Reset to Zero

Early the next morning, Class D erupted before the bell even rang.

Gu Heng had barely reached the classroom door when he heard the chaos inside.

"How can there be nothing?"

"I checked three times last night. Not a single point was added!"

"Could the system be malfunctioning?"

"Can someone go ask the teacher?"

Voices piled over one another, and the whole classroom was like a pot with its lid ripped off.

Some people had gone pale.

Some were still putting up a brave front, insisting it had to be a delay.

Others had already lowered their heads to check their balances, their faces growing uglier the longer they looked.

Gu Heng swept his gaze over them.

The transparent layer in his vision lit up one after another.

Panic 82

Shifting blame 67

Anger 74

Wishful thinking 39

The wishful thinking had already dropped.

Good.

It meant these people had finally begun to feel real fear.

Hirata stood in the middle of the classroom, trying to get a few people to calm down first.

"Everyone, don't panic. Let's wait for the teacher to come and then..."

"What are we waiting for the teacher for?!" Ike Kanji was the first to shout. "It's already the start of the month, and the points still haven't come in!"

"Exactly!" someone beside him immediately chimed in. "The school can't just decide not to give them to us, can it?"

"This is ridiculous!"

Sudo slammed his palm onto the desk, louder than anyone else.

"I told you there was something wrong with this damn school!"

"Didn't you say last night that you'd keep treating everyone next month?" someone in the back couldn't help shooting back.

"The hell does that have to do with you?!"

Tempers flared at once.

Horikita stood beside her desk, her expression icy.

She was not panicking like the others.

After all, Gu Heng had warned her in advance.

But seeing the entire class explode like this, she still could not hide the impatience in her eyes.

"What are you making all this noise for?" she said bluntly. "Can shouting bring the points back?"

There was nothing wrong with what she said.

The problem was that Horikita made it sound too much like a reprimand.

Someone in the front row immediately snapped back.

"Easy for you to say!"

"Yeah, if you're so capable, explain why they're gone!"

Horikita's face turned even colder.

She could judge.

She could analyze.

But at a time like this, the more she tried to force the situation under control, the easier it was to push people away.

Gu Heng glanced at Hirata.

Hirata noticed him too.

For an instant, a flash of helplessness crossed Hirata's eyes, as if to say, So it really came to this.

Then he took a breath and raised his voice.

"Everyone, listen to me for a moment!"

The noise in the classroom was halted for an instant.

Not completely.

But at least half the class reflexively looked at him.

That was Hirata's greatest strength.

He did not need to shout to make people give him a moment of their time.

"Gu Heng warned me before," Hirata said, looking at everyone and doing his best to keep his voice steady. "He said there might be a problem with the points this time. Since it's really happened, don't panic. At the very least, let's figure out the reason first."

The moment he said that, the classroom fell silent for half a beat.

The next second, nearly every gaze turned toward the door at once.

Gu Heng stood there without avoiding them.

Ike Kanji was the first to react.

"You knew?"

"If you knew, why didn't you explain it earlier?"

"Yeah! You knew, and you still watched us spend?"

Questions came crashing down all at once.

There was already anger mixed into them.

Gu Heng walked in calmly, set his bag down at his seat, and only then turned to face the class.

"I'm going to say three things."

No one answered.

But no one interrupted him either.

Gu Heng's gaze swept from the front row to the back. His voice was not loud, but it cut through the room with force.

"First, before yesterday, even if I'd told you ten times, you wouldn't have believed me."

"Second, the points not arriving does not mean the school made a mistake, and it certainly does not mean you have the right to start cursing the school."

"Third," he paused, "anyone who still treats this as a simple system issue will still be broke next month."

As his final words fell, several faces in the classroom visibly changed.

"What do you mean?" Sudo frowned at him.

"It means this isn't a delay, and it isn't a coincidence." Gu Heng looked at him. "It's the result."

"What result?"

"The result our class brought upon itself."

That sentence finally pierced the last shred of wishful thinking in the room.

"Why should it be?" someone could not help shouting. "We didn't do anything!"

"Didn't do anything?"

Gu Heng lifted his eyes toward the speaker.

"This month, everyone who was never late even once, raise your hand."

No one moved.

"Everyone who never slept in class, never played on their phone, never talked back to a teacher, raise your hand."

Still no one moved.

This time, even the hushed murmurs grew much quieter.

"Everyone who thoroughly read the school rules handed out at enrollment, raise your hand."

The classroom fell completely silent.

Gu Heng nodded.

"Good. Three questions, and not a single hand went up." His tone was mild. "So instead of reflecting on what you did, your first reaction is to ask why the school didn't give you anything?"

"Do you think this place is a charity?"

It was as if someone had slapped the entire classroom across the face.

