I Taught You Too Well / Suddenly Understanding in a Certain Moment

"So Kitagawa, you really can write this? It's quite impressive."

With genuine experience as a director, screenwriter, and filmmaker in The Sims, Kitagawa Ryo not only wrote the text and lines for the advertisement, but also provided detailed explanations of the background, storyboards, Actor's expressions, and even the background music. Compared to the level of a high school student, he undoubtedly seems more like an elite who has worked in this industry for many years.

Considering that this was something the other party had accomplished in just over ten minutes, Ryuen Kakeru was even more shocked.

"The only downside is that because it's aimed at office workers, the casting needs to be for new employees who have just started working and middle-aged or older senior managers. So we couldn't find suitable people here. Neither Suzune nor I are suitable, so filming a demonstration for the first episode should be enough."

Without further ado, since Horikita Suzune and the entire studio were currently not doing anything, Kitagawa Ryo simply called everyone over.

There's not much to say about the 30-second commercial script. Besides, Kitagawa Ryo's various storyboards and other details had already been marked in advance, and everyone else on set was a professional with relevant experience. So, in fact, as long as Horikita Suzune's side was dealt with, that would be about it.

Although it was just a simple test shoot for the bidding, being too hasty would definitely break the immersion and affect the presentation of the script. So, Kitagawa Ryo took two sets of corporate suits that Ichinose Honami should be very familiar with recently from the dressing room, and in no time, he and Horikita Suzune were dressed up as 'social elites' in a very respectable way.

Actually, Ryuen Kakeru originally wanted to appear on camera to join in the fun, but his long hair and delinquent-like demeanor were too prominent, and he would be out of place on camera, so he had to give up in the end.

Even though the script for the short drama that Horikita Suzune initially imagined co-starring with Kitagawa Ryo was a bit different from what she had envisioned, her performance wasn't too bad when the camera was actually right in front of her. After all, it was only thirty seconds long and she didn't have many lines.

The script begins with the two of them walking to work, briefcases in hand.

As they passed a lottery outlet, Horikita Suzune spoke up:

"Does the minister know about Lotto 7?"

Kitagawa Ryo, whose serious expression evoked the stereotypical image of a rigid and old-fashioned senior, simply shook his head, revealing a completely uninterested look.

"Have no idea."

Then Horikita Suzune began to introduce him with great enthusiasm:

"The jackpot is a whopping 400 million yen!"

"Not interested."

"If no one wins the jackpot, the next round could accumulate to a maximum of 800 million yen!"

"That."

Kitagawa Ryo turned his head away heavily, his brows furrowed into a deep frown, and admonished him in a tone of disappointment:

"Can your dreams be bought with money so easily?"

Then, accompanied by a burst of rousing music, the younger generation showed expressions of profound shock and learning on their faces.

The scene shifts, and it's lunchtime.

The junior colleague, who had come out for lunch, was still reflecting on his conversation with the department head that morning, muttering to himself while holding his coffee:

"Ya Bai, that's so handsome... Minister."

As he pondered the minister's words and encouraged himself, he passed by the lottery station from that morning once again, only to be surprised to see a familiar figure buying lottery tickets.

The camera zooms in again, showing the minister, who had just submitted the numbers, turning around with an embarrassed yet polite expression. The scene quickly cuts back to the equally bewildered face of his junior colleague, while the Lotto 7 logo appears on the right half, accompanied by a rather catchy promotional tagline:

"Lotto 7, with a top prize of up to 800 million yen."

Thirty seconds passed exactly.

Furthermore, Kitagawa Ryo wrote a one-line sequel that spanned more than twenty episodes. In his words, if it passed, he would just complete the storyboard.

After Ryuen Kakeru happily left with the proposal and the edited manuscript, Kitagawa Ryo leisurely sat down and asked Horikita Suzune:

How was your first performance?

"... Every aspect is very delicate."

Because they had just finished filming, Horikita Suzune was too lazy to change back into her clothes. Her office lady outfit, a small suit jacket paired with her long, jet-black hair cascading down her shoulders, made her look like she could create some kind of magical attack speed set if she added glasses. If she leaned against Kitagawa Ryo at this moment, an outsider would probably really think that this was some kind of little drama between a company president and his secretary.

It's fair to say that Ichinose Honami feels like she's the Ichinose Honami again.

Kitagawa Ryo reached for the Loto 6 lottery ticket that Ryuen Kakeru had forgotten to take with him when he left, and remembered the message that Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had sent him that morning.

For ordinary people, winning 400 million or even 800 million yen with 300 yen is probably just a fantasy.

But there are always some bolder individuals who want to bet more and win more.

