I Like You

The sound of rushing water blocked Yu Xing's hearing, but she could still hear Zhao Mou and Wen Qinghuai entering the bathroom to shower.

He initially suspected there might be some special plot in the bathroom, since horror movies and horror stories often feature scenes in the last stall of the bathroom or the last stall of the toilet.

But then I thought, with so many of them now, even if they had the power of the "dead," they wouldn't make a sound at this time. Besides, there's a bathroom like this on every floor, and who knows which floor the bathroom ghost might be on.

They quickly finished showering, changed into their school uniforms in the changing room Yu Xing refreshed, wrung out a towel to dry their wet hair, picked up their dirty clothes and the love letter, and went back to their dormitory.

Their dormitories have wooden tubs for washing clothes. In this school, everyone has to wash their own clothes; the school doesn't provide washing machines. I don't know if it's to cultivate well-rounded individuals or if washing machines are simply unnecessary in this era.

Feeling much better physically this time, the four of them returned to their dormitory and began unpacking their suitcases. They took out the items from their suitcases and arranged them in the dormitory, especially their textbooks. After looking at them, they all agreed that the textbooks were quite normal. The Chinese language textbook was set to Chinese based on the participants' native language. In addition, there were mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, politics, history, and geography. Except for the lack of a foreign language course, the textbooks were not much different from those in the real world.

Seeing that there was still some time before lunch break and the cafeteria was not yet open, Yu Xing sat at the table next to her bed and opened the envelope she had brought back.

The pink envelope was exceptionally formal, bearing a red postmark. When torn open, a thin, folded piece of paper fell out.

He opened the letter and read it line by line, following the delicate handwriting on the paper.

[It's been a week, how are you?]

[I've never been so bold as to break school rules before, but when I think of you, I know I'll regret it if I don't confess my feelings properly.]

[An, I like you.]

[I don't know where you are now. They said you went home to rest. Is that true? I have this uneasy feeling about it.]

[Ah, but my thoughts are useless. Let's just assume you really went home. Did that bastard Li compensate you? I heard that after he crippled your leg, he went to the head of the grade to badmouth you first. I was furious when I heard that.]

[It was clearly Li Tiantian who bullied you. He provoked you first that day. You only pushed him back after he hit you, and yet you're accused of having violent tendencies. That's really too much of a bully.]

[But while teachers claim to hate violence and want to cultivate elites, they actually prefer to listen to students who obey them and suppress those who don't know how to please them. I saw through this long ago, but unfortunately, parents will never believe it.]

[I hope you won't be scolded by your parents when you get home.]

[Oh, by the way, you must be wondering why I'm writing to you at this particular time, because I feel that if I don't write now, I'll never have another chance... After all, in the teachers' eyes, I'm not one of those students who doesn't try to please them.]

[I have something really disheartening to tell you. I made a mistake today. While cleaning the teachers' office, I accidentally broke Teacher Lilith's favorite cup. When she scolded me, I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to pay for it. In my distraction, I couldn't speak and forgot to tell her, "I heard everything, I understand, teacher."]

I've been punished to clean the maple leaf path in front of the library tonight.

[Ah, I guess I won't be coming back after I go... In a few days, I'll be injured on duty and have to go home to rest, hehe, maybe I'll see you then... What a nasty ending.]

[I know all about it. I've seen it. There are many, many students going home to rest in the garbage room behind the library.]

[That's probably why the teachers dislike me even more.]

[So I probably won't have the chance to confess to you in person. Anyway... let me be selfish just this once. Breaking school rules to do something meaningless has turned out to be the happiest thing I've done in years. An, I like you.]

[Also, if I had the chance, I'd really like to put Li in the trash can too.]

"..." Yu Xing fell silent after reading it. He felt a slight physical disgust for the beautiful handwriting on the letter.

It wasn't that I disliked the girl who wrote the letter, but rather that after seeing something like this as expected, I felt a sense of boredom and dissatisfaction.

The girl who wrote the letter was very clever. When she wrote it, she probably already knew the fate of the boy she liked and her own impending fate.

Even though she was intelligent, she never considered resisting. Her words were filled with despair and numbness. In the end, all she did was put a letter that Ann would never see into Ann's wardrobe.

Yu Xing sighed. He figured similar things must have happened many times at St. Johnis Middle School. The contents of this letter were a hint to him, or perhaps a Side Quest. At least he knew that sometime in the past at this school, there was a bully named Li, a boy named An, and a girl who liked An.

I don't know if two of the three people died, or if all three died.

He probably inherited Ann's locker; perhaps he'll even have the chance to see Ann, with whom he has some connection, in person during his later campus life.

He didn't proactively tell the other three about the contents of the WeChat message. First, he didn't know what impact the letter would have, and it might even interfere with their judgment. Yu Xing planned to show the contents of the letter to the three of them and Qu Xuanqing if anything related to An and the other two happened at school.

He wasn't sure if the school's dormitory checks would rummage through students' privacy and search for contraband during class. If the people checking the dorms found this letter, he was likely in trouble.

Yu Xing carefully placed the letter on the wooden board of the bed, weighed it down with the mattress, and then sat back down at the desk.

It was still early, so after reading the letter, he decided to open his textbook and preview the material to avoid being punished on the first afternoon.

After flipping through these textbooks, I found that most of the subjects covered the same topics as Earth, except for Politics and History, which were completely different.

He smirked, thinking that the instance itself was quite merciful, providing them with such a substantial amount of information before the instance incident even escalated.

