Chapter 15: The Future World (Part II)
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The teacher on patrol cast a sharp glance over and caught Lu Xing secretly observing his surroundings.
“Please concentrate on your morning reading. One point will be deducted for this lapse in attention!”
“What?”
I only got distracted once, and you deduct a point from me?
The only time Lu Xing had encountered such a ruthless disciplinary system was back in primary school.
Half an hour later, morning reading finally ended, and the students were given five minutes of break time.
One after another, the students rose and left the classroom. Some wore indifferent expressions, others faint smiles. There was none of the horseplay found in schools of the twenty-first century, much less the suggestive glances and heated romances between boys and girls.
Lu Xing walked out of the classroom and, in the guise of a little girl, stood by the railing, silently observing the school in this virtual world.
Five minutes later, he returned to his seat and took his books from beneath the desk. A slip of paper fell onto the desktop.
Without changing expression, Lu Xing covered it with his books.
This was mathematics class. A teacher—whether human or artificial intelligence, he could not tell—walked up to the podium and smiled.
“Today we will study a proof. Every integer greater than two can be expressed as the sum of three prime numbers. I have blocked your Internet access. Please spend half an hour thinking and discussing the problem. Afterward, I will explain how it can be proved.”
“...”
If Lu Xing remembered correctly, this was the Goldbach conjecture. Were high school students in the future really this formidable?
The students began discussing the problem in groups of three or four. Lu Xing was forced to become a listener, and he soon discovered that even if he knew how to prove the Goldbach conjecture, he could not understand a word of their conversation.
“Which direction do you think we should begin from?”
“Try starting with decomposition mathematics and applying Zhang Feng’s theorem.”
“I think we could begin with uncertain dice. The opposing prime theorem mentioned something about that...”
Lu Xing remained expressionless.
He had discovered something, though he was not entirely certain yet.
Once the discussion had quieted somewhat, he secretly glanced at the slip of paper beneath his books. It contained only one sentence:
“You are human.”
Lu Xing’s heart suddenly quickened, as though a ghost had caught him in a sinister game.
Still, after everything he had experienced over the past few days, his mental resilience was fairly strong. He quickly regained his composure, pinched the paper apart with his fingertips, and waited a minute until the scraps vanished from his palm.
“Student B73.”
The mathematics teacher called on him from the podium, smiling.
“Tell us your approach.”
Lu Xing had been prepared for this. He rose and replied calmly, “Teacher, I don’t know.”
There was no laughter. The classroom was utterly silent.
The mathematics teacher nodded with a smile.
“Your creative thinking is very weak. Go to the infirmary for an examination after class. Ten points will be deducted from this assessment. Sit down.”
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Lu Xing clenched Jiang Xuannu’s tiny fist. He really wanted to punch this entire world as hard as he could!
It was completely unreasonable!
He naturally failed to understand even half a word of the proof that followed. After class, he followed the teacher’s instructions and prepared to visit the infirmary.
This time, the break lasted twenty minutes.
Lu Xing walked through the peaceful, friendly corridors and headed down the stairs toward the infirmary.
“Hey.”
Someone called out to him in a mocking tone.
“You’re not actually going to the infirmary, are you?”
Lu Xing stopped and turned toward the two students standing above him on the staircase.
“Going to the infirmary was the teacher’s order.”
The two of them were his classmates, one boy and one girl. Neither had any particularly remarkable height or appearance. The only thing that had left an impression on Lu Xing was the boy’s center-parted hair, its ends slightly turned upward, giving him an aggressive air.
The girl stood with her arms folded, looking down at Lu Xing with a cold gaze. After a moment, she sneered.
“You’ve made the wrong judgment. She isn’t human!”
As she spoke, a small knife appeared in her hand, and she slashed it through the air.
“Warning: network interruption.”
The warning came from Jiang Xuannu’s auxiliary chip. Lu Xing immediately realized that this was a network attack within the virtual world.