It was harsh.

Yet no one could immediately refute him.

Because all three blows had landed dead on target.

Horikita watched him, her eyes shifting slightly.

She had thought that even if Gu Heng stepped forward, he would explain the logic first.

But he had not.

The first thing he did was forcefully suppress the class's instinctive urge to shift blame.

It was not gentle.

But it worked.

"You make it sound so easy." A girl in the back spoke through her anger. "I only have a little over five thousand left. If we really don't get any new points this month, what am I supposed to eat?"

The moment she said that, even more faces turned pale.

Because it was not just her problem.

It was the problem of many people.

Most of those who had spent the most freely over the past few days did not have much left now.

Gu Heng looked at her without mocking her.

"That's why I said the thing to do now isn't keep arguing," he said. "It's to figure out why Class D was deducted to this extent."

"What's the use of figuring it out?" Ike Kanji scratched his head irritably. "No points means no points!"

"It is useful." Horikita suddenly spoke.

Everyone looked at her.

She pressed her lips together, as though she was unaccustomed to picking up where Gu Heng left off at a time like this.

But she said it anyway.

"If personal points really are tied to class evaluations, then having them wiped out this time means the school has been calculating our attitude in class, discipline, and daily conduct from the very beginning." She swept her gaze over everyone. "If you don't understand the rules now, you'll just get zero again next month."

No one in the classroom spoke.

Not because they had been convinced.

But because the words "get zero again" hurt too much.

Sudo looked awful, his fists clenched tight.

"But it can't all be our fault, can it?" he said through gritted teeth. "Did the teachers ever say they would deduct this much?"

"No," Gu Heng said.

"Then why are you..."

"But she never said they wouldn't deduct it."

One sentence choked off the rest of Sudo's words.

His face darkened, but he could not form a proper rebuttal.

Because even he knew how much trouble he had caused in class over the past month.

Gu Heng did not keep staring at him.

Sudo was not the priority yet.

The priority was to suppress the panic in the classroom until people were capable of listening.

"Hirata."

"I'm here."

"Have everyone sit down first."

Hirata took over almost without hesitation.

"Everyone, please return to your seats first, okay? Don't crowd together. At least wait for the teacher and get the situation clarified."

If Gu Heng had said that himself, not everyone would necessarily have listened.

But when Hirata spoke, the effect was different.

A few people looked at each other, then finally returned to their seats.

Kushida took the opportunity to add with a smile:

"Let's sit down first. Otherwise, when the teacher gets here, we'll already be a complete mess ourselves."

With that, even the last few people who had been standing around venting their anger sat back down reluctantly.

Gu Heng watched it all, understanding clearly.

This was not his accomplishment alone.

Hirata's goodwill and Kushida's popularity were both more useful than empty reasoning at a time like this.

What he needed to do was not compete with those things.

It was to borrow them first.

The noise in the classroom finally began to die down.

But the emotions did not.

Only the volume of the outburst had dropped.

Many people lowered their heads and stared at their student IDs as if they were looking at the face of someone they suddenly no longer recognized.

Some were calculating how many days they could last.

Some were checking their spending records for the month, growing more eager to curse themselves the longer they looked.

Others secretly glanced toward Gu Heng, their expressions already completely different from a few days ago.

Gu Heng did not care whether they were convinced.

He only cared about one thing.

From this moment on, Class D finally had people willing to listen to him first when things blew up.

That was enough.

When the class bell rang, Sae Chabashira pushed open the door right on time.

She swept her gaze across the classroom.

It had been in chaos.

But now, they had at least reluctantly returned to their seats.

That probably surprised her a little.

Yet nothing showed on her face. As usual, she simply placed her lesson plan on the podium.

The next second, Ike Kanji was the first to lose his patience and stand up.

"Teacher, why haven't the points come in?"

It was as if those words opened the floodgates.

"Yeah, did the system glitch?"

"Didn't they say we'd get them every month?"

"Why didn't Class D get a single point?"

After hearing them out, Sae Chabashira did not even raise an eyebrow.

She merely looked at the faces below her, finally beginning to panic, her tone calm to the point of cruelty.

"The system did not malfunction."

That single sentence nailed every voice dead.

"Your additional personal points for this month," she paused, "are zero."

It was as though all the air had suddenly been sucked from the room.

The classroom became so quiet that only several noticeably heavier breaths remained.

Sudo abruptly straightened.

"Why?"

Sae Chabashira finally lifted her eyes and looked over the entire classroom.

"Want to know why?"

Her cold gaze swept across everyone before stopping at the front rows, as though she were looking at a group of students finally receiving their first lesson.

"Class D has never been Class D because of bad luck."

"It is because you truly deserve that evaluation."