Chapter 53 Giving You the Exam Answers

In the afternoon, Huan Xiao sat on the playground stairs as usual to eat her dinner.

Teacher Chen suddenly appeared behind her.

The moment Teacher Chen materialized, Huan Xiao sensed it.

Leisurely shelling a peanut in her hand without turning her head, she asked, "Tomorrow is the final exam. Does the teacher have anything to impart?"

"..."

Teacher Chen did not speak immediately.

Huan Xiao felt a trace of puzzlement. Logically speaking, teachers and students in this place maintained a hostile relationship. Why did Teacher Chen harbor no hostility toward her?

Not only was there a complete absence of hostility, but he also showed her extra care, behaving just like a genuine teacher guiding a student.

"Xiao Huan, you are not my student."

As soon as Teacher Chen uttered these words, Huan Xiao’s heart skipped a beat, pounding furiously in her chest.

She still vividly remembered the grim fates suffered by the previous players whom Teacher Chen had told were not his students; their deaths could only be described as terrifyingly gruesome.

She never expected to be exposed the very day before the exam. How was this any different from covering up the first digit of your grade, seeing a nine, and then lifting your hand only to find out it was still a nine?

Just as Huan Xiao mobilized her ghostly energy to defend herself, preparing to meet an attack, she noticed that Teacher Chen made no move.

"My students never listen to me during class, nor do they give me gifts on Teachers' Day, and they certainly show no respect for their teacher.

Although in my memories you are a student in our class, you cannot possibly be a student of Class Four, Grade Two."

Teacher Chen’s words left Huan Xiao utterly bewildered.

Hadn't Teacher Chen previously claimed that his students respected their teachers, valued propriety, and were exceptionally clever? Wasn't saying this now entirely contradictory?

Yet, Teacher Chen had no intention of waiting for Huan Xiao to reply. He went on to say of his own accord:

"Tomorrow, go to the rooftop of Teaching Building Four and stay there for the entire day. That is how you will pass the final exam."

With those words, Teacher Chen vanished.

Leaving behind a bewildered Huan Xiao with a head full of question marks.

Teaching Building Four was choked with thorny briars, and its entrance was overrun with wildly thriving, deeply rooted weeds. For someone entirely devoid of ghostly power, clearing a path through would take at least three hours.

Why would Teacher Chen tell her to go spend a whole day on the rooftop of that building?

And why wasn't the exam taking place in a normal examination room?

Huan Xiao belatedly realized that the exams in this ghostly school might differ somewhat from what she had imagined.

...She could pass the final exam simply by doing that? Was Teacher Chen directly handing her the answers?

Clearly, just a few days ago, he had insisted he would never show leniency...

Huan Xiao shook her head and resumed shelling peanuts.

Then, she looked down at the peanuts in her hand and grasped the crucial point in Teacher Chen's words.

A day—a full, entire day!

No, she needed to go back out and buy some bread and milk to keep in stock. Starving for an entire day was out of the question—absolutely out of the question!

Night fell, and all creation plunged into silence.

The shadows of withered trees cast upon the wall swayed in the wind, resembling malicious ghosts waiting ahead and beckoning to passersby.

Back in the dormitory, the three ghosts returned to find Huan Xiao waiting for them.

"Xiao Huan, I saved some liver for you today."

The disheveled-hair ghost handed the bloody liver to Huan Xiao with both hands, behaving just like an affectionate pet puppy.

This was its goodwill toward Huan Xiao—the goodwill of a ghost.

It sounded like a fantastical myth, yet such an absurd reality had indeed transpired.

Aside from the very first day, today was the only other time they had managed to hunt anything.

Huan Xiao remained silent, placing the liver into her storage grid.

She still did not know the disheveled-hair ghost's name, because the ghost itself had long forgotten it.

"Do you know what tomorrow's exam will test?"

This was the question that had been puzzling Huan Xiao since the afternoon.

She had previously assumed it would be a written paper examination, which was why she had listened attentively in every class and taken meticulous notes—an utterly agonizing ordeal.

Until today, she had constantly complained inwardly about the game, thinking it was nothing short of a demon for throwing her, a student already on vacation, into a school to take exams—and final exams for another world at that.

Now, she realized she seemed to have misjudged the game.

This exam was not *that* kind of exam; she had simply jumped to conclusions.

"Don't know."

"Isn't it just an exam? The monitor will make sure we pass."

All three ghosts shook their heads.

Huan Xiao asked in surprise, "Haven't you taken it many times before?"

"Yeah, but after every final exam, we forget everything that happened during it."

The disheveled-hair ghost pulled its small intestine out from its belly to play with it, completely oblivious to any issue with doing so.

"No, that's not true. The monitor still remembers what's on the exam. The monitor is very smart... Xiao Huan is so smart, you must remember too!"

The braided-hair ghost looked at Huan Xiao with eyes full of anticipation.

Huan Xiao did not answer it, choosing instead to pursue her questioning:

"Then do you remember why our relationship with Teacher Chen is so terrible?"

"Because Teacher Chen likes to torture students!"

The disheveled-hair ghost answered in a split second, without a moment's thought.

The twin-tailed ghost frowned and said, "Because Teacher Chen doesn't like us, and the monitor hates it too."

"Teacher Chen is the fiercest ghost I've ever seen. There is no one fiercer than it in our school," the braided-hair ghost chimed in.

"Was Teacher Chen always this fierce?"

Huan Xiao's question plunged the three ghosts into silence.

In the end, it was the twin-tailed ghost that answered her:

"We don't know. Every time we go through a final exam, our memories and ghostly energy diminish. In our class, only the monitor remembers things from a long time ago."

Having said that, it asked suspiciously, "Why do you seem to have forgotten so many things?"

"Xiao Huan is so pitiful. You forget things even faster than I do. Who knows, you might become a mindless ghost before I do. So pitiful," the disheveled-hair ghost rambled while forcefully tearing off a segment of its intestine, only to plug it back in, playing with it to its heart's content.

It seemed they had forgotten far too many memories. Did only the monitor know everything?

Huan Xiao thought of the freckled ghost, whose outward appearance was that of an ordinary, delicate young man.

The freckled ghost always traveled accompanied by several other ghost students, and the other ghosts in the school would give it a wide berth whenever they saw it.

She had never interacted with the freckled ghost. Every time the freckled ghost saw her, it treated her just like an ordinary classmate—yet also unlike an ordinary classmate.

For instance, the freckled ghost would order other ghost students around, but it had never once given an order to Huan Xiao.

It treated Huan Xiao entirely as if she were thin air.

...Had the freckled ghost also discovered that Huan Xiao was not a ghost from Class Four, Grade Two?

As she pondered, Huan Xiao watched as the human appearances of the three ghosts before her gradually decayed, revealing the scorched marks of fire.

This was what they looked like before they died!

Furthermore, Huan Xiao noticed that the way they looked at her grew increasingly unfamiliar, until finally, the disheveled-hair ghost's chilling words indirectly revealed their current state to her:

"You're not from our class. Who are you!"

They had recovered their memories.

Huan Xiao suddenly recalled something and checked the time on her phone...

Zero o'clock sharp.

A new day had arrived, and today was the day of the final exam.

The students had officially entered the state of the final exam.