Class Is Dismissed, Students

Like the Boy Who Lived chanting Expecto Patronum, that shout—"Hey, come back"—seemed willful and impulsive, yet resonated like an ancient incantation calling back a wandering soul. Before it, the entire world fell silent like loyal subjects. *Hum...* The spilled blood flowed back into his body. Around Bai Zhou, everything rewound like a videotape in reverse, sucked backward into place. His shriveled arms and legs rapidly swelled back to life, his failing vitality rocketing back to its peak. Bai Zhou stared down at himself in dazed disbelief, then sprang up, lively and fully restored. What just happened? Wasn't I on the brink of death a moment ago? The Life-Stealing Spirit Cat was still on cooldown, and even if it hadn't been, there were no other living creatures in this godforsaken place for him to steal life from... So at that moment, Bai Zhou had truly accepted his fate. He had fought his hardest, and he had lived a colorful life. Yet now—what on earth was this? Bai Zhou's pupils constricted slightly as he closely scrutinized Fang Xiaoxia, who suddenly seemed somewhat unfamiliar. Nearby, Crow silently withdrew her hand, the hideous streaks of blood on the back of it gradually fading away. "Caw!" Perched on Crow's shoulder, the blazing red glow in the pitch-black Three-Legged Crow's eyes dimmed. It tilted its head, letting out a caw that sounded almost disappointed. "Welcome back!" Fang Xiaoxia said cheerfully, watching Bai Zhou stand before her once more. "Bai Zhou, you've told me plenty of strange and fantastical stories. The truth is, I have a story of my own." Her silhouette stretched, casting a shadow across Bai Zhou's shoulder—at once familiar and alien. A crimson moon rose in the depths of her eyes, as if an empress were descending to reign over the night. "A long, long time ago, in a forest, there was a silly monkey," Fang Xiaoxia began, using a rather cliché yet classic fairy-tale opening. "This monkey always loved looking up at the unreachable moon. It even tried to scoop the moon from the water, only to fall into the pool, drenched and miserable, while all its companions laughed. That was until the moon itself reached down with its own hands and scooped the silly monkey out of the pool. All the other monkeys were dumbfounded, utterly stunned. And from then on, no one ever mocked that monkey for being silly again." The blood moon rose and dipped in the depths of her eyes. Fang Xiaoxia looked at Bai Zhou, her gaze sparkling brightly. "The monkey knew all along that moonlight never shines on just one person. But at least in that single moment, the moonlight truly fell upon that monkey." In one's life, there are always people you meet only to lose soon after. Those visitors, who never belonged to you in the first place, always burst into your tiny world like a sudden tempest. Arriving like heavenly soldiers bearing the most breathtaking sights, they gift you the most wonderful memories in the world and then depart. And so you feel sorrowful, wanting to weep over why you couldn't hold on to them. Yet even if you had held on, where would you have put them? That radiance was simply too brilliant. Suddenly, you realize there was no better choice than to let them go. All you can do is reminisce. But what if that person didn't just leave, but died? What if, for your sake, all their brilliance faded, and they lay dying in your arms? *You are the moon that fished me out of the pool. You should always be glorious, always hanging high in the sky. How could you...* *How could you die!* And so Fang Xiaoxia made a deal with the other self inside her heart. Whatever the cost, even if she had to turn into a demon for it, she didn't hesitate. Yes, even if Bai Zhou still wouldn't belong to Fang Xiaoxia afterward, it didn't matter—the moon in the sky never belonged to anyone. But for a fleeting moment, the moonlight had truly shone down upon Fang Xiaoxia's head, granting her salvation like a rebirth. Just like the monkey scooping the moon, knowing full well the reflection in the water was fake—what did it matter? The moon was never in the water; it had always been in the sky. You didn't need to fish it out at every turn to prove it existed, yet the moon you loved would always be real— As long as it stayed there, glowing bright, shining forever and ever, the silly monkey would be happy. And so, Fang Xiaoxia looked at Bai Zhou and spoke in earnest, every word descending like a divine oracle, sending tremors and distortions through the world: "—Bai Zhou, you have to shine brightly forever!" As her words fell, gale-force winds howled. Obscure syllables rolled from Fang Xiaoxia's lips, their cadence rising steadily like an ancient prayer or incantation as miraculous power gently descended upon Bai Zhou. Across that boundless wilderness, the other Fang Xiaoxia told her: *The deal is struck. Go, Fang Xiaoxia! This is your stage. Go pass judgment, go take revenge, go look down upon all creation! Go devour that woman now, and together we shall rule the world.