Aside from Sun Wukong and contrarians, most people had parents, relatives, and friends. The essence of humanity was a collection of social relationships.
A person's death came in three stages. The first was physical death, when the heart stopped beating. The second was social death, when someone else took the dead person's position. The third was ultimate death: when the last person who remembered the deceased died, their traces would completely vanish from the world, becoming the full stop at the end of a page.
Some people died as if they had never come into this world at all, like Le Yu's true body, Unit 0.
Others died, yet their karma remained tightly entwined with the living. Their voices and shadows flowed silently through the depths of the living's hearts, ready to unleash a monstrous storm at any moment.
Like Bai Yu. Like Qin Xiao.
Even Le Yu had several friends who would shed a few tears for his death. How could Bai Yu have none? Le Yu simply hadn't expected his friend to have such an impressive background—the Imperial Guard Instructor at the Royal Academy. Back when Principal Chahuan only had to handle the grandstanding, Zhu Yan had been the undisputed Vice Principal.
But on closer thought, it made perfect sense. Bai Yu had been a Swift Blade teacher and dean of students at the Royal Academy, so he must have graduated from there. For a permanent, officially appointed teacher like him, a Royal Academy education was the absolute minimum requirement. And with Zhu Yan being so old, it was hardly surprising that Qin Xiao and Bai Yu had once been his students.
What truly surprised Le Yu was that Qin Xiao and Bai Yu had been Zhu Yan's prize students. Qin Xiao was one thing—there was three meters