At the age of 25, Ayanokoji Atsuomi finally saved up three million yen in election funds through various means, including working as a host. However, he suffered a crushing defeat in his first election. Two years later, he chose to stake his remaining life, conscience, and everything else again, and only then did he barely catch up with the second and third generation of the elite.

What he didn't realize was that the further he went down this path, the better conditions and opportunities he created for Ayanokoji Kiyotaka than he had been back then.

His own son has now become the second-generation rich kid he used to hate the most.

So--

The defeat is inevitable.

P. S.: Thank you for reading and subscribing.

PS2: You can search for and watch the Lotto 7 ads on Bilibili; they're really funny and catchy.

Chapter 81: You've taught me so well

Having confirmed his plan to deliver a fatal blow to Ayanokoji Atsuomi within a month of summer vacation, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka began his actions the moment he left school after the Summer Special Exam officially started.

Tsukishiro had already arranged a company for him to work at on the surface, but in reality, it was just a cover to deceive Ayanokoji Atsuomi. With the help of a piece of information that Kitagawa Ryo had 'unintentionally' provided beforehand, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had already successfully approached his goal on the second day of the Special Exam.

Although it was different from any previous simulation, the White Room, which was directly pushed onto the stage by the Naoe Faction and used as a power struggle object against the Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School of the Onigashima Faction, was still largely 'whitewashed', just like in the last simulation. All the illegal and socially unethical behaviors in the past were covered up, the relevant people were dismissed and silenced, and most of the evidence and documents were destroyed as much as possible.

However, as someone who personally destroyed the White Room project in the final simulation, Kitagawa Ryo is intimately familiar with the entire structure and personnel distribution of the White Room.

If Ayanokoji Atsuomi is the unsung mastermind behind the White Room, then Suzukake Tanji is its overt executor. He is the mastermind behind all the courses in the White Room is an absolute mad psychologist and anthropologist.

That is precisely why, for him, a man who is 'pure' in a certain sense, nothing else matters as much as his experiments.

At least in the last simulation that Kitagawa Ryo experienced, the other party kept some of his data and videos from everyone, including Ayanokoji Atsuomi, and these eventually became crucial evidence.

Since finding the target would be a huge win, and not finding it wouldn't be a loss, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka immediately began arranging the matter after leaving school. After infiltrating the target's home and subduing them using purely physical means, he began a comprehensive search.

Finally, he actually found a video recording on the other person's phone.

"Today is May 20th, recorded by Suzukake Tanji."

It must have been recorded with a mobile phone, as Suzukake Tanji's face quickly appeared in the footage.

"I've been in charge of directing the White Room education program for quite some time now."

"Starting today, the White Room will undergo a huge change—no, rather, it will become something completely different from the previous White Room, except for the name. And I must temporarily resign from all my positions here."

"I don't understand politics, but I heard it's an incident caused by a politician named Naoe and a politician named Onigashima vying for the position of the next prime minister. It's really just adding to the trouble. But I've decided to look on the bright side; a long-awaited extended vacation isn't so bad."

Based on what the other person said, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka quickly deduced that the video must have been recorded about three years ago, shortly after he was allowed to leave the White Room.

Although he comforted himself with these words, the image clearly showed a look of dissatisfaction on Suzukake Tanji's face. After all, for him, there was no other place in the world like the White Room where he could freely release the various ideas in his mind that were not allowed by the contemporary scientific community.

Perhaps wanting to make a summary of her experiences in the White Room over the past decade or so, or perhaps simply wanting to stop thinking about those more negative things, after a slight pause, Suzukake Tanji continued:

"The human species is really interesting."

"I've observed this in every child: they automatically learn things they haven't been taught. Just like breathing doesn't require instruction, children still seek out opportunities for communication even in enclosed environments. Because I discovered this in educating students from the first to the fourth generation, I introduced communication skills training courses after the fifth generation. Of course, this also has its inefficiencies, as the increased emotional engagement leads to a decrease in the rate of skill development. However, as the course difficulty increases, the fifth generation students possess stronger abilities than the third generation students."

"Of the ten stages of the course we prepared, the fifth-term students only used the fourth stage of difficulty, and the sixth-term students used the fifth stage. But that's pretty much the limit. The pass rate for the fifth-term students is only in the single digits, and all the sixth-term students have already been eliminated. The seventh-term students, who were tentatively using the sixth stage of difficulty, are also close to their limit. It seems that we will still need to alternate between the fourth and fifth stages of difficulty in the future."