* Yet Fang Xiaoxia had no desire to rule the world, let alone replace that obnoxious woman in the sky to become a true demon. She was just the plain, simple Fang Xiaoxia, with her own little thoughts and playful quirks. And so, looking at the man before her, she chanted the final verse of the incantation. The meaning of the archaic, obscure spell gradually became clear to Bai Zhou. What she said was— "Unto you, I grant the blade, to act upon Heaven's will!" "Walk the Path of Heaven, preside over judgment and punishment!" Bai Zhou's figure suddenly froze. Fang Xiaoxia's syllables echoed softly into every corner of the crimson world. Invisible ripples drifted out as the entire realm bowed in submission to the incantation's command. From the unseen depths, they transmitted a single, unified thought. They said: *As you command.* A blood moon rose in Bai Zhou's eyes. In the next instant, matchless power surged from every part of Bai Zhou's body. That sensation of holding everything in his grasp—of reigning superior over the world itself—gave Bai Zhou a glimpse of what the demon woman had experienced earlier. Yet he soon realized this wasn't raw strength; it was authority—authority granted by the world. Li Manman was the master of this realm, and so was Fang Xiaoxia. The demon woman was a demon, and the power slumbering inside Fang Xiaoxia was a demon as well... Although that power lacked a dominant consciousness, once swayed by Fang Xiaoxia's emotions and faced with the covetous desire of its other half, it instinctively harbored a rebellious will. Thus, the demon had bestowed its authority upon Fang Xiaoxia. Having become the master of the world, Fang Xiaoxia was nearly omnipotent here; mending a grievously wounded person was as effortless as lifting a finger. And the cost was easy to guess—in all likelihood, it was for Fang Xiaoxia to devour the other half of the demon and become a true, complete demon. Li Manman wanted to swallow Fang Xiaoxia, and the "Fang Xiaoxia" within instinctively wanted to consume Li Manman, turning the tables and supplanting the master! Yet now, Fang Xiaoxia had handed that authority over to Bai Zhou. Faintly, within the power coursing through Bai Zhou's body, an astonished and indignant roar resembling Fang Xiaoxia's voice could be heard, only more mature. At this moment, deep within Bai Zhou's eyes, the Hundred-Paper Corridor Ritual—which had deduced a certain death across a hundred iterations— Was broken. "Why give it to me...?" Bai Zhou looked at Fang Xiaoxia with a slight daze. "Come on, Big Brother," Fang Xiaoxia rolled her eyes. "I have world-authority, and she has world-authority too. Once the two authorities cancel each other out, how could a regular person like me possibly be a match for a demon?" "That voice told me to kill the demon and merge with her... but if I really merge with that person, would I still be me?" Fang Xiaoxia blinked. "Along with the demonic power I gave you, tear everything here to pieces, Bai Zhou!" Fang Xiaoxia said in all seriousness, "Just like before, my fate is entirely in your hands!" "After all, you're my little sun. How could you be so frail?" Fang Xiaoxia bared her canines fiercely. "Go beat the living daylights out of that obnoxious woman above us for me!" It turned out Fang Xiaoxia had been the "smartest" one all along. She had tricked the demon's power out of it to save Bai Zhou, yet had no intention of shouldering the demon's mission. Even the demon had been outplayed by her. As long as Fang Xiaoxia didn't kill the demon with her own hands, the demonic power dormant inside her couldn't devour the other half to complete itself. By transferring the swindled authority to Bai Zhou, Fang Xiaoxia became an ordinary human once again. From here on out, the battle was once again Bai Zhou's to command. *Whoosh!* At that moment, a destructive pillar of light plunged from the sky. The crimson brilliance moved far faster than sound, surging forward as though carrying the malice of an entire world. Had it been the old Bai Zhou, facing such a beam would have forced him to dodge with all his might, never daring to let it touch him. Now, however, Bai Zhou merely looked up. The sensation of commanding the realm rested in his palm. Driven almost purely by instinct, Bai Zhou snapped his fingers and issued a command to the world: "Nullified!" In the next instant, everything across the entire world surged. Invisible pressure converged from all directions, intercepting the beam of light midair, compressing it, compressing it, compressing it... until it shrank into a tiny sphere and vanished into nothingness. "So this is what it feels like..." Bai Zhou felt as though he had merged into one with this small realm. Wielding its power was as effortless as moving his own limbs, far stronger than when he was in the high school of the Reflected Ruin Realm. Bai Zhou turned to look at Fang Xiaoxia, whose eyes seemed to sparkle, and said earnestly, "All right." Then he leaped into the air, soaring into the high skies. He was going to fulfill his promise and beat that woman senseless. "They say revenge shouldn't wait overnight, but even you probably didn't expect it to come this quickly, did you?" Bai