But the first item in Jiang Xuannu’s list of precautions warned him not to act rashly. Under no circumstances could he reveal that he was human.
“Your judgment is poor. Mine is not.”
The center-parted boy countered her sharply as he slowly descended the stairs, his eyes fixed on Lu Xing.
“She concealed herself very well these past few years. I was almost fooled, and none of the human organizations in the school ever discovered her. Not until today.”
“What was unusual about her today?” the girl asked with interest, still holding the knife.
Lu Xing knew how to respond.
He remained silent, calmly watching the two of them perform their little act.
The chip had given him another prompt:
Backup network connected.
He did not know why. Perhaps Jiang Xuannu had left behind a backup network, or perhaps it was a privilege granted by his score of 1,700 points.
Either way, he could infer that their network attack posed no serious threat to him.
“You didn’t notice? When she entered the school, she looked from side to side. Before entering the classroom, she glanced upward. When she took out her books, she flipped through them without any order. During morning reading, she was warned by the teacher. After class, she stood staring at the scenery in a daze.”
The center-parted boy spoke with certainty.
The two of them stared at Lu Xing together.
“Your judgment is entirely baseless,” Lu Xing replied. “Moreover, judging by your behavior, I suspect that both of you are human.”
The girl grew tense, but the boy merely laughed.
“You can stop pretending. Once they see the note, they won’t conceal themselves. They’ll report it immediately. You are human!”
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“So you were the one who left the note!”
Lu Xing’s eyes sharpened.
“I am a member of the Counter-Revolutionary Committee. You are under arrest!”
The expressions of the two people changed at the same time. The girl’s small knife transformed into a massive cleaver, while the boy raised his hand. A gigantic hammer appeared in the air, and he caught it.
Lu Xing had just been about to laugh. The people of the future really were no match for their ancestors when it came to scheming.
But in the very next moment—
“Attack detected. Activating combat mode.”
His body extended one hand against his will, and his slender finger pointed toward the two of them.
Bang!
The cleaver and the giant hammer vanished. The force knocked both of them onto the stairs, where they sat in terror, staring at him.
Lu Xing calmly withdrew his hand and asked again, “Are you human?”
The two exchanged a glance. Almost simultaneously, they suppressed their frightened expressions and smiled.
“We aren’t human. We were merely cooperating with your operation just now!”
Lu Xing could no longer hold back and burst into laughter.
Only then did the two across from him realize that they had been deceived. Their faces darkened as they rose coldly to their feet.
Lu Xing could see their anger, but had no intention of smoothing things over.
“You attacked me for no reason. I haven’t even held you accountable yet.”
The girl answered, “I cut off your network for your own safety. They don’t like humans communicating in private. I have no desire to be sent to the second layer.”
Lu Xing found this strange. Wasn’t revealing one’s identity supposed to reset one’s score to zero?
He asked them another question.
“Why did you come looking for me? Are you members of the Human Resistance?”
“No. I’ve never heard of such an organization in the school. We belong to the White Cat Union. My name is Chu Caifeng, and her name is Zhou Duohao. We came to invite you to join the White Cat Union.”
The boy with the center-parted hair pointed at the girl.
Lu Xing looked at them in surprise, confirming that those were indeed their names and that he had not misunderstood.
“My name is Lu Xing, also known as Jiang Xuannu. I need to learn about the current situation of humanity—in other words, your situation—before I make a decision.”
“Very well. Here is some information. It is partially public material. Once your identity has been confirmed, our captain will transmit more information to you.”
Chu Caifeng, the center-parted boy, sent him a file. Lu Xing’s auxiliary chip received it almost immediately. Once the transmission was complete, the two members of the White Cat Union quickly departed.
Lu Xing did not go to the infirmary after all. He wandered through the corridor for a while, then returned to the classroom and sat down.
He was desperate to learn about the current state of humanity.
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