"So far, many children in the White Room have fallen behind in their studies, but only that one child— Ayanokoji Kiyotaka —is extraordinary. That child possesses exceptional learning abilities, adaptability, and application skills, and these abilities are constantly increasing, with no limit in sight. Although the other researchers in the White Room believe that they can cultivate someone at the same level as that child, in my opinion, he is an exception. A more unique existence produced in this distorted environment is simply a sudden mutation."

"Because when he was the only Fourth Generation left in the White Room, I had already increased the difficulty of his courses to the highest level of ten."

"From this perspective alone, he is indeed the Masterpiece of the White Room, which is why Ayanokoji's father chose to bring him out as the representative of the White Room. This has nothing to do with whether he is Ayanokoji's father's biological son or not; it's simply a matter of ability."

"However, personally, I will never admit that he was a product of the White Room Education, because it is simply impossible to reproduce. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was not perfect from the beginning. Whether it was academics, Karate, or boxing, he only achieved very average results when he first started. But after learning the basics and making a few simple attempts, he was able to master them quickly with an amazing learning ability."

"It's not just me; the entire White Room still can't see the child's potential. He absorbs everything he's taught. You could call him a natural genius, or you could say he's a product of the White Room's education. Sigh, I think both are true and false, since he truly is someone who could only become like this in the White Room."

"If Ayanokoji Kiyotaka hadn't received the education from the White Room, he would probably have been a slightly better person. Without any one of these elements, nothing could have been created; the White Room's so-called Masterpiece is precisely this kind of existence."

After giving a lengthy account of Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, a research subject virtually unique in his decades-long research career, Suzukake Tanji took a bottle of water to moisten his throat, then shook his head again.

"However—no matter how outstanding he is, if you were to ask Ayanokoji Kiyotaka is truly a genius, there would still be doubts. He lags far behind ordinary people in matters of the heart, and he completely lacks common sense that most people know. Of course, he can memorize things quickly if he studies, but how much this weakness will affect him is still unknown. He's an incomplete individual, and there's still a year before he enters Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School to compete against that genius from outside, a boy named Kitagawa Ryo. Hopefully, he can correct these flaws as much as possible."

After mentioning Kitagawa Ryo's name, Suzukake Tanji shook his head again:

"I've seen some of his information. As the child of a zaibatsu, he hasn't actually received any higher education since birth due to his background. However, his abilities in all aspects are outstanding, unlike those of a child. Otherwise, the Kitagawa Family wouldn't have so readily taken him back."

"From the perspective of talent education alone, compared to a sudden mutation like Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, I would rather replicate the life experience of a child like this. After all, whether completely abandoning emotions will improve learning ability or completely utilizing emotions to improve learning ability has always been a hot topic. It's just a pity that there is no longer an opportunity to conduct experiments."

"I remember when I first came here and told Ayanokoji's father about my educational philosophy, I told him that we should use various punishments to make children feel fear, whether it is physical pain or mental pain, as long as it is effective, we should use any method. As long as we keep pursuing and exploring the fear, the fear will eventually disappear. Then they will become focused. The essence of children's poor learning ability is that they cannot focus."

"But now it seems that this idea is still too idealistic, because human emotions are not like reagents in a laboratory, which can be precisely extracted and removed from a single type. The final result will only be that all emotions are completely erased... I can even feel that Ayanokoji Kiyotaka has actually lost the same fear he felt towards the White Room and towards us instructors as he did towards the other test subjects."

After saying this with somewhat mixed feelings, Suzukake Tanji reached for her phone, seemingly intending to end the recording.

"I heard that the entire match will be held inside the closed Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School, so there's no way to observe it up close. That's probably my biggest regret right now."

"Or rather, what I regret is that the child I've observed and created from birth to the present Fate is no longer in my hands."

In the final seconds of the recording, even after the screen went black, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka still heard the other person's last whisper:

What Fate awaits him? In his final moments... will he be able to grasp happiness as he faces death?

"But in fact, he probably doesn't even know what happiness is..."

Only after the entire video recording finished playing did Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's expression show a slight change. After simultaneously copying the file to his phone, he heard a slight knock on the door behind him. Just as his muscles instinctively tensed to prepare for any unexpected situation, the middle-aged man who entered greeted him without warning.

"I didn't expect our first stop would be here."

The man who walked in was Tsukishiro. To put it nicely, he was Yorozuya Odd Jobs Shop); to put it bluntly, he was a speculator. However, because the person he was currently speculating on was Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, the two had temporarily reached a certain degree of cooperation.

"Suzukake, back in the day, I was the one who recommended him to Ayanokoji."

After glancing at the unconscious man lying on the ground, Tsukishiro looked away and gestured with his chin toward Ayanokoji Kiyotaka:

"It seems we've already made some progress?"