Zhou arrived before the demon woman once more, standing upon empty air as though the entire world were holding him aloft. Invisible momentum surged through the sky as their contest unfolded, the whole realm seeming to split into two distinct halves locked in a tug-of-war. "To think a mere fragment would harbor the urge to devour its master." The demon woman knitted her brows, casting a glance at Fang Xiaoxia on the ground before turning back to Bai Zhou. "What I didn't expect was that the one standing before me in the end would be you, not her..." "Kill you, bury this realm, and send away the masterless power within Fang Xiaoxia along with it," Bai Zhou replied coldly. "It's time to end this." "You don't honestly think that taking hold of the world's authority means you can kill me, do you?" As though hearing an amusing joke, a mocking smile curled at the corners of the demon woman's lips. "Young demon-slayer, I thought you weren't so naive." "Why wouldn't I? You don't even have a physical body." The purple-gold saber in Bai Zhou's hand hummed incessantly, its blazing blade looking as though it had just been drawn from magma. It, too, yearned for vengeance. "A body?" The demon woman gave a light chuckle, turning her palm upward to reveal an ancient metal vial painted with a crying face. With a soft click, the vial opened. An invisible ripple dispersed through the air, as if nothing had happened at all. Bai Zhou's gaze sharpened, yet bewilderment arose within him. He recognized that vial. It was unmistakably the Vial of Regret that Major Luo had bought at the ghost market auction for 200 cinders. [When the bearer experiences exceptionally intense negative emotions, they may infuse their blood into the vial. The vial records and amplifies these emotions, altering the blood. Afterward, coating a weapon in this blood grants a uniquely enchanted armament that influences and infects an enemy's state of mind upon striking. The side effect: the bearer becomes increasingly melancholic and sentimental.] Bai Zhou recalled the auctioneer's description of the Vial of Regret, but couldn't understand why the demon woman had brought it out now. "This is quite the treasure. Few know its true origins, but it is an ancient relic of a prior civilization. "Its real purpose is to gather and unleash negative emotions—and the more, the better." The demon woman tilted her head slightly, her gaze seeming to pierce through the crimson canopy toward a certain middle school deep in the Reflected Ruin Realm. "In the Reflected Ruin Realm, in Yuanmeng Middle School, if there is one thing never in short supply, it is precisely this. "Besides, what do you think a demon is—" Chi withdrew her gaze, her crimson eyes staring deeply at Bai Zhou. "It is the condensed essence and physical form born from the settling of all that is foulest, most sinful, most resentful, and most unclean in the mortal world! "A body? Since when has a body been such an inconvenient constraint? "A demon can possess anything. It is a demon's instinct. I can possess a world, and just as easily..." Before the demon woman could finish, wails abruptly rang out from every corner of the realm. These wails coalesced from countless faint sounds. Across the ground, the skeletal remains of school uniform monsters trembled as they were drawn into the sky, and the nine worlds of Chinese, mathematics, English, chemistry, and the rest rose into the air in response. Skeletons shattered into bone dust; the nine great mountains collapsed, unleashing countless phantom silhouettes that blotted out the sky, far too dense to count. Bones rose, fleshy growths formed, and countless voices swept through the heavens like a black flood breaching a dam. Amid howling frigid winds, blood rain and molten magma poured from the skies as a hideous, unfathomably colossal monster gradually took shape. Whispering murmurs reached Bai Zhou's ears. Then he saw countless torn fragments of school uniforms, yellowed exam papers, snapped 2B pencils, deformed pink plastic lunchboxes, scratched black-framed glasses, and countless tear-stained, crumpled textbook pages... Innumerable objects piled together in dense clusters, merging and proliferating amid endless frantic murmurs, until they coalesced into a monster over two hundred meters across—massive, twisted, translucent like a gigantic jellyfish, yet oozing viscous fluid without pause! "#@Y!" Strange murmurs from the monster drifted across the sky, resembling a whale's long cry in the clouds or the chattering of birds flitting midair. The gigantic jellyfish floated aloft, casting a suffocating shadow. Looking up at it, both Fang Xiaoxia and the Gem Witch found their minds going completely blank. What sent chills down Bai Zhou's spine the most was that across the jellyfish's translucent surface, countless blurred faces of students—crying, numb, despairing—crowded, surfaced, and vanished in endless succession. The demon woman's silhouette was gone; Chi had entered this colossal spectral jellyfish, her voice echoing from deep within in a chorus of layered murmurs: "The negative emotions piled up inside