Chapter 80

Yet the actual situation turned out to be far better than Xie Chang’an had expected.

Bang—

The trunk of the off-road vehicle was slammed shut.

Ji Qing casually tossed the car keys toward Jiang Cuo. The keys traced a graceful arc through the air before landing steadily in Jiang Cuo’s still-baffled hand. Jiang Cuo first caught the keys, then looked up at Ji Qing in confusion.

“You drive on the way back. I need to rest for a while,” Ji Qing said coldly, then casually pulled open the rear door.

Bang—

The sound of the car door closing rang out once more.

The two problem children exchanged looks outside the car. Jiang Cuo stared blankly at Xie Chang’an for a moment, then his gaze gradually cleared. He declared with absolute certainty, “You caused this.”

“Sigh...” Xie Chang’an could not help letting out a long sigh.

The hand that had originally been about to open the rear door suddenly changed direction. Xie Chang’an silently walked over to the passenger seat, opened the door, got in, and closed it... the entire sequence was smooth and flowing, leaving him once again facing Jiang Cuo in the driver’s seat.

Jiang Cuo, who was fastening his seat belt, looked at Xie Chang’an with a complicated expression.

After all, when they had set out, both of them had been sitting in the back; now, on the way back, both of them were in the front. If anyone learned of this in the future, they might even think the two of them were ostracizing the Top Student, but the problem was—

It was clearly the Top Student who was ostracizing them!!!

At that thought, Jiang Cuo repeated with renewed conviction, “This is absolutely your fault.”

Xie Chang’an fell silent. “Can you stop saying that over and over?”

His heart had just been stabbed once, and now it was getting stabbed again. Who knew—maybe it would be stabbed a third time in a bit. Jiang Cuo raised a brow after hearing that and shot back unhappily, “Why can’t I say it? Isn’t this all because of something you caused?”

Heaven knew how cold his back had gone when he saw the message from the Top Student on his terminal. Forget smoothly carrying out his “get on good terms with the Top Student and thereby secure a certain position in Class S” strategy—its current progress was practically about to drop back to zero.

The more Jiang Cuo thought about it, the angrier he got, and he turned to glare resentfully at Xie Chang’an.

Xie Chang’an could only scratch his head at that.

The off-road vehicle was soon started. Jiang Cuo gripped the steering wheel with both hands, stepped on the accelerator, and drove swiftly back toward the city they had come from. Compared to Ji Qing, his driving was much less stable. Before long, the nausea Xie Chang’an had felt earlier returned just as expected.

Before Xie Chang’an could even say anything, Ji Qing opened his eyes helplessly and said, “Drive slower. No one’s chasing you from behind.”

“Okay...”

At those words, Jiang Cuo awkwardly slowed the vehicle down. Through the rearview mirror, he deliberately observed Ji Qing’s condition. Ji Qing was leaning against the window with his eyes closed, looking somewhat tired.

He was probably planning to take a nap, Jiang Cuo thought.

On this trip, the Top Student had done an incredible amount of work. While he himself had not even managed to catch sight of the crashed train and had only been busy arguing with Xie Chang’an, the Top Student had already found the wreck and brought back the black box.

When Jiang Cuo thought of that, he suddenly felt indignant. He had not even had the chance to be useful yet. How had the mission already ended?

So he glared at Xie Chang’an again.

By now, Xie Chang’an was already used to it and had completely lost his temper. Anyway, no matter how one looked at it, it was all his fault. Whatever arrangements came later, he would just accept them.

“So, is it because you have family members who are infected?” Jiang Cuo glanced at the apparently sleeping Ji Qing in the back seat and asked in a low voice.

“Not exactly,” Xie Chang’an said dully.

If he counted himself as his own family, then he really ought to admit that much. But Xie Chang’an’s mind was in complete turmoil now. He did not even know from whose standpoint he ought to think about these issues. His excellent physical ability had come from the result of being infected.

Infection strengthens the infected person’s physical capabilities.

Although for Li Yuan or for ability users, this was such a negligible change that it was hardly worth mentioning. After all, a mere increase in physical fitness was nowhere near as important as the manifestation of talent or abilities. But Xie Chang’an had indeed gained quite a lot from it.

Because he was an ordinary person.

For ordinary people, even the slightest influence could determine the course of the future. And precisely because Xie Chang’an had truly benefited from the results of infection, he had been more likely to lose control of his emotions when he saw infected people being killed.

Those infected people were his true kind in a meaningful sense, while he was only an infected person who had blended into the crowd because of his special constitution.

“To be honest, I don’t really want to talk about this right now,” Jiang Cuo said in a muffled voice. “But you could have told me earlier. Neither the Top Student nor I are the kind of people you seem to think we are. You don’t need to worry that either of us would report you.”

“Hm?” Xie Chang’an looked toward Jiang Cuo in confusion.

Jiang Cuo did not turn his head. He continued staring at the road ahead while driving. In a somewhat gloomy tone, he said, “My father was infected before he died.”

Those words instantly made Xie Chang’an’s eyes widen.

His mouth opened and closed, while the words he had shouted earlier came back to him without mercy. Flustered, Xie Chang’an said, “I... I’m really sorry... for what I said earlier...”

“It’s fine,” Jiang Cuo interrupted. “But the situation was probably not what you imagined. Not long after finding out he had been infected, he killed himself. He never even waited for mutation symptoms to appear, so I don’t know what infected him. That’s also why I deliberately try to gather information about infected people...”

“Your uncle...” Xie Chang’an started, then stopped.