"We found a video recording."

He tossed the copied recording of Suzukake Tanji's phone over, and Tsukishiro rubbed his chin as he watched the recording with amusement. Then, he smiled and looked up at Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, bringing up an incident from long ago.

"Classroom of the Elite is an area that any ambitious politician will pay special attention to, regardless of which faction it belongs to. After all, it is one of the things that voters who hold the vote care about the most. So, both Naoe and Onigashima started investing in related areas a long time ago. The former chose the White Room, and the latter chose Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School."

"And why did Naoe choose to put your father in charge of the White Room project? Besides the fact that he was really suited for it, it was also related to a conversation he had with Naoe when he first joined Naoe Faction."

"At that time, Naoe had asked Ayanokoji Atsuomi about education, wanting to see what this young man with no background was thinking, and Ayanokoji Atsuomi's answer at that time was--"

'My educational philosophy is to instill political awareness and understanding in children from a young age, and then cultivate them into strong political figures. To ensure their future is closely linked to the nation's future, I place them under the tutelage of Professor Naoe.'"

At this point, Tsukishiro also let out a sneer:

"How about that? It was undoubtedly a blatant compliment that made people a little uncomfortable, but this answer actually gave Naoe inspiration. In a sense, the White Room project was created for this purpose."

"The same applies to adopting the illegitimate sons of zaibatsu. After all, if used well, it's not entirely impossible to seize the opportunity to usurp power and directly build up a force within the Naoe Faction. Even if this generation of Naoe fails, he can still be used to assist his sons and grandsons."

"But Naoe's mistake was that he failed to realize Ayanokoji Atsuomi's boundless ambition."

"The position of Prime Minister, the highest Leader of a country, is usually not achieved by one generation. Many presidents in the United States have achieved upward mobility through three to four generations of their families. This is indeed a common phenomenon. Naoe certainly thinks so too, so he has now placed his hopes on his son."

"In his view, Ayanokoji Atsuomi had done enough as the first generation, having already transformed from a commoner to a politician. The legacy he left behind was enough for you to achieve an even better start. But Naoe didn't understand that what Ayanokoji Atsuomi wanted from beginning to end was to touch the highest power in his lifetime."

After expressing his feelings in this way, Tsukishiro looked at Ayanokoji Kiyotaka again, as if he had just enjoyed a wonderful show up close:

"But this was something that Ayanokoji Atsuomi hadn't anticipated either."

That is--

"He's 'educated' you, his own son, too well."

P. S.: Thank you for reading and subscribing.

Chapter 82: A Sudden Understanding in a Certain Moment

It was already the fourth day since the start of the Summer Special Exam, but Horikita Suzune still hadn't completed the actually quite simple first stage task.

In reality, with the internet so developed today, the threshold for becoming an internet celebrity has been lowered again and again, let alone posting a popular tweet. After all, every moment, netizens around the world can unexpectedly spark heated discussions with a casual snapshot. What's more, it's just a matter of a hundred likes. Even if one doesn't work, you can always rely on quantity. It shouldn't be stuck like this today.

There are two main reasons why the current situation has occurred.

First, Kitagawa Ryo, who was originally supposed to work with him on the short drama, has now been reassigned. The company that reassigned him is the very famous advertising design company in the industry. They have their eyes on the proposal that Kitagawa Ryo handed over to Ryuen Kakeru yesterday, and then Yoshida and a senior colleague from the same company who also graduated from Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School to submit it.

That's why Kitagawa Ryo had to go over and finish this work in the next couple of days, since he hadn't finished drawing the storyboards and plot yet. Of course, he wasn't working for free; the company would not only give Yoshida, the intern, credit for his work, but would also pay Kitagawa Ryo a real salary.

So now the pressure naturally falls on Horikita Suzune.

To be honest, unlike Kitagawa Ryo, who only wanted to take advantage of this Summer Special Exam to do some work in this field, Horikita Suzune had seriously considered pursuing this path after graduation. That's why she was particularly meticulous about her account and her first tweet or video. After all, if she were to become famous in the future, her earliest posts would definitely be unearthed by the audience, so she should avoid any potential future embarrassing moments from the very beginning.

While she doesn't get as prone to overthinking as before, it's undeniable that Horikita Suzune still retains some of that perfectionist streak, resulting in her current awkward, limboed state.

Thinking of this, Horikita Suzune, who was alone in her studio, took out her phone again, opened her contacts, and immediately spotted Amasawa Ichika, who had even changed his profile picture to an emoji that said "I'm at my workstation, feel free to come over and chat." She casually opened the chat window and sent a greeting emoji.