Yuanmeng Middle School in the Ruin Realm are my finest nourishment, and the school demon's ultimate body. Possessing world-authority and standing on the same level as me is merely the bare threshold to seeing my true form. "Despair, tremble—or you can choose to submit directly." Chi said to Bai Zhou, "Now, your second exam may begin." Only now could Bai Zhou finally hear clearly what those rustling whispers circling the jellyfish were saying. ["If you don't study hard today, you'll regret it for the rest of your life!"] A stern male voice, punctuated by the sharp crack of a piece of chalk thrown against someone's forehead. ["Look at Xiao Wen—her parents don't even have to tell her, she studies on her own, and she took first place in class again!"] A mother's weary yet expectant nagging, echoing over the background murmur of living-room television commercials. ["Your class is the noisiest in the entire building! How many days until the college entrance exam? If you fail, your life is over!"] A homeroom teacher's roar, punctuated by heavy thuds on the podium, each strike pounding like a blow against a terrified heart. ["Play, play, play... You dragged down the class average. Do you have any shame toward your classmates? Are you completely shameless?"] A teacher's needle-sharp mocking whisper. ["Eat, eat, eat! Look how fat you've gotten! If you spent the time you waste eating on studying, you'd have gotten into a good university long ago!"] A teacher's reprimand, accompanied by the rustle of snacks being snatched away. ["Can dreams put food on the table? We're ordinary people. We can't compare to rich families with tutoring resources, nor can we compare to kids whose families can get them admitted on recommendation while they just fool around. You should be grateful if you can follow the steps and get into an ordinary college. This is your only way out. Stop dreaming about natural freedom and hobbies..."] A rigid teacher's suffocating, dull drone. ["You there, your name is Jiaojiao, meaning pride, but have you ever made your parents proud?"] ["Looking like this, who can you face? Your teachers, your parents, or... yourself?"] ["It's all for your own good."] ["Did anyone force you?"] ["You're a bit of a disappointment."] Feather-light rhetorical questions, unanswerable criticisms, appraisal and valuation as if one were an object, suffocating pressure after suffocating pressure, anxiety upon anxiety. Fragments of speech drifted like wandering specters, tightly woven with shame, anxiety, fear, resentment, anger, and numbness. Resembling nooses meant to hang a soul, they were catalyzed by the Vial of Regret, turning into slimy, translucent tentacles on the spectral jellyfish that endlessly repeated those whispers. Suffering and resentment—that was the essence of a demon. All the negative emotions buried beneath Yuanmeng Middle School in the Reflected Ruin Realm, accumulated over untold years, now erected an infinite hell before Bai Zhou named "School." This was what the true form of the School Demon was meant to be. Not some flesh-and-blood building, nor a Red Spider. Each thread of resentment was a tentacle, and each tentacle was a life for the demon. "One thousand and one tentacles, one thousand and one grudges—the equivalent of one thousand and one lives. You would have to kill me one thousand and one times to truly end me." The demon woman's smug murmur resonated from every single tentacle of the jellyfish. Youthful faces surfaced across each one, only to swiftly twist into the demon woman's visage, an utterly harrowing sight. "Yet these are all grudges, dead remnants that have already perished. How can they be killed? You possess no means to destroy them!" She whispered faintly, "Now, who could possibly kill me? "Fall forever into the academy hell I've woven for you!" In a daze, everything before Bai Zhou shifted. He saw an empty podium bathed in sunlight; he saw the national flag standing quietly outside the window at three in the afternoon; he saw a half-erased blackboard and desks piled high with mountains of books. These classrooms, podiums, and desks belonged to no single person, yet they told the story of everyone in the Blue Star Eastern Federation. Bai Zhou looked down at himself and found he was wearing a teacher's uniform, an ID badge pinned to his chest reading: [Psychology Teacher, Zhou Ya]. When he looked up again, Bai Zhou saw so much. He saw students in dormitories waking at six in the morning and sleeping at two at night, burning the midnight oil every day until the morning dew soaked the leaves. He saw the sweltering season of short sleeves beneath the twilight, where exhausted children in hallways and on athletic fields hurried even as they rushed to the cafeteria for a meal. He also saw students receiving their exam papers, pretending not to care about their scores, even as their reddened rims failed to conceal the bitterness deep within. Bai Zhou was nearly lost in the trance. Finally, he saw these children grow up and leave the campus. Yet when they left, only their bodies walked beyond the gates. Their souls remained behind, expressions blank, crowding the school entrance, unable to step outside. *You have never left this place.