Only now did he fully understand Jiang Cuo’s repeated questioning earlier, and only now did he understand why Jiang Cuo’s first instinct had been to think of family members. Precisely because Jiang Cuo had had a family member who became infected, Jiang Cuo had immediately assumed that someone else’s family member might have been infected too.

“Yeah. Things like that happen all the time.” A trace of sorrow flashed through Jiang Cuo’s eyes, but then, as though remembering something, he suddenly could not help laughing a few times. “But do you know what’s funniest? The funniest part is that all my knowledge about surviving in the wilderness was taught to me by him, including how to deal with infected people.”

Jiang Cuo murmured in a low voice, “That’s pretty ironic.”

After saying that, Jiang Cuo could not help glancing at Ji Qing in the back seat once more through the rearview mirror.

Ji Qing’s sleeping face looked peaceful.

After so much driving, fighting, and searching, his mental state had clearly reached its limit. Even Jiang Cuo himself could no longer tell what he was thinking at that moment. Perhaps he wanted the Top Student to hear it, or perhaps he hoped he would not.

In any case, he did not really want to act pitiful.

“Forget it. Let’s end the topic here.” Jiang Cuo suppressed the complexity on his face and emphasized seriously, “You’re not allowed to tell anyone what I just said. And if you’re going to worry, then worry about whether the Top Student will say something, all right?”

“But I think... probably not.”

“Hm?” Xie Chang’an could not help showing a troubled expression.

“You really didn’t notice?” Jiang Cuo shot Xie Chang’an a deeply disdainful look. “The Top Student has obviously had contact with infected people before. Otherwise, there’s no way he could know something that detailed about the internal situation among infected people. Good grief—even I haven’t managed to find out the operational principles of infected organizations, and yet he knows? He actually knows?”

Jiang Cuo’s tone suddenly held a trace of disbelief, though he still kept his voice low.

“Damn, maybe our Top Student is secretly some big shot outside...” At the end, Jiang Cuo could not help muttering, “Transferring here was absolutely the best decision I’ve made in recent years. Just thinking about what comes later, %#￥%...”

Xie Chang’an listened absentmindedly.

His psychological defenses had already collapsed the moment he witnessed the little girl’s death, then had gradually been rebuilt again under Jiang Cuo’s somewhat disdainful words. But the moment Jiang Cuo brought up Ji Qing, Xie Chang’an’s heart once again started pounding rapidly.

If even Jiang Cuo, who had deliberately tried to investigate, did not know, then how did the Top Student know?

The repeated moments of projection from before and what the Top Student had just said blended together in Xie Chang’an’s heart. He forcibly suppressed the urge to ask the question aloud and thought: No... don’t be so hasty...

Before things are settled, do not act rashly.

That was something Li Yuan had once warned him, and now Xie Chang’an was using it to caution himself. At that thought, Xie Chang’an found it rather laughable: he was still trying to use Li Yuan’s words to warn himself, when he could not even sort out what Li Yuan’s place in his heart really was...

He really was stupid beyond measure.

How could the Top Student possibly be Li Yuan? Why would the Top Student deliberately change identities just to meet him? Was it because of the identity of an infected person? Xie Chang’an felt as though everything before his eyes was wrapped in mist, but...

Everything could wait until the Top Student woke up.

After handing the car keys to Jiang Cuo and settling into the back seat, Ji Qing did not actually fall asleep.

Back then, Ji Qing had deliberately glanced at the time displayed on the terminal: [18:47]. Because it was winter, the sky darkened especially quickly. By the time the three of them got back into the off-road vehicle, the sun was already close to the horizon.

And by the time Jiang Cuo drove back to Yancheng, it would probably take four or five hours.

Nighttime, four or five hours of free time, an alibi, and witnesses... all three conditions Ji Qing needed had been satisfied. There could not be a better opportunity than now to infiltrate the Third Ability Academy.

Ji Qing’s blood was boiling.

So he pretended to be very tired and leaned against the back seat as though dozing. Ji Qing trusted that the two traveling with him would not choose to wake him up. His earlier careful observation of his teammates had now become an excellent basis for deducing how they would behave.

Sleep, enter the pure white space, call the System, exchange the items he needed, and at the same time have the System deploy the [Substitute Doll] to the designated location...

After finishing all that, Ji Qing checked once more the skill items he needed:

[Item: Shadow Strike, 20 Popularity Value/use]

[Item Description: Allows the user to manipulate shadows to attack. Single use only. Can be exchanged repeatedly.]

[Item: Shadow Submerge, 20 Popularity Value/use]

[Item Description: Allows the user to submerge into the shadow of a person or object. Single use only. Can be exchanged repeatedly.]

[Item: Shadow Form, 20 Popularity Value/use]

[Item Description: Allows the user to transform shadows into any person or object they need, but the resulting person or object is nothing more than a pitch-black silhouette without color. This item is a single-use skill, but it can be exchanged repeatedly.]

...

Ji Qing sighed, “There really are quite a lot of shadow-related skills.”

He had already noticed that when he first browsed through the item list sent by the System, but he had not expected to actually make use of them now. In any case, no one was going to inspect an infected person’s spirit power or talent strength, so Ji Qing simply replaced everything with skill items.

Ji Qing sighed again. “After saving up Popularity Value all this time, it’s finally coming in handy.”

His tone was very calm, so calm that it hardly sounded like someone about to head into a battlefield. Once the final preparations were complete, Ji Qing closed his eyes and said, “System, you can transfer me now.”

[Received.]

That was the answer given by the System, far away on the outskirts of Yancheng.