To understand the background and worldview of the game, the textbooks on politics and history are the best choice. Although the compilation of textbooks will inevitably involve some omissions and additions, the amount of information is already more than enough for a complete outsider.

He first mentioned the discovery to others, and then began to look through history textbooks.

Generally speaking, in a world where a school like St. Johnis Middle School exists, its history and political content will inevitably be relatively distorted. After all, any social phenomenon has its own trajectory and reasons for evolution. The Roy he plays is already a senior in high school, so he naturally brought along his textbooks from grades 10 and 11 for review.

In these history textbooks provided to high school students, Yu Xing saw wars between different countries, followed by war and integration. In a very short period of time, the trend of integration suddenly spread like wildfire, becoming irreversible before the countries could even react.

Ultimately, the world as perceived by all of humanity became a large unified government. They were disrupted and redistributed to various places, and the world was divided into ninety-nine regions of equal size, named with numbers.

It's worth mentioning that the world in this instance is much smaller than the real world, with a unified race, few nations, and a population only about one-fifth of that in reality. Otherwise, in the real world, it's unlikely that things would develop in this way.

However, in the history before the formation of the Grand Coalition Government, apart from endless wars, wars and wars, Yu Xing did not see the governance of various countries in these textbooks. It was as if the past systems had been deliberately deleted, and at least the true history of the past could not be seen by these high school students.

After that came modern history. The world was divided into 99 regions, and an elitist policy was implemented. The cost of learning was not high, but if one did not excel, one would lose the opportunity to live a good life. The world's resources were tilted towards those who "studied well" and "made outstanding contributions to a great government after graduation" and their descendants. Scientists, educators, and politicians simultaneously became capitalists, enjoying the envious gazes of others while condescendingly judging the lives of others.

This falls under the political category, so it's only mentioned briefly in history books. Modern history is then filled with various praises of scientific research achievements and celebrations of great innovations. Yu Xing found it somewhat boring and sped up the page turning.

The only thing that caught his attention was that St. Jonis's also had a place in history books. Jonis's was one of the most outstanding educators in society at the time. He led his family to prosperity for decades and founded the world-renowned St. Jonis's School.

St. Jonis's influence can be found in elementary, middle, high school, and even university.

St. Jonis's School only accepts hopeless problem students. Its slogan is. "Don't add to the world's glory, only help the world in its time of need." It doesn't need top-tier students, but rather generously uses its best teachers to rescue those poor children abandoned by others. History textbooks prominently feature the speeches of St. Jonis's founders.

"Our world is overflowing with trash, but even if trash doesn't benefit from resources, its very existence will eventually drag our world down. Therefore, I intend to do something to contribute to this world. After much thought, I've decided to use my personal assets and resources to establish St. Jonis's School. I want to try doing what no one else has done before: to be more inclusive of the abandoned trash, to try to save them, and to discover their value. I want to use my love to change them. Rather than letting trash waste resources, let them become a part of resource creation."

The phrase "garbage" is used as if humanity has been subjectively divided into different species. This kind of talk, which Yu Xing finds particularly ridiculous, received a lot of positive feedback from history textbooks and the public at the time. They praised the founder's misplaced kindness and regarded his speech as Bible.

The founder advocates a system of elimination and competition. The "trash" are saved in his school and study desperately. Those who succeed will shed their "trash" label and become valuable human beings. Those who fail will be completely abandoned and perhaps awarded a "non-recyclable" plaque. From then on, they will no longer be classified as "human" but will be sold like commodities to create value for the remaining elite humans.

History books include illustrations of crowds below the founder's speaking stage, raising their hands, clapping, and cheering. As this image was printed in the books, their massive celebrations have continued for decades.

It seems that for them, beating poor students into trash and giving them a prison-like cage, then "saving" them with methods more terrifying than those used on criminals, is something that elevates their souls, something they consider generous and almsgiving.

Yu Xing tossed the book aside.

He remained expressionless and unmoved, his only thought being that politics and history would be the easiest subjects to score points on during the exam.

A terrible world, a group of upper-class people who imprison their own kind with distorted ideas, a group of adults who, after being persecuted themselves, willingly continue to persecute the next generation...

Such a scenario must be depressing.

He continued reading political textbooks and learned about the common methods used by politicians in this world. In fact, the methods of control were not sophisticated, even quite rudimentary. But unfortunately, successful people enjoy the resources and become part of the persecution of others, while those who fail are oppressed at the bottom and have no access to the means to resist. Their spirits are even deeply convinced of the distorted worldview because of repeated oppression and reshaping, and they even become supporters.

The entire dormitory was filled with the rustling of books being flipped through all morning.

Yu Xing had a good memory and read the material the fastest. The other subjects weren't difficult; they were all things he had encountered before. He even took a moment to sneak into Zhao Yijiu's cubicle across the street and observe for a while. His mood improved somewhat. He bet this was probably the first time Zhao Yijiu had ever studied so diligently in her life.

Fortunately, although Zhao Yijiu had never formally attended school, thanks to Zhao Mou's previous teaching, he was able to absorb this knowledge well. He just occasionally frowned, but never threw his books in a fit of rage.

As for exams, that's a different story; being able to read them and fully mastering them are two different things.

Finally, seeing that it was time for the other students to finish class and the cafeteria was open, the four of them decided to go downstairs to call Qu Xuanqing so they could go to the cafeteria together.