* Those words flashed through Bai Zhou's mind. Those who had grown up but seemingly never found peace seemed to crowd before Bai Zhou, half-smiling, half-weeping. They said to him with timid hesitation: "Psychology Teacher, I don't feel well..." Bai Zhou remained silent for a moment. He was certain that if an ordinary native of Blue Star, a person of Tinghai like the Gem Witch, were standing here, they would likely have been assimilated into their ranks by now, trapped in this world forever. Even for Bai Zhou himself, it was hard not to recall the anxiety, agony, and desperate struggles during his days in the Black Robe Youth Training Corps. Yet to Bai Zhou, those were things of the past. And so, facing their quiet inquiry, Bai Zhou stood silently in place. Then, looking down at the psychology teacher badge on his chest, he shook his head at the crowd before him. "You've already done wonderfully." "You've worked hard, everyone." "But I'm sorry," Bai Zhou murmured. "Nothing here is my story. "And so, I cannot stay here." The instant the words left his lips, the scene shattered. The monster was still baring its fangs and claws before him. In reality, less than a thousandth of a second had elapsed. The school demon's voice carried profound astonishment: "You... have you never gone to school? "—How could you not be affected in the slightest?" It wasn't that he hadn't been affected at all. Bai Zhou's mood didn't seem particularly good. Under the school demon's astonished gaze, beneath the suffocating shadow of the two-hundred-meter jellyfish, Bai Zhou took out a backpack. [Slumbering Totoro Backpack] The last words that had remained utterly dormant upon the Major's death were now in a wild frenzy inside the backpack, resonating in tandem with the tentacles woven from resentment. *You've already done wonderfully...* Bai Zhou recalled his answer. He had lied. In truth, there were bound to be students who hadn't satisfied their own standards, and students who regretted what they had gone through back then. People couldn't walk away from that campus for all sorts of reasons, and grades were only part of it. After all, youth was simply filled with regrets. "Life doesn't come with an instruction manual, so I don't know what a person is supposed to live like either." Bai Zhou simply believed that no matter what the past was like, if someone spent all their time blaming it because they were dissatisfied with the present, wouldn't they lose their future too? He exhaled slowly and looked at the colossal jellyfish before him. The jellyfish couldn't see those last words. Yet seeing Bai Zhou's gaze, the colossal jellyfish—which possessed one thousand and one lives, could contest Bai Zhou until the end of time, and held an infinite chance of victory—suddenly felt an inexplicable trace of unease. "Truth be told, we both hold world-authority now. Once they cancel each other out, this form of yours really isn't something I could defeat and kill..." Bai Zhou gently caressed the hundreds upon thousands of last words inside his backpack. "But they can." Against anything else, it might have been difficult, but against this... Bai Zhou truly had a way! The last words were filled with an obsession for revenge against the demon. They clamored eagerly to fight, telling Bai Zhou they could "kill" those grudges. After all, those grudges were what they had left behind in the first place. Standing on the same platform only granted Bai Zhou the qualification to kill the demon, but the revelation of the demon's true form was what truly showed him her— Kill threshold! Yet Bai Zhou still lacked one thing. Something that could unify these last words and launch them outward. After all, simple last words had no physical form and couldn't be manipulated by Bai Zhou... *Hum.* Answering Bai Zhou's heart, repaying Bai Zhou's salvation, resolving Bai Zhou's troubles— An item shone brilliantly in Bai Zhou's breast. "This is...?" Bai Zhou pulled out a crumpled paper airplane. At this moment, the airplane was vibrating steadily, radiating vibrant dawn light. [59-Point Paper Airplane] [Imbued with students' longing for freedom and their yearning for the sky outside classroom windows, born of deceased souls' gratitude toward a teacher. The impoverished students had nothing to give, able only to offer this pure emotion.] [Board this plane to soar freely into the high heavens.] [Scores are merely the runway for takeoff; once airborne, the plane never needs to land again, pressing ever forward toward infinite possibilities. Depart, and soar high! Where the nose points is the flight path named "Future"!] Bai Zhou paused in brief realization. Of course. What could be more fitting than this paper airplane—symbolizing freedom and longing—to carry these last words that equally yearned for release, to shatter the hell named School and erase those grudges one by one? Bai Zhou pressed his lips together, glancing first at the dancing sphere of light in his palm, then looking up at the overbearing demonic monstrosity formed from countless layers of pressure, despair, and agony. "In this world, I have never heard of any creature that cannot be killed," Bai Zhou said seriously. "People die when they are killed—and demons are no different!" Before the words had completely faded, Bai Zhou had already raised the paper airplane. He even blew a breath upon its tip, just like an exhausted child during self-study class, secretly launching a carefully folded paper airplane out the window into the blue sky against an afternoon breeze. Such an innocent, childlike gesture had no business appearing on a mythic battlefield between human and demon. *Hum...