Fang Xiaoyan—how could she have never existed?!
Bai Zhou’s bewildered gaze swept over the students of Class 3.
Soon, among those resting, he spotted the two classmates who had been chatting with Fang Xiaoyan earlier.
—Right, there was still them!
Yet from their mouths, Bai Zhou received the exact same bizarre answer.
“Then… have you heard the story of the Exam King?”
Keeping his expression calm, Bai Zhou asked once more.
“Teacher, do you mean… that Frankenstein monster of motivational cliches, the one who bores holes in walls to steal light, ties his hair to ceiling beams, and jabs his thighs with an awl while rising at cockcrow?”
“It’s just an urban legend. How could someone like that exist in reality? It’s just like what teachers and parents always harp on about…”
“‘Other people’s kids’!”
“—Never crying or causing trouble, never complaining of hardship or exhaustion, never giving the teacher a headache, and never actually existing.”
“…”
Bai Zhou was rendered speechless.
The abrupt twist made everything increasingly elusive and confounding.
How could Class Monitor Fang, who had just been lively and bouncing as she begged him for help, simply not exist?
—It couldn't be that his own mind had gone bad!
An inexplicable sense of déjà vu almost made Bai Zhou think he was back at Branch 36 of the Special Control Bureau, reliving his very first encounter with Crow.
Yet Class Monitor Fang’s situation clearly could not be lumped together with Crow’s.
That led Bai Zhou to think of the mysterious girl in the photo album whom Fang Xiaoxia had forgotten.
Even so, he couldn't yet be certain whether both occurrences stemmed from the same cause.
Just as he still couldn't tell whether Fang Xiaoyan…
Had “suddenly vanished,” or had “never existed at all”?
The former might be due to the Exam King.
The latter, however, would mean that something was wrong with Fang Xiaoyan herself!
A veil of grey mist shrouded Bai Zhou’s vision.
He couldn't see through it!
“…”
Though his heart was rife with suspicion and tension, his outward expression quickly returned to normal.
Thanking the two bewildered students before him, Bai Zhou hurried away.
“Who was that?”
Watching Bai Zhou’s busy, departing figure, one of the students asked curiously.
“Looking at the badge on his chest, seems like a psychological counselor?”
Picking up on the topic, they began to chatter:
“A psychological counselor… Say, what’s counseling actually like?”
“Probably taking medication, or maybe electrotherapy?”
“For real? Sounds like one slip-up with the current and you’d get unlocked into an esper.”
“…Watch less anime, kid.”
…
His mind tangled in a thousand disorderly thoughts, Bai Zhou wandered aimlessly around the campus.
Before he knew it, he had arrived once again at the small grove where Fang Xiaoyan had encountered the Exam King.
Bai Zhou had searched here before without finding anything out of the ordinary.
Even so, cautious by nature, he swept his eyes across the entire grove once more.
Amid the shaded grass, cicadas shrieked themselves hoarse to the verge of breaking.
In the shadows under the trees, a speck of white stood out distinctly, fluttering on the verge of taking flight with the wind.
“What’s that…?”
A speck of white that hadn't been there before caught Bai Zhou’s attention.
Walking over, he carefully picked it up.
Only then did Bai Zhou realize it was a sheet of white paper.
A line of large characters drawn in crayon entered his view—
“Always Number One!”
“Is this…”
—Fang Xiaoyan’s self-portrait of her future?!
Bai Zhou realized at once.
With a rustle,
He flipped the paper over.
Meeting his eyes was a crayon drawing of a figure wearing round glasses, dressed in a school uniform, with twin pigtails. It looked strikingly like Fang Xiaoyan, rendered in crude, childish strokes.
According to what Fang Xiaoyan had said…
This ought to be the future self that Fang Xiaoyan had imagined and drawn back when she was in kindergarten.
…Truth be told,
In a sense, the driven Fang Xiaoyan was quite remarkable.
She truly had grown into the person she had wanted to become as a child.
Yet as his gaze shifted,
Bai Zhou saw at the very top of the drawing, scrawled large and crooked in exceptionally clumsy strokes, a signature that read…
—“Fang Xiaoxia”!
Fang Xiaoxia?
Bai Zhou’s heart skipped half a beat, his head practically bristling with question marks.
Where did Fang Xiaoxia come from! Wasn’t it Fang Xiaoyan?
Two people entirely different in both demeanor and dress could at most be relatives.
How could it be—
Just as he finally parted the mist before his eyes, he discovered an even thicker fog beyond it, and the ground beneath his feet had unwittingly turned into a mire where every step was a struggle.
Just as Bai Zhou was overwhelmed with doubt…
An urgent cry reached his ears—
“I finally found you! Teacher!”
Bai Zhou’s pupils contracted slightly, and he whipped his head around.
The girl who should have vanished had suddenly appeared.
Panting for breath, “Fang Xiaoyan” came jogging up, stumbling in a flustered rush into the end of the tree-lined path.
Sunlight struck her body, elongating her shadow.
Her sweat-beaded pigtails swayed as her hazy silhouette rested hands on her knees, gasping heavily for air.
—It seemed she had come looking for Bai Zhou.
She was just as rushed and panicked as during their last encounter.
Yet right now, “Fang Xiaoyan” bore a certain… “weakness” that Bai Zhou had never seen before.
Catching sight of the drawing paper in Bai Zhou’s hand, “Fang Xiaoyan” froze for a moment, instinctively patted herself down, and then came to a sudden realization:
“Careless! So that’s where I dropped the drawing!”
“…Who on earth are you?”
Bai Zhou furrowed his brow, sizing up this “Fang Xiaoyan” with wary suspicion.
Yet even now, Bai Zhou could not discern “Fang Xiaoyan’s” true nature.
There were no last words above her head, nor could he sense any ripples of spirituality in motion.
Moreover, Bai Zhou’s spirituality provided not the slightest warning of danger.
It was as if she truly were merely an ordinary student.
“I’m Fang Xiaoyan!”
The other party answered without hesitation.
Facing Bai Zhou’s vigilance, she thought for a moment, then smacked her forehead and added:
“Of course, I’m also called Fang Xiaoxia… but that doesn’t matter!”
“It’s a long story, but there’s no time to explain all of that now.”
Urgency surfaced on Fang Xiaoyan’s face:
“Do you remember when I asked you for help?”
“The Exam King has returned! He’s become even stronger, and I can’t stop him anymore.”
“Under his bewitchment, a female student is already on the verge of hanging herself!”
Class Monitor Fang looked at Bai Zhou, both frantic and hesitant, picking out only the most crucial points to describe.
Facing Bai Zhou’s frown, she hesitated over and over before finally speaking in a lowered voice:
“Teacher, I know you’re an Extraordinary.”
“Though I don’t know what your purpose is in infiltrating the school, you seem very interested in the Exam King.”
“I really have no other way, and I feel like you’re a good person.”
“So—”
With a rustling sound,
“Fang Xiaoyan” came to a halt on the grass not far in front of Bai Zhou.
Drawing a slow, deep breath, she bowed toward Bai Zhou:
“Teacher, a life is hanging by a thread.”
“You are completely free to refuse, but if you could…”
A ninety-degree bow sent the girl’s hair cascading straight down.
This girl, who was both “Fang Xiaoxia” and “Fang Xiaoyan,” spoke with a plea laden with trepidation and cornered helplessness:
“Could you please step in—”
“And save this school?”
Chapter 84