks pretty handsome."

"But how is a blind person supposed to attend class? Our school doesn't seem to have any special classes."

"No idea."

"..."

Just as expected, the moment Lin Qiye walked through the school gates, he drew a great deal of attention.

However, he had experienced this sort of scene far too many times. Ignoring everyone around him, he passed through the school's maple-lined avenue and headed toward the classroom building.

Before coming here, Lin Qiye had already prepared himself to deal with troublemakers. After all, in so many mindless power-fantasy novels, a few idiot so-called school bullies would surely jump out in a situation like this, mock him relentlessly, and lay the groundwork for him to show off and humiliate them later...

Yet none of those troublemakers appeared. Instead, quite a few students came forward on their own initiative to ask whether he needed help.

For some reason, Lin Qiye felt a little disappointed.

Then again, these were modern students who had all gone through nine years of compulsory education. How could there be so many blind troublemakers? Besides, even if there were little cliques like that, they valued "brotherhood" these days. Helping a buddy settle some score or venting a bit was one thing, but if they actually went and bullied a disabled person, they would be drowned in public scorn by the next day and completely disgraced.

Lin Qiye went up the stairs and quickly found his classroom: Class 2, Year 11. He had already spent his first year of high school at a special school, so after transferring, he counted as a midyear transfer student.

Judging from most TV dramas and novels, transfer students were generally synonymous with being ignored, isolated, and miserable. After all, during the first year of high school, all kinds of cliques had already taken shape. Unless he took the initiative himself, it would be difficult to truly fit into the class.

Lin Qiye knew very well that he was not the proactive type.

Even if he had spent his first year of high school with them, given his unapproachable air, he would probably still be all alone by now.

But being alone was not necessarily a bad thing. At least, Lin Qiye enjoyed the feeling—no one to disturb him, peace of mind, and the ability to focus on his studies...

If he were deliberately made to build good relationships with others, he would not know how.

Standing at the classroom door, Lin Qiye took a deep breath, steadied himself, and stepped inside.

The instant Lin Qiye entered the classroom, the previously noisy room fell abruptly silent. The air suddenly went still...

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

Just as Lin Qiye was about to say something, the classroom suddenly erupted!

"You must be Lin Qiye, right? Your seat is ready. It's over there."

"Lin Qiye, can you not see? I'll take you over."

"Hey, slow down. There are a lot of things in the aisle... Hey, you! Put your backpack away!"

"..."

Before Lin Qiye could react, several classmates had already come forward and carefully led him toward his seat. One particularly tall boy even took Lin Qiye's backpack and slung it over his own shoulder.

Surrounded by so many people, Lin Qiye arrived at his seat "safely."

Lin Qiye: ...?

Why was this so different from the script?

"Lin Qiye, I'm Jiang Qian, the class monitor. If you need anything, you can come to me," said a ponytailed girl, patting her chest.

"My name is Li Yifei. If you're going to eat, just call me and I'll take you there," said the boy helping him carry his bag with a smile.

"And me, I'm Wang Shao..."

"..."

A great many people gathered around him, warmly introducing themselves.

For a moment, Lin Qiye was actually at a loss.

To be honest, this was quite different from what he had imagined.

"You all know me?" Lin Qiye asked, his expression a little strange.

"Our homeroom teacher told us about you," class monitor Jiang Qian replied. "But what left the deepest impression on us was your aunt. That day, she stood right here with a basket of eggs, handing them out to us one by one and asking us to take care of you..."

It was as if a bolt of thunder had exploded in Lin Qiye's mind. He froze where he stood.

He could no longer hear what his classmates said after that. He merely stood there blankly, facing the classroom, as an image involuntarily surfaced in his mind: a hunched middle-aged woman carrying a basket of freshly boiled eggs, earnestly pleading with the students.

"Students, please help me out. My nephew's eyes aren't very good, and he's a little cold by nature. Please look after him..."

"Miss, you're so pretty. My nephew is a very handsome boy too. You'll definitely like him..."

"Qiye is the kind of child who seems cold on the outside but is warm inside. Once you get to know him, you'll definitely get along well..."

"..."

At some point, the black silk ribbon had become slightly damp.

"Aunt..." he murmured.

While everyone was chatting away, a female teacher entered with books tucked under her arm. Seeing Lin Qiye seated in the front row, she first came over to check on him for a few moments, then briefly introduced him to the class before beginning the lesson.

"Everyone, turn to page ninety-one. Today, we'll discuss the history and predicament of modern Great Xia..."

Perhaps because Lin Qiye had joined the class, the teacher skipped the usual textbook skimming today and went straight into explaining the material.

"Over a hundred years ago, Earth still had more than two hundred countries spread across the seven continents and four oceans, each with different customs and cultures. Even in that era, when technology was not particularly advanced, we could still travel by ship to different countries and experience the collision of different cultures..."

"However, on March 9th, a mysterious fog suddenly appeared out of nowhere in Antarctica. It then spread at an astonishing speed, swallowing nearly 98% of Earth's surface in just twenty-four hours."

"The skyscrapers built by humanity, the primeval forests that had existed since time immemorial, the bottomless oceans... Everything, absolutely everything, was covered by the fog. Countless countries fell into it, and all contact was lost."

"Yet just as this unbelievable fog was about to invade Great Xia's territory... it stopped."

"No one knew why, but it simply stopped in the strangest way."

"Over the past century, countless theories and speculations had been proposed. Some said the fog was actually a living creature that had eaten 98% of Earth and happened to be full, so it stopped near Great Xia. Some said a special magnetic field existed where Great Xia was located, preventing the fog from spreading. Others said it was the accumulated foundation of Great Xia's five thousand years of history protecting this land..."

"The composition of this fog completely surpassed human understanding. Whether it was light, sound, radio waves, or any other means of detection, nothing could penetrate it. No one knew whether the other countries swallowed by the fog a century ago still existed beyond it..."

"According to expert estimates, the chances of their surviving within the fog were extremely low, because whether this fog was inhaled into the lungs or came into contact with the skin... it was fatal!"

"Over the past century, our country had sent countless fully equipped exploration teams into the fog, but not a single person had returned."

"Fifty years ago, our country's first satellite was successfully launched. Based on the images it transmitted back from space, the entire Earth had turned grayish white, with only Great Xia remaining as a patch of pure land."

"Great Xia today was like an isolated island on this planet, and we... might have been this planet's last survivors."

"Therefore, the day the fog appeared, March 9th of every year, came to be known as 'Survival Day.'"