Professor

Early the next morning.

Chen Feng followed the Imposter Trainees from his dormitory to a second-floor classroom.

He pushed the door open, but the goat-headed teacher Yellow Hair had mentioned was nowhere in sight.

Did those three kill him?

With that thought, Chen Feng went to the desk in the corner.

A book, a notebook, and a black gel pen lay on it.

Chen Feng opened the book. It was full of classical prose and poetry.

When he opened the notebook, he found a slip of paper tucked inside.

So there really is a secret.

He looked closer. It was a map of the Internet Addiction Rehabilitation School!

First was the Internet Addiction Rehabilitation Building, where Chen Feng was. Professor Sheep's office and the Electric Shock room were on the third floor, the cafeteria and classrooms on the second, and the dormitories and bathrooms on the first.

Behind the building was the solitary confinement room—the little dark room where Chen Feng had been locked up. Beyond it lay a psychiatric sanatorium. A skull was drawn over it, with a note below: "In an emergency, you can pretend to be insane to get in, but no one who has entered has ever come back."

Yellow Hair's ranking of the dangers had called Rabbit Nurse the final boss. It seemed the sanatorium really was even more dangerous than the Academy.

In front of the building was the athletic field, and it was no simple place either. The map stated that anyone crossing it at night would be trapped by a ghostly maze. To pass through, they needed the key from Professor Sheep's office.

Chen Feng immediately realized it was just like the real and fake third floors of Happiness Internet Cafe. The key would reveal the hidden passage.

Beyond the field was the Academy's main gate. Electrified walls surrounded it and could not be climbed. Beside the gate stood the Pig-Headed Man's security booth, marked with a skull to warn against confronting him head-on.

If I can't face him head-on, I can go around him.

The walls can't be climbed while they're electrified. But what if the power's out?

Remembering last night's blackout, Chen Feng guessed the three of them must have stolen the office key, cut the school's power, and climbed over the wall to escape.

If they could do it, I should be able to as well.

Chen Feng spent the morning pretending to read, then ate lunch.

That afternoon, it was time for physical training under the Pig-Headed Man again.

"Horse stance, hic! Horizontal strike."

"Hmph!"

"Inward block, hic! Rising hook!"

"Ha!"

The Pig-Headed Man was acting strangely today. He kept belching and staggered as he walked, as though he were drunk.

An hour into training, a tall, thin figure in a white coat came in from the direction of the school gate. He had the head of a goat.

So that's the professor everyone talks about?

With that scrawny build, Chen Feng thought the Pig-Headed Man could flatten him with one punch. Yet as the goat-headed figure approached, the Pig-Headed Man trembled all over and grew visibly tense.

That monster makes the ground shake when he walks, and he's afraid?

Professor Sheep extended a hand. With a crackle, an arc of lightning shot out.

The Pig-Headed Man convulsed and collapsed unconscious.

After disciplining Pig Instructor, Professor Sheep looked over the trainees and said gently, "Last night, two bad children tried to run away. I've worked so hard to keep them from going astray. Why can't they understand that I only want what's best for them?"

Two?

Weren't there three?

Chen Feng frowned, fearing for Li Guolong and the others.

Professor Sheep clapped his hands, and the Imposter Trainees escorted two people over. "After some correction and education, I believe they've seen the error of their ways. They won't be bad children again."

Chen Feng recognized Yellow Hair and the fat man at once. But now their faces were blank and their smiles vacant. They looked exactly like the Imposters.

They had both been turned into monsters!

Why are there only two? What happened to Li Guolong? Did he escape, or did he die?

Questions spun through Chen Feng's mind.

Professor Sheep offered no explanation. He strode off the field.

That afternoon, after training ended.

Chen Feng immediately went up to the fat man and Yellow Hair. "Hey, do you remember me?"

Neither reacted. Both looked perfectly calm.

It seemed becoming monsters had stripped them of their humanity and memories.

Chen Feng tried to jog Yellow Hair's memory. "Yellow Hair! Wake up! Have you forgotten you wanted to escape and become a pro gamer?"

Yellow Hair suddenly shuddered. At last, he reacted.

It's working!

Chen Feng was about to continue when Yellow Hair raised a hand and reported him to Pig Instructor. "Going online is for bad children."

Chen Feng was made to stand alone on the field for another hour.

At dinner.

Looking at Yellow Hair and the fat man, now turned into Imposters, Chen Feng had another idea.

The Mythic Three Kingdoms System had a Blessing that could restore them.

Hua Tuo's Blessing: Green Pouch.

A green pouch was a cloth bag ancient physicians used to carry medical books. Legend had it that before Cao Cao executed the famed physician Hua Tuo, Hua Tuo filled one with his medical writings and gave it to a prison guard. Those writings became known as the Green Pouch Classic.

The Green Pouch Blessing could completely heal one living being at the cost of one Point.

Chen Feng weighed his options.

Healing both of them would cost two Points. Once they recovered, he could learn why their escape had failed yesterday. He might even discover how Li Guolong had managed to get away!

But if he spent those Points on Load Save, he could save both of them for one Point and get a new system to boot.

I'd lose the information, but if I go with them in the next cycle, I'll find out why they failed anyway, won't I?

For the next few days, Chen Feng followed the routine.

Classes, physical training, early nights, and early mornings.

To be fair, aside from the three daily meals being unfit for human consumption, the place wasn't bad.

Given how dangerous Cihang City was, even if he escaped, he might get caught in another hellhole like this one. At Happiness Internet Cafe, the woman at the front desk might eat him for dessert over the slightest disagreement.

It's like a bird in a cage. It loses its freedom, but it gains safety.

As long as I follow the rules, at least I won't have to worry about dying at any moment.

The more Chen Feng thought about it, the more something felt wrong. He just couldn't say what.

Then one day, he saw the girl with glasses had been turned into an Imposter Model Student.

That's strange. She never broke any rules.

She even kept reporting other trainees to the instructors. She was a model student if ever there was one. Why would she be punished?

Wait. Model student!

Could obeying the rules here eventually make you one of them? Is that how people get turned into Model Students?

Chen Feng remembered a film, The Shawshank Redemption, that had raised the idea of institutionalization.

Put simply, when someone first went to prison, he hated it. Gradually, he grew used to it. Eventually, he found he no longer knew how to live outside it.

That was institutionalization.

In the same way, submitting to the rules here would gradually turn a person into a monster.

At that thought, Chen Feng slapped his right cheek hard to snap himself out of it.

"Wake up!"

"Don't forget, those bastards locked me up for seven days! Seven whole days!"

Chen Feng swore to himself that he would get revenge on them.

His chance came soon enough.

A few nights later, rain poured down.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Chen Feng opened his eyes in the dormitory, where he had been feigning sleep. It was time to raise hell.

[Rainy weather detected. Summoning Water Ghost... Summon successful!]

Footprints appeared from nowhere on the athletic field, and the surrounding air suddenly turned cold.

Chen Feng opened the dormitory door, pointed at his Imposter roommates, and gave his order:

"Old Water, kill them."

"Yeah. Kill them all. Leave no one alive."