* The paper airplane expanded against the wind, its broad wings unfolding. Countless brilliant bubbles enveloping last words poured from the Totoro backpack like a breaching galaxy of starlight, leaping lightly and orderly onto the airplane's broad wings. Growing larger, larger, larger... With each set of last words integrated, the airplane's radiance intensified, its volume swelling another fold! Ten meters, fifty meters, one hundred meters, two hundred meters... In the blink of an eye, a colossal paper airplane with a wingspan exceeding two hundred meters, formed entirely of pure dawn light, its hull flowing with countless starlit last words, appeared before Bai Zhou. Hundreds and thousands of last words had finished boarding! —They were ready to embark! Those negative, rustling murmurs circling the demon echoed continuously in Bai Zhou's ears. ["I'm really so tired. But this has been my dream since I was little, I don't want to give up... but it's really so exhausting."] ["Just hold on a little longer. Maybe dawn is right before our eyes?"] ["I can't do it. I want to give up. I'm sorry."] ["I'm sorry."] [...] Standing within the massive curtain of light cast by the giant paper airplane, Bai Zhou lowered his eyes, listening to these agonized grudges that had bridged life and death yet remained vibrant to this day. He listened in silence for a while. Only when they had finished did Bai Zhou raise his head again, his gaze clear. "I have heard your confessions—your pain is valid," he said. "No one has the right to deny it." Bai Zhou took slow steps forward, as if gently approaching every soul shouting in silence: "Yet life isn't only despair. I see your pain, but I also see girls pushing through review despite anxiety, boys taking exams while burning with fever, teachers grading assignments through exhaustion, and parents offering unwavering encouragement through doubt... "Those times may have been tinted with pain, but for you who shouldered such weight to make it this far, that perseverance itself is already the most magnificent victory!" Bai Zhou spoke slowly, "So please, remember the mud here, carry this pain, and stride boldly toward the future. "Because having conquered this hell, you can be invincible in life from this day forward! "For the rest of your days, please..." Bai Zhou's eyes seemed to ignite with light. Amid the boundless blossoming of pure white dawn light, he shoved the two-hundred-meter paper airplane forward with all his might: "—Soar high into the sky!" *Boom!* Boundless pure white dawn light erupted violently from every inch of the colossal paper airplane! The paper airplane set sail! Aboard it, thousands of dreamy, galaxy-like bubbles enveloping last words soared high, carrying dreams aloft. Those thousands of last words were like vibrant youths filled with yearning for the future, rowing a moon boat all the way across the stars. Tentacles of pain flailed wildly like a dance of demons, weaving into a sky-blotting web of despair to bar the paper airplane's path. Then, beneath the spectral jellyfish's astounded and terrified gaze— *Boom, boom, boom!* Wherever the paper airplane's dawn light reached, every tentacle symbolizing pain and resentment sizzled and melted like snowdrifts exposed to the blazing midsummer sun. Laden with the students' prayers, the colossal paper airplane was like a holy sword burning with gentle yet indestructible sacred light, pressing forward without hesitation before the hellish monstrosity named School, sweeping away everything in its path. "Aaaagh!" "How is this possible?! What did you do?!" The hellish monster named School let out a shrill, indignant shriek. Under the scouring wash of pure dawn light, its colossal body began peeling and disintegrating flake by flake. For every set of last words that quietly dissolved aboard the plane, a tentacle symbolizing pain broke apart, each accompanied by an exceptionally faint, relieved sigh and a shower of pure white motes of light. Soon, the crimson sky was entirely covered in freely drifting specks of white light. Such a scene. It was as though dawn had arrived, and the sky had broken into light. Watching the pure white motes of light drifting down from the sky as if waving goodbye to him, Bai Zhou, standing quietly in the sky, raised his hand and waved back in response. "Class is dismissed, students." Bai Zhou's voice was very soft. "In my capacity as a teacher, I announce:" "The exam is over. Congratulations on your graduation!"